Pleading guilty

XXX. THE END AND WHO'S HAPPY?

A. Brushy Isn't I went home. A man in a tuxedo boarding a plane would grab too much attention. And although I distrusted the sentiment, I wanted a word with my boy. It was time for the get-tough speech: Hey, I know you think your life is grim. But so is everyone else's. We're all grinning in spite of the pain. Some do better than others. And most do better than I have. I hope in time you grow up to join that majority.

For Lyle, this talk figured to be largely beside the point, but I could feel I'd made a final effort. Upstairs at home, I found him asleep, knocked cold by some intoxicant.

'Hey, Lyle.' I touched his shoulder, sharp-boned and bitten by ugly acne marks. I shook him some time before he seemed to come to. 'Dad?' He couldn't see straight. 'Yes, son,' I said quietly, 'it's me.'

He froze there on his back, trying to focus something, his eyes or his mind or his spirit. He gave up quickly.

'Shit,' he said distinctly and rolled back so that his face went down into the pillow with the lost despairing weight of a felled tree. I understood Lyle's problems. As he saw it, his parents owed him apologies. His old man was a souse. His mother pretended all his young life to be something she only later told him she wasn't. Having found no adults to admire, he'd decided not to become a grown-up at all. In strict privacy, I couldn't even quarrel with his logic. But what's the further agenda? Granted, all of it, guilty as accused, but you tell me how to repay the debts of history. I touched the tangles of his long dirty hair but quickly thought better of that and went off to pack.

I had been at it about twenty minutes when the front door chimes jingled. I was feeling cautious and glanced down through the bedroom window that overlooked the stoop. Brushy was there in her sequins, no coat, stomping one patent-leather pump on the concrete and casting occasional foggy breaths behind her as she looked to the taxi which waited in the street. Once I hadn't shown in her office, she must have checked at the Belvedere, then called a hasty search party of one.

I opened the various locks and bolts I've mounted on the front door to shield me from the Bogey Man and his captain in arms, Mr S/D. We stood with the glass of the storm door between us. Brushy's long white gloves were wrapped about her, and the flesh of her upper arms, where the daily workouts had never quite slackened the softness, was mottled and goose-bumped from the cold. 'We need to talk,' she said. 'Attorney-client, right?' I'm afraid I was smirking.

She turned to wave off the taxi, then snatched the door open in her own decided way and, as she stepped up on the threshold, smacked my face. She struck me open-palmed, but she's a strong little person and very nearly put me on my seat. We stood in the doorway in the midst of a nasty silence, with the rugged breath of winter flowing around us and invading the household.

'I just predicted to our partners that all the money was going to be returned by tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.,' Brushy said. 'Did anyone ever tell you that you're too smart for your own fucking good, Brushy?' 'Lots of people,' she answered, 'but they've only been men.'

Brushy smiled then, but the look in her quick eyes would have fit well on Hercules. She was not taking any crap. Not that she'd never forgive me. But she wouldn't back off. Those were her terms. I rolled my jaw to make sure I was all right, and she stepped in beside me. 'You've misjudged your man,' I said.

'No, I haven't.' When I didn't respond she approached me. She put her sly little hands on my hips, then slipped her chilly fingertips into the expandable waistband of the tuxedo pants I was still wearing. She shook her wind-draggled hair out of her face so she could see me squarely. 'I don't think so. My man is attractively nuts. Impulsive. A practical joker. But he's in touch. Really. In the end.'

'Wrong guy,' I said. I touched my cheek one more time. 'What's going to happen to you when the money doesn't come back? Huh?'

She kept watching me with the same intent light, but I could see her beginning to melt down inside. Her bravery was fading. 'Answer me,' I said.

'I'm in big trouble. Everybody will ask what I knew. And when.'

I put my arms around her. 'Brushy, how could you have been such a chump?'

'Don't talk to me like that,' she said. She laid her head on the silly frills of my shirt. 'It makes me sad when you pretend you're mean.'

I was going to tell her again she had the wrong guy, but went instead to the front closet and groped in the gummy pocket of Lyle's leather police jacket where he hid his cigarettes. I brought the pack back for us both. I asked her what she had in mind.

'What about the truth?' she asked. 'Isn't that an alternative? Telling the truth?'

'Sure, I'll just give Gino a jingle: "Pardon me, Pigeyes, you got the wrong guy behind bars. I'd like to swap places with Jake." Gino's already hoping for that.'

'But doesn't somebody have to file a complaint? I mean, what if it's all right with TN? I can explain this to Tad. Mack, I know Tad. Give me twenty minutes with him. He'll love you for scaring Jake this way. He'll think it was just what Jake deserved, having someone turn the tables on him for a while.' 'Twenty minutes, huh?'

Her face fell. 'Go to hell,' she said. She sat on Nora's old rose-printed sofa and scrutinized the spotted meal-colored rug, caught between anger and some scandalized sense of her life. 'What's your deal with this guy?' 'Not what you think.' 'So what is it? Pals? Sodality meetings?'

She went through a retinue of reluctant gestures – evasive looks, nervous fretting with her cigarette – always committed to protecting her secrets. Finally, she sighed.

'Tad's asked me to be the new General Counsel at TN. I've been thinking about it for months.' 'You replace Jake?'

'Right. He wants somebody whose independence he trusts. And who'll spread TN's business around a lot more over time.'

Tad of course had not arrived at the top by accident. He knew corporate politics, too, and this move was slick. Wash and his coterie on the TN board wouldn't have stood in his way if Jake's replacement came from G amp; G.

'Martin doesn't think the firm can survive without a big share of TN's work,' I told her.

'Neither do I. Not in the long run. That's why I was reluctant.'

Jake was gone now, though. Tad would make the change anyway. Brushy's course was clear. I saw the future.

'And what happens to Mack under the Brushy plan for the world, with Emilia as General Counsel of TN and G amp; G a wreck at sea?'

'You're a lawyer. A good one. You'll find work. Or' -she smiled somewhat, the shy-sly routine – 'you can be kept.' She got up and put her arms around me again.

I still had my cigarette in my mouth and I drew back with the smoke in my eyes.

'Wrong guy,' I told her. I broke away and headed upstairs. She followed to the bedroom eventually. She considered my canvas, the Vermeer mounted on the easel, before turning to watch me pack. 'Where are you going?' 'To the train. Which will take me to the plane. Which will take me far away.' 'Mack.'

'Look, Brushy, I told you. My pig-eyed former colleague, Detective Dimonte, already smells bullshit in the air. He said so when I called him.'

'You can handle him. You've handled him for weeks now. Years.'

'Not now. He's flat-out said he thinks I'm dirty. He's thick witted but he's like a cow. He always ends up in the right place.' I went to the easel. I thumbed through my sketchbook and threw it in the bag. 'Why, Mack?'

'Because I'd rather live rich and free than in the penitentiary.'

'No, I mean, why? The whole thing. How could you do this? How could you think you wouldn't get caught?'

'You think everybody's as smart as you are? The only reason you figured it out is because screw-loose here ran his mouth. You really believe you'd have seen it if I hadn't told you from the jump about how much I'd love to steal the money myself or how much I hate Jake?' 'But don't you feel bad?' 'At moments. But you know, once it's done, it's done.'

'Look.' She started again. She put her hands together. She lifted her pert rough-skinned face. She tried to sound even and rational, to look persuasive. 'You wanted to make a point. You wanted to get Jake, all of us, you wanted to hit us where we live. And you did it. You felt ignored, undervalued, wounded. Deservingly. And -' 'Oh, stop.' '- you want to get caught.'

'Spare me the psychoanalysis. What I wanted was to do it. There's such a thing as infantile pleasure, Dr Freud. And I got mine. And now I'm doing the adult and responsible thing and saving my ass. Just like you're going to do very shortly when they ask you to account for five and a half million dollars which you said would be repatriated tomorrow.' I pointed at her. 'Remember the privilege,' I said. 'Attorney-client.'

'I don't understand,' she said and bounced herself off the bed in sheer frustration. 'You have to hate everyone. You do, don't you? Everyone. All of us.' 'Don't manipulate.'

'Come on. Don't you see how angry you are? My God. You're Samson pulling down the temple.'

'Please don't tell me about my own moods!' I'm sure for a moment I looked violent. 'Why would I be angry, Brush? Because I had such great choices? Should I have whored around like Martin to cover Jake's hind end? Just so Jake could ignore me while Pagnucci pushed me toward an ice floe, after I've surrendered my adult years to this place? I mean, how does Pagnucci put it when he bothers to justify himself? "The marketplace speaking"? I forget the part of the theory, Brushy, which explains why the people the market fucks over are supposed to let the tea party continue for everyone else. So I showed some initiative, entrepreneur-ship, self-reliance. I helped myself. Those are free market concepts too.'

She didn't say anything for a while. I took off my pants and my shirt and hopped around in my underwear, putting on clean slacks and a pullover. I wore my athletic shoes. Ready to run. 'What about your son?' 'What about him? He'll fend for himself. Or live off his mother. It's high time, frankly, for either one.' 'You're twisted.' 'Sick,' I said. 'Hostile.' 'Granted.' 'Cruel,' she said. 'You made love to me.'

'And meant it.' I looked at her. 'Each time. Not something every fella could say to you.'

'Oh.' She closed her eyes and suffered. She wrapped her long white gloves around herself. 'Romance,' she said.

'Look, Brush, I've seen ahead of the curve from the start. I told you this was a bad idea. I think you're a great human being. Honest Injun. I'd share your bed and your company for the foreseeable future. But Pigeyes is now on the scene. So that leaves only one alternative: You have a passport, you're welcome to come. As I've always said, there's enough for two. The more the merrier. Wanna start a new life? My impression is that you're pretty attached to the one you have here.'

I held out both hands. She just looked at me. The idea, I could tell, had never crossed her mind. 'No sweat,' I told her. 'You're doing the right thing. Take it from your old buddy Mack. Cause I'll tell you the real problem, what I keep coming back to: Honey, you ain't gonna respect me in the morning, not when you think this whole thing through.' She eventually said, 'I could visit.'

'Sure. Tell Mr K. He'll love hearing that from his new General Counsel: I'm going to visit that crackpot who destroyed my law firm and looted your company. Face it, Brush, your life is here. But hey, prove me wrong. I think you've got ties. And' – I closed the case – 'I've got to go.'

I grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her quickly, hubby speeding off to work. She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. I knew she was too tough to cry, but I said something anyway.

'Let's not be mushy, Brushy.' I whined it. I made it rhyme. I winked at her from the doorway and told her goodbye. I saw Lyle down the hall, dressed only in the jeans in which he'd fallen asleep, groping to make something of the voices. Maybe he'd been roused to check out his dream that it was Mom and Dad, home again and happy, one of those dream things that never really happened. I stood on the threshold considering them both, enduring one of those moments. Up to now I'd been beset by great emotional constipation. Pour me a couple of drinks and I could bawl my eyes out, but in the present I'd felt smug and stuck on myself. Only with the actual instant of departure at hand was the pain beginning to mount.

'God, Mack,' said Brushy, 'please, please don't do this. Think about what you're doing to yourself. I'll help you. You know I will. You know how hard I've tried. I mean, at least, Mack, think about me.'

Oh, what about her? She imagined, no doubt, I was running from her. And I'd succored myself with disarming comparisons to the devotion of others – Bert to Orleans, Martin to Glyndora. But who was I kidding? My heart was suddenly sore and afflicted, full of a hurt that seemed to double its weight. 'Brush, there's no choice.' 'You keep saying that.'

'Because it's the truth. This is life, Brushy, not heaven. I'm out of alternatives.' 'You're only saying that. You're doing what you want.'

'Fine,' I said, though I knew in a way she was right. Standing with her now, I was abruptly some kind of suffering blob, ectoplasm without boundaries in which the only point of form was a hurting heart. But even in that condition there was a sense of direction. It wasn't hope, I saw now, that drove me. Perhaps I was at one of those passes again, doing what I most fear, because otherwise I'm paralyzed, worse off than some slave in chains. But the compulsion was strong. I was like that figure of myth, flying with his wings of wax toward the sun.

'Mack, you talk about my life? What am I going to say? How am I going to explain why I let you run, why I didn't just call the police?'

'You'll think of something. Look.' I took one step back into the room. 'Here. Go to your pal Krzysinski. Right now. Today. Tell him the whole thing. Everything. Tell him how you couldn't stand by and let me ax Jake. Tell him how noble you are. And smart. You were going to sucker-punch me. Get me to give the money back. Then turn me over to the police.'

She was sitting on the bed, holding on to herself, contracted with pain, and she recoiled a bit. The words seemed to strike her with the reverberating force of an arrow. I thought at first she was again overwhelmed by shuddering wonder at my facility when it came time to lie. Then, at once, I saw something else. I held absolutely still. 'Or did I just get it right?' I asked her softly. 'Was I finally reading your mind?' 'Oh, Mack.' She closed her eyes.

'Grab me and love me and let them haul me away? The Brushy-first plan?'

'You're lost,' she said. 'Do you even know the truth? When you're seeing it? When you're telling it?'

She thought she had me with that one, but you could nail most folks like that from time to time. I refused to back off anyway. Brushy, as I well knew, was a four-wall player. She had all the angles in her head, and I'd found something, some notion, some line of reflection she couldn't keep herself from seeing, any more than I could help being myself at that moment, full of a liberating spite, an anger so generalized but intense I didn't really know what was making me mad – her or me or some unnameable it.

'Was that the idea?' I put on my coat. I picked up my bag. 'Well, you haven't been listening.' I said it again and I suspected by now she believed it. 'You've got the wrong guy.'

B. Pigeyes Isn't The little light-rail system that ties Center City and the airport was one of those genius planning notions for which Martin Gold occasionally takes some credit. He was counsel to the Plan Commission and our bond folks worked out the financing. The thing doesn't always run on time, but in rush hour it beats the traffic, which you can see stalled on either side as the train rambles down the divider strip. The LR, as it is known around town, terminates in an underground station, a big cantilevered space with the rising ceiling of a cathedral and various-colored block-glass windows lit from the rear to simulate daylight.

I arrived there lugging my case and still yelling at Brush in my head, purging my guilt and explaining again how she ought to be blaming herself, there are no victims. I was a few steps from the train when I saw Pigeyes at the end of the platform. I'd had a few intense and unsettling visions of Gino nabbing Jake, booking him, printing him, putting him in the police station cell where the gangbangers would grab Jake's Rolex right off him without even saying thanks, and I briefly hoped I was seeing things. But it was Gino. He was leaning on a pillar in his scruffy sport coat and cowboy boots, picking his teeth with a fingernail and eyeballing the passengers as they alighted from the cars. No doubt about who he was looking for, but I didn't have too many places to go. He'd caught sight of me already and the return trip to the city wouldn't begin for another five minutes. So I kept walking. It was daytime, but I was dead in my dreams, headed for that mean dangerous stranger. He had me now and my blood was suddenly pumping at 30 degrees.

As he watched me approach, Gino's little black eyes were still and the rest of his big face harsh with purpose. He was ready to chase me, maybe to shoot. I took a quick peek for Dewey but it looked like Pigeyes was flying solo tonight. 'What a delightful coincidence,' I told him.

'Yeah,' he said, 'what. Your girlfriend gimme a call. Said I ought to track you down.' Pigeyes faked a smile without showing his teeth. ‘I think she likes me.' 'That so?'

'Yeah.' He was not near my height. But he got good and close. His face was in mine, all his heavy breath and body odors. He was chewing gum. I was taking in a lot at that moment. I'd been soft about Brushy. I thought she believed all that stuff, attorney and client, my secret to keep and hers not to tell. She could give me one hundred reasons the privilege didn't apply; I could probably give you fifty of them on my own. But I hadn't thought she'd sell me out. She was always tougher and quicker than I figured. 'What'd she say?' I asked. 'Nothing much. I told you. We talked about you.' 'How good I am in bed?' 'I don't recall that being mentioned.' Pigeyes smiled the same way. 'Where you off to?' 'Miami.' 'For?' 'Business.' 'Oh yeah? Okay I look in your little case there?' ‘I don't think so.' He had one hand on it and I tightened my hold.

‘I think maybe there's a bankbook in there. I think you got a connecting plane for Pico-whatever. I think maybe you're about to take flight.'

He took a step closer, which didn't seem physically possible. 'Careful, Pigeyes. You may catch something.'

'You,' he said. He opened his mouth and tried to belch. He was standing on my toes now, so that if I moved I'd fall over. If I pushed him, God knows what he'd do. 'I knew I'd catch a piece of you. Guy asked me to do this thing, this whole caper, and I said to myself, Maybe you'll meet up with your old pal Mack.'

I believed that. Pigeyes was always looking for me, and I was always watching for him. Immovable object. Irresistible force. In that moment that is worse than dying, the flaming terror that wrests me from sleep, Pigeyes will always be there. How do we explain that? I turned this over in my mind, that same old thought, that there are not accidents, there are no victims. And then, God only knows why, I had one last revelation. I was okay now. I knew it at once.

'I think,' said Pigeyes, noting the intensity of my expression, 'you just wet your socks. I think when you walk, your shoes'll go squish.' 'I don't think so.' 'I do.' 'No, I've got this too well figured.' 'That's what you thought.'

'That's what I know. You always talked too much, Gino. Especially to me. Couldn't live with me thinking I'd skunked you one more time, could you? You couldn't resist straightening me out when I called to tell you about Jake this afternoon.'

His belt buckle was still under my belly, his nose was one inch from mine. But a certain caution had set in. Once badly bitten, Pigeyes was an unusual creature in the depth of his respect for me.

'All of these things I should have seen,' I said, 'I couldn't explain. Why you never arrested me. Or served me. You must have thought I was deaf, dumb, and blind. You say you knew I was spreading manure this afternoon with that myth about Archie and Bert, but you left Bert alone even so. Why? Why didn't I see it? You'd been called off. Whoever hired you in the first place unhired you. The capo, or whoever. What are they holding your marker for, Pigeyes? Gambling? Dope? G-Nose take one sniff too many? Or are you doing it for one of the old buds from the neighborhood? You're the guy, though, right? You're the one who was supposed to get Archie to give up his connect. You're the one who was going to make the connect grateful for staying alive so he could throw basketball games for some ungrateful types. It's you.' I had his attention now.

'How could I not catch on? I should have known as soon as you said you were following Kam with the credit card. Christ, where the hell do you come by that card? I know where I found mine. And the envelope was open. There were footprints on the mail. You were in there before me, Gino. At Bert's. And that wasn't the first time.

'The first time, Pigeyes, was when you guys put Archie in the icebox. You were gonna scare Bert into telling what you wanted to know. Big-time lawyer? I don't care whose windpipe is severed. Bert couldn't call the police, because he can't answer their questions. He's not gonna throw away the money, the shingle, by admitting to the coppers how he's been fixing national sporting events. He'd be meat when he saw that body. He'd be yours. Bert would cry on the telephone. Beg for his life. He'd tell you just where to find this Kam fucking Roberts who Archie kept mentioning. Bert would even have to take care of dumping Archie himself. It never figured he'd run – not when all he had to give you was a name. But he wasn't there when you called.'

Pigeyes's dark eyes were caving in. He was not as smart as me. He'd always known that.

'So that was trip number two to Bert's, right? Looking to find where he'd gone. That's when you picked up the credit card. And decided you better lujack Missing Persons' case. That way you'd be the only cops looking for Archie. You got Missing to send the case to Financial – those guys are always happy to lose one – then you went sniffing around the Bath to see if you could get a hot lead on Kam.

'And if guys didn't do dumb things, Gino, they'd never get caught. Why didn't you get the body out of Bert's when you had the chance? What was the problem? Upstairs neighbor at home that week? Not enough help? But when you nabbed me with the bank card down at U Inn you knew where I'd been. And what I'd seen. I mean, Gino, who's the guy who taught me to look first thing in the refrigerator? But dim-bulb Malloy, he gives you the perfect excuse to go back in. With a warrant, no less. That's why the body disappeared then, right? Before I could tip Homicide. That's why we had our scene in the surveillance van. So you and Dewey could get me on paper in front of a prover, saying I never saw anything of interest in Bert's apartment. I mean, Christ, was I dumb or what? Why would you wanna make me say that? And that's why you didn't want to run me in on any of the chicken-shit that you could have. It wasn't worth it. I'd be out in an hour, so why take the chance that I'd have second thoughts and start free-associating to some stray Homicide dick about this body I'd seen?'

Somewhere along there he had gotten off my toes. If we had been having this discussion out on a dark road, he'd have shot me. But we were standing in the subway stop underneath the airport, and various passengers burdened with heavy cases and garment bags were coming and going on the platform, glancing back to get a load of what looked like it might turn into a fistfight. Pigeyes was not a happy dude.

'Tell me you didn't start out to murder poor Archie, Pigeyes. Tell me you just got carried away when Archie wasn't coming up with Kam's real name. Tell me you felt sorry.' I pulled away the briefcase from where he had continued resting his hand.

'What do they pay for a job like that? Fifty? Seventy-five? You getting ready for retirement, is that it? I'll make that in interest in a couple of weeks.' For emphasis, I tapped him right over the heart, grazing my fingertips on the same dirty knit shirt he'd been wearing for days. We both knew I had him.

'So turn me in,' I said. "Think I can swing a deal for immunity if I give them a hit man who walks around with a star?' He didn't answer. He'd been to Toots's school. "The guy I hung with,' I said, 'my old partner, he wasn't that bad. He cut some corners, he did some things. But he didn't torture people for money. Or dope.' I picked up my suitcase and nodded to him.

With that, I had a serendipitous recognition. If you gave Pigeyes truth serum he'd explain to you how this was partly my fault. Years ago I'd taken his good name. And cheated to do it. The neighbors, his ma, the people in church – they now knew what he was. He couldn't pretend. He looked to them suddenly the way he looked to himself. I put it to him out loud, here in the public way. 'You're a bad guy,' I said.

You know how he responded: Fan-gull Fan-gull 'I gotta take that from you?'

'Have it your way, Gino. We're both bad guys.' I didn't mean it. I wasn't as low as him, not in my mind. We were two different types, two different traditions. Pigeyes was like Pagnucci – really tough, really mean, capable of courage and cruelty. One of those men for whom it's always wartime, where you do what you have to. I was the second in a line of thieves – deceivers. But we'd both touched bottom, Gino and I, and I saw then that was the point of all the bad dreams: I am him and he is me, and in the dark feelings of night there is no discernible difference between wishing and fear.

So that's where I left him, on the train platform. I looked back once, just to make sure he was absorbing the full effect of letting me go. I made my plane to Miami, and now the connection to C. Luan. I'm sitting here, in first class, telling the end of my story to Mr Dictaphone, whispering so that my voice is lost below the engine's great hum.

When I get off, these tapes, every one of them, are going to Martin. I'll send them Federal Excess. I will be wildly pie-eyed by then. At the moment, on the fold-down table in front of me, four little soldiers, hot off the attendant's drink cart, are dancing with the vibration of the plane, the sweet amber liquid bobbing in the throat of each bottle so that I can almost feel it in mine. I will be drunk, I promise, for the rest of my life. I'll travel; I'll sun. I'll engage in prolonged dissipation. I'll think about how ecstatic I was sure this gig would make me and how, in that frame of mind, I couldn't tell the right guys from the wrong ones, the merely plain from the plain ugly.

Now that I'm done, I'm thinking that telling this whole thing was for me. Not for Martin, Wash, or Carl. Or U You. Or Elaine up above. Maybe it's me I meant to entertain. A higher, better me, such as Plato described, a kinder, gentler Mack, capable of greater reflection and deeper understanding. Maybe I wanted to make another of those failing efforts to figure out myself or my life. Or to tell it all in a way that is less ambiguous or boring, remembering it with my wit sharper and my motives more defined. I know what happened – as much as memory serves. But there are always blank spots. How I got from there to here. Why I did whatever at a particular moment. I'm a guy who's spent so many mornings wondering just what happened the night before. The past recedes so quickly. It's just a few instants under the spotlight. A couple of frames of film. Maybe I recount it all because I know this is the only new life I will get, that the telling is the only place where I can really reinvent myself. And here, I am the man who controls not just the words but with them the events they record. The higher, better Mack, sovereign over history and time, a fellow more earnest, honest, more fully known than the mysterious guy who has always recovered from one disaster just in time to rush on to another, that incomprehensible being who blinks at me in the reflections on windowpanes and mirrors, who treated most of the settled items in his life with scorn.

Nonetheless, I've had the final word. Taking blame where it is due and otherwise assessing it. I don't make the mistake of confusing that with an excuse. I have regrets, I admit, but who doesn't? Still, I had it wrong. Completely. There are only victims.