Don't Worry About the Kids (3 page)

“Hey Lobo—ask him if he owns oil wells.”

“Shut up, jerk.” Lobo pulled on Michael's tie. His eyes were dull, without cleverness. Michael thought of sludge at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal. Why did he call himself Lobo, Spanish for wolf, when he was not Spanish? “What do you do for a living?”

“I'm a doctor.”

“Oh yeah? What kind?”

“A surgeon. An orthopedic surgeon.”

“Langiello makes bundles off guys like you.”

“You're wasting your time,” Michael said coldly. “I have nothing against Mr. Langiello.”

“But he got plenty against you, I bet. He always does. Who'd you beat up, your wife or your kids? You rape your seven-year-old daughter, mister, or are you one of them new kinds of pervert who gets off on old people?”

“I haven't touched anybody. You've made a mistake.”

“Don't crap with us.” Lobo sliced buttons from Michael's jacket, one at a time. “What's he got on you? C'mon. How much you gotta pay him so he don't have his uncle send you up the river?”

Michael moved forward.

“If you'll excuse me, I—”

He saw the gun pointed at his chest.

“We're on your side, mister,” Lobo said. “Believe me, okay? We just want to talk with you for your own good, understand? You want the truth, there's lots of guys on your side. Lots of guys would chip in for a contract on Langiello. His uncle's the judge, see—”

“I know that.”

“Only there's no profit in us killing the judge. You will one judge, there's another judge in his seat the next day. But Judge DiGregorio, he only got one investigator who's his nephew. You get rid of the nephew, you're home free. You think it over, who you can trust, us or Langiello. Like they say, our rates are competitive.”

“My story is different,” Michael said. “I'm not involved in child abuse. I was divorced. I have three children. My ex-wife and I are in court because of a custody dispute. I don't think Mr. Langiello means me any harm. Really. I—”

“Let him go,” Lobo said.

The two men released Michael's arm. He heard a switchblade click shut, but not before it had slashed his jacket, upward, on the right side, from the waist to the armpit.

Langiello smiled and shook Michael's hand, asked if Michael had had breakfast yet. He tapped a manila envelope, said that his report was ready for the judge. He was sorry he'd made Michael come out so early, but he had to be in court by ten o'clock for a child-abuse hearing. Michael ordered coffee, talked about how cold it was outside—a freakish hailstorm turned to slashing rain, crazy for the first week of spring—and of how, coming along the street from the subway station, he had seen daffodils and crocuses sheathed inside ice, looking as if they were made of stained glass.

Michael was surprised at how good he felt, how relieved he was to know that the report was complete, that the ordeal, for him and the children, would soon be over. And he was pleased too, he knew, simply to be in Langiello's presence again, to feel that he had an ally, somebody who understood that, despite all his worldly successes, he was still just an old Brooklyn schoolyard ballplayer heading for his middle years.

Michael sipped coffee, talked about his children, his brother. He said that when the trial was over he intended to have his children spend more time with Jerry. He wondered: should he mention having met Lobo and his two henchmen the week before? He didn't want even to
appear
to be testing Langiello, to be doubting him.

“Listen,” Langiello said. “I always like to do this with clients—not all investigators do—but before I file my report I like to sit down with them and tell them what's going to be in it. I like to be up front.”

“Of course.”

“Your case has been a real tough one for me, Mike, and I guess the main thing I want to say to you—and I hope this is a help, given how much pain you've been in—”

“Pain?”

“The stuff you told me last time about how it hurts you to take crap from your kids all the time, to be their nigger—how your kids are always taking their mother's side.”

“I don't understand.”

“Your kids love you, Mike,” Langiello said. “Absolutely.” He paused, leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright. “But they don't
like
you. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Michael tried to laugh. “I know they love me,” he said. “I never doubt that. As for liking me—well, they're in a real bind, as I explained. If they even let themselves
think
they like me—that I'm not the monster who made everything go bad—it makes them feel they're rejecting their mother. The more they punish me emotionally, the more brownie points they earn with her. That's why I—”

“Mike,” Langiello said sharply. “You're not
listening
to what I'm saying. That's one of the things the kids said too—that you never really listen to them, that you always have to be right, that you think you're perfect.”

“That's ridiculous.” In his mind, Michael was on the court at Madison Square Garden, looking toward the bench, seeing the coach tell him to slow down, to take his time in setting up the next play. “Look,” he offered, forcing a laugh, hoping to appeal to their common past. “I missed a foul shot in a game against Jefferson that almost cost us the championship my senior year, didn't I?”

Langiello stared at Michael without expression. Michael thought of Lobo's dull brown eyes. He thought of daffodils thawing, wilting. He thought of reaching inside his chest, of sawing ribs, retracting muscles, of stroking his own heart gently, of calming it.

“I mean, there are dozens of times I admit to them that I was wrong about something, that I made a mistake,” Michael continued.

“They love you, Mike, but they don't like you. Can you
hear
what I'm saying? I'm telling you the truth. I'm trying to help you.”

“I don't understand,” Michael said. “Last week you said you were going to give me more time with them, that—”

“I hadn't met your kids yet. I hadn't met your wife either.” Langiello paused, as if daring Michael to reply. “They're good kids, Mike, and she's a terrific mother. And what I think is that they've shown a lot of courage in putting their lives back together since the divorce.”

“Courage?”

“The kids want to live with their mother, Mike. Can you hear me?”

“But they
have
to say that. If they don't, they're scared she'll stop loving them—don't you see
that?”

“No, Mike. I really don't. I don't think you give your kids enough credit. They said that too—that you never believe them.”

“Oh come on,” Michael said. “I've never said such things to them. What's going on is your garden-variety emotional blackmail and you know it. I mean, ask yourself this question: Would the kids ever be able to tell her they want to live with we?” Michael stopped, realized his voice was rising. “When they're afraid to reject me or criticize me, then I'll worry. Then—”

“You're not listening to me, Mike.” Langiello sat back. Michael saw himself passing off, circling under the basket, getting his wind back. He wondered if Langiello had an arrangement with Lobo, had
sent
Lobo. He wanted to be ready for Langiello's moves, to be alert to all possibilities.

“I don't understand,” Michael said again. He looked down. Play defense, he told himself. Stall. He decided to try letting Langiello think he was bewildered, wounded. Perhaps if he didn't threaten him, if he gave him his ounce of flesh…

“Let me put it this way,” Langiello said. “I met your kids and I met your wife. She's a wonderful woman, Mike—soft-spoken and somewhat shy, I'll admit, but warm and loving and gentle and—”

“Sure. When she doesn't have a knife in her hand.”

“You're interrupting me again.” Langiello smiled. “You can't resist, can you?”

Michael said nothing. He tried to let his mind go blank. He tried to let it fill up with air, but as it did he saw gray swirls of smoke, he smelled coffee and bacon, he saw fragrances drifting through his head as if through canals, as if they were dyes that had been injected into his spinal column and were journeying toward his brain.

“I listened to everyone,” Langiello went on, “and what I kept asking myself was this: What was it that could have caused a woman like this to act the way she did? I mean, I admit her behavior's been bizarre—but what I wanted to know was what made her get that way?”

Michael let his shoulders sag. There was no way he was going to win, he realized, and what surprised him was neither Langiello nor his own foolishness in having trusted Langiello, but something else: that he was
still
willing to trust Langiello, if in a totally unexpected way. He almost smiled, but he didn't want to give himself away, he didn't want Langiello to know that what he was tempted to do suddenly was to throw aside all his old rules—his crazy devotion to
fairness
. For the first time in his life he was tempted, he realized, to make a deal, to offer a bribe, and the discovery delighted him.

He tried to play the scene out in his head, before it happened. What if Langiello were to double-cross him after being paid off? What if Langiello took the money and submitted his report without changing it? Michael could, he saw, lose both ways: he could lose the children
and
lose in his own eyes—for having betrayed a set of values that…that what? Michael looked up.

“And what did you decide?” he asked. “What was your answer?”

“You're a tyrant, Mike,” Langiello said. “It's as simple as that. You were always the big shot—the powerhouse. She showed me notes you left for her when she was putting you through medical school, when she didn't do things exactly the way you wanted—”

“But that was
before
our problems—almost twenty years ago.”

“There's no doubt in my mind that she struck out at you through the kids and did a lot of crazy things—I mean, who doesn't when a marriage breaks up?—but it's also clear to me, and this is the essence of my report, that you drove her to it.”

“Sure,” Michael said, and he smiled for the first time. “The devil made me do it, right?”

“They talked about that too—her and the kids—the way you get sarcastic whenever you can't face up to taking the blame. I
learned
from them, Mike. It wasn't difficult to figure out why they were willing to talk about the marriage and you weren't.”

“But the marriage is over,” Michael said. “It's been over for two years. I didn't think it was
important
to talk about it. I thought that what was important was putting all the old battles to rest so we could get on with our lives.” Michael stopped, aware that the words were coming out automatically, that he himself hardly believed in them. “All right. If you want to talk about the marriage, let's talk. What do you want to know?”

“Too late.” Langiello tapped the envelope. “I've already put more time into your case than I usually do.”

Michael hesitated, shook his head sideways, spoke: “You're not giving me a fair shake.”

“Could be.” Langiello gestured, palms up. “You and your lawyer are always free to ask for another investigator.”

“No.” Michael saw himself wandering around an empty court, looking up at the game clock, at championship banners, at ducts and wiring and fans of bright lights. Was the game over already? He supposed he could do it—that he could compromise his values in order to save his kids, to win for all of them—that he could humble himself if he had to, even if he
and
Langiello knew he was only putting on an act. “I just want to put all this behind me, but I suppose that as long as she can stay involved with me, one way or the other, she's gratified.”

“But the two of you
are
still involved, Mike. You're still mother and father to these kids. She showed me letters—the way you tried to persuade her to come back into the marriage when you found out she was having affairs. But what else could she do? The men she loved didn't run her down the way you did, Mike. They were kind and gentle. They—”

“They were married and they had kids, damn it!” Michael felt his heart blaze. He stood. “I really don't have to listen to this. I don't have to sit here and—”

Langiello was smiling. Michael stopped in midsentence. Had he, by accident, given the man what he was looking for?

“You're angry, Mike. You're a very angry guy, aren't you?”

Michael sat. He looked into Langiello's eyes and he imagined himself making small incisions in the corneas. When the corneas were deprived of oxygen they drew blood vessels from surrounding territory. Michael imagined Langiello's eyes laced with spider webs of pale red threads. He imagined himself lifting the corneas—peeling them off-freezing them so they would be ready for the lathe. He shivered. Refractive surgery—flattening the corneas to correct nearsightedness—was the one new surgical procedure that, in his imagination, could give him chills. He saw diamond blades cut into his own eyes, into the eyes of his children, into Jerry's eyes.

“I'm upset,” Michael said. He tried to be ready for what was coming. He tried to prepare himself for asking Langiello how much money he wanted, and how and when he wanted it. “I mean, you're telling me I may lose my children.”

“That's right.”

Michael smelled sausage, onions. He felt nauseated. “I love my children,” Michael said. “I mean, how can I
not
be upset?”

“But when you don't get your way you also get a little crazy.”

“No.”

“Your kids say different. They say you're like your brother sometimes.”

“But my kids hardly know my brother.”

“I wondered about that too—why you didn't want me to meet your brother last time, us going right past his place. Your wife says that after visiting him you throw fits sometimes, you hurl things around the house.”