Rosato and Associates: Legal Tender Part 8

"Do you know where Sam was that night?"

"I never know where he is at night. He goes out a lot."

Then I thought of my meeting with Sam that day, in his office. "But he told me he heard some of our a.s.sociates were leaving. Did you know anything about that?"

"Just that Wingate's been grumbling, but you could see that. Do you think Mark told Sam he was going to break up R & B?"

"No. Sam would have told me."

"Would he? He didn't tell you about the will and he didn't tell you he was Mark's executor. Maybe you don't know as much as you think about him."

"I know enough to know that this is crazy, this whole discussion."

Grady sat down, undaunted. "I'd like to call Sam and find out where he was that night."

"You will not."

"Bennie, we're fighting the clock here, you heard Azzic. He'll charge you as soon as he has something that can conceivably support it. Then where will you be? Murder's not a bailable offense in Philly. You'll go right to jail."

I flashed on the women's prison at Muncy. I'd been there to see clients and was always relieved to hit the front gate on my way out. "Are you trying to scare me, Grady?"

"I surely am." He smiled, but I didn't.

"Okay. Fine. But if anybody talks to Sam, it should be me."

"I'd like to, as your lawyer."

"No. You don't know Sam. He's one of the dearest men in the world, he volunteers for Action AIDs. He was mad at me because I had a client opposed to AIDS research. He-" I stopped in mid-sentence. Bill Kleeb. Eileen's threat against the CEO. I had completely forgotten. I checked my watch. 7:00. I wondered where Eileen and Bill were now, whether they were back at their apartment. If I couldn't get to Detective Azzic, maybe I could get to them. I got up and hustled to my briefcase for their file.

"Bennie? What in G.o.d's name are you doing?" Grady asked, astonished as I ran back and forth.

"I have to make another call." I found the phone number Bill had given me and punched it in.

"Now? We're in the middle of a conversation."

I held up a hand when Bill Kleeb's voice came on the line. "Can you meet me at eight tonight? It's very important," I told him. Bill agreed only reluctantly, and I named a place to meet, then hung up, feeling uneasy.

"Who was that?" Grady asked.

"A client." I replaced the file and zipped my canvas briefcase closed. "I have to go. You want to walk me out?"

"Which client? Where are you going?" He stood up.

"To meet a client, the animal rights guy, okay? Maybe his girlfriend."

"Why?"

"I have to."

Grady put his hands on his hips. "Bennie, I'm your lawyer. I'd like to know as much as the police and the press do about you. Besides, you said you'd let me win the next one."

He had a point. I would have smacked a client who was behaving as badly as I was. "I just want to check in with him, see how he is. I can't tell you more than that, it's confidential and I don't want you involved in it."

"You're worried about a client when you're being investigated for murder?"

We met eye to eye, and I wasn't entirely comfortable in his gaze. "I'm worried about all my clients. You saw me, I made a zillion phone calls today."

"Why does this client merit a personal visit?"

Because I wanted to see if he and Eileen were picking out china patterns or explosives, but I couldn't tell Grady that. "He's young, a kid. He needs some help. Extra help."

"Good. I'm extra helpful, I'll go with you." He retrieved his suit jacket from the chair and tossed it over his shoulder, hooking it with a finger.

"You can't come. You have to hold the fort." I opened my office door, but Grady halted the door's progress with a hand.

"I don't get it," he said, gray eyes frank behind his gla.s.ses. "I know how much you care about finding Mark's killer, but you spent the day doing everything else but. Now you're running off. Aren't you avoiding it?"

"I have some things to get in order," I said, though I sensed he was right. Somehow, the threat to the Furstmann CEO was urgent to me. Maybe it was a murder I could prevent, as opposed to one I couldn't. Or maybe it was just too hard to deal with Mark's death.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Grady, if all goes well tonight, we'll solve this thing together. You need my help, I can tell."

He laughed. "Oh yes, I need your help. Don't know how I got along without you before. Now will you call Sam Freminet or should I?"

"I will."

"Will you also think about who else had a motive to kill Mark? Was anyone angry with him? Any clients in the past, anyone like that?"

"Yes, sir."

He grinned. "I like the sound of that."

"Don't get too used to it."

"Don't worry. Call me here or at home if you need anything, after your meeting or anytime. I'll be doing my alibi research. I'd like to know where the other a.s.sociates were last night about the time Mark was killed."

It caught me up short. "Our a.s.sociates? Christ."

Suddenly my office windows filled with a harsh white light. The TV klieg lights, fis.h.i.+ng for file footage. Grady turned toward the windows, now bright as midday despite the growing darkness. "Wonder if they got the telephoto on us."

"Probably. Let's go say hi." I walked to the window, and Grady came after.

"Don't give them the finger this time," he said.

"You're no fun." I looked out the window, s.h.i.+elding my eyes from the searing light. Reporters thronged on the street below, silhouetted in front of the round lamps like shadows on the moon.

Grady scanned the crowd. "The First Amendment at work."

"Right. Half of them are my clients in the libel cases. I defend their right to hound people."

"Be careful what you wish for, right?"

I gazed into the hot white brightness, wondering whether the next scene caught in the spotlight would be my arrest for murder.

Chapter 12.

They sat before paper cups of tap water, looking hungry. If you're going to meet vegetarians for dinner, don't do it at McDonald's. I don't know what I was thinking when I picked this place. Maybe about Mark's death, Detective Azzic, and Muncy Prison. "I could get you some fries," I said lamely.

"Thas' all right," Bill said, sitting slightly apart from Eileen. If they'd made up, it was an uneasy truce. He wore a plain white T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans, and his injuries were healing only slowly. The swelling on his forehead had gone down but the gash remained, and the white of his left eye was still blood-red.

"How about a Filet-o-Fish? That's not meat."

Eileen wrinkled her upturned nose. She was all nervous energy, eyes roving the restaurant, foot wiggling in white Candies sandals. "No fish. It has a face."

"Not anymore," I said, and n.o.body laughed. Christ, I was losing it. I sipped my coffee. At least it was hot, but even that would change, now that they'd been sued. "I don't eat veal," I offered, but Eileen was looking away again. She hadn't met my eye once, undoubtedly blaming me for convincing Bill to plead out.

"You should read about factory farming," she said idly. "Cows, pigs, it's no different than veal. They grow them in pens and feed them antibiotics and steroids."

"Steroids?" I pushed away my half-eaten Big Mac. If I got any bigger, I'd be Alice in Wonderland.

"It's poison, and then there's the bacteria. Things grow in meat. Things you can't see." She flicked crayon-black bangs off a face that would be pretty but for its hardness. Her eye makeup was heavy and her spandex dress eye-catching. Her arm was still in a sling, but that was the only souvenir of her fracas with the police.

I wanted to swing the conversation around to her death threat without betraying Bill's confidence. "Bill told me all about the lab, Eileen. You must've seen some terrible stuff."

"I did."

"Are Furstmann's labs worse than others?"

She scratched under her cast. "What do you care? You're not even our lawyer."

Ouch. "That guy with the ridiculous briefcase my replacement?"

"What'd you expect?" she said, with a savvy laugh. Her gaze wandered around the restaurant, so I surveyed the place. It was empty except for an old man chain-smoking in the far corner. The dinner rush was over, n.o.body was coming in. What was Eileen looking at? Then I realized she didn't want to see, she wanted to be seen.

"How'd you find this lawyer, Eileen?"

"Celeste? He found me. He saw me on the news. I was on all the channels, even cable."

"Is he the one who bailed you out?"

"He wants to sue the police and the city. He says we can get five hundred thou, maybe more, and that's only from the lawsuit."

Bill s.h.i.+fted in his slippery seat. "He said he'll help us stop the experiments, too. That's what we want to do."

Eileen nodded. "Stop them dead."

I felt a chill and leaned forward. "Eileen, nothing you can do will stop the experiments. The pressure for an AIDS cure is too great. I told Bill you ought to go after the fur companies instead of the drug companies. Remember, Bill?"

"Yuh," Bill nodded.

"I worked at Furstmann Dunn. I saw what they did," Eileen said.

"But people aren't ready to deal with animal experimentation yet, Eileen. Go after fur. The celebrities are all against it."

"Celebrities? Like who?" She inched forward on her chair, and for the first time interest glimmered in her eyes.

"Uh, Elle MacPherson."

"I like Elle. She's in the movies, like Rene Russo. Did you know Rene Russo was a model before she did that movie with John Travolta? She gets a lot of movie work."

"Really. You have momentum, since you had all the TV cameras and everything. Why don't you keep it alive by going after the fur companies? I don't know if Bill told you, but I represent a lot of radicals, a lot of protesters."

"Any celebrities?"

Christ. "No. No celebrities. And they, my clients, always use the press when they have it. It helps them win people over, get a lot of followers."

"Followers?"

"Sure."

She paused. "I gotta ask you something though."

"What?"

"Did you really kill your boyfriend?"

I felt a pang, deep inside my chest. "No."

"Oh," she said.

Her foot wagging.

"You, a murderer? How could they think such a thing?" Hattie said. She'd been waiting up, wrapped like a Havana cigar in her bathrobe, with her hair in pink foam curlers. She looked exhausted, her skin greasy and her eyes dark and sunken. "How could they even think it?"

"They're cops. They can think anything." I scratched Bear, asleep under the table, and stirred my umpteenth cup of coffee. I was fatigued, too, but satisfied that Eileen had forgotten about the CEO.

"The cops were upstairs, you know. They turned your apartment upside down. They woulda broke down the door if I hadn't stopped 'em."

"Sorry. I should've warned you when I called."

"They left your place a d.a.m.n mess! I tried to put it together, but your mother was gettin' upset."