Sudden Mischief

"Okay," I said. "You can turn around and put your hands down."

Haskell turned and dropped his hands. I put my own gun back on my belt.

"So what do you need," he said.

If he was scared, he was doing a masterful job of covering it. He probably wasn't scared. Being scared would have been too human for Haskell. He was probably too mean and too shallow to be scared.

The gun I'd taken from him was a cheap semi-automatic I'd never heard of. I took out the magazine, ejected a round from the chamber, dropped the gun and magazine on the floor, and kicked the gun under the bed. I was still between Haskell and the door.

"I don't know what the game is," Haskell said, "but you are getting yourself in deeper, pal."

Haskell was probably wearing different clothes than he had the last time I saw him, but he looked just the same. Haskell would always look pretty much the same.

"You broke the rules," I said.

"What rules?"

"You don't take it home," I said. "You don't involve family."

"What family?"

"Susan Silverman."

"Who the fuck is she?"

"My family," I said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Haskell looked momentarily at the window. It was to the right of the door as you come in, one of those fixed metal frame jobs with the air-conditioning unit on the floor under it. It wouldn't open. To go out it, you'd have to go through it.

"When Buster made his run at me," I said. "I was with Susan, outside her house."

"What the fuck do I care where you were," Haskell said.

"That's the point of my visit," I said.

"Who knew it was your girlfriend," Haskell said. "Shit happens."

"I can't let it slide," I said.

"So, whaddya want? Money? What? How much you need?"

"You have a choice," I said. "I can take it out of your hide, or you can buy me with information."

"Information? About what, for crissake?"

"What the deal was with you and Gavin and Brad Sterling."

"Sterling?"

"Uh huh."

"I don't know no fucking Sterling."

I sighed and hit Haskell in the stomach with my left hand. He gasped and stumbled back a step and bent over. As he was bending I jabbed him on the nose and straightened him back a bit. His nose started to bleed. He tried to stop the bleeding by pinching his nose and stepped back another step and sat on the bed.

"You busted my fucking nose, for crissake," he said.

"Not yet."

"I'm telling you I don't know no whatsisname Stevens."

"Sterling," I said. "Okay, tell me about you and Gavin."

"Gavin's my lawyer. You know that."

"How are you and he co

"To what?"

I reached over and tapped him on the nose with the back of my left hand.

He said, "Ow," and scrambled backwards on the bed to stay away from me.

"Galapalooza," I said.

"Honest to God," Haskell said, his voice thick because he was holding his nose. "I don't even know what a Lala-whatever is."

Haskell was wi

"What's the current scam?" I said. "You and Gavin?"

The blood was seeping between his fingers and staining his shirt front. He could see himself in the mirror, and I think it scared him.

"We run a little money through him," Haskell said.

"He wash it?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"He never said. Talk to him, for crissake. I don't know what he's doing."

It made sense. Galapalooza was an excellent money-laundering vehicle. Haskell wasn't wi

"Okay," I said. "I'll mark your fine paid. I'll talk to Gavin. I find out you lied, I'll be back."

"I ain't lying."

"Anybody, you, someone employed by you, someone related to you, someone that knows you, comes within sight of Susan Silverman again and I'll kill you," I said.

"I don't know her. I got nothing to do with her," Haskell said.

"Keep it that way," I said. "One reason for this meeting is to help you understand that I can get to you."

Haskell was pressing the damp towel against his face. It muffled his voice.

"Talk to Gavin," Haskell said.

chapter forty-three

I MET RICHARD GAVIN for lunch at a steak house in Quincy Market. The weather was good and thcy had opened the atrium doors so that you could eat your steak and still feel co

Gavin and I sat at a table next to the atrium door. A rangy guy in a tan suit stood just outside the atrium. Another guy shorter and a bit wider stood on the other side of the opening. He wore a gray suit. Both of them had on official security service sunglasses and little microphones in their lapels. I knew the rangy guy. His name was Clarke. He'd been in the Marshal Service. Now he worked for a big private security firm in town. When we sat down I shot at him with my forefinger. He nodded briefly.

"Why the bodyguards?" I said.

Gavin shook his head.

"You said you had a proposal," Gavin said. "You want to make it?"

He looked tired and the lines on either side of his mouth seemed deeper than I remembered. A waitress came and took our order.

"Actually it's more like a hypothesis," I said. "I wanted to share it with you. See what you thought."

"I don't have time for hypotheses," Gavin said. "And I have a lot less for you."

"I figure you and Sterling were in business together," I said. "With Haskell."

"I don't much care what you figure," Gavin said.

The waitress brought him a martini. I had a club soda. The martini looked good, but I had no time to take an afternoon nap.

"I figure that Sterling had money trouble. He'd run through his family, and friends, and so he did what he had done before when he was in trouble. He went to an ex-wife."

Gavin sipped his martini and looked at the menu.

"And the ex-wife he went to was Carla Quagliozzi."

Without looking up from the menu, Gavin said, "So?"

"Carla didn't have money to give him, or if she did, she was too smart to give it to him. But she was by now your girlfriend and she sent him to you. I don't know, you can fill it in later. Maybe she saw a chance to turn a profit. Maybe she felt sorry for him. His ex-wives seem to. Whatever her reason, you saw something useful. You saw a way to launder money and maybe make a profit on it in the process."

The waitress returned. Gavin ordered steak tips and another martini. I had a salad. A big lunch is nap city too. Gavin folded his menu, handed it to the waitress, leaned back in his chair, and looked straight at me.

"Why would I care about laundering cash?" he said.

"Because you're Haskell Wechsler's lawyer and he's in a cash business."