Lawrence Block - Even the Wicked

“I’d like to have it,” she said. “It’s not worth anything, and it wouldn’t mean a thing to anybody but me.”

“It must have meant something to him,” I said. “He didn’t have a lot in the way of knickknacks, and he gave it a place of honor on top of the TV. I’m sure that’s why I happened to notice it. The super told me to put it in my pocket.”

“And did you?”

“No, dammit, I put it back where I found it. It’s funny, too, because I had the impulse to take it. I’ll go back and get it.”

“I hate to ask you to make a special trip.”

“I’m two blocks from his building,” I said. “It’s no trouble at all.”

The hard part was finding the super. He was fixing a leaky faucet on the seventh floor, and it took the doorman awhile to track him down. This time I didn’t linger long in Byron’s apartment. It seemed to me that the scent of AIDS was more palpable on my second visit. There is a particular musky odor that seems to be associated with the disease. Earlier I’d noticed it when I’d looked in his closet — clothing holds the smell — but this time the entire apartment was full of it. I took the little elephant and left.

Forty-eight hours later I’d made two more visits to the Horatio Street apartment building. I’d knocked on a lot of doors and talked to a great assortment of people. The police had already spoken to most if not all of them, but that didn’t make them unwilling to talk to me, even if they didn’t have much to tell me. Byron was a good neighbor, he mostly kept to himself, and as far as they knew he didn’t have an enemy in the world. I heard a host of different theories about the killing, most of which had already occurred to me.

Wednesday afternoon I met TJ and compared notes, and was not too surprised to learn that he wasn’t doing any better than I was. “Elaine wants me to work tomorrow,” he said, “but I told her I got to check with you first.”

“Go ahead and mind the shop for her.”

“What I thought. We gettin’ noplace on the street.”

I rode the Eighth Avenue bus uptown and got off when it got mired in traffic around Fortieth Street. I walked the rest of the way home, and I was across the street in my office when Ray Gruliow called.

“Why, you son of a gun,” he said. “I understand the self-styled Will of the People knows he’s licked now that you’re on the case.”

Ages ago, when I turned in my gold shield and moved out on my wife and sons, I took a room at the Hotel Northwestern on West Fifty-seventh Street just east of Ninth Avenue. I’ve come a long ways since then in certain respects, but geography is not one of them. The Pare Vendome, where Elaine and I have our apartment, is on the downtown side of Fifty-seventh, directly across from the hotel. I kept my room when we moved in together, telling myself I’d use it as an office. I can’t say it gets much use. It’s no place to meet clients, and the records I keep there would fit easily in a closet or cupboard across the street.

“Adrian Whitfield,” Ray Gruliow said. “I ran into him downtown earlier today. As a matter of fact I found myself at loose ends, so I sat down and watched him at work. He’s trying a case, as I’m sure you know.”

“I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of days,” I said. “How’s he holding up?”

“He doesn’t look so hot,” he said, “but it could be that he’s just plain exhausted. I can’t turn on my television set without seeing him. If they’re not sticking a mike in front of his face outside of the Criminal Courts Building, they’ve got him in a TV studio somewhere. He was on Larry King last night, doing a remote from their New York studio.”

“What did he talk about?”

“Moral aspects of the adversary system of criminal justice. To what lengths can a lawyer go, and to what extent do we hold him accountable? It was starting to get interesting, but then they took questions from listeners, and that always reduces everything to the lowest common denominator, which is generally pretty low.”

“And dreadfully common.”

“All the same, he was hell on wheels in court this morning. You know what Samuel Johnson said. ‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’”

“Great line.”

“Isn’t it? I’m surprised the capital punishment people haven’t dragged it out as evidence of the efficacy of their panacea for the world’s ills.”

“I hope you’re not getting ready to make a speech.”

“No, but I might haul out Dr. Johnson next time I do. Our boy Adrian seemed pretty well bodyguarded. Your doing, I understand.”

“Not really. I made a couple of strategic suggestions and gave him a number to call.”

“He says he’s wearing body armor.”

“He’s supposed to be,” I said, “and I wish he’d keep his mouth shut about it. If a shooter knows you’re wearing it, he’ll go for a head shot instead.”

“Well, Will’s not going to hear it from me. Of course, we don’t know who Will is, do we?”

“If we did,” I said, “he’d cease to be a problem.”

“For all you know,” he said, “I could be Will myself.”

“Hmmm. No, I don’t think so.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“His letters,” I said. “They’re too elegantly phrased.”

“You son of a bitch. He does have a way with words, though, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Almost makes a man want to get a letter from him. Here’s something I’m not proud of. You know my immediate reaction when I saw the open letter to Adrian?”

“You figured it should have been you.”

“Now how the hell did you know that? Or am I more transparent than I ever thought?”

“Well, what else would you be ashamed of?”

“I didn’t say I was ashamed. I said I wasn’t proud of it.”

“I stand corrected.”

“It’s true, though. You remember how many actors it takes to change a light bulb?”

“I heard it but I forget.”

“Five. One to climb the ladder and four to say ‘That should be me up there!’ Trial lawyers aren’t all that different. In this case, my friend, you could say I’ve been auditioning for the part my whole professional career. Who’s the most hated man in New York?”

“Walter O’Malley.”

“Walter O’Malley? Who the hell... oh, the cocksucker who moved the Dodgers out of Brooklyn. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“You’re an unforgiving son of a bitch, aren’t you? Forget Walter O’Malley. Who’s the most hated lawyer in New York?”

“If that’s another joke, the answer is they all are.”

“The answer, as you well know, is Raymond Gruliow.”

“Hard-Way Ray.”

“You said it. I’m the one with the most loathsome clients, the ones you love to hate. Wasn’t it Will Rogers who said he never met a man he didn’t like?”

“Whoever it was, I’d say he didn’t get out much.”

“And he never met my list of clients. Arab terrorists, black radicals, psychotic mass murderers. Warren Madison, who only shot half a dozen New York police officers. Who did Whitfield ever defend who can compare to Warren Madison?”

“Richie Vollmer,” I said. “For openers.”

“Warren Madison’s as bad as Richie Vollmer. You blame the system for Vollmer’s acquittal. For Warren, you have to blame the lawyer.”

“‘He said humbly.’”

“Forget humble. Humility’s no asset in this line of work. You know the Chinese curse, my friend? ‘May you be represented by a humble attorney.’ You think our friend Adrian’s going to be all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will’s taking his time. This is the longest he’s let it slide, isn’t it? Between the open letter and the payoff. Maybe it’s because Adrian’s better protected, harder to get to.”