Even the Wicked

14

By the time we got out of there TJ was hungry again, and I realized I hadn’t had anything but coffee since breakfast. We found a pizza place with tables and I got us a couple of Sicilian slices.

“I was at this one place,” he said, “they had pizza with fruit on it. You ever hear of that?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Never tried it, though?”

“It never sounded like a good idea to me.”

“Me either,” he said. “Had pineapple on it, an’ somethin’ else, but I disremember what. Wasn’t peaches, though. Was that straight what you was sayin’ before? Peach pits really got cyanide in them?”

“Traces of it.”

“How many of ’em you have to eat before you kill yourself?”

“You don’t have to eat any of them before you kill yourself. You just put a gun in your mouth and—”

“You know what I mean, Dean. You couldn’t poison somebody with peach pits ‘cause he’d take one bite an’ make a face an’ spit it out. But could somebody lookin’ to commit suicide choke down enough of them to do the job?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Of course if we had a computer I’m sure you could find out in no time.”

“You right, you know. All you gotta do is post the question on the Internet and some fool E-mail you the answer. How we gonna find out if Johnson bought the cyanide?”

“We’ll wait.”

“For what?”

“For Joe Durkin to make a phone call.”

“Which he just said he ain’t about to do.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Said it like he meant it, too.”

I nodded. “But it’ll stick in his mind,” I said. “And tomorrow or the next day he’ll pick up the phone.”

“An’ if he don’t?”

“I’m not sure it matters. I know what happened. I’d need to fit a couple more things together in order to prove it, but I don’t even know if I want to do that.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m not sure I see the point.”

“Biggest story all year,” he said. “Man sells newspapers even when he don’t do nothin’.”

“Where is he now that we need him?”

“Whole city’s holdin’ its breath, wants to know what he’s gonna do next. Say he’s retired, but maybe he bidin’ his time. Everybody waitin’ on his next move, wonderin’ what’s the next name on his list.”

“But we know better.”

“When you know the truth,” he said, “don’t you have to tell somebody? Isn’t that what detectin’ is, findin’ out the truth an’ tellin’ somebody?”

“Not always. Sometimes it’s finding out the truth and keeping it to yourself.”

He thought about it. “Be a real big story,” he said.

“I suppose so.”

“Story of the year, what they’d be callin’ it.”

“Every month there’s another story of the year,” I said, “and every year there’s a story of the decade and a trial of the century. One thing we’ll never have to worry about is a shortage of hype. But you’re right, it would be a big story.”

“Get your name in all the papers.”

“And my face in front of a lot of TV cameras, if I wanted. Or even if I didn’t. That’s almost reason enough right there to keep the story quiet.”

“On account of you shy.”

“I’d just as soon stay out of the spotlight. I don’t mind having my name in the paper once in a while. It draws clients, and while I don’t necessarily want more business it’s nice to be able to pick and choose. But this wouldn’t be a little publicity. This would be a circus, and no, I wouldn’t want to be the trained seal in the center ring.”

“So Will’s secret be safe,” he mused, “just because you don’t want to go on ‘Geraldo.’”

“I could duck most of the publicity. I could feed it to Joe and let him whisper it into the right ears. He’d find a way to make sure other people got the credit. That’s probably what I’ll do, if I do anything.”

“But you might not even do that much.”

“I might not.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a sleeping dog,” I said, “and maybe the decent thing is to let him lie.”

“How you gonna decide?”

“By talking to people.”

“Like we doin’ now?”

“Exactly like we’re doing now,” I said. “This is part of the process.”

“Glad I helpin’.”

“I’ll go home and talk to Elaine,” I said, “and later on I’ll talk about it at a meeting. I won’t be specific, and nobody will know what I’m talking about, but it’ll help me clarify my own thoughts on the subject. And then there’s somebody else I think I’ll talk it over with.”

“Who’s that?”

“An attorney I know.”

He nodded. “Seems like don’t nobody do nothin’ without they first got to talk it over with a lawyer.”

Elaine and I had dinner at Paris Green, on Ninth Avenue, and our conversation stayed on a single topic from the portobello mushroom appetizer clear through to the cappuccino. I walked her back to the Parc Vendôme and continued on up Ninth to St. Paul’s. I got there ten minutes late, and settled into my chair just as the speaker reached that point in the story where he took his first drink. I’d missed the history of his dysfunctional family, but I could probably get along without hearing it.

During the break I helped myself to coffee and chatted with a couple of people, and when the meeting resumed I got my hand up and talked about having to make a decision. I was wonderfully vague, and no one could have had a clue what I was getting at, but that’s not atypical of AA shares. I talked about what was on my mind, and then a TV set designer talked about whether or not he was going home to Greenville for Thanksgiving, and then a woman talked about being on a date with a man who was drinking nonalcoholic beer, and how the whole thing had done a number on her head.

After we’d folded the chairs, I walked with some friends as far as the Flame, but turned down an invitation to join them for coffee, pleading a previous engagement. I headed over to Columbus Circle and rode the IRT local downtown to Christopher Street. By 10:30 I was standing on a stoop on Commerce Street, using a door knocker shaped like a lion’s head.

Commerce Street is two blocks long and off the beaten path, and it can be hard to find. I’d put in enough time at the Sixth Precinct so that I still knew my way around the Village, and I’d had occasion to get to this particular block several times in the past couple of years. Once Elaine and I had caught a play at the Cherry Lane Theater, just across the street. My other visits, like this one, were to Ray Gruliow’s town house.

I didn’t have to linger long on his stoop. He drew the door open and motioned me inside, his face bright with the smile that is his most winning feature. It was a smile that said the world was a great cosmic joke, and you and he were the only two people who were in on it.

“Matt,” he said, and clapped me on the shoulder. “There’s fresh coffee. Interested?”

“Why not?”

The coffee was strong and rich and dark, worlds removed from the bitter sludge I’d sipped out of a Styrofoam cup in the basement of St. Paul’s. I said as much and he beamed. “When I go to St. Luke’s,” he said, “I take my own coffee in a thermos jar. My sponsor says it’s my way of distancing myself from the group. I say it’s more a matter of distancing myself from a gastritis attack. What’s your opinion?”

“I agree with both of you.”

“Ever the diplomat. Now. What brings you here beside the lure of my most excellent coffee?”

“The last time we spoke,” I said, “you defended Adrian Whitfield against a charge of suicide. Do you remember?”

“Vividly. And shortly thereafter Will was good enough to send off a letter that validated my contention by claiming credit.”

I took another sip of the coffee. It was really something special.

I said, “Adrian killed himself. He wrote the letter. He wrote all those letters, he killed all those people. He was Will.”