What do you mean?
So Larry had something on Jules. Why couldn’t it be something to do with poker? Some scam they pulled?
You really know how to keep your eye on the ball, don’t you.
Okay. Right. Doesn’t matter, does it. Whatever it was, it does throw a new light on things.
Whoa. Slow down. Let me catch up with you.
Oh, shut up. Have some sorbet.
She had some sorbet.
Okay, I said. Larry knew something. Who can tell us what Larry knew?
Jules, for sure.
He wouldn’t even tell me the truth about the poker game, the telephone calls. I don’t think. He’s either hiding something, or he’s built himself a very thick wall.
The twins?
Maybe. But we still don’t have anything concrete to connect them to Larry Silver.
Lisa?
Lisa. Yes. How could she not know?
It explains her protectiveness.
Well, it’s not clear that needs explanation. But yes. And, she’s definitely a weak link.
Maybe the only one we’ve got left.
Let’s go for it.
We’ve got to get to her away from Jules this time, though.
Yes.
I’ll take care of that.
I knew you would.
106.
We agreed to meet at the White Stallion. Dorita would have Lisa with her. If she didn’t, we’d have to go to Plan B. Whatever that was.
I got there early. I drank only mineral water. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Just this once.
I amused myself by taking notes on the other patrons. Pretending they were suspects. Writing down my observations on index cards. Hell, maybe I’d write a book.
I was intrigued by a tall, thin guy, with a cowboy look. Pointy boots. Well-worn jeans. Deeply tanned face, lined with a road map of serious living. He was rolling his own cigarettes from a leather pouch.
A guy more out of place in New York City would be hard to find.
Then I noticed that he was talking to himself. Quietly. But angrily.
Ah, I corrected myself. He fits right in.
I was about to interrupt his conversation, to glean more details for my index card, when Dorita arrived. And there with her, looking small and lost, was Lisa.
Hey, I said to Dorita.
You know Lisa, she said.
Hi Lisa. Good to see you.
Lisa looked at me with pleading eyes.
Hi, she said softly.
I’ve filled Lisa in, said Dorita. She’s here to talk with us.
She gave Lisa a motherly smile.
Dorita was a woman of many guises.
Let that be a warning to you, I thought to myself.
We moved to an isolated table. Lisa had a gin and tonic. This was good.
Dorita chatted with Lisa. I listened. Dorita was going with the girl stuff. Stuff Lisa could relate to. Nipple piercing. That kind of stuff. They both seemed quite sophisticated in the area.
This gave me pause.
But hey, it was working. Lisa was warming up.
In fact, it was ridiculously easy. In Lisa’s world, somebody engaging and warm, somebody who spoke your language and also cared about what you had to say, was so rare that it came as a revelation. You embraced it, you followed it. Or you didn’t. And if you didn’t, the memory would haunt you forever. The opportunity lost. The warm forgiving world you’d been invited into once, just once, gone in a puff of arrogance born of insecurity, misplaced anger, stupidity.
So, if you cultivated that. If you nurtured the fear of missing that moment. You could make someone like Lisa do whatever you wanted.
Which was where the cults came from.
So we used that thing. The sad and ugly weakness of the lifelong victim.
Did the ends justify the means?
I left that for the philosophers. Well, the real philosophers. We needed some goddamn answers.
I watched with admiration as Dorita pulled Lisa into her orbit. They laughed. They commiserated. They nudged each other. They made jokes at my expense. I was sitting in as surrogate for the male.
And then Dorita sprung the trap.
And what about Veronica? she asked, out of the blue.
Lisa looked at me. At Dorita. She looked as scared, as helpless as a rabbit in the clutches of a hawk. I felt bad for her. But I also was elated. In her face was the proof. That we were on to something. That the damn thing might be solved. Right here. Right now.
I looked at Dorita with admiration. She ignored me.
Lisa, she said quietly. You’re not answering me.
Lisa looked at her with a new and sudden loathing. Her face went hard.
Fuck you, she said.
Veronica and Larry Silver, said Dorita. They’re connected. We know that, Lisa. Lisa, save yourself. It’s not right, what Jules’s done to you. Lisa, he’s taken over your life. He’s made you his accomplice. It’s not right. You have your own life to live.
But we’d lost her.
Fuck you, she spat again.
She grabbed her bag, her sad, incongruous canvas bag, a cartoon drawing on it. Lisa Simpson. She ran out of the bar.
I looked at Dorita.
We seem to have hit a nerve, I said.
Dorita nodded. She didn’t look happy.
I knew what she meant.
We sat in silence for a while. We sipped our drinks.
I’m not sure I liked the way you were talking about my client, I said.
He’s not your client anymore.
Yes he is. He hasn’t fired me yet. He just hates me.
Dorita rolled her eyes, went into another funk.
Okay, she said finally. What does it mean?
Let’s start with what’s absolutely clear. Veronica’s at the center of this.
Yes.
Ramon. Lisa.
Yes.
I think it’s safe to say that the best working hypothesis is that Jules killed Larry Silver after all. But not over
