No Show of Remorse (15 page)

“Tell me about it. I wasn't even in the picture for several days,” I said, “and emotions were still, as you say, ‘running high.'” I paused. “So you're saying it's still an open case, and you're working it with an undercover state dick. What is it you want from me?”

“What I really want is to know what your client Marlon Shades had to say.”

“I just told you, when I give my word, I don't—”

“Right. I know.” He leaned forward. “But … let's say your guy said something that could have gotten himself in trouble. Otherwise, you'd have advised him to talk. But maybe he didn't know anything helpful to the Lonnnie Bright case. You could at least reveal that. Besides, the client's dead, for chrissake.”

“First,” I said, “it's a lose-lose situation. If I say he didn't know anything helpful, everyone thinks I'm lying. If I refuse to say that, everyone thinks he
did
know something, and I get pushed even harder. Second, saying what my client
didn't
say is revealing the contents of the conversation—or close enough for me, anyway.” I shrugged. “So there you have it.”

“Actually,” Theodosian said, “that's what I thought you'd say. So—”

“Wait a minute,” Uh-Smith finally couldn't stand keeping his mouth shut. “Three people are fucking dead and we got a citizen here who can help sort things out. But no. This one's Mr. Tough Guy, and he's got his fucking
word
to live up to. Is that it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “that's it. About all I
do
have in my trade is my word.”

“Maybe.” He stared at me. “Or maybe you're just one more faggoty freak who hates cops.”

“I got no problem with most cops,” I said, “homophobic or not. But my eyes have been open a long, long time. My dad was a cop and he was straight, right up to the end, and then a few bad cops fucked him over and took him down with them.” I leaned in then, and poked a finger at his face. “So don't talk to me about—”

“Take it easy,” Theodosian said, “both of you.” He looked at his watch, and then at me. “Here's the deal. You aren't gonna tell us what your punk said. Fine. But you're stirring up a lotta shit right now. You got some people worried, and I wanna know who it is. What I want is for you to share with me anything you're learning—new stuff, not covered by the goddamn lawyer-client privilege—but anything that'll help me find out what really did happen, and close out this fucking case.”

“And I get what? A certificate of good citizenship?”

“You get my testimony. I tell everyone how I understand your ethical position. I even say I respect your sticking to it—if I can say that without throwing up. I tell how you went out of your way to help the authorities this time. What I do is, I tell the supreme court that you oughta get your license back.”

“And in the meantime,” I said, “are you gonna tell me what
you
learn?”

“Why—” He stopped. “It's a police investigation. You know the drill.”

“Of course,” I said, remembering that my interest was supposed to be in my petition. “I just mean anything that'll help me get my license.”

“I'll tell you anything I can.”

“We got a deal,” I said, thinking it wasn't much of one. “Someone sure doesn't want me to go ahead with my petition for reinstatement.”

“Tell us about it.”

“Well, I filed it and figured no one would pay much attention. Then one day I pick up my mail and there's a letter … an anonymous letter. A threat. There was a spider taped to the paper, with its legs pulled off. The letter said that's what would happen to me if I didn't drop my petition.”

Uh-Smith leaned forward. “You save this letter?”

“Why would I? It was a cowardly, chicken shit note, for chrissake. Or would it have scared
you?
”

“Jesus.” His face was red again. “What kind of—”

“Forget it,” Theodosian interrupted. “What else has happened?”

*   *   *

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
I closed the door behind them. I'd moved on to tell them about the guy with the camera and the green Crown Vic. “Two white guys. Could have been you two.”

“Could've been,” Theodosian said, “but wasn't.”

“After that it's Uh-Smith, here, tailing me in the train station.”

Theodosian seemed surprised, but said nothing, and I went on to tell them about my broken toilet and the shit smeared on my front door; about the masked goon attacking me in the park and trying to make me eat my petition. I told them about pouring beer into Richie Kilgallon's drink. I told them Breaker Hanafan didn't know anything about any of it, but was helping Yogi as a payback to me for a debt long overdue.

There was more I didn't tell them—including about Stefanie Randle hearing Maura Flanagan tell Stefanie's boss not to file objections to the petition, and about my conversation with Jimmie Coletta. Stefanie and Jimmy were topics I wasn't ready to discuss with them yet.

Still, we were pretty close to even … because they left without telling
me
one damn thing.

CHAPTER

23

I
CLOSED THE DOOR
behind them and hadn't even crossed back to Yogi's bed before a wide-bodied, no-nonsense nurse came backside first into the room, pulling a cart with a white cloth draped over whatever was on it, and asked—not unpleasantly—whether I didn't think my friends and I had spent enough time with the patient already.

“They're not my friends.” My refrain for the day. “Besides, I haven't even talked to Yogi. He's been asleep the whole time.”

“Yogi?”

“Mr. Doherty's nickname.”

She asked me to wait in the corridor and I did. Fifteen minutes later she came out, smiling and shaking her head as though Yogi had said something funny, and warned me not to tire Mr. Doherty out, and I went back through the door.

“Hey, big mon.” Yogi's voice was weak and hoarse, but not bad for a guy with a tube running into his nose and down his throat. The head of the bed was raised so that he was sitting up. “How you doin'?”

“I'm fine,” I said. “But what about you? You in any pain?”

“Not so bad, uh-uh.” He reached under the sheet and came out with a little push button device. “I get feelin' bad, mon, I just hit this here and the dope flow in an' the pain be gone.”

“Who did this, Yogi?”

“Who gimme the button? Doctor Bob, mon, he—”

“No. Who beat you up?”

“Oh, I don' know, big mon. I don' be smokin' the shit so much like before, mon, since I doin' the yoga thing. But, you know, sometimes I still hit the bong. Like last night … Thursday, Friday, whatever … I be floatin' along down there where they fixin' Lower Wacker an'
wham! wham! wham!
 … an' I wake up in the County, missin' a kidney.”

“What?” I'd never even asked what his injuries were. “They took out a kidney?”

“Jus' one outta two. Doctor Bob, he say they more worried about my brain waves, but everything seem okay. He say—”

“You know it's my fault this happened, don't you?”

“Don' know nothin' like that. But, hey, I be fine now. Layin' around waitin' for nurses to come give me a bath an' stuff. Not bad, hey?” He grinned and started to laugh, but that made him cough and he couldn't stop coughing and his shoulders hunched up and the pain was obvious in his face.

I just stood there until he stopped. “Have you been pressing the button for your pain medication?”

“I do the yoga thing, mon.” He was short of breath. “Try to pay attention. Feel
inside
the pain.”

“So, you should just suffer, because—”

“Plus the dope make me sleep all the time.”

“Well, you were sleeping when I got here this morning, anyway. So what's the difference?”

“Not sleepin', big mon. Pretend sleepin'. Hear everything.” He grinned again, which brought on more coughing, and more pain.

“Please,” I said, once he'd settled down. “Don't laugh.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “You help the fuzzies, big mon, like they say?”

“Maybe.”

“They lookin' to catch someone from what? Couple years ago? That be way over, mon. Why not catch
today's
bad guys?”

“Five years ago. Cops killed a drug dealer and his girlfriend in a shootout at his place. But three cops were shot, too. One died; one can't walk. They think there was another shooter involved, and they want the missing shooter. They wanna know what happened.”

“Sometimes people find out what happened from long time ago, they find out they don' wanna know.”

I stared at him. “They … they don't think that way.”

“They say you help them, they help you get your license back.” He reached for his water glass. “What license that?” When he swallowed, he winced in pain.

“Hit the damn button, Yogi.”

“I hit it when you leavin',” he said. “So what license?”

“Law license.”

His eyes widened. “Hey, mon. You a lawyer?” He seemed disappointed.

“I was. They took away my license.”

“Shoulda made you happy, mon.”

“What have you got against lawyers?”

“Got nothin' against nobody, big mon. You wanna help the fuzzies 'cause you wanna be a lawyer again … that's cool, mon. Each gotta do his own.”

“I don't really
want
to help them, and I'm not sure I really want to be a lawyer again.”

“But you gonna do both.” He grinned, and I thought he was going to laugh, but he stopped himself. “An' peoples say I the one tink funny.”

“If I help the cops, it might also help me find out who attacked you.”

He seemed more amazed than ever. “For why you wanna do that, mon?”

“Because first I'm gonna tear his ass off, and then I'm gonna have him tossed in jail. That's why. I told you. It's my fault this happened to you.”

“This here happen 'cause I be smokin' outta my brain, mon. Didn't see the fuzzies comin' up.”

“What? You mean it was
cops
who did this?”

“Maybe just one, I don't know,” he said. “But I'm on the ground and I hear the radio thing and he answer it.”

“Would you recognize his voice again?”

“Prob'bly. But, hey, mon, I been beat up before. Fuzzies, dopies, whatev—”

“Did you know you had my business card in your pocket?”

“Nope. Where I get that?”

“Exactly. I didn't give it to you. And there was writing on the back of it. It said, ‘Use your head, asshole, or there's more to come.'”

“You tinkin' someone tellin' me not to help you?”

“Maybe. But more likely the message was for me, that if I don't stop trying to get my license back, more people are gonna be hurt—same as you.”

“So it's easy like pie, mon. You stop, and nobody get hurt.”

“But you've
already
been hurt. You lost a goddamn kidney, for chrissake.”

“Doctor Bob say I got another one an' it be workin' fine. Pretty soon I be workin' fine, too, somebody go to jail or not.” He smiled. “So you go on do whatever. But 'cause you tink it gonna make
you
feel better, big mon. Keep me outside it.”

“Yeah? Well, just seeing the pain you're in pisses the hell outta me. Whoever did this … What about payback, or justice, for God's sake?”

He shook his head. “That justice thing, mon, that be way too huge for me. If everything gotta equal out, like on a scale … what I'm gonna pay? So I jus' do my yoga thing. Stand on one leg an' tink how a tree stand; tink about peace an' shelter an'—” He grimaced, then started coughing again and when it was over he grinned—or tried to. “Right now I tinkin' 'bout the dope button, big mon.” He took a deep breath, and another shudder of pain went through him. “Feel kinda wore out, you know?”

He told me what to push to lower the head of his bed and I did that, and put his water on the bedside table. He closed his eyes and I turned to leave, but then thought of something. “Hey, Yogi,” I said. “Those cops say anything interesting before I got here?”

He opened his eyes. “Uh-uh. They only here 'bout three, four minutes before you. They don't speak nothin'. I feelin' they don't like each other, but they don't speak nothin'.” His eyes closed again. “Gotta go now.”

I stared down at him for a while, and then left. What had happened to him was my goddamn fault, and I wasn't about to let it drop. I'd find out who did it, and see they paid in full.

I guess I'd have felt better about my mission, though, if the victim himself hadn't just dismissed the whole concept as a dumb idea. And not just dumb, but selfish, too.

CHAPTER

24

I
WENT DOWN TO THE FIRST FLOOR
and back to the parlor where I'd met Dr. Tyne, and where I remembered there was a telephone on an end table by a sofa.

I called Breaker Hanafan. “Great work,” I said. “Only you and me and the cops know where he is. Of course, since it's you and the cops I'm mostly worried about, you—”

“I know, I know. That Theodosian guy and some state dick. Tyne called.”

“Dr. Tyne called
you?
”

“Not me directly, for chrissake. The guy's on the up and up … so how would he know me? Anyway, he called. Said they put a lot of pressure on him in a hurry and he couldn't turn them away.” He paused, and by his breathing I knew he'd taken a drag on a cigarette. “So,” he finally said, “you talk to them?”