Suitcase City (12 page)

Meador frowned, then leaned forward and began writing in his ledger. Meador’s notebook was famous. He took notes on all conversations. He wrote while people talked to him, giving the impression that he was far more interested than he really was in what they were saying. Sometimes, like now, he waited until the conversation was finished and took notes while you sat there trying to remember what the hell you’d just said, wondering if Meador was getting it down right and how he would use it later.

When Meador finished writing, he opened his desk drawer and took out a bottle of pills in a plastic wrapper. It was the kind of sample kit drug salesmen took to doctors’ offices. “Here, Jim, I want you to try this. It’s a new antidepressant that just came in from Israel. They’ve got high hopes for it in the American market. The preliminary reports indicate a significant elimination of mood swings and elevated feelings of optimism and well-being. Take a few of these while you’re out, ah, resting, and let me know what you think of them.”

Jesus
, thought Teach,
Jesus Halcyon Christ
. Meador had a medical degree now. He was diagnosing Teach as a manic-depressive and prescribing medication. Teach reached across the desk—across the newspaper, the Meador family Bible, and the man’s doomsday notebook—and accepted the pills. “Thanks, Mabry. Uh, listen, can you tell me how long . . . you think I’m going to be out on leave?”

Meador got up, walked around, and extended the small, strong hand that Teach had shaken often, but never without surprise at its temperature: cold. “Let’s just play it by ear, Jim. See how this thing goes. The important thing right now is for you to get your life back in order. Okay?”

Teach followed the script as his boss had written it. “Okay,” he said, “uh, thanks, Mabry. I take it you’ll call me when . . .”

Meador smiled, concerned but finished. “I’ll call you.”

THIRTEEN

When Teach departed Meador Pharmaceuticals, there was nowhere to go but home and, once there, nothing to do but pour himself a bourbon. He downed the first one, neat, before removing his coat and tie. He tossed the coat across a chair, put some ice in a tumbler, and poured a second sipping drink. He sat at the kitchen table, first in a brooding numbness, then feeling the whiskey trickle into his brain, knitting the severed ends of his optimism far better than any new drug from Israel or any therapist provided by Dan Boyle, Chief Sinner.

The phone rang.

Teach looked at it with dread, then said to himself,
Things cannot get worse. I can answer this phone with impunity.

“Hello, old buddy.”

“Walter? How you doing? Listen, uh, how come you didn’t call me at work?”

“I did call you at work, and—”

“They told you?”

“In a roundabout way. You are at home recovering. You aren’t expected to be back for a while.”

“How long before I am expected to be back, Walter?”

“They wouldn’t say. I should say,
she
wouldn’t. Your secretary. Seems like a good sport. They’ve got her fielding the questions. She implies that you have worked so long and faithfully for Meador that you need a rest.”

Teach raised the glass and drank until the ice rattled against his front teeth. “Walter, you didn’t call to tell me what my secretary is saying.”

Walter’s voice kept playing that smooth legal note. “No, I didn’t. I called to say that there are, reportedly, big doings over at the law firm of Battles, Brainard, and Doohan. They’re preparing a civil action against you. I thought you’d want to know.”

Teach closed his eyes. Lord, was there no end to this? Was he to be hounded to hell for a mishap in a men’s room, a moment’s impulse lacking all malice? “Jesus,” he moaned.

Walter said, “Exactly.”

After a pause, while Teach tried to think, Walter continued, “Have you considered my offer? I can give you the name of an attorney. The guy is good and not too pricey.”

Teach knew he’d be a fool not to take the name, but the idea of going to some stranger about this, letting another pair of eyes and ears, two more raised eyebrows, another fucking attitude, into this thing, was repugnant to him. “Walter, are you sure you won’t consider representing me? I’m not a pauper, you know.”

If he had to, Teach could sell the condominium in New Smyrna Beach that Paige had inherited from her parents. The property was valued at three hundred thousand dollars.

Walter said, “No, Jim, I don’t think that would be best for either of us. I can explain if you like, but—”

“No, Walter, that’s all right. Let’s leave it where it is.” Teach thinking Walter might tell him exactly how much this thing could cost. Then, hearing the phone hit the floor as Teach went into cardiac arrest, Walter could dial 911. Or, in some ways worse, Teach might learn why it would not be professionally advantageous for Walter to take on Thurman Battles. Hell, maybe the two attorneys were in bed together.

Walter said, “Well, I thought you’d want to know.”

“I did and I didn’t.” Teach poured himself another large one.

Walter said, “Let’s play a round soon. Nothing like golf to take your mind off your troubles.”

Teach said, “Sure, let’s do that,” with as much cheer as he could muster. He was thinking about the Terra Ceia Golf and Country Club. Did the club have a ceremony for drumming scumbags out of their ranks? Did they march you down a gauntlet of golf bags, striping your bare ass with lob wedges?

“See you then,” Walter said, impatient to get off. His time was billed at some outrageous rate by ten-minute slices. He had just spent money on his friend Teach.

“Right, see you. And Walter. Thanks for calling. It was good of you.”

“Fairways and greens, buddy.” Walter hung up.

Teach knew what he had to do now, had known it for a while, in some part of his mind. It was knowledge he had been avoiding. It was like the swollen, discolored lump you find in your armpit. You have to see the doctor, you know it, but you don’t call and make the appointment. You live in fantasy and dread while the cancer grows.

Teach was going to see Thurman Battles. Today. Right now. He was going to announce himself to the man’s receptionist and say he’d wait until Mr. Battles could see him. Say he’d wait all day if he had to. Come back the next day and wait again. He had to talk to the guy, see if they could be men about this, work out some compromise so that this air strike on Teach’s life might be called off.

FOURTEEN

Teach told the receptionist he needed to see Thurman Battles about a very important matter, had no appointment, and would wait. She was a pretty young black woman with kind, somber eyes and red fingernails so long that when she touched the phone to announce him, she had to flatten her hand against the keypad. Teach imagined her trying to type, then surmised that her job was only to look professional in a simple black blazer and white silk blouse, to communicate good taste, and answer the phone.

Holding the phone to her ear with a padded shoulder, she said, “Mr. James Teach for Mr. Battles,” then she listened, frowned, listened, smiled. “If you’d like to have a seat, Mr. Teach, Mr. Battles will be with you in a moment.”

Teach, who had expected resistance, expected to have to use charm and salesmanship to get inside, was surprised. It took him a second to pull a polite smile to his lips and say, “Thank you.”

He turned to the green leather sofa, but he couldn’t sit: he was too full of energy. He clasped his hands behind his newest blue Brooks Brothers suit and made a slow circle of the room, inspecting the certificates and diplomas and framed memberships on the walls. Thurman Battles had more than enough of them, and they were more than extraordinary. Getting in to see the guy might be a good sign. It might mean Battles wasn’t going to play lawyerly delaying games, didn’t want him out here stewing in his own vitriol, coming in angry or reduced to a web of frazzled nerves so he’d give ground. It meant, Teach hoped, that the man would treat him fairly, talk to him—one decent, well-meaning soul to another.

The phone rang and the pretty receptionist said, “Mr. Battles will see you now. Through that door and all the way back to the last suite.” Teach thanked her and walked.

Halfway down the hallway with the plush carpet and the framed charcoal studies of sprinting racehorses, he realized that his knees had a little rubber in them and his mouth a little lint.
Come on, man, relax. You’ve done this before, the corridors of corporate power, the big meeting.
But most of his experience was selling, and this wasn’t selling. This was something else.

Teach tried to take himself back to football, those tense huddles of long ago when a first down wasn’t enough. You needed seven points to win and you knelt and looked up at the circle of tired, battered faces, the steam of their breathing rising like they were cattle at a cold morning trough, ten strong young men whose eyes, undefeated, looked at you saying,
Lead us.
Teach drew strength from the memory as he opened the door with the brass nameplate:
Thurman Battles, Esq.

Inside the suite, a better grade of carpet, more framed history, another pretty black woman (older, no paint on her nails, redolent of education and irony), and another closed door. The woman’s smile was warm and small. “Right on through, Mr. Teach.”

Teach, who had called the play in his mind, nodded, smiled, and kept walking. He planned to explain what had happened without embellishment and admit that the boy’s actions and words were open to interpretation. He’d say he was sorry, not for what he had done, but for the way things had turned out, sorry because this whole thing was, apparently, a misunderstanding. He’d offer to pay Tyrone Battles’s medical bills, but insist that this was not to be taken as an admission of guilt. He’d say he was willing to consider any other reasonable restitution (including an apology, private or public) if this thing could stop here, now.

Thurman Battles stood with his back to Teach gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Tampa skyline. It was a corner office on the thirty-sixth floor of the Barnett Bank building, facing south toward Tampa Bay and east toward Ybor City. The high blue sky was bisected by the towering, deep-purple column of a thunderstorm marching up the bay toward the city. Out across the tall apartment buildings along Bayshore Boulevard, Teach could see the derricks and warehouses of the port of Tampa, and, farther out, a phosphate carrier plowing the roadstead, the diesel smoke from its stack sucked toward the horizon by the undertow of the coming storm.

Watching Thurman Battles’s erect, starchy back, Teach thought,
How does he get any work done in a place like this? I’d spend all my time looking out the window
. Then he thought,
No, no, a man can get used to anything. Power, riches, a crippling injury, the death of a loved one, penury and incarceration. People do it every day.

Thurman Battles turned and observed him thoughtfully, a narrow-faced, balding man with smooth, delicate features, and Teach saw himself kneeling by the front row at the Women’s Club to gather the image of his beautiful daughter into a camera lens. This was the man whose wife had said, “Isn’t she just so sweet?” referring to the girl listed in the program as Tawnya Battles.

Teach remembered how Thurman Battles and his wife had passed to the front of the auditorium like a natural force, parting the humanity before them. How, when Teach had knelt with his camera, Battles had gazed down at him with the sort of bored expectancy that said he would allow his picture to be taken and he assumed Teach was the human instrument that performed such a function.

Teach was about to begin,
Mr. Battles, it’s good of you to see me on such short notice,
but Battles raised a hand, pushed a flat palm toward him. “Mr. Teach, it’s my duty to inform you that you shouldn’t be here. Your own attorney will agree with me about that. He’ll be very disappointed when he finds out you’ve come here. Now, if you want to leave, the course of action I recommend, I won’t be the least bit offended.”

The man watched him, eyebrows raised, a pleasant smile on his face. Teach searched the dark brown eyes, the handsome fifty-five-year-old face, for any hint of cruel enjoyment. He saw only a grave, close observation and the expectation that Teach would take the advice he had just been given. Advice others would pay dearly for.

Teach swallowed the lint in his throat and thought about it. He could take the advice. The message in it was clear. Battles expected him to engage counsel and defend himself in court. He had come to see the man and had seen him; maybe this was all that honor required. Teach swallowed again and decided to push ahead. He glanced around the large office—brass, gold, mahogany wainscoting along the inner walls, floor-to-ceiling glass, and open curtains along the outer ones. A single chair stood in front of Battles’s desk, a desk the size of a small boat. Teach walked to the chair, stood behind it. “Mr. Battles, may I sit down?”

The attorney lowered his chin an inch, closed his eyes, opened them, and nodded not so much to say yes as to say,
So this is how it will be
. Battles cleared his throat. “By all means.” He watched Teach sit, looked at his desk, then walked to a corner by a bookcase full of gilt and red legal volumes and drew up a matching chair, placing it next to Teach’s in front of the desk. Some message in this, Teach thought, a big man forgoing his right to look down on a little one.
We begin as equals
. Fine, Teach thought, generous even.

He watched Battles cross his long legs, smooth the thighs of his Armani suit, and then press one forefinger to his temple as though he had just suffered the onset of a headache. “All right, Mr. Teach, what did you come here to say?”

For an instant, before Teach began talking, he wondered if there was a tape recorder running somewhere in the room, quietly making good on the threat of Battles’s opening remark.
It’s my duty to inform you that you shouldn’t be here.

Teach told the story as he had planned to tell it (as he was becoming, depressingly, so capable of repeating it) without embellishment. Just the facts as he saw them. Battles listened carefully, not moving except, occasionally, to smooth his long-fingered hands across the thighs of his exquisitely tailored suit. Occasionally, as Teach spoke, Battles raised an eyebrow in mild surprise or murmured, “Hmmm, I see.”