Reversible Errors (57 page)

"Erno, like I said, he didn't care for surprises. Not at all. I was sashayin back inside, and he was screamin out to me, Don't do it, don't do it. If I'd been in a better frame of mind, I surely would have remembered Gus. But I didn't. Anyway, last I recall was goin through the door. Don't even remember the bang. Just the light. I saw Jesus' face that night. I truly did. I heard His voice. I was layin on that floor dyin, I think, but wherever I was, I knew I was all right now.

"And I have been. I went down to Atlanta not long after I was out of the hospital. Been there since. Had my life and finally done right.

"Now, course, it was all turned around. Erno was inside and I was outside. I was the one goin to visit and tellin him how Jesus could be lookin out for him, too. Might be he heard me, I was never sure. But somethin come to him once he knew he was sick. Couldn't just die with all those sins on him. I went to see him not long after New Year's, when he got the word about how bad the cancer was. I was tryin to offer comfort and he just looks at me in the middle of stuff, and says, They're gonna execute that poor moron pretty soon.' I knew what he meant. Wasn't the first time we'd talked about it. We can't let them do that,' says Erno.

" 'Do what you have to,' I told him.

" 'No,' he says, 'I ain gonna have shot you through the back to save your life and mine just to put you in the middle of all this now. It's still the same as I said -the po-lice will never believe you weren't in on the shooting. I'll tell what needs to be told. Not too sure I can get anybody to listen. But I'm gonna try. You just keep your mouth shut. Call Lawyer Aires. Fifth Amendment all the way.' " Collins looked up from his lap and his light eyes found Muriel's again with the same directness as when he'd started.

"That's what happened," he told her.

it was one of those days when it was just going to get hotter until the sun set. Even at 4 p
. M
., as she stood with Molto and Larr
y i
n the parking lot outside Aires's office, she could feel the blacktop softening under her feet. She'd left her sunglasses in her car and she squinted at both men. Facing the tyrannical sun, you didn't have to wonder why people had worshiped it.

"So?" she asked.

Each was mopey.

"I need to think about it," said Molto. "I want to go over the case file. Give me twenty-four. Let's all have a conference on Friday."

Larry and Molto made at once for their cars to escape the heat. Muriel walked to Larry's Concorde before he left. She could feel a touch of the air-conditioned cool inside when he let down the window.

"We never had that talk," she told him.

"No, we didn't." He had put on his Oakleys and she couldn't see his eyes, which was probably just as well. "Any point?"

"I have some things to say."

He shrugged. "I'll be at that house tomorrow night," he said, "putting together a punch list for my crew. Stop by for a beer if you like."

"There or square," she said.

He pulled out without looking back at her.

She opened her car and was still outside, letting the heat escape, when Jackson toddled from the glass doors toward his Cadillac, his briefcase under his arm. He was in a hurry.

"Got a date?" Muriel asked.

Spry and lively, Jackson nonetheless showed an additional spark when he answered, "As a matter of fact. Taking a fine lady to the Symphony in the Park." He'd been a widower for two or three years now.

Muriel asked how Collins was doing. He was in his wife's arms when they'd left.

"He's in there prayin, like he oughta be doin. Take him some time, but he'll be all right. That was the God's truth you just heard, Muriel. I hope you're smart enough to know that."

"If God wants the job, Jackson, I won't even bother trying. But otherwise I'm going to have to figure this out on my own."

"Don't you play with me, Muriel. There wasn't a word that young man spoke that didn't ring true. I'm not even gonna worry about yo
u t
hinkin otherwise." To start his car and lower the windows, Jackson leaned over the column. After touching the wheel, he cursed the heat and took a second to lick his thumb, but that didn't stop him from waving a finger at Muriel when he turned her way again.

"One thing you should know, Muriel. 1 been representing that young man since he was a juvenile. Bad a hoodlum as all the rest, but Erno, may he rest in peace, he kept up sayin, 'He's all right, he's all right, he's gonna be okay.' Never can tell, Muriel, which of them will come around. You folks don't even care to try these days. Lock 'em up as long as you can, as many as you can, even kill 'em if they give you a chance."

"Did I just hear you use the word 'hoodlum,' Jackson?"

"Hoodlum or not, you can't ever give up on a human being," Jackson said. "You know why? Because there is just no point in that. Can't be any reason to what we're doing here, if we're gonna give up on people."

If you made Jackson Aires the P
. A
. tomorrow, he'd condemn half his clients faster than he swatted flies. But he never saw a side he wouldn't take, as long as it put him opposite a prosecutor.

"Enjoy your evening, Jackson."

"I certainly intend to." He allowed himself a wicked laugh, then he sat stiffly on the Cadillac's red leather front seat with his feet still in the parking lot, using his hands to drag his legs beneath the wheel. Apparently, his back was giving him trouble, but whatever his infirmities, Jackson was not too old for love. Nobody was. He revved the engine enthusiastically. With Larry's recent departure, Muriel again was dragged down in an undertow of regret. A few days ago she'd been wondering if she might be willing to trade everything for love. The bizarre ironies of the way this case was working out suddenly pierced her. Somehow it had ended up winner take all. Jackson and Arthur were going to walk their clients and have love to boot. Muriel would get nothing.

"Have you heard the latest on this case?" she asked Jackson before he could close his window.

"What's that?"

"Arthur Raven and Gillian Sullivan. In the chapel of love."

"No," said Jackson. He emitted the same high cackle he had a second before. "How long is that goin on?"

Muriel shrugged.

"Doesn't that beat everything?" Jackson asked. "Arthur Raven and the Junkie Judge."

"The who?"

"Oh, that's just what I called her. The Junkie Judge. Gillian the Junkie Judge. I had several clients who swore they saw her coppin out on the street when she was still on the bench."

"Crack?"

"Heroin. So they said."

"Are you sure, Jackson?"

"They were just street riffraff, but there were plenty of them. Probably be happy to tell you the same thing today if you had any need to hear it. Put them in an angry frame of mind when they had to come up before her, I'll tell you that. Even a thug, Muriel, knows what's fair."

She couldn't tell if she was more astounded or amused. She laughed as she contemplated the whole notion.

"A junkie," said Muriel.

"That's what she was. But she isn't today. Today she's in the chapel of love." Jackson put his car in gear, but he smiled at her with great satisfaction. "See," he said, "it's just like I said."

"What's that?"

"There's just no point to ever give up on a human being."

Chapter
39

august 23, 2001

Firs
t f
irst, they fucked. He'd heard her say 'talk' in Aires's parking lot, but he knew what was coming. She wasn't through the door thirty seconds before they were together, and he couldn't say who had moved first. There was no logic to resisting. Nothing was going to get any better or worse.

But they were less shocked by themselves and thus more at ease. They went to the center, to that timeless essential place where pleasure becomes our whole purpose on earth. At the end, there was an instant when they were changing positions, her hand was on him, and his hand was in her, they had each other's button, and as her eyes briefly opened she gave him a grin of perfect celestial delight.

Afterwards, they lay on the same rug that still hadn't been cleaned, naked and silent for quite some time.

"Wow," said Muriel finally. "Home run. Grand slam."

He repeated her words, then went off to the kitchen to get a beer
for each of them. When he returned, he took a seat on a stepladder one of the painters had been using.

"So," he said, "I take it this is ciu revoir."

"You think that's what I came here to say?"

"Isn't it?"

"Not exactly."

"Okay, so tell me."

Nude, she sat up with her hands behind her. He wondered exactly where her tits had gone. She hadn't had much to start with, but now it was just beans on a plate. Not that he had anything to talk about, with a stomach that got in the way of his hard-on. Life, when you faced it, was cruel.

"Larry, I've done a lot of thinking. I want things that run smack into each other."

"Such as?"

"Am I running for P
. A
.?"

"You're running. What's next on the checklist?"

She gave him a look. "Do you think it would be as crystal clear if it was your life?"

"It is my life."

"Larry, how can you make love to me like that, then hate me so much ten minutes later?"

"Because I'm not going to make love like that to you again. Right?"

"What if you ease up a little, and come sit beside me, and do something stupid like hold my hand, and talk to me as if we're two people who care a lot for each other, instead of the Palestinians and the Israelis?"

They weren't hand-holding types. He and Muriel never had found a middle ground. Either they were fully joined or completely apart. But he settled next to her on the rug and she circled her arm over his biceps.

"You're right, Larry, I'd like to make this campaign. But I'm not sure that the windup on this case is going to permit that. Either way, though, I'm not walking out on Talmadge today-for the right reasons and the wrong ones, too. I can't win without him -that's the brutal truth. But, Larry, he also deserves better than that from me. I need t
o l
ook him in the eye and tell him this marriage hasn't gone very well. I've never done that."

"And you think that'll fix things?"

"Look, I married Talmadge on dubious premises. And I don't mean because I'm ambitious and he's ambitious-the truth is, that's the one part that's worked and always will. I'm talking about the way I see myself and see him. You're the one who read me that headline. But I'm going to work that through with my husband, not with you. Wherever that leads. Which, best guess, is probably out the door."

She was asking him to stand by, he realized suddenly. She was telling him they might still have a chance.

"And so what am I supposed to do? See if I can remember the words to Tou Keep Me Hangin' On'? I told you I can't live in between."

"I heard that. And I'm not proposing a life of secret passion. For both our sakes, this better stop. I'm just letting you know what I'm thinking. But I haven't paid my subscription to the psychic hotline. Who knows what happens? You said ten years ago you were getting out of your marriage, and you've still got the same address."

"Different situation."

"You get the point."

He did. He looked straight down at the rug. His dick, which had always gotten him in so much trouble, was bunched up like a baby. But that wasn't the part that hurt. He was desperate to stay angry, because it would keep the rest of it at bay. In the meantime, her grip tightened on his arm.

"But look-I have to say one more thing. What happened with this case -Gandolph? What was disclosed and what wasn't? A lot of that's my fault. I see that now. You told me you weren't like me and I didn't listen. There's a reason people say not to shit where you eat and not to fuck where you work. And I did it anyway. Because I had to know what it was like to be outside my marriage. I wanted to see how it felt."

"And how was it?"

She looked at him a long time.

"Pretty damn good," she said. She stayed there one more second. "But it was stupid and selfish, too. And unprofessional. So if there'
s b
lame to pass out on this case, let it land on me. Whatever the impact on my plans."

He liked that. He liked a lot of what she'd said in the last few minutes. It was honest. Usually, Muriel could be savage about everyone but herself.

"By the way," she said, "speaking of the case, you ready for todays humor?"

"I could use some right now."

She told him what Aires had said about Gillian copping on the street.

"No way," said Larry.

"I scoped it out a little today. Called Gloria Mingham at DEA. Technically speaking, none of this stuff about Gillian is grand jury
,
but Gloria still didn't like talking about it. She just sort of hummed to
me.