Night of the Toads

Chapter Thirteen

Ricardo Vega didn’t like our reappearance. He met us at his door in a sweat suit under a cashmere topcoat. He wore Wellington boots, and looked ready to go out. The boots and slim sweat suit made him look like some dashing cavalier. An overaged cavalier, his face tired.

‘I’m due at rehearsal, Captain. I’ve got too many problems in my show to waste time.’

‘We won’t take long, Mr Vega,’ Gazzo said. He didn’t exactly push inside, or menace Vega, but we went in.

‘I’m sick of that one-armed pariah,’ Vega said, as much to assert himself against Gazzo as anything else. ‘Get him out.’

‘Mr Fortune is licensed to help us. He’s helping,’ Gazzo said. ‘We’ll wait if you want your lawyer.’

‘I want,’ Vega said, ‘and I have work to do.’

He vanished into an inner room. Gazzo sat in his coat. on an ornate Empire chair. Somewhere in the vast apartment Vega began to shout. He had been outfaced, he had to fight back against those he could dominate. George Lehman went away, and the distant shouting began again.

In the late sunlight the mammoth living room had a dusty look. With its fussy, overcrowded furniture, and walls of paintings, it was somehow closed in and untouched by open space. A room that lived only at night. A room for the people who moved through it. They are night people, those who live on the high echelons of the successful business of art. They exist indoors in rooms like this. A narrow life of written words, canvas colours, shaped stone, and the judgement of each other. Always indoors and the night, even when they were out in the daylight. They carry their world with them, hear the same analytical voices, in New York or Paris, Tokyo or Montego Bay.

Gazzo came alert an instant before Ricardo Vega returned to disturb my reverie. It was obvious that the apartment had a rear entrance-the lawyer was with Vega.

‘Okay, let’s get on with it,’ Vega said, impatient.

He still wore his sweat suit. Slim, but older in daylight. ‘Let me, Rey, will you?’ the lawyer said. ‘Is it the same matter, Captain?’

‘Same thing, ‘Gazzo said, and stood.

‘Is there a warrant involved now?’

‘Just some talk for now.’

‘I don’t like that, but what’s on your mind?’

Gazzo told them. What Boone Terrell had said, word for word, and nothing more. No judgements, no guesses. The lawyer bridled. Ricardo Vega shrugged.

‘I never heard of Boone Terrell,’ Vega said. ‘He’s lying.’

‘He didn’t say he knew you,’ Gazzo said. ‘Just told us what his wife told him. Her you did know.’

‘She never said that, how could she?’ Vega said. ‘If she did, she was raving or out to get me. Cause me trouble.’

‘She didn’t know she was going to die, Vega,’ Gazzo said.

I said, ‘Why would Terrell lie? Any ideas?’

‘No,’ Vega snapped, ‘and you keep out of it. You I don’t have to put up with. Captain, I don’t love authorities, but I want to co-operate. Only this is ridiculous. The man’s lying.’

The lawyer said, ‘Mr Vega doesn’t intend to be pushed around, Captain. We don’t threaten, but he has position, power, and standing. He’s an important man. Unless you have more to-’

Vega said dryly, ‘They know who I am, Charley.’

‘Let’s say she was lying,’ Gazzo said, unaffected. ‘Why?’

‘Who could know, Captain?’ Vega said. ‘For her husband, perhaps. Maybe she liked to drop my name, I get that all the time. A name to satisfy the husband. Maybe to get him to come after me for revenge?’

‘Did he?’ Gazzo asked.

‘If he did, I never noticed.’

Gazzo said, ‘I don’t figure him for revenge.’

‘I hope not. I’m too busy for any games.’

The lawyer said, ‘You appear to be working very hard on a small crime, Captain. A simple abortion.’

‘I want the abortionist, and maybe someone set it up, even took part,’ Gazzo said. ‘Then there’s the pills. She didn’t exactly die of the abortion. She took wrong pills in combination with sodium pentothal. Maybe someone knew they would kill her, knew that for her the combination was extra lethal.’

The lawyer was unable to believe his ears. ‘Murder? You suggest murder? No more, Rey! Get a warrant, Captain.’

‘No, wait,’ Vega said, waved, ‘Murder, Captain?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Gazzo said.

‘Rey!’ the lawyer cried.

‘Why, Captain?’ Vega said. ‘I mean, think! An abortion alone ends any threat to me, right?’ He leaned toward Gazzo, ticked off his points on his fingers. ‘Say I even paid her off. After the abortion no more threat, so why kill her?’

‘To get the payoff back,’ Gazzo said. ‘That forced contract, especially. Your work and name means a lot to you, right?’

‘A few bucks, and one bad contract? Please, Captain.’

‘I did some checking,’ Gazzo said. ‘You haven’t had a money success in years. You get paid good for acting, but your own company is shaky. I figure that’s what’s important to you-where you do it all: write, direct, act and spend your own money. The whole deal, and the critics haven’t been so nice to your shows, either. You’ve been losing some money, getting lumps from critics, and word says you’re having a harder time getting backers. That could make a man more touchy about bad publicity. You admitted she maybe could have hurt you. Maybe she had more against you than you let on. You might have been more scared than you look. This show you’re doing now, it’s a big stake, right? You’ve got a lot riding on it.’

Gazzo was a good cop, I’ve said it before. He works carefully and deep, looks under all the rocks. Ricardo Vega seemed to grow older before my eyes as Gazzo talked about him, and I felt a crawling sensation on my neck. Vega was worried, unsure. Sometimes great artists are on the way down when they look like they’re on top. There’s always a reputation lag. When I thought about it, Ricardo Vega’s big triumphs were years old now.

‘I’ll bet people underestimate you, Captain,’ Vega said.

‘Not so much anymore,’ Gazzo said mildly.

‘Maybe not,’ Vega agreed, his dark eyes steady. ‘You do your work well. All right, I’ve told you I didn’t kill anyone, and know nothing about Anne Terry. That’s all I can do.’

Gazzo nodded. ‘I guess so. Well, we’ll go work on it some more. Thanks for the time.’

I said, ‘You know a man named Emory Foster, Vega?’

‘No,’ he snapped, then his eyes flickered to me. ‘Emory Foster?’

‘Yeh,’ I said. ‘Heavy man, red-faced, maybe fifty or maybe younger. A free-lance writer of sorts. A friend of Anne Terry’s sister Sarah Wiggen.’

‘No,’ he said. He was looking at me, but I had a feeling he didn’t see me. ‘I don’t know him.’

He turned, and then seemed to look at his walls of paintings in the fading sunlight. Maybe Gazzo talking about his troubles had gotten to him. I heard Anne Terry’s bony voice. ‘He’ll never be sure enough to relax, Gunner.’ He looked at his paintings as if he saw them all melting away, the colours dripping.

‘Next time, Captain,’ the lawyer said, ‘bring a paper.’

Vega came from his trance. ‘Come when you want, Captain. I’ve got nothing to hide. Now, damn it, I’ve got work to do. Where the hell’s my coat?’

He strode out of the room calling for George Lehman. The lawyer chewed on his lip. Gazzo led me out, and rumbled low in his throat all the way down in the elevator. He was talking to himself, and I knew better than to interrupt. If he wanted to talk to me, he would. We were being driven downtown when he did.

‘Vega’s got the ego to think he can get away with anything he has to. Terrell needs a reason to lie. Maybe revenge, only I figure Terrell more for direct action. There’s something missing, Dan. I better go talk to Denniken.’

I wasn’t invited to talk to Lieutenant Denniken, which was just as well. I was starved. I hadn’t gotten to lunch after all. Gazzo let me out in Sheridan Square, and I called Marty again. She still wasn’t home-or wasn’t answering. If I hadn’t just left Ricardo Vega, I might have wondered. Instead, I was a little worried. I called the theatre. She wasn’t there either. They said she hadn’t been on call, she might have been there at some time, and she was on call for tonight.

I wasn’t really worried, Marty was a big girl, but I decided to have an early dinner at The Sevilla Restaurant. I like the paella at The Sevilla, and an oily-looking but bone-dry Spanish white wine they have, and the place is half a block from Marty’s pad. From the bar you can see her front door.

I kicked off my badly needed dinner with an Irish and soda at the bar. I didn’t see Marty, but before I was through that first drink I saw another familiar face. I told Mano behind the bar that I’d be right back.

Twilight was a clear, cool, dying pink over the spring city, and he was standing on the corner not looking at anyone. Just standing. He wore the same chino levis and black boots, but his shirt was black and Cossack now, and his jacket was faded denim. He was talking to himself-literally. His lips moved in his lean, boyish face.

‘Waiting for someone, McBride?’ I said.

He looked at me. ‘Yeh.’

Just ‘Yeh,’ and looked away. I didn’t seem to worry him. He stood lithe and easy, relaxed on the street corner as if his body was resting, his brain in repose. I wondered if he’d forgotten our rainy alley, but it wasn’t that. I just didn’t scare him. He wasn’t a man who worried about the possible. He looked vaguely bored.

‘It’s a cute name, Sean. Vega going to adopt you?’ I said.

‘You got to have the right name.’

‘You here for Vega?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You wouldn’t be looking for a contract and some money? What Vega gave to Anne Terry?’

He snickered. ‘That ain’t what he gave her.’

‘Watching someone? Me, maybe?’

He moved his head in circles as if his neck hurt. After the first moment he hadn’t looked at me again. He looked right, left, up, down; talked to me, but looked everywhere else. Marlon Brando. Yet not an act. McBride was himself, and Brando, at the same time. I was seeing life reborn through art. Brando, to communicate the essence of a type of uneducated, inarticulate American male, created his brilliant projection of their explosive, caged anguish through a series of external mannerisms. Those same males, instinctively recognizing themselves in Brando’s masterpiece, adopted the mannerisms. Brando had portrayed the McBrides of America, and now McBride played Brando.’

‘You like being an errand boy?’ I said. ‘A pimp?’

‘Go away, man.’

‘You’re rough in a dark alley from behind.’

He looked at me from under his brows-Brando again. His eyes were violet yet uncertain; that caged pacing inside again. Sure of his needs, but not sure of himself in having those needs. I realized that McBride could never really think straight enough to act in his own best interest for very long. A man who would see only the moment and the need, like a lion who sees meat.

‘Man, I got two arms, forty pounds, and maybe fifteen years on you. Go on away.’

‘Tell me what a famous movie star you’ll be,’ I said.

‘Man, you talk for a cripple.’

He was right. I was no match for him, yet I had to be the brave bull, the loud rooster. Someday the mindless roosters, all hormones and square jaws, will destroy the world. There’s no merit to challenging a stronger man on his terms, with his weapons. Losing with pride isn’t something to build your life on. Dying bravely in battle may be noble, but it’s not what you build a world on. No, I don’t feel good when I talk big. I know it’s only my missing arm that makes me do it.

‘There’s more than one kind of cripple,’ I said.

He went through his look-everywhere-except-at-me act. As if he didn’t know what he would do with me. I had the sudden realization that he didn’t know. Behind his uncertain eyes his brain was too busy-filled with dreams, hopes, and notions that remained random, uncontrolled. He literally didn’t know what he wanted to do with me: fight, ignore, sneer or talk. Then he decided.

He walked away. Without another word or glance. Neither afraid of me, nor hating me anymore. He had decided to walk away, and I no longer concerned him. The instant his back was turned to me, I ceased to exist for him.

I watched him until he turned the next corner. I wasn’t sure I envied Ricardo Vega his services.