William Lashner - Marked Man

“At least today. Yesterday it was a girl on a bike.”

“I guess you’re looking for something, too.”

“Guess so. And remember when that dental hygienist tore up my apartment?”

“Sure.”

“I haven’t fixed it up yet.”

“Victor?”

“It’s still trashed.”

“Victor.” She laughed darkly. “That’s pretty bad.”

“Yeah.”

“All it would take is one visit to IKEA.”

“But I hate IKEA, all that blond wood and Swedish cheer. My name’s not Sven, I’m not still in college, I don’t even know what a loganberry is. An IKEA apartment would be the death of me.”

“My God, Victor, you’re in worse shape than I am.”

I pressed my chest, felt the sting of the new tattoo still on my flesh. “And you don’t know the half of it. Always remember, Beth, however much trouble you’re in, I’m in more. Why don’t I go now and see what kind of money I can get for you?”

“Okay.”

I stood up and turned toward Eugene Franks, who was staring at us with hope on his face.

“How much are you looking for?” I said to her quietly.

“Whatever.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

I shook my head as I made my way over to Franks. He raised his eyebrows.

“No deal,” I said. “Sorry. She absolutely, positively could not be bought. She intends to stay in her apartment until the very last hour. It’s the principle of the thing, she said.”

“I hate principles,” said Franks. “They have no place in the practice of law.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “But that’s the kind of woman she is.”

“There’s nothing you can say?”

“I tried,” I said. “I tried everything. Let’s go in and stand in line, tell the judge we’re going to trial. We’re somewhere at the end of the list, so we should get called by midafternoon.”

He looked at his watch. “I can’t be here all day waiting for this stupid case. I have a meeting with the managing partner and a new client.”

“Stanford Quick, right? The guy who represents the Randolph Trust.”

“That’s his pro bono client. The rest are all corporate giants.”

“What’s his story?”

“Typical bastard. Doesn’t like to be kept waiting by mere associates.”

“Sorry, Eugene, but she’s adamant. If you want a continuance, I’d have no objection-”

“Do you have any idea how much we’ll lose every day construction is delayed? I have to handle this today.”

“Okay, then. I guess we have no choice but to take this to the judge.”

We stepped together toward the courtroom doors, swung them open. The noise and smell hit us all at once. Housing court that day was like the Emma Lazarus poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty come alive: the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse, homeless and tempest-tossed.

Franks sniffed and took one step back. “What about, Victor, if we come up with a figure that just out-and-out wows her?”

“Well, Eugene,” I said, shaking my head with a sad certainty, “I doubt that will do it, but we could always try.”

The candle and incense,the darkness and thick, plague-infested air, the piled pillows at the head of the bed, the racking cough, the specter of death crouching like a gargoyle on the thin, aged chest.

“You want cup coffee, Victor?”

“No thank you, Mrs. Kalakos.”

“I’ll shout down to Thalassa, she brew pot. Insipid what she brews, more like spit than coffee, what with her using the grounds over and over, but still you can have.”

“Really, I am fine.”

“Come close, then. Sit. We need talk.”

I came close, I sat. She reached her hand to my cheek. I tried not to flinch at the feel of her oily skin, the waft of her breath.

“You been on TV. My Charlie, he’s become a celebrity because of painting. Which is funny, since my Charlie, he couldn’t draw a dog.”

“Someone else went to the press about the painting.”

“Not you, Victor? You seem to enjoy it so. Then who?”

“I don’t know, but once it was out, I thought giving the interviews was the best thing for Charlie. But it might not have worked out that way.”

“What’s matter, Victor? You have problem?”

“Charlie does, yes,” I said. “I need you to get him in touch with me.”

“Of course. But tell me first, what is trouble?”

“I really need to talk to Charlie about it,” I said. “He’s the client.”

“But he’s my son, Victor. I know what he needs. It always was such, and is no different now. None of us ever change, and Charlie, he changes less. You tell me his problem, I tell you how to solve.”

“I’m not sure I can do that, ma’am.”

She made some sort of hacking sound, and then the coughing began, great heaping coughs that brought her body into spasm. In the middle of it all, she raised her right hand, let it hover in the air for a moment, and then slapped my ear, hard.

“Ow.”

Her coughing subsided as quickly as it began. “Don’t tell me ‘can’t,’” she said. “You have obligation.”

As I rubbed the side of my head, I said softly, “What obligation?”

“Whether you know or not, it wraps round your neck like snake and it is alive. So don’t say ‘can’t’ to me, Victor. You have good Greek face, but you not Greek enough down there to say ‘can’t’ to me.”

“What favor did you do for my father?”

“Why you ask me? Ask him. Or are you afraid of him, too?”

“Not afraid, exactly.”

She barked out a laugh, bitter and understanding all at once. “I wouldn’t want to have to call your father again. It upsets him so to hear from me.”

“I bet it does.”

“So now that this nonsense is finished with, tell me about my Charlie.”

“There are a couple things. A reporter wants to interview Charlie. I thought it might help prod the government.”

“No. What else?”

“This reporter seems sincere, and I’m not sure how it can hurt.”

“It is reporter. They can always hurt. And remember what I tell you about my son? He’s fool. You think anything he say can help, maybe you fool, too. What else you got?”

“It’s not going to be as easy as we thought getting him home.”

“Tell me.”

“First, it appears, even after fifteen years, Charlie is still in danger. I received a visit from Charlie’s old gang. The visitors roughed me up a little and then said worse would come Charlie’s way if he came home.”

“Okay, no problem. Lean close. This is what we do. We don’t tell Charlie nothing about this.”

“I can’t do that, Mrs. Kalakos.”

“You can and you will. Charlie is coward. He was afraid of bath, he was afraid of girls, he shakes in terror from his own shadow. It is why he ran so long ago. We tell him this, he disappear for good. You no tell him. Better we protect him when he comes.”

“They’re going to kill him if he comes home, Mrs. Kalakos.”

“Pooh, Victor. They just talking. Big talkers, all of them. They want to come, they come to me, right? I’m reason for my Charlie to come home. And when they come, I show them something.”

She sat up, reached over to a table by her bed, opened a drawer, pulled out an obscenely huge gun that glittered gaily in the candlelight.

“Gad, Mrs. Kalakos. That’s a cannon.”

“Let them come. I blow holes in them size of grapefruits. You hungry, Victor? You want grapefruit? I’ll call down to Thalassa to bring you grapefruit.”

“No thank you, ma’am, no grapefruit. Do you have a license for that?”

“I’m eighty-nine years old, what I need piece paper for?”

“You should get a license for the gun.”