Dead Money (32 page)

Who’d have guessed?

I told her all about it. The autopsy results. The DNA tests. I told her about the service. The AA cabal. Jake. Steiglitz. All the weirdness.

I’m impressed, she said when I was finished.

You’re easily impressed.

Now, darling, you know that that’s not true. No, really. I’m impressed. With the whole story. It’s rich. The characters are memorable. And it’s a cracking mystery.

Are you implying that I’m making this stuff up?

In a delirium of grief?

Right.

No. Not exactly. It’s a matter of salience.

Salience.

Yes. What appears important in one context disappears in another.

Right.

You walk by dozens of Jettas every day.

Jetta? Is that a Ford?

Volkswagen. You never even notice them.

Not me. I’m not a car guy.

And then one day you buy one of your own.

I do. Says you.

And all of a sudden.

Like lightning from the heavens.

You’re noticing Jettas all over the place.

I’m still taking your word for it.

You’re noticing their colors. Whether they’re the same color as yours, or different. You’re noting whether they’re LX’s, or DX’s, or whatever.

I am. Because you say so.

Whether they have a sunroof.

Etcetera.

Exactly. They’re salient. All of a sudden. They have some importance in your life.

Some value.

The concept does, at least.

The Jetta Concept.

Good movie title.

I was already there, I assured her.

Way ahead of me.

As always.

You wish.

And your point was?

Nothing, she said. No point. Just that all that stuff might not have seemed so significant in other circumstances.

Which tells me?

Absolutely nothing.

That’s what I thought. Just wanted to check.

All right. But anyway, what we have here …

Is a failure to communicate?

No, darling. It’s a new case.

An investigation.

The first new case for the brand-new firm of R. & D., LLP.

I like the sound of that. Research and Development.

Rick and Dorita.

Both of those things. Nice of you to put me first.

‘D. & R.’ lacks the essential ambiguity.

Ah. Should have known better than to see a compliment there.

Or R.& R.

Redman and Reed.

Rest and Relaxation.

Tough choice.

Well, we’ve got time.

We reviewed the evidence. I pulled out a bunch of blank index cards. Proceeded to defile them with new information and speculation. Lines and arrows.

The Melissa suspect card read:

I crossed myself off the list. I’d been cleared.

I sat back. Dorita sat back. I admired the cut of her jib. I noted that her sweater was a little tighter than normal. I refrained from pulling out another index card, on which to record the observation.

Okay, she said, we’ve opened a new file. Let’s get to work.

Where do we start?

Let’s start with Jake. I don’t think it’s an accident you listed him first.

Really?

Really. Of all the people at the service, he had the least reason to be all sloppy and teary-eyed.

I suppose you’re right. He and Steiglitz.

Maybe. I’ll take your word for Steiglitz. But she was his patient.

Yes. If nothing else, she injured his professional pride.

Exactly. At least he’s got some sort of excuse.

But Jake.

Tell me everything else you know about him. Maybe something will strike me that you haven’t noticed.

I told her what I knew, which in the telling I realized wasn’t much.
He’d never told me anything about his acting career, other than the thing about the bald-man commercial. I didn’t know where he was from. We’d only really talked about poker. I told Dorita about his dark hintings at secrets unrevealed. But they could have been the rantings of someone in the throes of a near fatal alcohol overdose. In fact, that was what I’d concluded at the time. To the extent that I’d concluded anything more than that it was time to get the hell home.

He met Melissa, though, didn’t you say?

Once.

I told her the story of the bookcase.

Tell it to me again, she said. Don’t spare any details.

I went over it again. Melissa striding across the room with arms open. Kisses on the cheek. Jake’s nervousness. Glancing at me for help. Melissa’s remark after he’d left. Kind of cute, she’d said.

I fought back some emotion. It had been the last time that I’d seen her acting at all like her old self.

Not a lot to go on, said Dorita.

No. At least two things were a little odd, though. How nervous he seemed. And that remark.

Not exactly smoking guns, partner.

No. And it was also a little strange, I suppose, that she took the trouble to play the hostess. I hadn’t seen her do that in years.

How many guests have you had over in those years?

Um. None. That I can think of.

Well, then.

Yes.

She was probably excited.

She was excited. As excited as she was able to get. And there’s another thing.

Yes?

I told Dorita about the phone calls.

Her jaw dropped.

You’re kidding me.

I’m not.

Calls from Jake? To Melissa’s phone? You saved that for now?

I was struggling with it. What it meant.

What it
meant?
Tell me you’re joking.

I’m not joking.

Ricky, you’re in some serious denial.

It just doesn’t feel right.

Feel, schlemiel. Let’s deal with the facts here, Ricky. Get your brain out of neutral. Let’s see what we can find out about old Jake. Start with the easy stuff. You’ve got wireless?

Sure.

Let’s google him.

I hadn’t thought of that. But if he’s an actor, he’s bound to show up somewhere, you’d think.

Well, yes, she said, rolling her eyes.

Jesus, I’m a trial lawyer. I’ve never pretended to be Rick Redman, Ace Detective.

You don’t even do your own legal research anymore.

Anymore? What makes you think I ever did?

Sorry, darling. I forgot you were born with junior associates attached to your hips.

Mom hated that.

Ouch.

Let’s do a search.

I googled him. Nothing. I tried the Internet yellow pages. Splurged on a couple of commercial sites that advertised that they could root out personal information on anyone alive.

Nothing. A haberdasher in Hermosa Beach. Eighty-one years old. A retired barber in Tuscaloosa.

Now that’s strange, I said. Jake doesn’t exist.

That’s a problem.

Especially for him, I’d think.

An actor?

The invisible actor.

Odd, that.

Must have a stage name.

You’d think he might have mentioned that. I mean, don’t people like to brag about who they are?

Or he’s not. An actor. At all.

Or at least he’s never had a real gig.

I guess that wouldn’t be all that surprising. It’s not like he was advertising himself as a movie star.

Leave it to me, Dorita said.

Leave what to you?

The stage name. If there is one, I’ll get it.

How?

I said, leave it to me.

Her tone did not invite further inquiry.

All right, I said. I’ll leave it to you.

The Jake angle seemed to be losing whatever promise it might have held.

Let’s get on with Jules, I said.

Why? Aren’t you anxious to keep our momentum going?

Frankly, no. I’m a little afraid of it.

Ah. I understand. Back to familiar territory.

Yes. Please.

So where are we? With Jules.

Jesus, I don’t know.

Let’s call Kennedy.

Why Kennedy? Why not see Jules again? Or FitzGibbon?

He’s got to know stuff we don’t.

I’m quite sure he does. But I’m also sure that’s true of everybody. Especially my client.

Probably. But Kennedy’s the most likely to give it up.

I’m not so sure. He’s quite a tight-ass about these things.

Have faith, said Dorita. He hasn’t had me to contend with.

WE CALLED KENNEDY
. We invited him out to lunch. I vetoed Michel’s. Too close to the office. We’d run into someone that we’d rather not. And even if we didn’t run into anybody, just being that close to the office would give me a stomach ache. We settled on the White Stallion.

When Kennedy got there he was in a good mood. His bow tie was a festive pink. We plied him with French wines and delectable pâtés. A bottle of Domaine Leflaive, 1998, was particularly fine.

It was easier than I’d expected. I had to give Dorita her due. She turned on all her charm. Which when unleashed was not inconsiderable. By the time she mentioned FitzGibbon, Kennedy was too well oiled
to protest. She maneuvered him into picking up the story where he’d left it off with me.

I felt a twinge of guilt. I knew he was going to lose sleep over this, once he’d sobered up.

But hey, I thought. I’ll blame it all on her.

FitzGibbon had hired Fiske & Elliot to handle the divorce, he told us.

Jesus, I said. Eight hundred bucks an hour.

We can only dream, he said.

Hey, speak for yourself, I laughed.

Anyway, they wouldn’t give him the answers he wanted, so he fires them.

Seems in character, I said.

Roots around and finds some scuzzy boutique that specializes in malpractice. Committing it, I mean, not litigating it.

Gad, I said, Jack told a joke.

Oh shut up, he said.

I complied. Didn’t want to interrupt the flow.

So they look at it. And they tell FitzGibbon that Fiske & Elliot were right: there’s no way to get the kid off the trusts completely, unless one of the conditions isn’t fulfilled. But there’s a way to dilute his interest.

Jules’s interest.

Jules’s interest. They tell him that the law has changed over the years. ‘Issue’ used to mean what it sounds like it means. Your natural children. But then there were a bunch of lawsuits. Half-children. Adopted children. Whatever. And the courts began to see that the whole thing wasn’t really fair. At least to our enlightened modern eyes. Adopted children are supposed to be equal in rights to natural children. So the law changed. Adopted children are ‘issue’ too.

Exactly, said Dorita.

Damn, I said. I knew it. I knew that word was key.

Dorita looked at me in dismay. For the second time that day.

I’m not a T & E lawyer, I shrugged.

You could have
asked
me, she replied.

So, Kennedy went on, FitzGibbon could adopt. And the more children he could adopt, the more diluted Jules’s share would be. Because Jules’d have to share the capital with each of them.

Slick, I said.

Very slick, said Kennedy.

And that’s just what he did, said Dorita.

That’s right. He and his new girlfriend take a vacation to Spain. And they’re at the bullfights. And they see these cute little urchins, selling tacos, or whatever they sell at the bullfights.

I thought it was Mexico, I said.

Spain, said Kennedy.

I think tacos are Mexican, said Dorita.

You may be right. Anyway, it’s not hot dogs.

Whatever, I said.

And the girlfriend takes a shine to them. And FitzGibbon says, Hey, kids, how’d you like to come to America and be rich? And they’re, wow, that’s really cool, but we have to ask our dad.

A technicality, I said.

A technicality. But anyway, it turns out that Dad is right there, at the bullfight, manning the taco stand or whatever.

Not hot dogs, said Dorita.

And they ask Dad. And Dad’s all for it.

Naturally, Dorita said. He’s already counting the remittances from his rich American sons.

He’s got six other kids. He can’t feed them as it is. He sees gold at the end of the rainbow.

We would too, in his position, Dorita said.

We might. So anyway, they fly the kids back to the States, and FitzGibbon adopts them.

While he’s in the middle of a contentious divorce? asked Dorita skeptically.

Unusual, I said. But it’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’ve got enough grease to spread around.

Does Jules know about this? Dorita asked. At the time, I mean.

Sure. He can’t not know. But he doesn’t know the real reason. It never occurs to him.

As far as Daddy knows, said Dorita.

He’s quite sure of it.

So Jules is in for a big surprise, she said.

How old are the twins? I asked.

That’s the real kicker. They’re the same age as Jules.

So they’ll all reach twenty-five at about the same time.

Not just about. The same day.

The same fucking birthday? I said.

The same day.

Wow. What are the odds of that?

I don’t know if it’s odds at work here, Kennedy said.

Thanks for catching the irony, I said.

I don’t know if Daddy FitzGibbon fixed that too, Kennedy continued. But it’s the official version, anyway. It’s on all the papers. Adoption papers, driver’s licenses, everything.

My, my, said Dorita.

Now at this point, Kennedy went on, you might ask yourself, if you’re a thinking person …

Which I’m not sure describes Rick, said Dorita.

… you could say, hey, it’s
x
million dollars. Jules still gets one-third of it. He’s still rich as hell, by his standards, right?

By our standards, too, John, I said. Unless you’ve got something new to tell me. Anyway, you’re right. I mean, the thought occurred to me. Why would Jules care? He’s getting a big pile of dough. Enough to live on comfortably.

Which doesn’t make what FitzGibbon did any less disgusting.

No. Assuming his motives to be as you say.

Life and death, though? Dorita asked. To deprive Jules of the rest?