Let’s get this cleared up. I don’t need you fucking with me. I don’t need you at all, actually. We don’t have your father to pay the bills anymore. I should send you back to the public defender. But I’m not like that. I finish what I start. I’d think you might appreciate that a bit. And you sure as hell need me. What the fuck else do you have?
He seemed to think about that.
I don’t need shit, he said.
Fine. That’s your attitude, good luck to you. Have fun in Sing Sing.
I got up to leave. Dorita gave me an exasperated look. Setting up to play good cop.
She didn’t have to.
Okay, okay, said Jules. Sit the fuck down.
He shrugged. He spread his hands. A gesture that could be taken as a small show of humility. A reluctant welcome.
I sat down.
What? he said.
What what?
What you want to know?
Lisa came over with the drinks. Scotch for me. Cosmo for Dorita.
Oh, said Dorita, my favorite. Thanks. How did you know?
Look at you, said Lisa. It was a cosmo or a Tom Collins. I had a fifty-fifty shot.
Dorita was speechless. It was a rare and disconcerting sight. Though not unpleasant, in its way.
You’ve been a bartender, I said to Lisa.
Sure, she said. I’ve been everything.
I turned back to Jules.
What we’d like to know, I said, is everything you know about your father’s death. Every detail. God is in the details.
Ain’t no God.
It’s just an expression, Jules. Try not to be so literal-minded.
I’ll work on it.
Good. Now, can you tell me everything you know?
I don’t know shit.
Jesus, Jules. This is getting a bit boring. Do you always have to say that?
I say the truth. Sorry you don’t like it.
You’re telling us you don’t know a single thing that might shed any light on how your father died?
Nope. Don’t know shit.
Jules. You and I both know that’s not true.
What the fuck do you know?
It was time to pull a bluff. Nothing else was working. Ingratiation. Intimidation. Subtlety. The kid was too messed up to respond to the usual techniques. I had to take a chance. Go with a hunch. A stab in the dark. If it didn’t work, I’d find a way to recover. Turn it into a joke. Whatever.
I know you were there, I said.
It stopped him cold.
He stared at me. Lisa came over and sat next to him. She put her arms around his neck. She didn’t look at us.
I stared back at him. I waited.
The fuck you say? he said at last.
You were there, I repeated.
Where?
I laughed. I didn’t elaborate. The room had grown cold.
Get the fuck out, he said. Get the fuck out of here.
That again? I said. It’s not going to work, Jules. I’m here to help you. You can’t seem to get that into your head. I’m your lawyer. I need to know the facts. And I might leave here, but I’m not going away.
We’ll see about that, he said.
He said it with an intensity that I felt as a physical blow. My body tensed. What door had I opened here? What rock had I turned over?
It was a threat. A physical threat.
He got up. Started walking toward me.
An immediate physical threat.
Okay, okay, I said. We’re leaving.
We got the hell out of there.
Where in God’s name did you get that? Dorita asked once we were safely in the street.
I don’t know, I said. It just came to me. I didn’t think it out. He was just so fucking calm about everything. And this is a kid who cuts himself. It didn’t make sense. There had to be something more. And why wouldn’t he tell us where he was? Why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to show he didn’t have anything to do with his father’s death? He knows he’s a prime suspect, with all that anger in him. And then it hit me. The phone calls. Raul and Ramon were using FitzGibbon’s offices. The phone calls didn’t have to be to FitzGibbon. They could have been to Raul, or Ramon. So I took a stab. What the hell.
I’m in awe.
About time.
So, my little genius, what were the phone calls about?
I haven’t figured that out yet. But I feel close. I feel really damn close.
102.
I went home. I had to see Kelly. Make sure she was all right.
She seemed to be all right.
I met Dorita at the White Stallion.
Where to from here? she asked.
The eternal question.
It may be eternal, but it still needs an answer.
The weak link. Where’s the next weak link?
Let’s think about it.
I’ll need a Scotch for that.
Why did I know you’d say that?
Because you’re brilliant.
True, true.
Almost as brilliant as me.
Hah. One lucky guess and suddenly you’re Albert Fucking Einstein
Winners make their own luck.
We’ll see.
It really all seems to revolve around the three brothers, doesn’t it? I said.
Can’t deny that. And Jules isn’t talking.
You are correct, ma’am.
Raul is too damn slick.
Right.
So that leaves Ramon.
Who never says a damn thing.
True enough. And you have to wonder why.
