The Fall-Down Artist (12 page)

“Next to call was another attorney.” Gretchen stroked the list with her pencil. “Louis Preach. Sounded like a black man on the tape.”

“That's an unfamiliar name.”

“Well, he seems to have heard of you. He said the two of you need to get together very soon and it would be of mutual benefit.”

Dorsey closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head. “I can't see Damjani with a black lawyer. The guy could be a token in Stockman's office.”

Lifting himself by the heel of his hand, Dorsey came to a sitting position alongside Gretchen and kissed her cheek. “Thanks. For the comfort and the update.”

“I'm far from done,” Gretchen said, snickering. “Now, with your return to the land of the living, let's continue. Bernie is on the list, so maybe, just maybe, it isn't all bad.
His message was that he had some big news for you and you better call him ASAP. Then, two seconds after that call, Ray Corso was on the line saying you needed to get your paperwork together and get to his office ASAP.”

“Better talk to Bernie first.” Dorsey stood and shrugged the tension from his shoulders. “Most likely, Corso knows what happened, got it on the radio or something, and is hitting the panic button, which is a lot of physical exertion for him. So, being frightened to death, he calls the company's local counsel, which is Bernie's firm. And Bernie calls me. Who's next?”

“Your father called.”

Dorsey stopped cold. “You mean Ironbox called to give me an appointment?”

“No.” Gretchen solemnly lowered her voice. “It was the great man himself.”

“Really? No shit?”

“Not even the slightest shit.”

Dorsey shook his head. “I wonder if he's calling to rub in the embarrassment or to congratulate me on my daring escapade.”

“Sounded concerned.” Gretchen turned to the window and watched a red and white van pull to the curb. “Oh, boy. Seems the last guy on the list couldn't wait for a callback.”

Dorsey went to the window and peeked through the side curtains. The van parked outside, in red lettering, carried the logo of local TV Channel Three. “Now what?”

“Sam Hickcock, the news guy?” Gretchen was apologetic. “His was the last call. I thought I'd be cute and leave the worst for last.”

Through the window, Dorsey watched a cameraman and a sound technician haul their equipment from the rear of the van. Hickcock, a thin man dressed in brown tweed and busily combing out a perfectly barbered mustache, urged them on, warning them that the tape had to be ready for the six o'clock lead-in.

“TV supposedly makes a person look heavier,”
Gretchen said, pointing to Hickcock through the glass. “You'd have to be bulimic to look like that. Just think, Carroll, all that money but you'd still have to puke after every meal.”

With the camera set and the lighting perfectly calibrated, Hickcock assumed an air of grave resolve and strode up the front stoop of the row house. He pressed the doorbell twice.

“Care to make your television debut?” Dorsey moved back from the window. “Chance to be discovered.”

“It's not me he's here for,” Gretchen said, following Dorsey to the center of the office. “Father Jancek makes the national news every night at seven. You'd know that if you watched. Brokaw and Rather make heroes of these people. You answer the door.”

“No way.” Dorsey waved his hands, shooing away the very idea. “I was hit once today already. My face makes the news, and Damjani and his friends will launch an around-the-clock manhunt for me.”

The doorbell rang twice more, and then they heard Hickcock's fist pounding on the door. Dorsey leaned back onto the desk and shook his head. “He'll be gone in a second. Smacking your fist into a door is too much like work and gets old fast. He'll go away.”

“Shit, we have to get something,” Dorsey heard Hickcock call to his crew. “Let's try this.”

Dorsey and Gretchen each went to one of the front windows, which were slightly open. Outside they saw Hickcock direct the cameraman and sound tech to the curb. When the tape rolled, he took position in the middle of the pavement and pointed over his shoulder at the row house, addressing the camera and speaking into a hand-held mike.

“Behind me is the home of Carroll Dorsey,” he said in his perfectly modulated voice. “Earlier today, in an activity that led to his arrest by the Beaver County sheriff's office, Dorsey totally disrupted a rally sponsored by Movement Together. Held in Midland, the rally featured a speech by the movement's founder, Father Andrew Jancek. It is now
believed that Dorsey is employed as a so-called corporate agent provocateur.

“We have every reason to believe that Dorsey is now at home but, despite our ringing the doorbell and knocking at his door, he refuses to acknowledge our presence, let alone answer any questions. It was our intention to give him an opportunity to tell his version of today's events. Our invitation still stands. We'll see how he responds. Sam Hickcock reporting.”

Dorsey watched Hickcock check his wristwatch and hurry his crew into the van, complaining about a five-thirty deadline. “This guy, he wants to get to the networks, and he's going to try it riding on my back.”

“You're news now,” Gretchen told him. “Fair game to one and all.”

“And I'll be stuffed and mounted over someone's fireplace if I don't watch my ass.”

Don't worry
, Bernie had said over the phone, you'll get there after the shift change. The hell's that supposed to mean? Dorsey had replied. Bernie explained further that the shift change at Al's was between six-thirty and seven when the after-work drunks, the ones Dorsey had to worry about, were on their way home to dinner. Then the evening drunks arrive, Bernie said, the old single guys who sip on beer until the eleven o'clock news is over. They won't give you trouble; you'll be safe. The young ones: worry about them. They'll kick your ass, they catch up with you.

“Wrong again, Bern,” Dorsey muttered as he stepped into the bar. Three young men, about age thirty, sat at the near end of the bar, dressed in flannel shirts and blue jeans splattered with dried cement. The man sitting in the middle looked over his shoulder and elbowed his friends.

“Over there, the guy from TV,” Dorsey heard the middle one tell his friends. “Told ya he came in here.”

The workman nearest Dorsey pushed himself from the bar and took a firm grip on the neck of his emptied beer bottle. Knowing he had little chance of outrunning all three men and a flying beer bottle, Dorsey moved in, crowding the guy and making it impossible for him to take a full swing. Then Dorsey locked his eyes on the workman, hoping for a stare-down. It's my only chance against all three,
he thought, convinced he was about to be knocked down for the second time that day.

“Hey, fella,” Al said softly from behind the bar. Gently, he tapped the workman's shoulder with the business end of a thirty-two-ounce baseball bat. The workman turned slowly, and Al worked the bat under his chin.

“Friendly place this is, civilized.” Al watched all three men, alternately looking each one in the eye. “We'd like to keep it that way. You guys are disturbing the peace. As owner and operator, only I am allowed to do that. Get out.”

The workman saved his dignity with a few moments' icy stare, then slowly backed toward the door while his friends scooped up their change from the bar. Keeping the bat at port arms, Al came around the bar and watched as they left.

“Al, you were beautiful,” Dorsey said. “Like the new marshal in town. Fresh off the last stage from Dodge City.”

“Careful, fella.” Al took Dorsey by the elbow and led him to the back room. “Treasure the friends you have, us loyal ones. The six o'clock news was very popular tonight; you were not. Watch your step here.”

Al's back room never failed to impress Dorsey with its size. Its walls lined with red leatherette booths and its dance floor tiled in red and white check, it had a Wurlitzer on the far wall. By the jukebox's dim light he could see Bernie sitting in a booth just to the left, peeling the label from a bottle of Michelob with his thumb.

“Missed all the action, Bern.” Dorsey slipped into the booth opposite Bernie. Al remained standing, leaning on the bat. “Al just saved my relatively young ass from some guys who, according to you, should've been home and drunk and passing out in the meat loaf and mashed potatoes by now. You misled me, but Al was there to fix things.”

“There's been more than enough action in my life for one day,” Bernie said, sipping his beer. “I was going to ask you if you have any idea how much shit hit my personal fan this afternoon after word of your little adventure leaked out. I surmise there is no way for you to truly appreciate it, but your opportunity to do so will come up in two days.”

“Hell's that supposed to mean?” Dorsey looked at Al, who merely shrugged his shoulders. “Honest, it wasn't my intention when I got up this morning to get cracked in the head and dragged into a cell. Or to get you in hot water. Sorry. Fill me in.”

“Al,” Bernie said. “Couple more beers?”

“Sure, sure. Got a bar to run anyways. I'll send Russie back with 'em. But the next time one of you guys has a spare moment, bring me up to date. Following your adventures makes my day.” He headed back to the bar, twirling the bat in his right hand.

Bernie leaned in closer to the tabletop. “Seriously, Dorsey, today was a bad one. About ten after four, one of the clerks walks up to my desk and says that Mr. Everette, senior, wants to see me right away. You have to put this in perspective; the only time I have words with Mr. Everette, senior, of Everette, MacLeod, and Lancer, is at the Christmas party when I get to kiss his ring. And I haven't won any big cases or landed any big accounts lately, so I was sure it would not go well. Which it did not.”

“Said I was sorry,” Dorsey said. Russie, unshaven and wearing a black watch cap, brought their beer to the table on a small round tray. Bernie paid for the beers while Dorsey dropped two quarters onto the tray.

“You're a good guy,” Russie said to Dorsey. “Always was. You was a good kid too. How's your dad?”

“Good. Last I saw him he was good. See you around, Russie.”

“Before I start up again,” Bernie said, “how come you're still supporting that rummy?”

“Russie?” Dorsey said. “Russie was a ward heeler over here for the old man. County worker. He used to wash the big shots' cars at the City-County Building. The old man used to tip him three bucks for a wash, five for a wax job.” Dorsey set down his beer and shrugged. “Fuck's it to you what I do with my money? He's a good guy, loyal. Now, tell me what's going on in the so-called halls of justice.”

Bernie pulled at his beer and wiped his lips with the
printed napkin Russie left behind. “Well, I'm in Everette's office, and he's behind this huge desk that twelve mahogany trees gave their lives for. Doesn't ask me to sit down, but he does say it is his understanding that I know you personally. I told him we're good friends. Then he asks if I know who you are presently working for. I said I thought you were on pretty steady with Fidelity Casualty.”

“The guy was playing with you,” Dorsey said. “Corso must've called, right after the trouble in Midland. Everette knew the answers before he asked the questions.”

“Maybe he did,” Bernie said, “but not from Corso. Corso doesn't call a full partner. He talks to me or some other guy on the ass end of the totem pole. You ever hear of a guy named John Munt?”

Dorsey did a quick mental run-through of his client list. “No.”

“He's at Fidelity Casualty's home office. In Syracuse.” Bernie sipped his beer and silently eyed a fortyish-looking woman standing at the room's entrance, peering into the dim light. When she appeared satisfied with her observations, she left. Bernie resumed his story. “This Munt has direct supervision over Corso. The way I see it, Corso heard about you on the radio, shit his pants, and called Munt. Possibly Munt has been reading your reports.”

“So he called Everette.” Dorsey set down his beer and held out his palms in submission.

“No.” Bernie shook his head and tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. “No, Munt called an old college buddy, a Mr. Charles Cleardon. And I already know you don't know him, so I won't ask. You two move in different social circles. I am given to understand he is a senior officer of the Calumet Corporation, which owns Fidelity Casualty.
He
called Everette.”