Reversible Errors (41 page)

He watched her assess 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 wanted to talk about it now. He'd blam
e t
he 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 tunes 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 institution, they waited as always. When Arthur phoned the office, his assistant 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 glass 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 thiefs eye. He found his throat thickening around the next question.

"Well, did you ever tell her you wanted to kill Luisa Remardi?"

"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 nobody 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. Pushin 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 assembled 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.