A Filthy Business [Kindle in Motion] Read online

  “Good old Gilby,” I said.

  “We have added the requisite percentage of the fee to your account, minus the extra night’s stay at the hotel in Los Angeles that you requested and the expenses from the minibar. You know how we feel about the minibar.”

  “But it’s just so damn convenient.”

  “What was the purpose of your extra night’s stay?”

  “It was personal.”

  “We expect so. Mr. Gilbert was making troubling insinuations about you and his current wife.”

  “That was his wife? She certainly didn’t act like it.”

  “His fourth wife, if you must know. Did you have relations with her?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Are you sure, Mr. Kubiak? No relations, hmm? For you see, we tracked Mrs. Gilbert heading into your hotel the day after your meeting with her husband.”

  “I wouldn’t call what we had relations,” I said. “More like a collision.”

  “Mr. Gilbert made it clear that he never wants to see you again. You seem to have that effect on our clients. Assuming it is not happenstance, Mr. Kubiak, to what would you attribute your unpopularity?”

  “If I were to make an offhand guess, maybe it’s that our clients sense my resentment.”

  “What do you resent?”

  “The way they look at me.”

  “And how do they look at you?”

  “Like a servant.”

  “But that is what you are, Mr. Kubiak. That is what we all are. We service their needs and wants for a price. And the price is high, which has served you and your bank account quite well. We can’t keep having you insulting our patrons, causing them distress, ravaging their wives.”

  “I wasn’t the one doing the ravaging.”

  “We’re not joking, Mr. Kubiak.”

  “Neither am I. Do you want to see the bite marks?”

  “We are beginning to think that you might not emerge from your probationary period.”

  “I get results.”

  “Yes, you do. Just like you got results for Joey Mitts. But this is a business that depends on the continuing goodwill of our clients, and you are squandering that at an alarming rate. There are only so many who can afford our services. We cannot continue to lose their patronage.”

  There was a shard of ice in his tone that froze the next quip in my throat. As it lodged there it released a familiar taste. I had been here before; for me this place was as recurring as the dawn. No matter in what situation I found myself, no matter how advantageous—and working for Mr. Maambong was quite advantageous—I couldn’t help but screw it up. My next move was typically defiance and anger and sometimes a sweet piece of violence, but I knew where that led and I was sick of the desert.

  “I understand,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Make sure that it doesn’t.”

  “Is that what happened to Rand?”

  He hesitated for a moment, the gaze of those beetle eyes boring into my skull. “You should be less concerned with former employees,” he said finally, “and more concerned with your own status in our enterprise. Now we have a new job for you. There is a boy. He is ill. We’re going to save his life.”

  “How heartwarming.”

  “Yes, and whose heart could more use a little warming than yours? The client lives in Philadelphia, old money, old manners, old manor. That ridiculous hipster suit you wore in California won’t go over in such rarefied environs. Wear something pin-striped and baggy, and maybe flake some coconut on your shoulders for dandruff. This type, they seem to take great pride in their dandruff. You are to listen and commiserate and be a comfort in this uncertain time. We’ll take care of the fee, you’ll take care of the boy. Is that understood?”

  “Yes sir,” I said with the alacrity of an intern.

  “Consider this your final test before we either offer you full-time employment or terminate our relationship. You’ll be flying up this evening for a meeting at the estate tomorrow morning. We’ll send Cassandra along to keep an eye on you. She has our authority to use her knife if you get out of line again. We’re sure Mr. Gilbert would be quite pleased to receive that box.”

  13. The Case of the Warming Heart

  The drive was lined with leprous rows of sycamores. The great lawn was groomed like a restricted golf course. A loose pack of purebred hounds quit their roughhousing to stand at point and stare, their heads swiveling to follow the route of the long black Lincoln.

  James, in a navy-blue suit, was driving; I was alone in the backseat. Behind us were the stone wall and iron gate that separated the manicured lawn from the less-kempt environs of the universe; before us was the Wister manse. When he had held the car door open at the hotel, James made it clear to Cassandra that Mrs. Wister was expecting to have a private meeting with only me. My suit was baggy and pin-striped, my shirt was starched and white, my tie was preppy, my wingtips were shined, my jaw was locked, my hair was combed over as if I had a bald spot to hide. A crystal glass with the remnants of a very good Scotch was now resting in the handle of the door.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Mr. Kubiak. I am just a wreck of worry. I haven’t slept in weeks. I can’t imagine how I’ll be able to thank you when this is over, but I will try, I assure you.”

  The great stone house rested high on a hill, stretching out its wings, staring down at the expanse of the Wister property and the surrounding suburbs with the gaze of a predator. Even on a sunny morning there was something dark about the place. With its arched windows, its turret, the gargoyles sneering from the rainspouts, it was the set for a bad horror film, where blood poured down the walls. As the Town Car approached the house, the huge red door opened and a cadaverous man in butlerish garb took a step outside and clasped his white-gloved hands.

  “It is about my grandson, my Edwin, the light of my life. He is such a dear boy, caring and kind. Special. If you would meet him, you would understand. It is difficult to watch him struggle, but he does, cheerfully and with unbelievable courage. He is the light of my life. My son, sadly, has been a disappointment. I believe the money ruined him—be careful of money, Mr. Kubiak, it can warp you in so many ways—but my son did do one thing of greatness for our family. He sired Edwin.”

  I followed the butler through the soaring center hall, its ceiling held aloft by the stone arches of a church. Our footfalls on the black-and-white marble floor resounded crisply. The hall was lined with somber old paintings of sharp-faced men in suits and thin, ethereal women swathed in chiffon. They stared down at me with glassy eyes, hard and familiar. Welcome to the club and watch your step, please, the hounds, like the Wisters, do their business everywhere.

  “Your heart can’t help but reach out to such a boy, such a special, loving boy. Edwin is currently attending a preparatory school. He is so brilliant, so popular. On the water polo team he is one of the team captains, even though his condition doesn’t allow him to swim. During matches he sits on the side of the pool, handing out the towels and cheering. We are not the cheering sort, you understand, and so the sight of it breaks your heart.”

  Mrs. Wister waited for me in the drawing room. She was thin and powdered pale, with high gray hair and a twitchy mouth painted grotesquely red. In her eighties or so, she sat stiffly in some frouffy French love seat, a tartan blanket over her legs, a wheelchair placed strategically in view. It was a sweet tableau of helplessness laid out for my benefit. I was bade toward a frouffy French chair of my own. I sat just as stiffly as did she. The room had wood-paneled walls, paintings of cherubs, a piano, shelves of old books that hadn’t been read in decades, an ornate dark wooden ceiling. The tall windows looked over a garden of rose and hedge, where a thin man in a straw hat dabbed color on a canvas.

  “To see my Edwin hooked up to that machine is to know one must do everything within one’s power to make him whole again,” said Mrs. Wister. “No expense can be spared. Would you like to see a picture? Here, you must see a picture.”

  I oohed a
nd aahed and clucked my tongue. The picture was of a particularly ugly boy. There was something wrong with his forehead, it was too something or other, and I wondered what exactly she meant when she called him special.

  “He has so much promise, he is the future of the family, the future of the nation, and so he must be cured. Your Mr. Maambong came highly recommended. I didn’t know where to turn, and someone in the know, someone quite powerful, told me to turn to him, and now here you are, Mr. Kubiak. Do you have children of your own?”

  “No.”

  “But you have a mother.”

  “Fortunately.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Everything I am I owe to her. When my father died, she did all she could to care for me. When I look back, I realize whatever I know that is worth knowing, she taught to me. She lives in Louisiana now, working with disadvantaged women. She is just a pure piece of God’s love.”

  There were vases, huge blue-and-white things from some Chinese dynasty. They were big enough to stand in, big enough to screw in. Ming, Qing, Tang, Han. Blue dragons slithered across the cracked surfaces. Priceless, I was sure. I would have given a thousand dollars just then for a hammer. This must have been the room where they wrote that song.

  “With your having a mother so full of love, I’m sure you understand how I feel about Edwin. I wanted to meet privately because of the delicate nature of the task. I’m sure you understand. And I must say, it is so comforting to have you here. I sense that we are kindred souls, that I can trust you, utterly.”

  I smiled, and let my gaze linger on her eyes. They were blue, a startling sky blue, and with that twitchy mouth and the curve of her jaw, I could tell that she had been something in her day. I bet she catted plenty, I bet she slummed hard and fast with the working classes. I wondered what she would do if I sauntered over and licked the pasty red right off her lips.

  “You must be some kind of a saint, Mr. Kubiak, to listen to my troubles and seek to help.”

  “I try to do my share, Mrs. Wister.”

  “Yes, I can see it in your eyes. The kindness there. The great love your mother gave you is still in your heart. I have perfect faith, Mr. Kubiak, that you will stop at nothing to help my boy. You are a shaft of light in the middle of my darkness.”

  “May I confess something to you, Mrs. Wister?”

  “Oh, please,” she said, a smile twitching onto those lips.

  “That’s the first time anyone has ever said that to me.”

  “She wants the acquisition done as quickly as possible,” I said as I stabbed a thick piece of beef with my fork. “She doesn’t want precious little Edwin to miss another water polo season.”

  “And I suppose it’s not like you can order it online and then pick it up at a brick-and-mortar store on your way to lunch,” said Cassandra.

  “No, I suppose not, though that would be so much more convenient. And the wrinkled old invalid could sure as hell afford the price. There was a vase in the room where we met that was worth more than me. I had the vague urge to fuck it into shards.”

  Cassandra laughed as I stuck the meat in my maw. We were in a steakhouse in downtown Philadelphia. The walls were yellow-brown and covered with caricatures, fans spun beneath the pressed tin celling, fat people sawed at sirloins. On our table was wine, meat, bread, a vegetable for show. My filet was rare enough to drip blood; quite tender, quite delicious, with just the slightest tang of liver to let you know it had once been inside a living carcass. Cassandra was working on a pale glob of sweetbreads. If cow face had been on the menu, we would have ordered two for an appetizer.

  “But fortunately for us there is no website to handle the acquisition,” said Cassandra, after downing a bite of gland with a swallow of blood-red cabernet. “That’s why we’ll always be in demand. We are the true anything store. Whatever you want—a missing daughter, a painting you’ve been pining for—”

  “A kidney for your grandson.”

  “Yes, a kidney for your grandson—and who doesn’t want a kidney for the grandson, it’s quite stylish these days to have three—whatever your wilted little heart desires, we will provide it, at our price.”

  “So long as the blood stays on our hands,” I said. “You know the way their servants pick up the dogs’ leavings in little blue bags? I’ve come to believe that’s us.”

  “The servants?”

  “The bags. I’m meeting with the doctor tomorrow evening. At a tavern on the wrong side of the tracks. I’m to stand at the bar, order a martini, and wait for him, which pleases me not at all because I don’t care much for martinis.”

  “Poor boy.”

  “He’s going to let me know what he requires on-site when he does the deed. Apparently, we’ll be responsible for finding the right kidney.”

  “I’m sure the left would be just as good.”

  “Apparently, he also insists on meeting me alone.”

  “Of course,” she said as she forked another piece of pancreas. “Fewer witnesses.”

  “Then explain something to me, Cassandra. I’m having all these meetings in which they insist on being seen by only me. And yet here you are.”

  Cassandra stuck the slivered gland into her mouth, chewed slowly.

  “I suddenly have a pressing curiosity about the guy who sat in this seat before me. Tell me about Rand.”

  She waited a moment, drank more wine, shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. He was a high-flying Wall Street jockey who had traded beyond his limits, going full bore for that huge bonus, and was caught just before the whole thing tumbled into the deep red. The bank sold off his positions to some of its customers, former customers now, and averted disaster, but that was the end of that job. Rand was too ruthless even for Wall Street. But Mr. Maambong had done a service for his boss, so when Rand got the old heave-ho, he also got a phone number. Mr. Maambong thought he’d be a natural.”

  “And?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “What went wrong?”

  She looked at the red of her wine, lit bright by the overhead pencil light. “It turns out,” she said, “his was a sensitive soul.”

  There was a moment of quiet—as if in contemplation of some deep meaning in the mists, something the import of which we could grasp but not its boundaries—and then we both burst into ribald laughter. I laughed so hard it was the first time in ages I remember tears in my eyes. People from other tables glanced our way and we didn’t give a damn. We were young and good-looking, bloated with wine and red meat, and later that night we’d be screwing like monkeys in our ritzy hotel suite and then raiding the minibar. Why shouldn’t we laugh; why shouldn’t they stare? Who the hell didn’t want to be us at that moment?

  “Oh man,” I said as I wiped at my eyes with the thick white napkin. “That’s rich. So you’ve come to make sure I don’t go squishy.”

  “Just a precaution,” said Cassandra. “Mr. Maambong likes to be sure.”

  “How am I doing?”

  “Better than Rand.”

  “Are you Kubiak?” said the man who slipped onto the bar stool to my left, nearly shouting so he could be heard over the pounding of the music. He was middle-aged, graying, heavy and chinless, wearing a trench coat and a tie.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Did you tell anyone where you were going?”

  “No.”

  “Not even the redhead you’re with at the hotel?”

  “No one.”

  “Good.”

  “You know, we could have met there.”

  “I’ve seen enough movies to know not to meet in hotel rooms,” he said, before ordering an old-fashioned from the bartender. As the barkeep was building the drink, the doctor slipped a hand beneath my suit jacket. He rubbed it all across the front of my shirt and around the inside of my jacket, and I let him.

  “Do you want to lick my ear while you’re at it?” I said.

  “I’m checking for a wire.”

  “Check away. Just don’t get of
fended if my nipples pop.”

  As he performed his search, I kept my eyes on the go-go dancer in the corner of the little dive. My martini was cold and pretty good for a martini; the bartender had comfortingly showed not the least bit of interest in me; the early-evening crowd was a sparse mixture of hipsters and suits, mostly ignoring the show. The place was purposely ironic, and the dancer, tall and thick with high boots, fishnet stockings, and a leather bra, gyrated like a 1960s moon girl. But there was something real about her indifference that overcame the staginess of the place.

  The doctor had finished the massage when the bartender brought his drink. It was squat and brown with an orange peel and cherry amidst the ice. The doctor sucked at it like it was a tit.

  “Thirsty?”

  “I dropped a thumb drive into your suit pocket. All the details of what I need are on it. When the time comes, I can be in and out in forty minutes. I’ll be masked the whole time. No one will see me enter or exit, no one will be in there with me but you and the nurse.”

  “Nurse?”

  “Your boss told the old lady he had one on call. After the job, I’ll leave with the product and you’ll never see me again. The rest will be up to you and the nurse.”

  “Fine.”

  “Your job is to find our donor and get her prepped.”

  “So it’s a she.”

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  “There are no problems for me.”

  “The information is all on the drive. We have a serial number from a marrow registry that matches our patient. We know her gender, but that’s all. She could be anyone, anywhere.”

  “Do we have much time?”

  “The sooner the better. You’re the last resort. But here’s the real trick: when it’s over, she can’t know what has been done to her.”

  “That’s a hell of a trick.”

  “She has a rare combination that matches exactly what we need. But if we can make the match, so can the authorities. That’s the real danger here, since our patient is on a registry, too. If they start searching the wait lists, they’ll link her right back to the boy.”