The Last Innocent Man (18 page)

T
he visitor’s room at the state penitentiary was a large, open space filled with couches and chairs upholstered in red vinyl and outfitted with chrome armrests. Three vending machines stood against one wall. There was an occasional low wooden table with an ashtray on it.

Jenny had never been in a place like this before, and the visits depressed her. The other prisoners seemed strange and threatening and not like anyone she had ever met. Whenever she entered the prison, she felt like a visitor to a foreign country.

Larry did not understand her reluctance to touch him. All around them wives, lovers, and relatives embraced the other prisoners. She tried to explain how she felt to Larry, but he saw her reticence as another betrayal.

“I talked to Mr. Bloch,” Jenny said. “He says he’ll have your brief filed at the court of appeals this week. He sounded hopeful, Larry.”

Stafford shook his head. He had fired David as soon as Judge Rosenthal had imposed the mandatory life sentence on him. Jerry Bloch, an experienced appellate attorney, was representing him now. They had talked about the appeal last week.

“I’m not going to get out. That bastard Nash saw to that when he railroaded me at the trial.”

“But Mr. Bloch—”

“I talked to Bloch. Don’t forget, I’m a lawyer. There aren’t any errors Bloch can work with, because Nash never objected when they put that pimp on the stand. That son of a bitch socked me in here but good.”

Jenny said nothing. She had been through this before. Once Larry got started, he would stay in a rage during the entire visit.

“If he’d cross-examined Johnson or kept him off…Jenny, there were a thousand ways he could have kept that pimp off the stand.”

He could also have told the judge that you and I lied, she thought to herself, but he didn’t. He didn’t do anything. An image of the last day of Larry’s trial slipped unbidden into her consciousness. Once again she saw T.V. Johnson walk from the hushed courtroom. The jury filing out. The judge and prosecutor following. But David and Larry had not moved. And when the guard finally led Larry away, David still remained seated. She had waited for him in the back of the room, wanting to talk to him, to hold him.

When everyone else had left, David got to his feet
slowly, as if he were climbing the last section of a steep mountain grade. When he turned, he looked exhausted and his eyes had lost their focus. He packed his papers away and walked toward the door, up the aisle in Jenny’s direction. When he reached her, he paused for barely a moment and looked down at her. Where she had expected hate, she saw only despair. The look of a man who had given up everything without a fight.

That evening, after short deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. She had not seen David since. He never answered her calls and never seemed to be at home. After a while she stopped trying.

“Bloch says if we lose the appeal in the supreme court, I can go into federal court and allege incompetence of counsel. But I have to wait and exhaust my state appeals first.”

“We can do that, if you want to.”

“You bet I want to.”

“Won’t it come out that…about my not being with you that night?”

“I don’t care, Jenny. That’s only perjury. I’m in here for life for a murder I didn’t commit.”

And what about me? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. If she had to be punished in order for Larry to get out, she would be getting what she deserved. If she hadn’t betrayed David, he would never have collapsed the way he had. Larry was in prison because she had destroyed David with her lies.

David. How she loved him. More so now that he was lost to her forever. She remembered the night they had first met. It had taken all her control to refrain from calling him. And why hadn’t she? Guilt. It was always the same
answer. Guilt had prevented her from asking Larry for a divorce long before Darlene Hersch was murdered. Guilt prevented her from telling David the truth. And guilt was keeping her shackled to a man who would probably spend the rest of his life in prison.

T
HE UPTURNED COLLAR
of Thomas Gault’s jacket blocked the icy wind and sent it skittering through the drunken sailors and carousing longshoremen who crowded the sidewalk. Gault pushed open the door of The Dutchman, a noisy workingmen’s bar that took its trade from the docks. A gust of wind chilled two men who were sitting at the bar, and they looked Gault’s way when he entered. The bar lined the wall to Gault’s right, and a row of booths occupied the wall on the left. Most of the room was filled with Formica-topped tables. Two pool tables stood in a cleared space near the gents’ room.

“Shut the door,” one of the men at the bar commanded. Gault smiled to himself. He didn’t come to the docks for the atmosphere. He came for the action. And it looked as if tonight the action might start sooner than he’d expected. He had planned on shutting the door, but now he let it stay open.

“Shut it yourself, asshole,” he said, and walked down the bar without another glance in the man’s direction. He heard an angry murmur behind him, and a few seconds later the door slammed shut.

Gault positioned himself with his back to the wall at an unoccupied table by the jukebox where he could view the room. A waitress brought him a beer and he took a sip, watching the man he had insulted over the rim of the glass. He was a little over six feet. A thick roll of fat slopped over
his belt at the waistline, and his shirt was partially out of his pants, exposing a sweat-stained undershirt. His movements were slow and jerky. It was obvious that he had been drinking for some time.

The fat man’s companion was Gault’s size. His figure was trim and he seemed sober. The fat man seemed to have forgotten about the incident at the door and was back in his cups. Too bad, Gault thought. He let his eyes drift over the rest of the room. A sailor and a heavyset woman with teased blond hair were shooting pool against two boys in work shirts and jeans. The woman sank her shot. One of the boys swore. The sailor laughed and smacked the woman’s ass.

Three men a few tables from Gault were arguing about an upcoming heavyweight fight. When Gault’s eyes moved back to the bar, they met the fat man’s by accident and stayed there. The staring match was no contest. The fat man folded in less than a minute and gave Gault the finger to save face. Gault blew the fat man a kiss. The man got off his stool and started up the bar. His friend grabbed his elbow in an attempt to restrain him, but he lurched free, stumbling against the bar as he broke the shorter man’s grip. He staggered in Gault’s direction, and his friend followed after a moment’s hesitation.

“Were you lookin’ at me, dog turd?” the fat man demanded when he reached Gault’s table.

“Leave it be, Harvey,” the shorter man said.

“He blew a kiss at me, Al,” Harvey said without taking his eyes off Gault. “You seen that. Fags kiss boys. You a fag, skinhead?”

“You’re so cute, I’d let you find out,” Gault lisped effeminately.

“I think you’d better split, buddy,” Harvey’s friend said, suddenly angry at Gault.

“I thought you had more sense than your friend,” Gault said sharply, pushing his chair back and slowly getting to his feet.

“I don’t like a smart-mouth any better than Harv, so why don’t you leave while you still can.”

“Can’t I finish my drink?” Gault asked in a mocking tone. Harvey stared at Gault for a second, then swept the beer off the table. The glass shattered on the floor and the noise in the bar stopped. Gault felt a rush of adrenaline. His whole body seemed in movement.

“It’s finished—” Harvey started, his wind suddenly cut off by the foot that Gault snapped into his groin. Gault’s left foot connected with the fat man’s temple. Harvey’s head snapped to one side and he sat down hard.

Gault pivoted, blocking Al’s first wild punch with his forearm. He aimed a side kick at his opponent’s kneecap. It was off, striking with only enough force to jostle him off balance. The follow-up left only grazed Al’s eye.

The advantage of surprise was lost and Al had good reflexes. He charged into Gault, wrestling him backward into the wall. Gault grunted from the impact, momentarily stunned.

Harvey was on one knee, struggling to get up. Gault brought his forehead down fast. Al’s nose cracked. Blood spattered across Gault’s shirt. He boosted his knee and felt it make hard contact with Al’s groin. There was a gasp and the grip on his arm relaxed. Gault drove a right to the solar plexus and shot his fingers into the man’s eyes. Al screamed and sagged. Gault snapped the side of his hand
against the man’s neck, and he sank to the floor, his face covered with blood.

Glass shattered and Gault set himself as Harvey moved toward him, a broken bottle held tightly in his hand. Gault circled warily, keeping distance between them. Harvey feinted and Gault moved back. He felt the edge of the bar cut into his back. There was a flash of movement behind him and he shifted slightly, but not enough to avoid being hit across the back of the head by the sawed-off pool cue the bartender kept for just such occasions.

T
HE PHONE WAS
ringing. David opened his eyes slowly and struggled to bring his other senses into focus. He became aware of a sour, phlegmy taste in his mouth and a dull ache behind his eyes. The phone rang again and he flinched. It was still dark outside. According to the digital clock, it was two in the morning.

David picked up the receiver to stop the ringing.

“Dave,” a voice at the other end called out.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Tom. Tom Gault. I’m in jail, old buddy, and you gotta come down here and bail me out.”

“Who?” David asked. The words had not registered.

“Tom Gault. Bring your checkbook. I’ll pay you back when I get home.”

David sat up and tried to concentrate. “What did you do?”

“I was in a fight. These clowns have charged
me
with assault. I’ll explain it all to you once I’m out.”

David didn’t want to go to the jail at two in the morn
ing. He didn’t have any great urge to see Thomas Gault, either. But he was too tired to refuse Gault’s request.

“I’ll be down as soon as I can get dressed,” he said, turning on the lamp on his night table.

“I knew I could count on you,” Gault said. After a few more words, they hung up.

David’s head was ringing. He’d had too much to drink, but that was becoming routine. He took a deep breath and made his way to the bathroom. The glare from the lightbulbs hurt his eyes, and his image in the mirror caused a different type of pain. His complexion was pale and his flesh doughy. The features were beginning to run together. When he removed his pajamas, he saw the erosion of clear lines on the other parts of his body.

David had not exercised, or done much else that humans do, since Larry Stafford’s conviction three months before. The day after the trial he had backpacked into the wilderness to try to sort out the events of the preceding days, but the silence of the shadowy woods had trapped him alone with thoughts he did not want to encounter. He had scurried home.

Jenny had phoned while he was away, but he did not return the calls. He tried to work but could not concentrate. Once, in the solitude of his office, he broke into tears. In the course of representing Larry Stafford, he had betrayed the trust of the court, sold out his principles, and given up on himself. In the ruins of the case he saw the wreckage of his career and the destruction of the carefully constructed fictions concerning truth and justice he had erected to hide from view the emptiness of the profession he had so zealously followed. Life was intolerable. He
moved through the days like an automaton, eating little and drinking a great deal.

Gregory Banks had sensed his friend’s despair and had ordered him to spend two weeks away. The bright Hawaiian sun and the gaiety of the tourists at the small resort hotel where he had stayed only heightened David’s anguish. He tried to take part in conversations but lost interest. His one attempt at an affair had ended with humiliating impotence. Only drinking helped, but the surcease from pain was temporary, and the horrors were twice as vivid once the effects of the alcohol wore off.

David returned to Portland early and without notice. He stayed home, unwashed and unshaven, letting himself become as gross and disgusting physically as he felt he had become spiritually. In the silent ruin of his home, it became clear to David that he was breaking down. He did nothing to stop the process. Instead, he lay about drunkenly, like a spectator at his own funeral.

In the end it was the smell of his body that saved him. One morning he awoke sober enough to whiff the odor of his sheets and the stench from his underarms and crotch. He was overpowered and driven to the shower. A shave and a decent breakfast followed. The crisis had passed, but David was far from well.

Back at the office David appeared to be in control. Except that he was more likely to miss appointments and appear late for court. The effort it took to put up a front was taking its toll in stomach pains and sleepless nights. And there was the frequent lunchtime martini or two. And Monday began to run into Wednesday and feel like Friday, while David, stabilized in a state of functioning disrepair, ceased to see the meaning in anything anymore.

“W
HAT WERE YOU
doing down there, anyway?” David asked. He was driving Gault home from the county jail.

Gault smiled, then winced. He was a mess. Harvey had taken his revenge on the unconscious writer before any of the patrons of The Dutchman had thought to stop him. A cut that had taken several stitches to close ran across the top of his right eyebrow, and his nose and a rib had been broken.

“I was lookin’ for a fight, old buddy,” Gault answered in a tired voice.

“What!?”

“I like to fight, and bars are as good a place as any to find one.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Sometimes. But life’s crazy. Don’t you read my books?”

They drove in silence for a while, which Gault appreciated. He was exhausted, but pleased with the night’s outing, even if he’d taken a few lumps. As they drove along the empty highway, he thought back over the fight and savored its good moments.