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Volume 26, Number 1, 2002 reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum and Joyce Corrington* THE ABSOLUTE VICES John William Corrington I When you have set up a suitably complex hypo – incorporating a series of sub-problems in property, succession, and tort, you start digging in the code, the regs and the cases. The object is to guess where the Service will stand on the imaginary case, and what the courts will do. If this sounds like a waste of time, it isn’t. You go through the cases and you remember things. The Service has a long memory, and it hires some very fancy heads. It is the aim of the Service that each one of us shall pay his fair share of taxes, and that no taxpayer shall eat, drink, and make merry at the expense of the Federal fisc. They are very good at this, and no amount of common logic and plodding through fields of legal boilerplate is going to put them off. If they lose in one court, they are likely to drag you onward and upward till they reach the Supreme Court. They have a little edge, you see: you have to pay me quite a bit for the trip. They pay nothing. Their jobs depend on litigation, so they’d as soon see you in court as not. Once at a party, a drunk asked me for my concentrated wisdom on the Internal Revenue Service. –Don’t fuck with’em, I told him. It caused quite a stir at the party. Now I have forgotten almost everything I knew in law school that didn’t have some bearing on taxes. That’s a shame, I know. But tax work is like Talmudic studies or the mastery of Scholastic theology. You get caught up in it. The rules are all there, thousands of them, and they’re the raw material of your work. You come to feel like an artist bringing all he knows about his materials to bear on a certain subject, a set of facts. Tax work is a peaceful cranny of the law. I can’t say I’ve seen much of the lurid side of things. Once in awhile, one of my neighbors uptown will come in sweating buckets. –Christ, they’re . . . Albert, they’re auditing me. –Well, Martie, don’t you keep records? –Listen, I’ve got records staring out my . . . Yes, yes. Everything. I’ve even got the tab for our last lunch . . . –That’s outside the prescription period, Martie. It was four years ago. –God, that long? –Un-huh, I believe it was . . . June of ‘79. You thought they might audit you. You remember that business where you sent the girls to Mexico City, and then went down yourself, and padded your expenses? Claimed an illness down there, as I remember. Said you paid a doctor 1,000 pesos to give you a bill for 15,000. You . . . –All right, all right. But this time . . . It usually turns out that Martie has more to worry about from Mrs. Martie than the Service. They don’t want blood; they’re not empowered by Congress to peddle it. No, they want money, and unless you try pretty hard to make them look dumb, they’ll settle for what they figure you owe. Though, of course, if you play around and get caught, you’re not in a very good position to argue with their figures. I’ve seen times when it would have been cheaper to bite the bullet and go spend a little vacation in the federal pokey than to pay off. Except, of course, when you come out, you still owe–plus the fine. Although I did hear of a fellow with a little oil deal going who told the Service to shove it. That his money was tied up. Oh, there were bank accounts frozen, liens on property and equipment, fines, interest, and six months of enforced rest at a minimum security installation. But the bottom line was that his company, jumping from one suit to the next like Little Eva on the ice cakes, doing handstands and a couple of tricks you never saw either in the decathlon or the French Quarter under the corporate veil, managed to keep drilling. They hit. Nine wells came in nine days, and this gent came out of durance vile owing four times as much in brand-new honest tax on the money spewing up out of the ground as his back tax, fine and interest had come to. This gent’s first act on release was to fire his tax lawyer who had told him to own up, declare bankruptcy and go for nolo contendere. But that’s the exception, Nobody ever called a tax lawyer “The Great Mouthpiece.” I kind of like the idea of a hero of tax law. Call him “The Taxes Arranger.” Slim, quiet, pencil behind ear. Total recall of Congressional hearings and subcommittee reports. Decisions of ten circuits and the tax court on the tip of his tongue. Secretary of the Treasury saying to the President, “That devil Albert Leroux is playing hell down in Louisiana, and if we don’t stop him, receipts will be down six percent this year.” Chess has Bobby Fischer and Melvin Belli is the King of Torts, Leonard Bernstein can get kids to listen to Smetana and take-out fried chicken has Colonel Sanders. Well, the fact is we may be just coming into the age of the tax lawyer as hero. Which is what I want to tell you about. How a nice job got to be,
I think they call it, existential. Midnight meetings. Emergency passport service, journeys to foreign countries, swarthy men in pin-striped suits following, phone calls from the Intelligence Division of the Service. The whole schemre, as one of my show-biz clients would say. That’s the criminal lawyer’s mind for you. He doesn’t have to prove a damned thing–ever. His job is to jump right into the middle of the prosecutor’s case and thrash around like a toad in a puddle. Why, he can fit more hypotheses to your facts than there are shrimp in the Gulf. –Raped, he’ll say, frowning at the alleged victim. –You? Raped? Aw, c’mon now, honey. And the eighteen-year-old two months shy of graduating from a convent school, caught in the girl’s john and torn up in one of the cubicles will stammer, and the jury will wonder, and the judge’s teeth will be on edge, and reasonable doubt will rise like the Gorgon’s head. I admit to a certain prejudice. Not so much at the social level as at the legal level. It seems a sorry kind of law practice that, at its best,
consists in inventing lunatic options to feed a jury that, as a rule, just can’t cope. But that’s where the action is, and until just recently the best action in New Orleans always found its way to the office of Billy Durham. They called Billy “The Breaker,” because he had pushed around more prosecutors than anybody south of New York or east of San Francisco. Not the kind of gaudy showmanship that leads to a semi-permanent seat next to Johnny Carson or some similar lumpen-society type, but fast as a fox and tough as Texas tomatoes. Billy and I had gone to law school together. He was a year behind me and came close to failing out. He did fine in the blood courses, and everybody thought he’d be a good plaintiff’s attorney but his nose kept pointing toward Tulane and Broad Streets, where the criminal courts are. He liked disorder, I think. He liked never knowing what came next. Chaos is an appetite just like order. And Billy couldn’t get enough of it. I remember him cramming the night before the tax final. He would read a case and shake his head. –The bastards, he’d say. –The lousy bastards. You call this justice? –Naw, somebody down the table there in the law library sighed. –We call it law. –What about justice? –You get it in front of your name when you hit the end of the road and the top of the heap. He passed by three points–a 68. But then he made a 99 on Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure. Nobody had ever done that. –I memorized Roberts’ Rules of Order in high school, Billy boasted to me once. I looked at him narrowly. A whey-faced twenty-three. Looked eighteen. Bad complexion. A little over weight, large blue eyes looking with constant wonder out at the rest of us and what we were doing. I remember his hands were fat but strong. As if a Flemish painter had designed them. Not large, but fingers like sausages which somehow conveyed a certainty of competence. –Then why the hell couldn’t you get the Internal Revenue Code down? He shrugged. –Mickey Mouse. Taxes? Hell, make enough to pay ’em. That’s not what it’s about. He made enough. Less than two years with a firm, and he was on his own. It seemed sometimes as if he was trying cases simultaneously in every criminal court in town. Sometimes he almost was. Stories came back to Barker, Benson about how he handled himself. He could, given need, see to a mistrial himself. A way with judges, a patronizing little sneer that never showed on an appellate record, but which might draw just that word from the court that could insure a reversal. Plea- bargaining? I first heard it told of Billy Durham that he got a charge of sodomy reduced to following too close. Word was that Billy had become what you might call a consigliere, if you like to hoke it up a little. It was surely true that he seemed to get an inordinate amount of work along the line of prostitution, labor difficulties, narcotics and the like, and that the names of some of his regular clients kept cropping up in news magazines and other places where it seemed they’d just as soon not be. One of the associates at Barker, Benson said Billy’s endless trips to make bail for certain alleged narcotics figures had earned him the sobriquet of “Pusher Puller.” So much said, and not having seen him in the all too solid flesh for fifteen years, I was surely surprised to read in the Times-Picayune where he had walked out of court in the middle of the Casavetes case. What’s going on here? Casavetes maintained that he was just an ordinary business man, a small investor persecuted by mysterious powers lurking behind the D.A.’s office, controlling the U.S. Attorney lock, stock and stoolies. But the better opinion was that Emmanuel Casavetes did the lurking and controlling and that, aside from belching at Brennans or spitting in the flowers at Jackson Square, Casavetes pretty much had New Orleans vice by its twitching muscular tail. This particular case had to do with four dead hippies they had found in a car out in City Park. Executed gang-land style, as they say. But there had been another hippie, a girl who had not made the trip, and she had explained to local and federal officers that her comrades had gone to make a delivery of some heavy plunder that night. She claimed that the man they had dealt with was Emmanuel Casavetes himself. Nobody believed her at first. Until she told them what her boyfriends had brought home from Turkey or Hong Kong or Mexico, or wherever hippies go for their stuff; four pounds of pure heroin. Suffice to say that the price in question was astronomical, and that the hippies simply didn’t realize folks like Casavetes still got their money the old-fashioned way; killed for it. Seems they held the hippie theology that the government was the real criminal mob, and acted on that premise. The girl hippy wasn’t so sure. She allowed she’d wait at the crash pad, as I think they call it. Now she was the chief government witness, and it appeared that she might even have seen Mr. Casavetes in some of the pre-catastrophic negotiations. Now, if that were so, and a few other strands could be tightened up, that local businessman might be in considerable trouble. But Billy Durham had walked out of the case right in the courtroom. Now this profession has its share of neurotics, but Durham had never seemed to be one of them. Even weeks later the scuttlebutt downtown was amazing. I was eating a quick Polish sausage at Kolb’s when Timothy Linacre told about it. It seems the assistant U.S. Attorney had just finished direct on the hippy girl. He handed her over to Billy, who figured to make her look like a cross between a Decatur Street whore and a microcephalic idiot. All things being equal, the American people feel more comfortable with the Godfather than the Easy Rider. But no. Billy stood up and approached the witness box frowning, shaking his head. The hippy girl was, Timothy said, spaced out. Scared to death. Her four friends were dead, and Casavetes was staring at her like a basilisk. And here came the toughest counsellor this side of Palermo kind of moving up on her. Then Billy paused, shrugged, smiled at the girl, and said: –Piss on it. That sonofabitch is guilty as hell. He pointed at Casavetes. –He stinks. He’s up to his ass in narcotics, and if you want to know how he fixed the hit on those poor bastards . . . Then he turned and walked out. Mistrial. Some of the wags were saying that Billy had gotten down to the bottom of his armory and taken his best shot. He was doing the best he could for his client. Maybe another jury, a change of venue and judge . . . Timothy shook his head. –No, you should have seen Casavetes, his face purple, leaning over to talk to two ugly looking plugs just behind the rail–both of whom vanished right after Billy. –He could be at the bottom of the Mississippi by now, Timothy was saying. –Only in a submarine, somebody else said. I went back to the office and thought on the vagaries of life. Here I was looking over a real-estate transaction for a man with a tax problem, There was old Billy Durham somewhere with mobsters on his tail. O tempora, o mores. The phone rang, I let it ring, I had just found a nice little run-through for my client, some paper expensing that had gotten by the lawyer for the other party. The phone rang again. I picked it up. –Albert? Billy Durham here. –Oh yeah? –Yeah. I need to see you. Right away. –Oh yeah? –Goddamnit, Albert . . . this is serious. –Well, Billy, if that is you, I agree it is serious, but you don’t want me. I’m not chairman of the ethics committee of the Bar any longer, and the commandant of the Marine Corps is located at Quantico, Virginia, I believe. –This is professional, Albert.
–Billy, if it is you, I’m just a tax man. I don’t know a thing about these little numbers you’re running, and I don’t see that I want to, either. A long pause. –Albert, it is me. –Well, that may be so. Your voice is a good deal deeper, but . . . –Albert, you remember the time I come upon you giving some study aid to Linda Lou Fontenot back in the second level of the stacks? Right under the spare set of the Federal Supplement? –All right, Billy, just let that go. I understand that it is you. –And Linda Lou was married. To an optometrist, a big old ham-handed boy. What if I was to have let it slip . . . –Billy, I always did appreciate that you took an ethical view of it. To err is human . . –But to screw is . . . divine, huh? –What can I do for you, Billy? –Go out to the airport and get you a flight for London. –I’m sorry, Billy, It sounded like you said London. –When you get to Heathrow, more words. –Billy, that’s silly. I don’t even have a passport. –Call Mulveny. He’ll fix you. He owes me. Tell him he owes for a set of tires. –Anyhow, this is . . . –Albert, this is a tax matter–among other things. I can’t go calling the people I usually associate with, they’ll all have tails by now. Anyhow, I know more tax than they do, as you well know. –Yes, I said. –Well, why don’t you fill me in? –Get to Heathrow. And by the way . . . –Yes? –You tell Mulveny to hand you ten thousand in cash, and if he gets tight about it, I’ll wire Casevetes that he put me up to it. Later, –Uh . . . later, I said. What the hell did I mean, later? Was I going to London, England? Mulveny was a bondsman who ran a hole in the wall over near Tulane and Broad. He had a fine business. The way it worked is that when he wrote a bond, he got ten per cent of the face value. Pure profit you see, since he hadn’t paid a defaulted bond in twenty years. From time to time, there was a little scandal about it, but then Mulveny simply passed some cabbage to the rabbits, and soon the status quo ante found its rotten equilibrium again. He was writing up a bruised black who kept resting his head on the counter while Mulveny took his vital statistics. –Ah dunno how come he done . . . it. Ah dunno how come he . . . done it, the black kept saying. –Sometimes they do it, Mulveny muttered as he finished up a nice second mortgage sheet with waivers, emergency claims and all the rest. I saw the black sign a truth-in-lending statement without looking at it. –Ah dunno how come he done it . . . Then he was gone, and Mulveny was staring at me. –All right counsellor, what can I do for you? –I need a passport and ten thousand in cash . . . small bills, I said, for no reason I could think of. Ten in small bills wrecks the lines of your suit. –That’s sweet, Mulveny said. –I need a good remedy for hemorrhoids. You got any business, or has the heat zonked you? –Billy Durham said you’d take care of me. He looked downright impressed, –Oh. And where is ole Billy? I looked at him for a long minute. –That’s the second dumbest question you’ll ever ask. –Who the hell are you? –Now that’s the dumbest, I said, and turned like I was going. Then I looked back. –He said you owed him for a set of tires. But I can see you don’t want to pay. Mulveny went white. –Jesus Christ . . . all right. For Christ’s sake, come in back. . . I had me a passport after a little while, and a hundred hundred dollar bills which Mulveny had urged on me instead of 500 twenties or a thousand tens. I called Marjorie and asked her to pack a bag. Lots of underwear. I went by a men’s store and got me an all-weather coat and some gloves. My secretary, eyes the size of moon pies, got me space on a flight to London out of New York. I took to watching behind me, looking to see if anybody in a dark pin-stripe and a white tie, with sunshades, just happened to be going my way. No, not yet. Maybe Mulveny was, as they say, insulated. I guessed Billy had something on most of the people in that neck of the woods. It was a tight community and if you wanted to get things done, you gave a little and got a little. Looked like the kind of tires Mulveny had bought ran around the same price as the ones on a B-52. Marjorie was, you might say, stoic. –It’s another woman, she said calmly. –Male menopause. I’ve been expecting it. Are you coming back? –That’s the dumbest question you ever asked, I told her. –It’s business. –Funny business. Then she saw the money. –You’ve cashed the savings certificates. –Marjorie, I’m leaving five thousand here. Put it in the savings. I’ll be back in a few days.
I was at the airport then, still looking for the white ties, but if they were there, I missed them. It was a nice flight. First class, need I say? When I got to the main terminal, I looked around. Not that I expected to see Billy. I didn’t know much about all this mob business, but I doubted that Casavetes’ reach stopped at the Orleans Parish line. –Mr. Leroux, somebody said at my elbow. It was a man in a black suit and cap. He looked like a driver for a small-town funeral parlor. He took my bag and the next thing you know I’m riding across town in a Rolls-Royce. The chauffeur handed me a packet. –This is your ticket to Brighton. The train leaves in forty minutes, sir. Very nice tea service if you’re parched. There was something else in the envelope. Money. What looked like money. A thick sheaf of it. –Mr. Durham felt that by now you might be having . . . misgivings. –How much? –Five thousand pounds sterling. –You know, I think he must have gone to printing this stuff. –By no means, sir. He simply has an . . . ample supply of it. –What happens at Brighton? –You’ll be collected. Nothing to worry about. Sure enough, It was an hour’s ride. I drank tea and read the Telegraph. Mostly Peregrine Worstham was low-rating the government. Outside, once we passed beyond the tired staggering red-brick suburbs of London, it was very nice. Soft pastel sunlight on small country roads. The land rolled, and here and there we passed a small village where the railway station was closed. Small cars and enormous trucks. Lots of flowers. We stopped once. –Hayward’s Heath, the conductor called. –Hayward’s Heath, and for Lewis. Sounded as if they’d been calling the same stop for two hundred years. Lord, maybe they had. –Mr. Leroux, I heard again. Was this it? No, it was a kind of pretty girl in a leather jacket. –This is where we get off, she said hurriedly. –This may be where you get off, I said. Provocateur, I thought. No white tie, but then . . . –Billy said you could pretend I’m Linda Lou Fontenot, she said in a crisp British accent. –All right, so you tapped his phone call to me. –Really, Mr. Leroux, she said, eyebrows up. –It’s not quite that complicated. Just yet. By the way, it is true that you made a little nest-egg writing cheat sheets for Corporate Tax? On cigarette paper? –Shit no, and he knows goddamned well I didn’t. Where are we going? I said, as I picked up my bag and pushed behind her to the platform. We walked to an Austin Mini-Minor. –A little place between Newhaven and Brighton. It’s only half an hour’s drive. But we should be able to tell if we’re clean. We drove out of the town and down a twisted country road bordered by hedges and clumps of small cottages here and there. Overhead, the sky and clouds explained where Josiah Wedgewood got his inspiration. –I’m Wendy, the girl said to me. I studied her some for the first time. Under the leather jacket, she seemed to be wearing a lumberjack shirt. She had on jodhpurs and some kind of riding boots. Her hair was long, a dark blond with streaks of gray in it. I couldn’t see her eyes behind the sun glasses, but altogether she was mighty attractive. I got the feeling, though, that there was an element of play in all this business for her. There were little frown lines at the corner of her eyes, her lips were compressed, and she kept both hands on the wheel of the Austin. As if we were going eighty miles an hour. After a few miles, Wendy pulled over in front of a pub. It had a large sign out front with a blue and white painting of a sailing vessel on it. Inside, it was snug as a bar in Beverly Hills. Made to look like the inside of a man-of-war or some such. Windows were portholes, and there was a binnacle and rope hanging from the walls which were beautifully finished to look like a boat’s insides. The public bar seemed patterned after the fo’c’sle, but the saloon was a nice duplication of the captain’s cabin, with the back bar looking like a bunk. It was all plastic of course. One of the franchise pubs owned by Watney’s, as I remember, and called “The Ship of the Line.” The publican even wore an officer’s cap and tended to salty expressions. I drank a pint of bitter and enjoyed it. Wendy kept watching the few passing cars. I could see past the partition into the public bar where there was another publican. That one wore a black eyepatch, and I felt glum for England until I noticed there was a good deal of scar-tissue around the patch, and decided it was the real thing. Hooray for England. We sat for a good while before Wendy decided to talk. –Did you have a good trip? That question sounds silly now that nobody uses ocean cruisers any more. An airplane trip, first-class, is always all right. If you get there at all. But we talked about the trip, until Wendy stopped her compulsive talking and stared out a porthole at some soft gauzy rain that was beginning to fall. The publican with the eye-patch had come to the saloon side and was drawing beer. He talked over his shoulder to somebody in the public bar. He had a foreign accent, but I couldn’t tell what kind. I can hardly tell what part of New Orleans an accent comes from. –Come on, Wendy said. –Let’s go. –Maybe we could wait for the rain to stop, I suggested. –No. Now. I got my all-weather coat out of my bag, climbed into it, and we were off again. After a few miles, we topped a hill and there was the water. What they used to call the English sea. We came down through a sad dirty little town called Newhaven, past petrol stations, fish and chip shops, tobacconists’, chemists’, and a greasy-looking stationer’s shop. Then we drove for awhile along the coast, driving in and out of the rain, shafts of pale sunlight breaking through the clouds, turning the road to gold in front of us. We began hitting service stations, short order dumps and a whole area that looked like the Florida Gulf Coast–a ruin of cheap housing on tiny lots and run-down shoddy businesses. –Peacehaven, Wendy said. –Instant ugly. Ever seen anything like it? –Yes, I said. –The outskirts of almost every city in America. Veteran’s Highway in New Orleans. –God, she said, and turned a quick right. We drove up a grassy hillside on something more like a path than a road. There was one short section of concrete and then dirt path again. It was misty as we rose, and then we turned again, topped a rise and paused. There was a sudden falling off behind the hill. In the cup below, formed by the hill we were on and two others to the sides of us, you could see a low church tower, one sprawling manor house, a village square, and a huddle of cottages beneath the green of large trees. To the far side, the land was cultivated and ran toward a distant river in long geometrical rows. –Telscombe Village, she said. –Isn’t it lovely? –It is, I said. And it was. Somewhere in American minds, behind the apple pie and flags and old mom grinning like a fool, behind the big white frame house with the Victorian rick-rack and the kids in knickers riding past on their bicycles licking vanilla ice cream cones, behind the old steam locomotive puffing and the cute red brick town depot, and the courthouse with a steeple almost identical to the one on the Protestant church, somewhere back there is Telscombe Village. Maybe it was in Germany or Italy or France or even down in Catalonia, but that tiny village is there, and it is somehow toward it that we tend. Those of us who do not go, like lawyers, still farther back to Babel, the image of the great city as training camp for the enemies of God. When I was in college, I used to think about dichotomies a good bit. Yes-no, man-woman, time-eternity. But by my senior year, I got to seeing there was nothing in it, and turned my mind to limits. Speculation has to be within a framework, or it goes on forever, just free association. Even a poet has to set out limits for himself or nothing ever gets written, does it? I remember when I came upon tax law and read the code, I thought of Hemingway. You need a code, but one is about as good as another. We drove down into the village and parked in a cobblestoned courtyard by the manor house. Well, Billy, has it come to this? I looked up, and the Union Jack was flying from a tower of the manor house. Yes, I expect it’s come to this. A butler let us in. He took my coat and my attaché case. I looked around, wondered who Billy had got to decorate the place. –Ain’t the jet age fine, I heard from up the long spiral staircase. At the top was this fellow with a maroon jacket on and electric-blue slacks. He had on a beige shirt and a soft gold foulard or whatever they call those scarves you wear instead of a tie. He was tanned with hair the color of old silver. Looked like a movie actor or an important politician. –Well, Billy, I said, –it is a great convenience. If you’re in a hurry. He came down and put his arm around my shoulder. We went into a over-sized parlor, then on out to a terrace that looked over the village and the surrounding farms. It was discreetly covered by an arbor full of old English ivy. Somebody already had drinks set out for us. Pimms Cup No. 1, I learned. Billy said something to Wendy, and she went off. He sat down and pulled on his drink. –Yes, it’s a fine age, but there’s always problems, huh? –In your case, I would say so. –How do you see my case, he asked, a kind of smart-aleck tone to his voice. –A hard fight on the disbarment problem, I said. –Which is probably the least of it I expect. Then there’s Casavetes and his ten thousand associated flunkies. I don’t know how much of the common opinion to believe on that, but I expect he could reach you if he wanted to. I don’t know if those fellows run a straight profit-loss sheet or go in for vengeance. But even revenge has got to be expensed–if you’re smart. –Right, Billy said. –Albert, you always were smart. What else? –Well, I don’t fit into any of this other stuff, so I figure you’ve been skimming a little over the years, owe Uncle a bundle, and don’t much want to live out your life in one of those countries where extradition don’t reach. I mean, you never bought this place with what you had left after taxes. –Un-American to own an English village, huh? –Something like the Constitutional sanction against titles and patents of nobility. Taxes would be a problem, as well. –We’re all supposed to be the same, right? –Not exactly, but in the same league, anyhow. –What can I do? –Pay up, I expect. –That’s what I figured. Before they file against me? –They’re still going to audit, Billy. Every piece of paper down to your laundry lists. –They can’t find it, Albert. Ninety percent was cash in various countries, various currencies. –The Service moves pretty well in . . . other places. –No. listen. Even if Casavetes wants my ass more than life, he still can’t let anybody talk. It’s not just his game. It’s everybody’s. You wouldn’t believe the witnesses they’d need. They’d blow themselves all to hell. Listen . . . He talked for about fifteen minutes, gesturing, pouring us drinks, walking around the terrace, mentioning names I knew, banks I had never heard of. I kept studying him, because if it was the same strong rasping voice I remembered, the man didn’t look like Billy Durham. He looked better and worse. No longer pale and meaty. But not so vigorous, either. Things had smoothed him down, worked a piece of jack pine into what would pass for mahogany–at least veneer. When he was done, I shrugged. –It looks to me like you’ve got most of it covered. If your part comes undone, everybody up and down stream will be in for heat, too. –Yeah, he said, and you’ve got to remember that I’m covered all along the line. At worst, a conspiracy charge. You know what that’s worth. –Not too much, I said. –Again, that drags in a lot of people. The conspiracy has to be . . . –An entity. They’ve got to show a purpose, a plan, and acts toward it. I was . . . careful.
–I believe you were. So why do you want to pay? –I want to get straight with them. –That’s admirable, I said.–But I just have got to believe it’s more than a crisis of conscience. He sat down. –Albert, I’ve got the hood’s version of Interpol looking down my throat. If I can make a deal with them–and I don’t know that I can–I don’t need Sammy taking their place. I want to live . . . somewhere. In peace. –Billy. I asked him. –how did it come apart? –It never was together, Albert. They never let you have it together. If you had it together you could just walk away. Sooner or later, everybody but the psychos and the old-time believers would walk away. A man only wants so much . . . –Well. Billy, you always did seem hungry. –I was. I was. But . . . you run out of appetite. –I’m sorry to hear that. I kind of thought another one sprang up quick as you had one satisfied. –No. Billy said excitedly. –No. That ain’t so. Listen, you . . . wouldn’t believe. Albert, I’ve got cars I never drive, suits I never wear. I’ve got 200 pair of shoes. There’s a cottage in Ireland with three servants to tend it, and I’ve never been there. Women whose rent I pay and I never go see them. One in Paris and another one in Athens. God knows what’s lingering back in New Orleans. Jesus, rags and tatters of appetite strewn all over the globe. You understand? –Well, I hear what you’re saying . . . –Shit, Billy said, shaking his head. –Look, what would you like? I mean really, anything. Not a million pounds in cash. I could give you that and still have a bundle, but just money is the worst thing of all. –How’s that, Billy? –It takes off your edge. Why do anything? All they can give you is more of what you’ve already got a bank full of. And the other part is, you sweat it. No edge to do anything, but, Christ, what if you lose it? Then what are you? Broke, with no edge. You say, okay. If having it took away the edge, losing it will make you sharp again. But you know it won’t, because all you’d be sharp for is what you’ve already had, and it’s not that good. It’s only . . . not bad like when you’re broke. Money is shit. –I’ve heard that. It always amazes me how many of our clients come in and tell me it’s just shit, and then cry like babies when the Service wipes some of it away. Billy closed his eyes. –It confuses you. It puts you in a bind; it’s like dope. Do you see? –Oh, I see, It’s just hard not to reckon that you can control it. –Aha, you think it’s me–us–people with money, don’t you? –Well truthfully, I guess I do. He slumped down in his chair and drank another glass of Pimms. He looked good, but he looked old. As if his own particular pact with the devil had been to swap youth for good looks. Would you rather be young and ugly, or old and fine looking? It is quite a gambit because I expect the devil gets them coming and going. Whichever one you are, you’re bound to want to be the other. –It never was the money to start with, Billy finally said. He sounded sullen, as if he’d been tricked right along the line. –It was . . . looming. You know what I mean? –No, I can’t say I do. –Looming. Standing over everything and everybody. You remember that night in the stacks? When I caught you with . . . –It’s been called to my memory of late, I said. –Your ass was grass, huh? –It was . . . compromising. –The old class standing goes up if old Albert goes down. –I never thought of that. –Well, you were the only one around who didn’t. People were mad at me for not . . –I didn’t know I had any enemies. –You didn’t. You didn’t. You don’t see? It was that everybody wants to . . . loom. To be God. They want to get higher and higher. Number one. At least number two. Or the upper third. Something. Be some shitty kind of deity. To give and withhold. To bind and loose. –Hell, I said, –it sounds like a bunch of sick people . . . but it does explain a lot of . . . –I never told about that night. –I appreciated it. – . . . because I wasn’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill god. They never understood that. That’s why they all failed. They were too simple. Gods think long. –That’s usually said of them. Billy kept talking. I think by then he was explaining it all to himself. –I wanted to be a complicated god. Raise dead men–bring them back from the death-house when nobody else could. I wanted to heal the sick with a tort recovery big enough to make them glad that leg was gone or that eye put out. –Listen, he went on, –you pray to God to alter the operation of nature don’t you? Don’t let my baby die. Don’t let my man get tired of me. Don’t let the job fall through. All right, I was the god of law. You come to me with pleadings. I grant indulgence. Prison cells open, juries see what you want them to see. Fantastic crimes are made possible. Your enemies can’t take a breath without the cops down on them. Injunctions dissolve legislation. New venues, a change of judges. The mayor isn’t so obdurate. Customs and the Border Patrol go stone-blind. Have you got a handle yet? –Remarkable, I said. –If you had told me all this twenty years ago, I’d have talked with your folks about having you put away. Not a thing in the world personal about it, Billy, but I believe you’ve trotted on over the hill. Billy looked at me like I’d failed him. I guess I really shouldn’t have said what I did. Candor with clients is rarely rewarded. They will have their little games. –Albert, you haven’t got any imagination. Honestly, the reason you’re so damned good at taxes is, you can’t imagine it any other way than the Service says it. –Well, Billy, I’d have a lot of clients corresponding from Atlanta or Eglan Air Force Base if I got facts and fantasy mixed up. –You see the world as an accounting. I see it as a feast. –From what you’ve been saying, it looks like the main course has gone kind of flat. –That’s true, he said glumly. –I give you that. I used to live to eat. Now . . . –What exactly, do you want me to do? Billy shrugged. It was almost nine-thirty, and I suddenly noticed that it was still daylight. I wondered if my watch could be wrong. I remembered setting it when we were about to land. Wendy came out in a nice cocktail dress. Her hair was combed, and her sunglasses gone. She had very nice legs and a fine smile. Her eyes were large, and her expression seemed to hint at more humor than I had noticed earlier. I thought she made a fine hostess. She had a tray of martinis. As a rule, I don’t drink a lot, but I never had any trouble with gin, so I looked at the martinis happily. A night in never-never land watching the cloud-cuckoos play seemed a pleasant prospect. I thought with some humor that perhaps I could cheer Billy up, reconcile him to his money. Of course, I saw his problem. Better than he thought I did. It was locked in the wisdom of the Code. A lot of people had had their lives and marriages and sanity saved by the Service, I suspected. Surely it had saved the country by fixing limits. Only so rich and no richer. No Oriental potentates–at least not many. Billy’s mental health had suffered in proportion to his evading proper taxation. He didn’t know that, but it was so. He didn’t know it, but he was groping for it. I respected Billy. If his brain left something to be desired, he had good intuitions.
–Everyone wants to be God, Billy said doggedly while Wendy poured martinis. –Well, I said, –if that’s so, how come you want to de-deify? Billy drank his martini in one gulp, blinked at me. –Shit, he said. –You ought to have been a priest. –Well, I am, in a way. I’ve got Canon law, and once a year, on the Ides of April, everybody does the ceremonial kicking-in. Got a heresy court, too. Keeps the doctrine pure. –Lord, and you think I’m crazy! –Billy, crazy is as crazy does. Now if I had sent for you on account of some criminal defalcation, then I’d be the nut. Nothing’s absolute. Billy sipped on his second martini and thought awhile. –You’re wrong. I don’t blame you for being wrong, because you’ve got to have thirsted for godhood to know it, but you’re wrong. The absolute vices . . . –I beg your pardon? –Article 2526 of the Louisiana Code. Don’t you remember? –All I seem to remember from that code is article 2315 . . . –Nothing to 2315. No, you get to the core of things in 2526. “The absolute vices of horses and mules are short wind, glanders, and founder.” I just looked at him. It was a rehibitory article somewhere in sales. If you bought a mule with short wind, you could get your money back. Sure enough, in the eyes of the law, an absolute vice. –It never got around to us, Albert. What are the absolute vices of people? The martini was excellent and I smiled at Wendy, –Lack of an esthetic sense must be one, I said. Wendy smiled back at me. –Not understanding things, she said softly. –Surely that, I answered. –Most certainly that. –Listen, Billy was saying. –You don’t know what those people were into. Right there in New Orleans. Dope. Prostitution. They had meetings to decide whether somebody should live or die. I’ve written it all down. I sat in, listening, never saying anything. I had to know what they were up to, in case . . . But I never interfered, gave advice . . . –Piss-poor god, I said, still smiling at Wendy. Her hair looked darker now. –God sees the truth, but waits. Is that it? –Being god is a pain in the ass. You see things that make you want to puke. It makes god dirty just . . . to know. Wendy’s lips parted, and I believe she flicked her tongue at me. I poured myself another martini and leaned back. It was cool on the terrace now, and the long English twilight had begun. But I was warm inside. I felt like a nice cozy pub inside, or a church full of candles on a frosty morning. Things were all right, weren’t they? You need churches and pubs. Maybe pubs and churches. –Billy I got to throw it back at you. Failure of imagination. You ought to have known God had his bad days. –Omnipotence . . . –Ah, free will. Those gangsters went about their chosen business with you sitting there not intervening. Did their thing with nothing to disabuse them. You and the real God watching, knowing, mute. Billy stood up, knocking over his expensive crystal glass. –There isn’t any God, he spat out. Wendy didn’t want him to see her giggle. I didn’t care much. When it’s all on balance, and with two fine martinis fueling, a man ought to speak whatever truth he has in hand. If he doesn’t, he’s going to lose it, and that surely must be bad. –You mean you’re not Him. –There isn’t any. If there had been, sometime, in one of Casavetes’ meetings . . . Listen, I could hardly keep quiet. I heard them planning to hit those dumb kids. Then I went in to prove he didn’t do it. –You got a lot of self-restraint and chutzpah, I said. –Once you got into all that, what were you going to do? –Walk out. Like I did. Fuck it. Walk out. It seemed to me that it’s a sorry god that creates and then has second-guesses on his creation. Forethought is in order. What will the little bastards do if I give them their head? Ummm. That bad? Well, all right, because I can make some great good come from all that nasty messing around. I got all the years there are to turn things to good, and eternity after that. I took a million years to put a tail on a rat, and roaches have been around ten million years and I put ’em on hold because I haven’t decided what’s next for them. All right about mankind. So be it. But Billy couldn’t see it that way. His ego kept riding up over his brain. If he didn’t get it done, it wouldn’t get done. Now there’s an absolute vice if I ever heard of one. If you want to be God, you have to think like god. –I don’t see it’s very god-like to go stomping out on your own creation. Wendy laughed out loud, and touched my hand before she went to get Billy a fresh glass. –I saw it was evil . . . the flood . . . Wendy came back with the glass, and, still being sober, I thought it good to get back to practicalities. I asked Billy what else he had in mind to do. –What does the Service pay for . . . information?
I saw Wendy’s eyes widen. She frowned just a little. Well, it’s hard to calculate the inner workings of a geisha, isn’t it? Sometimes I think it’s just nourishment and admiration they need. But then, maybe not. Humanity has more flavors than Howard Johnson’s, and you had ought to set aside a reserve fund of . . . whatever you might need. –As a rule, five percent, though I expect it’s negotiable. –On what basis? –Whether it’s worth the effort, and whether they think they could sleuth it out on their own. Anyhow, Billy, I don’t see that five percent is worth getting in any deeper than you are. You know at some point, a man could get painful enough for the Board of Directors of General Motors to vote a hit, couldn’t he? Billy was fairly drunk, but his head worked pretty well even then. –Sure. I’m glad you see that. But I think it’s already about there. –You mean the Casavetes thing? –Uh-huh. They wouldn’t want lawyers getting religion at odd times. –Or losing religion. At odd times. –Oh, yeah. I see what you mean. No, they wouldn’t . . . like that. You see, they’re tougher than we are on precedent. Very tough. They believe in . . . jurisprudence constante . . . –The very basis of orderly law in an ordered society, I said. –Randomness isn’t . . . a good thing, is it? –They don’t think so. They don’t give a shit for . . . creativity. Whatever is . . . – . . . is right. Yes, I see that. I believe they must be Platonic in a way. –So they’ll go for me on the basis of what’s already happened, you see? That means the only hope, the only real way out is . . . –Aha, yes. I believe it all makes sense. You want to wipe them out. –Absolutely. Fire sale. Everything must go . . . –Like the flood . . . –Noah goes, too. This time it’s a house cleaning. Fumigation . . . Break the bricks, pulverize the plumbing . . . –So that’s really why you want to get straight on that old money with the Service, even though it’s untraceable. You want to drop the whole bundle, everything: criminal, tax evasion, immigration . . . scrape the barrel clean, so to speak? –If there’s gonna be a Noah, it’s got to be me . . . – . . . clean on the old taxes, and five percent of whatever the Service recovers. –Ten, if you can swing it. Of which you get two. If it’s only five, you get one. I was watching Wendy. She seemed absorbed in the talk. I thought I would rather have saved this part of the conversation for when she was fixing up, or whatever she did when she was away from us. Too late. In for a penny, in for a pound. –What kind of numbers are we talking about, Billy? –I’m not sure. My figures . . . what the hell, I wasn’t their accountant. I was supposed to be getting a half-percent on everything, but you know that wasn’t so. Christ, I don’t think there was an honest sheet anywhere. Everybody took his dash . . . you know? I was probably getting a tenth of a percent . . . enough to look strong and keep me looking. I figure we’re talking about 240 million last year. –Sorry? –Two-forty mils. Last year. The year before . . . –How about the last three? –Seven hundred and sixty . . . –Million? –Million. Florida to Texas and north to Ohio. It’s a good territory. –Merciful God, Billy . . . ten percent is . . . –There’s more stashed. I’ve got bank numbers, a couple of box keys. –And two percent . . . –You’d come out with over ten million. Before taxes . . . –Excuse me, Wendy said. –Supper must be ready. –Everything has to happen fast. Arrests, indictments. It’s got to be . . . – . . . utter chaos. I see that. And you’ll testify? –No way out, is there? Last act of an abdicating God. Cleansing the temple. It’s all right. They’ll only need the Marines. Say do they tax you on the reward? –I don’t think so. I’ll have to check. To tell you the truth, I never had any call . . . –It doesn’t matter. That’s how we’ve got to go. How soon can you set it up? I drank my third martini. I believe I was thinking of a great big Alice, on her knees, looking through that tiny door into the garden. Now, right now, was when I either told Billy Durham that whatever game he was playing was out of my league, or hunkered on down, bit the mush-room, and headed for the garden. I could go along, say no, or stall. What do you bet? I stalled. –Billy, I never saw myself as a James Bond hero, I said, –with big wooly Sicilians and maybe the Service sniffing down my trail. I’m not cut out of that cloth. Billy sighed and poured one more. I have to say he did have an amazing metabolism. –Albert, neither am I. I’m not proud. I’ll say it to you, because we go way back. I’m scared shitless. If I could let go and walk off with my fare home, I would. I swear to God I would. But I can’t. I just can’t say, well hell it was all a dream and you ought to be back there in Metairie, Louisiana searching titles and looking somber at a $20,000 title closing. God almighty, I’m forty-three. Too old for a new go, too damned young for Social Security. I’m as good as disbarred, and I never bothered to make any friends. Albert, I got to hold on. –Billy, I see how you feel. Life is more than mere existence. –Here, Billy said. –This ought to help you decide. He handed me an envelope. Inside were two checks. Cashier’s checks. Made to bearer. One was for a million seven hundred and fifty thousand. The other was for two hundred thousand. –The big one makes me slick with Sam. The other one is a down payment for you. Earnest of goods to come, evidence of things unseen. I studied them. In dollars. Drawn on a Zurich bank. Meaning there was a hell of a lot more than that in the account, or they wouldn’t have issued the checks in dollars. There was, as they say, francs enough to cover fluctuation. Lord. –Albert, you’re the ball game, Billy said. He was a little maudlin but then, considering his position, I thought he was doing very well. –Billy, I need to think. This isn’t just a case or a controversy. –You’re right. It’s a debacle. –I wish you had dropped by before you decided to dump on old Casavetes. Billy’s eyes got big. –I never decided, he said. –No, it come on me, don’t you see? –A visitation, you say? –I saw the evil, the lies . . . I could smell the stench. Listen, you want a taste of hell? –Hell isn’t just evil, I said. –It’s . . . disorder. Billy looked at me helplessly. –Go on. Take a walk. Ponder or whatever you do. As I got my coat, Wendy turned up. Very bright-eyed. –Going somewhere? –Just a walk, I said. –To clear my head. She frowned. –Supper’s ready. –I’ll be along in ten or fifteen minutes. Youall go ahead. –I’ll come with you, she said firmly. –No. I need to think. –Think? –Whether I want to work on this big mess. –But, I thought you and Billy . . . You’re not . . . in it at all? –Not till today. –Oh, she said. –Oh. I walked out and up past the old Norman church. The village cottages looked as they did in the eighteenth century, I expect. It was dark now, and from the cottages, mellow light streamed out into the narrow roadway. It was quiet and cool, and I could feel the gin’s fire draining away. I walked to the edge of the village where a pair of council houses sat squat and graceless in the dark. But there were roses growing along the low stone wall out in front, and the narrow yards were full of yellow flowers. Inside I saw a young girl carrying food into the supper table. She held the pan high, cloth wrapped around her hands, and she was smiling. I almost bumped into the red post-box in the gathering darkness. I looked at it. On top it had, cast in iron, the letters VR–Victoria Regina. My goodness, I thought. Then I thought a couple of other things and pulled out the envelope Billy had given me. I licked and sealed it, and wrote a few hurried lines on the face of it. And dropped it into the postbox. I felt better then, and tried to figure out why. Well, because I was committed. I had passed that envelope on, and in a few hours an honest English postman would be trotting across the Sussex downs with two million dollars in his bag. Well, I thought, Albert, you’ve done a peculiar thing, and God knows where it will end. And I believe you did it just to up-stage Billy Durham, and I didn’t even know you had resentments and things like that lurking about in the hinterlands of your subconscious. Shit-a-mercy, a man can’t even count on himself. When I got back to the manor house, I had to let myself in. Butler must be setting out supper, I thought. I found my way to the dining room. It was dark, lit with candles. Billy was sitting at one end of the table, and my place was set at the opposite end. Wendy’s place was between us. She sat there, looking at me nervously. I sat down and looked at Billy. The fool was grinning. His eyes looked moist and distant in the candle light, and I could see his teeth. –Well, I said to him, –I guess the devil rides outside, old buddy. I haven’t got short wind, glanders or founder, but it’s a deal, anyhow. I picked up my wine and lifted it, but Billy just sat there grinning. Then somebody stepped up out of the shadows and it wasn’t the butler. –The deal is off, Meester Leroux, he said. Then I placed him. It was that one-eyed fellow from the pub. He seemed to be folding up a long thin kerchief. Then Billy fell off his chair. I looked at Wendy. She seemed pretty tight, but not surprised. I drank my wine and watched a couple of other men come out of the darkness. Well, it all got galvanized when you hit that post-box, didn’t it, I thought. Goddamn, what velocity. –Well, I said, with amazing demeanor, considering the crack my ass was in. –It looks like Billy passed the baton along just in time. A couple of men were bundling Billy up and carrying him out of the room in what looked like a rug. I poured some more wine, and asked Wendy if she’d like a touch. She just stared at me. Then she turned to old one-eye who was starting down the table toward me, –He’s got something going, she said quietly. –Don’t get excited, Charley. I just drank my wine and fooled with my salad. The butler stood just outside the candles’ glow. –Do you have any blue cheese dressing? I asked him. –Are you crazy? he said. His accent was holding up, so I figured he was just an auxiliary hired hand. –Tell you what, I said to Wendy. –You get on that old transatlantic box and ask Mr. Casavetes if he’s ready for the rap on seven hundred mil of tax evasion. Tell him I said, murder is one thing, but fudging on your taxes is serious. Tell him to ask Al Capone about it . . . –You’ve got nothing, Charley said, still edging down the table. –We got Durham’s keys, a list of the account numbers . . . We’ve got the whole thing cleaned up. –Umm, I said, sampling the salad and looking at Wendy. She was wearing a low-cut gown with sequins on it. The cleavage was just fine. –What you’re got is duplicates of what Billy sent to me. What’s sitting in a box in the International City Bank in New Orleans. With instructions for my partners, and a thirty page resume on Mr. Casavetes and company for the U.S. Attorney. No more mistrials, Charley. Hell, no more mob. When the dust settles, all the vice in New Orleans will be run by competitors. Charley looked at Wendy. She studied me. –I don’t have to phone, she said. –I do deals for daddy. –I knew you were too stacked to be English, I said. Wendy smiled in spite of herself. –I suppose you’ve got some proof. –No, I said quickly. This was where it made, or I joined poor old Billy, wrapped in a Turkestan rug, standard wrapping for a dead god. –No, I reckoned Billy had his end of things in hand a little better than he did. I’ve got my fanny covered with Internal Revenue, but . . . I figured on dealing with youall, how should I say, more regularly. –Which is to say? Wendy asked. She was looking at her nails. This is a girl any daddy could be proud of. –I had in mind to sell you Billy. Bargain rate of a half a million. Flat final deal. I think extortion is a pain in the ass. –You don’t have Billy to sell any more. You’re talking extortion now–only you can’t show any goods. I was with Billy all the time, Mr. Leroux. He phoned you, but he never mailed anything. Girl had a head like a steel trap. Made me want to propose criminal conversation to her. Not so, I said. –You must have let him go down to Brighton just once. –No, she smiled. –Not once. He liked . . . having me with him. –Well, the envelope was posted in Brighton. –You’re good, Albert, really good. But it’s just words, honey. –Aw Wendy, it’s not. Anyhow, would dad want to take the chance? –Looks like he’ll have to, Albert. I just can’t see dusting Billy off and then risking you. ’Cause I think you’re just trying to survive on the anti-freeze you’ve got in place of blood. I frowned and Charley blinked his good eye and started unraveling his scarf. –Say, I said, –do you happen to know how much old Billy had in his accounts here and there? –To the penny, Wendy said. –We’re going to pick it up tomorrow . . . after we . . . see to you. –No, I said. –I’m afraid you’re not . . . –Oh? – . . . unless you’ve already taken into account the million nine hundred and fifty Billy sent me with the bundle of truths on your daddy and his outfit. Wendy studied me for a long minute. –You say Billy sent you two million before he phoned? –I don’t know if he altogether trusted you, Wendy. A lawyer is a funny kind of a fellow . . . –What bank? –Zurich Central, as I recall. The check was in dollars, not francs. –Theresa, for Christ’s sake, Charley said, spinning his scarf as if he were a turban-maker. –Shut up, Charley. We’ve got plenty of rugs, you know. Charley shut up and Wendy-Theresa looked at me. It was one of those soul-stares they practice in the Service. They’re supposed to send vibrations of the strength and majesty of the Treasury Department right through you to seek out the crevices, the defects, the hidden flaws. I had grown proof against them from familiarity, and because I’d never had any vices tucked away inside before. –Kurt, she said to the butler at last, –Get a plane to Zurich. Be there in the morning. Give them this number, and withdraw everything. You can do Durham’s signature? The butler nodded. –Then phone, she said, looking at me. –Let me know the balance. Now you might think I was celebrating a little soon, but it’s not that way. I knew it was snatched. Because Wendy-Theresa wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. She wasn’t dead sure old Billy had trusted her all that much, and she wasn’t sure he hadn’t gotten a packet of stuff into the mail somehow. The way she figured, if a couple of million was missing from that Swiss account, it just might mean all the rest was true. She couldn’t slice it any finer than that, and I had to admit I didn’t blame her a whole lot. I went to sleep handcuffed to a lovely old Tudor bedstead, but I slept all right. I thought, Leroux, you could have been doing it all these years, you natural-born high-roller, you. The last thing I thought about, or, hell, it must have been a dream, was being down there in the law library stacks with Linda Lou Fontenot, only she was Theresa Casavetes in this version, and when I heard a smothered sound and rolled over, there was Billy Durham, eyes shining down, tongue out in eternal derision at me, swinging back and forth in the mellow light at the end of a long scarf. I slept late the next morning. It must have been noon when Theresa came in. She was smiling wryly. –Okay, Albert. So you cleaned out Zurich Central. They won’t move a dime till those checks come in. Where are they? –I told you, I said. She was wearing a nightgown, and I reckoned old Billy hadn’t done too badly for the hedonist’s farewell to all this. –All sewed up, she said, sitting down on the side of the bed. –With your partners and the U.S. Attorney wondering what the hell’s going on, huh? –Baby, I said softly, –a tax lawyer is a specialist in narrow places, tight spots. That’s how . . . we live. –Umm, Theresa said. I took the Austin and moseyed on down to Lewes, the town up the road where village mail went. Old Charley was back there a ways, but it didn’t matter. Because when I got my envelope back from the postmaster after a mild hassle about emergencies, feared footpads, and a proof of my writing compared to the envelope’s front, I registered and insured it, and sent it right along to my cashier at the International City Bank in New Orleans. Before I got home, it would be right where I had claimed it was, and half a lie would be made good. Now you can’t live free of evil in this world, but you can try to keep things in order. So far as I can see, for people–as opposed to mules–the only absolute vice is disorder. Everything else is, I reckon, relative. The flight home was nice. No trouble with the passport. In New Orleans, they’d probably stamp a Confederate bond and welcome you home. I walked out of immigration and looked around. There was Marjorie just smiling like I’d been gone a year. I was glad to see her. I just dote on continuity. Change is fine, but it ought not look like change, should it? Well, there was a lot old Marjorie would have to get used to. Order takes a lot of energy, doesn’t it? Just behind her stood five fellows in dark suits with sunshades on. One of them was a sawed-off little fellow. Not much at looming, but you couldn’t help recognizing him. I kissed Marjorie and noticed she had a nice bouquet of flowers. No mystery where they’d come from. I kept old Marg under one arm while I pushed my hand out to the little fellow. He looked at me, then he took my hand in both of his and smiled. He really looked glad to see me back home. –Hi, Emmanuel, I said. –Billy said for me to look after things. Then I turned to Marjorie. –Honey, this is Mr. Casavetes, a client of ours. Hey, youall want some lunch? I got this waiter at Antoine’s . . . –Albert, it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it just isn’t like you . . . I mean . . . – . . . Manfred, into every life . . . –I know. Some prat must fall. Haw . . . – . . . comes the realization that the only constant is change. –Tell that to property lawyers . . . When we’d touched all the bases, I was cut loose with all the world to mess around in. Manfred didn’t ask me about Casavetes and I didn’t say anything. But you can bet he had heard. What with me meeting The Reputed Mob Figure at Moisant Airport, and the fact that you can’t fire a gun in the woods of St. Charles Parish and not hit a lawyer, somebody had seen us glad-handing and going off in a black limo and wining and dining at Antoine’s. In a few days I reckoned to be The Reputed Mob Lawyer, and Manfred knew that, too. I expect he was pulled between the firm’s good name and the mob’s big money, and didn’t know whether he wanted me to stay on or not. So I made it easy for him. I don’t want you to get the notion that I thought I had it made. Not so. Mrs. LeRoux didn’t raise any idiots. It had been close in the case of my elder brothers who were still out every day snagging shrimp out in the Gulf off Cameron, but all of us could think a little. No, I not only didn’t have it made, I was as they say under the gun, the gun was cocked, and the first knuckle on the forefinger of Fate was turning white. You can spook a man like Casavetes for awhile, but he’s not going to stay spooked forever. If I was to have to bet my Snowbird trench-coat on it, I would have reckoned nothing was missing from the Barker Benson vault. Because what the folks breaking in had been looking for wasn’t there. Because it didn’t exist. That was all right. It would hold for awhile. What had to be thought about was where I had to take this show next in order to stay ahead of Fate. Well, if I lost the struggle, it wasn’t going to be because I was destitute. I thought I ought to drop by the bank and decide what to do with my two million dollars. That was real, and, yes indeed, I judged it was surely mine. I mean, Billy didn’t have to square up with the Service. The first twist of the scarf cancelled all debts. All I had left to remind me of my dear old friend was two million in cashier’s checks made out to bearer. And I was the bearer. Melanie Mahoney at the bank found the sum diverting, but not demolishing. After all, International City Bank isn’t some backwoods trading post stuck off in DeRidder or somewhere. –Big case, Albert . . .? –Looks that way, huh, Melanie? –Whee, I guess. . .Want it in your checking account? –God forbid, sister . . . –On that kind of money, we can negotiate a certificate of deposit that’ll rub its back on the prime rate . . . –I appreciate that. But I think a safe deposit box will do for now . . . –Do you know how much interest you’re going to be losing a day . . .? I gave her a wicked grin, unpracticed though it was. –Honey, I never lose interest . . . it’s only lack of opportunity . . . Melanie’s eyes got as big as pie-plates, and then she smiled. There had never been that kind of commerce between us before. If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, maybe he can learn them on his own. –You devil, Melanie smirked. –And all these years . . . When that was done, I reckoned I’d better check in with my new employers. I had been seeing a green Thunderbird downtown at Barker Benson and then at the Bank. Just a couple of good old boys in dark suits and hats down over their eyes reading the Times-Picayune and paying no attention whatever to me. They stood out like butchered hogs at a fashion-show, but if Theresa and the family was as smart as I reckoned they were, there were a couple dozen other watchers sprinkled here and there that I wasn’t about to spot. I had it in mind that all kinds of specialized work was going on right now–had been going on since England. Manfred had mentioned that whoever got into the vault knew his p’s and q’s, because they hadn’t even scratched the carbon-steel door. I’ll bet they didn’t. Not when they’d paid off some junior associate just to take a quick look inside. For all I knew, Melanie had been reached, and the local police, and whoever else they might need. I thought I could trust Marjorie, but there was only one entity in the whole wide world I knew I could trust. –Benjamin, I said, –I have a long strange twisted awful story . . . and I only am escaped to tell you . . . |
