C. A Word for the Big Guy Near five I phoned home, rousing Lyle from a sound sleep. He reported that he'd been getting the same strange calls as Lucinda: 'Mack there, when's he back?' He did not recognize the voice. 'Did you tell him?'

'f.u.c.k no, Dad, I know better than that.' His pride and his a.s.sumptions, the whole tone of his response, struck me in the desperate total way only Lyle could. It was so clear where he was frozen - the latchkey kid of thirteen whose mommy had warned him about strangers. My boy. Listening to him, I felt for a moment I might simply expire from the pain. It eased a bit as he carried on about the Chevy, which he'd retrieved from the pound with two flats. One hundred eighty-five bucks it cost, plus the ticket, and he wanted the money back. He made the point a number of times.

I've come home again with Brushy tonight. We had takeout Italian, fancy stuff, rigatoni with goat cheese and obscure antipasti, which we consumed between screws. I won't say how I ate my tiramisu. About an hour ago, as we were drowsing, her back to me, saved from drowning in my arms, Brushy said, 'If I ask, you'll tell me, right?'

'Ask what?'

'You know. What's going on. With the money. Bert. The whole thing. Right? You know, attorney-client. But you'll tell me.'

I think you don't want to know. I think your life is better without this kind of news.'

'And I accept that,' she said. 'I do. I know you're right. I trust you. But if I decide, if I really have to know, for whatever reason, you'll tell me. Right?'

My eyes were wide in the dark. 'Right.'

So that's how it is. My warped little dreams, private so long, are now hurling themselves through my life with volcanic force. Perhaps the sheer peril made my lovemaking with Brushy vigorous and prolonged. She sleeps as she's slept the previous nights, in the comforted grip of her own improbable fantasies, immobile almost, but I am desolate and awake in the dark, chasing away goblins and spooks, out here in her living room now, whispering again into my Dictaphone.

So you ponder, U You: What is he up to, this guy, Mack Malloy? Believe me, I ask myself the same thing. The apartment is surrounded by the odd silences of winter - the windows closed tight, the heat whispering, the cold keeping idle souls from the street. Since I actually committed this stunt, robbing TN blind and preparing to blame it on somebody else, my ma's barking accusatory voice seems to be with me wherever I go. She regarded herself as devout, one of the Pope's own Catholics, her life whirling like a pinwheel where the Church was at the very center, but her religious thought seemed to dwell mostly on the devil, who was regularly invoked, particularly whenever she was remonstrating with me.

But it wasn't the devil that made me do it. All in all, I think I'm just sick of my life. It seemed like such a terrific idea. But it was my fancy, my folly, my fun-time escapade. There's no sharing. h.e.l.l, it turns out, is being stuck forever listening to your own jokes.

So who is this for? Why bother talking? Elaine always had the same hope. 'Mack, you won't die without a priest at your side.' Probably right. I'm a short-odds player. But maybe this is the first act of contrition, part of the process that the Church these days calls reconciliation, where your heart, unburdened, rises to G.o.d. What do I know?

So here goes. Big Guy, Big Ent.i.ty, Big Being, if you're up there listening, I suppose you will think what you like. But please forgive me. I need it tonight. I did what I wanted and now I am sorry as h.e.l.l. We both know the truth: I have sinned, big-time. Tomorrow I'll have my stuff back. I'll be bitter and ready to stick it to everyone else. I'll be the apostate, agnostic, you won't cross my mind. But like me tonight, accept me one moment before I reject you, as I reject everyone else. If you can forgive infinitely, then forgive this, and have an instant of pity for your ragtag creation, sad Bess Malloy's boy.

TAPE 6.

Dictated February 2, 9:00 p.m.

Wednesday, February 1 XXIV. YOUR INVESTIGATOR HIDES OUT A. Waiting for Bert Brushy had an early meeting and went rushing off at seven, wrestling into her coat as she grabbed her briefcase, a jelly doughnut stuffed whole into her mouth. I was still in bed and lingered amid my lover's possessions. Brushy's apartment had an overcrowded urban air. She was on the first floor of a brownstone with nifty Victorian touches -raised moldings and patterned plaster, and those little breastlike caps in the ceiling where the gas fixtures had been removed. There were tall pine shutters on the street-side windows that ran floor to ceiling, and many plants, and walls of books, stacks of everything. No real art to speak of - a couple of tasteful posters, but strictly representational stuff, no more adventurous than a bowl of fruit. In the bedroom, where I would have expected maybe a mirror or a trapeze, there was little furnishing, except for a king-size bed and heaps of dirty clothing at the corners of her closet, laundry on one side, dry cleaning on the other. She looked, appropriately, like a person with a busy life.

About eight-forty, as I was getting ready to head out, the phone rang. Better not to answer, I figured. What if it was one of Brushy's pinup legion of male admirers? What if Tad Krzysinski was asking if he could slip her the big one at lunch? I let it go to the answering machine and heard Brush emphatically telling me to pick up.

'You better stay where you are,' she said.

'You're coming home for an interlude?'

'I just met Detective Dimonte.'

'Oh Christ.'

'He was looking for you. I told him I was your attorney.' 'He have a grand jury subpoena?' 'That's why he was here.' 'Did you accept service?' 'Told him I wasn't authorized.' 'Clever lady. What else did he want to know?' 'Where you were.'

I asked what she'd said, then realized the inevitable response and repeated it with her: 'Attorney-client.' 'I'll bet he was in a mood,' I added. 'You might say. I told him I'd have you get in touch.' 'When I'm ready.'

'He'll come looking for you, won't he?'

'He is already. He may even follow you. And I wouldn't talk too much more on this phone either.'

'Could he get a wiretap order that fast?'

'Pigeyes doesn't know from court orders. He's got a guy at the phone company he caught buying cocaine or with his thing in a glory hole who he makes throw switches for him when need be.'

'Oo,' said Brush.

'Attractive guy, right?'

'Well, actually,' said Brushy. I mean, you'd say masculine.'

'Don't do this to me, Brush. Tell me you're only saying that because he might be listening.'

She laughed. I took a moment to think.

'Look, I better cut out - just in case he got enterprising. I'm supposed to hear from a certain tall missing partner of ours today. Make sure Lucinda forwards the call to you. Don't get into any extended conversations over this phone. Tell him to give you the information I wanted on 7384.

Follow?' She a.s.sured me she did. 7384 was G & G's fax line. I looked forward to Gino listening in on that screech, the mating call of two machines. He couldn't tap that.

I gathered my briefcase, still packed with everything from Pico Luan, and walked down about three blocks, where there was another location of Dr Goodbody's. I knew I'd have to deal with Gino eventually. But only after I talked to Bert and figured out what I could say. I had plans - millions, in fact. Soon I'd have to choose.

I spent the day at the health club, hairy-eyeballing the gals in their leotards and playing with the machines. I've pa.s.sed time like this before. After all those years in saloons, I just get this yen to be near people I don't know. With a towel around my shoulders, dressed in a pair of gray sweats, I hop on the stepper, punch in a bunch of numbers, and jump off shortly after the thing begins to move. I do some pulls at one of the weight stations. Eventually I find someone to talk to, one of those dumb little chats that a drunkard gets to like, where I can pretend to be someone who's never exactly like me.

Today I stuck pretty much to myself. Every now and then I'd try to think through all the alternate routes up ahead, if this, if that, but it was too much for me. Instead, I found myself oddly preoccupied with my mother, feeling as I did last night, punished and without too much hope. I'd made my big move, so why wasn't I happy? At times I sensed myself on the verge of laments I'd heard from her, all this stuff about life being hard, being bitter, barren choices, none of them good.

I called the office now and then. Brushy had heard nothing from Bert and instead ended up describing the intense local anxieties with Groundhog Day tomorrow and firm income down 12 percent from last year. When I called again at four, Lucinda answered Brushy's line. Brush was out at a meeting. There was still no word from Bert, but I had two other messages. Martin and Toots.

I phoned the old guy first. I knew just what was coming: he'd thought it out overnight and was going to back off the deal with BAD, he'd rather get clobbered, he was too old to change. The thought was excruciating.

'I love the deal,' he said first thing.

'You do?'

'I wanted you to know, on account of yesterday I might not a looked too happy, but I love the deal. Love it. I told some guys, they tell me, you musta hired Houdini for your lawyer. n.o.body's ever heard of nothing like this.'

I mumbled something, just once, about how Brushy deserved credit too.

'You done me right, Mack.'

'We tried.'

'So listen, so you know: you need, you got. Call Toots.'

The Colonel was not the kind of guy who was hot air when he said he owed a favor. It was, in fact, quite a privilege. Like having a fairy G.o.dmother and three magic wishes. I could have a leg broken or get certain performers to sing if Lyle ever had anything like a wedding. This was the part of the practice Brushy was addicted to, somebody saying thanks for the help, not everyone could have done it. I told Toots at length how great it had been to represent him and, at the moment, meant it.

'Where are you?' asked Martin when he came to the phone.

'Out and about.'

'About where?' There was a new note here, a harsh tensile quality to his voice. I'd heard Martin talk like this to opponents, the man raised among tough guys.

'About where I am. What's up?'

'We need to talk.'

'Okay.'

'In person. I'd like you to come in.'

It struck me just like that - Martin was doing me wrong. Pigeyes was sitting there, with his smug smile, loving it as my mentor delivered the sucker punch. Then, just as quickly, I rejected the thought. After all the sewage under the bridge, I still wanted to believe in the guy. There are no victims.

'What's our general subject?' I asked.

'Your investigation. There's a doc.u.ment you found, apparently.' The memo. He'd talked to Glyndora. He was going to posture. He was going to be magical Martin, potent and charming. However slyly, he was going to ask me to give it back. I breathed in the phone.

'No can do.' Sentiment was one thing, but I wasn't going anywhere near the Needle with Pigeyes and his posse posted nearby.

'Just maintain the status quo, will you?' said Martin. 'Will you promise me that?'

Without answering, I put down the phone.

I called in again at five-thirty. Brushy picked up herself.

'He's ready to see you,' she said.

'Don't say anything else.'

'Okay. But how can I get this message to you?*

I thought a second. 'Maybe you should come see me.'

'What about being followed?'

'You and I had lunch last week.'

'Right.'

'And then we went somewhere else.' 'Okay.' The hotel. She got it.

'Before we went upstairs, you went somewhere on your own. Remember?'

She laughed a little when she caught my drift. 'That's where you'll be? Where I went?'

'Center pew. One hour.' 'O-kay,' she sang. If I said so.

B. Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Part 2 The bar at the Dulcimer House hotel has one of those great after-work scenes where the young gals, the secretaries and bank tellers and female functionaries who are not sure if they're looking for fun or a life, go to be ogled and throw back half-price drinks while various guys, bachelors and married fellas with undisciplined d.i.c.ks, line up three deep at the bar, hoping for some quick drunken action to think of tomorrow at work. As I stood in the distinguished lobby, with its wedding-cake ceiling ribboned in gold, the emanations from the bar intruded, strange as radio signals from deep s.p.a.ce: the booming dance music, the garlicky reek of various warm hors d'oeuvres, the carousing voices hoa.r.s.e with thwarted emotion and ambient l.u.s.t.

The restrooms were down a short carpeted corridor off the lobby. I waited outside the Ladies', which Brushy had visited as we were checking in last week. Pigeyes would never work with a female cop and he was too old-line and prudish to even think of following her in. He'd wait at the door like La.s.sie. I spent about five minutes in the hallway, circ.u.mspectly checking out the ingress and egress, then stopped a young lady ready to enter.

'Say, my wife's been in there awhile. Would you let me know if she's okay when you come out?'

She was back in a jiffy.

'There's n.o.body in there.'

'No,' I said. She was standing at the door, which was decorated with a buxom silhouette, and I held it with one hand and gradually slid into the vestibule, pushing shyly at the inner door. 'Shirley?' I called, averting my face so I did not even peek. I turned a little more front and center, yelled in again, and heard my voice ringing off the pink tiles. The girl hunched her shoulders and went back to party.

As soon as she was gone, I stalked into the John and locked myself in the center stall. Resting my briefcase on the toilet paper dispenser, I stood up on the fixture so that no gal would see my wingtips and start yodeling. I squatted there hoping Brushy would be hasty. At 255, my thighs would burn out quickly.

I found myself eye level with two bolt holes originally meant to hold some coat hook or other apparatus. Unutilized, they could serve from this peculiar vantage as a kind of peephole. A gentleman never would, of course, but who said I was Sir Galahad? About a minute along, a great-looking gal in a black dress with ta.s.sels entered the stall next to me and I got, as usual, just what I deserved. She didn't touch her zipper or hike her skirt. Instead, she took a minute to remove her rings, then put the middle three fingers of her right hand as far down her throat as could fit. When they came out, she touched each hand to the metal sides of the stall, bucked her head deliriously a couple of times, and puked her guts out. Varoom. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The force of it all drove her down to her knees, and she shook her fine head of black curls a little bit, then cleared her throat with a crackling expulsion. A second later I peeped over the top of the stall and saw her by the sink freshening her breath with an atomizer. She tossed out her curls with her long red nails and shoved her b.o.o.bs back into her push-up bra with a hand underneath each, then lingered to give herself a sizzling look in the mirror. Wednesday night and ready for fun.

I was still trying to figure out what to make of that one when I heard Brushy say my name. She rattled the door. After I closed us in together, she gave me a big smooch, right there next to the toilet bowl.

'I think this is all very exciting,' she whispered. That was Brushy, part of what had led her on the world p.e.n.i.s tour or ignited some of her interest in me: raw curiosity, the fact that she wanted to see life's every side, savor every far-flung experience. As I've said, I always find female bravery notable and attractive.

'So where is he?' I asked.

'Wait. Don't you want to hear how I shook the tail?' She loved the lingo, the cops and robbers. Brushy thought she was in a movie where I was going to do something smart and save us all, not run away with the money. She described a circuitous route through various buildings in Center City, a stop at a client's, and entry here through the back door of the bar. She would have eluded Joe Friday.

She was searching through her little black purse when we heard the restroom door open. I jumped back up on the bowl, so that I was basically rubbing my zipper on Brushy's nose. Being Brushy, she found this pretty amusing. I covered my lips with a straight finger, and just to let me know she cared, Brush gave my p.e.c.k.e.r a pat and took the opportunity to start unzipping my fly. I swatted her hand.

The water ran at the sink. Somebody was doing a makeover. Brushy tugged on the zipper. I scowled and mouthed various vituperations, but she loved the circ.u.mstance, me in this bondage of silence and place, and pretty soon she was down to business and getting a response. She had old JP out there, touch, kiss, prod, and consume, aided by some quick dancing work of the fingertips, and she might have finished if some gal hadn't pulled into the stall next door. The nearby audience diminished my interest, but the whispers and giggling and squirming around were apparently audible to our neighbor, who seemed to jump up. On her way out she put one eye to the breach between the stall door and the post and said, 'Weird.'

'You are,' I said, when we were alone again. 'Weird.'

'To be continued,' Brushy answered. I was in my rough tweed sport jacket, and when she saw my sour look she dug her fingers in. 'Come on, Mack. This is wild. Be wild. Enjoy it.'

I just shook my head and asked about Bert. She gave me the note he had faxed: 'Behind 462 Salguro. 10 p.m.' Recognizing the address, I laughed.

'It's the Russian Bath.'

'Aren't they closed then?'

'I suppose that's the point.'

'Will you come see me afterwards?'

"They're gonna sit on your house, Brush. They might.'

She was funny and melodramatic. 'Is this goodbye forever?'

I don't think she liked the uncompromising square-jawed expression she got in response. She wanted to be lovey-dovey and light-hearted here in the bathroom stall, giddy and teenaged, as if singing a chorus or two of I Got You, Babe' would conquer all.

'I want to see you,' she said. 'I want to make sure you're all right.'

'I'll call'

She gave me the eye. After all, she'd followed me to Central America. So we made a plan. She wouldn't go home, because Gino might pick her up there. Instead, she'd grab a taxi, have it circle the block twice to see if she was being followed. Maybe in the movies coppers can tail somebody for days unseen, but in real life it takes four cars at least, someone to go in every direction, and if the mark knows you're there, nine times out of ten you get lost or he's flipping you off in the rearview or sending you a round when you follow him into a tavern. If she came away without company, we agreed Brushy would go to a chain hotel three blocks down. Just check in for the night. Leave a key at the desk. And buy me a toothbrush.

I told her to take off first now. I waited in the vestibule between the doors and she rapped once to signal the hallway was clear. Then I gave her a few minutes to get a lead and take any trailing companions with her. Naturally some old biddy with flossed-up beauty-parlor hair came in then and did a triple-take and a haughty who-are-you look, and I had to pirouette around and play like I thought this all-pink enclosure was actually the men's room and then bow my way back out the door.