Part 27 (1/2)

”Is that what she sayin?”

”That's right.”

Rommy narrowed his face to a walnut, concentrating as if this had not been the talk of the cellblock for hours.

”I don't think I done said that to her. Nnn-uhh.” He continued to shake his head with growing confidence. When Arthur peeked at Pamela, who was holding the telephone handpiece between them, some of the light seemed restored to her long face. ”No,” said Rommy. ”I think the onliest one I gone on to like that was the other dude. And ain n.o.body seed him in years.”

”Like what?”

”You know. Killin and all that. Her. The lady.”

”You did say that?”

”But I'm sayin, he gone and all, that other dude. He got hisself cracked, even before them po-lice come down on me. Must have been into somethin nasty. Dudes he kicked with, they was like, he ain never gone come out. But I ain seen him down here. He doin fed time, or he dead, how I figure.”

”What dude are we talking about?”

”Dude what was getting them airline tickets from the lady.”

Arthur looked down at his yellow pad. He had a habit of rubbing the few woolly patches left on his head, as if he couldn't wait to get it over with, and he caught himself doing this now. Pamela and he had talked to Rommy countless times and never heard a word about airline tickets. When Arthur started at the firm, Raymond Horgan had told him, 'Remember, not only is your client his own worst enemy, he is also yours.'

”Are you talking about Pharaoh?” asked Arthur.

Rommy actually smiled. ”Tha's him. Tha's what he was callin hisself. Couldn't hardly 'member his name.”

Pamela inquired if Rommy had any memory of Pharaoh's last name.

”Might be I knowed another name, but all I recollect is Pharaoh.” He spelled it out in four letters: F, a, r, o. Pamela smiled fleetingly.

”And how did you meet him?” Arthur asked.

”I ain too sure 'bout that. I knowed him awhile. I'm thinkin could be he used to hook me up. But I ain seed him in a long time. Then I run across't him in a club. I was doin some bidness, and how you like that, there he is, didn't even 'member his name, but he knowed me. We got to kickin. He had hisself a whole new scene. How you call it?” Squirrel asked himself.

”Stealing,” said Arthur. At his side, Pamela recoiled, delivering a stark look, but he didn't really care. This was getting worse by the minute. As for his client, Rommy had learned long ago to humor rather than confront his antagonists. He chuckled amiably at his lawyer.

”No, I knowed that word,” he said. ”He had somethin goin where he was tellin me he could unload hot airline tickets and never get cracked or nothin. Pus.h.i.+n them through some company. So he had in mind if maybe I knowed somebody might get some tickets for him, be good for us both. Tha's how the lady got into it.”

”Luisa? Remind us how you knew Luisa,” said Arthur. From the corner of his eyes, he issued a warning look to Pamela. He didn't want her trying to dig Rommy out from under any of his earlier lies.

”She been takin some stuff off me, actually.”

”Stuff? You mean stolen merchandise?”

”Stole?” countered Rommy. ”I didn't never aks no man his bidness. If I could make a dollar, tha's all I wanted to know.”

”But Luisa bought from you?”

”Wasn't nothin really. They was one them dispatch guys over at T&L, with the trucks? Him and me put some stuff on the street. She took a radio, I 'member. That's how I knowed her to start. She was always kind of a talky one. Middle of the night, they wasn't a whole lot for her to be doin. She be rappin to the walls if it wasn't for me. The other, what'd you say her name””

”Genevieve?”

”She just liked to sit with her book, if they wasn't no planes. I ain never talked with her much. She probably don't even know my name, truth be told. Must be she sayin she know me cause that po-lice got her like he done with me. Ain that right?” Rommy peered over a hand to see how this defense, undoubtedly a.s.sembled for him last night by prison mates, would go down. Arthur suggested he continue.

”Well, tha's all. I aksed that other lady, Lisa, one night, said I knowed somebody might want to buy some extra tickets. She wasn't too interested to start, but I kept aksin”Pharaoh, he said this here was real money”and finally she say she gone meet up with this dude just to be done with it. Was over there by Gus's, and I's kinda walkin by the window, cause ol Gus was there and I couldn't go in. She seem to be shakin her head mostly, but Pharaoh, he musta tole her somethin good cause no more'n a week later, she gimme a nice handful of green money, mine for doin the hookup and all.

”Then I didn't hear no more of it. So one day, I's on them streets and yo, man, there's that Pharaoh and it falls out, man, he and this lady, Lisa, they been doin somethin together every month or two. And I ain gettin no more. Pharaoh, he like, I thought for sure she be kickin down to you, she sure as h.e.l.l gettin some on her end to do that So I told him I's gonna kill her next I see her, holdin out on me like that. That ain right, not a-tall. And she knowed it, too, even though she wudn't admit it. We scream and holler some, but in the end she give me that necklace thing to shut me up.”

”The cameo?”

”'Zactly. She gimme that to hold on to, cause she been afraid I's carryin on so round there at the airport, badmouthin with one person and another, she gone lose her job or somethin. Said that necklace was the most precious thing to her with her babies' pictures inside, and once I had that I's gone know she gettin me the money. Only she didn't never get round to it.”

”So you killed her,” said Arthur.

Rommy sat straight back. He frowned in a manner that seemed, against all Arthur's inner warnings, entirely spontaneous.

”You thinkin that now, too? You gone over with them po-lice?”

”You didn't answer me, Rommy. I asked you if you killed Luisa.”

”No, h.e.l.l no. I ain the kind to kill n.o.body. I's just woofin a little, cause she made me look so bad with my man Pharaoh and all.”

Rommy tried all the inept little tricks he'd affected throughout his messed-up life to enhance his credibility. He gave a small crippled smile and waved a thin hand, but eventually, as Arthur continued to study him, Rommy reverted to his fearful, skittery look. Still scrutinizing his client so intently that he might have been a code, Arthur thought suddenly of Gillian”not so much her plea to cling to hope but rather the sweetness of loving her. He felt somehow that protecting the Rommys of the world from the harshness that befell them was a piece of that. Those people were his, because, save for his father, he might well have been Rommy. Susan was Rommy. The planet was full of creatures in need, who could not really fend, and the law was at its best when it ensured that they were treated with dignity. He needed all of that in his life”love and purpose. He did not know, now that he'd finally embraced that, if he would ever be able to let go.

So with the desperation with which he wanted love, he wanted to believe Rommy. But he could not. Rommy had a motive to kill Luisa. He had said he would do it. And then, when he had been caught with her cameo in his pocket, he'd admitted he had done it. It could not have all been a coincidence.

While Arthur deliberated, Pamela was watching him, as if she needed his permission to hope herself. He moved his chin back and forth very slightly to let her know where he stood. Her look in response was deadened but resigned. It was she who then put the right question to their client.

”Why didn't you tell us this, Rommy? Any of it? We've talked with you about this case I don't know how many times.”

”You didn't never aks. I tole all them lawyers what aksed.”

There was always a point with Rommy when belief in his utter guilelessness evaporated, or more properly, where it was revealed as yet another mask. He may have had an IQ south of 75, but he knew how to be deceitful. From the start, he had realized the impact the truth about Luisa would have on Arthur and Pamela and their enthusiasm for his case. He knew that because he had seen what happened before, when he had told his earlier lawyers about fencing tickets with Luisa, getting shortchanged, and vowing to kill her. At the start, Arthur had decided not to pierce Rommy's privilege with any of his former attorneys, bearing in mind the motto he had repeated to Pamela the day they first met Rommy”new lawyer, new story. But there was no longer any mystery about why Rommy's trial counsel had used an insanity defense or why their successors had never challenged Rommy's guilt. Given his prior education, Rommy had no trouble reading what was on his present lawyers' faces.

”I ain kill't n.o.body,” he repeated. ”I ain the kind.” Then even he seemed to acknowledge the pointlessness of his protests. His shoulders lost shape and he looked away. ”That don't mean they ain gone kill me though, do it?”

Arthur would do his duty and fight. He would remind the appellate court of Erno's confession and the tardiness of Genevieve's testimony about Rommy's threat. But there was nothing to substantiate Erno, while Genevieve's version was consistent with all the known facts. Its sincerity was bolstered by her reluctance. Worst of all, as Arthur now knew, what she'd said was true.

”No,” said Arthur. ”It doesn't mean that.”

”Yeah,” said Rommy, ”I knowed that, cause I already started in havin the dream again last night.”

”What dream?” asked Pamela.

”How they comin to git me. How it's time. When I was first in Condemned, I's havin that dream all the time. Wake up, you sweatin so, you smell bad to your own self, I swear. Sometime I think they ain gonna have to bother killin me. All us Yellows, we always talkin 'bout it. You hear some dude cryin in the night, man, you know he done had the dream. It ain right a-tall to do that to a man, make him hear all that. They let me outta here,” said Rommy, ”I ain never gone be right.”

Neither Arthur nor Pamela could find a response to that.