The Dream of The Broken Horses

11

It's a little past one-thirty when I reach the Flamingo. The area seems quieter than usual. There's some late lunch action in Moe's but the drapes at the Shanghai Sapphire are tightly drawn, suggesting one of those cheerless Chinese places where the cook overused MSG and the cornstarch-thickened sauces are way too sweet.

I check the pool area. A couple of teenage girls are splashing about in the deep end. I find Johnny in the office behind the reception desk staring at the lounge TV.

"Howdy," Johnny says. "Kate told me you'd be around. Said you want me to describe that fella came in asking ‘bout you again. Can't tell you much. Like I said before, he had a cop's way about him. You know – a stache and a cheap suit." Johnny scratches his head. "Come to think of it, he didn't have a stache. Just seemed like the type."

Johnny's eager to have me start on a drawing, but as soon as he begins talking, I realize nothing's going to come of it. Everything he says is too general and ambiguous, much like his statement that the man had a mustache and then that he didn't.

"I don't know, Mr. Weiss. He was kinda average. No distinguishing marks or features. I'd put his age between forty and fifty, maybe fifty-five. He was medium built, medium high give or take an inch, two, or three. Eye color?" Johnny shrugs. "Didn't catch any color in them. Mouth? Man's mouth. You wouldn't mistake it for a woman's. Skin kinda rough and there were pouches beneath his eyes. Clean-shaven, I know that. Don't know why I thought he had a stache." He pauses. "One thing for sure, though. The guy smokes. His clothes stank of it."

Johnny looks away. He's embarrassed. As much as he'd like to help, he can't describe the man. It's as if there was nothing memorable about him. I've dealt with witnesses who've had the same trouble, and often it turned out it wasn't their fault. The subject's appearance was so neutral there really wasn't anything to describe. In such cases, however closely I'd follow the witness's description, I'd always end up with the same useless drawing, a nothing blah sketch of a nothing blah face I've come to call ‘Mr. Potato Head.’

Driving back downtown, I find myself checking my rearview mirror. And even though I don't notice anyone following, I have the distinct feeling someone is.

3:30 p.m.

I reach Covington and luck into a parking spot in front of Spezia. The restaurant's closed, but I spot Jurgen sitting alone at a little table in the rear, bottle and a glass in front of him.

I grab my sketchpad and go to the door. Jurgen appears to be brooding. When I knock he looks up annoyed, then recognizes me and comes to the door to let me in.

"Mr. Weiss! What a surprise. I didn't expect you so soon."

"I happened to be in the neighborhood so I took a chance."

The way he raises his right eyebrow tells me he doesn’t believe that for a second.

"I'm always here. As Jack Cody used to put it: ‘A restaurant is a harsh mistress, me boy.’"

He offers me a glass of Ricard. I watch as he adds water, transforming the liquid from clear to milky white.

"Not quite absinthe," he says, "but still makes a good louche. I acquired a taste for it in the Legion. You know about my military career?"

"You're a legend, Jurgen."

He grins.

"Actually, all I know is what Mace told me."

"Inspector Bartel's an okay guy for a cop. And you, Mr. Weiss – are you a cop, too?"

I explain that though my drawings are used in law enforcement, I'm a civilian in town to cover the Foster trial.

"And now you want to draw me?" He smiles, strikes a pose.

"I'd prefer you a little more relaxed."

He slumps over. "‘The Absinthe Drinker’ by Degas, no?"

"A little less stagey, if you don't mind."

"Sure." He assumes a normal posture, then lets his features fall into repose. In those few seconds, his face seems to age a dozen years.

"That's good. It works better for me when you're comfortable."

We chat casually as I start to sketch.

"This drawing – will you be showing it to witnesses?" he asks.

"If I wanted to show your picture, Jurgen, I'd make things easy for myself and take a photograph."

He nods. "I've heard photographs lie, that only art can tell the truth."

"Photographs can also be art."

"And drawings can also lie, no? Forgive me for asking, Mr. Weiss, but what's the point of this exercise?"

"I like your face, I'm having fun drawing it. And I was hoping a portrait session would give us a chance to talk."

"About the Flamingo killings?"

I start to work on his eyes. "Something you want to tell me about that?"

"I'm curious why people are still interested after all these years."

"People?"

"Inspector Bartel and you."

"I was a kid here when the murders happened. I knew the teacher, so I've always been interested."

Jurgen raises his right eyebrow at the same time, making his smile go sweet. It's a characteristic expression, one I want to catch. I set to work on his eyebrows, then his mouth.

"I think there's more to it than that, Mr. Weiss."

"You're right, there is. And please call me David."

"Yes, thank you. Please forgive my formality. It's my European background. Jack Cody always said he liked that about me, the way I made his clients feel so ‘well-served.’

He tells me he returned to Germany this past winter, his first visit since he ran away from home at age sixteen. His kid sister was dying after fighting breast cancer for two years. It would be his last chance to see her, so he closed his restaurant for two weeks and flew over.

"My niece met me at the Frankfurt airport. She had crisscross tribal marks cut into her cheeks, a ring in her nose, a tack on her tongue, and a baby perched on her back in a papoose. ‘Yoo-hoo, Uncle Jurgen – it's me, Gisela!’ One look at her and I wanted to get back on the plane. My brother-in-law Hans is a podiatrist. He keeps a scabby pink oversize model of a foot on his desk. My sister, Eva, looked bad. I remembered her as a stout girl. Now she weighed less than a hundred pounds. The time, see the ‘new Germany.’ After a couple days sightseeing, I told them I thought it was pretty much the same as when I left – crappy food, crummy little houses, petty middle-class concerns. ‘Oh, Uncle Jurgen, you're so funny – isn't he Mutter? Vater? But Eva knew I wasn't kidding, that I was thrilled to discover I'd made the correct decision when I left." He pauses, clicks his glass against the bottle of pastis. "She died in April, poor darling! I didn't go back for the funeral. Wired over a big wreath." Jurgen bottom-ups his drink, sets down his glass, and wipes his eyes.

I've got him down pretty well on paper, I think: the suave ability to appraise others that shows in his eyes, the bittersweet irony in the set of his mouth. Taking a cue from Pam's perception of him as a ‘kinky Bogie,’ I idealize him a little, working to instill the proper degree of cynicism and rue.

"Nice watch," I tell him, indicating the heavy gold Vaucheron-Constantin dangling from his wrist.

"Jack Cody left it to me."

"Do you think Jack had the lovers killed?"

Jurgen shakes his head. "Not Jack's style. If he'd wanted them dead he would have killed them himself. Anyway, Barbara was the love of his life."

"She was cheating on him."

Jurgen shrugs. "They weren't married. He cheated on her, too.

They had an arrangement."

"Tell me about Walter Maritz."

"He was a crooked cop who became a crooked private eye. Jack punished him hard for what he did to Barbara. He deserved everything he got."

"What did he do to her?"

"You don't know?"

"Tell me."

Jurgen smiles. I start to work on a second drawing. This time I want to catch him in storytelling mode.

He tells me that after Barbara's au pair washed up headless from Delamere Lake, she and her husband hired a slew of private detectives to find their abducted kid. About two years later, after the Fulraine's were divorced, Maritz approached Barbara out of the blue saying he'd heard rumors there was a little white girl with blond hair living in Gunktown with blacks. Barbara, grasping at the offered straw, hired Maritz and gave him money to spread around the ghetto. Every few weeks Maritz came back, reported what his informants said, and asked for more money to further loosen tongues. This went on for three or four months until Barbara met Jack through a mutual friend.

"Jack, of course, knew who she was and was taken with her right away. When she told him about Maritz, that she'd given him nearly twenty grand to develop leads, Jack knew right away she was being scammed. He offered to handle it for her. She was relieved. She didn't much like dealing with Maritz. So Jack called in Maritz for a little talk. After ten minutes, he knew for sure Maritz was a liar.

"That's when he brought me in and a couple of muscle guys who used to handle security around The Elms. We took Maritz to a garage out back. Jack told the muscle guys to beat the truth out of the fuck. Maritz didn't hold out long. About a minute in he was on his knees confessing the scam. Jack told him he had to give the money back. Maritz said he couldn't, he'd gambled it all away. Jack, cold as ice, told him if he couldn't pay in money he'd have to pay in broken bones. Maritz, terrified, begged for mercy. Jack, sick of listening to the fuck, told the muscle guys to give it to him good. They broke both his kneecaps and half his ribs, then I drove him to the hospital. I warned him not to say anything. ‘You're a lucky guy,’ I told him. ‘Mr. Cody could have had you killed.’ Maritz, still whimpering, got the point. I dumped him at the E.R. entrance. Takes a year to recover from a beating like that. He recovered, went on with his life. ‘Live and let live,’ as they say."

"Next day Jack met with Barbara, explained the swindle, and told her he got all her money back. Then he paid her every cent out of his own funds. That's what brought them together. Soon afterwards they became lovers, and after that their bond was what they did with each other in bed."

It's a good story and clearly Jurgen relishes telling it. He laughs when I tell him Maritz told the cops he received money from Barbara after Andrew Fulraine hired him to follow her.

"After what Jack did to him he wouldn't dare go near her. And she would never have met with him. A woman like that doesn't get taken twice. She'd have told Jack and by the next morning Maritz's body would've been rotting in a dumpster."

"Fulraine hired him to follow her. That was confirmed."

"Then Maritz scammed Fulraine, took his money, and made up reports. He couldn't have followed her. She'd have spotted him right away."

"What about his operative?"

"O'Neill? Another crooked cop. He was good, I'll give him that. He was like a shadow, you never noticed he was there." Jurgen smiles. "Still, bottom line on Maritz, you can't believe a word he says. Inspector Bartel should have known that. But you know what cops are like – they stick together especially when they lie. Now if Maritz had done the Flamingo job, that would’ve been something else. But like I said, he wouldn't have dared. He knew if Jack found out, Jack would’ve buried him alive."

Jurgen prefers my second drawing. He thinks my first makes him look too old. I offer it to him. He accepts on condition I let him comp me next time I come in. He says he'll post it among the signed photos of entertainers, ball players, and politicians that crowd the wall behind the bar.

As I'm about to leave, he asks if I'd be willing to make a drawing of his girlfriend.

"She's beautiful. You'll like sketching her. Thing is," he winces a little, "I'd like you to draw her in the nude. She's got a great body. I'll pay you well."

I tell him I'll accept the commission, but it's not money I want in exchange.

"What do you want?"

"Information."

He raises his right eyebrow, showing the same sweet, suave smile. "I'll mention it to the lady," he says.

I flex my fingers as I drive back to the Townsend. Five drawings since this morning. I'm done sketching for the day.

I check out Waldo's on my way through the lobby. The bar's barely half full. I stop by Reception to pick up my messages. There's just one, from Karen Lee.

Returning her call, I learn she's located Susan Pettibone.

"Easy search, Mr. Weiss. Your deposit will cover it. Once we got hold of her social security number, tracking her was a breeze."

I don't ask by what manner of hacking her operative got hold of the number.

Susan Pettibone, she tells me, now calls herself Susan Ryan, is divorced, has two grown children, is an executive at Pitney-Bowes, and lives in Danbury, Connecticut. Karen gives me her home phone number and street address, then asks me not to reveal where I got them.

"We deal with out clients in confidence," she says.

I watch TV for a while, then go down to Waldo's for a sandwich and beer. Then, missing Pam, I decide to take a walk following the same route we took the first night we went out together to Irontown to eat.

Approaching the Calista River, I pause to take in the tranquility of the city. It's after nine, a moonless night, and there's hardly anyone around, just an occasional night jogger fleeting along the embankment and sparse traffic heading for the Irontown clubs and cafes.

The river's glassy tonight, without a wave or visible current, slick like polished black marble reflecting the black, moonless sky. A row of well-spaced streetlamps, shaped like enormous candelabra, cast yellow light upon Riverwalk. In the distance, Eric Lindstrom's amazing twin towers, lit from within, soar like beacons from the cluster of old, granite-faced office buildings downtown.

I continue along Riverwalk with the Calista flowing silently below me beside abandoned railway tracks. Here finished steel and the components used to make it were hauled by barges day and night to and from the mills.

A sudden screech startles me. A high-speed train emerges from a tunnel on the other side of the river, then races along a trestle. In the distance I hear sirens, whether police or fire I can't tell. I look ahead. A single jogger's coming toward me. Otherwise the area's deserted.

As I reach the center of Riverwalk, I hear a car approaching from behind. Then the squeal of brakes. I turn just as a van pulls to the curb. Two men jump out wearing ski masks and black sweats. They grab my arms and drag me back. The jogger is coming abreast. When I call out to him for help, he pushed me roughly from behind. A moment later, I'm pushed and pulled toward an opening in the wall that bounds Riverwalk, entrance to one of the stairways that lead down to the river. I struggle frantically, but the three of them are too much for me. They drag me down a flight, throw some sort of sack over my head, pull it tight at my neck, then spin me around.

"Take my money," I mumble through the sack.

No answer. The sack blindfolds me, it smells bad inside, and makes it hard for me to breathe. AS I try to twist free, they suddenly let go of me. Then one of them shoves me forward, another shoves me toward the third, and he in turn pushes me back. I can hear their light laughter as they toss me around, spinning me each time until finally in a fit of dizziness I fall to the concrete, landing on my face.

But that's not enough for them. They pull me roughly to my feet and start the roundelay again. I'm terrified. What do they want? Why are they doing this? Are they just having sport with me, or is there some underlying purpose?

Suddenly two of them grab my arms, while the third punches me hard in the stomach. I feel a sharp pain, double over, fall to my knees. I can feel the vomit rising. I choke on it, try to spit it out.

One of them, the hitter I think, kneels beside me. I can feel his breath as he brings his mouth to my covered ear.

"Stop nosing around," he says, his harsh whisper cutting to me through the sack. "This is a warning. Next time we'll break your hands. Then you won't be drawing any more pictures."

He knows who I am! I've been targeted! This isn't a random attack! Then, as a set of memories floods in, I finally understand what this is about.

He pulls away. I sense the three of them standing above me, looking down. One of them kicks me in the side, then I hear their van take off. I lie still on the pavement until I'm sure they're gone, then pull the sack from my head.

When I get it off, I gulp for air… except the air around me isn't all that fresh, tainted by the smell of the river and the old iron smell of Calista streets. I sit up slowly, check myself. My side's sore but I'm sure nothing's broken. That final kick in the ribs was half-hearted at best. I taste a little blood, most likely the result of a split lip when I fell. Though grateful to find myself undamaged, I know I won't look pretty in the morning.

I grope about, get to my feet, make my way carefully up the concrete stairs. Back on Riverwalk, I go to the nearest lamppost and inspect the sack. It's tight yellow mesh, the kind used to hold grain. Two words are printed on it in block capital: BELSONS FLOUR.

Back in my room. I clean myself up. The cut on my lip isn't as bad as I thought. What the whisperer said was true – what I got tonight was a warning, not a beating, a warning to ‘stop nosing around,’ I know what that means: Keep my nose out of Flamingo. It's been twenty-six years. I ask myself: Who besides me and Mace still cares?

My phone rings early. It's Harriet informing me I have the day off. This morning the jury will visit the crime scene a the Museum of Natural History, no press allowed, and this afternoon Judge Winterson will rule on a defense proffer of new evidence.

I call Mace, tell him what happened.

"Can you ID the people?" he asks.

"No. Two of them were masked. It happened too fast. But I think I know who they are… or represent."

"Who?"

"I'll tell you when I'm sure. Meantime, I'm not intimidated. Anyway, I'm calling you about something else."

I pass on what Hilda Tucker told me about the obsessed grad student girl who lived in Tom Jessup's rooming house.

"I didn't see anything about her in the file," I tell him. "Do you remember her?"

"We talked to a lot of people. I don't recall anyone like that."

"Well, it's occurred to me – if she had such a big crush on Tom, maybe she stalked him, found out he wasn't gay. Then she snapped when she discovered he was seeing Barbara.

"Sounds like a long shot, but I'll look into it." A pause. "Listen, David, if you think you know who jumped you, you should tell me. There're laws against that. With you being in law enforcement, it could even be felonious assault."

"Hey, I'm just a freelancer," I remind him. "But thanks for your concern."

After breakfast. I head over to where I probably should have gone my first week in town: the austere ten-story triangular steel and terrazzo fortress at the corner of Toland and LaButte, which the discreet letters, FSI, incised in steel beside the main door identify as the headquarters of Fulraine Steel Industries.

Why, I ask myself, did it take an ambush on the street to finally bring me here? The easy answer is my residual bitterness toward Mark and Robin Fulraine. But I know there's more to it – my old guilt over not having immediately reported what I heard between the au pair and Belle Fulraine the day of Mark's seventh birthday. Even though I know better, I'm still burdened with the belief that if I'd told someone, Belle might still be alive.

Sitting in the waiting room on the executive floor, I study the corporation's annual report. There's a glossy picture of CEO Mark Fulraine, looking as handsome as I remember him at Hayes. The golden locks are gone now. His hair appears darker, thinner, and is combed back, giving him a sleek, well-tended look. But the smile's the same, the charming grin of the star athlete, lower school student council president, scion of one of Hayes's four founding families. The face of a man born to rule.

I read an optimistic summary of the company's prospects. A pie graph shows that only seven percent of FSI's revenues now derive from steel. These days the company's into all kinds of other things from manufacturing high-end stereo equipment, operating a chain of retail sporting goods stores, making high-capacity disk drives and assorted Internet ventures. In my admittedly naive view, FSI looks like an incoherent grab bag. I think back to my days at Hayes, trying to recall whether Mark was bright. Jerry Glickman and I were tops in our class in academics. Mark, I remember, fell somewhere in the middle.

I'm scanning the list of his Board of Directors, when an attractive young woman with a shag cut approaches with a smile.

"I'm Jane Bailey, Mr. Fulraine's assistant. He's free to see you now."

As she leads me through the door to the executive suite, she chatters on about how excited Mark was when told I'd stopped by.

"Soon as he heard, he cut short his meeting and had me clear his calendar for lunch. You'll be eating in our executive dining room. Chef wants to know what you'd like. Lobster, steak, or chicken?"

I tell her chicken will be fine.

The floors are plushly carpeted, the furnishings all made of steel, there are abstract designs engraved on steel plates encased in steel frames and abstract steel sculptures scattered about exhibited on steel pedestals.

Mark greets me from behind an oval, matte-finished steel desk.

"Dave Rubin!" He grasps hold on both my hands. "Hey, you're looking great, pal!"

Before I can answer, he's off on a riff about our classmates, some of whom I only vaguely remember.

"Jock Sturgis is FSI general counsel. He and I roomed together at Yale. Norm Carter's doing great. He's exec v.p. over at Hallowell Paints. Whatever happened to your old buddy – Glickstein?"

"Jerry Glickman."

"Yeah, what's Jerry doing these days?"

"He's professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School."

"I'll be damned! Hope he holds his scalpel steadier than he held the old basketball!"

He claps my shoulder. "Real glad you stopped by, David. You left so suddenly in the middle of seventh grade. Then your dad…" He shakes his head. "Things work out all right for you in California?"

"I still live out there. San Francisco now."

"You went to Stanford, right?"

"Pratt. That's an art school in New York."

"Sure, great place! One of our design guys went there. Got kids?"

I shake my head.

"I'm sending mine to Hayes, but they'll finish up at boarding schools in the East. My older boy's headed off to Groton in the fall. Get him some of that, you know, Eastern polish."

All this hail-fellow-well-met stuff makes me want to puke. Also I'm angry with myself for allowing him to lay down the field of play. I decide to cut the bullshit short.

"I gave my name at the desk as David Rubin," I tell him, "but now I'm David Weiss. When my mother remarried, I took my stepfather's name."

He stares at me. "I think I heard about that. Can't remember who told me… anyway…"

Silence. It's brief, last just a couple seconds, but it's deep enough to express the gulf between us, the gulf we could never bridge even when we were kids.

On the way to the FSI executive dining room, I tell him how I happen to be in town.

"Courtroom sketch artist, huh? I remember at school you were always drawing up a storm."

"As I recall you didn't like one of my drawings very much."

He laughs. "Hell of a fight we had. Do any boxing these days?"

It's an absurd question, but I politely shake my head.

"We got a gym downstairs. Occasionally I work out on the light bag. No sparring. Haven't done that since Hayes. Just as soon not get my face messed up. Wife wouldn't like it." He beams.

We study each other over lunch.

"We never liked each other much, did we, Mark?"

He smiles. "I wouldn't put it like that. But, yeah, I know what you mean."

"Why do you suppose?"

"Just one of those things, I guess."

"Still there's a connection, and not just our years at Hayes. We each lost a parent when we were young. You know about the connection between your mother and my dad?"

He looks uneasy.

"Dad was a caregiver. "Your mom needed help and my dad tried to give it to her. Later I learned she approached him the same day she met Mr. Jessup."

He shakes his head. "I don't really want to talk about this, Dave."

"David," I correct him. "Okay, I understand. But thing is, Mark, since I got here I've been looking into the Flaming killings in my spare time. People seem to know about that. Someone's been around the motel asking about me, and last night on Riverwalk I was attacked by three thugs. It was a warning to lay off."

He raises his eyebrows. "Really?"

Studying him, I can't tell a thing. Either he had nothing to do with it, or he's one very cool CEO.

I describe the attack. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

He shrugs, but of course he knows exactly what I'm talking about: the very rough Hayes School version of "Capture the Flag." There was a twenty-acre wood on school property where we played. In the Hayes version, when prisoners were taken they could be worked over for information in accordance with certain highly prescribed school rules. You couldn't beat a prisoner to make him talk, but you could haze him in various ways. One way was to blindfold him, then tie him to a tree, then touch hi with something scary like a garden snake. Often just the threat was enough to make a younger boy spill his guts. Another specialty from the list of school-sanctioned tortures was bagging – tying a bag around a prisoner's head, then pushing him around and twirling him till he fell down dizzy and confused. The object was to break your victim, make him cry, then divulge the whereabouts of his team's secreted flag. You couldn't inflict physical injury, but terrorization and humiliation were considered fair. Later, if a student's parents complained, the standard school response was that it was just a form of play, akin to football or murderball, and that such play was essential to instill ‘manliness’ in boys, the highest of all the moral virtues implanted by a "Hayes education."

"So what's your point?" Mark asks when I remind him of ‘bagging.’

"Isn't it obvious?"

He stares into my eyes. "Are you accusing me, David?"

"Do I have reason to?"

"Of course not!"

"Okay, I take you at your word. So, what's Robin up to these days?"

He shakes his head. "That's a sad story. What happened was terrible for us both. Still I managed to get through it. Robin didn't. You wouldn't recognize him. He takes drugs, shaves his head, wears earrings and tattoos, lives in a ratty house on the edge of Gunktown. Never bothered to fix it up… and believe me, he can afford to. He owns two million shares of FSI."

I look at him. "Maybe it was him who ambushed me last night."

"Is this why you're here?"

"I'm here because I thought it was you."

"That's not how I'd have handled it. I wouldn't have pulled my punches."

I laugh. Sure doesn't take much to skim the gloss off of him, I think, ‘that old Eastern polish,’ or whatever the hell he calls it. Apply a little stress and the old money varnish comes right off.

Maybe he realizes how ridiculous he appears or perhaps he wants to regain his self-respect. Whatever the reason, he meets my stare, then suddenly breaks into a grin.

"Really had me going there, didn't you?"

"I'll tell you, Mark, I don't like being bagged and pushed around, reminds me of days I'd just as soon forget. I particularly don't like being threatened with having my hands broken. I make my living with my hands."

"It won't happen again."

"That's a guarantee?"

He nods.

"Not good enough, Mark. Fist I want to make sure it was Robin. Second, I want to set him straight. By assuring me it won't happen again, you implicate yourself. So where do I find the little fucker?"

A pause. He looks away. "I'll take you to him," he says.

We don't talk much in the limo. Even here in his plush car, Mark appears smaller to me than in his office. Perhaps it's the lack of props, the corporate art collection assembled to glorify the divine might of steel, or maybe it's because of all the obscene Fulraine family secrets I learned from Dad's case study.

Gunktown's an ugly name for a district that was once one of the glories of Calista, the place you'd automatically think to go if you needed something built by hand. Say you invented a device and needed a prototype to show people how it worked, you'd take your drawings and go to one of the machine shops in Gunktown and they'd make it up for you fast and for a fair price. Machinists there could make anything, people said.

They called it Gunktown because of the oil and grease that coated everything and stank up the air. The name stuck even when the machine shop days were past. Then, when blacks moved in, the word took on a cruel twist. Gunktown came to mean the people who lived there, ‘gunks,’ people of color, and though it seemed shameful for white folks to even say the word, black leaders flung it about with pride: "Down in Gunktown we don't think much of your honky justice!" Or: "Don't come around Gunktown with your phony liberal bullshit!"

Our limo pulls up in front of a decaying Victorian house set forty or so feet back behind a grill fence. It looks strange beside its neighbors, which are all built flush to the street. The wood siding was once bright gray; now the peeling paint's the color of dirty steel. And what was once a small front yard is now a patch of brown strewn with discarded rusty machinery and weeds. There's a BEWARE FEROCIOUS DOG sign on the gate beside a profile of a dog's head displaying gnashing jaws. The main part of the house is two stories high surmounted by an off-center turret. The effect is lugubrious, like one of those weird old houses in Charles Adams cartoons.

Mark turns to me. "Let me talk to him first."

I watch him as he makes his way through the labyrinth of junk to the front stoop. He pauses at the door, then enters. Unwilling to sit in the car, I start a drawing of the house. Ten minutes later, as I'm finishing work on the turret, Mark steps back into the car.

"Yeah, it was Robin with a couple of his buddies. This is by way of apology." He hands me a check.

I look at it. It's signed by Robin, made out to me for five thousand dollars. I hand it back.

"I don't want this. I want a real apology."

He seems surprised. "He's very ashamed, David."

"So now he's trying to buy his way out. Is that how he thinks the world works?"

"He's not the most stable individual-"

"He sounded pretty stable when he threatened me last night. I want to see him. With you or without you, I'm going in."

Mark studies me. He's embarrassed. I meet his eyes and show him I'm serious. Then, to clinch the matter, I tell him that no matter how well meant, Robin's check could be construed as a bribe.

"To do what?"

"Stop me from filing an assault charge. Maybe get me to stop looking into the Flamingo killings, too."

"Just can't leave that alone, can you?"

"No, sorry, Mark – I can't."

Together we enter the gate. There are piles of dried dog crap scattered about, and the way the old machinery is cast makes it look like someone emptied one of the old Gunktown shop in the middle of the yard.

Ascending to the stoop, I'm hit by an odor of uncollected garbage. Mark doesn't ring or knock, just walks straight in. Standing in the center of the front hall, he call upstairs.

"David's here, Robin. He wants to talk to you. Come on down, okay?"

After a few moments, I hear the scurrying of animals and then the clump of human feet on the second floor.

"What's the deal?" Robin yells. "I told you I didn't want to see him."

"He won't take your check. He wants to talk. He's pretty offended by what you did."

"Offended, huh?" Robin appears at the top of the stairs along with a pair of mangy black mongrels. He's barefoot, wears baggy sweatpants and a soiled gray T-shirt. He sports an earring on his left ear and his hair's shaved down to his scalp.

"Hey, Dave!" he speaks shyly.

"Hey Robin! I'd say ‘long time no see,’ but last night wasn't that long ago."

"Real sorry about that, Dave. Something weird got into me."

"David not Dave."

"Sorry."

"Seemed pretty well planned to me, Robin. Also like you wanted me to know you or Mark was doing it."

"That wasn't my intention."

"I think it was."

"He doesn't know what he's doing half the time," Mark whispers.

"Come down, Robin. Let's talk."

"I'd rather talk from up here, okay?"

"Okay. Who told you I was ‘nosing around’?"

Robin's eyes moved to Mark. "Just something we heard."

I look over at Mark. "We?"

Mark looks away. "A friend mentioned it at a dinner party. He heard it from Spencer Deval."

Him again!

I gaze into Mark's eyes. "So last night Robin wasn't acting on his own. You were both involved."

"That's about it," Robin confirms.

"You guys must think I'm pretty stupid."

"Look," Mark says, "we've both been through a lot. First our baby sister, then our mom. We don't need all that dredged up again."

"Don't you want to know who killed your mom?"

"Cody did it. Everyone knows that."

"Nobody who knew Cody thinks he did it. There are other suspects. Don't you care?"

"I do," Robin says.

I turn to him. "Then help me, Robin. You're not going to feel good about yourself till you clear this thing up."

Robin, enticed by my plea, clumps down the stairs followed by his mutts.

"Hey, David!" He offers me his hand. "I'm real sorry, man. Mark said call you, warn you off. The ambush was my idea. I thought it'd be fun, like those games we used to play in the woods."

Up close he looks cadaverous. There are big circles under his eyes, multiple piercings in his eyebrows, and I notice what could be track marks amidst the crude tattoos on his scrawny arms. Like his brother, he has his father's squared-off jaw and powerful brow, but unlike Mark his features are softened by his mother's seductive eyes and sensitively modeled lips. His skin, too, is darker than Mark's. Like Blackjack's, I think.

"Forget about it," I tell him. "No serious damage. I've got a slightly cut lip and a sore set of ribs which I could've gotten playing football. Remember what coach Lafferty used to tell us. ‘Just ignore the pain, boys – it's part of the game.’

Robin laughs. "What an asshole he was!" After a moment, Mark starts laughing too.

We adjourn to the living room – if you can call it that. It's a mess: a ratty old dorm-style couch with exposed stuffing and easy chairs with broken springs; piles of discarded newspapers strewn about; clusters of crusted Styrofoam coffee cups; unwashed glasses with strangely colored residues adhering to their bottoms.

When we're seated, I turn to Robin. "What're you trying to cover up?"

Mark leans forward. "There's nothing to cover," he says.

"Shut up, Mark! I'm talking to your brother."

To my surprise he obeys.

"Mark's right. There's nothing." Robin speaks softly.

Listening to him, I realize that despite his unkempt appearance and the grubby way he lives, he's a much more interesting person than Mark, more vulnerable, more likeable too.

I look over at Mark. He meets my stare.

"Even if there was, it wouldn't be any of your business," he says.

"David's dad tried to help Mom," Robin reminds him.

"Not all that well, considering what happened."

I turn back to Robin. Mark, I understand, cannot be reached. He's the same cold WASPy son of a bitch who hit me a low blow in lower school. But Robin's accessible. Sure, he's screwed up, but he's also got some heart. I like his face, the hurt I see in it, would like to draw it if I get the chance. Mark's smooth, American aristocrat's face doesn't interest me at all.

Deciding there's nothing more to be gained by sitting around, I suggest it's time for me to leave. Mark springs to his feet. It's obvious he hates this house and can barely stand his brother. Robin and I shake hands, then he spontaneously grasps me in a hug.

"You're a good guy, David," he says, holding me tight. "I'm sorry. I really am."

As I hug him back, I catch a smirk on Mark's face. Then just before Robin and I disengage, Robin speaks into my ear in the same raw whisper he used last night: "Mom left a diary and I've got it. Call me."

An awkward moment as the three of us stand silent beside the door. Then Mark and I leave, the brothers not touching or even bothering to say good-bye.

Mark drops me at the Townsend. From the lobby, I step into Waldo's for a beer.

At the bar, Sylvie Brown, the black reporter, catches my eye.

"How they hangin’, David?" She picks up her glass, moves to the stool next to mine. "Deval's telling everyone you're a rude boy."

"I probably am."

"At the risk of inciting more rudeness, would you be willing to do some drawings for my book? Portraits of the principal media types sitting around in here. You know, different cliques at different tables. Also couples like you and Pam who met and paired off during the trial. Might be fun for you, chance to do a job on certain folks."

I know just the kind of portraits she has in mind. Listening to her, I can see the finished drawings in my head. She's right, they would be fun to do, and Waldo's would make the perfect setting.

"Intriguing notion," I tell her. "I'll see what I can work up."

On my way upstairs. I pick up my messages. After a quick shower in my room, I start returning calls.

Jurgen Hoff tells me his lady friend is game to pose.

"She's excited about it. The way I imagine it, she'll be sprawled out on her bed."

"Then the bed should be unmade," I tell him. "Think of Manet's Olympia. I see rumpled sheets."

We arrange to meet at the lady's apartment Sunday evening when Jurgen's restaurant is closed.

Next I return a call from Chip Rakoubian. He tells me he's spoken with his mother and she's agreed to talk to me. Since she's crippled, confined to home, he suggests I meet him at the Rathskeller at five tomorrow afternoon. He'll drive me over to the house, introduce us, then leave us alone.

"She's got a little quirk," he tells me. "I think I mentioned she used to be a professional dominatrix. Thing is she still enjoys the role… so it'd be nice if you'd be extra respectful and address her as ‘Ma'am’."

I tell him, Sure, anything for the cause…

I'm trying to relax, thinking about what I've set up – tomorrow evening questioning ‘Ma'am’; Sunday evening questioning Jurgen while drawing his naked girlfriend sprawled on her bed – when my thoughts turn to Robin Fulraine. I'm about to call him, when my phone rings. It's Pam, excited. Thins are going gangbusters for her in New York.

"Two networks want me. The money being offered is huge! Meantime CNN's upping their offer. My agent says Monday'll be The Day."

She tells me she could fly back to Calista tonight, but she's decided to sweat things out in New York.

"If I'm going to leave CNN, they'll keep me off the air till my contract runs out. The idea being, ‘If she's going to work for a rival network, why give her more exposure?’"

When she gets around to asking how things are going with me, I tell her I've located Susan Pettibone in Connecticut.

"Would you be willing to interview her?" I ask. "You're barely an hour now from where she lives."

Pam goes for it. I fill her in, tell her about Susan's report of what Tom said when, awakened by her call, he thought for a moment that she was Barbara.

"According to Susan he said: ‘God! Did you really do it? or ‘Did he really do it?’ The cop who questioned her didn't follow up. Maybe there's something else she'd have remembered if he'd pushed. Also what hints Tom might have given her when he asked her to come out to Calista. Also whether he ever mentioned the girl who lived next door in the roominghouse."

"Gee, David, how is she going to remember any of that?"

"People often remember their last conversation with someone who died."

"If she remembers, I'll get it out of her," Pam promises.

I set up a Saturday afternoon portrait session with Robin. He seems pleased by the prospect.

"I've always wanted to be drawn by a real artist," he says. "Also it'll give us a chance to talk."

Relieved that he's willing to see me again, I go back down to Waldo's to consider the postures I'll be assuming over the next several days:

The Respectful Supplicant with Chip's mother.

The Empathetic Portraitist-Therapist with Robin.

The Master Draftsman-Interrogator with Jurgen.

So many roles, subterfuges, hidden agendas. Will I be able to stage-manage these performances, keep them straight? Most important, will I be able to achieve my goal… and do I even know what my goal is? Solve the Flamingo killings? Absolve Dad? Discover what it was that tore my family apart? Or is it something deeper, such as understanding the strange woman at the center of the web of conflicting motives and warring loyalties, and, by doing so, perhaps come to better understand myself?

Waldo's is humming tonight. Every table filled. I find a stool at the bar, nod to Tony, my signal I'd like a margarita, then whip out my sketchpad and start making studies for Sylvie's book.

I notice Deval observing me, then turning back to his tablemates, probably to deliver a clever putdown at my expense. I consider trying to make things up with him, then reject the idea. Whatever damage he can do to me has doubtless already been inflicted. Instead I start a caricature of him as Grand Pontificator and Buffoon.

In this respect my pencil has always served me well, sometimes gotten me into trouble, too. It was a caricature, after all, that earned me the enmity of Mark Fulraine… and many others since. Call it my equalizer, for a clever drawing can cut most anyone down to size. Others may brawl with their fists or, like the Flamingo shooter, settle accounts with a gun. I look across the room at the portrait of Waldo Channing. He jousted with his typewriter and cruel wit. The media folks now drinking and laughing in the bar wage war with their dispatches. And I, like artists through history, going back to the days when men first drew with ends of burnt sticks upon the interior walls of caves, know that with a line here, a line there, I can puncture any man's pomposity, wither any man's ego with my scorn.