Violent Ward

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‘Are you getting senile amnesia or something? One of the Petrovitch holding companies now owns your whole bailiwick. Remember, old buddy?’

‘That makes no difference in law. You can’t buy a law practice. All that’s happened is that we’ve taken on a new partner of Mr Petrovitch’s choosing. And I haven’t even met him yet.’

‘You play it any way you choose, Mickey. You were always a maverick. But if I were in your shoes I’d be at Camarillo airport with my notebook under my arm and my pencil sharpened.’

‘I’ll have to think about it.’ I was already thinking about it, and my thoughts were negative. That stuff went a long way back. Take the notebooks: Denise had filled them with that impenetrable shorthand of hers. Who knows what any of us might have said in some of those brainstorming sessions?

‘Yes, you think about it,’ said Goldie. ‘But don’t talk to Crichton or Lord Westbridge or any of their people. Got it?’

‘Did Petrovitch tell you to insert that clause into this tacky ultimatum of yours?’

‘It’s not an ultimatum.’ Then he amended it. ‘But, yes. As a matter of fact, Mickey, yes, he did.’

‘Tell him to get lost,’ I said.

‘I won’t relay that message. You be there in the morning, and if you still feel the same way you’ll be able to tell him in person.’

‘Okay.’

He was reluctant to hang up; he wasn’t sure he’d threatened me enough. ‘Better still, what say we meet in Tommy’s on Ventura? Do you still go there for breakfast?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Seven-thirty?’

‘Okay,’ I said. I guess Goldie wanted time enough to send the hounds after me if I didn’t show up.

‘Sleep on it, Mickey. If you want to talk to me anytime at all, day or night, the eight hundred number on the card I gave you is my cellular phone.’

‘Thanks.’ Goldie was the only man I knew with his own personal eight hundred number.

‘You’ll see reason,’ said Goldie.

When I’d sipped a little more of my whisky I had a sudden inspiration. I went to my dressing room – it’s a walk-in closet, really – and to the place where my personal safe is hidden behind a locked panel. My heavy-duty fireproof-steel money box was alive and well and locked up tight. There was nothing in it that could be of much value to a thief. There were my insurance papers, the deeds of the house, and a dozen or so three-and-a-half-inch floppies that I copied from my computer each week and brought back for safekeeping. But now that I looked again at it, a closer inspection revealed faint gray streaks along the edge of the wooden outer panel. I couldn’t think of any way those marks could have got there – I don’t let the cleaning lady come into the dressing room – so maybe the intruder had got inside. Maybe he’d just started on the combination lock when my neighbor’s 911 call had interrupted him. The sort of intruder who goes housebreaking equipped with watchmaker’s tools would have brought with him a police scanner to monitor the call and would have got out before the black-and-white arrived. Maybe he’d stayed outside, stayed real still, hoping everyone would go away before his pal came to collect him. Wow! So who’s been eating my grandmother?

I twirled the combination lock, opened the door of the safe, and looked inside. My stomach turned over. Flopped on top of a bundle of papers was an ugly brown withered hand, a severed hand. I jumped back like it was going to bite me. I looked again. There it was, like a huge tarantula poised to strike. It made me want to vomit. A hand! In a foolish and useless gesture I pushed the safe door closed while I went and got a flashlight from the garage.

With the light I could see right into the safe. Now that the light was shining on it I could see it was a glove, a heavy-duty protective glove used in factories and warehouses. I pulled the papers forward, holding papers and glove under the ceiling light to see it better. It was a leather glove, bent, battered, and whitened in use, the kind that might have been rescued from some industrial garbage bin. Even now it took me a moment or two before I could touch it. It seemed to be pulsating with life, but then I realized my hand was trembling. There was no message with it, but it was just the kind of prank that Goldie would pull on a guy who might not at first see reason.

This was getting a little too rich for my diet. I flipped open my notebook and called the Century Plaza, where Vic Crichton was staying. They put the call through to his suite and it was answered immediately. I said, ‘Can I speak to Vic?’

‘He’s not here. This is Mrs Crichton. What is it about?’

‘Dorothy, this is Mickey. We were talking tonight, remember? I know Victor was pretty smashed but drag him out of bed and order some coffee from room service, honey. We’ve got to talk.’

‘My name is not Dorothy. This is Mrs Crichton, and I’ve just arrived from London, and I’m waiting for him to get back. Who is this?’

Shit! All these British voices sound the same to me, especially after a long day at the office. ‘Murphy. I’m Sir Jeremy’s West Coast attorney. I’ll call again when you’ve had a chance to settle in.’

‘You say you saw Victor tonight?’

‘No. I mean, it must have been someone else. It looked very like him, but it gets crowded at the health club, and I was in the pool with the chlorinated water getting in my eyes.’

‘I planned to surprise him,’ said Mrs Crichton. ‘But there are no messages here, and the office number I have doesn’t answer.’

Surprise him; she’d do that, all right, and surprise his girlfriend too if they both went back to his hotel. ‘I’m sure he’ll show up,’ I said. ‘Will you ask him to phone Murphy? Tell him it’s a matter of life or death.’

‘Life or death?’

‘I’m exaggerating,’ I readily admitted. ‘This is Southern California; everything is a bit larger than life around here. And a bit smaller than death.’

‘I’ll tell him.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Crichton.’

I hung up, and then I began worrying whether some bastard had tapped my phone. I would have unscrewed the handset and looked for a hidden microphone, the way they do in movies, except that this was a Japanese phone with a handset of welded plastic.

‘What should I do about the paperwork, Rex?’ I said, but Rex had disappeared. He always was a go-to-bed-early kind of dog.

I felt like going to bed too, but the Westbridge files, three boxes of them, were in my downtown office, some twenty-five miles away. And Camarillo was forty miles in the other direction. Why did I pick up that lousy phone? Why didn’t I let Goldie leave his messages on my answering machine?

I had to have something to show that bastard Petrovitch. I mean, I wasn’t in a position to tell him to drop dead. When the deal went through and my check was cashed then maybe it would be different, but not right now. Goldie was right; no matter about the fine print, the fact was that Petrovitch owned me and the whole kit and caboodle. Maybe the written record was secret, but all those sheets of paper, on which it was typed or written, were owned by him. So what did I do? I went and climbed back into my Caddie.

By four o’clock in the morning I was sitting in my office sorting out all the Westbridge stuff with a big industrial-size shredder at my side. It was spooky in that place in the dead of night. In the street there were some strange people patrolling, I’ll tell you: hookers, drug dealers, and kids from the gangs, armed to the teeth and pupils dilated. The janitor was useless. He has an apartment as part of the deal but he didn’t budge from it. I could have rolled the whole building away without his coming down to see where we were headed.

I boiled some water and stole a little of Miss Huth’s instant and found where she stashed the chocolate chip cookies. Then I went through the papers sheet by sheet. I made three piles: one, don’t matter; two, grand jury for Vic Crichton; three, trouble for Murphy. And I’m telling you I made sure everything in the third pile was shredded into paper worms, shaken, and stirred too. As I sorted through that stuff I saw indiscreet little items that could have had me disbarred a dozen times over. I didn’t take a deep breath until only two piles remained. Trouble for Westbridge, Inc., was something I could endure.

Then I crammed all the totally innocuous stuff into my best pigskin document case. With that done I sprinkled a few trouble-for-Westbridge items over them just to make it look kosher and stuffed it tight and strapped it down. Then I took the more delicate Westbridge material – one three-quarter-full Perrier-water box of it – and put it into my trunk and drove back home with it.

I put it on a rafter in the garage together with a lot of other cardboard boxes that had formerly contained my desktop computer, my microwave oven, my coffee maker, and all that kind of stuff, because if you don’t keep the cardboard boxes the stores won’t fix items that go on the blink. Did you know that? They won’t fix them without the boxes.

The dust and dirt I dislodged from that garage made me dirty enough to need a good long hot shower. By the time I was through washing up there was no time for sleep. I changed into a sport coat and cords to show all concerned that this wasn’t a part of my regular schedule and then went along Ventura Boulevard to Tommy’s Coffee Shop.

4

Fancy Goldie remembering our breakfasts in Tommy’s. It’s one of those restaurants that open at dawn and close in the early afternoon. I parked at the back. The sun crept out of the darkness and peeked over the roofs, to be reflected in my lovely old Caddie. With its original gold-colored paint job, it was spectacular. I stood there admiring it for a long time; I love that car. Even the radio was original. It would have made a stunning color photo the way it looked that morning. Maybe I should buy myself a camera.

I went in through the back door. Already the dining room was crowded with men on their way to work. Brawny fellows in bib overalls and plaid work shirts, men who adjusted machinery, fixed appliances, and mended utilities; straight-speaking American heroes like my mother’s brothers.

Goldie was already there, sitting near the window, watching the cook cracking eggs and flipping hash browns on the shiny steel griddle. We said our hellos. Goldie looked tired. Judging by the clothes he was wearing and the blue chin, he’d been up all night. The smell of bacon got my appetite roused and I went ape and ordered sausages, bacon, fried eggs, pancakes with butter and syrup, toast, honey, and coffee. It was just like being back with my folks. The coffee was fine, the eggs went over easy, and it was the only place around there that opens at five-thirty in the morning.

‘Hello, Mr Murphy,’ said Cindy. She picked up Goldie’s empty plate and gave him a refill of coffee.

‘Boy, are you looking great, Cindy!’ I’d known Cindy Lewis for years. She was a hardworking, sensible woman with two grown daughters. Her husband had been a marine killed in ’Nam back in the early days. When Danny was very young she’d regularly come in to baby-sit for us.

‘It’s work that keeps me in shape,’ she said, while she watched me eating. ‘I tell the young ones that but they don’t listen. People have forgotten how to work. My next-door neighbor is a nice old Japanese gentleman who works at Northrop. That poor man can’t even go into his own front yard to water his flowers and plants without people thinking he’s a gardener. They can’t believe he gardens for himself; they pester him all the time with offers of work.’

Goldie nodded soberly. I had a feeling he was going to doze off at any moment.

‘Can you beat that?’ I said, but oh, boy, I could well believe it. The two dumb jerks doing my garden knew as much about gardening as they knew about nuclear physics, and they were charging me an arm and a leg. They popped in for ten minutes of grass-cutting every Friday morning and didn’t even take the clippings and leaves away afterward. I tried to remember exactly where Cindy lived. I had driven her back there a million times. Next-door neighbor, eh? I mean: how much could they be paying him at Northrop?

‘I’ve been waiting for you to look in, Mr Murphy; you can settle a bet for me. It was Frank Loesser wrote ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’ Wasn’t it? I was arguing with my young brother; he thinks he knows everything. Back me up, will you? I’ve got ten dollars riding on it.’

‘Too bad. You lost your money, Cindy. Words by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney.’

She didn’t seem too devastated at losing her ten bucks. She shook her head in admiration. ‘He should go on one of those TV quiz shows,’ she told Goldie. Goldie nodded. She had an exaggerated respect for anything she perceived as education.

I dredged my memory: ‘Written for a show called Americana sometime in the early thirties.’

Cindy refilled my coffee cup. ‘I can’t remember a darn thing these days,’ she admitted cheerfully. ‘I keep forgetting to tell you about your car, Mr Murphy.’ She poured coffee for the guys at the next table and then came back to me. ‘Maybe somebody else told you already. That old car of yours, it’s dripping oil everywhere.’

‘I know; it’s nothing,’ I said.

‘I noticed it when you drove away last week. A big pool of oil.’

‘It’s nothing that matters,’ I said. ‘Probably a gasket.’

‘Why don’t you get yourself a nice new car? Now your company has been bought out and everything.’

‘Are you crazy?’ I said. ‘That’s a valuable vintage car.’

‘Those Japanese cars are very reliable. My grandson has one. He’s got a great deal: ninety-nine dollars a month. It’s a lovely little car. Bright green. Four doors, radio, and everything. So comfortable and reliable.’ Goldie was looking at me with a stupid smile on his face.

‘And I haven’t been bought out.’ Maybe I said it too loudly.

‘I didn’t mean anything.’ She poured coffee for me.

‘Everybody keeps telling me I’m rich, except I don’t get the dough. So don’t go around saying I’ve been bought out.’

She looked at me and at Goldie and nodded. I could see what she was thinking. She was thinking I was making millions of dollars and hiding it away somewhere. ‘I thought I’d better tell you about the oil,’ she said, and walked away.

‘Stupid woman,’ I told Goldie. ‘Japanese cars. I don’t want to hear about Japanese cars.’

Goldie said, ‘Did you bring everything?’

‘I brought everything,’ I said. Goldie nodded.

I devoured the whole breakfast and even wiped the plate with bread. Was it a sign of nerves? I always eat too much when I’m tense. I wish I was one of these skinny joes who go off food when they are under stress, but with me it works just the other way. Anyway, it was a delicious breakfast: cholesterol cooked just the way I like it.

Then I reached into my leather case and brought out the glove I’d found in my safe. I put it on the table. Goldie looked at it without emotion. ‘Is this yours?’ I asked him.

‘Could be. I’ve got one just like it at home.’

‘You son of a bitch.’

‘Now we’re quits,’ said Goldie. ‘Don’t fool with my phones in future.’ He raised those heavy-lidded eyes of his to look at me.

‘I didn’t plant that bomb, Goldie.’

‘You just happened to want to make a call? You just happened to notice the wiring? Is that it?’

‘Of course it is. I didn’t plant that bomb.’

‘Maybe not, but I think you know who did. And you made sure I found it. I get the message, Mickey. Is this something you dreamed up with Budd Byron?’

‘What’s Budd got to do with it?’

‘He’s the one you promised to get a gun for, remember?’

‘This is too much! Are you bugging my office?’

‘It’s not your office any longer. You work for us now.’

I got to my feet and put some money on the table. Goldie reached out and grabbed my arm. ‘These are big boys, Mickey. This isn’t a Monopoly game, it’s real life. Ask yourself, pal. When big corporations are pushing hundreds of millions of dollars around the board, they are not deterred by some little guy reading aloud the instructions on the box lid.’ He looked at me. ‘They’ll squash you like a bug.’

‘Keep your guys out of my house,’ I said. I pulled away from his grip, picked up the glove, and tossed it at him. ‘You pull a routine like that again, and I’ll fix you in a way you won’t like.’

‘Turn off at the water tower,’ said Goldie. ‘It’s a white limo with tinted glass, parked near the main hangar.’

Camarillo airport is a onetime military field with six thousand feet of concrete runway, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and that’s more than enough to land Petrovitch’s plane even if old Petey himself is at the yoke nursing a hangover. I knew the field. For years, when driving on Route 101, I’d stolen a glance at the old blue-and-white Lockheed Constellation that marked the end of the runway.

I recognized the freeway exit ramp. I used to take Danny up that way to buy strawberries. Danny loved strawberries. I remember the first time he saw the strawberry fields – miles of them all the way to mountains – he could scarcely believe it was all real. Betty liked them too. We regularly bought berries there and took along a big tub of ice cream and had a feast in the car.