Past Due

“We were just walking,” said the man.

“We’re only trying to help,” said the woman. “Do you want us to call the police and report what happened?”

Through the fear and pain and sudden paranoia that had enveloped me, I peered more carefully at the two Samaritans standing in my apartment. The man was stocky, bearded, dressed for a motorcycle rally with a T-shirt, boots, denim vest. He wore a ponytail and was as hyperactive as a teenager, but the gray in his beard and lines around his pale blue eyes put him in his forties.

The woman was tall and thin, with long straight hair and bell-bottom jeans. She was older than me, but not by much. To get a sense of the state of my condition you need only know that just then was the first time I noticed how startlingly beautiful she was, with a narrow face and big brown Asian eyes that held a lovely sadness. It was a strange sight, the two of them, the woman, who could have been a model, and the motorcycle man, utter strangers, dressed as if the eighties and nineties had never happened, standing in my apartment, standing over me as I slumped on the couch, and it sent my already jagged nerves into a jig.

I looked at them for a moment longer and tried to think things through and failed. My head ached, my ribs hurt, I still felt pressure on my nose, yet even as I struggled through the pain to make sense of everything that had happened that night, one thing became clear, one thing shone with absolute certainty.

“No,” I said, finally. “Don’t call the police. It was just a spoiled mugging. They got nothing, so there’s nothing the police can do. But thank you for helping. I don’t know how long I would have lay there if you hadn’t come along.”

“We were glad we could help,” said the woman. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Yeah, sure. That would be great. There are beers in the fridge. Why don’t you take out three?”

“Dude,” said the man.

His name was Lo

“So that wasn’t just a mugging, was it?” said Chelsea.

“No.”

“What did they want?”

“To scare me off, to stop me from looking into the past. They said I was trespassing, as if the past is piece of land governed by the laws of property.”

“So what’s it all about?” said Lo

“Some,” I said. “I asked some questions of an important man today and that seemed to get a lot of people rattled.”

“Who was he?” said Chelsea.

I looked into her pretty eyes, saw there a curiosity that was more than idle.

“He’s a State Supreme Court justice,” I said. “A long time ago one of his friends was the head of a huge cocaine ring. The ring was busted by the FBI and the friend disappeared. I think the ring, the friend, the long-ago crime, the murder on the riverfront, I think everything is related.”

“What are you going to do?” said Chelsea. “Are you going to stop asking questions like they told you?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “We have a friend who lives in New Mexico and has become kind of a spiritual mentor. He always says that the past can be a pretty dangerous place.”

“And, Dude, think about it,” said Lo

“That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? I’m sure nothing I’m involved with is as dangerous as a tan.”

Chelsea flicked her hair and laughed.

“If you want, some of my customers are definite muscle heads,” said Lo

“No need to turn a little collection case into Altamonte,” I said, “but I appreciate the gesture. I appreciate everything.”

That was the cue, I suppose. Lo

At the door I shook Lo

“Thank you for everything,” I said.

“It wasn’t nothing,” said Lo

“Oh yes, it was. I’d like to show my appreciation.” Chelsea smiled at me and I felt it in my chest. “How about if you let me buy you both a drink in gratitude. There’s a place in Lo

“Not my usual hangout,” he said.

“Mine neither, that’s what will make it fun. Say tomorrow night? Nine?”

“I don’t know,” said Lo

“That would be great. Really. We’ll both be there.”

“Terrific,” I said. “See you then.”

I stood at the door and watched them go down the stairs and listened for the front door to open and close and then I went inside and peered out the window and watched as they made their way, side by side but not holding hands, definitely not holding hands, east on Spruce, back to the section of the city where they lived, with all its bars and restaurants, far from this mainly residential edge of center city.

As soon as they left my sight I put down the bloody towel, picked up the phone, and dialed.

“Telushkin here,” said the voice on the other end.

“Mr. Telushkin, this is Victor Carl.”

“Oh, Victor, yes. I’m so glad you called. How are things going? Have you checked out that lead I gave you?”

“I called about something else,” I said quickly, not wanting to discuss with Telushkin my meeting with the justice. “Was there anyone in Tommy Greeley’s crew named Lo

“Let me think, let me think. Oh yes, of course. There was a man named Chambers, I think they called him Lo

“Was he indicted?”

“Oh yes, convicted too. Conspiracy. Drug trafficking. I think there was a racketeering count along for good measure. Ten years, but he wasn’t a kingpin and so was eligible for parole and time off for good behavior. He’d be out by now.”

“And the girl?”

“I remember her, remember her quite vividly,” he said. “Her name was Chelsea Cartland. She helped with the money, helped break down the big shipments, added the cutting agent, bagged it into salable quantities for the customers. She pled guilty, received only sixteen months. A slap on the wrist, really, nothing more. But she was very pretty, very young, and the judge seemed smitten with her.”

I could understand that, how a judge could be smitten with a woman like Chelsea, I could understand it completely.

It was starting to come clear, the crimes of the past that were visiting themselves upon the present. Amidst the warning from Dante and the violent threats from the thugs that night, and the gentle caution issued by my Good Samaritans, who had come into my life, I now was sure, to deliver their message just as clearly as had the goons who had come before them, it was all starting to come clear. A drug conspiracy awash with money. A friendship turned bitter. A lovely sad-eyed woman with a perfect body. A small-time loser who fell into something from which he never recovered. And between everything was a single link holding it all together, a link that could provide some of the answers if I could squeeze it just enough.