The Juror (17 page)

“For example?”

She takes a moment before she speaks. Then she lifts her lip up in a sort of sneer and says to Bozeman:

“Why you work for him?”

Says Bozeman, “Excuse me?”

“You know why he keep on killing? Huh? Because nobody stand up to him, nobody.”

The judge chides, “Mrs. Riggio, please—”

“Everybody scared!” she shouts. “When he please, he kill.”

Tallow to his feet. And Wietzel scolding her, “Ma’am, you need to answer the question—”

“Ah, you scared too,” she tells the judge. She turns to Bozeman. “You scared.” She looks to the jurors. “You scared.”

Says Wietzel, “Mrs. Riggio. Shut up!”

She shrugs. “So pity the kids, huh?”

Of course Wietzel gives her a long stern lecture and tells the jurors to disregard, but Annie wonders why the hell he let
her say it in the first place.
You jurors are all scared, so pity the kids
. Why don’t you shut up, woman? Why didn’t he kill you too? You ugly old gnome, you sound like a preacher, why do we have
to hear your sermons? Where do you get the right to talk about
pity the kids
when your husband was a Mafia bastard and I’m glad they killed him, and if your grandson’s dead, who’s to blame for that?
Not me, witch. Shut up, witch.

Annie wonders, Am I going to get through this?

I don’t think I’m going to get through this.

S
LAVKO
checks his watch: 4:40. So whoever this Mr. Flanagan is, he’s late.

The guy said 4:30—“Four-thirty at your office, Mr. Sure-Knack, on the dot.” But he wouldn’t say what for. Well, OK, maybe
the guy found another PI. Which would suit Slavko fine, since that would leave him free to focus all his thoughts on Sari.

He watches the clock tick off another minute, then he dials her number again.

He’s eager to tell Sari about her boyfriend’s mysterious wanderings. But again he gets her damn machine. He’s already left
her two messages. Still, he listens anyway, if only to fill the chambers of his ear with her voice. When he hears the beep,
he hangs up.

Slavko knows that he’s seriously smitten. There’s no way to get around this. Another crush, another runaway train. So I’m
a passion-ate clown. So what am I supposed to do about it?

In the meantime, this Flanagan, is he coming or what? Because I wouldn’t mind calling it a day and stopping at Gillespie’s
and getting myself a pick-me-up. Would not mind clearing out of this smoky claustrophobic shambles of an office and taking
in some fresh air.

Well, I’ll wait another fifteen minutes.

He lights another cigarette.

Then he gets up abruptly and says, “To hell with it,” grabs his jacket and goes for the door.

At that moment there’s a knock.

He stands frozen. He hopes if he doesn’t answer, they’ll go away. He waits.

Second knock.

Then the door opens.

A sharp-beaked tough-looking young man peers into the dismal office. “Mister Sure-Knack?”

Slavko corrects his pronunciation. “Chur-nik.”

“That’s what I said. Sorry I’m late, Sure-Knack.”

“Are you Mr. Flanagan?” says Slavko.

“That’s right.”

The young man saunters in. He wears a suit that looks a size too small for him. Maybe he likes that, though, maybe he likes
the way the tight fit shows off all his muscles and his thick stovepipe neck.

Slavko heads for the swivel chair behind his desk. He gestures toward the only other chair in the room. “Have a seat. What
can I help you with?”

Flanagan doesn’t sit. He bats at the smoke in front of his eyes. He says, “You don’t got much ventilation in here.”

“That’s true,” says Slavko. He does not like this Mr. Flanagan. The guy’s cheekiness puts him off. But even in the dementia
of new love Slavko knows he can’t pass up a potential client.

He mutters, “I’ll try to get the window open if you want.”

“This is a detective office?” says Flanagan. “What, you got no partners? You spend all day alone here in this shithole?”

Knife edge to this guy’s demeanor. Trouble’s coming? Or maybe not, maybe you’re overreacting. Don’t wait to find out, though.
Get your hand on the old Smith & Wesson. It’s in the drawer. Relax, take it easy, but get your hand on it now.

He reaches for the knobs on the desk drawer. “Well, let me get out an application here—”

Flanagan slams his hands down on the desktop. Then slides them forward till they hang over the edge where they can hold the
drawer shut. He curls his lips back and he says:

“I got to fill out some fancy application for you to suck my cock?”

His hands come up fast into Slavko’s chest. He pushes, the swivel chair rolls back a foot and the casters stick and the chair
dumps Slavko. His head hits the wall. His head bounces against a filing cabinet and comes to rest on the floor.

Get up.

Of course you’d love to lose consciousness—but you can’t afford to. Figure this out. Those are your knees down there, you
see them? Put your weight on them. Use your arm for a brace and stand up.

Good. Now go for that S&W.

But the S&W is already in Mr. Flanagan’s hands.

“So what were you going to do with
this
, Sure-Knack? You hold up your clients, is that how you operate?” He pockets the pistol. He comes around the desk. “You dick.”

Slavko wants to back up but the fallen chair is behind his feet and there’s nowhere to back to. Flanagan keeps moving in till
he’s right up against him. His garlic breath an inch away from Slavko’s nose.

“That’s what they call you, isn’t it? A private dick?”

The room is illuminated by the flash of lightning coming out of Slavko’s groin. The only reason he doesn’t fall is that Flanagan
is holding him up.

Says Flanagan, “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I got confused. I thought maybe it was a
public
dick.”

Slavko takes a quick swing at the guy. But the air in here has turned thick and syrupy and dreamlike, and his swing gets bogged
down. Flanagan blocks it with a snorting laugh and grabs him by the lapels and laughs some more and hurls him against the
wall. The room takes a half spin to the left. Settles. Slavko drops his chin and drools onto his shirt.

Flanagan asks him, “What were you doing at the dam?”

“The what? The dam? Oh, yeah. Wrong. Wrong turn.”

“Wrong answer.”

More lightning.

When Slavko comes to, there’s someone else in the room.

The goon he saw at the dam. Mr. Ugly-As-Sin. He’s going through Slavko’s jacket pockets, and soon enough he comes up with
the logbook. He starts leafing through it. Slavko blunders forward to take the thing back. Flanagan tosses him against the
wall again and this collision is even more discouraging than its predecessors. And Slavko winds up back on the floor.

Mr. Ugly-As-Sin arrives at an entry in the logbook that seems to entertain him. He chuckles.

“Oh bite my crank. Look at this. Sari Knowles.”

He leans over Slavko. “So you’re working for Sari? Yeah? She thought her boyfriend was dickin around on her, and she paid
you to sniff out the other woman’s pussy? Is that the deal?”

He catches some of Slavko’s thinning hair between the fingers of his fist. He pulls. Lifts Slavko up by his scalp.

“IS THAT THE DEAL?”

“Yeah.”

“But, see, those two are in
love
. So what business is it of yours? Huh? Their problems? None of your business. You SHITSUCK! Can’t leave two lovers alone?
No, you gotta make your fuckin fee. Look at me. OPEN YOUR EYES!”

Slavko looks into Ugly-As-Sin’s rheumy and bloodshot eyes and the man tells him, “Now I’m going to give you one more chance,
you lucky duck. Sari ever calls you back? You get rid of her. I don’t care what you tell her. Tell her one of your fleas died,
you’re in mourning. But I don’t want to ever hear your name again. I ever hear your name again I’m gonna erase your fuckin
name from this planet. Follow?”

Slavko nods.

“You can go live on some other planet. Follow me?”

Slavko nods.

“Ever heard the name Louie Boffano?”

Slavko stares, wide-eyed.

“Well, you just heard it again.”

O
LIVER
hears the knock and goes out to the porch, to the screen door. Jesse’s waiting out there. Leaning back on his bike seat.
He says, “What’s up, man?”

Oliver shrugs.

Jesse says, “Where you been?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t felt like coming out.”

“You coming to lacrosse on Wednesday?”

“Yeah. I guess. If it stays clear. If it doesn’t start raining again.”

“Yeah,” says Jesse. “Hey, so what do you think of this, man? Is this freakin fly or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Hey.
Look
.”

Oliver opens the door. Holds on to the jamb and sort of hangs partway out the door. Jesse cocks his head, strikes a pose—and
then Oliver notices the little stud earring.

“So what do you think?”

“Cool.”

“You think? I wasn’t gonna do it. But Chloe kept saying come on, so I did? So I like it.”

“Chloe?”

“Yeah.”

Oliver blinks at him. “Chloe Zichy?”

“Yeah. You don’t know about me and Chloe? I’m seeing her now.”

“Chloe with the knockers?”

“Those are fresh, huh?”

“You kissed her?”

“I’m
seeing
her, man. You don’t know what that means?”

“You fucked her?”

“Well I mean I could if I wanted. Come on, let’s ride. I gotta talk to you about it. Man to man.”

“I can’t. I’m fixing dinner.”

“
You’re
fixing dinner?”

“Microwave.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“Upstairs.”

Up in her room, Oliver thinks, lying in bed and writing another letter she’ll never send. But that’s none of Jesse’s business.

Jesse lowers his voice. “She won’t let you out?”

“Nah, I just don’t want to come out.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. What’s it like, kissing Chloe?”

“She’s fly, man.”

“Did you touch her tits?”

“Her items? I mean if I wanted to…”

“Wow.”

“Come on out, man.”

“Nah.”

“You know what Larry Hitt says? He says he thinks you’re a spaceman. I told him to go screw himself. But I mean you are turning
into a freaking hermit.”

The microwave goes off. The three beeps.

“That’s my dinner.”

“Shit.”

“Thanks for coming by, though.”

“Hey,” says Jesse. “No doubt.”

Oliver goes in and takes out the two chicken pot pies. Goes to the foot of the stairs and calls Mom. She says she’ll be down
in a minute. No reason to believe her except that now it’s time for the local news on TV. Sometimes that’ll get her down here.
He turns on the set. Turns it way up. Goes and sits in the kitchen, and digs through his pie assiduously, removing all the
peas he can find.

If Mom wants him to eat peas, she can come down here and eat them with him.

He breaks off a chunk of the crust and smushes it around in the gravy. The crust is the only part of the pie he likes. Doesn’t
like it
much
, though.

He spears the chunk with his fork and lifts it and looks at it.

He hears the words
Boffano trial
, and he slides his eyes toward the set. It’s in the next room and turned away from him, but he can see an angle of it. There’s
a sequence of artist’s sketches, courtroom scenes. The reporter is saying:

“… though small in stature, even frail looking, Angela Riggio seemed as fierce as a tiger on the witness stand today. She
insisted that Louie Boffano wanted to, quote, ‘sell the drug’ to the kids, and that her husband had tried to stop him. Even
when Louie Boffano threatened to kill him, she said, her husband refused to accept any involvement in the drug trade.”

Oliver hears a creak from the floorboards above him. He hears footsteps and then his mother’s door opening. Then a few more
footsteps.

She wants to listen in. But she won’t come down.

Says the reporter:

“When defense attorney Lawrence Bozeman challenged her knowledge of his client’s activities, Mrs. Riggio seemed to flare up,
demanding, ‘Why do you work for him?’—then answered her own question. ‘You’re scared,’ she said. She pointed to the jurors
and said, ‘They’re scared too.’”

On the screen, a sketch of the jurors. Oliver goes into the parlor for a better look. In one of the sketches a woman juror
has her eyes cast down, with her face propped on the splayed fingers of her hand. Looks sort of like Mom.

Says the reporter, “Several of the jurors appeared visibly moved when the old widow said, ‘Pity the kids. Pity the kids.’”

Oliver hears the floorboards creak again. Mom is going back to her room.

An ad comes on.

He mulls over what that woman said.

They’re scared.

And now a certain thought, which for days has been buzzing around at the fringe of his thoughts, breaks in. He draws a sharp
breath. For a long time he stands staring at the TV and not seeing it, unable to move, and every time he fights that idea
out of his head it comes right back. He’s helpless against it. Dumb paranoia, he calls it. Stupid, he calls it. Kid’s stuff.
He shakes his head. He rolls his eyes and laughs at himself.

But the thought keeps finding its way back in.

Got to get some help here, he decides. Somebody to tell me what a bozo I am, I’m going bats,
this can’t be true
. Got to find Juliet, he decides, let her wisecrack some sense into me.

J
ULIET
thinks, as she thinks every time 5555 comes up on the beeper, that she’s not cut out to be a doc. Particularly not an emergency
room doc. She thinks that all she really wants is to be a calypso dancer in Trinidad. Or better yet, bedridden for the rest
of her life with a mountain of books beside her and an endless coffle of chained, sleepy-eyed lovers that she can order up
from room service.

But in the meantime, it’s midnight at St. Ignatius Hospital and 5555 is on the beeper.