"No."
"How can you be sure?"
"By the time Sam got the report I was already through with Zack. He had broken it off, actually. Some foolishness about being in love. No, after Zack there was my personal trainer and then a heating contractor, working on our pipes, and then a florist, a sweet Englishwoman named Fiona, and they were all listed in the report too. And they"re still very much alive. By the time Zack was beaten we were in the middle of an earnest but ultimately futile reconciliation. So you see, Victor, it wasn"t Sam after all."
I didn"t respond. Instead I sort of grunted with disappointment. The waiters whisked away our appetizer plates and brought our main courses. My steak, thick filets in a deep brown pepper sauce, seemed too much to eat just then.
"Suddenly," I said, "I"m not hungry."
"Doggie bags are such bad form, Victor. Eat. You look a little peaked. But I must say it is charming that you think me worth a homicide."
She smiled at me, her impossibly wide, s.e.xy smile, but then it withered into something arctic.
"But it wasn"t me you thought he would kill for, was it, Victor? It was the name, it was the money, it was the slot at the family firm. You"re a monster, do you know that? Both of you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. You belong together. At least poor dead Zack was honest. All he wanted from me was my body."
I dropped my gaze down and saw my steak sitting there, charred and thick in its sauce, malignant with peppercorns. I cut into the meat. It was blood-red inside and I realized I was more than not hungry. I was nauseous, lost. I was adrift without a clue.
Someone was lying about killing Bissonette: Enrico Raffaello lying to throw us off the scent, or Jimmy Moore lying to save his political career, or Lauren lying in one last gallant gesture to her soon-to-be-former husband. Or maybe no one was lying. Maybe the murderer was someone else, a jealous husband I hadn"t yet stumbled upon. Or Norvel Goodwin, threatening me off the case to try to keep his drug-related murder of Zack Bissonette a secret. It could be anyone or no one, as far as I was concerned, because all my hunches had been all wrong and I had no more hunches to follow. Prescott would have his way with his cabana boy after all and there was nothing I could do about it.
"Excuse me," I said to Lauren as she sadly separated the flakes of her trout with her fork and I rose to go to the men"s room. But once I reached the gla.s.s-enclosed bar, instead of turning right and heading into the hotel lobby, where the lounges were, I turned left, out the door, down the ramp, out and across the side street to the parking lot and into my car. I could see Lauren"s back through that bay window. So what if I stuck her with the check, she could afford it. I had someplace I had to be. Lancaster Avenue to City Line Avenue to the Schuylkill Expressway to I-676 to Race Street into Olde City and the converted sugar refinery and the loft bed where something golden awaited me and where, like a convict leaping the fence, I could escape from my life.
40.
VERONICA IS WAITING FOR ME, naked, languid in her bed, legs slung carelessly about a twisted sheet, arms resting on a pillow above her head, b.r.e.a.s.t.s leaning on either side of her narrow chest. Her hair is wild, tangled, the room smells of her, it smells of deer in suburban forests, of racc.o.o.ns. She doesn"t turn her head to look at me as I stand over her bed, staring at her, overcome.
"You took so long to get here," she says.
"You shouldn"t leave your door unlocked."
"How did you get in the building?"
"An old lady with grocery bags."
"You took so long to get here I started without you."
"It looks like you finished, too."
"It is never finished."
I undress hurriedly, like a schoolboy at the pool while others are already splashing. I yank off my shoes without untying them, my pants end in a pile. A sock lies limply against the leg of her bed. A b.u.t.ton pops as I fumble with my shirt. With her I feel young and clumsy, competent only as long as she tells me what to do. I want her to watch me undress, but her head is turned away, she is lost somewhere. Wherever she is is where I want to be.
"Mr. Lee, what is your position?" asked Eggert from behind the courtroom podium.
"Executive Director of Citizens for a United Philadelphia."
"And what exactly is Citizens for a United Philadelphia?"
"We are a political action committee. We collect funds and then support political candidates we feel have the best chance of ensuring that Philadelphia prospers and that this prosperity is shared by all members of the Philadelphia community, not just the privileged few. We also spend money organizing community groups and on voter registration drives, not to mention our prime charitable project, the Nadine Moore Youth Centers, providing full-time drug rehabilitation for troubled teens."
"Is your organization connected with Councilman Moore?"
"The councilman is chairman of our board of directors."
"And Mr. Concannon?"
"Mr. Concannon is also on our board."
"And have you supported Councilman Moore in his previous elections?"
"The councilman is exactly the type of public servant we are looking for, a forward thinker who is determined not to let anyone get left behind."
"Yes, I see," said Eggert. "Are you aware of any plans of the councilman"s to run for mayor?"
"We have asked him to run."
"We?"
"The board of the committee."
"On which the councilman sits?"
"Yes, but he abstained from the formal vote. There is a lot to be done in this city and we believe he is the one to do it. The youth centers are just the start of his plans."
"Has the committee been raising money for the councilman"s mayoral campaign?"
"Yes, and we have been surprisingly successful. The support out there is way beyond what we had expected. There is a great excitement citywide for the councilman."
"How much have you raised so far?"
"Over two million dollars."
"Was Mr. Ruffing a contributor?"
"Oh yes, a very generous contributor."
"How much did he contribute?"
"That is confidential, sir."
"I ask the court," said Eggert, "to instruct the witness to answer the question."
"Answer the question," growled Judge Gimbel.
"But, sir, that is precisely the type of question I can"t answer and be faithful to my duty to our contributors."
"Answer the question, Mr. Lee," said the judge, "or you will go to jail."
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"Not five hundred thousand dollars?" asked Eggert.
"No, sir, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"Did you ever receive any cash contributions?"
"Never. We made it a policy never to accept cash. In fact, the councilman insisted on that. Everything had to be by check, everything had to be on the straight and narrow."
"How did you get Mr. Ruffing"s check each month?"
"Mr. Concannon brought it over."
"You mean the defendant Concannon."
"Yes, the man sitting right over there."
"Did he ever bring you cash from Mr. Ruffing, too?"
"Never."
When I slip beside her she turns from me, showing me her back, long and slender, the vertebrae marching with precision down the shallow valley. I reach over and take hold of her breast and bite the lobe of her ear. She stretches like a house cat and snuggles back until her b.u.t.tocks are spooned against my groin. She twists to make herself comfortable and lets out a soft purr. Her arms are still above her head. I brush her hair away from her neck, it smells wild, abandoned. It is a mustang"s mane. I kiss her there, on the wild-smelling neck, soft oyster kisses, wetting the down on the nape. It quivers beneath my tongue, turns febrile. I rub her nipple between my fingers, it swells slowly, like a bruise, as I rub. I squeeze harder. She shifts her position once again. Her nipple grows hard as a tack, my fingers hurt, I squeeze harder. Her neck rears and I begin to suck at its side. She reaches down between her legs and takes hold of me and squeezes. She is wearing a ring, the metal bites into my flesh. I suck harder at her neck, I play with her skin between my teeth. She yanks her neck away.
"You"ll leave a mark," she says.
"Let go of me."
"No."
I grab her hair and again pull it away from her neck and bite at her back. She locks her legs behind mine and squeezes harder. I take hold of her ankle. We are shackled together, like prisoners, chained together like lifers at a slag heap. I pull her leg back, she breathes in sharply and then squeezes hard. I can feel myself deflate.
"You let go and I"ll let go," I mumble through teeth still in her neck.
"I don"t want you to let go," she says.
So I immediately open my teeth, let go of her ankle, release her nipple from between my fingers.
"No," she says with a disappointed shrug, even as she pulls her knee up to her chest, turns toward me, curls into a ball, and, without ever letting go, places me, bruised, deflated, lolling, places me into her mouth. As before a judge, I rise.
"Now, Mr. Petrocelli, what were you doing on Delaware Avenue the night of the fire at Bissonette"s?" asked Eggert.
"Sleeping in my cab."
"Why were you sleeping in your cab on Delaware Avenue?"
"I was tired. It"s a long shift."
"And when did you wake up?"
"About five in the morning, when I heard the sirens."
"What were the sirens from, do you know?"
"The fire trucks."
"Where were the fire trucks going?"
"To the fire."
"Where was the fire, Mr. Petrocelli?"
"At that club."
"Bissonette"s?"
"That"s it, yeah."
"Now, when did you fall asleep, Mr. Petrocelli?"
"About an hour earlier."
"That would be four in the morning?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"It"s not unusual for you to catch a nap on Delaware Avenue at four in the morning, is it, Mr. Petrocelli?"
"It"s a long shift."
"Just before you went to sleep at four o"clock in the morning, tell the jurors what you saw that night, Mr. Petrocelli."
"I saw the car."
"Where did you see the car?"
"It was leaving from behind the club."
"Bissonette"s?"
"Like I said, yeah. It flashed its brights at me as it came out."
"What kind of car was it, Mr. Petrocelli?"
"I got a good look at it under the streetlights there."