We agreed to meet at Trois Pistoles, a nice French bistro near the park. If the mood struck us, we could take a stroll after lunch.
We ordered a nice but inexpensive bottle of Burgundy. We had steak frites. Dorita was a demon for steak frites. For any kind of steak. For meat. Red meat. Red bloody meat. When the waiter asked her how she wanted her steak, she made her usual scene.
Rare, she said. And I mean rare. With a capital R.
Certainly, madame, the waiter said.
No, she said, I don’t think you understand. Make it all caps.
Certainly, madame, he repeated.
Twitching, she said. I want it twitching.
Pardon me, madame?
If I can’t taste the fear, it’s too well done. Get it?
The waiter looked around for help.
Oh, never mind, she said.
Certainly, madame, he replied.
After he had left us, no doubt to regale the kitchen staff with tales of the tall, slim lady and her lust for blood and fear, I got right down to business. I didn’t want to give Dorita a chance to go personal. I’d been having serious second thoughts about revealing my secrets to her. I was not at all sure that our thing could survive. I’d seen a face of Dorita – the kind and sympathetic side – I’d always suspected but never confirmed was there. The dissonance between it and the jolly misanthrope I’d grown to know and love was highly disconcerting. It meant complication. Ambiguity. Doubt. In other words, the very things that defined my marriage. That I’d used my friendship with Dorita to escape.
I wanted to get back to being Nick and Nora, sexually ambiguous detectives.
We talked about Jules. I brought her up to date. The phone records.
That’s an interesting detail, she said. I thought they weren’t on speaking terms.
So they’ve both told me. But it reminded me of something FitzGibbon said when I first went to see him. Something about how Jules didn’t have the balls to call home. I mean, if they weren’t even talking to each other, why would he have expected Jules to call him?
Hm. Something to ask him about.
Jules?
Either or both.
No doubt. I’ll have to think about how to approach it, though. Clients don’t normally take it well, when they find out you’ve been surreptitiously looking at their phone records.
There’s that too.
We searched for benign reasons for Jules to be calling his hated father.
Asking for money? I suggested.
Possible.
Forgiveness?
Unlikely.
Threatening him?
Much more plausible.
But with what? The kid’s a small-time loser. Daddy’s a big-time player.
I told her about the samurai connection.
Jesus, she said. Sounds like the kid needs a shrink real bad.
No kidding. But he thinks he’s Superman. Don’t need no help from nobody. You know.
Denial.
The alcoholic syndrome.
I guess you’d know about that.
I guess I wouldn’t be the only one in the room.
Sure. You got me. But you’re not his shrink, you’re his lawyer. What do you care? I mean, he did or he didn’t, right?
I’m not in the ‘he did it’ business, darling; I’m in the ‘he didn’t do it’ business.
Thanks for reminding me. So, what else?
I told her about my conversation with Kennedy. His fears about FitzGibbon.
My, she said. Maybe Daddy is more than just an obnoxious blowhard.
Could be. But.
But.
Well, say we do a little investigating. Turn over a few flat rocks. Find some slimy things.
Crawling things.
Slugs.
Centipedes.
Rot.
Ugh.
We find out FitzGibbon’s more than just a fatuous dickhead.
He’s a psychopathic fatuous dickhead.
He set up his son.
He killed Larry Silver.
And framed poor Jules.
Right.
And then what? I asked.
He goes to jail.
He goes to jail. Right. And?
You’re a hero.
Am I?
Sure. Front page of the Post.
Get an agent.
Book deal.
Movie rights.
Syndication.
You’d better be right.
How so?
Think about it, I said.
I gave her the under-the-eyebrows look.
Ah.
Right.
The firm just lost its biggest client.
I’m not on probation anymore.
No, you’re not.
Instead, I’m fired.
You’re fired.
And so are you.
Darn, she said. Aiding and abetting. You’re right.
And even if by some miracle we’re not fired, the firm goes under anyway.
Fifteen million in billings.
Up in smoke.
Unless the twins hire us. Having inherited the business.
Yes. That might happen. They’ll be so grateful. That we’ve incarcerated their dad.
I see your point.
We sat in silence for a while. Contemplating the ramifications. The imponderables. The tangled web.
Oh, fuck it, Dorita said at last.
In what sense might you mean that?
The usual sense. The ‘fuck it’ sense. Fuck it. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s do it right. The consequences be damned.
They’re unknowable anyway.
We can only calculate the probabilities.
Let’s not go there. Too complicated.
It’s so much simpler.
What is?
To do the right thing. Indeed.
Yes. Do it right. Do our job. Hell, Warwick handed this crap to you. How can he complain, just because you do it right?
And anyway, who says FitzGibbon did anything wrong?
He could be innocent, I suppose.
Of this, anyway.
Of this.
Sure. Maybe the maid did it.
Or that old lady next door.
The one dressed in the Anthony Perkins outfit.
Hmm. You hadn’t told me about her. Are you holding back on me again?
I could see Ramon in that outfit. And speaking of the twins again …
Ramon, Raul, she said. Trips right off the tongue. I wonder if FitzGibbon made up the names too?
You’d think he’d have enough imagination to come up with ‘Carlos’ or ‘Pedro.’ Something that started with a different letter.
Yes. A viable theory. We’ll keep it on the list.
Good. I like to think I’m making some kind of contribution to the enterprise.
Oh please, darling. You’re the boss. Isn’t that enough for you?
The boss? This is news. When was the title bestowed?
Just now, she said with an indulgent smile. I knew it would make you feel better.
You were right. I feel much better.
So, you were saying?
About those twins. I think we ought to dig around a little. I mean, why did FitzGibbon keep that bit of information from me?
Did it ever come up?
Well, one would think, when discussing wills and trusts and mothers and sons and things, that it would be natural to mention, at least, the existence of two potential heirs. Besides, one of them was right there in FitzGibbon’s office. FitzGibbon said he was Security.
Ah. That is indeed curious. Or not. Would someone normally introduce his son to a perfect stranger?
Perhaps not. But it would be more believable if he’d said nothing. Why say he was Security?
Maybe he is.
Part-time job for Daddy Warbucks?
Right.
But still. And somehow Jules never mentioned them either. Which I find even stranger.
Had other things on his mind, I guess.
Maybe. But he was awfully defensive when I asked him about them.
Why would he want to hide them from you?
I’m not saying he did. But it’s a possibility. Have to keep it on the list. No evidence to exclude it. Implausibility is not a criterion for removal. Many things seem implausible, until more facts are in.
Quarks.
Not the first example that comes to mind, but yes. Quarks.
The indeterminacy of the quantum world.
Right. Although right now I’d prefer to stay on a somewhat less rarefied plane, thank you.
Oh, all right. I thought you liked that kind of stuff. I do. I do. But right now I’d like to keep playing unsophisticated gumshoe, if you don’t mind.
I don’t mind.
Okay. So. My point is, we know a lot of stuff. Some of it makes perfect sense. Is irrefutable. Or close to it. There’s a body. It’s homicide. Jules and the former owner of the body had a fight earlier. Not long earlier. If he’s convicted, he’ll be out of luck on the trusts. FitzGibbon hates his son, and would be happy if he lost the trusts. All of this seems clear enough. At least enough to serve as a starting point. But we don’t have enough information to put everything together. To make sense of it all. Even to have an idea whether we’re wasting our time. That Jules just did it. Too bad. Work the plea angle.
Agreed.
So, the more information we can gather, the better. The closer we can get to at least achieving that critical mass of data that will tell us whether our efforts have a reasonable chance of bearing fruit.
I love it when you get into professorial mode.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to.
It’s so sexy.
Please don’t go there.
Sorry. But you left something out.
Yes?
Data points.
Jesus, I said, you’re relentless.