Past Due

Chapter 39

“THEY WANT TO build a mall here,” said Earl Dante as we sat side-by-side on a bench at Penn’s Landing overlooking the wide gray Delaware River. A stiff breeze blew in from the water, but Dante’s waxy gray hair didn’t budge. “And that of course is just what we need. More malls.”

“Isn’t this too public a place for a meeting?” I said.

“They have a photographer across from the restaurant where I eat. They have an unmarked sedan following my car. They are parked in front of my house, snapping photos of my wife. Public is all I have left.”

“Where’s the car now?”

“Wilmington. I took a Camry here. I cannot fully express the humiliation of being under constant surveillance, but that word comes close. Camry.”

“What color?”

“Does it matter?”

“Just curious.”

“Blue.”

“And the interior?”

“Gray.”

“Of course it is.” I nodded at Leo in his green jacket a few yards down, leaning on the railing, eyes surveying the deserted strip of cement behind us. “Anyone else know we’re here?”

“No. You called and said you had a question.”

“Teddy Big Tits.”

“Yes?”

“What, is he just fat or does he take some sort of injections? I mean there are porn stars who eye him with envy. We’re talking triple D at least. How is this possible?”

“That is your question?”

“Inquiring minds.”

“Theodore sucks the marrow from the bone of life.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he is fat.”

“What’s his racket?”

“He makes book, he lends money, he brokers deals. In this economy, we all must do what we can.”

“Does he pimp?”

“Not precisely.”

“Well, then, let’s be precise.”

“I told you to leave this be.”

“You told me to stay away from Manley’s company. I did. But I’m going to find out what happened to Joey.”

“Loyalty or money?”

“Does it matter?”

“Then it must be money. Theodore has arrangements with certain ladies. Some of their suitors might be short of funds. They steer those suitors to Teddy. Teddy provides the funds at interest to the suitors and the ladies kick back some of the generous gifts to Theodore. Everybody wins.”

“Except for Joey Parma.”

“She’s quite attractive in her way.”

“Oh, she’s a honey all right, that poor son of a bitch. What happens when someone can’t pay his tab to Teddy?”

“Theodore has his ways.”

“A slit throat?”

“More like a phone call to the wife. Or, in Joey’s case, the mother, which was for him a far scarier prospect.”

“And if the phone call doesn’t work?”

“Then he talks to us and we earn our share. But we didn’t earn it on Joey.”

“And no chance Teddy did it on his own?”

“It is a nice suit I’m wearing, is it not? Specially made for me by a gentleman who flies in twice a year from Hong Kong. You couldn’t tell just by looking at it how big the pockets are.”

“And Teddy Big Tits is in your pocket. Okay, then maybe he didn’t. So there is something you need to do. Before he was murdered, Joey had some sort of plan to pay off his debts. Teddy and sweet little Bev were in on it. I need you to find out for me what it was.”

“I could ask.”

“Thank you.”

“But then you would have to do something for me.”

“The hell with that. You owe this.”

“I owe you?”

“You owe Joey. You should have been looking out for him. He grew up in your territory.”

“He was a loser.”

“He was a stand-up guy, at least in your world, and you let those two con artists take him for a ride while you sat back and took a cut. That wasn’t right.”

“He was born to lose.”

“Anyone can take care of winners. Joey was looking for something more than he had, looking for love in the wrongest place imaginable, and you let those two pythons squeeze the life out of him. He was from the neighborhood, you should have been looking out for him. If you couldn’t even do that, what good are you?”

He turned to me and smiled his scary little undertaker’s smile. “No damn good,” he said.

“They’re going to take you down.”

“They’re going to try.”

“You think you’re different than Scarfo, than Stanfa, than Skinny Merlino. You’ll be in jail with the rest of them.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“What can I do about that? I am the least influential guy in this entire city.”

“You’d be surprised, Victor. Derek Manley has gone missing.”

“So he has.”

“It is important I pass a word on to him.”

“I think it’s too late for that.”

“It’s never too late.”

“What makes you think I’ll ever see him again?”

“Because you have a knack for being in the wrong place at all the right times. If you see him I want you to pass on a word. Just one word. You will be doing both him and me a service.”

“I’m not a messenger boy.”

“That’s right, you are lower than a messenger boy. You are a lawyer, a lawyer who has stepped over a line I had drawn. You are a liability. You are on borrowed time. Whatever jeopardy I am in, you are in deeper. One word, Victor. Magnolia. Do you think you can remember that?”

“I have to go.”

“Magnolia.”

I stood up from the bench. Leo pushed himself off the railing as if to intercept me, but Dante shook his head.

“I’ll have a little talk with Teddy,” he said. “You remember your word. We’ll do fine.”

“You should have taken care of him.”

“I should have done a lot of things,” he said. “I should have been a dancer.”

“I understand they have wonderful programs in prison.”

“Magnolia.”

“I heard you,” I said even as I was walking away.

It was always a dangerous thing to ask something of a man like Earl Dante, but Martha had called to say that Bev had no idea about Joey’s pending deal, sorry, though an itemized list of what Joey owed to Bev would be sent to me shortly. It would be a breathtaking piece of fiction, no doubt, as epic as Gone with the Wind and nearly as long. Still, Joey had something going on and that something might have gotten him killed and it seemed only Dante had the wherewithal to get the answer. So I had called him and even as I had called him I knew that he would want something in return. You want a free favor, call a priest; guys like Dante always make you pay.

But I wouldn’t have an opportunity to let slip Dante’s word to Derek Manley. Manley had disappeared, just as Earl Dante had said, and I was pretty damn sure he wasn’t ever going to be found. In that alley, after the big squeeze, he had as good as spelled it out for me: his hopeless financial and penal situation, the sickly son needing expensive care, the insurance policy that could take care of everything. A peculiar sort of heroism for a peculiar sort of man. So no, I wouldn’t be passing Dante’s word to Derek Manley, and so yes, Dante would be disappointed in me. Just add it to the list.

I was in the middle of something, of which I didn’t have the first clue. I had gotten on the wrong side of a State Supreme Court justice, whose wife had developed an unhealthy interest in me. The guy who was supposed to pay my inflated bill was flat broke. Kimberly Blue was in some sort of trouble that I couldn’t quite figure. My peter was petering. My cable was out. The next day I was due in Traffic Court to defend my license against a series of malicious attacks by the city’s police force. My very existence was turning quickly to crap.

And to top it off, as my father fought for his life while struggling to tell me his sad lovesick tale, both his health, and his story, were about to take a serious turn for the worse.