Slide

Nineteen

Max knew this drill-the windowless, hot-as-hell room, no water to drink, uncomfortable chair. Fuck, they even tried the good cop, bad cop routine. Did these losers think that textbook shit could crack The M.A.X.?

Detective Miscali came into the room again for, like, the fourth time. Max was still wondering what a guy who looked like an Irish cop from Central Casting was doing with an Italian last name.

Miscali sat across from Max, and they said at the same time, “Did you kill Xavier Rivera and Carlos Fuentes?” Then Max said alone, “How many times are you gonna ask me the same stupid questions?”

“Did you or didn’t you?” Miscali asked.

“I told you who killed them,” Max said.

“Tell me again.”

“The thugs who ambushed my SUV when I pulled over to take a leak.”

“Were you conducting a sale of crack cocaine with Rivera and Fuentes when the attack occurred?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Were you alone?”

“No, I was with a friend of mine.”

“What’s the friend’s name?”

“You seriously asking me this shit again?”

“Tell me his fucking name.”

Max breathed deep, then said, “Kyle.”

“Kyle what?”

“I don’t know.”

Max said this definitively because, unlike practically everything else he’d told Miscali, this was the truth.

“You don’t know your friend’s last name?” Miscali asked skeptically.

“That is correct,” Max said.

“Now why is that?”

“Because I never asked him it.”

“Yet he’s a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

Miscali leaned back, rolled his eyes, said, “And tell me again, why were you going to Costco?”

“Because I like to shop in bulk,” Max said. “Saves money. I might look like The Donald, but that doesn’t mean I throw money away. I’ve got deep pockets but short arms, if you know what I’m saying.”

Miscali gave Max a look that screamed, Gimme a fuckin’ break. Max, looking as bored as possible, gave a theatrical sigh. He remembered that time before, when they’d hauled him in over his wife’s murder and he’d been assigned some snot-nosed kid lawyer who didn’t know shit from shinola. He wouldn’t need some idiot lawyer this time.

“Come on,” Miscali said. “You expect me to believe a savvy, successful, sophisticated businessman like you has to go bulk shopping?”

“You cops probably don’t have to worry about the grocery bills but a businessman like me, I have to keep an eye on the small stuff, can’t pay top whack every time I need a loaf of rye.”

He thought, Let them digest that, see who they were dealing with. The corruption slur, which he hadn’t outright said, hung there and the Miscali guy-oh, he got the dig, all right-looked like he might come over the table at Max. Then the other cop, the heavyset black guy named Phillips, came into the room, sat. Before, Phillips had been the bad guy and Miscali had been the good guy. Max wondered if they were going to try the old switcheroo. Seemed that way because Phillips gave Miscali a look, like, Lemme handle this, then went to Max in a puppy-dog tone, “Mr. Fisher, you expect us to believe you were traveling in a vehicle with…” He checked his notebook, as if he’d forgotten already, “…this Kyle, and you don’t even know the fella’s last name? And yet you want us to believe he’s a friend of yours?”

Max knew the routine, he’d watched his Law and Order, had the good cop, bad cop gig down cold. Because he knew it would piss their asses off to no end and he was sick of being so-what was the word? — appeasing, he said, “Detective, when you’ve been in business in this city as long as I have, you acquire a lot of friends; remembering their last names is a task, alas, that even I, sometimes, am not up to.”

That was the way-they wanna use words, right back atcha, asshole. He let the black bastard know who he was, subtly, and let the hint of the juice he might have leak over the words.

Before Miscali could jump all over it, Max added, “I do remember the mayor’s last name, by the way. You want me to give him a call?”

Max sat back thinking, Suck on that, detectives. He watched Miscali’s face and the sheer rage there catapulted him into a realization. Man, this guy had such a hard-on, such a ferocity about him, it couldn’t just be because of a busted drug deal. There had to be more there.

“Tell me about Felicia Howard,” Miscali said.

“You know her last name,” Max said. “Good work, detective.”

Miscali looked look like he was going to lose it. “Who was she working with?”

Max exchanged menacing glares with Miscali for a few seconds, then the dots connected. Felicia had been snitching to this fuck and now she was meat; the guy was shredded but he had to bite down and not blurt it out. Knowledge was power and Max wasn’t yet sure but knowing this, he thought he could get one over on the guy. He went with, “Don’t I get a phone call? And a soda would be good now. You guys have any Fresca?”

Phillips-now it was Good Cop’s turn-grinned and went, “Aw, c’mon now, Mr. Fisher. You’re gonna lawyer up? We’re trying to help you here.”

Max had the upper hand now, felt the delicious thrill of it, drawled, “Like I said, a soda would be an enormous ol’ help right about now, and a phone call, that would be, like my friend Kyle was fond of saying, a gift from the Lord.”

Miscali lost it, stormed over the desk, grabbed Max, tearing his good shirt, a Van Heusen, for Chrissakes.

Max went, “Whoa, you know how much these suckers go for in Bloomies?” Thinking, Two shirts down the shitter in twenty-four hours? For fuck’s sake.

Miscali snarled in Max’s face: “You fucking prick. You know the mayor, like fuck you do. You keep this up, you’re gonna know a bunch of guys at Rikers intimately, if you get my drift. These guys, they’re itching to run a freight through some asshole. You that asshole, Fisher? Huh, wanna make some new friends?”

Max was going tell Miscali that he’d already had a Chinaman in Alabama visit his asshole-been there, done that-but he didn’t see the need to dignify the cop’s remarks.

“Face it,” Max said. “You took your best shots at me and I blew ’em all to bits. Got anything else to throw at me or can I go home now?”

Miscali glared at Max for a few more seconds, then he and Phillips left the room. Max couldn’t help feeling seriously proud of himself. Talk about courage under fire.

Then, about ten minutes later, Miscali returned, smiling widely, a big toothy grin.

“Jesus Christ,” Max said, “what’re you gonna do, be Mr. Good Cop now? How long is this fucking circus act gonna continue, because I have to, like, be places, you know what I mean?”

“I’d cancel my dinner reservations for tonight if I were you,” Miscali said. “Maybe you should cancel them for the rest of your life. Well, that’s not true, but you’ll have no choice of where you eat. And that prison grub will probably be a little disappointing to a classy guy like you. You know what I mean?”

Max didn’t know what he meant, went, “What do you mean?”

Still smiling, Miscali said, “We just got some good news. Well, good for us, not for you. We just picked up your friend Kyle at the Port Authority, trying to board a bus to Mobile. It’s Kyle Jordan, by the way. Your friend’s last name. Jordan. I guess we’ll see how the Costco story and the other bullshit you handed us holds up, or doesn’t hold up. Meanwhile, I’d suggest you make yourself nice and comfy, Mr. Fisher.”

Max knew he was fucked but good. He’d finally hit the end of the line, his winning streak was over. Well, it made sense-after all, how long could all the good cards keep coming his way? He’d been on such a great run for so long, but even the biggest winners in the world eventually had their luck turn to shit.

He just couldn’t imagine that Kyle, Retarded Kyle, would be able to keep his story straight. He’d probably get so freaked out about spending eternity in an eight-by-ten cell with a guy named Lucifer on the next bunk that he’d put Max at the scene, put him with the gun, even describe how Max had shot that gangbanger. Yeah, Max was fucked, all right.

The way he saw it, he had two choices: cry like a baby, or go down with class. The old Max would’ve picked door number one, no doubt about it. But the new and improved Max was beyond all that whiny bullshit.

Max sat in the corner of his cell, got into a lotus position. Okay, okay, so he was about as flexible as a dead tree, but he was almost able to sit Indian-style. He started with the breathing and relaxation, then he threw his mantra into the mix. He wanted to go inward, remove himself from the physical world, but he kept thinking about coke. He’d been okay during the interrogation, but now he was feeling it in a major way. Whenever he’d meditated lately he’d done a line or two, just to loosen up, and without it he felt lost, unstable. Then Max shuddered, thought, Am I an addict?

The idea seemed absurd. The M.A.X. a cokehead? He was too strong, too focused to actually become dependent on something. He was using the coke, the coke wasn’t using him.

Or was it the other way around?

Now Max was losing his focus big-time-all he could think about was that bag of coke on the coffee table at home. Then he had a thought that terrified him: What if the cops got a warrant and searched his apartment? He’d left a lot of shit around-the coke, some crack here and there and, oh yeah, some pot-and there wouldn’t be a shortage of drug paraphernalia. If the cops wanted to bust him they didn’t need a confession or evidence he’d been involved in those shootings; all the evidence they needed was in a penthouse on Sixty-sixth and Second.

Max caught a vision of the immediate future-the booking, the circus with the media.

Then the jail time. He noticed the big buck in the next holding cell, one real big mean-looking dude who’d been eyeing The M.A.X. Oh yeah, wouldn’t he like to give Ol’ Max the railroad treatment. Fucking Miscali-if they’d wanted Max to fess up, all they’d have had to do was suggest, just hint they were gonna buddy Max up with that Afro-American boy, and he’d have confessed to the freaking Lindbergh kidnapping and thrown in the little beauty queen as well. What the hell was her name? Bon…Bon fuckin’ something. Jesus, the powerhouse intellect was winding down, even The M.A.X. got tired. What was it he read somewhere? Homer nods? Like in The Simpsons? No shit, he was zoning, going in and out of thoughts, didn’t realize he was muttering aloud till the homeboy next door growled, “Shudthefuckup.”

Christ, Max tried but the words just came spilling out. This is what happened when you were hyperaware, mega-bright, the flow couldn’t be stopped. You could cage it but, man, you could not contain it.

Max began to weep. What had he done? Really now, come on, hadn’t he just tried to get a slice of the American Dream? And tell the truth, was anyone hurt? Okay, yeah, the black guy he’d capped but, man, that was one fucking rush. He wished he had that Glock now-would blast the fucker in the next cell first, cap him right in the balls, then blast his damn way right out of this freaking hellhole.

Was the little girl’s name Bon Jovi?

About an hour later a guard approached the cell. Max looked at the guard, anticipating the barked command of, “Get your ass in gear, dickhead.”

What he didn’t expect the guard to say was, “You’re free to go, Mr. Fisher.”