Part 31 (1/2)

”Black boy got different ones. We talk some s.h.i.+t for a while, then I say, 'How are you, dude?' And he turn away, he don't want me to see him cry. And I say to him, 'Dude, I know how you feel. You know how I got to be on this earth? My mama and some dude get it off in a one-night stand. Dude just split for she don't know where. She was drunk that night, she don't even remember his name for sure. And I always think, I ever meet that dude, I kill him.' I say to Tahaun, 'Maybe you think that about me too. And here I is, right in front of you, your daddy who never done nothing for you. How 'bout that? You want to kill me, boy?' He smile a little and say, 'No. Not anymore.' So we keep talking, and I see this boy don't know where he can go. Talks about playing basketball, but he tells me maybe he ain't really good enough. He ain't even a star on his high school team, so it must be true. I tells him, 'Stick with it, but don't dream about it no more. Dream about something else.' Then I figures it out, 'cause I remembers what it's like to be sixteen, and big, and black, and dumb. I figures out he's angry. Angry 'cause he know if he ain't good enough to play no ball he probably ain't smart enough to do nothing else. You dig? And he got to get past the anger so's he can see who he is and who he want to be. I tell him that.”

”I hope he paid attention,” I said. ”It was good advice.”

Darryl nodded, but he wasn't really concerned with my reaction; he was listening to himself. ”You got to fight, I tells him. I ain't good at this, but what I'm trying to 'splain to you is this-if you like me, you think you're too big, too black, too loud, too clumsy, too ugly. I sees that in him, 'cause that's the kind of kid I was too. You don't like who you be, and that make you scared. You don't know where to look. I don't read good, I couldn't get it out of no books. Couldn't get it out of no job, 'cause what kind of job I ever get? Got it out of what I did, and you know what that was. You know how much pen time I done in my life? s.h.i.+t, I'd have to add it up, and I can't hardly count that high.”

He was silent.

Then he said, ”I take the deal, where I got to go now? What kind of life that be at Raiford? Do my magic in the yard for cons and hacks? Listen to me, man, 'cause I don't believe you hear what I'm saying.” His dark eyes glowed furiously. He had changed gears. I had seen his anger; I knew what he could do. But this anger was of a different quality.

”Where that boy gonna go?” he demanded of me. ”He a lot smarter than me, but still he do some drugs, s.h.i.+t like that. I asked him, and he told me.” Darryl leaned forward to me, so that once again I could smell him. But I was used to his smell now, the way I hoped he was used to mine.

”I didn't kill that Jew, you know that. You get me outa here, you get me free, I can take care of that boy. That boy want to be with me, want to see me. I knows that. Don't matter what we do, long as he with me. I can do it,” he repeated doggedly. .

I said carefully, ”What about Pauline?”

”She a good woman. s.h.i.+t, I don't talk about taking that boy away from her. I get a job, I stay with Pauline, if she have me. Says she got two other kids. Girls. You see them?”

”Yes.”

”What they like?”

”Nice kids,” I said.

”So I have a family. I ain't against that.”

”If you can convince her.”

”Can't do that from no cell in Raiford,” Darryl said.

”You're telling me,” I said slowly, ”that you don't want to take the deal the state's offered you.”

”And you're hearing me,” he said.

I felt my heartbeat quicken. ”You're throwing the dice for your life, Darryl.”

”No, you throwing the dice. I just putting up the stakes. You roll a seven, I live. You c.r.a.p out, I go where that Sweeting boy went. I ain't completely crazy, so you got to tell me we got some chance to win. You say that to me, we go back in there and tell that skinny young dude and that s.e.xy spic lady they can go f.u.c.k theyselves.”

And Darryl smiled at the thought, showing white teeth and frightened eyes.

He wasn't letting me play the great white father; he was taking responsibility for his life, just as he had done thirteen years before with Gary Oliver. I had respect for this man.

”We have a chance,” I said.

”Then go to the whip, dude,” Darryl said.

Chapter 27.

TUESDAY MORNING, for the first time, Judge Fleming showed me an emotion midway between vexation and anger. His eyes were bleak, and his lips grew thinner. He said to me the same words I had said to Gary Oliver so long ago in my office. ”Counselor, it's my duty to remind you that your first responsibility is to keep your client alive.”

”My client knows what's going on, Your Honor. We'll gratefully accept the state's joining our motion to commute the death penalty, but we want a new trial on the guilt-or-innocence issue. Otherwise ... no deal.”

The judge beckoned, and I leaned forward across the bench. Muriel did too, but he waved her back. He broke the first canon of judicial ethics by whispering in my ear, so that opposing counsel couldn't hear.

”Mr. Jaffe, if your client's guilty, you'd do better trying to put socks on a rooster than looking for a new trial in my court.”

I leaned farther up and whispered back into his white, hairy ear: ”He's not guilty.”

The judge told us all to step back a pace or two. Then he called shrilly, ”Mr. Morgan, kindly step up here.”

Darryl looked at me for approval. He wasn't fond of judges. I nodded, and he got to his feet and lumbered to the bench. He was a physically imposing sight.

Fleming wagged a finger back and forth at the court reporter, meaning: stop transcribing, you fool. The courtroom was full again. The judge knew that a defendant wouldn't invade his s.p.a.ce, so he had to lean forward himself, his white whiskers almost touching Darryl's flat, broad nose. I could just barely hear him.

”Your lawyer,” Fleming said softly, ”claims you're turning down the state's offer of a life sentence. You aware of that?”

”Yes, sir.”

”You agree with your lawyer?”

”Usually,” Darryl said.

”How about now?”

”Yes, sir. I agrees.”

”You think I'm a p.u.s.s.ycat?” the judge whispered.

Darryl c.o.c.ked his head. ”What you say?”

”I say, you think I'm a p.u.s.s.ycat? Think I care if you live or die?”

”No, sir,” Darryl said. ”I don't think you give a sick rat's a.s.s.”

The judge thought that over.

”You can sit down,” he said.

He raised his head then, sniffed the air, and said to the waiting courtroom, ”Let's get on with this hearing.” Then he turned toward Muriel. ”You ready? Get it done.”

Muriel understood that in order to make the judge happy she didn't have to bring on the Jacksonville Beach deputy sheriffs who had first reached the house and viewed the body of Solomon Zide, or the county medical examiner who had conducted the autopsy, or even the JSO ballistics expert. But she did have to offer up some background so that the court knew where we were and who had died.

Accordingly, the state called ex-JSO Sergeant Carmen Tanagra- under subpoena-as its first witness.

Muriel could as easily have called Floyd Nickerson, but she didn't want me cross-examining him. If he was to testify, it was I who would have to subpoena him as a witness for the defense-then Muriel, or John Whatley, would have the precious right to cross.e.xamine.

That was the way the game was played. Muriel was no advocate of the death penalty, but her oath of service required that she battle to keep Darryl Morgan on his path to Big Wooden Mama.