The Fall-Down Artist (38 page)

“So they knew about you,” Dorsey said. “Why didn't they move against you?”

“We put that to Corso, but he had only guesses.” Stockman went to the refrigerator. He returned with one for Dorsey too. “But we do know that Stiers came back to him with instructions to hire you.”

Dorsey grinned. “You mean he had orders to hire a detective.”

“No, no,” Father Jancek said, waving off the idea. “He was told to hire you. Told by name to hire you. And to offer you a free hand to run the cases as you saw fit.”

And unlimited expense money, Dorsey recalled. Remember what Bernie said about the arrangement, he asked himself. It's bullshit, he said; it can't happen. Corso's authority doesn't extend that far. “Corso did as he was told,” Dorsey said.

“And took our money all the while.” Stockman drank off half his beer. Dorsey was taken by the man's anger, hot and true. It's a rare occasion, he told himself: the iceman is pissed. P. I.'s hidden side.

“So who's behind Corso?” Dorsey asked. “And who
does Stiers report to? And most important, why does an insurance company hire me above all others to find out what they already know? They could have terminated the files and waited to see if you had the balls to sue. And Corso could've been quietly discharged to save customer confidence in the company. But no, you say they turned Corso and sent him to give me money. Where's the reasoning?”

“We fucked up,” Stockman said. Dorsey caught the look of distaste on the priest's face before turning to Stockman. “Took on the wrong people,” Stockman said. “Fidelity Casualty is owned by Calumet Corporation.”

“That I knew,” Dorsey said. “I've met one of the officers, a fellow named Cleardon.”

The name fell like a stone upon the table.

“Charles Cleardon,” Dorsey said. “What's wrong?”

“My being a priest,” Father Jancek said, “gives our movement a shade of righteousness. We become saints and walk with God. In keeping with this, our opponents become demonized. Cleardon might be said to be Satan. We've tried to picket corporate meetings that he attends, but he's hard to pin down. You see, Calumet is the major financial backer in what is called the revitalization of our local economy. What they have done is steal industrial property at rock-bottom prices, tear down the existing plant, and install some type of light industry. As a result, they acquire prime land very cheaply and a ready labor force hungry for work at reduced wages, because they're the only game in town. That's why we've blocked the demolition of the older plants and mills, as proposed in Midland. Face it, we are Calumet's only opposition.”

“So,” Stockman said, “it looks like this. Calumet has strung us along for what I can only figure to be some big kill, some kind of master stroke to finish us off by murdering us in the public eye, arresting our leaders, along those lines. But I think Demory's ill health may have saved us and finished you. All that's left is to sue you. And for you to share a little information with us.”

Dorsey absorbed it all en masse, then tried to line it up in order. Calumet and Cleardon ran Corso through a middleman, Stiers, cutting Munt out of the chain. So it was Cleardon who gave the report to Corso with instructions to get it to Hickcock. But why? Where does Cleardon come out ahead? And then there's you, he told himself, the man Cleardon wanted for the job. He wanted you, no substitutions, no duplications. And your work, in the past, has not put you in a class by yourself. Where does a corporate big shot get your name? Busy man, Cleardon. He has an insurance company to keep tabs on while he tried to buy up the western half of the state. And still he takes the time to look you up. Where's the connection to you?

Sipping at his beer, the images flashed and collided before his mind's eye. There were black-and-white photos, stark and bleak, of rundown industrial plants with disused railroad tracks. And other pictures, artist's renderings of what was to come. Sketches of large barnlike structures of prefabricated steel surrounded by gray cement fields of parking lots. And all the photos and prints were bound in a brown leather album resting on the corner of a familiar desktop.

“Jesus Christ,” Dorsey said, his voice flat. “I have to leave.” He rose, slipped into his jacket, and took the roll bag from the floor.

“One damned minute!” Stockman shouted. “It was misguided, but this man just poured out his heart to you. Why did they pick you?”

“That's where I'm going,” Dorsey said, realizing that this question was why he was here. “I'm going to find out why.”

“I think I deserve better than that,” Father Jancek said. “I do think an answer is in order. I did think we could have a dialogue.”

Dorsey went to the table, leaning in at the priest. “I owe you shit. You showed up tonight to be forgiven for killing a man you never knew and to see where I fit into this whole mess.”

Stockman began to rise but Dorsey turned to him and forced him back into the chair with a white-hot glare.

“And what you deserve is this,” Dorsey said, turning back to the priest. “You deserve to be interrogated, to be questioned again and again, to find out how it all comes to pass. To find out where the devoted liberal, the man of peace, crosses the line from demonstration and civil disobedience to crime. Pure fucking crime. Where did you cross the line?”

“I never did,” Father Jancek said. “I found the line to be irrelevant. So I erased it.”

Already cleared
of snow, the brick wall and driveway shone a glistening red under the glow of the lamppost. Dorsey wondered who had been given the job. A city snow-removal crew, as a courtesy, or did Ironbox volunteer? She's the devoted type, he decided. Devoted to the old man for the last twenty-four years. All those years to that old bastard.

Dorsey left the Buick at the curbstone and kicked open the black wrought-iron gate. Inside the walls, the walkways were cleared too, and Dorsey's footsteps rang off the brick as he marched to the door. He hit the doorbell, leaning his weight into it, for three long blasts. There was no immediate response, so he kicked at the door until it opened.

“It's late, and you weren't invited.” Mrs. Boyle, dressed in a flannel nightgown, spoke through the space allowed by the door chain.

Dorsey reared back, collected his strength, and hit the door, leading with his shoulder. The chain tore away from the doorjamb, showering wooden splinters at Mrs. Boyle as she retreated to the far wall of the foyer.

“In there,” Mrs. Boyle said, her shoulders flush to the wall. “In his office, goddamn you!”

Dorsey brushed past her and walked through the parlor to the office door, his wet shoes staining the carpet. He opened the office door and stood there looking in. Powerless
to stop it, he felt his hand go into his pocket and grip the gun.

“Answers,” Dorsey said. “I want answers to this whole thing. Every fucking one of them.”

Martin Dorsey, in white pajamas and maroon robe, sat at his desk. He calmly removed his reading glasses. “Come in, sit down. This may take quite some time. Should I ask Mrs. Boyle to put on a pot of coffee?”

“No,” Dorsey said. “Just talk. Tell me how you put it all together. And why I was dropped into the middle of it.”

“So, for once, you would have some money in your pocket.” Martin Dorsey rose, went to the liquor cabinet, and poured two fingers of whisky into a cut-glass tumbler. “But that would be getting ahead of ourselves, and you want to know everything. In chronological order.”

“If that's easiest,” Dorsey said, finding a touch more control, taking his hand from the gun. As his father sat at the desk, Dorsey dropped himself into one of the room's wing chairs.

Martin Dorsey held his drink in two hands, running his fingers across the raised edges of the glass. “Big Steel is dead, as you should know. Oh, there will be some production from a small mill here and there, but the heyday is over. Yes, Big Steel is dead, and if you don't agree, there's little to discuss.”

“The mills are dead. Looks like it to me, anyway,” Dorsey said. Maybe, maybe not, he thought. But I'll agree to the moon being made of green cheese to hear the whole story.

“That's good,” Martin Dorsey said. “Very astute of you. Most people just won't let go. All those mill towns have mayors and other politicians who want to cling to the past. In some ways, I can't fault them. After all, it was the past that made them, pandering to the workers. An uncertain future makes for an uncertain political career. You understand?”

Dorsey worked a sad smile across his face. “The first twenty-odd years of my life were spent in this house, eating
meals and listening to the dinnertime lecture. I know some about politics. So these backward types out in the mill towns, they couldn't see the percentage in Calumet buying up the mill property, right?”

Martin Dorsey saluted his son, drink in hand. “There is much you already know. I would hate to bore you. Please let me know if I get dull.”

“Most of my evening,” Dorsey said, “was spent with Father Jancek and P.I. Stockman. The priest, he felt bad about Russie, so he used his sorrow to try for some information from me. He told me a lot about how this thing got started. Most of it sounded like the truth. And he answered some questions for me. But I had one last one to pass on.”

“You'll get your answer,” his father said. “Where was I? Ah, yes, you were right, Calumet was being shut out of some of the more promising locations. They had a few things going up, some light manufacturing sites, but too few to justify the effort and commitment to the development plans.

“And by justification, I mean justification to the stockholders who like to see their dividend jump by leaps and bounds each year. So, Cleardon himself and his CEO were personally on the hot seat. And there is nothing more precious in business than saving your own sweet ass. So they came to me for help. For a very large down payment and an overall percentage, I've made most of their problems go away. Some politicians loosened up when they found a deal could be cut. Others tried to hang in there, but I spoke to them personally.”

“Threatened personally,” Dorsey said.

“In some cases, yes.” Martin Dorsey sipped his whisky, pursing his lips as it passed them. “Some had it in mind, just because times change and new powers replace the old, that the political game has somehow changed. As if the rules were now more strict and the players less ambitious. None of these types could handle anything along the lines of a scandal. And they had been bad boys: women, money, even dope. With that, Calumet Corporation began breaking
ground all over the western part of the state.”

“So you were able to scare the guilty.” Dorsey leaned out from the chair, watching his father swish whisky in his glass. “But what about the innocents, the babes in the woods? The ones who had fallen in line with the priest? You had nothing on them, so they couldn't be frightened off.”

“Right,” Martin Dorsey said. “They were, in a sense, untouchable. Most were turning their homes over to the bank; they had nothing further to lose. You're right, you can't scare a person who has nothing for you to take. Still, normally there should be traitors in every organization. But the priest seems to have the ability to leach out the larceny from every soul. His leadership moves his organization into the realm of heaven. It becomes an ideological force instead of a temporal labor union looking for a pay hike. When there's a new messiah, it's tough work trying to buy off an apostle. We tried. Not a Judas in the crowd.”

Dorsey made his way to the liquor cabinet, where he took a beer from the lower-level refrigeration unit. “You're right,” he said, opening the can as he returned to his seat. “This may take some time and I should be as comfortable as you. But no bullshit, please. Let's have the whole story, for once.” He took a long pull on his beer. “So who cooked this up? How was the plan first suggested?”

“Good fortune presented an opportunity.” Dorsey's father leaned into the desk, grinning. “Somebody in Syracuse, at the FC home office, met a colleague from Etna at a conference. They struck up a conversation over the lunch table. The fellow from FC told his new friend that he had just hired a former Etna employee, Ray Corso. Our man found out that Corso left Etna under a cloud, so to speak. About selling cases; that was the term used.”