Thinner

Chapter Two

In the city, a damage suit that had dragged on for over three years – a suit he had expected to drag on in one shape or another for the next three or four years – came to an unexpected and gratifying end at midmorning, with the plaintiff agreeing during a court recess to settle for an amount that was nothing short of stupefying. Halleck lost no time getting said plaintiff, a paint manufacturer from Schenectady, and his client to sign a letter of good intent in the judge's chambers. The plaintiffs lawyer had looked on with palpable dismay and disbelief while his client, president of the Good Luck Paint Company, scratched his name on six copies of the letter and as the court clerk notarized copy after copy, his bald head gleaming mellowly. Billy sat quietly, hands folded in his lap, feeling as if he had won the New York lottery. By lunch hour it was all over but the shouting.

Billy took himself and the client to O'Lunney's, ordered Chivas in a water glass for the client and a martini for himself, and then called Heidi at home.

'Mohonk,' he said when she picked up the phone. It was a rambling upstate New York resort where they had spent their honeymoon – a gift from Heidi's parents – a long, long time ago. Both of them had fallen in love with the place, and they had spent two vacations there since.

'What?'

"Mohonk,' he repeated. 'If you don't want to go, I'll ask Jillian from the office.'

'No, you won't! Billy, what is this?'

'Do you want to go or not?'

'Of Course I do! This weekend?'

'Tomorrow, if you can get Mrs Bean to come in and check on Linda and make sure the wash gets done and that there aren't any orgies going on in front of the TV in the family room. And if -'

But Heidi's squeal temporarily drowned him out. 'Your case, Billy! The paint fumes and the nervous breakdown and the psychotic episode and -'

'Canley is going to settle. In fact, Canley has settled. After about fourteen years of boardroom bullshit and long legal opinions meaning exactly nothing, your husband has finally won one for the good guys. Clearly, decisively, and without a doubt. Canley's settled, and I'm on top of the world.'

'Billy! God!' She squealed again, this time so loud the phone distorted. Billy held it away from his ear, grinning. 'How much is your guy getting?'

Billy named the figure and this time he had to hold the phone away from his ear for almost five seconds.

'Will Linda mind us taking five days off, do you think?'

'When she can stay up until one watching HBO latenight and have Georgia Deever over and both of them can talk about boys while they gorge themselves on my chocolates? Are you kidding? Will it be cold up there this time of year, Billy? Do you want me to pack your green cardigan? Do you want your parka or your denim jacket? Or both? Do you -?'

He told her to use her judgment and went back to his client. The client was already halfway through his huge glass of Chivas and wanted to tell Polish jokes. The client looked as if he had been hit with a hammer. Halleck drank his martini and listened to standard witticisms about Polish carpenters and Polish restaurants with half an ear, his mind clicking cheerily away on other matters. The case could have far-reaching implications; it was too soon to say it was going to change the course of his career, but it might. It very well might. Not bad for the sort of case big firms take on as charity work. It could mean that *

–the first thud jolts Heidi forward and for a moment she squeezes him; he is faintly aware of pain in his groin. The jolt is hard enough to make her seat belt lock. Blood flies up – three dime size drops – and splatters on the windshield like red rain. She hasn't even had time to begin to scream; she will scream later. He hasn't had time to even begin to realize. The beginning of realization comes with the second thud. And he

–swallowed the rest of his martini in a gulp. Tears came to his eyes.

'You okay?' the client, David Duganfield by name, asked.

'I'm so okay you wouldn't believe it,' Billy said, and reached across the table to his client. 'Congratulations, David.' He would not think about the accident, he would not think about the Gypsy with the rotting nose. He was one of the good guys; that fact was apparent in Duganfield's strong grip and his tired, slightly sappy smile.

'Thank you, man,' Duganfield said. 'Thank you so much.' He suddenly leaned over the table and clumsily embraced Billy Halleck. Billy hugged him back. But as David Duganfield's arms went around his neck, one palm slipped up the angle of his cheek and he thought again of the old Gypsy man's weird caress.

He touched me, Halleck thought, and even as he hugged his client, he shivered.

He tried to think about David Duganfield on the way home – Duganfield was a good thing to think about – but instead of Duganfield he found himself thinking about Ginelli by the time he was on the Triborough Bridge.

He and Duganfield had spent most of the afternoon in O'Lunney's, but Billy's first impulse had been to take his client to Three Brothers, the restaurant in which Richard Ginelli held an informal silent partnership. It had been years now since he had actually been in the Brothers with Ginelli's reputation it would not have been wise – but it was the Brothers he always thought of first, still. Billy had had some good meals and good times there, although Heidi had never cared much for the place or for Ginelli. Ginelli frightened her, Billy thought.

He was passing the Gun Hill Road exit on the New York Thruway when his thoughts led back to the old Gypsy of that was Heidi's doing – she had developed into a world-class nag when it came to Ginelli – but part of it had also been Ginelli's.

'You better stop coming around for a while,' he had told Billy.

'What? Why?' Billy had asked innocently, just as if he and Heidi had not argued over this very thing the night before.

'Because as far as the world is concerned, I am a gangster,' Ginelli had replied. 'Young lawyers who associate with gangsters do not get ahead, William, and that's what it's really all about – keeping your nose clean and getting ahead.'

'That's what it's all about, huh?'

Ginelli had smiled strangely. 'Well . other things.'

'Such as?'

'William, I hope you never have to find out. And come around for espresso once in a while. We'll have some talk and some laughs. Keep in touch, is what I'm saying.'

And so he had kept in touch, and had dropped in from time to time (although, he admitted to himself as he swung up the Fairview exit ramp, the intervals had grown longer and longer), and when he had found himself faced with what might be a charge of negligent vehicular manslaughter, it had been Ginelli he thought of first.

But good old tit-grabbing Cary Rossington took care of that, his mind whispered. So why are you thinking about Ginelli now? Mohonk – that's what you ought to be thinking of. And David Duganfield, who proves that nice guys don't always finish last. And taking off a few more pounds.

But as he turned into the driveway, what he found himself thinking about was something Ginelli had said: William, I hope you never have to find out.

Find out what? Billy wondered, and then Heidi was flying out the front door to kiss him, and Billy forgot everything for a while.

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