Part 26 (2/2)
He watched her a.s.sess this, lips rumpled.
”Okay,” she said. ”Call for the heralds. And several witnesses.”
”Because?”
”I'm going to say it.” She reached the considerable distance up to his shoulder. ”You were right. At least, close enough. You're right.” Her dark eyes were lively as diamonds. ”You're always right, Larry.” There was a little hiccup there, before she finally lowered her hand. ”You're right,” she said again and threw the mail down on her desk. ”Happy?”
Now that she asked, he found he wasn't completely.
”Something is bugging me about the fence. King Tut or whatever. The Pharaoh.”
”What about him?” she asked.
”I don't know. But I want to be the first boy on my block to remind him of old times. If Pharaoh is a super-big pal of Squirrel's, he might even deny everything Genevieve gave us, especially if Arthur gets to him before I do and gives him a road map.”
”So let's find him.”
”I'm figuring ”The Pharaoh' for a gang handle, right?”
That had been Muriel's thought, too.
”I'll get with the guys in Gang Crimes,” Larry said. ”They've been helping me figure out the Gangster Outlaw angle on Erno.”
Muriel lolled on the side of her desk, thinking it all over. She shook her head in wonder.
”Dude, you've been taking your smart pills.”
”Yeah,” he said, ”if I'm so smart, how come I didn't think of wheels on luggage? I ask myself that whenever I walk through an airport.”
Muriel laughed at that one. She'd worn a little jacket over a sleeveless dress and she removed the cover-up now. The P.A.'s Office seldom got below eighty in the summer, even with the air-conditioning on full throttle. Her shoulders were peeling. When she focused again on Larry, she had a far more sober look.
”No, you're smart, Larry,” she said quietly and took another instant to herself. ”You really rocked my world down in Atlanta.”
They hadn't spoken of Atlanta”not on the plane back or in the days since”and Larry didn't want to talk about it now. He'd blame the booze, if he had to. He was relieved to find she had another moment in mind.
”That equal sign you put between Rod and Talmadge? That tune's been on replay for days.”
”I was out of line.”
”You were,” she said. ”You were definitely out of line. But what I've been wondering about is why would you even say that to me? You just sort of drop by and say, 'Sucks to be you.' What is that, Larry?”
”I'm not sure, Muriel. I guess I thought I was right.”
”Well, what good does that do you? Or me, for that matter?”
He suddenly felt like squirming. ”I'm sorry, Muriel. Honestly. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
But that, clearly, was not the answer she wanted. She watched him at length, until her look had softened to a rare aspect for Muriel, something approaching sadness.
”I mean, Jesus, Larry,” she said quietly, ”really, when did you get so smart?”
”I just know you, Muriel. I don't know much. But I know you.”
”I guess you do,” she said. There was a moment down in Atlanta when he thought she had it as bad as he did, and from the way she was eyeing him now, he was starting to get that feeling again. What would that mean? Nothing good, he decided. From a filing cabinet in the corner, he retrieved the things he'd left behind, his case file and, in a demonstration of appalling meteorological skills, his folding umbrella. It was the size of a baton and he displayed it to her.
”Not as smart you think,” he said.
She'd sat down at her desk to begin working, but shook her head resolutely to show she did not agree.
Chapter 27.
June 29, 2001 The Enemy ”HE'S GOING TO EXPLAIN IT,” Pamela told Arthur when he'd picked her up at 6:00 this morning for another odyssey to Rudyard. She had persuaded herself overnight, but Arthur suspected even Pamela did not completely believe it. After nine months in practice in the big city, she was already beginning to acquire a skeptical air. Opponents had lied to her. Judges had ruled unfairly. There had even been a few bitter remarks about men.
But this morning, he would not quarrel with anyone about what was possible. He drove”but his heart was airborne. Right now a beautiful russet-haired woman slept in his bed, a woman with slender shoulders and a network of golden freckles on her back. He, Arthur Raven, had exhausted himself making love to a woman he desired, a woman he had desired for so long that she was the image of desire. He spoke to Pamela about the case, but his mind, like a homing signal, came back to Gillian, and he had to struggle to keep laughter from frothing up out of his chest.
She was a convict, of course. His spirit frolicked along a mesa with deep gorges on either side. There was Rommy, shown to be guilty after months of desperate labor. And now and then he recalled the sick fog of disgrace that hovered over Gillian. At those instants, he remembered her warnings about how soon she would disappoint him. But then, almost against his nature, he allowed himself to be engulfed again by a syrupy joy.
At the inst.i.tution, they waited as always. When Arthur phoned the office, his a.s.sistant read him the motion that Muriel had filed this morning with the Court of Appeals, asking it to bar further proceedings in Gandolph's case. She'd included transcripts of both depositions, Genevieve's and Erno's, and argued what Arthur would have in her place”the issue was not Erdai but Rommy. The state was under no obligation to establish whether Erno was a bitter freak taking grim pleasure in overturning one more applecart before exiting the planet, or sincere, albeit deluded. The sole question for the court was whether a substantial basis existed to believe that Rommy Gandolph had not had a fair opportunity previously to contest the charges against him. Genevieve's testimony, obviously reluctant, had only increased the sum total of evidence of Gandolph's guilt. In that light, the litigation had gone on long enough. Applying to the Court of Appeals, rather than Harlow, Muriel might as well have labeled her paper 'Motion to Prevent Further Rulings by Bleeding Heart Judge,' but the Court of Appeals was, probably, the proper venue, and its judges in any event would defend their jurisdiction in their ongoing battles with Kenton Harlow. Arthur and Pamela would have to begin framing a response shortly, a challenging task if Rommy did not have some answer to Genevieve.
As Rommy's case had gained notice, there had been two fairly obvious reactions from the staff in the penitentiary to Arthur and Pamela's frequent arrivals. Most of the correctional officers, who identified themselves with law enforcement, greeted the lawyers coldly. The Warden, for example, had initially denied them a visit today, claiming the usual shortage of personnel, relenting only after Arthur had called the General Counsel for the Department of Corrections. Yet there were others in the prison hierarchy who were more sympathetic. To them, it was a long-accepted fact that a percentage of prisoners were not as bad as all that, and that there were even a few who were actually innocent. After daily contact with Rommy for a decade, several of the guards liked him and a few had even implied to Arthur that it was preposterous to think Rommy could ever have been a murderer. In the guardhouse today, Arthur caught a sidelong glance from a female lieutenant at the front desk who had been particularly warm for weeks now, and who apparently felt ill used after seeing the headlines in the last twenty-four hours. Being himself, Arthur felt a flush of shame that he'd misled her and so many others.
Rommy had to know why his lawyers had abruptly appeared. The inmates were inveterate TV watchers, and the prison grapevine, the chief vehicle for news of the world outside, moved at the speed of the Internet. Yet Rommy, chained hand and foot, sauntered to his side of the gla.s.s in the attorney room, looking thin and lost, but virtually effervescent.
”Hey, hey, how you-all doin?” He asked Pamela, as he did every time, whether she'd brought her wedding gown. This was perhaps their tenth visit, and it still remained unclear to both of them whether Rommy's proposals were in earnest. ”So how you-all been?” he asked. To Rommy, it was a social call. In point of fact, he was growing accustomed to visitors. The Reverend Dr. Blythe and his minions were here often, events Arthur could trace because of the regularity with which Blythe's harsh rhetoric was echoed, in whatever mangled form, by his client.
”We've had a setback,” Arthur said, then realized that the term was probably beyond Rommy, who had great difficulty with nuance. Rather than explain, Arthur simply asked him if he remembered Genevieve Carriere from the airport.
”Black, ain she?”
”White.”
”Kind of plump?”
”Right.”
”And she got this gold cross with a little sapphire she always wearin?”
Arthur recalled the jewel only now that Rommy mentioned it. There was no faulting a thief's eye. He found his throat thickening around the next question.
”Well, did you ever tell her you wanted to kill Luisa Remardi?”
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