Pleading Guilty

haven't the foggiest. But this guy Archie, he's got a white shirt on and a nice tie, but he's keeping a book. And my guy Kamin's laying bets with him. At least that's the way it looks.' I peeked up at Toots. I had his attention.

'Anyway, Archie, he's quite dead. That's a fact. Something I know. And pretty soon, any minute now, the coppers are going to show up to talk to me about that. And I'm frankly not interested in getting myself in Dutch with the wrong folks. So that's why I ask. I gotta know what's doing here, because I may have to do some fancy steppin'.' I tried to look hangdog and sincere, reverencing one of the many powers that dominated Toots's life. He wasn't really buying it.

'You a straight shooter, Mack?'

'As much as the next guy.'

Toots laughed. He liked that. He removed the cigar and in the gloomy light of the room considered the mangled end. It looked like a hunk of seaweed pulled up on a line.

'You understand with bookies,' he said.

'Not everything.'

'See this here — Guy makes a book, you know, he's got to lay off, right?'

'Like insurance companies. He doesn't absorb all the risk. I understand that much.'

'This guy, he had some very good luck. Somehow he always had laid off his losing action.'

I waited.

'How could he lay off only losing bets? Doesn't he lay off beforehand? I mean, before the event. The race, the game, whatever?'

'That he does,' said Toots.

I was on very delicate ground. Toots worked lovingly on his cigar.

'You mean he knew how these events were going to come out? Is that what you're saying? He knew these games were fixed?'

'You see,' said Toots, 'you share risks, you share no-risks. Capisc'? A fella's gotta look out for his friends. Otherwise he don't got friends, he got enemies. Right? That's how life is, right?'

'That's how it seems to be, Toots. There are no victims.'

Toots liked that one. No need to explain it to him.

'So you see,' he said, 'you asked a question, you asked another question, you told me some things, I told you some things, we had a talk. Okay? Somebody asks, some things you know, some things you don't know. Right?'

'Right.'

'Sure,' said Toots. He gave a quick, smug, frightening little laugh. 'So. We gonna win this hearing?'

'I wish I could tell you yes, Colonel. The hill's pretty steep.'

He shrugged, here in his element capable of seeming worldlywise, ripened by life.

'Give it your best. I ain't gonna get the death penalty, right?'

We agreed on that.

'And who's there, you or the skirt?'

'The skirt's good,' I told him.

'They say,' said Toots. 'So they say. Bit of a punchboard, I hear.' I'd known he would check her out. 'Woman of the world,' I answered. 'A big world,' he said.

'I'll try to be there, Colonel. I have to worry about this too. Archie. Bert.'

He understood. Sometimes a fella got himself into a spot. He walked me to the door.

'Remember my rule.' He pointed with the cigar. Don't talk about other people's business. I had it firmly in mind.

B. Accounting Secrets

On the way back into the Needle, the elevator stopped at 32. No one got on, but I felt destiny beckoning and I jumped off and trod the hall to Accounting. When I came through the door, the unit manager, Ms Glyndora Gaines, was sitting right there.

I took a seat beside her. Her desk was completely clean, windswept but for one file she was examining, a state of order which added to the usual impression of a dominant, unremitting soul. Glyndora continued to look over the file, determined not even to acknowledge me. Maybe there was a trace, a vapor, of a smile being willed to oblivion.

'Glyndora,' I said quietly, 'just as a matter of curiosity, not saying I'm gonna do it, but you know, what if. What if I go tell the Committee the way you've been screwing me around? What if I act like I'm one of your bosses, instead of a chump?'

I was trying to sound sort of reasonable, maybe not pleasant, but calm. In the big room out the door, a dozen people were whizzing around, overwhelmed by the year-end rush, adding machines chugging out tape and phones giving their little electronic chirp. Checks were at a number of desks in colorful stacks.

'You gone talk to the Committee? Then tell them this.' She rose up in her chair as she took a surveying glance toward the doorway. 'Tell them you come to my apartment, you pounded on the buzzer causing all kind of commotion, talking all kinds of jive about Bert, and when I let you in, man, there wasn't barely one little word about Bert. The next thing, dude's got one hand on my titty and the other on my ass, and the only way I got rid of his rasty old self is cause this boy talkin all that A A shit went out to buy something to drink. Tell that to the Committee.'

She smiled in her way, tight like she was fastening down a bolt or a screw, and sized up the effect all this had. With Glyndora everything is a contest and she knew she had me beat. My side of the story was going to sound weak. Worse than that, ridiculous. Nobody would believe I was just posing with my hand on her breast. And if they knew I had been drinking again, my time as Deadeye Dick, Private Detective, would probably be over, not to mention my employment.

'Glyndora, you know exactly what's going on here.'

She leaned forward against her arms, making her frontal equipment prominent in a blouse of orange flourishes. A layer of purple shadow lay thickly on her lids like pollen.

'Here's what I know, Mack. You are weak, sucker.' She was leering again, amused by the thought that she knew my secrets. But I'd been there too and learned some of hers. I pointed.

'And you like white guys.' I let that out and nodded myself, maybe imitating her. Even so, I regretted it. She stiffened; she reared back. We were headed where we always headed — me beats you, hah hah. One more contest. The Dozens, some kind of phony signifying. It was nothing I wanted, and I did what seemed under the circumstances somewhat daring and reached out to grab one of her hands. The touch, my big pink hand on her brown one, was shocking to us both. And that was the point.

'Hey,' I said, 'you know, I'm like you, I work here. I'm not trying to be your lord and master. Have I ever done that? Call me callous, I'm crude, et cetera, et cetera. But have I ever gone out of my way to do some kind of job on you? These guys tell me 'Find Bert' and I wanna find him. I'll tell you the truth — it's something I need to do. So just give me a break, okay? Be a person.' In the bleakness of the tone I'd assumed, I suddenly heard a confession to myself. All along, I'd talked about this whole escapade, tracking down Bert, as a boondoggling effort at life reform. But that was kidding around, teasing myself with fantasies of running away with the money or earning my partners' esteem. Yet somehow I'd staked a lot more on this venture than I had admitted. Maybe my life was on its last legs. Maybe my chances were few. But I saw now that I'd promised myself that I was not coming out of this funhouse the way I'd gone in. Somebody within me believed that and was connected to what even in this meager, glimmering form you'd have to call hope.

And in admitting that, I was doing to Glyndora the one thing she tried to warn everyone against — being vulnerable, hanging it out for her to tromp on. She stared, disbelieving, insulted, and not altogether happy with the physical approach. She withdrew her hand from mine and slid her chair back so she could view me from a more distant perspective as we continued sizing each other up. Glyndora has her routine, the Hey-I'm-a-tough-black-bitch number, and she does it on autopilot, a piece of racial rhetoric that's as much mask and cipher as Steppin Fetchit onstage. Oh, I know she means it. I know she's tough. Like Grou-cho, who would not want to be a member of any club he could join, Glyndora wants to be the first one to reject you. Mission accomplished. But swimming through her eyes on occasion is some misgiving, a recognition that she's someone else. I don't know if she gets caught up in