City Primeval

“Trust the good hands people,” Clement said. “You feel that good hand on you there? Here comes another good hand-close your eyes. Here comes another good hand… closer… closer… Where is it going to land?…”

Doing was more fun than thinking. But sometimes thinking made the doing more worthwhile. Like if he had known he was going to do the judge he would have thought something up to make it pay more and the doing would have been more satisfying. When he tried to explain this to Sandy, she said she would just as soon not know what he was thinking, if it was all the same. She turned on the television set and he turned it off.

“What am I saying?”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, or want to.”

“I’m saying like in this deal here,” Clement said, “there are ways to skin by. Shit, lay in the weeds and let it pass over. Like that Grand Trunk railroad train passed over me. But there also ways of doing it with some style, so you let the other party know what you think of their chicken-fat scheme. You follow me?”

“No,” Sandy said.

“Then keep your eyes open,” Clement said, “and see if your old dad ain’t a thinker as well as a doer.”

27

RAYMOND THOUGHT OF Madeline de Beaubien, the girl who overheard the plot and warned the garrison Pontiac and his braves were coming to the parley with sawed-off muskets under their blankets and saved Detroit from the Ottawas.

The house could have belonged to one of her early descendants, an exhibit at Greenfield Village that people walked through looking into 19thcentury rooms with velvet ropes across the doorways, a cold house despite amber reflections in the hall chandelier and a rose cast to the mirrored walls. The house was too serious.

That was it, Raymond decided. The house didn’t see anything fu

An audience with the queen. No more, Raymond thought, mounting the stairway, not surprised to find her in semidarkness, track lighting turned low, directed toward squares of abstract colors, Carolyn lying on the couch away from the lights. She told him he was late and he asked, For what?

He let himself relax and said, “Let’s start over.”

“You were going to leave in a few minutes,” Carolyn said. “That’s what you told me.”

“I know, and then we got into something. What’s the matter with your voice?”

He did not see her face clearly until he turned on the lamp at the end of the couch away from her and saw the bruise marks and swelling, her mouth puffed and slightly open. Carolyn’s eyes held his with a quiet expression, her eyes blinking once, staring at him, blinking again, waiting for him to speak.

“I told you,” Raymond said.

Her expression began to turn cold.

“Didn’t I tell you? No, you can handle him, no problem.”

“I knew you’d have to say it,” Carolyn said, “but I didn’t think you’d overdo it.”

“You didn’t? Listen, I’m not through yet,” Raymond said. “If I can think of some more ways to say it I’m going to, every way I know how.”

She said, “You’re serious…”

“You bet I am. I told you, don’t fool with Clement, but you did anyway.”

“I misjudged him a little.”

“A little …”

She began to smile and said, “Do you feel better now?”

He said, “Do you?” Then surprised both of them.

He went to one knee to get close to her and very gently touched her face, her mouth, with the tips of his fingers. He said, “You don’t want to be a tough broad.” She said, “No…” and slipped her arms around him and brought him against her. The faint sound that came from her might have been pain, but he didn’t think so.

He said, “I want to tell you something. Then we’ll see if we’re still friends, or whatever we are. I didn’t plan this. As a matter of fact, I came here I was a little on the muscle. I was go

“What happened?” Carolyn said.

He liked the subdued sound of her voice.

“I don’t know. I think you’ve changed. Or I’ve changed. Maybe I have. But what I want to tell you, I think you’re too serious.”

She didn’t expect that, or didn’t understand what he meant. “He beat hell out of me…”

“I know he did,” touching her face again, soothing her with his voice and his fingers. “I’m not go

“He made me give him a check. All the money I had in the account.”

“How much is that?”

“Over six thousand.”

“What did you say one time, he’s fascinating? I’m sorry, I’ve got to quit that… Did you stop payment?”

“No, I’m going to file on three counts and get him for assault, extortion and probably larceny from a person. He took more than a hundred in cash.”

“Hold off on it,” Raymond said. “Let me bring him up on the homicides, then you can file all the charges you want.”

“You’ll never convict him,” Carolyn said, “unless you have more than I know about.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“Not when he was here; at least he didn’t show it. But when I heard shots and looked out the bathroom window-I thought it was the police and I remember thinking, Wait, as I went to the window, I want to see him killed.”

“Really?”

“It was in my mind.”

“Did he have a gun then?”

“Yes, shooting back at them. It was an automatic, a fairly good size. But who are they?”

He told her about Skender, Toma. She knew something about Albanian blood feuds and now wasn’t surprised. “On the phone you thought I wanted to file against them on behalf of Clement, while I’m thinking of all the ways I want to see him convicted.”

“Let me do it,” Raymond said. “I’m close. In fact, it could happen tonight, as soon as I hear something.” Looking at her, thinking of Clement, he said, “Did he… molest you?”

Carolyn began to smile again, her eyes appreciating him. “Did he molest me?…

“Come on-did he?”

Her mood became quiet. “Not really.”

“What does that mean, not really?”

“He touched me…”

“Make you take your clothes off?”

“He opened my robe-” Carolyn stopped, she seemed mildly surprised. “You know what I’m doing? I’m being coy. I’ve never been coy in my life.”

“No, you’ve been too busy impressing yourself,” Raymond said. “Tell me what he did.”

“What’re you trying to do, analyze me? He felt me up, but we didn’t go all the way.” Now Raymond smiled and she said, “You think you have insights, is that it?”

“Maybe, if that’s the word. I don’t expect to see something and then look and say, uh-huh, there it is. I try to look without expecting and see what’s actually there. Is that insight?”

“You’re sly,” Carolyn said. “I think I have you down and you slip away.”

He said, “You have me down… where? It’s like filling out an Interrogation Record of an Information for Arraignment, you know what I mean? Sometimes the form isn’t big enough, or it doesn’t ask the right questions.”

“You think I presume too much,” Carolyn said, “see only what I expect to see. Is that it?”

“I don’t know, we can talk about it sometime.” He was tired and wasn’t sure if he should close his eyes.

“If I make presumptions,” Carolyn said, “what about you?”

“What about me?”

“We were making love and you said, ‘I know you… ‘ “

“I didn’t think you heard me.”

“What did you mean?”

“Well, it was like I saw you. Not what you do or who you believe you are, just you. Does that make sense?”

“I don’t know…”

“But you didn’t say anything, did you? I think you changed back after that and I didn’t know you anymore. You became the woman lawyer again who thinks she has to be a tough broad. But look what happens to tough broads.” Raymond was silent a moment. “Let me take care of him, Carolyn.”