Outlaws

by Tim Green

  'Thank you, Walter," she said. Madison knew better than to pander to the judge. He had once been an associate with her father and had told her upon their first meeting in chambers that she was to call him nothing but Walter in private and Judge in public.

  "It really was one of the most remarkable cases I've ever presided over. It was clever to remind them of the possibility that she was already dead. It wasn't good sense, but it was good law, Madison. And, off the record, I think justice was served," he said solemnly. 'Your father will be very proud."

  Madison looked at her shoes and tried not to blush. It was the nicest thing he could have said to her.

  "Now," the judge began in an entirely new tone of voice, "I've talked with you about taking the Williams case. There's no money in it. There's no glory. But that hasn't kept you from taking cases like this for me before.

  Madison laughed nervously. It wasn't an easy thing to say no to the jui'ge. but even for him she could only go so far.

  "Walter," she said, "1 know we've talked about Yusef Williams, and even with everything else going on in my life right now, I took the time to carefully look at the details of that case. Sure I could do things to slow the process down, maybe delay an execution, but this kid did it, and sooner or later he's gonna get the needle. My taking this case would just waste my time and the court's."

  This was met with a blank stare that asked for something more concrete.

  "I know, I know," she said, cutting off his lecture before he got a chance to start it. "No one is guilty until so proven. I know that, Walter, but even you have to admit that this is as cut-and-dried as it gets. There is no other rational explanation for what happened. You must know that."

  The judge put his hands flat on the leather-bound blotter that protected the gleaming wood surface of his desk. He leaned forward, just enough to give her a little bit of a scare. His brow darkened.

  "If this kid, as you call him, was the governor's son, would you take the case? If this kid's dad owned the Outlaws, would you? Would you if he was one of the players at the university? What if his father was the CEO of General Mills? Don't you lose sight of equality under our system, young lady. That is an intolerable quality that I will not allow you to adopt.

  'You're too good a friend," he added more quietly, sitting back again and letting her digest his questions.

  "Now," he said, holding up his hand this time, "I know this case looks bad. I know that. But you're not looking carefully. You're not giving what you'd give the other people I just mentioned. I've heard the preliminaries of this case, and your counterpart at the public defenders office, Mr. Cherrit, has got this kid on the fast track to death row. I don't know, maybe I'm just a foolish old man . . . but there's something about the whole thing that strikes me wrong. This boy says there was another man there that night."

  Madison threw her hands up in the air.

  "Please, Walter," she said, exasperated, "a white man in black clothes moving around in the shadows? Who executes two black kids? Why? Williams never said, did he? I looked. It's one of the worst fabrications I've ever heard."

  "So you didn't talk to him yourself," the judge said.

  "No. I told you, I've been incredibly busy. Though 1 did read every statement on both sides thoroughly," she added defensively.

  "Well, then," the judge said quietly, "you and I will have to talk about this again .. . after you've spoken with the boy."

  "Walter--"

  "No! You tell me right this minute," he barked out, pointing an accusatory finger at her, "if that was the son of someone important, would you or would you not have at least talked with him yourself?"

  Madison bit her lower lip. She thought about what he said for a moment, then nodded her head.

  "Thank you," the judge said and then stood, signaling that their meeting was at an end.

  "And again," he said, as though the entire conversation had never transpired, "congratulations. I mean it. That's the real reason I wanted to see you, but you know me, no sense in wasting time dancing around...."

  Madison gave him a smile as she let herself out. As she walked through the corridors of the courthouse, she begrudgingly admitted to herself that Walter was right. If the boy was someone else, she would have at least talked to him and listened. She could do that much, even if it seemed there was no hope of ever getting anything close to the truth. But then again, maybe . . . Madison thought of something she'd learned when she was still a student. What if it were you, imprisoned wrongfully? The implications of this were what moved her to represent a boy who grew up on the wrong side of the highway in squalor and destitution and what motivated her to be the bane of Van Rawlins and his team of over thirty assistant district attorneys.

  Cody spent what he thought were the best few weeks with Jenny since they were young and growing up in Pittsburgh. She had accommodated his every need and desire. She had fussed over him, worried about his going to camp, and even talked about this being his last season so that he wouldn't have to put his body through anymore of the incredible punishment he got as a player in the NFL. It was the first time Cody had ever heard her talk about his retirement in anything close to conciliatory terms. Normally Jenny was prodding him on, challenging his toughness and manhood to continue to battle among the world's finest athletes and bring home one of the world's finest paychecks.

  On the morning he left for San Angelo, where he and the rest of the team would stay until the last week in August, Jenny even made him breakfast. It was unprecedented. Instead of making Cody comfortable with the idea ihr: he would have a wonderful life after football with his beautiful and :iov/ adoring wife, he was strangely spurred to again excel on the field. He said nothing to Jenny about this. It was his own private romantic notion of modem chivalry. He wanted to be worthy on the field of battle for the lovely lady who would wait for him at home. If Jenny had only known, she could have gotten even more out of her husband in the last eight years than she already had. If she had played the role she played in his final days before that season's training camp, she would have been a much happier wife. But the part of the acquiescent wife was a role completely contrary to her nature, and she could only stomach it for so long.

  Jenny's behavior in the days before Cody's training camp was nothing more than acting, but she played the role of her life. She wanted to insure that Cody was tucked away safe and happy in camp so that when he couldn't reach her by phone, he wouldn't be tempted to do something crazy like drive home and raise a ruckus when he didn't find her there. Her visit to the general in Big Spring with Striker was nothing more than a training mission. She had really served no purpose other than to make the general comfortable with her presence for the final exchange.

  Now, what she was going to do would be for real. The minute after she'd seen Cody off with a passionate kiss and a wave, she went upstairs and began packing her things. She was scheduled to leave the next day. That evening, she and Striker had dinner at the Texan, a fancy steak house just off of Sixth Street. Afterward they went back to Striker's, where she planned on spending the night. The moment they returned to his apartment from dinner, Jenny took the time to call home and get her messages. Cody had called from a pay phone at training camp as she'd expected he would. She called him back and got through. One of his teammates went down the hall to retrieve him, and for five minutes thereafter she cooed lovingly to him over the telephone. The moment she hung up, she went directly to Striker's bed where she mounted him like a wild mustang and worked herself and him into a passionate sweat. They collapsed only to awaken two more times during the night to make love, once violently, and the second time, at about four-thirty in the morning, with a tenderness that Jenny had never before experienced.

  The next morning, Striker was up early. Jenny woke to the smell of fresh coffee. Striker sat waiting for her at his kitchen table. The table was arranged in a glass alcove that overlooked the ornate dome of the state capitol building. Striker had set out croissants and fine china on linen place
mats. It looked like the kind of breakfast one would expect at a posh hotel. Jenny ambled in, giving her lover a kiss on the lips before sitting down. Striker poured her coffee and added just the right amount of cream. They ate in silence, enjoying the sunny morning and the wonderful view. Jenny was hungry. When she finally dabbed the comers of her mouth and laid her napkin down on the table, only one croissant remained in a basket of crumbs.

  Striker smiled and said, "It's good for you to eat. You'll use a lot of energy over these next few days. Everything will seem like a difficult task, and the anxiety will cause you to bum more calories than you'll realize."

  Striker sounded like a coach, giving his final instructions to an athlete about to go into the ring. That was almost what she was doing. Striker had worked with her, taught her many things, and discussed over and over again the many different scenarios that might arise. The best way to survive in this business, Striker told her again and again, was to anticipate the unexpected.

  "Now," Striker said, rising from the table and leading her back into the bedroom, "I have something 1 want you to have. It's a graduation present of sorts...."

  Striker moved aside a floor lamp and a heavy upholstered chair. He used a key to open a closet door Jenny had never seen him open before. On the backside were a dozen guns mounted around the edges. In the center of the careful arrangement was a single long black pistol. From one of the places, he took a dull gray handgun that was compact and almost aerodynamic in its design.

  'This is the latest weapon of choice for the Israeli Mossad," he said, holding it out for her. "It's a 7mm automatic, not unlike what you've been practicing with. Hold it. It's light. It's ceramic. It cannot be detected by a metal detector. I have a special holster that goes around your waist. The gun rests right here."

  He touched the triangular mound of her crotch lovingly.

  "The Mossad has as many women agents as men, so this is particularly useful for them."

  Jenny had been going to a gun range four times a week for the past six weeks. It was exciting to her. Striker had given her an old Colt 7mm to use. He'd familiarized her thoroughly with the weapon at his apartment and then sent her out to use it on her own. She remembered the first time they talked about guns. He asked her if she had ever used one. She told him that Cody kept a .357 in the drawer of the nightstand next to their bed. She went with Cody a couple of times to the gun range several years ago when he fir>>-t pot the gun. She even fired it a couple of times. Striker laughed when she told him this. Since that time with Cody, she admitted to Striker that she had only picked the gun up once on her own, and then only to clean out the drawer. That was her entire exposure to guns. Striker had changed that.

  "You can take it right through the airport with you," Striker said. "I have already FedExed three clips to your hotel room at Oyster Bay. Just make sure you get rid of them before you return. I want to make it easy for you....

  'You won't need it," Striker said, seeing the worry creep onto her face, "but you should have a gun with you. Really, Jenny," he said, stepping close and kissing her on the lips, "this will be an easy thing for you. But, like I always say, it's better to overprepare. Besides, this all may come in useful for you one day. Who knows?"

  "What's that?" Jenny said to him, unable to contain her curiosity and pointing at the long gun in the middle of all the rest. While she was listening to Striker, that one gun had drawn her attention like a deadly black spider in the middle of a web.

  Striker looked at the gun, then took it from its place almost lovingly.

  "This," he said, "is Lucy."

  "I thought I was Lucy," Jenny said, confused but intrigued at the notion that Striker would give her the same name as this dangerous-looking weapon.

  'You are," he said. "And this is. This is a Czechoslovakian CZ .22 automatic. I use it only for very important jobs. She's quiet and reliable. This on the end is a silencer. She's incredibly accurate, beautiful, but very deadly. I named it after another Lucy because of the similarities.

  "The first Lucy," he explained, "was a French woman I knew in Vietnam. She was about the age you are now, older than me back then. She was lovely.

  She had seen the world, and in a world of men, she ruled them all."

  "What happened to her?" Jenny asked, not able to keep the jealous note out of her voice.

  Striker sensed this and gave her a patronizing smile. "They killed her," he said simply. "She was the queen of Saigon. It was her home. She loved that country, said it was the most civilized place in the world before the war. When the NVA took the city in '73, she refused to leave. She holed up in an apartment building. They say she killed almost a hundred of them before they simply gave up and shelled half the block. Her body was never found. There was really nothing left when they were done. For years after that, the story goes, whenever an NVA soldier or one of the Vietnamese secret police turned up floating face down in the river, people would say that it was Lucy. I don't know, it wouldn't surprise me. ... Anyway," he said, coming back to the here and now, "you reminded me of her. It's a compliment."

  "Were you lovers?" Jenny said in a moment of weakness. She crossed her arms and waited for the answer.

  "Yes," Striker said, amused but holding back his smile, "we were."

  Then he put his hands around Jenny's neck and kissed her gently on the lips.

  "But you, Jenny Blue Eyes," he whispered, separating his lips from hers and gazing into her eyes, "you stand alone."

  Jenny disembarked at the Dutch airport on the island of St. Martin. After passing easily through customs, a porter carried her two bags all the way to a waiting rented Land Cruiser. Striker had removed the pit from its metallic case and put it in a box he'd gotten from a novelty store that had contained a crystal ball. In the box, the pit sat on a cheap plastic stand and appeared as innocuous as the plastic ball it had replaced. This, he had explained to her, was overkill. The St. Martin's customs people were notoriously slack. It was a rare thing for them to open someone's luggage, unless one of the dogs that was occasionally walked through baggage claim happened to smell ten kilos of cocaine that some fool hadn't bothered to pack in coffee. Even if the pit's alloy seal was leaking, pure plutonium gave off only alpha rays, an innocuous form of radiation that no modem luggage screening system would even pick up.

  Jenny went straight to her hotel. She had studied a map of the island during the flight. Striker told her that one thing that was always imperative, no matter how simple the operation, was to be intimately familiar with your surroundings so that, in the event of an emergency, you would stand at least a sporting chance of eluding someone. Jenny had taken this seriously and memorized the entire road system that wove its way through both the French and Dutch sides of the island. The Oyster Bay Hotel was on the far side of the island from the aiiport and sat just across the Dutch line on the French side.

  Jenny bumped and swerved her way through the battered roads and sprawling native villages filled with colorfully clothed, barefoot people who were as dark as tar. She turned off the main road until she found herself at the top of an enormous hill that looked out over a sapphire-blue Atlantic Ocean. Below was Oyster Bay and the regal Spanish-style hotel that overlooked the expanse of blue, white-capped water. From the moment she pulled up to tlie immense portico and shut off the engine of her Land Cruiser, Jenny didn't have to lift a finger except to sign the name of Lucy Meara at the register. There was an eager staff ready to assist her with everything. Her five-room suite overlooked the ocean and came complete with her own maid. Jenny accepted this royal treatment as though she'd grown up at Windsor Palace. She even had the presence of mind to notice a tall slender olive-skinned man with a black beard in white robes and a turban who sat reading a paper in the ornate lobby. Tlie man, she noticed, looked furtively from behind his newspaper at her several times while she checked in.

  The suite was as impressive as the hotel lobby. The stucco walls stretched twelve feet to the ceiling, and old-world furniture, upholstered in fl
oral prints, adorned each room. Her FedEx package sat on a teak table in the dining room. After the bellman left her bags in the bedroom, she picked up the package and went back into the bedroom where she closed the door. "Two of the clips she shoved into the side pocket of her shoulder bag. She untucked her loose white blouse and pulled out the waistband of her long auburn skirt to remove the 7mm from its holster. She jammed the third clip into the gun and snapped a round into the chamber before she put it back in its holster, jenny felt much better with the loaded gun pressed snugly against her. She took off her large sun hat and glasses and let down her hair. Even though she was planning on being there no more than one night, she unpacked her bags and put everything away before wandering out onto her private deck overlooking the ocean. She sat down in a cushioned lounge chair to soak up the view. Her maid appeared, and Jenny told her to bring a margarita. For the afternoon, she would simply sit and enjoy the luxury that she hoped would soon be an everyday thing.

  When the sun set, Jenny put on a long, elegant emerald dress and went downstairs to dinner. She told the maitre d' that she was Lucy Meara, and he showed her to a secluded table out on the terrace. Two high-backed cane chairs and a jungle of verdant flowering vines surrounded the table. The man she'd seen earlier in the white suit and turban sat in the chair opposite her. He didn't say anything until the maitre d' was gone.

  "You must tell Mr. Moss that we are quite unhappy," the man said bluntly. Jenny thought he was rather handsome until he opened his mouth. It was full of large, crooked teeth.

  Jenny nodded her head. Striker had warned her that the reception they would give her would be less than hospitable, even though Striker had informed them beforehand that he would be represented by a woman named Lucy Meara for the second of the three transactions.

  "I will tell him," she said.