William Lashner - Bitter Truth

“Don’t get your hopes up, pally,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “because I’m not buying nothing.”

“That’s good, Mr. Karpas, because I’m not selling anything. I just have a few questions.”

“You want my answers? Here. The country’s going to hell in a hand basket. They’re sticking it to us seniors, cutting our benefits, raising our premiums, just because we’re too old to kick their butts. You want to know who I’m for? I’m for Perot.”

“Perot?”

“That’s right. You got a problem with that?”

“Why Perot?”

“Because he’s rich.”

“Don’t you think he’s a little crazy?”

“Sure, but who cares, he’s rich.”

“You don’t mind that he bailed last election?”

“He’s rich.”

“Don’t you think his solutions are overly simplistic?”

“Rich.”

“Don’t you think he’s a little too funny-looking with those ears and all?”

“Rich, rich, rich, rich, rich.”

“I get the idea, Mr. Karpas, but I didn’t call to ask about politics.”

“No?”

“No.”

Pause.

“Well then what the hell do you want?”

“I’m looking for a Dr. Wesley Karpas. Is he by chance a relative?”

“What do you want with him for?” said Angelo Karpas.

“I just have a few questions.”

“Well, if you got questions you’re better off asking me.”

“Why is that, Mr. Karpas?”

“Because the son-of-a-bitch is dead. Dead, dead, dead. He was my brother. He died five or six years ago.”

“Did he have a son or a daughter by any chance? Someone I could talk to?”

“There’s a son, big-time lawyer somewheres downtown.”

“Karpas?”

“Nah, Wes changed his name a while ago when he started rubbing in better circles. He wanted a name with a little more class. He wanted to swim with society, so he changed it to the name of a fish.”

“A fish?”

“Yeah, Carp, with a ‘C.’ I always got a laugh out of that, trying to move up in class by calling yourself after some bottom-feeding scavenger.”

“Seems appropriate, don’t you think?”

“You got that, pally.”

“Tell me something, Mr. Karpas. Anyone ever actually call you and ask you for your political opinion?”

“Never. But they got to be calling someone, all those polls. Might as well be me.”

“Might as well. Thanks for your help.”

“Hey, you want to know what I watch on television, too?”

“Sure, Mr. Karpas. What do you watch on television?”

“Nothing. It all sucks.”

Angelo Karpas was wrong about one thing, his long-lost nephew wasn’t some big-time lawyer downtown. Oh he was downtown all right, with an office smack in Center City, but he wasn’t big time. I could tell by the office, situated atop a clothing store on Chestnut, with diamond sellers and insurance agents and a gypsy fortune-teller for neighbors, by the secretary with the high hair, by the quiet in the grubby waiting room while I sat and paged through a six-month-old Newsweek . Let’s just say the phone wasn’t ringing off the hook in the law offices of Peter Carp.

“He’ll be with yous in a minute,” said the secretary, flashing the quickest smile I had ever seen, more twitch than anything else, before going back to her nails.

Thanks, doll.

It was the dust, maybe, that got me to ruminating. I remembered when my office was dusty, when the cleaning ladies knew not to care, when the quiet of my phones was loud enough to leave me shaking my head with despair at the future. There was a stretch of time in my life when I wasn’t making any money as a lawyer and it had been a bad stretch. Now, with the steady stream of mob clients coming through my door and dropping on my desk their cash retainers, dirty bills bound with rubber bands, my coffers were filled, my offices were dust free, my phones rang with regularity. But what about the future? Raffaello, my patron, had given up and was selling out. I was designated to set up the meeting with Dante that would, in effect, cut me out of the loop. No more of those fat cash retainers. It was what I wanted, actually, out. The game was getting too damn dangerous for a lightweight like myself but, still, I couldn’t help wondering what would it be like when the game was over. Would it be back to the old life, back to dusty offices and quiet phones and a meek desperation? Or would the grand possibilities that had opened for me in the case of the Reddman demise save me from my past? A million here, a million there, pretty soon I was dust free for life. Maybe I should stop chasing the ghost of dead doctors and get back to work.

I was thinking just that thought when Carp came out of his office to greet me. He was short and square, with a puffy face and small eyes behind his Buddy Holly glasses. He wore gray pants and a camel’s hair blazer. Here’s a tip you can take to the bank: never hire a lawyer in a camel’s hair blazer; all it means is he isn’t billing enough to afford a new suit.

“Mr. Carl?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yes,” I said, popping out of my chair and reaching for his hand. “Thank you for seeing me. Call me Victor.”

“Come this way,” he said and I did.

“If you’ll excuse my office,” said Peter Carp after he was situated in the swivel chair behind his fake wood Formica desk. He indicated the mess that had swallowed his blotter, the files strewn on the floor. “It’s been a killer month.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, and I did, more than he could realize. This was not the desk of a lawyer over-loaded with briefs and motions and trial preparations. There was something too disorderly about its disorder, too offhand in its messiness. My desk was much like this in my less prosperous times, cleared only when I actually had work that needed the space to spread itself out. One brief could take over the whole of a desktop, but the books and copied cases and documents would be in a rough order. Only when I had nothing pressing would my desktop carry the heaping uneven pile of junk paper currently carried by Peter Carp’s. I had put on my sharpest suit for this meeting with what Angelo Karpas had described as a big-time lawyer and now I regretted that decision. Down and out was the way to play it with Peter Carp.

He took his glasses off, wiped them with his tie. Turning his bare and beady eyes to me, he said, “Now, what is it about my father’s medical practice that you’re so interested in, Vic?”

“In a case I am working on I found a receipt for a medical procedure he performed in 1966. I’d like to know what it was all about.”

I reached into my briefcase and pulled out the invoice and handed it to him. He put his glasses back on and examined it.

“Mrs. Christian Shaw. I don’t recognize the name.”

“She recently died,” I said. “I represent her granddaughter.”

While continuing his examination of the receipt he said, “Medical malpractice?”

“Hardly. The old lady was almost a hundred when she died and her body just expired. I expect your father performed noble service in allowing her to live as long as she did.”

“He was quite a good surgeon,” said Carp. “Never once sued in his entire career.” He looked nervously at me and then back at the invoice.

“Did your father sell his practice?” I asked.

“Nope. He worked until the very end, which is exactly how he wanted it.”

“What became of his records, do you know?”

“Tell me what kind of case you’re representing the granddaughter in.”

“Nothing too extravagant.”

“ Lot of money at stake?”

“I wish.”

“Trust and estates?”

“Something like that.”

“Because that is one of my specialties. Trust and estates.”