Hostile Witness (41 page)

“There’s no rush. Sharon’s just a bitch sometimes but basically she’s all right.”

So I had another round and by the end of it the place was spinning and I couldn’t focus on anyone enough to gawk and so Sharon was finally safe from my gaze. The place filled up quickly, it was Tuesday night after all, and I watched them all as they came in. There were younger women and older women and pretty pretty women and ugly women and fat and fatter and skinny women. There were all kinds of women and for some reason, the drinks probably or the secret knowledge I had or some typical male perversion forcing its way to the surface, but for some reason I found them amazingly sexy. I wanted to date them all, to make love to them all, to each of them become a friend and confidant. I was in love with the whole damn room, J.J. especially, with her cute pug nose and freckles. Even Sharon with that scar, yes, I wanted her too. Every damn dyke there I wanted so much it hurt. Hell is being surrounded by all that you want without any possibility of getting it: hell is pure wanting without satisfaction. Hell was being in that bar, in love with the unobtainable. Hell was my life.

Enough with the self-pity already; I had things that needed doing. I slipped off my stool and crawled to the back of the bar, where there was one bathroom and a phone. I peed a river and afterwards fished in my pocket for a quarter and placed a call. Then I left a sweet tip for J.J. and staggered out of that palace of denial and into the soggy, moonless night.

I WAITED PURPOSELY
in the shadows of Veronica’s building for another old lady with shopping bags to come along, but it was too late for that. The little courtyard was strangely silent, the plastic-encased elevator was still. The drinks started turning in my stomach and a flowering nausea rose in my throat. While I stood there, concentrating on that blossoming bud, it started raining. I panicked for a moment, not knowing what to do, and then sick and wet I rushed into the vestibule and rang doorbells up and down the metal grid, rang all but hers. One by one they shouted at me through the intercom. “Pizza,” I shouted back in a series of badly accented responses and finally someone, hungry and with pepperoni on the mind, let me in. I walked up the stairs to her floor and then carefully down the thin carpet of her hallway. Her door was locked this time. I rapped it hard with my knuckles. There was no answer but I could see a light through her peephole. I knew she was there, so I rapped on, rapping hard enough and long enough to make my knuckles bleed. Through the alcohol I didn’t feel pain so much as a numbed sensation that I knew would evolve into pain. I kept rapping until she shouted at me, “Go away.”

“Oh, let me in, Veronica.”

“I can’t.”

“Jimmy told you not to let me in, right?”

“He’s furious.”

“I have to see you. Let me in or I’ll throw up right here in the hallway.”

“Do it and go.”

“Let me in,” I said. “Let me explain, at least.”

“Go away.”

I leaned my head against the cool of her door and shouted, “Just tell me one thing, one little thing. Tell me one thing and I’ll leave.”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t tell me to go away again either.

“Just tell me if Bissonette was better in the sack than me.”

There was nothing for a long moment. Then the metallic click of her unlocking the door. By the time I pushed it open she was already walking away from me. She was dressed seriously, in jeans and a white shirt, heavy shoes. It was a different look for her, a good look, I thought as I lurched into the apartment, ever entranced by her shifting appearances. She sat on the couch, demurely, legs drawn beneath her, head turned to look out the back window onto the rear parking lot. The cast to her face was tense, locked. I got a hard-on looking at her.

On my way toward her I tripped over a suitcase standing upright not far from the door. With the little dignity I could muster I pulled myself up from the floor. She was making it a point not to look at me. I grabbed the handle of the offending suitcase and lifted. It was packed, but packed light, a bag packed for a weekend at the shore.

“Where the hell are you going?” I asked.

“Any suggestions?” she said.

“I hear Cleveland is beautiful this time of year.”

She wanted to smile but held back. I walked over to the couch and stood beside her, swaying a bit, my raincoat shedding tears, and then I dropped down hard onto my haunches and leaned back, trying to look natural sprawled on her floor. The room was spinning on me, but she wasn’t, she was tightly in focus and breathtaking.

“So what about Bissonette?” I said.

“How do you know about Zack?” she asked calmly.

“The police found his little black book,” I said. She was in there, under the name Ronnie, nothing else, no last name, no address, no phone number, just Ronnie. And five stars.

“He was so proud of that book, like a little boy showing off his baseball cards.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Was he better than you? Be a little different, Victor. That’s your problem. You’re so ordinary. You want the same things as every other guy and you have the same little worries. Am I big enough, is my girl pretty enough, do I make enough money. There’s not one unique twitch in your entire body.”

“They feel unique enough to me,” I said. I would have been angry as hell at her except that nausea tends to drive out all conflicting states and so instead of spitting back something devastating and witty I closed my eyes and lay down on her floor. This was a bad drunk. I was going to be sick. I wanted to get this over with before I got sick. I didn’t want to get sick in front of her, I didn’t want to be that vulnerable in front of her, kneeling over the toilet, retching uncontrollably while she leaned on the doorjamb, amused.

“So you met Bissonette at the club,” I said, my eyes still closed. “He was attractive enough and you thought you’d give him a ride.”

“I was bored,” she said. “Zack looked different, that ponytail, the sharp clothes. And he had been a major leaguer. I thought there might be something there but he had turned boring too, like the rest. It happens to anyone who spends too much time in Philadelphia.”

I opened one eye and it was like I was on a Tilt-A-Whirl, so I closed it again. “You dropped him?”

“We played around for a little, then I told him it was over. He didn’t like that.”

“I know how he felt. A man in love.”

“Yeah, he fell, but not until I told him to pound dirt. Before then he thought he was doing me a favor. That’s how to stir passion in a man, I’ve learned. Walk out on him. But he wouldn’t accept it. He acted like it was all a matter of his will and if he wanted me bad enough I could be had.”

“And I guess he wanted you bad enough.”

“He called incessantly. He sent me letters, flowers, Hallmark cards, like that would do it. A bottle of champagne brought by a bozo in a gorilla suit. He was a real charmer, all right. But one night, Jimmy was out of town with his wife. In a fit of absolute boredom, I called him.”

“One last dance.”

“Well, it was easy, you know. Just lift up the phone, like ordering Chinese food. You’re sweating, Victor.”

“It’s hot in here.”

“No, it isn’t. You look like a sweating ghost. Were you drinking those sweet drinks of yours?”

“And those vodka things of yours.”

“Together? Oh, you’re going to be sick all right.”

“Not yet,” I said, though I knew it wouldn’t be long. “And that last night together was when he pulled out the cocaine?”

“Victor, you little detective.”

“Am I right?”

“Yes, Victor, you are right. You have that link ordinary men have with other ordinary men. You can see through their tactics. That’s when he brought me my little gift.”

“And he tricked you into getting high.”

“God, no. He held it out and I nearly raped him to get my hands on it. A sweet vial with one perfect chunk.”

“What about your twelve-step program?”

“Twelve steps to mediocrity. It was too boring without it, too sad. I didn’t realize what was missing until he held out that vial at arm’s length. Then I remembered.”

“But it worked for Bissonette. You stayed with him.”

“You don’t understand. Neither did he. I wasn’t with him anymore, I was with the drug. He was just the prick who brought it.”

“How did Jimmy find out?”

“It wasn’t long before what Zack was bringing over wasn’t enough. So I started back to buying from Norvel.”

“And Jimmy found out.”

“Yes. Henry is still somehow connected with Norvel, I don’t understand in what way, but that’s how Henry found out and he told Jimmy.”

“And Jimmy went crazy.”

“He has a thing about drugs,” she said calmly. But it was more than just drugs, I knew. It was history repeating itself. If it was happening to anyone else Jimmy Moore might have handled it, but not to his surrogate daughter Veronica. He had saved her life, had cleaned her up, and now to see it happen all over again, like it had happened to Nadine, to be threatened with once again losing his daughter was too much to bear, even if it wasn’t his daughter, even if it was only the piece of trim who had taken the place of his daughter. What anger he felt was coming from a deep, primal place within him and there was no soothing it with words, no arresting it with reason, no assuaging it with anything other than blood.

“And then he killed Bissonette,” I said.

“I didn’t know what he was going to do. He came over in a rage and I told him.”

“Who drove him here?”

“I don’t know. He came in alone and I told him. But I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“You knew.”

“I knew he was going to do something.”

“You knew. Shit.” I struggled to rise to a sitting position and felt my stomach fall like it was falling down a shaft. “What about the series of cash deposits made into your account?” I asked, trying to fight the nausea.

“Jimmy told me what to do. I only did what Jimmy told me.”

“Where did the money end up?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t know.”

My falling stomach hit bottom with a spasm. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “I have to go.” I stumbled to my feet and reached out to steady myself and missed the couch armrest and slammed my head into the side table and fell to my knees. It was already up, in my mouth, held there by clenched teeth and my right hand when I struggled again to my feet and ran, bent over, like a hunchback, to the stairs and up two half-flights to her bathroom.

It came out in a noisy, involuntary series of retches that left my sides cramping and my throat burning and saliva hanging from my mouth in long strands. With each retch it felt like it was coming from deeper inside me, until it hurt as much as if pieces of my lungs and guts were coming up along with the alcohol. The toilet was violet from the drinks, violent in color and smell, and my head hung just above the putridity as I waited for the next round. I was still wearing my raincoat, my suit was damp with a feverish sweat. In a brief moment of peace I turned my head and saw her there, leaning against the doorjamb just as I had imagined, except for her face, which was not smug but sad and concerned. I involuntarily lunged back for the bowl as the retches began again. The next time I turned around she was gone.

When it was finished I stood up and felt instantly relieved, light, spry. I was no longer sweating, the room was no longer spinning, but there was enough alcohol in me to still feel the recklessness of a mild buzz. I cleaned my face with cold water and soap and then opened her medicine cabinet. It was full of cosmetics arranged haphazardly, little red plastic medicine containers, Band-Aids, too
many Band-Aids. I pulled out a thick plastic comb and ran it through my hair, I used her toothbrush to scrub my teeth, I rinsed my mouth with her Scope. When I came downstairs she was putting on an overcoat.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Away. It’s ruined for me here.”

“Because of what I did in court today?”

“No, but that was the signal to leave.”

“Why don’t you stay, get some help?”

“I don’t need help,” she said.

“You’re a drug addict, Veronica. You need help. You need to check in someplace.”

“I’m going home.”

“Iowa?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“You need more than a veterinarian.”

“Good-bye, Victor.”

“He’s going to let Chester take the rap for what he did.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s too bad. Chet was always sweet to me. We slept together once, did I tell you? The night he said he had a crush on me I let him.”

I tried not to think about it, to imagine it. “You could save him,” I pressed on. “You could testify, tell them what happened.”

“No, I can’t, Victor. You know I can’t do anything against Jimmy.”

“He didn’t save you, Veronica. Look at yourself.”

“But what he did he did for me, don’t you see? Of all of you, of Zack and you and Norvel and Chet, of all of you only Jimmy loved me. I won’t betray that.”

“I love you.”

“You love it,” she said sharply.

“More than that.”

“Really, Victor? Consider it carefully. From the first I’ve lied to you. We’ve never spent a full night together, never shared breakfast, the first coffee of the morning, the first
cigarette. You know nothing about me, Victor, so what about me could you possibly love other than our sex?”

“It’s not so easily calculable, it’s not like a ledger.”

“Oh, yes it is,” she said. “Just like you told me the first night we met.”

“You can’t know what I feel.”

“I don’t think you know either.”

There was a pause and I started thinking about what she was saying and then I stopped, because I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to look into it.

“You’re the only one who can stop Chester from losing his freedom,” I said. “Stop him from losing his life for something he didn’t do. You have the duty to save him.”

“No, Victor. You’re his lawyer. You save him.” She looked up at me with moist eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Please.”

I couldn’t tell if she was asking me to save Chester or asking me to save her, but it didn’t really matter. I leaned over and brushed one of her tears away with my lips and then kissed her and her lips opened and my lips opened and I felt her tongue once again and the electricity and the wanting and the unquenchable thirst. I reached a hand to her hair and grabbed and kissed her again and she kissed me back and I wished desperately that it could have been different. She sighed into my mouth. I rubbed my hand in her hair and kissed her again.

“You brushed your teeth, at least,” she said.

I smiled at her and we kissed once more and my hand dropped from her hair to her back to the little hollow at the bottom of her spine and I pressed her to me there and her arms slung themselves around my neck and we squeezed ourselves together and the alcohol in my blood burned itself off with that kiss. And as she pulled me closer toward her, melting herself to the contours of my body, I knew what I had to do. With my free hand I reached into my raincoat and grappled around and pulled out the envelope.

“This is for you,” I said.

She gave me a curious look and then ripped open the envelope with the excitement of a little girl opening a valentine. But it wasn’t a valentine.

Inside was a piece of paper with great Gothic letters across the top spelling out “The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania” and ordering the said Veronica Ashland of 225 Church Street in the City of Philadelphia, the County of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to appear in the United States District Court on the date specified, at 10:00
A.M.
, as a witness for defendant Chester Concannon in the trial of
United States v. Moore and Concannon.
The document was signed by the clerk of the court and accompanied by a check for thirty-six dollars, which included the witness fee and travel reimbursement for the four-block walk from her apartment to the courthouse.