Slipping Into Darkness (16 page)

 

“So, what do you think of it?”

 

Her fingers tapped the side of her cup restlessly. He noticed they were a little plumper than the rest of her, as if there were another woman with a healthier appetite trapped inside of her.

 

“It’s all right,” she said finally. “A little sentimental, maybe.”

 

He wondered if she had a thing about sci-fi like Allison did as well, or if all they had in common was a hang-up about food.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. ‘Sentimental.’ Like he’s laying it on a little thick.”

 

She shrugged without rancor and turned back to her book.

 

“But, you know, I feel for the guy,” he went on, still trying to get her interested.

 

She half turned and pulled her collar up, not quite covering her chin this time. He couldn’t tell if she wanted him to stop or go on. He’d never had much aptitude for reading women in the first place, and what happened with Allison certainly didn’t help. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to tell if a female was interested without her sitting on his lap and sticking her tongue down his throat.

 

“I mean, here he is, dog-tired, starving, been walking since sunup, willing to put cold cash on the barrel for a bed and something to eat. And these people keep kicking him out. All because of some bad rap he didn’t deserve back in the day.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“What?”

 

“You said you just started.” She finally bit off a bigger hunk. “How do you know he’s not guilty if you haven’t read that far?”

 

“You can tell by the way he’s writing about him.”

 

“But maybe you’re just being fooled into, like . . . sympatheticness,” she said with a slight lisp.

 

He looked down at the dense thicket of translated words. Maybe he
was
missing something. For years, all he’d really been reading was science fiction and parts of the New York State Penal Code. “Guess you’re right.” He awkwardly raised his latte in a toast. “Can’t assume anything about anybody.”

 

He put his cup down and straightened his tie, noticing his own reflection in a mirror on the wall: a man with metallic silvery glint in his hair trying to talk to a girl too young for him. Again he was jarred at not recognizing himself right away.

 

“So it’s nice, having a place like this, where you can just hang out without anybody hassling you,” he said, imitating the easy conversational tone he’d heard other people using. “They have a lot of these around town?”

 

“What, are you kidding?” She frowned.

 

“No. Why?”

 

“You’re telling me you don’t know about Starbucks. What, did you just get out of prison or something?”

 

“Pardon me?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly.

 

“There’s practically one on every corner. . . .”

 

“Yeah, but why did you say what you just said? You don’t know me.”

 

It felt like she’d just dashed hot coffee in his face.

 

“Forget it. Okay?”

 

“I just don’t understand why you would say that.”

 

She turned away and pulled her collar halfway up her nose like an old western train robber’s mask.

 

“
Miss,
I was talking to you. . . .”

 

She picked up her book again and started reading, as if he’d simply dematerialized.

 

“Excuse me.”
He raised his voice. “You know, it’s rude not to look at somebody when they’re
speaking
to you.”

 

Several of the women at the nearby tables stopped talking and turned around, as if he’d started honking a loud out-of-tune saxophone in the middle of the delicate little chamber music they were making.

 

“Yo, did I
offend
you somehow?” He stared, refusing to be ignored. “If I said something, just tell me please. . . .”

 

They were all looking at him now, wondering who this crazy man was. They probably just thought he was some wild-eyed homeless guy in off the street, trying to get attention. They didn’t know he was someone with an education. They didn’t see he’d once had a future that looked almost as bright as theirs. They didn’t understand how all of that could just be taken away from a person, that somebody with refinement and true deep feeling could be turned into a beast through no fault of his own, that he was less than a week out of a place where looking at someone the wrong way could get you a fork in the eyeball.

 

“I was just trying to have a conversation with you like a normal person,” he insisted, still trying to be heard.

 

The day manager walked up to him, a gawky white guy with a tiny hoop in his eyebrow that was supposed to distract from the disastrous state of his pocked skin.

 

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

 

“Yeah, a-ight, just hang on a second. . . .”

 

Hoolian put his hand up, asking only for a little indulgence, but the guy reared back as if he’d been slapped.

 

“Aw, come on now . . . don’t be like that . . .”

 

He tried to make a joke out of it with a mock karate chop, but the guy started gesturing to the Asian girl behind the counter, making his thumb and pinkie into a phone shape like he wanted her to call 911.

 

“Hey, bro,
tomalo con calma.
” Hoolian dropped his hands. “Take it easy.”

 

But the guy kept backing away from him, terrified. So, what was the point of arguing? Everywhere he went somebody was messing with him, trying to get him to do things he didn’t want to do. It was as if they could somehow tell his settings were already on too high and all they had to do was nudge him a little to get the needle to jump into the red.

 

“Sir, I’m inviting you to enjoy a cup of coffee at any of our other locations.” The manager pointed toward the door. “But I really do need you to go. . . .”

 

“All right, all right, I got the message.” Hoolian buttoned his jacket and picked up his book. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

 

He started to edge his way out around the little tables, looking back one last time at the girl in the black turtleneck.

 

“You know,
sympatheticness
isn’t even a word.”

 

 

15

 

 

 

THE COURTROOM DOORS creaked open and Francis turned around, trying to find the source of the commotion.

 

The reporters who’d shown up to see if Hoolian’s indictment would be dismissed this morning were all murmuring. Dov Ashman, that craggy old fossil who’d covered the original trial for the
Daily News
back in ’84, put a clawlike hand on the ripe young pudgy knee of Judy Mandel from the
Trib.
Allen Robb, that bow-tie-wearing son of a bitch from the
Times,
started whispering to that slob from the
Post
whose name Francis could never remember. The doors clunked shut and he finally found the focal point: Eileen Wallis entering the courtroom with Tom fastened to her arm.

 

Jackie Kennedy herself couldn’t have made a more dramatic entrance. An appropriately somber Chanel ensemble—olive rather than mourning black—wine-dark lipstick on a stark white face, the eyes hidden behind a pair of tinted glasses. The hair was still more ginger than silver and she’d kept her figure, but she walked a little stiffly down the aisle. Not that Francis would have blamed her if she was doped to the gills today; he would’ve emptied the medicine cabinet himself under the circumstances. But there was also something regal about her, as if grief had put her beyond the concerns of ordinary mortals.

 

Just her showing up today was a statement in and of itself. It said,
Hold on.
It said the ground had been disturbed. It said at least one person in this room wasn’t quite ready to “move on.” Yet when she stopped at the front row and started to sit down next to Francis, he saw no hint of recognition. No acknowledgment of the time they’d spent in each other’s company, comparing common wounds and trying to accept unacceptable things.

 

“Eileen.” He touched her arm as she sidled in. “It’s Francis Loughlin. I’m here for Allison.”

 

The eyes barely flickered behind the tinted lenses.

 

“Thanks for coming, Francis.” Tom reached across her to shake his hand.

 

“Ah, sure, I couldn’t have stood to miss it.”

 

Though technically there were a lot of other places he could’ve been this morning. This was supposed to be his day off and he was already close to his unofficial overtime cap for the year. Not to mention that he had at least a half-dozen active investigations he could’ve been working on instead.

 

A side door opened and the hum of informal collegiality abruptly died away. Paul Raedo stopped shuffling papers at the prosecution table, and the old wooden pews squeaked as everyone keeled forward to get a good look. Julian Vega was just coming out and taking his place beside Debbie Aaron at the defense table.

 

Francis almost didn’t recognize him at first. This big strapping bull with close-cropped hair and a little beard, a powerful neck sticking out of a gray wool jacket with a maroon shirt and black tie. He looked as if he could’ve been running for state assembly in East Harlem or at worst getting indicted for securities fraud.

 

“Quiet in the courtroom,” Tony Barone, the court officer, snapped, his eyebrows jumping like two halves of Stalin’s mustache on his forehead.

 

Hoolian turned to look over his shoulder and check out the crowd. He’d probably put on another ten pounds, most of it muscle, since he’d tried to go after Francis in the prison corridor. He had that hardened ex-con stance now, shoulders back, chin up, deadened eyes. But when he saw Francis, his face broke into a bitter half-smile as if he were saying,
Here we are again, amigo.
Debbie A. saw what he was looking at, frowned, and started whispering in his ear, her heels coming out of her shoes a little as she stood on tiptoe.

 

“All rise.”

 

Judge Miriam “Get to the Point!” Bronstein entered, almost disappearing in voluminous black robes, dark curls framing the small pursed face of a seventy-two-year-old grandmother who still rode a bike to court every day from the Upper West Side. Francis remembered her as a Legal Aid lawyer, cranky and combative, never willing to believe a police officer could coax a legitimate confession out of a defendant without the liberal use of the Manhattan Yellow Pages upside the head. Since making it to the bench through the usual political connections (West Side Reform Democrats, Manhattan Democratic Club, etc.), she
had
made a conscious effort to be more evenhanded, but the periods of magisterial calm were often interrupted by irascible outbursts, as if everyone in the courtroom suddenly reminded her of her own notoriously disappointing children.

 

“Proceed, Counselors.” She beckoned for Paul and Debbie A. to approach. “What do you have for me? My calendar is full today.”

 

“Your Honor, this is continuing with the
People
versus
Julian Vega,
” began Paul, who’d been second seat at the original trial. “Judge Santiago granted the defendant’s four-forty motion on Rikers Island a few days ago and —”

 

“All right, all right, already,” Bronstein cut him off. “Get to the point! Are you ready to take this to trial?”

 

Paul swayed back on his heels a little. He’d already warned Francis that Bronstein knew he was up for a judgeship, so there would be a certain amount of punching in the clenches this morning.

 

“At this point, yes, Your Honor,” he said. “We’re reserving the right to go full-speed ahead.”

 

Debbie A. spoke up. “Your Honor, not wishing to waste the court’s time, I want to move for immediate dismissal of this indictment.”

 

“On what grounds?”

 

“Double jeopardy. It’s totally unconstitutional for my client to be tried twice for the same crime.”

 

“Nice try.” The judge’s eyes crinkled behind horn-rimmed glasses, perhaps seeing something of her younger self in Deb’s swift astringent delivery. “But if the original conviction was vacated, it’s as if the first trial never happened. Can’t have it both ways, Counselor.”

 

Francis saw Deb lean over to explain, but Hoolian shook her off, indicating he understood perfectly.

 

“Any other issues before we set a trial date?”

 

“Yes, Your Honor.” Paul approached the bench. “The People would like to file a motion to discontinue bail for Mr. Vega. We believe that after nineteen and a half years in prison, he poses a significant flight risk. Also, while he was locked up he continued to display a propensity for violence. He was put in solitary confinement for thirty days for attempting to assault a police officer. And our office has documents from the Department of Correctional Services that show he was put in the special housing unit on another occasion because of an incident involving a stabbing at —”

 

“Oh, that’s outrageous.” Debbie A. wheeled on him, chocolate-brown suit jacket snug over her shoulders. “That’s not part of this court record and certainly not relevant to bail. It’s just a cheap shot by Mr. Raedo in front of the press.”

 

And an effective one, judging from the muttering out of the reporters. Francis, who’d spent four hours prying the report out of Corrections yesterday, turned all the way around and saw Dov Ashman lean over to Judy Mandel, making sure he’d heard right.

 

“Well, Ms. Aaron should be something of an expert in cheap shots after the interviews she’s given impugning the integrity of the original investigation,” Paul countered. “Her comments were clearly meant to pollute the jury pool. I’d like to ask for a gag order.”

 

“Oh, grow up.” The judge removed her glasses. “We haven’t even gotten going yet and you two are fighting in the sandbox.”

 

Francis sat back, with his arms across the top of the bench, still smarting himself about some of Deb’s recent quotes. There’d been a couple of moments when it almost felt like he was the one on trial here today.

 

“I’m not going to revoke bail.” The judge peered down. “The defendant didn’t run away before the original trial, so there’s no reason to sanction him. Now can we please just get to the point and set a trial date if we’re going to do this all over again?”