A Tax in Blood Read online

  The only call of apparent significance was from Nathan “The Mad Bomber” Grossbart of Grossbart, Shaftweiler and Nicoletti. Nate was a graduate of the University of Napalm School of Law. Unfortunately, he practiced domestic law. Dozens of family therapists stayed in practice trying to put back together what he had managed to put asunder. If all gall is divided into three parts, Nate got two of them. He argued each case as if the kingdom of heaven was at stake; and make no mistake, he was on the side of the angels. That status was immediately conferred upon his receipt of the retainer. Rumor had it that he required sedation before he could settle a case. What was significant was that he had called me. I’d never worked for him before—wouldn’t—and he knew it. I tried to recall ever being married and drew a blank. He wasn’t representing an ex of mine, thank god. The call intrigued me. Maybe he’d really screwed up somewhere and needed help personally. A long shot, that. “Straight Nate” was his other nickname. The man without vices and much the worse for it. I dialed his office.

  “Law offices.”

  “Nate Grossbart, please.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Leo Haggerty.”

  “Thank you. Hold please.” I got Muzakked.

  “Leo, Leo. How’s it going? Are you free to talk today? I’ve got something interesting for you. Can you come up to the office, say noon?”

  “Excuse my reluctance, Nate, but considering our past disagreements, what on earth do you have that I could help you with?”

  “It’s not a divorce. I know, I know, we don’t see eye to eye on that. But this is different. It’s murder.” He said it like a small boy saying “fuck” for the first time. He was right though; I was interested.

  “Your side, the doer or the done to?”

  “Neither. A helpless victim herself.”

  “First off, Nate, no contingency deals. Cash and carry or it’s bye-bye.” Nate and his money were parted as often and as easily as the Red Sea.

  “Okay, okay. Have it your way. What do you say? Noon, today?”

  “Pleasure talking to you, counselor. I’ll be there at noon.”

  Chapter 4

  At the dojo I dressed in the changing room. As I walked across the padded practice floor to the dirt sparring area, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Arnie anywhere. He was always here before me and usually meditating when I arrived. In my left hand I carried my weapon of choice: kusari gama, the sickle and chain. A two-foot long ironwood baton with a curved sickle at one end and a weighted fifteen-foot length of chain at the other. My practice baton had a wooden sickle blade. Hefting it, I began a series of drills: feints, lunges, whirling attacks, slashes, combinations going forward and backward. Still no Arnie. I was pretty well warmed up when I saw him enter from the far side. He walked across the pounded dirt floor in his usual splayfooted manner.

  “How ya doin’. I’ve been here fifteen minutes or so.”

  Arnie bowed and drew one of his swords. Like Musashi, the “sword saint,” he taught a two-sword school. He held it before him and began to circle me. This was odd.

  Casually, I lifted up the baton and began to twirl the chain. “Aiyee!” Arnie screamed, raised his blade overhead and ran at me. His blade ripped through the air and I leaped to the side, dragging my ball and chain. Arnie hopped over it, spun around and began to come at me again. This time he was windmilling his blade before him like a berserk sushi chef. I was tottering backwards and barely got my baton up in front of me to block his blow, the force of which drove me sharply backwards. Even though his blade was wooden it could be lethal in his hands.

  “What’s the matter with you, man?” I yelled.

  Nothing, just the same intense, expressionless mask for a face. Maybe he’s finally snapped. A flashback. Maybe he thinks I’m Charlie. Holy shit. “Arnie, it’s me—Leo, your friend. American,” I said, tapping stupidly at my chest. He bellowed again and came at me with a quick series of scissor-legged lunges. Instinctively, I began to whirl the chain. He backed off. I let out more chain and it whooped in an arc of death. This is my space. I control it; enter at your own peril. I adjusted my grip on the baton. This was crazy. This was nuts, I tried to reason with him again. “Arnie, talk to me. What’s happening?” I began to get paranoid. Maybe he’d been hired to kill me. By whom? “What’d I do?” Nothing. I racked my brain, trying to figure out why he was doing this. “What is it, man? We can work it out, whatever it is.”

  “Aiyee!” Arnie ran at me again. Tentatively I swung the chain at him, trying to ensnare his legs so that I could try to disarm him. He easily evaded my toss. I hastily coiled the chain again. We circled each other. He held his blade high and began to inch towards me for another lunge. I had an idea. Come on a little closer, just a bit. My eyes flicked from his face to his feet. Slowly, I let out chain between my fingers. One more chance to end this without blood. He took that last step. I snapped the chain up and at him with a flick of my wrist. There was enough chain. It looped around his blade. I yanked it towards me, but no! I hadn’t caught the hand guard. He slipped the blade free and ripped a backhand blow into my right arm. It went numb. I backpedaled as quickly as I could. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I’m facing a guy who thinks he’s a seventeenth century killing machine. I can’t believe this. Arnie’s low growl drew me back from that thought. Shit. I shifted the baton to my right hand, gripped it low on the handle and held it chest high. Once again I began to swing the chain. Fuck the reasons, you want to kill me, you crazy bastard, come and get me. I ain’t rolling over for you, old buddy. I began to whirl the chain in ever faster figure eights between us. I flexed my right arm and tried to get some feeling back in it. If I could keep him at bay until I could use the arm and the sickle, I might be okay.

  Arnie took a step backwards and drew his second sword. I kept sweeping the air and flexing my arm. Suddenly, Arnie stuck his blade into the arc of the chain. The chain wrapped itself around the blade. I yanked Arnie towards me and raised the sickle. He drove the tip of the entangled blade deep into the ground. I tried to free the chain. With a leaping pirouette he came down with both hands on his other sword and that raised high over his head. “Aiyee!” he roared and ran at me. I was stuck in place. I couldn’t move. I was nailed to this spot by his other blade. His sword flashed downward. I raised the baton overhead to block it. His blow shattered it. I was dead.…

  And then Arnie tapped my head ever so lightly and leaped behind me. He slowly sheathed his blade, bowed to me and dropped down to sit cross-legged. I was utterly defeated and naked in my fear. Dead but not buried, I was unable to rouse even puzzlement, much less gratitude for his last act.

  I looked down at my hands and dropped the broken pieces of the baton to the dirt floor.

  I looked over at him and said through clenched teeth, “What the fuck was that?”

  “Today’s lesson.”

  “Today’s lesson?” I bellowed. “Are you out of your fucking mind? You could have killed me!”

  “Congratulations. You have mastered today’s lesson, albeit slowly.”

  “Fuck you, sport.” I stalked away. “I thought we were friends. How could you fuck with me that way?”

  “Precisely because we are friends. For whom else would I have taken such a risk? I knew that this was only a lesson, you didn’t. To save your life you would have killed me at the end. I know it. I could see it in your eyes.”

  “Goddamn right I would have. You still haven’t answered my question. Why?”

  “Because you insist on asking that question.”

  “Fuck you, asshole.”

  “All right, tell me this first. What did you learn here?” Arnie got up to his feet.

  “I learned never to trust anyone again.”

  “Stop it. Don’t be petulant. Think. Don’t dishonor what has happened.”

  “What did I learn? Okay. I learned that I spend too much time thinking about why things are happening and not enough about what’s happening. At the end I didn’t give a shit about why yo
u were doing it, just that you were, and I was ready to kill you, but …”

  “But …” he prodded.

  “But it was too late. By the time I was ready to fight back I was dead. Too little too late.”

  “That’s right and that’s the point. Think about yesterday’s bombing. There won’t be any distinction between peace and war anymore. Anywhere, anytime, without warning you could be history. The most ordinary routine activities are the most dangerous ones. The ones you approach full of assumptions about who’s a friend or a foe, the ones where you don’t notice that brown bag over there or that the car parked at the corner has a ticket on it. Those who don’t respond immediately and totally to a threat, who don’t keep their eyes and ears open, will die with all sorts of interesting questions on their lips. And I, friend, don’t want you to be one of them. You’re too interested in motives. That’s a luxury you can’t afford anymore.”

  “Maybe.” I sat there nursing a slow burn. Good lessons sure, but I didn’t like the way I was learning them.

  Arnie went on. “What did you learn about strategy?”

  “Shit, I don’t know. You surprised me, catching the chain like that. When you stuck it in the ground I was tethered to it. The weapon controlled me.”

  “Exactly. You were ensnared by your own snare. Musashi always counseled attacking the enemy’s strength. There is a weakness in all strength and a strength in all weakness if you can turn it to your own ends …”

  Visions of yin-yangs danced in my head but I couldn’t hear Arnie anymore. I was too pissed off to be enlightened.

  “All this samurai bullshit sounds good, Arnie, but I can’t shake the feeling that you’re talking to yourself. It’s you who doesn’t know the difference between friends and foes. Yesterday you took a bite out of Samantha, today it’s me. Look around, buddy. You don’t have any other friends. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that I’m pissed as hell and I need to put some distance between us until I cool off.” With that I turned my back to him and walked away. When I left to go to my car he was still standing there.

  Chapter 5

  Traffic braided its way on and off the ramp as I entered I-270 for the drive down to Nate’s office in Georgetown. Forty-five minutes later I was inching through gridlock looking for a place to park and swearing that I was going to start using the subway.

  The law offices of Grossbart, Shaftweiler and Nicoletti, P.C. were in one of the new waterfront restoration complexes that overlook the Potomac, a river so polluted that it’s been declared a national historic toxic waste site.

  I parked my car in the lot a block up from Nate’s office and joined the hordes packing the sidewalks. Lunchtime in Georgetown, quite a spectacle. Corporate St. Georges in their hand-tailored pinstripe armor and lances by Gucci, side by side with punksters in Day-Glo mohawks and pushpin earrings. The sidewalk cafés were full of matrons from Bethesda and McLean, dressing up, lunching out, putting a new gilt edge on their boredom. Insulated behind layers of money and prestige, their world ended at their fingernails. And nary a black face. This may be “Chocolate City,” but the cake still has a white buttercream icing. I wandered past a shop specializing in hammocks, recliners and remote control devices. It was called the Joggernaught: the world at his fingertips for the man who hardly moves.

  The law offices were on the fourth floor, overlooking the Whitehurst Freeway just upstream from the Kennedy Center. The receptionist showed me right in to Nate’s office. He sat with his back to me, admiring the view from his office window.

  Nate swirled around. “Leo, Leo. Good to see you. Have a seat. Mrs. Donnelly, uh Vasquez, will be here any minute.”

  “She the client?”

  “Yes, a lovely girl.” Nate had come around from behind the desk, pumped my hand and guided me to a chair. He sat on the corner of his desk. Nate took the high ground instinctively.

  “I’ll wait until she gets here to fill you in. You won’t have to ask any questions twice. Time is money, right?”

  When it’s yours, Nate, it’s like blood. “While we’re waiting, Nate, let me ask you one question. Why not use Carmine?”

  “Carmine’s a putz. He couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map. If he wasn’t Nick’s nephew I wouldn’t give him dog shit to bury.”

  “Tough with Nicoletti being your partner. He still trying to blackmail clients?”

  “Where’d you hear that? That’s slander, Haggerty. I won’t have it.”

  “Cut the shit, Nate. I don’t know how you’ve kept his ass out of the slammer, but Carmine’s a legend by now.”

  “And what, off the record of course, is that ‘legend’?” Nate crossed his arms in a huff.

  “Let’s see, the book on Carmine goes like this: Good on photo work but tries too hard for skin shots. Rumor has it that he keeps copies of the good ones. Can kick the hinges off any standard door, and he’s a real terror if you’re naked. A dedicated professional. He’ll even hire a girl for the guy, especially if the client is running out of money. Waves his gun around way too much, almost as much as he flaps his gums. The ayatollah doesn’t have as many enemies as Carmine claims to. Fancies himself quite the cocksman. I hear he has a sexual rebate offer for female clients. I can go on.”

  “That’s enough, believe me. I do my best to control his ‘zeal’ for this kind of work. When he’s on a case for me, he knows I won’t tolerate any of his shit.”

  The door clicked as it opened and Mrs. Donnelly/Vasquez walked in. She was dressed all in black from her high heels and patterned stockings to her taut skirt and the broad-shouldered jacket over her café au lait skin. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and no smile. We shook hands, and she introduced herself as Marta Vasquez. When she sat down she took off her hat and put it in her lap. Her hair was as black as her dress. It was pinned up in a chignon. Bitterness coated her face like lacquer. With large intense eyes like onyx chips, a proud scimitar nose and full, blood-red lips, she was dark, fierce and hard. A “lovely girl,” indeed!

  “Very good, very good. Now that we’re all here, let me explain the situation to you, Leo.” Nate had gone back around to his side of the desk. I slid a glance over at Mrs. Vasquez who hadn’t warmed up a degree. I was getting frostbite on that side of my face. Oh well. I looked back to watch Nate as he told his story.

  “Mrs. Donnelly, uh Vasquez, asked me to represent her in divorce proceedings against her husband, Malcolm Donnelly. This was a couple of months ago. A typical divorce battle. He was being quite unreasonable, but that’s neither here nor there. On Friday, Ms. Vasquez, uh that’s her maiden name and we’re petitioning for its return to her, was meeting with me to discuss the assets that she might lay claim to, when all of a sudden, her husband burst into this office making all kinds of wild accusations.” Nate stopped theatrically. I was on the edge of my seat with anticipation. I wished I had some popcorn.

  “Such as?”

  “Such as”—Nate beamed, thankful for such an invitation—“that she was an unfit mother, that he could prove it and would, that he’d never let her have custody of their children, and that he’d just begun to fight.”

  Wonderful, John Paul Jones gets a divorce. “And then?”

  “The next day the police call Ms. Vasquez and tell her the man’s killed himself. Can you believe that?” Nate puckered his mouth and slapped his palms down on his desk. I took that for total disbelief.

  “That solves your problems, Nate. No divorce, no property settlement, no custody battle. Where’s the beef?”

  Ms. Vasquez answered me. I steeled myself for the diarrhea of a mad housewife. “The beef, as you put it, Mr. Haggerty, is that my husband systematically squandered our assets over the years in his foolish efforts to advance his career and his other ‘hobbies’ and left me with the kids, the debts and, of course, his final gift.” She clenched her teeth and rapped out her rage with clicking nails on Nate’s rosewood desk. “A case of, how you say, the clap.”

  Nate smoothly stepped in. “The on
ly unencumbered asset was a two-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy. However—”

  I waved Nate off. “Ms. Vasquez, I’m sorry I was so flip. Please accept my apology.” She nodded slightly.

  Nate went on. “However, it’s less than two years old, so the standard suicide clause is in effect.”

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  “He had some medication and alcohol in him. Died of respiratory failure.”

  “Why not put it down as accidental?”

  “Because there was a letter found at the scene.”

  “Typed or written?”

  “Typed, but signed apparently. I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “That’s pretty flimsy stuff to hang a suicide finding on.”

  “I know, but the M.E.’s office has been under a lot of pressure lately. Seems that too many prominent people have suffered questionable ‘accidental’ deaths recently. Some of them are going to have to go down as suicides, and this one looks good enough to them. The insurance company loves it. All we’ve got is that twenty-four hours prior to his death Malcolm Donnelly was in this office threatening us with all sorts of legal battles. Not at all like a man at the end of his rope, ready to end it all. He was damn sure that he had Marta here dead to rights on this unfit mother charge. No way in hell was he suicidal. That’s what I want you to prove.”