One-Way Ticket (2 page)

The last I heard, Teresa had married a Nissan dealer and was living in Acton.

I’d been Dalt’s lawyer the whole time, through the purchases and failures of his businesses, his struggles with addiction, his marriage to and divorce from Teresa, and then through his remarriage, five or six years ago, to a pretty high school biology teacher named Jessica Laroche.

I’d always liked Dalt Lancaster, and I tried not to feel sorry for him. Even though his father had died many years ago, and even though the old man’s money was long gone, Dalt still seemed always to be looking over his shoulder. His mother the judge seemed to love him well enough, although she’d never tried to hide her disappointment in the way his life had gone. Dalt had never really crawled out from under Frederick Lancaster’s big paternal shadow, and that seemed to explain everything.

Dalt once told me that fatherhood scared him. He was afraid he’d turn into the father that his own had been. That’s why he let Teresa have Robert. He’d rather be no father at all than end up like his own old man.

The bar at Vic’s was two deep with theater people in silk dresses and pearl necklaces and summer-weight suits and blazers, but when I shouldered my way through them and stepped into the dining area, I saw a face lean out and a hand wave from the booth in the far corner.

I went to the booth. I guessed it was Robert, although I hadn’t seen him in many years. He resembled his Italian mother. A big mop of curly black hair, bronze skin, white teeth. He was a slender, handsome kid-almost-a-man. He wore the uniform of his generation—sunglasses, black T-shirt, and a gold stud in his left ear.

I shook Robert’s hand. Dalton Lancaster and a man I didn’t recognize were sitting across from him.

Robert gestured at the man sitting beside Dalt. “This is Mike Warner. My Uncle Mike. He just got here. He’s going to drive my father home. The doctor said he shouldn’t drive.”

Mike Warner had curly sun-bleached hair, a tanned face, and startling blue eyes. I guessed he was a few years older than Dalt, late forties, maybe. He was cradling a mug of beer on the table in both of his beefy hands.

He took his right hand off his sweaty beer mug, wiped it on his pants, and held it out to me. “Hey.”

I shook Warner’s hand, said, “Hey,” and slid in beside Robert. “You must be Jess’s brother, then.”

“No,” he said. “I’m Kimmie’s husband. Kimmie is Jess’s sister, which makes me Dalt’s brother-in-law.” He grinned. “Got all that?”

I shrugged. “Either way you’re Robert’s uncle.”

“Stepuncle,” he said, “technically.”

Dalton Lancaster was sipping a Coke through a straw. The entire left side of his face was red and beginning to swell, his left eye was bloodshot and half closed, and his left eyebrow was covered with a Band-Aid. Some dried blood had caked in one of his nostrils, and his shirt was torn and smudged with dirt.

“What the hell happened?” I said to him.

“Three guys,” he mumbled. “In the parking lot.” He talked through clenched teeth. His voice was so low I had to lean across the table to hear him. “Bastards punched me, knocked me down, kicked me.”

I pointed at his wrist. “They didn’t take your watch.”

“They took nothing,” he said, staring down into his glass of Coke. “They just kicked me. Loosened some teeth, bruised some ribs. The doctor said I was lucky.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t work, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut for a minute. “No broken bones, no internal injuries. Just a raging fucking headache.” He looked up at me. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“It wasn’t luck, you know,” I said. “If they didn’t break anything, it’s because they didn’t want to. This was to put you on notice.”

He nodded. “Yeah, well, for what?”

“You tell me. What did they say?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I was too busy getting my head kicked in.”

“Did you get a look at them?”

He shrugged. “They were kind of short and dark and muscular. Italian, Hispanic, something like that: They were wearing suits. They followed me to the parking lot. I was kind of aware of them behind me, but I didn’t think anything about it. Figured just some guys like me, heading for their car.”

“Could you pick them out of a lineup?”

He shook his head. “It was dark. They came up behind me. They were just, you know, thugs. One of them had a big mole or wart or something on his face.”

“So how much do you owe them?” I said.

He frowned at me, then lifted up his hands and spread them open. “Brady, honest to God,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t do that anymore. All I owe is the mortgage and the car loan. I’m not even behind on my payments. I don’t think the bank sends goons, do they?”

I smiled. “Depends on your definition of goon, I guess. So what do you think? Sounds like they got the wrong man. They mistook you for somebody else, huh?”

“Well,” he said, “they called me Lancaster, and last I looked, that’s my name.”

“They used your name?”

He nodded. “I was almost at my car, starting to get a little nervous about these guys behind me but trying to ignore them, and one of them says, ‘Hey, you. Lancaster. Dalton Lancaster.’ So I stopped and turned around, and he punched me in the chest. This was the one with the mole on his face. Felt like I’d been hit by a sledgehammer. Knocked me down, and then they commenced kicking me.”

I slid out of the booth, then looked down at Robert Lancaster and Mike Warner. “Mike,” I said, “Robert, give him a minute with his lawyer, will you?”

They both nodded, got up, and walked away.

I resumed my seat across from Dalt and watched Warner and Robert Lancaster move toward the front of the restaurant. They stopped when they got to the bar area and talked for a minute. Then Warner nodded, gave Robert a little punch on the shoulder, and made a left turn toward the men’s room.

I turned to Dalt and said, “Your son has become a man.”

Dalt smiled. “He’s a good kid, Brady. Thank God I didn’t fuck him up the way my old man did me.”

“Something to be proud of,” I said. “Warner seems like an okay guy.”

He nodded. “Mike’s a good guy. I called, told him where I was, asked him to come get me, and he came. No questions asked.”

I put my elbows on the table and pushed my face at him. “I can see why there might be things you wouldn’t want Mike and Robert to hear,” I said. “But God damn it, Dalt, you can’t lie to me. I’m your lawyer. We’ve been through all this before. You know it’s all confidential.” I looked hard at him. “So let’s have it. Who do you owe money to, and how much?”

He blinked at me. “Brady,” he said, “I’m telling you the truth. I promised Jess I’d quit when I asked her to marry me, and I’ve kept my word. I have no idea what those thugs wanted.”

“Next time they won’t pull their punches,” I said. “You understand that, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“They might kill you.”

He gave his head a little shake. “Believe me, I understand that.”

“So don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” he said. “I have no idea what this is all about. That’s why I need you.”

“They must’ve said something.”

He shook his head. “They didn’t say much. They had me on the ground, kicking me and grunting and swearing, calling me a fucker and a cocksucker, and I’ve got my arms around my head trying to cover my face, you know? Trying to survive?”

“They didn’t say anything about money?”

“It seemed like I was supposed to know what they wanted.”

“Look,” I said. “You had Robert call me at home, drag me away from my girlfriend and my ball game—why? So you could lie to me? What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t blame you for what you’re thinking,” he said. “But I’m not gambling, Brady, I swear. I don’t owe anybody anything.” He looked down at the tabletop for a moment, then lifted his head and looked into my eyes. “It makes no sense. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m scared, and that’s why I called you. Because you’re my friend and my lawyer, and I couldn’t think of anybody else who could help me.”

I stared at him. He looked right back at me. His eyes were full of innocence and outrage.

“What did you tell them at the hospital?” I said.

“About this?” He touched his face.

I nodded.

“I said I fell down some stairs.”

“They believed you?”

He shrugged. “They didn’t argue with me. What do they care?”

“If they knew it was an assault,” I said, “they’d have to report it to the police. Which is what we’re going to do. Right now. We’ll go together. Give them the best descriptions you can. They’ll probably have a good idea who these guys are.”

“I can’t give them any descriptions. What am I gonna tell them—three guys, one had a wart or something on his face, they attacked me in a parking lot and called me a fucker? They’ll nod and take notes and make me fill out a report, and next thing you know they’ll interrogate me, what I’m into, who I owe money to, and they’ll figure out that I’ve got a history, and just like you, they won’t believe me, and I’ll end up being a suspect instead of a victim. You know that.”

“We should report it anyway.”

He shook his head. “Can’t do that,” he said. “No police.”

“Why the hell not?”

He shrugged. “My mother, just for one thing. Not to mention my wife.”

“Your mother the judge.”

“Yes. Both of them. They’ll believe I’m back into the casino thing again. They’ll assume I’m lying. Getting beat up in a parking lot? Police reports?” He shook his head. “My mother’s a judge. I’ve done enough to her. I can’t do that to her reputation.”

“You and Jess getting along all right?”

“Sure. Fine.” He shrugged.

“Okay. None of my business.” I leaned back in the booth and folded my arms across my chest. “Well, I just ran out of ideas. You don’t want to make a report to the police, you want to lie to your wife and mother, not to mention your lawyer and your son, I don’t know why you even called me, because I don’t know how else to advise you. Get out of town for a while, I guess.”

“There must be somebody you can talk to,” he said. “You know everybody. Can’t you figure out who these guys are, talk to them, tell them it’s a mistake, make them understand it’s not me they’re after, get it straightened out?”

I smiled. “I’m just a family lawyer, Dalt. Divorces and estates. That’s about it.”

“You’ve been involved in lots of other things,” he said.

“Not by choice,” I said.

“You’re my friend.”

I looked up and saw Warner and Robert approaching us. I held up my hand, and they nodded and stopped.

I leaned across the table. “If I find out you’re lying to me, I will no longer be your lawyer. Or your friend. Understand?”

He nodded. “Yes. I’m not lying.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. He stared right back at me.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay, what?”

“I’ll try to get a sit-down with Vincent Russo.”

“Russo, huh?” said Dalt. “I thought he was—”

I nodded. “He’s presumably retired. But if somebody orders his goons to beat you up because he thinks you owe him money, if it’s not Russo himself, he’ll know who, because he knows everything. If he can’t tell me what’s going on, you’re on your own, and then you should seriously think about moving to Canada.”

Dalt gave me a crooked smile. “Canada doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, goons or no goons, except I doubt Jess will go for it. You’ll talk to Russo?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, man.”

I waved my hand at Warner and Robert, and they came over and stood beside the booth. “You guys get it all straightened out?” Warner said.

“We’re working on it,” I said. I looked at Dalt. “So what are you going to tell Jess?”

“I guess I’ll tell her I got mugged.”

“That’s not exactly the truth,” I said.

“Close enough,” he said. He gave Robert and Warner a crooked just-between-us-guys grin. “You shouldn’t lie to your brother-in-law or your son or your lawyer, I know. But your wife’s a different story. You guys’ll back me up, right?”

They both shrugged.

On the sidewalk outside the restaurant, we all shook hands. Warner and Dalt turned left to head for the parking garage where Warner had left his car. I turned right to go home, and Robert fell in beside me.

We walked toward the Common. I assumed Robert was headed for the T station at Park Street.

“So what’s going to happen?” he said.

“They got the wrong man,” I said. “I’ll try to get it straightened out.”

“Can you do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I hope so,” he said.

I handed him one of my business cards. “In case you think of something,” I said. “Or just feel like talking. Give me a call.”

He looked at the card, then stuck it in his pants pocket. “Okay. Thanks.”

We walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Robert said, “I hated you for a long time, you know.”

I turned and looked at him. “Me? Why?”

“I was just a kid. In my mind it was you who told him to give me up. I hardly ever saw my father.”

“I was just the lawyer,” I said.

“I know. It was easier to hate you than to hate him.”

“And now?”

He shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t your fault.”

A
LITTLE BEFORE EIGHT THE
next morning, I was sitting at the picnic table with my second mug of coffee and Henry was sitting alertly beside me eyeing the chickadees in the feeders when Evie came out. She had a glass of orange juice in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other. Her auburn hair was brushed glossy and tied back in a loose ponytail with a green silk scarf. She wore an off-white blouse with a slender gold chain at her throat, a narrow blue skirt that didn’t quite make it down to her delicious knees, and high heels that showed off her slim, strong calves.

I gave her a whistle, and she smiled quickly. “I’m late,” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” She sat across from me and took a bite from her bagel.

“I figured you needed your sleep,” I said. “You were tossing and turning and mumbling all night.”

She looked up at me. “Sorry I ruined your sleep.”

“That’s not what I meant.”