William Lashner - Bitter Truth

“Hey, Victor,” said Jimmy, “you know Anton Schmidt here?”

I shook my head.

“Next to you, Victor, he’s the smartest guy I know.”

“That’s not saying much for you,” I said.

“No, really. Anton’s the real deal, got a mind for numbers like a computer. And don’t ever bet him in chess, he’s a prodigy or something. He’s got a ranking. I didn’t know they gave rankings, but he’s got one.”

“How high?” I asked.

“Nineteen fifty as of my last tournament,” he said through his twisted set of teeth.

“Impressive,” I said, and from the way he said it I guess it was, though I had no idea what it meant.

“He’s almost a master,” said Jimmy. “Imagine that, and he works for me.”

“Anything going?” asked Anton.

“Rocketman bet thirty units on Houston.”

“He would,” said Anton.

“Other than that, Victor put on the kibosh so I think it’s going to be quiet. You got that match to study for, go on home. I’ll see you tomorrow after the procedure.”

Anton looked at Jimmy like he wanted to say something, his eyes behind the glasses widened, then he looked away.

“It’s nothing,” said Jimmy. “Just a procedure is all. Get the hell out of here and study. In two days I’ll let you start me on that exercise program you been ramming me about.”

Anton smiled. “They’re waiting for you at Gold’s.”

“I’ll bet they are, those bastards. I’ll show them something. I can bench a horse.”

“You can eat a horse maybe,” I said, “but that’s about it.”

“Get out of here,” said Jim. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Anton nodded for a moment, looked at me and nodded, stared some more at Jim, and then left.

“He worries about me too much, but he’s a good kid,” said Jimmy. “Keeps everything in his head now so there won’t be no more ledgers should the cops come looking again.”

“You trust him with that much information?”

“Like a son.”

“Good,” I said, “Because I’d hate to have to cross-examine a chess master at your next criminal trial. All right then, so you went to Calvi to collect what Eddie Shaw owed you.”

“Met him at Tosca’s,” said Jimmy. “He was smoking a cigar and I almost gagged as I sat across from him. I have craps smell better than his cigars. I told him my problem and he said he’d apply some pressure. Strong-arm stuff, but nothing too radical. Raffaello doesn’t go for that. He sent some boys up, sent the message, talked to the family, talked to the staff, made sure everyone knew the situation. I heard they got a little rough. Next thing I know Shaw paid off. Half of what he owed, which is all I needed to get myself clear. Had to increase my payout to Raffaello, you know, a collection charge, but it was worth it, got me off the hook. And you want to know something, that crazy loser is betting again. Just last night he took the Lakers and seven for a thousand.”

“What happened?”

“Bulls blew them out by twenty-five.”

“And what about the sister?” I asked.

“What about who?”

“Shaw’s sister.”

Jimmy shrugged, a wholly unconcerned shrug, as loose as a 275-pound man lying on his back in a hospital before surgery can shrug. “What about her?”

“She died just before her brother started paying you back. Some in her family think she was murdered.”

“Who? By me? That’s a laugh.”

“Not so funny if it’s true.”

“Why would I care about the sister?”

“You don’t think Calvi might have hurt the sister as a warning for Eddie?”

“What, are you crazy? His boys broke Shaw’s arm in two places with the blunt end of an ax, threatening to use the blade side if he didn’t pay up. Now that’s a warning. Hey, we got to get tough sometimes, but we’re not animals. What do you think?”

What I thought was that he was telling me the truth, which was a relief because I liked Jimmy Dubinsky and I’d hate to think that someone I liked was a murderer. So Jimmy had gone to Calvi and Calvi had broken Eddie Shaw’s arm in two places and suddenly Eddie had found the money to pay back Jimmy. Where? That seemed to be the crucial question.

“All right, Jimmy,” I said. “Thanks for your help. This thing tomorrow, it’s not dangerous, is it?”

“A piece of cake,” he said. “Roto-Rooter, that’s the name and away go troubles down the drain. I’ll be here for three more days. You’ll visit again?”

“Sure.”

“You’ll bring me another little gift?”

“I thought you were Slim-Fasting.”

“You’re allowed one reasonable meal a day. It says it right there on the can.”

“Sure, I’ll bring a gift if you want,” I said.

“And next time, Victor, be a sport and buy them by the sack.”

My car was still at the meter, when I stepped outside the hospital, still with its tires, still with its radio, still with its battery firmly in place, all of which was a pleasant surprise. It was back in my office where the unpleasant surprise awaited.

“THEY JUST WENT IN,”said Ellie, her hands fluttering about her neck. “I tried to stop them.”

“That’s all right, Ellie. Where’s Beth?”

“At a settlement conference. I was the only one here.”

“You did fine,” I said. “I’ll take care of it now.” Ever since I began representing criminals I had made a practice of locking up my most sensitive files, but still I didn’t like visitors free to roam about my office alone, didn’t fancy utter strangers rifling the papers on my desk, the files in my drawers, eyeing which case opinions I was studying in preparation for my court appearances.

“I didn’t know if I should call the police,” said Ellie. “They said it was about business.”

“No, you did the right thing. I don’t want the police in my office either.”

“The little one’s creepy looking, like a troll.”

“It’s fine, Ellie,” I said, staring at the closed door, screwing up my courage to enter my own office. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

“An evil troll.”

I put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a falsely confident smile. “In that case, you better hold my calls.”

I took three steps forward and opened the door.

Two guys. One was tall, dark, and squinty, dressed all in black, with one of those faux-cool ponytails that tries to say, “Hey, I’m hip,” but which really only says, “Hey, I’m a geek trying oh so hard to be hip.” He was concentrating on my tall file cabinet with the vase of dead flowers still perched on top. The cabinet was brown with fake wood grain, fireproof, batterproof, burglarproof, made of heavy-gauge steel for the most security-minded file keepers, and the ponytailed guy was fiddling noisily with the lock. The other guy, short and bearded, with the nasty eyes of a psychiatrist, was sitting at my desk, reading a document he had found there. The sheer brazenness of their actions was comforting, in a way. The most serious dangers, I have learned painfully through my ransacked life, come disguised as gifts.

I cleared my throat like a schoolteacher in an unruly class. The two men stopped what they were doing, looked up at me, and then immediately went back to work.

“Finding anything of interest?” I asked.

“Not really, no,” said the little man. His voice was a natural falsetto. I guess if I was five foot three with a voice like that I’d grow a beard too. “Your desk is a mess. Is all your life this disorganized?”

“Cluttered desk, uncluttered mind.”

“Somehow I don’t think so.”

“We have a problem, Mr. Carl,” said the man in black, in a pretentious husky whisper that went all too well with that ponytail. He was still standing by the file cabinet but apparently had given up his attempt to pick the Chicago Lock Company lock and peek inside. His face was deeply lined and though I had first thought him to be somewhere in his twenties, on closer inspection I believed him to be somewhere in his forties, which made his cry-for-hip outfit all the more pathetic. “We think you can help.”