Last Ditch (39 page)

I
met Trujillo's gaze.
"You do whatever you have to do," I said.

He
wasn't ready
to give it up. He hugged his bad arm with his good and leaned back
against the
wall.

"Gonna
be
a public relations nightmare," he prodded.

He
winced when
I put my hand on his shoulder.

"It's
old
news, is what it is," I said. "Time to get over it."

JUDY
CHEN SAT
on the padded bench staring down into her lap. I got down on one knee
in front
of her. Tonight, she looked her age. Dark circles surrounded her eyes.
The
lines at the comers of her mouth were so deep she could have been made
of wood.
"How's Gordon?"

"He's
going to live. That's all they'll say." I reckoned how it could be
worse,
and she agreed. "The cops have ID'd Jimmy," I said. She moved her
head slightly. "I know." "All you've got to do is handle your
end. There's nothing coming from anywhere else."

She
looked at
me for the first time. "'Thank you," she said.

I
told her she
was welcome and then held up a finger.

"One
thing, though."

"What?"

"Just
between you and me and the lamppost, Judy. I don't for one minute think
you
made Peerless Price lay down on the floor so's you could shoot him in
the back
of the head, Mafia style." I shook my head. "No way," I said.
"You didn't shoot Peerless Price."

She
opened her
mouth to speak, but I put a finger on her lips.

"Gordon
did, didn't he? He heard Peerless rampaging around and threatening you.
He
remembered the beatings from years before. He went and got the gun.
Walked
right up behind him."

She
was shaking
her head, but I pressed on.

"And
to
make matters worse, I think maybe the poor kid thought he was shooting
Jimmy
Chen. For nearly his whole life, he's been walking around with the
knowledge
that he tried to kill his old man."

"That's
why I told him Jimmy was dead. He doesn't remember anything about that
night," she said. "Never has."

I
got to my
feet. "I don't know much about psychology, Judy. But I think things
might
be a lot better for both of you if he did."

She
dropped her
eyes to the floor.

"Good
luck," I said and started up the hall.

"Leo,"
she called.

I
stopped and
turned around.

"Your
father would be proud of you," she said.

I
couldn't help
myself. I laughed out loud.

"Yeah,"
I said. "I get that all the time."

They'd
buzzed his
head, reducing the once leonine mane to a field of irregular white
stubble, not
unlike the last scruffy remains of fall corn. Orange
wasn't at all his color, but fashion was a fairly low priority item, as
far as King County
was concerned. It was like Henry Ford and the Model T. You could have
the jail
coveralls in any color you wanted, as long as it was orange.

I
took a chance
that he'd see me. I figured it was possible, because I've been in jail.
Nothing
serious, you know. Contempt of court, that sort of thing. Two weeks at
a time,
here and there. But I estimated that Judge Brennan had been in the
county
lockup for the better part of nine weeks now, and when you've spent
nine weeks
locked up with people whose basic problem is that they have great
difficulty
controlling themselves, you get real flexible as to what you will or
won't do
for a change of pace.

Jail
has a way
of humbling the most hardened criminals. Not so Douglas Brennan. He
came out
the jail door into the visitors' room every bit as arrogant as he'd
gone in,
with that snide smile bending his lips and that patrician air swirling
about
him. The jailer left his handcuffs on, so Judge Douglas J. Brennan was
forced
to hold the stinking telephone receiver with both hands, sort of in the
"now I lay me down to sleep" position.

"What
do
you want?" he sneered.

"Just
dropped by to say hi," I said, keeping the filthy mouthpiece as far
from
my lips as possible. "Papers say Dan Hennessey is going to get you a
new
trial."

He
smirked.
"It's a done deal. With a competent jurist, I'll be back on the street
in
ninety days."

"So
. . .
you're probably looking to keep a pretty low profile between now and
then."

"What
do
you want?" he said again.

"It's
not
so much what I want as what it is I've got to trade."

He
was wary
now, sensing the hook.

"Such
as?"

"A
little
peace and quiet."

"What's
that supposed to mean?"

"Just
what
I said. A little peace and quiet while your new trial is going on. A
chance for
the judicial system to work its magic."

He
got to his
feet. "I don't have time for this foolish ..." He began to pull the
receiver from his ear.

"The
Carlisle Hotel, nineteen fifty-seven," I said quickly.

He
was good.
Other than flicking his eyes toward the back of the room to make sure
we were
alone, he kept whatever he was feeling bottled up inside. "Is that
supposed to mean something to me?"

"Only
if
you happened to be one of the people on the fifteenth floor that night."

"What
people would that be?"

"In
your
case, Brennan, the one who walked out alive."

He
craned his
neck, taking in the bare room.

"I
don't
know what you're talking about."

I
smiled.
"Sure you do, Doug. That's why my old man had you in his pocket. And
that's why you're going to tell me what I want to know."

"You've
got nothing.''

"I've
got
exactly what he had, Brennan. You know how he was about keeping
records."

His
nasty smile
told me what I needed to know. I decided to take a chance. "I've got
copies of everything he gave to you."

He
gave me the
kind of pitying look one gives an injured animal.

"Gave
to me?
Gave what to me?"

"You
know,
Doug, the documentation my old man traded you for the Garden of Eden
material
back in sixty-nine."

I'd
hit a
nerve. For the first time since he'd walked in the door, he wasn't
amused. He
checked the room again. We still had the place to ourselves.

"You
wearing a wire?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Let
me
see."

I
stood up,
removed my coat, laid it on the stainless steel counter and turned the
pockets
inside out. I yarded my T-shirt up around my neck and turned in a
complete
circle.

I
read his lips
through the glass. "The pants," he mouthed.

I
patted the
shirt back into place, dropped my drawers to my ankles and repeated the
graceful pirouette.

I
put myself
back together and picked up the receiver.

"What
do
you want?' he asked me again.

"I
want
you to listen to me," I said. "And then I want you to tell me what I
want to know." I tapped a finger on the smudged plastic between us.
"But first, I want you to understand ... if you bullshit me, I'm taking
what I've got to the DA. Today."

"And
if I
don't?"

"Then
what
I've got will never see the light of day.

They
may get it
from some other source, but they won't get it from me."

"And
I'm
supposed to take your word for this?"

"I
don't
see as you've got much choice."

It
took him a
minute, but, in the end, he didn't either.

"Deal,"
was all he said.

My
turn to
check the room.

"It's
simple, Brennan. All I want to know is what it was about the raid on
the Garden
of Eden that made my old man go to the considerable trouble of making
it
disappear."

He
was sneering
again. Rubbing his cheek against the phone.

"That's
all?" he asked incredulously. "That's all."

He
let out a
great whoop of laughter.

"And
what
if you don't like what I tell you?"

"As
long
as it's the truth, we've still got a deal."

He
rocked the chair
back onto four legs, pressed his forehead against the Plexiglas, gave
me a
great big grin and told me exactly what I didn't want to hear.

I
sat in a red
canvas director's chair, sipping a designer root beer, while he threw
himself
around the room in pursuit of the little ball. The big guy with the
iron hair
wasn't bad, but he lacked Pat's desperate desire to run down every
shot. In the
end, Pat just plain outhustled him.

Although
the
wall between us was clear plastic, Pat didn't notice me until the two
of them
opened the door and stepped out. His blue pullover was plastered to his
body
with sweat. Water beaded his scalp.

As
usual, he
was cool. If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn he was expecting me.
He
turned to his partner.

"Monsignor
McCarty. Have you ever met my nephew, Leo Waterman?"

He
was thick,
with a red pockmarked face. His bulk looked better suited to football
than
handball. He wiped his hand on his shorts and stuck it out. "I don't
believe we have," he said.

His
hand swallowed
mine whole, but his grip was gentle.

"Bill's
boy," Pat said.

The
Monsignor
now began to massage my hand in earnest.

"Knew
your
father well, Leo," he said. His blue eyes 296 twinkled. "If you don't
mind the expression ... a hell of a man."

He
and Pat shared
a small chuckle; I rescued my hand.

Pat
and the
monsignor exchanged good-byes. Pat peeled the sodden black gloves from
his
hands as we watched McCarty walk down the hall toward the showers. Pat
waited
until he was out of sight.

"You
haven't been returning my calls."

"I've
been
busy."

"I
take it
you've read the paper."

In
this
morning's edition, the SPD had announced its intention to hold a news
conference at noon, PRICE TAGS AT NOON. A little more than three hours
from
now, wherein they would announce their findings as to the untimely
disappearance and subsequent discovery of Peerless Price. Oh, joy
unbounded.

"I've
seen
it"

He
walked a
dozen steps down the hall to a Dutch door. The girl inside handed him a
forest-green towel. He wiped his head as he walked back my way.

"Any
idea
what they're going to say?"

"I'd
guess
they were going to say that, what with the body being found where it
was, and
the murder weapon belonging to Ed Schwartz, they'll say it seems likely
that
his death stemmed from his relationship with my father."

"Seems
likely?"

"Unless
they've got something real solid, they won't go any further than that
for fear
we'll sue them."

"But
they've got to say something to satisfy the Price family."

"That's
how I see it," I said.

He
heaved a
sigh. "And I suppose you'll feel compelled to prove them wrong."

"No,"
I said. "I've had enough. Let 'em say what they want."

He
stopped
mopping his face.

"Really?"

"Really."

He
wiped his
hands on the towel. "And to what do we owe this sudden spasm of
lucidity?"

I
did good. I
let the jibe go. I like to tell myself that if he'd shut the fuck up
and not
acted like an asshole, I'd have gotten on my merry way. But, then
again, I like
to tell myself a lot of things.

"I've
decided you were right," I said. "The past ought -to be buried along
with the people who lived it"

"
'Tis a
pity you didn't come to that realization before you prolonged our
family's
public embarrassment." You cur.

I
got to my
feet "You know, Pat you of all people should be glad I pushed the
envelope
a bit."

He
smirked.
"And why would that be, Leo?"

I
could feel
the blood rising to my head.

"Because
my poking around put the Garden of Eden raid to rest, once and for all."

He
was good. He
looked bored. "The what?"

"The
Garden of Eden. Remember? Little place down under the Chase Hotel
on Western. Bunch of guys sitting around waving their meat at one
another." His shoulders stiffened. "They arrested the whole lot of
you. Your brother Bill had to squeeze Doug Brennan to keep the whole
thing
under wraps. That's what you've been shitting bricks about ever since
this
whole thing started, isn't it?"