The Fall-Down Artist

  VERY MEAN STREETS

  Instinctively, Dorsey dropped to the sidewalk on all fours and began scurrying along toward the Buick, using parked cars as cover. He could hear the sound of running from the far sidewalk and from behind the trunk of the Buick, raised his head for a look, and the footfalls went silent. The muzzle flash illuminated the big man behind the gun, and a bullet cut a gash in the Buick’s bumper. Another bullet went a little high, and the flash allowed Dorsey to confirm that it was Damjani. Dorsey took off in a low crouch and heard the ringing of the spent shell dancing along the cement. Jesus Christ, Dorsey thought, looking for a walkway between row houses and finding none. He has an automatic. Pray for a jam.

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  THE

  FALL-DOWN

  ARTiST

  A CARROLL DORSEY MYSTERY

  THOMAS LIPINSKI

  AVON BOOKS

  A division of

  The Hearst Corporation

  1350 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, New York 10019

  Copyright © 1994 by Thomas Lipinski

  Published by arrangement with the author

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  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-45280

  ISBN: 978-0-786-75523-3

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information addresss Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, 55 Fifth Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, New York 10003.

  First Avon Books Printing: October 1997

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  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is dedicated to Margaret Regina Hammill Lipinski of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, and points in between.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  1

  As he expected, by the middle of the third page, the fingers of his right hand began to ache. The arthritis, a result of three greenstick fractures, was a variant that caused pain but only minor restriction of movement. Yeah, Dorsey thought as he worked at his fingers, shaking and loosening them, just enough restriction to reduce a classic hook-shot artist to a brawling rebounder.

  Carroll Dorsey was pleased with what he had typed thus far; the final report, he felt, was going well. And why not? You’re still describing the beginning of the case, he reminded himself, when things were going so nicely. Before the bottom fell out. Before you took the witness stand. “Should’ve known,” he said aloud. “Damned lawyer; they should’ve known. They took Stockman too lightly. Never take that son of a bitch light.”

  From the far corner of the desktop, Dorsey took a can of beer in his right hand, holding it gently by the thumb and first finger, keeping the cold from the other aching knuckles. He leaned back in the swivel chair and turned toward a four-tiered bookshelf crammed with paperbacks and a small stereo tape player, from which the Basie band was now playing “Back to the Apple.” On the top shelf were three photos of the same tall, heavy-shouldered boy in three different basketball uniforms. The first two were black-and-white shots, one of the boy with a crew cut in his Sacred Heart grade school uniform, the other of the boy with a bit more hair wearing a jersey with CENTRAL CATHOLIC printed across it. The third photo was a publicity glossy from Duquesne University.

  “B. F.” Dorsey saluted the photos with his beer. “Before fractures.” He turned back to the Olivetti portable and drew himself to the desk.

  Benito DeMarco was forty-seven years old, built like a brick shithouse, a pipe fitter, and a fraud. It had been over a year since his pickup had been struck from behind as he waited at a stop sign, and still, he claimed, the phantom pains rendered him totally disabled. The report’s first three pages covered Dorsey’s investigation. It documented the times and routes of DeMarco’s numerous trips to hardware stores and building supply centers, Dorsey following close behind in a borrowed van. Attached to the report were copies of receipts Dorsey had obtained from sales clerks, proving that DeMarco had lines of credit and was buying supplies in contractor’s quantities. Also accompanying the report was a tape shot from the van’s rear window as DeMarco tore into a cement sidewalk with a pickax.

  The good stuff, Dorsey thought, gazing at the typewriter keys, the stuff that speaks for itself. Now for the rest, which isn’t such good stuff. Put it on paper and run. Just document your time for the bill.

  Without further deliberation, he began a new paragraph, the pain in his fingers increasing, and documented that on October 26, 1984, he had appeared in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, at Pittsburgh, to provide expert testimony in the case of DeMarco v. Fidelity Casualty. After which his involvement in the case ended. And that, Dorsey reminded himself, coincided with the end of Fidelity Casualty’s defense.

  Dorsey sipped at his beer. Fidelity Casualty’s attorney: so young, the product of a large law firm, so well dressed and groomed he seemed to Dorsey the result of reading Esquire too thoroughly. The guy was overconfident, figuring he had DeMarco’s lawyer, Stockman, by the ass. As if Jack “Personal Injury” Stockman ever stood still long enough to be taken hold of.

  “You’ll be a surprise witness,” the defense attorney had said at their first meeting. “I’m—the law firm, I mean—we’re the ones who will hire you, not the insurance company. That way you’re protected from discovery in pretrial, as part of attorney’s privilege. You’ll be called and sworn in, and we’ll watch Stockman’s face drop when you show the tape. Oh, Stockman will object when you’re called, but he’ll be overruled. And you’ll put on your show. And we’ll have kicked his ass.”

  But Stockman, he hadn’t objected very hard.

  Dorsey rose from the swivel and crossed the office to seat himself on the edge of a black leather chaise beneath the two front windows. The office was the converted living room of Dorsey’s row house; outside was working-class Wharton Street, the late-afternoon foot traffic increasing as the workday ended. Dorsey leaned his heavy frame toward the window, resting his elbows on the sill. For a few moments he watched a woodpecker, lost in the city, pecking away at a telephone pole it had mistaken for a tree. As he watched, Dorsey rehashed his day in court.

  The jury box had been empty. It was the first thing Dorsey had noticed on entering the courtroom, and he immediately asked the defense attorney what had happened. “Funny thing
,” the defense attorney said. “Soon as we got started, Stockman tells the judge his client wishes to waive his right to a jury trial. Wants to plead the whole thing before the judge.” When Dorsey went on to ask the defense attorney for his thoughts on the matter, he was told to take a seat and wait to be called.

  The judge entered and took his seat at the bench and the young attorney stood, patting his hair into place at his temple and self-consciously flattening the lapels of his suit jacket. He announced, a bit too quickly, that he had a surprise witness, and Dorsey came to the witness stand. Stockman, seated at the plaintiff’s table next to his client, remained silent.

  Led by the defense attorney’s questions, Dorsey recounted his surveillance of DeMarco’s activities. The sales slips were entered into evidence and examined by the judge. At that point, the defense attorney asked Dorsey if he would bring in the videotape player and monitor being attended to by a sheriff’s deputy in the corridor.

  Stockman objected. Not vigorously, with none of the pseudo-outrage Dorsey had come to view as standard courtroom procedure; he merely announced his objection, but for a moment further he continued to scan a file folder that lay open on the plaintiff’s table. Then Stockman, a man in his mid-fifties, tall and gray-haired, rose and walked halfway to the bench, assuming center stage. Once there, he informed the judge that pretrial discovery procedures had failed to disclose this investigation.

  “The discovery period,” Stockman had said, turning to the defense attorney. “During which, I had assumed, I was provided with all the material and information the defense would present.”

  “Mr. Dorsey is a surprise witness, as I said.” The defense attorney’s words still spilled out too quickly. “More important, his services were retained by my firm. As a result, his work is confidential and protected from discovery as attorney’s work product.”

  “Your employee?” Stockman asked. “Not that of your client, Fidelity Casualty? You are sure of this?”

  “Mr. Dorsey is definitely in my firm’s services.”

  Showing surprising agility, Stockman twirled, more than turned, moved to the plaintiff’s table, and picked up the file folder he had been reading. He took it to the bench, still open, and presented it to the judge. While doing so he informed the judge that the folder contained a photocopy of Fidelity Casualty’s claim file on Benito DeMarco, something he was sure the defense would be willing to stipulate to. Pointing with his finger, Stockman directed the judge’s attention to a handwritten entry dated September 4 of that same year.

  “The entry,” Stockman said, “is signed by Raymond Corso, who is—and again I am sure the defense will stipulate to this—the local claims manager for Fidelity Casualty. The September fourth records show that Mr. Corso received a call from Mr. Dorsey requesting permission to continue. It does not say what it is he wishes to continue, but as Mr. Dorsey is a private investigator by profession it is only logical that Mr. Dorsey was referring to the investigation of my client. It is also logical to assume that since he was contacting Mr. Corso he was under Mr. Corso’s supervision. As a result, Mr. Dorsey was working for Fidelity Casualty and not a law firm. As such, his investigation was discoverable and his present testimony is inadmissible.”

  Dorsey immediately remembered the call and had felt himself reeling backward in his chair. One call, he had thought, one fucking call! Made to Corso because you were in a hurry and this tenderfoot of an attorney couldn’t be reached. One simple clarification for a fee invoice, that’s all you needed. How did Stockman find it? What brought his attention to that entry? What difference did it make? Stockman always knew.

  The judge ruled swiftly and Dorsey was dismissed. Walking past the defense attorney and out of the room, Dorsey worked out Stockman’s scheme. Somehow Stockman had known Dorsey would be testifying about his investigation, and that’s why he got rid of the jury. Stockman could object to Dorsey’s testimony and the judge could throw it out afterward, but the testimony itself could never be erased from the jurors’ minds. Even if the testimony was thrown out before it was given, the jury would have known an investigation had been conducted, and nobody bothers to testify about an investigation that had no results. So Stockman chooses to skip the jury and deal with the judge, who will consider only points of law. A judge who is just a little bit pissed off at the defense for springing a bogus surprise witness on him.

  Wiping the memories away as best he could, Dorsey returned to the desk, took the last page from the typewriter carriage, and signed his name. Attaching the invoice, he slipped the report and the videotape into a manila envelope. The letterhead at the upper left corner of the envelope read DORSEY INFORMATION SERVICES, CARROLL DORSEY, MANAGER. Well, he thought, licking the envelope’s adhesive strip, at least Junior—the attorney—had someone to blame for how things turned out.

  2

  After Showering, Dorsey went through two towels drying his six-foot-four-inch frame. He put on a pair of fatigue pants speckled with paint, the waistband of which matched his age, thirty-eight. After struggling into a gray sweatshirt with matching paint speckles, he shoved his feet into a pair of worn jogging shoes and sat at the edge of his bed, listening for the front doorbell. From his bedroom window, through the growing darkness of the October evening, Dorsey could see the back of another row house across the alley from his own backyard. Beyond that was the Monogahela River, reflecting the soft glow of the mercury lamps strung along the Tenth Street bridge. Sitting there, Dorsey again ran through his court appearance, memories he had hoped to rinse away in the shower. Maybe, he thought, a shower of beer would do the trick. Jack “Personal Injury” Stockman. P. I. Stockman. The guy is hot shit.

  The low electric buzz of the doorbell pulled Dorsey away from the courtroom and downstairs to the front door. Through the door’s glass, partially blocked by a cardboard sign jammed into its left corner, he saw two men standing on the stoop. One was short and heavy, in his mid-sixties, carrying two brown grocery sacks. The second one was much younger and of medium height, wearing a necktie and a trench coat. Dorsey opened the door. The second man in, the younger of the two, stopped in the doorway and tapped a finger on the cardboard sign. Printed in green on white, it read CARROLL DORSEY, INFORMATIONAL SERVICES TO THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY AND THE LEGAL COMMUNITY.

  “Forget yesterday,” the younger man said. “You’ll have a day all your own. Goes around and comes around. Al and I still like you.”

  “Thank you, Bernie,” Dorsey said, a grin betraying his formal response. “And fuck you, I guess.”

  Dorsey followed his visitors into the hall. To the right were double sliding doors, and the older man worked a hand free and stabbed at a handle with his knuckles, sending one of the doors flying back on its overhead track. Dorsey reached ahead and flicked on the overhead light, and the three men entered his office. The man with the grocery bags went directly to the desk and dumped the bags on the blotter.

  “Well,” Dorsey said, “I see you both made it. More important, I see that the cargo made the trip safely too.”

  “It traveled well.” Al Rosek took off his lined zipper jacket, draped it across the back of the armchair next to the desk, and dropped into the seat, shifting his weight from one buttock to the other until he was settled.

  Dorsey sat behind the desk. “But Al, the desk is no place for this stuff. It should’ve gone there.” He indicated a small office refrigerator behind the desk at the side of the bookcase.

  “Bullshit. Me, I’m like the Teamsters. We haul the stuff, take it anywhere you want it to go, but we don’t unload. Sorry, Dorsey, the shop steward says no crossin’ of craft lines. It’s a serious violation.”

  “That’s how it’s got to be, okay. Unions, backbone of the country.” Dorsey swiveled toward the bags and tore at them greedily, pulling out five six-packs of beer and a large bag of Pennsylvania Dutch pretzels. “And the shipment, I believe, is correct.”

  “Got it straight, always do,” Al said. “Thirty-one years—owned and worked the bar f
or thirty-one years now, and never botched an order. Two Irons, two Rolling Rocks for you, and a sixer of Michelob for this guy.” With a tilt of his head, Al indicated Bernie.

  “This guy?” Dorsey repeated, his voice heavy with concern, his outstretched hands pleading. “This guy, as you have the balls to call him, is Bernie. Bernie the attorney. Wisest of adjudicators, rival and close second to Solomon. This guy, Al, is the famous Bernard S. Perlac, attorney-at-something-or-other. Hell, Bern, what is that stuff you’re an attorney at?”

  “Lemme see,” Bernie said, supine on the chaise. He wore a white oxford shirt buttoned to the throat, and his red silk necktie flowed gracefully across his breastbone to the top of his navy chalk-striped pants. “It was a school. I seem to remember attending a school of some sort. Lemme see, what did they call it? Thought you could help on this one, Dorsey. As I recall, you went there for a while. But I think I went there a little longer, after you blew out.”

  “I’d be wrong to help you; it’d be cheatin’.”

  “Never mind, I’ve got it!” Bernie sprang into a seated position. “Law. They called the fucking thing a law school. And so I sit here, at least until I lie back down, a law school graduate, an A-one lawyer. Bernard S. Perlac—yes, Dorsey, it’s true—attorney-at-law. Get to you a little?”

  “I get misty-eyed all over again,” Dorsey said, cramming beer cans into the midget refrigerator.

  “Comic geniuses.” Al cracked open an Iron City. “Ever get some real jobs, put in some regular hours, there wouldn’t be any time for clowning. Especially you, Dorsey, lucky enough to have a young thing like Gretchen to spend your time with. Girl like her, with a wreck like you? I can’t figure it.”

  “Young girls find me exotic,” Dorsey said, settling back into his seat, a Rolling Rock in his hand.

  “The movie,” Al said. “C’mon, Dorsey, we came to see this movie of yours. The new one.”