Grant McCrea - Dead Money

We laughed. We ate. We joked.

The investigation could wait. Who was I fooling, anyway? I was no investigator. I was a dad. The little shit probably did it anyway.

My cell phone rang. It was Dorita.

Where the hell are you? she asked.

Home.

Still? Jesus. I should have known. I’m coming over.

I’m not sure…

See you in a few.

Damn.

Dorita’s coming over, I said to Kelly.

Okay, she said.

You’re sure? I asked.

Sure I’m sure, she said. Why not? She can have some soup.

I couldn’t read her.

By the time Dorita got there we were working on the sorbet. Chocolate walnut.

We’d kept some soup warmed on the stove.

Dorita didn’t look to be in a soup and sorbet mood.

I’ve got it, she said.

You’ve got it, I replied. Great. Have some soup.

You’re kidding. Didn’t you hear me? I said I’ve got it. I’ve got the last piece of the puzzle.

Okay, okay. What is it?

Here’s the scoop. It took me awhile, but I tracked her down.

The girlfriend?

Sarah.

Sarah. Right. And?

Quite a number.

I think you said that last time.

I may have. Anyway, it still applies. And I got something, darling. Something good.

You’ve outdone yourself.

More than I can say for your day’s work.

I can’t deny it. You win this round.

Just wait. I think I won the whole damn war.

I’ll gracefully concede.

You’d better. Or I’ll…

She looked at Kelly.

Okay, said Kelly. You can stop there. I’m going to Peter’s.

Sorry, I said.

Don’t worry about it, Dad, she said, heading for the door.

I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant.

All right, I said to Dorita. Can we get to the bloody point?

The point is, said Dorita, that it had nothing to do with poker.

Meaning?

Larry supposedly went to Jules’s place to collect on a poker debt. You remember that, don’t you, lunkhead?

I love you too. Yes, I remember it. Haven’t managed to verify that there even was a game, though.

That’s probably because there wasn’t one. Poker had nothing to do with it.

Nothing?

Nothing.

Now that is interesting. What did it have to do with?

Larry knew something.

Yes?

Sarah didn’t know what. But whatever it was, Larry thought it was going to make him rich.

A shakedown? Precisely.

Yet more interesting. What did he know, exactly?

You’re not listening. She didn’t know. He didn’t tell her. But it was something big. Something really big.

Well. I’m not sure that you’ve exactly busted the case wide open here, darling. I’m not even sure you’re right about the poker thing.

What do you mean?

So Larry had something on Jules. Why couldn’t it be something to do with poker? Some scam they pulled?

You really know how to keep your eye on the ball, don’t you.

Okay. Right. Doesn’t matter, does it. Whatever it was, it does throw a new light on things.

Whoa. Slow down. Let me catch up with you.

Oh, shut up. Have some sorbet.

She had some sorbet.

Okay, I said. Larry knew something. Who can tell us what Larry knew?

Jules, for sure.

He wouldn’t even tell me the truth about the poker game, the telephone calls. I don’t think. He’s either hiding something, or he’s built himself a very thick wall.

The twins?

Maybe. But we still don’t have anything concrete to connect them to Larry Silver.

Lisa?

Lisa. Yes. How could she not know?

It explains her protectiveness.

Well, it’s not clear that needs explanation. But yes. And, she’s definitely a weak link.

Maybe the only one we’ve got left.

Let’s go for it.

We’ve got to get to her away from Jules this time, though.

Yes.

I’ll take care of that.

I knew you would.

We agreed to meet at the White Stallion. Dorita would have Lisa with her. If she didn’t, we’d have to go to Plan B. Whatever that was.

I got there early. I drank only mineral water. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Just this once.

I amused myself by taking notes on the other patrons. Pretending they were suspects. Writing down my observations on index cards. Hell, maybe I’d write a book.

I was intrigued by a tall, thin guy, with a cowboy look. Pointy boots. Well-worn jeans. Deeply tanned face, lined with a road map of serious living. He was rolling his own cigarettes from a leather pouch.

A guy more out of place in New York City would be hard to find.

Then I noticed that he was talking to himself. Quietly. But angrily.

Ah, I corrected myself. He fits right in.

I was about to interrupt his conversation, to glean more details for my index card, when Dorita arrived. And there with her, looking small and lost, was Lisa.

Hey, I said to Dorita.

You know Lisa, she said.

Hi Lisa. Good to see you.

Lisa looked at me with pleading eyes.

Hi, she said softly.

I’ve filled Lisa in, said Dorita. She’s here to talk with us.

She gave Lisa a motherly smile.

Dorita was a woman of many guises.

Let that be a warning to you, I thought to myself.

We moved to an isolated table. Lisa had a gin and tonic. This was good.

Dorita chatted with Lisa. I listened. Dorita was going with the girl stuff. Stuff Lisa could relate to. Nipple piercing. That kind of stuff. They both seemed quite sophisticated in the area.

This gave me pause.

But hey, it was working. Lisa was warming up.

In fact, it was ridiculously easy. In Lisa’s world, somebody engaging and warm, somebody who spoke your language and also cared about what you had to say, was so rare that it came as a revelation. You embraced it, you followed it. Or you didn’t. And if you didn’t, the memory would haunt you forever. The opportunity lost. The warm forgiving world you’d been invited into once, just once, gone in a puff of arrogance born of insecurity, misplaced anger, stupidity.

So, if you cultivated that. If you nurtured the fear of missing that moment. You could make someone like Lisa do whatever you wanted.

Which was where the cults came from.

So we used that thing. The sad and ugly weakness of the lifelong victim.

Did the ends justify the means?

I left that for the philosophers. Well, the real philosophers. We needed some goddamn answers.

I watched with admiration as Dorita pulled Lisa into her orbit. They laughed. They commiserated. They nudged each other. They made jokes at my expense. I was sitting in as surrogate for the male.

And then Dorita sprung the trap.

And what about Veronica? she asked, out of the blue.

Lisa looked at me. At Dorita. She looked as scared, as helpless as a rabbit in the clutches of a hawk. I felt bad for her. But I also was elated. In her face was the proof. That we were on to something. That the damn thing might be solved. Right here. Right now.

I looked at Dorita with admiration. She ignored me.

Lisa, she said quietly. You’re not answering me.

Lisa looked at her with a new and sudden loathing. Her face went hard.

Fuck you, she said.

Veronica and Larry Silver, said Dorita. They’re connected. We know that, Lisa. Lisa, save yourself. It’s not right, what Jules’s done to you. Lisa, he’s taken over your life. He’s made you his accomplice. It’s not right. You have your own life to live.

But we’d lost her.

Fuck you, she spat again.

She grabbed her bag, her sad, incongruous canvas bag, a cartoon drawing on it. Lisa Simpson. She ran out of the bar.

I looked at Dorita.

We seem to have hit a nerve, I said.

Dorita nodded. She didn’t look happy.

I knew what she meant.