Steven Womack: Dead Folks' blues

“If he truly has a gambling problem, he’s going to need some help.”

“I’ll deal with that after this is over. For now, I just don’t want him to get hurt. Please help me get through this, Harry. Then we’ll work on getting Connie straightened out.”

“You’re going to protect him, right? You’re going to fix things for him. The twelve-steppers would call you the Enabler.”

She flared. “I ta hiring you in a professional capacity, Harry, but not as a therapist. That’s something else we can deal with when the time’s right. For now, do you want to help or not?”

“Rachel, I-”

“Of course, I’m going to pay your standard rate.” She reached into her purse again, this time drawing forth an expensive leather wallet with some kind of designer medallion on it. I didn’t recognize the brand; out of my league. She pulled out a fanfold of hundred dollar bills.

“Rachel, that’s not-”

“Don’t be silly. Are you going to tell me you can afford to work for free? What’s your rate?”

I’ll give her this much; she’d become a lot tougher since we used to date in college. I guess life with a doctor’ll do that to you.

“Two-fifty a day, plus expenses.”

She counted off a stack of green, leafy bills. “Here’s enough for a week, with an extra fifty thrown in to cover extras. We’ll settle up when you find out who these bastards are.”

“Rachel, are you sure you wouldn’t be better off going to the police?”

She leaned across the desk and dropped the money on my desk calendar. Then she stood up, a hardness in her face that I hadn’t seen before.

“I want this taken care of. Discreetly. And I want you to do it. Do we have a deal?”

I raised my head and eyed her, my lips tightening involuntarily, my mouth suddenly dry.

I never could say no to her.

Then there was the money. There’s always the money, and there never seems to be enough since I said goodbye to the paper. Having the chance to bank five days’ worth of fees was something that, from a strictly business sense, I couldn’t pass up.

Of course, if I had any business sense in the first place, I wouldn’t be caught in this squeeze. After Rachel left my office, I pocketed the $1,300.00 and walked down Seventh Avenue to the parking garage where I kept the Ford. I was a month behind on my contract and would’ve given the space up, but parking in downtown Nashville is about like parking in downtown Manhattan. Believe me, I’ve tried both.

I gave the attendant one of the hundreds, then waited while he brought me my receipt and change. Now I was not only current, I was a month ahead. And if I wasn’t careful, I was going to wind up paying more to park the Ford than I paid for the car itself.

I checked my watch as I pulled out into the line of cars moving, at four miles an hour, toward Broadway. I had just enough time to swing by the bank and deposit the other twelve hundred before my four o’clock racquetball game with Walter. Maybe I should have plunged immediately into Rachel’s case, but I needed a few hours to figure out a game plan. Her clock could start running tomorrow.

Walter Quinlan and I have known each other since we both went to the same boarding school over twenty years ago. We’re buddies in the way that men who’ve known each other a long time are buddies, but I can’t say that we’ve ever been really close. For one thing, Walter’s an attorney, and I was a newspaper reporter, two occupations not exactly designed to foster trust and intimacy between individuals.

But we play racquetball once a week and occasionally grab lunch together downtown when he’s not in court. Beyond that, we rarely see each other. Walter runs in different circles. While my circle of friends is gravitating more and more toward people who sit on their porches and drink beer in their boxer shorts, Walter’s runs toward the Belle Meade types who spend more in tennis club fees than most people pay in income taxes.

Walter’s friends drive BMWs and Jaguars. Mine tune up their Dodges in the front yard.

Walter was already in the court warming up when I opened the heavy wooden door and slipped in five minutes late. Walter’s one of those people who always look like they just had their hair cut. He wears workout clothes that cost as much as the last suit I bought, and he regularly beats the stew out of me with a $200.00 Ektelon racquet (an instrument I would personally like to drop in a trash compactor). The guy’s a holdover yuppie, up for partner this year at the law firm of Potter amp; Bell. He was divorced last year from some Belle Meade socialite with an IQ of 135 and nothing to do with it.

I pushed the door shut behind me. “Hey, guy, what’s happening?”

Walter fired one from the serve line. It hit the wall maybe an inch off the floor and came screaming out in a black streak. Walter’s killer serve had been the death of me more than once. I wondered why I kept playing with him. More than anything else in the world, Walter Quinlan hated to lose. On the rare occasions when I beat him, he did not take it well.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Traffic’s terrible. Couldn’t find a parking space.”

“If you’d pay for a space in the lot,” he said, bouncing another black ball off the floor, “you wouldn’t have that trouble.”

“I already pay for one parking space a month,” I said, my voice echoing off the cavernous walls of the racquetball court. “I can’t afford another.”

I leaned against the wall, hands out, racquet dangling from my right wrist, and did calf stretches. Walter walked over, rested his back against the wall, then slid down in a squat.

“I got turned down for partner last Friday,” he said quietly.

It took a moment for his words to penetrate. I pushed myself off the wall and sank, cross-legged, to the floor in front of him.

“Get the hell out of here,” I said, aghast.

Walter snickered. “That’s basically what they said.”

“What the-? Did they give you a reason?”

His eyes darted back and forth. They were darker, filled with more intensity than I’d ever seen before. There were even traces of purplish circles under his eye sockets, marring an otherwise too-perfect preppie face.

“They never give a reason. In fact, they didn’t actually tell me I wasn’t going to make the cut. It’s my year, though, and when the list came out, I wasn’t on it.

“It’s weird, man,” he continued after a moment. “It’s like nobody’ll discuss it. And there’s no appeal. Six years I spent working for these guys.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I can stay on as an associate another year or two. It’s not as if they actually lock you out of the office. I’ll need to get out as quickly as possible, though. Move on to something else.”

“Do you have any idea why they passed you over?” I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder or something, but guys don’t do that stuff.

He rubbed his hands on his forehead. “I’ve got the sneakiest little suspicion it’s related to my divorcing Madelyn. Her father’s in the Belle Meade Country Club with Sam Potter. They golf together.”

“But, man, I thought the divorce was her idea.”

“It was,” he sighed, “but only after she found out I was boinking one of her girlfriends. What was I supposed to do, though? Bitch hit on me. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything.”

Yeah , I thought, nothing but not keep it in your pants .

“Aw, jeez, buddy, I’m really sorry. I know how tough it is, man. Listen, we don’t have to be here. You can’t be in the mood for this today. Why don’t we go get a beer?”

He tapped his racquet on the hard wooden floor. “Actually, I’m kind of up for this. Want to go for it?”