The Way of All Fish: A Novel (9 page)

Karl was beset with pleased astonishment. They were so far away from option clauses they might as well have been on the moon. Or fishing in Indonesia.

Wally said, “How much are these fish going for?”

“ ‘These fish’? Do some research before you bring this up with Cindy. If you’re talking your platinum arowana. That’d set you back a hundred large. If you can find one.”

Their jaws dropped, reminding Candy of the bass on Hess’s wall. Hess. Fucking tree toad. “Maybe you should try and talk her out of it.”

“What?”

Jesus. His fish, Oscar, had a longer attention span than these guys. “The book she’s writing.”

Wally flattened his palms against air. “Wait a minute. If this fish cartel, or whatever the hell it is, is so under the radar, then where’s Cindy getting her information?”

Candy shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re her lawyers, not us.”

“Hess never mentioned—” Rod shut his mouth like a doll. His teeth clicked.

Candy and Karl loved it. Karl said, “You mean Bass Hess? That half-assed ex-agent of hers? Why would he tell you anything?”

“He wouldn’t,” Wally snapped. “Nothing was mentioned in discovery.”

Oh, shit, thought Candy. “You mean this frivolous lawsuit has gone to discovery?”

Wally was shuffling papers. Rod had gone to lean against the wainscot woodwork behind his desk as if he needed support from both the wall and Wally. He crossed his arms, hugging himself. Then he said, “Haven’t I seen you before?” The look slid from Candy to Karl and back.

Without missing a beat, Karl said, “Probably. I’ll bet it was that public defender’s pro bono bash back in March. You know, nearly every attorney in town was there.”

Candy’s face nearly wrapped around itself, trying not to laugh. You listen, you learn. Woody Allen was right: 80 percent of life was just showing up. The other 20 percent was paying attention when you got there.

Wally and Rod exchanged a look. Wally drew a pad toward him, picked up his Mont Blanc. “We need your client’s name if we’re going to take this on.”

So do we, thought Candy. “We got to talk to the client about this. We’ll get back to you.”

They rose. It had been clear for some time now that Wally and Rod didn’t want Candy and Karl running loose. Cindy’s so-called attorneys wanted to keep them as close to the vest as a poker hand.

Wally came around his desk, trying not to look hurried about it; Rod pushed off from the wall, and the two walked the other two to the door.

“We’ll be in touch.” Candy held out his hand, and Wally shook it. Karl and Rod did the same, and all the hands crisscrossed. It looked as if the four of them were about to make a tower of fists like kids on a playground, which, thought Candy, was essentially how it was. He smiled.

Wally said as he ushered them into the chilly area of the reception desk, “I’ll give Cindy a call, talk her through it.”

Talk her through it? You couldn’t even talk yourself through it fifteen minutes ago. Candy merely shrugged. “Go ahead, but she’ll probably play dumb. She won’t tell you anything.”

Wally looked offended. “She told you, didn’t she?”

Connect the dots, asshole. “That’s because we have this client that imports fish; because we were in the Clownfish when the shooting started; because—”

“Right, right,” said Wally impatiently. “I still think Rod and I had better get in on this before it, you know, gets out of hand.”

Karl and Candy looked at each other. Karl said, “By all means, Wally.”

Out of no-man’s-land and back on the rowdy Manhattan pavement where every passerby hugged close enough to pick your pocket, they both started laughing. The stony expressions they had used so well on attorneys, receptionists, and security guards cracked like ice crust on a pond.

“That was some tale, C. How’d you ever come up with that?”

“
National Geographic
. I read it to you.”

“The cyanide, I remembered that. How much of that shit was true?”

“All of it. That’s the great thing about truth. You don’t have to make it up.”

Karl stepped over the curb, looking for a cab, which was like finding an unlit star in the Milky Way, especially at six
P.M.
, which it was.

Candy said, “But you sure nailed that party. Rod was beginning to look as if he’d seen us. ‘Pro bono bash.’ Righteous. As if they’d ever have anything to do with that shit.”

“Yeah, only, where’s this get us?”

“It got the foot in the door so good that even when we take it away, the door won’t close. That’s how curious they are; that’s how nervous. Where the fuck’s a cab?”

“In Jersey. Come on, let’s walk.” Karl was back on the sidewalk, walking.

“Oscar ain’t eaten since this morning.” Candy started tapping away at his cell phone as they walked.

“At least nobody fed him cyanide. Why don’t you wait till we pass a Balducci’s, pal? Call your fish from there, see what he wants.”

Candy snorted. “So funny. I’m trying Cindy again.” Long pause. He snapped the phone shut as they swaggered along, tails of Façonnable coats flapping behind them.

C
indy was out of her blue chenille bathrobe and into jeans with a tear on the knee made by Gus, not fashion; a gray cowl-neck sweater; and an old dark peacoat.

She was also out of her apartment and into Jimmy McKinney’s office, her favorite place in Manhattan besides Ray’s coffee shop. She liked the brownstone, although it was the same as the others on the block; she liked the stone steps worn in the center to the image of a shoe; she liked the cherrywood door to his office, the thin pale Oriental rug, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and every item of furniture, including the big desk, the swivel chair he sat in (and liked to skid around), but mostly him, Jimmy McKinney.

Jimmy was talking about this and that, but she wasn’t really listening, only looking, her head cocked to the side, trying to recall who he reminded her of.

“I offered to shoot the bastard, but you turned me down.”

“Who?”

He grinned. “How many have I offered to shoot?”

She looked around the room.

“Is that your cell?” said Jimmy.

The ringtone was the one that had come with the phone; it was barely audible. Jimmy was just used to listening to clients, excepting Cindy, to whom he talked more than he listened.

The bag she had slung over the chair was nearly the size of a brown grocery bag, and she started rooting through it without enthusiasm, as she’d rather listen to Jimmy than her cell phone. Still, she had to make a show of looking, so she took out papers, notebooks, a beat-up paperback
copy of
The Aspern Papers,
pens, a lipstick. “I can’t find it,” she said rather happily.

“How many notebooks do you carry around?” He nodded at the stack.

She started putting everything back. “Several.”

“But not a laptop.”

Cindy frowned. Why was this turning dull? “No. Why?”

He sat back, locking his fingers behind his head. Smiled. “It’s interesting.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He had told her about the visit from her friends Candy and Karl and got back on that subject, still unsatisfied with Cindy’s explanation. “These two—what is it they do, exactly?”

She sighed. “How would I know? They pulled out guns in the Clownfish Café. Maybe they’re federal agents or something. They were pretty evasive.”

The cell bleated.

“That’s your cell again.” Jimmy nodded toward the bag Cindy had dumped on the floor.

She pulled up the bag and went through the whole business again. The cell phone continued its silly tune, whining to be picked up. “I’ll never find it.” She sighed as if she cared.

Jimmy was enjoying the little show. He’d enjoyed it the first time, too. He said unhelpfully, “Why do you carry a cell phone around? If you can never answer it?”

“Usually, I don’t. It’s just when I have an appointment and maybe I’ll be late and want to notify whoever. Like you.”

She turned eyes on him so intensely sad that he had to look away. Jimmy sometimes felt there was something about Cindy Sella that could engulf him. He thought of his wife, soon to be his ex-wife, Lilith. He could not help but think, “Not even Lilith with her famous hair.” Edwin Arlington Robinson. There was a poem to fit every occasion. It was why he loved poetry so much. It was why he wrote poetry. There was always a poem waiting just around the corner to explain a situation. “And Lilith was the devil, I have read.”

“It stopped,” Cindy said, jamming the junk back into her bag.

“You’ve got to unload Wally Hale. You can’t stand him, and he’s not an intellectual properties lawyer. Go to the guy I told you about, Sam Walsh. Did you even call him?” He was talking to the crown of her head. All of that pale hair was natural, apparently. There wasn’t root number one showing. He sat back. “How did you ever hook up with Hale?”

“At a party,” she said to her lap. “I just met him. Them.” Finally, she raised her head, as if she’d skated to more solid ground. “He was with the other lawyer, Rod Reeves. They work together, they said. He looks like Richard Gere. Did you see
Chicago
?”

“No. But I know a con man when I see one.”

“No, you don’t.”

He guessed he didn’t. “So what did you do? Hire them on the spot? After some cocktail chitchat?” It really irritated him. “And you never go to parties.” As if that were the larger problem. He just shook his head. “These guys who came to see me? Candy and Karl—”

Cindy smiled. “Aren’t they a scream?”

“A scream they might be, but why are they working for you?”

“They aren’t. I mean, they just seemed really interested. I didn’t actually hire them. But I guess I didn’t discourage them, either. Look, what were we talking about? And is the tea ready?”

This time the phone that rang was Jimmy’s landline. He picked up. “McKinney.” Stillness while he looked at her. “She’s right here, yeah.” He held the receiver toward her. “Speak of the devil. It’s your pals.”

Puzzled, she spoke: “Hello.” She sat back, listened. “Thanks. Thank you.” She handed the receiver back to Jimmy. He dropped it in place.

“What?” he asked.

“That was Candy. He and Karl went to see Wally Hale but didn’t tell him the real reason for their visit.”

“What
did
they tell him?”

She frowned. “Something about a fish alliance.” Her frown deepened.

“A
what
?”

“Maybe a fin alliance?”

“Well, that clears things up.”

“If Wally or Rod get in touch with me, I’m to say I don’t know what they’re talking about. That won’t be hard. Karl said I should fire them tout de suite.” She smiled. “I’m going to anyway.”

Jimmy was picking up the phone. “I’m calling the lawyer I told you to see. Sam Walsh.”

“He’ll say I have to drop my other lawyers before he can see me, won’t he?” She was picking up her luggage-sized bag.

Jimmy tapped in numbers. “I don’t think Sam stands upon such niceties.” He glanced up as Cindy stood, looking forlorn, her bag slung over her shoulder.

Cindy just stood there a few moments. “What’s a nicety?”

C
andy fed Oscar his soupçon of dinner, which the fish attacked like a missile.

Karl barely looked up. “Why don’t we take him on a Carnival cruise? The fish could eat whenever he wanted.”

Candy ignored this comment. He picked up his drink and went back to the white leather sofa to continue, with Karl, their search for justice. “Why don’t we just whack Hess and be done with it?”

Karl had set down his own glass to fire up a Monte Cristo. “Come on, C., you know why. That bastard, he’d fall right at the feet of Cindy Sella. Who’s the person with the most motive to want him gone?” He puffed around, inhaled, let out a flat stream of smoke.

“Listen, there’s probably a lot of people with a motive. So we make sure Cindy’s alibied.”

“You know that won’t work. They’d say she just hired somebody to do the job.”

“We know people; we could hire somebody for her.”

“Candy, hel-lo—” Karl rocked his hand back and forth. “We’re the guys that people hire.”

Candy rose and revisited the fish tank as if Oscar might have some ideas. Then he paid another visit to the cocktail shaker, very retro, very art deco. Like the table lamp beside it, where once rested the brass figure of a girl holding the moon. This had been replaced by leaping fish on a frosted circle of glass that shaded the candle bulb. Candy filled his glass and reseated himself.

Karl stopped blowing smoke rings. “Remember, we need a client.”

“For the illegal fish trade, yeah.”

“I’m not exactly sure why we need one, since we don’t know what the fuck we’re goin’ to do with this client.” Karl tapped off ash with his little finger into a big Murano glass ashtray.

“Did you ever stop to think that we don’t know all that many people, K.? Or at least most of them are dead?”

“Yeah, it’s the downside of this business. Wait, how about Danny Zito? He’s the one got us that job working for that asshole Mackenzie.”

“Danny Zito? He’s in WITSEC, remember? But you’d never know it, the way he’s always around handing out advice.”