Skink.
What was his relationship to Juan Gonzalez? Why did he want Guy to plead? And how did a piece of slime like Phil Frigging Skink get the estimable Troy Jefferson, with his overt political ambitions, to offer a lowball plea in the first place? The answer was, he didn’t. The answer was, someone else did. He had used the first-person plural, and my guess is that Phil Frigging Skink was not the type to routinely use the royal”we.”
Guy said Skink had worked for Jonah Peale, Guy’s father-in-law. Odds on, that’s who he still was working for. Maybe Jonah Peale was the other part of the “we.” Maybe I should go right at him, barge in, make all sorts of threats, see what I shook up. Except I knew Jonah Peale, had met him at Guy’s wedding to Leila and had spotted him since around town. He was a short, bellicose man who nodded at me brusquely as he passed me in the street, not quite sure, I could tell, who I was or how he had met me, but quite sure he didn’t care. Whatever he was, he wouldn’t shake easily. I didn’t know enough yet to go after him. Something was eluding me, something basic that explained much.
I took a deep breath and then another, let the oxygen flow rich through my veins. Good, see, panic was useless. With my breakfast down the toilet, I could think things through calmly and coolly.
Skink.
Juan Gonzalez.
Jonah Peale.
Skink.
Juan Gonzalez.
Jonah Peale.
Three names. Three. Somehow they were connected. How? Why? Three names. Or was it more than three names? Wasn’t it also Guy Forrest? Wasn’t it also Leila Forrest, née Peale? Wasn’t it also Hailey Prouix? What was it that could link them all together?
It came to me in a flash of empathic insight. It came to me because I was standing in a stinking shithole, having just thrown up in disgust at myself, and understood how low it was possible to fall. It came to me because I was treading the same path for Hailey that had already been trodden before me, for Hailey, and so I could see the footsteps of the prior traveler as clearly now as I could see my own. It came to me, and when it came to me, it seemed so obvious that I could barely believe I hadn’t seen it with utter clarity before.
It would be nothing to confirm, and I would confirm it, but I would do more. For not only did I suddenly understand exactly who was Juan Gonzalez, but also exactly what he could do for me. He was probably dead, or as good as dead, but that was no matter. Juan Gonzalez would single-handedly get Skink off my back and bring Jonah Peale in line. Juan Gonzalez would be my enforcer. But there was more.
If it was played just right, Juan Gonzalez would also convict Guy of first-degree murder as if he himself were the decisive witness, as if he himself had seen Guy fire that shot into Hailey Prouix’s heart. All I needed was to bring his name, and his story, to the proper authorities so that the insulting plea offer would be withdrawn forthwith. All I needed was a way to introduce Juan Gonzalez to Troy Jefferson without it seeming as if I were the matchmaker. All I needed was a sly plan, too clever by half, that would do by proxy what I couldn’t do in person. The plan would have to be dirty, base, vile. The plan would have to exhibit a complete lack of moral fiber in the soul of the deranged maniac who dreamed it up.
I was just the man for the job.
16
STANDING AT the reception desk on the ground floor of the Dawson, Cricket and Peale building, I could feel them working above me, the swarm, buzzing and fussing, drafting and faxing, answering phones, answering complaints, answering insults with insults, investigating, inventing, tendering offers and refusing offers, wheeling, dealing, hustling, bustling, holding firm, holding firmer, shopping for experts, shopping for forums, shopping online, filing interrogatories, answering interrogatories, deposing, defending, coaching witnesses, browbeating witnesses, browbeating secretaries, snapping pencils, complaining with righteous indignation, responding with moral sincerity, filing motions to dismiss, filing motions for summary judgment, filing motions for sanctions, responding to motions for sanctions, exploding with anger in calculated bursts, filing trial memos, filing witness lists, hiring jury consultants, conducting mock trials before focus groups, meeting, discussing, shuddering with fear, settling, settling, always settling, quickly, before the next complaint arrived. Standing at the reception desk on the ground floor of the Dawson, Cricket and Peale building was like standing beneath a hive of drones and feeling the vibrations of a hundred thousand wings beating in crazy disorder toward the common goal of honey, honey, and more honey.
“Jonah Peale,” I said to the receptionist. She presided over a desk beside the elevator, an armed guard behind her, and behind him the firm’s name spelled out in steel. Between the elevator and the front door sat a large marble fountain, a huge copper fish leaping out of the water with a foul spray erupting from its mouth. The spitting of the fish was almost loud enough to drown out my words.
“Is he expecting you?”
“No.”
“Then I’m sorry, but Mr. Peale has a very busy-”
“Get him on the phone. He’ll see me,” I said. “Tell him it’s Victor Carl. Tell him I’m here to talk about his beloved son-in-law.”
Peale grabbed my arm as I came out of the elevator on the sixth and top floor. He was ten inches shorter than me, but his grip was iron and so was his voice. “I’m meeting with clients in my office,” he said as he pulled me into the conference room. “We’ll talk in here.”
The room was large, long, with a huge wooden table and a wall of windows. Peale was wearing a black pin-striped suit with a bright red tie bursting with flowers. He sat me down and then walked around the table until he stood directly across from me, his arms straight, his fists resting on the tabletop as he leaned forward. With the light streaming in from behind him, he seemed taller, the red tie glowed with power. I felt like a trash hauler negotiating a union contract with the chairman of the board.
“We’ve met before,” he said.
“At Leila and Guy’s wedding.”
“Feh.” Disgust twisted his hard features as if a piece of gristle were stuck in his teeth.
“Maybe you should be more careful in vetting your recruits.”
His eyes flashed anger. He had a way of speaking as if every declarative statement were a barroom challenge. “I wasn’t recruiting for Leila. What you want in a litigator is very different from what you want in a son-in-law. But I was wrong about him as a lawyer, too. What the hell kind of man gets a tattoo like that on his chest?”
“The kind that good daughters inevitably fall for.”
“To their regret. Your friend betrayed my daughter, he betrayed my grandchildren, he betrayed his vows. That he finally betrayed his lover by murdering her is no great surprise. I hope you received your fee in advance, or he’ll betray you, too.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“It’s his nature to cheat.”
“I’m not talking about my fee, I’m talking about the murder.”
“How do I know? Because he’s family.” His tongue moved angrily within his cheek, still searching for the gristle.
“If you’re that certain, Mr. Peale, then why are you so anxious for him to plead to a lesser charge?”
“Am I?”
“Yesterday morning a man named Phil Skink” – I left out the adjective that had become for me like a middle name – “invaded my breakfast at a neighborhood diner.”
“Skink? Phil Skink? Don’t know him.”
“Really, now. In our conversation this Skink wanted me to plead your son-in-law out to manslaughter. In fact, he wanted it so badly he bound the request in a threat. I assumed he was speaking for you, since Guy had told me Skink did some work for your firm. If he wasn’t speaking for you, then the detectives investigating Hailey Prouix’s murder would surely want to speak to him about his peculiar interest in the case. I thought I’d check with you before I gave the information to the police.”