Absent Friends

PHIL'S STORY

Chapter 8

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A Hundred Circling Camps

October 31, 2001

Phil thumbed off his cell phone, slipped it back in his pocket. Marian Gallagher's voice—a voice he'd never liked, too full of incense and intuition, earth goddesses and community trade—echoed in his mind. He turned to the window, staring not down to the carless streets but up into the empty sky. No, not empty. The military patrols flew so high you couldn't hear them, but if you looked up at the right time, you could catch the silver flashes against the blue.

Working at his desk, his back to the window, Phil had always liked the roar of planes. It had meant someone was going somewhere, someone was getting away. Good for you, Phil thought. That sound was gone now, lost to the no-fly zone the air over Manhattan had become. If the no-fly was ever lifted and air travel was allowed over the island again, the joy in that roar would still be lost to Phil, who'd heard the first plane hit and seen the second.

It wasn't the sound of planes that was on his mind now, though, and not the blue, blank sky. He was thinking about Marian's voice, what she'd told him, how he'd reacted. And, equally, about how impossible he and Marian had always found it to be decent to each other.



That Phil and Marian couldn't resist some sniping had been glaringly apparent two days ago, when, drink unfinished, Marian had stood, scowled, and strode away, leaving Phil alone in the damn foodie bar in SoHo that had been her choice in the first place. They'd done something they'd spent decades avoiding: they'd met alone, Phil and Marian face-to-face. They had to talk, Marian had said when she called.

Harry Randall, then, was still alive, and who knew how many more pieces he was planning, what he might say? Randall's last story had convinced Marian (and how many others? and how many of them did he give a damn about, besides Sally?) that Phil had been cheating Sally from the beginning. The joke was this: everyone else was chasing the money—how deep was Phil Constantine in? what was it he was deep into?—but Marian had higher things on her mind.

“You lied to her,” she sniffed, denouncing him over their drinks (beer for him, and though he generally preferred his beer in a glass, with Marian he made a point of drinking from the bottle; a seabreeze, whatever the hell that was, for her).

He hadn't wanted to meet her, except that he'd had some mad thought that if he could explain to Marian, she could make Sally understand. But as soon as he saw Marian's straight-backed progress through the room (God, did this woman stride everywhere, did she never just walk?), her turquoise and coral earrings (likely picked up at some tony Free Tibet fund-raiser), and her unsmiling face (this he knew was hard for her, her natural inclination being to set others at ease: but not him, never him), he wondered what spell of insanity had made him think she might ever be on his side.

“I lied, Marian,” he agreed, and drank some beer.

“How could you do that? She loves you!”

“Marian, the whole thing is none of your f*cking business.” He watched her flush as she took a sip of her pink drink.

“After all she's been through. How could you?”

“Is the point of this meeting to tell me what a shit I am?”

“No!” She sat up even straighter and glared at him. “I'm here so you can tell me the truth.” She made it sound like it was an opportunity for him, an offer he was lucky to get.

“Why?”

She blinked, and he almost laughed.

“Screw you, Marian. I don't owe you anything.”

“You owe Sally.”

“Sally and I—” But there was nothing about himself and Sally that he was interested in telling Marian, so he stopped.

“The truth might help you.” As though pointing out something he hadn't thought of.

“Help me what? Help me how? Fix things between me and Sally? Is that what you want? To help us patch things up?”

That was a lie she couldn't tell, and to her credit she said nothing.

He signaled for another beer, put his near-empty bottle down so that the ring it made added to the chain of rings he was forging left to right across the tabletop. “I got the money from Jimmy McCaffery,” he suddenly heard himself say. And this time he did laugh.

Her face darkened. “You think that's funny?”

Phil shook his head, still grinning, and lifted the beer again, finishing it in one long pull. He resisted the impulse to wipe his mouth on his sleeve. What was funny was this: even he, even now, if for half a second he glanced away, didn't keep an eye on himself, look what happened: he found he'd wandered halfway down the midway and was buying, from some quack whose booth was all tinkly music and colored lights, the patent medicine idea that the truth could set you free.

He grabbed himself by the shoulder and marched himself back through the sawdust and the horseshit. He'd already said it, so he might as well say it again. “From McCaffery,” he repeated. “But I never knew anything else about it.”

“How is that possible?”

“You want to know how it's possible? Or you want me to say it's not and I'm lying?” She didn't answer, so he just went on and told her the way it had been, how it was possible. “He said he felt like it was his fault.”

“His fault? His fault how?” she asked, and Phil had the feeling she was speaking without breathing.

“Keegan was his friend. He should've been able to do something. I told him that was nuts, the guy was inside, but he wouldn't give it up.”

“That's all he meant?”

“That's all he said.”

She did breathe now, her chest rising, falling. “And the lie? Why lie about the money?”

“McCaffery thought it was the only way—the State story—that Sally would take the money.”

“Where did the money come from?”

Phil grinned. “Well, Marian, that's the big question everyone's asking, isn't it?”

“Tell me!”

“Tell you.” Unbelievable. Hadn't she heard what he'd said? What he'd admitted to? That he'd closed his eyes and taken money, passed it on to a client who became his lover, told himself for eighteen years that it wasn't his business where it came from? Wasn't that bad enough for her? “Marian, I could say that's privileged information and there's no way in hell I'd tell you. But you want the truth? I didn't know then, and I don't know now.”

Whether or not she believed that, she didn't say. After a stony look: “Did you ask Jimmy?”

“I did.” Phil found himself nodding, mockingly.

She waited, and he said nothing, mostly to see how long she'd give it. About twenty seconds, it turned out, and then she couldn't stand it. Tossing each word at him like she was throwing rocks: “What did he say?”

He took a moment. Then: “I asked him where a firefighter was getting that kind of money. He said he was borrowing against his life insurance policy.”

“You believed that?”

“What's the difference?”

“The difference?” She spat that out so shrilly, heads turned. Seven weeks ago this bar had been a downtown hot spot for the achingly hip. Marian, Phil thought, had probably turned up her serious-minded nose at it, though just as probably she'd been the center of gravity, a magnet for the sideways glances of the insecure, every time she'd strode in. Phil, never seeing the point of an eight-dollar microbrew, had come here only twice, both times to meet with an ambitious young ADA whose pretensions made him easy to manipulate. Now the place was an echoing hangar, half full if you were flexible about defining half and full. Before, you couldn't hear yourself talk. Now you could, and so could everyone else.

Marian's voice dropped to a hiss: “You didn't ask Jimmy what he was doing?”

Not bothering to lower his own voice, Phil said, “What he was doing was supporting his dead friend's wife and child.” A few people nearby exchanged glances. Enjoy yourselves, Phil thought.

“Well, the lie certainly worked for you, didn't it, Phil?” Marian sizzled on. “You got to be the brilliant lawyer, comforting the widow.”

“Go to hell, Marian.”

“If it was Jimmy, why didn't he just give her the money directly?”

“She wouldn't have taken it.”

“From Jimmy? I think she would.”

“He thought not. I agreed.”

“So you made the decision for her?”

“McCaffery did. I just agreed.”

Phil's new beer arrived. Marian sat back in her chair, sipped at the pink concoction, and imprisoned Phil with her eyes as the waitress came and went, taking with her the glass Phil waved away.

“This is all a lie,” she pronounced. “You didn't get that money from Jimmy. That's just a convenient story now that Jimmy's dead.”

“Believe what you want. It doesn't make a difference.”

“Yes, it does!” She leaned forward, shortening the physical distance between them as though she hoped that would bring them closer in understanding. He recognized the gesture. The earnest vulnerability with which she offered it was uniquely Marian; still, it was as carefully strategic as any shrug or raised eyebrow in his own courtroom repertoire. He wondered how many times a day she used it.

He lifted his new beer and searched the room, hoping for a pretty girl, a celebrity, a ray of light from a transporter beam. But though he was not looking at her, Marian just went on. “Phil.” Okay, he thought, I get it, we're really serious now, you're speaking my name. He used hers whenever they talked because he had a feeling it made her cringe; she rarely let his pass her lips. “Phil, right now, New York really needs Jimmy McCaffery.”

In amazement he turned back to face her. He almost spoke. Then he took a long pull of his beer, swallowing his words with it.

“New York needs heroes now, Phil.” A desperate tone clung to her voice like the smell of smoke on clothing. “Jimmy's an important one. He's become a symbol—no one's choice, but it's real. People need to believe in Jimmy. What Randall's implying in the paper, and now what you're saying—can't you see it? You're destroying something bigger than we are.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Marian, put a cork in it. New York needs McCaffery? You need McCaffery. You need him to stay a bright and shining hero or you're f*cked, aren't you? You and the Fund. Listen, Randall's jammed me up as bad as you, worse maybe, but the truth is what it is.” He leaned forward, too. What the hell, a move's a move. “Marian, that money came from McCaffery. Every month for eighteen years. And—wait, listen—and you're the only person I've ever told.”

She frowned. Her hands hovered just off the table, fingers curved as though she were holding something breakable. Or strangling something. Finally: “You didn't tell Randall?”

“Why the hell would I?”

“Then why is he saying it?”

“He's not.”

“Between the lines! Anyone can read it!”

“He didn't get it from me.”

As he had a few times over the years, on odd occasions (mostly when they were angriest at each other), Phil surprised himself by noticing she was beautiful. Not “aging well”: That implied making the best of a bad situation. Marian's beauty had grown richer with time, a clear summer morning unfolding into luxuriant, abundant day.

“If you've never told anyone this, why are you telling me now?” She asked that with a triumphant smile, as if it had come to her that if he was telling her a secret, that in itself proved it was a lie.

He was tempted to agree with her: You're right, I'm lying, very clever of you to figure that out, goodbye. Let her read all about it in the paper like everyone else.

Instead he told her what was coming. “What Randall's charging is enough to trigger an investigation. It'll come out then.”

“Who'll say it?”

“I will.”

“After all these years?”

“No one ever asked before. I spent eighteen years looking the other way, but that's not the same as perjury. I know you think I don't know the difference. You think I'm a lying snake—”

“You're a lawyer.”

That was a low blow, unworthy of her. She must be really shaken up, Phil decided. “If they ask me, Marian, I'm going to tell them.”

“Not from Jimmy,” she said. “Not from Jimmy. You're making him the scapegoat because he's dead. That money was from somewhere else. And I'll bet anything there was more than you passed on to Sally. Something for your trouble.”

Her eyes, hard as gems, allowed him no entry. He judged silence to be his most effective weapon, so he used it.

“That's what Randall really wants to know, isn't it?” she asked. “Where that money came from.”

He smiled. Over the years he'd found it multiplied the effect of silence the way caffeine did for aspirin when your head was pounding.

Marian said, “And that's what this smoke screen about Jimmy is for. To distract Randall.”

Quietly, deliberately, Phil said, “Bullshit.”

“I knew Jimmy! I knew them all! I was there in those days, remember?”

“And what are you hiding?”

Her face flushed again, became a mask of openmouthed disbelief the same color as her drink.

“Oh, come on, Marian!” Phil slammed his beer bottle on the tabletop. People were staring at them now, but he didn't turn to look. “You came here for the truth. I'm telling you the truth, and it doesn't make you happy, it pisses you off. You're scared shitless something even worse is going to happen. What are you so afraid of?”

Her eyes blazed at his. He hadn't had to ask the question, not really. He knew. All these years, he'd known. Though even tonight, until right now, he'd hoped he was wrong, hoped someone—Marian, even Marian—could prove to him what a mistake he'd been making. Because she'd been Jimmy McCaffery's lover back then. Because she'd know, if anyone knew.

She didn't answer him.

And that was answer enough.

As if he'd said that out loud and it made her furious, Marian slapped both palms on the table and stood. She dealt a twenty-dollar bill to the tabletop in the contemptuous stroke of a gypsy turning over a card of ruin. Phil understood the insult for what it was: Money's been so important to you all these years, you bastard, well, here's more of it. She stalked out, and he watched her go. After the door drifted shut behind her, he motioned the waitress over, handed her his credit card. He covered the whole bill including the tip and left the twenty lying among the coasters and napkins, across the water-ring chain. In spite of himself he grinned as he left the bar, astonished, as he'd been so many times before, by the human capacity for costly, meaningless gestures.



Now, in his office two days later, staring into the sky, Phil heard the echo of Marian's voice, telling him what she had called to say: that Jimmy McCaffery had left papers behind. Harry Randall, according to the second Tribune reporter, had probably seen them.

And Phil wondered what was in those papers. And where they were. And what the hell McCaffery had been thinking, writing any of this down.

And, he asked himself, how do you measure the meaning of a gesture—or its cost—when someone else pays?