worker in Brooklyn.' His eyes were hard and black through cigarette smoke. 'My mother took in laundry. The house always stank of it.' He sniffed derisively. 'I don't think I'll ever forget that smell.
'My mother and father fought every night. He'd come home, drink one beer and start yelling. His clothes smelled so bad that even the odor of starch deserted the apartment until my mother could get him to take them off so she could wash them. 'All you do is clean!' he'd yell at her. Then he'd have another beer and then another. He kept on her all night, and she'd shout right back.'
He leaned toward Paine, his chair gliding forward. 'And I was the prize package.' He smiled. 'Little Manny. Runt of the block, runt of the litter. My two sisters were big like my old man, and they made me look like the weak little shit I was. They were on me all the time.' His smile grew satisfied. 'One of them is dead now, the other weighs two hundred and thirty pounds. Her husband calls her a pig.
'I got beat up three times a week. The jerks in the neighborhood took turns on me. It didn't mean shit to them or anybody that I was good with numbers, or knew every batting average in the Dodger lineup. These bastards
'So, Paine,' Barker said, lifting a second cigarette out of his case, then snapping the case shut loudly, slipping it back into the silk-lined pocket of his jacket, 'I learned that there are two kinds of cripples in the world. There are the ones that take the shit and don't do anything about it, and are owned by somebody else, and there are the ones who stop being cripples, and own themselves. My mother died from TB a year after that kid beat me up. The doctor said she worked herself to death. I got my hearing back at her funeral.'
He put his hand behind his head, tilting the lounger back. Smoke drifted up behind him. His smile was as cold as his first cigarette. 'That's why I hate cripples who don't stop being cripples. Because they don't own themselves. Like you, Paine. Everybody but you owns a piece of you. I own a piece of you.' He waved at his smoke. 'I'm not talking about the jail sentence I could get you for assaulting me. You could handle that, probably. Maybe even your friend Petty could get you out of it. I'm talking about something else.'
He angled back his chair, pulling open a small drawer in his desk. Inside was a thin machine. He lifted it out. Also in the drawer was a row of microcassettes. He looked them over briefly, then selected one. He removed a cassette from the machine and put in the one he had chosen.
'We would have been able to hear this through the speakers you destroyed. I hope the little speaker in the machine does the tape justice.'
He pushed a button, and there was the hiss of rolling tape. There was a beep followed by Paine's voice saying, 'What made you look for me here?' Rebecca Meyer's voice, sounding distant but clear, answered, 'I called you at home. Your wife answered and said you might be here.'
There was more conversation, followed by rustling sounds and panting, and then Paine heard himself say, 'I have a problem there.' Barker's face was filled with amusement. 'That's the way,' Rebecca Meyer breathed heavily a few moments later. 'That's it.'
There was more. Paine listened to it for a few moments and then he looked at Barker's face and Barker smiled. He turned off the machine and the sounds went away.
'There's a copy of this tape in another place,' Barker said, 'so please don't destroy this machine. It's very expensive and you couldn't afford to pay for it.' He removed the tape and replaced it with the one that had been in the machine. He put everything back into the drawer and closed it.
'As you realize,' Barker said, 'this tape is useless to me as far as you are concerned. But it could do considerable damage to Rebecca Meyer. She's in the middle of a rather delicate divorce at the moment. Her husband, Gerald, and his many lawyers would love to get hold of this.'
'You and Gloria Fulman used it as a lever on Rebecca to get her to drop the case.'
Barker shrugged. 'Let's say they had a sisterly chat over the telephone.' He plucked a third cigarette from his case, looked down at it. 'You're fired, of course. I'd like you to leave immediately.'
Paine thought about hitting him. He thought about hitting him until his teeth slid out of their gums and his mouth was full of blood. He thought about hitting him until that ugly crippled loser little-boy look came back into his eyes. He wanted to see Manny Barkewitz, the proto-Barker, the scared, bitter human mold that had made the less- than-human thing in front of him. If he did that, if he made Barker see that he was still the scared bitter little boy that everybody beat up on, that nothing had changed, that for all his faking, all his makeup and careful tailoring and false practiced looks, he was still a cripple, then perhaps Barker would truly own himself. Perhaps if he saw that we are all cripples, and that we all get beat up, and badly, and that ultimately the bully who does the beating isn't the fat kid with pimples who lives on the next block, or the tall kid with thin blond hair over his collar and a $1.98 switchblade out to impress his friends because he can't impress himself, but the cold night itself, perhaps then he could truly put Manny Barkewitz to rest.
Instead of teaching a valuable lesson, Paine said, 'Goodbye, Barker.'
In his apartment Paine dialed the phone. It rang for a long time and then Gerald Meyer answered it. He sounded as though he had been in Morris Grumbach's dark green study, using the bar.
'Dear Rebecca left for parts unknown,' he said brightly. 'She packed and went. Didn't leave any note for you, dear boy.'
Paine interrupted the monologue. 'Do you have any idea where she might have gone?'
He laughed. 'Lord, no. She may have gone to Cape Cod, possibly to Maine, maybe even to Nova Scotia. The wonderful Grumbachs have homes everywhere. Perhaps she went to London, or Switzerland. I'm sure she'll be back before too long. Any message, old fellow?'
Paine hung up.
He dialed another number. Bob Petty was groggy when he answered.
'Beauty sleep, Bob?' Paine asked.
Petty forced himself into wakefulness. 'Fell asleep in front of the TV.
'Get anything on that picture?' Paine asked.
'Christ, I only faxed it out to L.A. a couple of hours ago,' Petty complained. 'Actually, I tried to reach you before I fell asleep. I got a call back on it just as I was leaving work. Hold on.'
Petty went away from the phone; Paine heard the mumble of a television set abruptly cut to silence and then a barely audible exchange of words. The other voice sounded like Terry's. Petty uttered a curse that Paine heard clearly. Both voices receded. Finally, Petty returned to the phone.
'Sorry about that, Jack. Terry almost washed my shirt with your information in the pocket.' Paine heard the crackle of paper. 'They found your bird right away. His name was Jeffrey Steppen.'
'Was?'
'Naturally. Died in 1970. At least this one had a birth date, though. Born in 1935.'
'How did he die?'
'Fell off a boat and drowned, north of L.A. Body was never recovered. Are you ready? Morris Grumbach owned the boat.'
'Wow.'
'Yeah, and it stays interesting. Steppen was an FBI agent.'
'Jesus. There's our FBI connection.'
'My buddy Ray is trying to find out what he can about Steppen, but don't expect much. The FBI is tight on their own people.'
'Can't thank you enough, Bobby.'
'Getting real interesting, Jack.'
Paine hung up and dialed the California number on the slip of paper in his wallet. The woman who had been yelling at Izzy said, 'Hello?' Paine hung up the phone.
He took out the packets of photos and went through them until he found the one with the man and woman and horse. A stand of eucalyptus trees bordered the field to the left.
Paine put the picture away and began to pack.
