All I Did Was Shoot My Man

15

Twill was sitting two desks away from my office door in the long two-sided aisle of sixteen desks. I’d obtained my suite quasi-legally when the previous building manager had a problem that only a guy like me could fix. It involved a fake bank account and re-forged documents. The new owners hired Aura Ullman to get me out, but instead we fell in love.

Aura and I had broken off our liaison; at first because Katrina came back to me after leaving for the Austrian/Argentine banker, Andre Zool, and then because Aura realized that one day I would probably die violently and she didn’t think that she could bear that weight.

Twill was working on a sketch with a yellow number two pencil. For years and years I had seen both my sons make little drawings. I never paid much attention. I guess it was because there was so much to worry about with each one, for different reasons, that there wasn’t much room for simple pride.

The drawing he was working on was a lovely three-point perspective of the hallway before him. It wasn’t angular or forced, a delicate rendition of flowing space — solid and yet suspended like mist.

“Hey, boy.”

“What’s up, Pops?” He had earbuds on, listening to my boring stakeout logs no doubt.

He turned off the tape machine and looked up from the drawing.

“I might have a case you could help me with, son.”

“What’s that?”

I explained about the wealthy family with the wayward son, leaving out Velvet and the slaughtered john.

After hearing me out Twill said, “Cool. Just let me go change my shirt.”

“I’ll meet you out at the front desk.”

Mardi was working on two computer screens and a scanner, reading in and then moving my various documents from one system to another.

“How’s it goin’, M?”

“Dimitri called when you were on the phone. He said that he and Tatyana want to invite you over for a housewarming dinner.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Do you want me to make you a doctor’s appointment?”

“What for?”

“Your fever.”

“I’ll live.”

She gave me a mild scowl that I managed to ignore.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“I want to get a water tank in here for drinking,” she said. “You know, I was reading this article on drinking water in America and—”

“Fine,” I said. “I read the same piece.”

Twill came out into the reception area then. He’d switched the black silk T-shirt for a pink cotton dress shirt buttoned up to the neck. I had to admit, it did make him look more professional — and less sinister.

“Where you guys going?”

“Pops might be lettin’ me work on a case,” Twill told Mardi, who was also his best friend.

“That’s great.”

“We’ll see,” I told them.

The Mycrofts lived in a rococo monstrosity so far over in the eighties that it overlooked the East River. There was a doorman outside the open double copper doors and a deskman visible across the wide green-and-white marble hall.

The doorman was tall and tan, probably mostly Caucasian, with broad shoulders and a sexual leer on his mobile lips.

“Yes?” he asked me.

“Leonid McGill for Shelby Mycroft.”

“And?” he asked, nodding once in Twill’s direction.

“My associate.”

“Are you expected?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

That question didn’t seem to need an answer, so I didn’t provide one.

The doorman moved his lips around some, waiting for, maybe even expecting, an answer to his non-question.

When it finally became clear that our conversation was over he said, “Wait here,” like a crew boss talking to his minions.

As he walked away I glanced at my son. He didn’t seem bothered. I didn’t expect he would be.

After some talking and electronic communications the doorman sauntered back across the wide floor. He waited a moment before addressing us.

“Mr. Mycroft is expecting you,” he said to me, “but no one else.”

“If you wish,” I said in a bland tone, “you can walk back over there and call him again. Tell him that there are two of us down here and either we’re both coming up or nothing.”

“What’s his name?”

“Fuck you.”

The lips froze at that moment and I regretted losing my temper in front of Twill. But sometimes I just get mad at those that take out their life failures on people shorter than them.

“I don’t have to let you in,” the doorman told me.

“Yeah, you do. You know it and I do too. So hop to it, whatever you’re gonna do, and let us be about our business.”

“You should have a little respect,” the doorman advised.

“I give what I get, brother.”

He waited a moment before going back to the deskman. They huddled a few moments, made another call, and then my temporary nemesis came back.

“Go down the hall and take the last set of elevators on your left,” he told me. “Floor sixteen.”

As I went by he added, “I’d like to meet you on the street one day.”

I stopped and turned toward him. This unexpected movement fostered uncertainty; he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.

“I look forward to that with great anticipation,” I told him.

There were ferns growing in large ceramic pots along the walls. And six huge tables down the center of the extra-wide walkway. These tables had massive jungle-like floral arrangements on them. Sunlight came into the hallway from a variety of sources, infusing the air with the quality of a natural setting.

When Twill and I got to the mahogany elevator door he pressed the up button.

“Sorry about the way I talked to him, Twill.”

“That’s all right, Pop. We all know you got a bad temper.”

“I try to keep it under control.”

“I know you do.”