“I warned you,” Diana said, when I called her back.
“You’re not serious,” I said, hoping she wasn’t but knowing she must be.
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “I’ve had another complaint. Another potential client who doesn’t want to work with you.”
My stomach plunged to my shoe tops. “Who?”
She told me. It was Bad News.
“What can I say?”
“You could say that you aren’t still involved in this Ivanova case,” she suggested. “Then I’d be prepared to wait till it all blows over.”
I took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Oh, Ellen. I don’t believe this. This is totally self-destructive.”
“Diana, I can’t ignore the fact that I think the boy we convicted is innocent. How could I live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to try to prove it?”
“How can you live, period, without an income?”
“You’re really cutting me loose?”
“What choice do I have?” she asked. I could have named a few, but I sensed it was a rhetorical question. “Look at it from my point of view. You’re costing us clients. The reputation of the firm is at stake. Against that, all I have is your quixotic quest on behalf of some sleazeball burglar. Couldn’t you go to the Self-Realization Fellowship or the Golden Door instead? Why do you have to find meaning in life this way?”
I started to protest that I wasn’t looking for meaning in life, but I wasn’t so sure that was true. “Diana, I know you too well to think that all you care about is business,” I told her, although I had no such certainty. “I know you’d be prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of principle, if you really believed in something.”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid sacrifice is going to be the key word here. I’m sorry.”
“Couldn’t you hold off just a little?” I asked her, feeling like Willy Loman or a David Mamet character. “I think I’m pretty close to getting Ramon off the hook. After that, the police can find out who did it on their own.”
“Define ‘a little,’” she said, after a minute.
“A couple of weeks?” I hoped that would be enough to wrap up my relationship with Ivanova Associates. If I was right about what was going on, there was going to be a lot more to write about than blind dates with the wealth-impaired.
“I don’t know, Ellen. I’m feeling really uncomfortable about this whole thing. What if there’s negative publicity? It would drive even more people away.”
“Or attract more business,” I pointed out. “I think whoever’s spreading these stories about me must be connected with Natasha’s death. When we find out the truth, one way or the other, the rumors will stop.”
“Truth is an overrated commodity,” she said. “It doesn’t put food in your mouth.” She sighed. “Why don’t we review where you are with your clients? Then we’ll have a better idea of our alternatives.”
The electric chair or death by injection? For obvious reasons, I was less than eager to discuss the status of certain clients. I wouldn’t lie to her, but if she didn’t bring it up, I might be able to keep her in ignorance a while longer. If she felt uncomfortable now, how was she going to feel when she found out I was trying to implicate at least one of our clients in some very messy goings-on? “Um,” I said.
“I have the list right here,” she said. “Ellen?”
“Fine. Sure.” The death knell to my job, barring divine intervention or other equally unlikely felicitous occurrences.
“Burbage,” she said. She must have been clutching the list all along, waiting.
“The artist and I just installed the painting this week,” I told her. “Over the TV panel.”
“God help us,” she said, sounding disgusted. “Any other work from him?”
“Not right away. He’s waiting till he lands a bigger role in a series before he redecorates.”
She snorted indelicately. “Davis.”
“I took him to the County Museum of Art, and he fell in love with the Japanese screens. He wants me to get him one, but he’s not in any hurry. As a matter of fact, he’s on vacation till the end of the month.”
And so on. Name by name, she moved down the list. The closer she got to L, the more inarticulate I became. Visions of unpaid bills kept distracting me.
“Livingston,” she said. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
“Um,” I said, hoping for inspiration. None came. “Um, there’s a problem,” I told her.
“A big problem or a small problem?”
“I don’t want to stack the deck,” I said.
“Christ. What is it?”
“I might have to go to the police with some evidence about Bruce,” I said. “I’m afraid he’s mixed up in Natasha Ivanova’s death somehow.”
“Tell me I’m not hearing this.”
“I don’t know for sure that he killed her,” I said hurriedly.
“Is that supposed to be comforting? Ellen, you cannot do this.”
“Don’t you want to hear what I’ve got on him?”
“In a purely social context, I’m sure I’d be very entertained. In a professional context, that’s the last thing in the world I want to hear.”
“But, Diana—”
“No ‘buts,’ Ellen. I take it you didn’t actually see him wielding the bloody Erté, or anything like that?”
“No, of course not.”
“No hard evidence at all that he did the murder?”
“I don’t need to know that he did the murder, although it seems possible,” I protested. “I don’t have all the facts yet. I just need to know that Ramon didn’t do it, and Bruce is part of that picture.”
“I take it that means ‘no hard evidence.’”
“None,” I admitted.
I could hear her take a deep breath. She sounded as if she might be hyperventilating. “Would you just think for a minute? What if you go to the police or the D.A. or whoever with this information about Bruce, whatever it is? What if you’re wrong—have you considered that? If you could make a mistake when you’re on a jury, hearing every piece of evidence the state can dredge up, what makes you think you’re infallible now?”
“I don’t think I’m infallible. I won’t do anything rash, I promise.”
“I wish I could believe you, Ellen, but I can’t. Have you thought that in addition to wrecking your own reputation, and our firm’s, you risk getting sued for slander, libel, whatever? Besides, even if you’re right, do you think any of our well-to-do clients would ever feel comfortable with you again? They trust you, Ellen, because you’re one of them.”
“I’m not one of them.”
“You certainly won’t be if you go through with this. You’ll be lucky if you can sell nudie calendars to gas station owners.”
I was trying not to be swayed by this apocalyptic vision of my future, but I could barely suppress a shudder. “Diana, I should tell you that there are other people involved. Even if I withdrew right now, the truth, about Bruce Livingston will probably come out anyway. All I can do is promise that I’ll make absolutely certain of the facts before I do anything.”
She paused. “I guess there’s nothing more to be said.”
“I guess not.”
She sighed. “I’ll need to consult our attorney, so I’ll get back to you in a couple of days with a termination contract. Meanwhile, I trust you to sever the contacts you got through the firm in as graceful a way as possible. When we’ve had a day or two to think, we can get together and go over the client list. I don’t want to make this hard for you, Ellen, and I don’t want you to starve. I’ll be as generous as possible. I hope you know that.”
“I know that, Diana,” I told her. It was hard to believe in her generosity when she was firing me, but I suppose I didn’t have any choice. It gave me an idea. “I guess I can’t blame you for giving in to blackmail.”
“Blackmail?” She sounded annoyed, as if I’d doubted her altruism.
“Sure. What else would you call it? Someone—maybe a murderer—is trying to get you to force me to drop my investigation into Ivanova Associates. He’s threatening to trash your reputation if you don’t give in, so what else can you do? I understand.”
“Oh, Christ, Ellen, don’t do this to me,” she muttered. “You know I’m a Catholic.”
“Do what?” I inquired innocently.
“Make me feel guilty.”
I didn’t say anything. I let the silence work for me.
“Christ,” she said again, after a moment. “All right. Three days. That’s all I can give you. After that, I go to the lawyers.”
“Thanks, Diana,” I said fervently. “You won’t be sorry.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
I hoped she couldn’t discern what a negligible quality that was at the moment.
“There is one thing I insist on,” she said.
“What?”
“That I inform the Livingstons today, if possible, that some other consultant will be working with them in the future. I can’t risk having them think you used your position to get information about Bruce. You have to break off all contact at once. Promise me you won’t call them, or we don’t have a deal.”
I didn’t tell her I had a strong suspicion that Julia had already kissed me off for reasons of her own.
“Ellen?” she prompted me.
“I promise,” I assured her.