The Last Bender, Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Monozone was deep into panic. Beneath the zippered, gridlocked surface, under stockings, panty shields and contact lenses, inside the ironed shirt, the benzedrine suit jacket and gold crown, brushed into the rug, pinned up for the wig, tanned and henna’d, straightened, permed and dreadlocked panic surged and raged and churned and lifted till every eye was vigilant, every jaw tight. Over lunch conducted in suspicious silence lips and sphincters clenched till they ached and after, the participants swang their arms joylessly through the halls.
I walked from office to office, through cavernous halls of cubicles and workstations, past clusters of desks and modular satellites where the flow of the flow is parsed. The eye behind the glasses didn’t lurk or hide from the glare, it didn’t seek the drooping lid for a hood. Fingers didn’t blunder on the keys. When high commanded low to emote, low released its fear in loud enthusiastic bellows.
No one went anywhere without looking behind them, projecting sight around the corner, into the eaves, behind the door. On the subway platform trusted friends in groups of two or three stood back from the rails and watched each other. Whether for a threatening move or protectively, they watched.
Lt. Det. Bunuel and two other men arrived in state, accompanied by a fleet of motorcycles and a pounding rain. He huffed and shuffled up the flooded steps fidgeting in his suit, which was tight in the shoulders. He picked at his tie, as if it had cut off the circulation to his head. The two men scrambled behind him with umbrellas so wet the water looked like a veil silver beads. We shook hands and I escorted them to the conference room.
One of the men was a stenographer, a snipe about five feet tall in a red jacket that looked like a dog sweater, with a pendulous, alcoholic nose. The other was a plainclothes cop who would play bad to Bunuel’s good. He was a sorry looking shit, taller than the mug in the pooch coat, but small and rumpled next to Bunuel. Bunuel could crush your face in his hands, wipe them on a towel and finish the crossword.
The plainclothes cop slouched beneath a standard issue hat and smiled trying to get his hand out of the trench coat sleeve to shake mine. On the elevator he took off the hat and I got a look at his face. It was the size and shape of a white fig. I set them up with coffee and danish, showed them where the light, chairs and ashtray were, and went off to find Stronghole.
Stronghole was in the mailroom, talking up a woman in black overalls. I yanked him out with a jerk of my head and we went to the restaurant. I ordered a bagel with chived cream cheese and nova bits, a large cola and a plate of onion rings with Dijon mustard. He got the fried clams with plaque sauce and a small green salad, perked up with chunks of hydrolyzed soy protein and a gangrenous tomato. The waitress was new. She spent all her time reading some grad schoolbook called Despondital. The bags under her eyes were so big she needed a bellhop.
“What’s the news on the file number?” I asked.
“It’s a drawing. I think we can go take a look.” He chewed on a mouthful of lettuce. “I know a guy,” he said, showing the whole damn ranch.
“I get the idea. I wonder what kind of a drawing.”
“What did Laraby say about Watts?”
“That we’re bugs to him.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“Go talk to him yourself about Watts. He’s not eating there.”
Stronghole checked out the parking lot for a while and then played with the menus. I had a few sips of water. We ate our food. Stronghole said, “I want a cup of coffee.”
“Are you pissed or what?”
“What?”
“Are you pissed about Watts.”
Stronghole frowned. “Who do you think bombed The Pechardine and tried to kill us? Who broke into your place?”
“Do we go after Watts then? What about Laraby? He catches us prowling around Watts and he pins it on us. All of it. He’s looking for a fall.”
“Which is what he’s playing us for then.”
“That’s right,” I said.
So we thought about that for a while.
I said, “All the evidence got blown up, right? So there’s nothing to tie us into it, except for what we know. We can walk.”
He started to stammer. “How do we explain all those people? How do we explain?”
“Did you explain about things in the war?”
“That was war. You do stuff. You have to live with that and I do. But I didn’t turn down the navy and police for this.”
“Neither did I. But there you have it. Here we are. And I didn’t crawl out from under that maggot to go down holding some billionaire’s prick for him. So I’ll go after him but only on the sly. Let me feel around the cops for a while, I’ll talk to Peter Lafferty and David Watts. You get close to the old man, but don’t touch. We keep Laraby upwind.”
“I’ll watch my ass around that guy.”
“So will he. I got some business.”
“What?”
“Find a disloyal in Bunuel’s camp and pay him off to move against Bunuel and cut a deal with Monozone.”
Stronghole seized up in disgust. “Why would you do that?”
“You got any better ideas? I don’t care how I spend Laraby’s money. And don’t weep for Bunuel. Bunuel ain’t a baby.”
“At least you’re sentimental for babies.”