David and the Lion’s Den — XVIII
Chapter 18, Parks and Pressure
“David! Hey!”
I turned to find Richard towering over me, long camel-hair coat open to the wind.
“That’s some concentration, kid,” he smiled. “I called your name… I dunno, two or three times, anyway.”
I patted the bench beside me. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
“I could ask you the same. I stopped by... upstairs, I mean. Hilda said I could probably find you here in the park.”
I held out the notebook as he came around to sit down. “Wanna see? I’ve been writing since lunch.”
He grunted, pulled a pair of reading glasses out of the breast pocket of his tweed jacket, frowned slightly, and pulled the first page up to his long nose.
I watched him curiously. I didn’t know what to make of Richard anymore. The man sitting beside me — my upstairs neighbor, friend, sort of grandfather-by-proxy — he just didn’t make sense. The retired ad exec who dressed like he shopped on Saville Row, how could he be the same person as a smart-ass, whip-toting transvestite in a red leather mini?
I thought back to the club where we’d dropped him — her — the night of the boat cruise. I’d never been inside, but after Howie told me what it was, I knew I’d heard of it. It was the sort of dark hole people whispered or laughed nervously about, the sort of underworld legend you figure has to be exaggerated.
Funny. Imagining Carla stalking into that den of dungeon toys and fetish queens didn’t bother me in the least. So, why should imagining Richard in the same setting make me shiver?
He must have sensed my strong gaze, because he glanced up as I looked him up and down.
“Mm,” he mumbled, peering over black-rimmed lenses. “This is exactly the kind of detail I was talking about. Keep it up.”
I nodded as he lowered his eyes to the page again.
“Hey, Richard?”
“Hm?” He plucked his glasses off his nose and sat back. “Sounds serious. Something on your mind?”
“Not really. I just… I guess I haven’t thanked you.” That wasn’t actually what I meant to say.
“Yeah, I guess you didn’t either,” he grumbled, frowning.
My eyes must have gotten big or something, because just as I started to stammer out an apology, he laughed and cut me off. “I’m teasing you, kid. Since when are you so jumpy with me?”
“Sorry. Never mind me. Having kind of a weird day.”
“Anyway,” he drawled, “what are you supposed to be thanking me for, exactly? Sometimes I lose track of all my random acts of kindness.”
I caught on to his playful tone and tried to get in on the act. “Oh, nothing much. Just for snapping me out of my self pity, dragging me to my senses, and possibly saving my life. One should be grateful for even small things, you know.”
He chuckled. “Not the first time somebody’s thanked me for slapping them around.”
“Really? I… Oh!” I felt my cheeks catch fire.
Richard raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, you’re welcome. Though I wouldn’t want to take more credit than I deserve. Hilda put me up to it, you know.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Me? Sense of humor? Surely not,” he deadpanned. He glared at me so fiercely that I couldn’t help myself. I broke out laughing.
“Much better,” he chuckled, relaxing against the park bench. “About time you loosened up some. You were looking pretty grim when I walked up.”
“It’s that stuff I’m writing. It’s pretty rough, you know. Thinking about it.”
He nodded and glanced at my notebook again. “Do you think about them a lot?”
“I do now that I’m writing about them. Yeah, I guess… a lot.”
…
“Hey, Richard?”
“Mmm?”
“What did you mean about Hilda?”
The wind caught the loose edges of the notebook and riffed through the pages. He smoothed them down and gave me his full attention. “Surely you don’t buy her sweet, addled old lady act?”
“Of course not!” I scoffed.
“Yeah, well, she was pretty worried about you.”
“So, it was her idea? To shock me or shake me up?
“Mm. So, if you really want to thank somebody?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“But, actually,” he went on, voice gone a bit tight. “Apologies would probably be more in order — from you and me both.”
“Huh?”
He paused for a moment, eyed me expectantly. “Look, I know you were pretty out of it the night of the opening …”
“Yeah, that Nazi stuff. I know, man. I could just murder Renaud. I’m sure she hated it! So, did I, though. I mean, how could he misconceptualize my paintings like that? What a moron. I thought he understood my art and what I was trying to do with …”
“David, stop!”
I drew in a sharp breath.
“We’re not talking about you, kid. Did you see how hurt she looked?”
“Sure, I guess. I mean,of course I did. She seemed OK after a minute, though.”
“Well, she wasn’t. Hilda’s very good at hiding. But she wasn’t OK. Believe me.”
“Really?”
“David, she lost her babies. She lost her dignity. She lost everything she’d ever valued about herself. Of course she was hurt to see that on public display. She felt raped.”
I hate to admit that I got pretty defensive. I was a victim too. Renaud had betrayed me and my art. That’s how I was used to thinking, to framing things. I didn’t mean to roll my eyes and sigh like a teenager.
I did mean what I said next. “Well, I’m not the one who gave Renaud her story. I didn’t even know some of those details. Whose fault was that? Huh?”
“I know whose fault it was,” he snapped. He half rose off the bench and folded the loose tails of his long coat around himself. “I’m not trying to place blame, David,” he sighed. “There’s plenty to go around. I know perfectly well that I was stupid and irresponsible. I just wanted to make sure you know about Hilda.”
That’s exactly where I should have let things drop. I should have thanked him and changed the subject. But, no.
“What was I supposed to do about it?” I pressed. “I was in jail, remember? I didn’t organize the exhibit. I wasn’t even there for the hanging!”
“Sure,” Richard agreed, voice dusty. “Apparently you weren’t there even before you got arrested. He called me looking for you a good dozen times the week before the opening.”
And that’s when it all turned into a pissing match. We ended up flinging accusations at each other.
“Stop acting like a spoiled little rich kid!” he hissed at me a few minutes later. “You’re responsible for your own actions. Mommy and Daddy aren’t around to clean up the messes you make in other people’s lives!”
“Yeah? What’s your excuse?” I lobbed back. “Oh, wait. You don’t need one, do you? You LIKE it. It’s what you do!”
I saw him flinch, so I drove the needle in harder. “You enjoy hurting people. You go to special clubs for that. Isn’t that what this is all about? Let’s kick David when he’s down and get our kicks? Much more exciting than humiliating Hilda, huh?”
He jumped to his feet and drew in a sharp breath.
“What, going somewhere, Madame Dominatrix? Aren’t I playing the game right?
His teeth clicked as his mouth snapped close.
“Sorry if I’m not submissive enough,” I jeered. “I’ll try to do better next time.”
He shook his head and stalked away, pushing through crowds of laughing students, coat blowing in the cold wind.
Kevin’s law firm filled up a couple floors of a Midtown skyscraper, the kind with polished marble and brass in a lobby full of art and manicured plants. Elevator attendants stood out in carefully pressed uniforms of grey and red, while the cars themselves glowed warmly with the subdued tones of buffed mahogany.
I hated the place.
Just stepping inside reminded me of what I was facing.When I watched all the busy, well-dressed people running around, I’d try to compare their situations to mine. How many of them were seeing lawyers? How many of them were in terrible, surreal trouble? Not very god-damn many, I supposed.
Heels echoed on marble tile, and a faint breeze of sanitized air announced the elevator’s closing. My stomach rebelled. I had a few more pages to deliver — I was almost halfway done with my little memoir — but Kevin needed to see me anyway. Documents to sign.
“David, good to see you again,” he greeted briskly, striding up to the conference table to shake my hand. “You’ve met Arnold already, right?” The other man — skinny, 50-ish, nervous looking — pumped my hand too.
“Phyllis offer you anything?” Kevin asked. “Coffee? Soda?”
“Thanks, no, My stomach …”
The accountant-looking guy, Arnold, was actually Kevin’s investigator. I’d sat down with him once before, a week after I got out of jail.
After we got some paperwork out of the way, Kevin leaned back in his chair and looked me over carefully. “I have to be honest with you, young man. Things are looking pretty shaky. Sure, technically the State is going to have a hard time proving a case with direct evidence. But the circumstances look bad. I’m not looking forward to a jury getting their hands on this.”
Arnold stared me down. Black eyes glittering.
“Six people died of food poisoning,” Kevin continued, “all of them while you were painting them. During that entire period, all summer long, actually, only one other client in the food program died of the same thing.”
“But …”
Arnold stopped my objection. “I looked into it,” he rasped in a strong Brooklyn burr. “Nobody else in dat program had symptom one. No so much as a mysterious case a da runs.”
Kevin cut in smoothly. “You can see our difficulty. If we try to play dumb and tell the jury we have no idea what happened, they’re not going to like it. We’ll set them against us.”
Arnold added his own analysis. “One thing we know. Something went down when you and dat Siegler guy was makin’ dem deliveries. And dat’s just a fact.”
I sighed. “So, we’re back to the Howie theory.”
“We’ll try to get your trials severed,” Kevin suggested. “Look, it’ll be as much to his benefit as yours. I’ll point the finger at him, his public defender will insist you’re the guilty one, and for all we know, you both get acquitted by your separate juries. I’ve seen it happen before.”
Over, and over, and over again. It just kept coming back to this. I felt like screaming in frustration. Instead, I took a deep breath. “Have you been reading my notes? We have to be missing something. I’m trying to be as detailed as possible.
Arnold shot me the first half-friendly look I’d ever seen. “Yeah. I’m reading every word. Keep it up. Which reminds me. I got some questions here.”
He pushed a legal pad at me, and I spent the next 30 minutes writing down whatever full names and contact information I had for people I’d mentioned in my writing.
