“What about legalization of dope?” Jack Yocke asked toward the end of the interview. “There’s a lot of talk about that since Christmas. What do you think?”
“Personally I’m against it,” Shannon said. “There’s too many fools who’ll get addicted. Off the record, though, I think that’s what will have to be done. We’ve got to get the big money out of the business. If the money is gone the criminals will go. That’ll stop the recruitment of kids just out of diapers to a life of using and abusing, a life of crime and ignorance and squalor. A whole generation of black kids is going down the toilet. It’s an obscenity that’s got to stop.”
Remarkably, in spite of the hurricane-velocity winds building inside the beltway, life elsewhere in America returned quickly to normal. The soaps went back on television during the day and the sitcoms returned at night. Critics complained of the sexual innuendo that passed as humor this winter on the tube. A network executive said the critics didn’t know what was funny.
The ball fell in Times Square on New Year’s Eve and a great many people awoke the next morning with a hangover, but not as many as in past years, some pollster said in a headline story, because people these days were drinking less. Southern Cal won another Rose Bowl.
During the first week of January two former executives of a large Texas savings and loan pleaded guilty to twenty-eight counts of bank fraud and asked the court to put them on probation.
The wife of a well-known movie star sued her husband for divorce and claimed he was having an affair with his latest leading lady. The betrayed wife went from one syndicated morning talk show to the next telling her story and explaining to the sympathetic hosts the financial hardships that loomed as she tried to survive on half a million a month and keep the kids in school.
Iran had a little earthquake. Another ayatollah died while a blizzard stranded airline passengers in Denver, and Whitefish, Montana, reported record low temperatures.
The Democrats wanted to know when the administration was going to get serious about raising taxes and the Republicans wanted to know when the Democrats were going to get serious about cutting government spending.
Another congressman announced he was gay.
And the network that had rights to televise the Superbowl officially kicked off the hype with a show in which millionaire football players explained how their teams had overcome adversity this past year.
While all this was going on Senator Bob Cherry quietly resigned from the U.S. Senate. He told the Florida newspapers that he was tired and had done all he could for his country. Guessing who the governor would appoint to fill Cherry’s seat became the diversion of the hour in Florida.
A fine wet rain, almost a mist, fell almost continuously in Washington that first week of the new year. Then the wind picked up and blew the clouds eastward out to sea.
Thanos Liarakos glanced again at the street sign and once again consulted his map. He drove slowly for several more blocks, then found the street he wanted. The trees in this suburban tract development were small and sticklike in the anemic sunlight. They would grow larger of course, but it would take twenty or thirty years for these neighborhoods to look settled, permanent.
He found the building he wanted and drove another half block looking for a parking place, then walked back. The sprawling one-story brick structure was surrounded on three sides by a chain-link fence. Inside the sturdy wire were sandboxes and swings and child-powered merry-go-rounds. And children. Lots of them, squealing, running, laughing.
Liarakos went in the front door and down the empty hallway. He paused outside the door marked OFFICE, squared his shoulders, then went in.
“Miss Judith Lewis, please. Is she around?”
The owlish-looking young woman with a heavy sweater and shiny pink lips sitting behind the desk noted his suit and tie, grinned perfunctorily, and said, “She has playground duty. Might be in back.”
“And how … ?”
“Down the corridor to the first left and straight on out. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.”
Judith Lewis was standing with her arms folded across her chest listening to a young boy tell a tale of woe, with much pointing and gesturing. She bent down and wiped his face and stroked his hair. As she did so the lower edge of her coat dragged in the dirt. That, Liarakos suspected, was not a detail that would bother Judith Lewis very much.
The child grinned finally and ran off to join his friends.
“Hello, Judith.”
She turned and saw him, then rose to her feet. “Hello,” she acknowledged without enthusiasm. She half turned away so she could watch the children. He approached and stood beside her, also watching the children.
“How was your holiday?” he asked.
“Fine.” Her voice was hard and flat. She checked her watch.
“Beautiful youngsters.”
“Recess is over in three minutes. Say what you came to say.”
“Okay. That Cuban general, Zaba, knows enough to convict Chano Aldana. And he’s talking, singing his heart out. I’ve been reading transcripts of his interrogations. If the prosecutors can get Zaba on the stand they can get a conviction.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I’m not going back to work for you, Mr. Liarakos. I thought I made that plain.”
“What you made plain, Ms. Lewis, is that you thought Chano Aldana was the devil incarnate and ought to be locked up so he can’t continue to murder and terrorize and sell poison to ruin the lives of children like these.”
“You were equally definite in your opinion, Mr. Liarakos, as I recall.” Her voice was acidic. “Like every wealthy, successful criminal, Aldana deserves the best legal defense money can buy, and that of course is you. And if you can hoodwink and bamboozle the jurors, it’s your sworn duty to do so. Then you go home to your beautiful wife and children and eat a gourmet dinner and rest your weary soul, your duty well and truly done. Isn’t that the spin you want on it? Oh, I haven’t forgotten our last conversation, Mr. Liarakos. I doubt that I ever will. It brought into very stark relief all the doubts I’ve had through the years of law school and practice.”
The bell rang. All the children charged for the door.
“If you’ll ex—” she began, but he interrupted:
“I came to ask you to come back to work.”
She stared at him as the schoolyard emptied and the last of the children disappeared inside.
“Listen, there’s more to the legal profession than the Chano Aldanas of the world. Someone has to be in a position to help all these people who need someone to speak for them. Someone has to represent Jane Roe and Karen Ann Quinlan and John T. Scopes and all the rest of the folks who can’t speak for themselves. That’s why you went to law school, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” She said it softly, almost inaudibly. She lifted the hem of her coat and brushed at the loose dirt that clung there.
“Where do you think you get the experience to help that one client in a hundred? You get it by going to court every day, wrestling with the prosecutors and the judges and the system. Someone has to know how to work the system.”
She turned and faced the school.
“Someone has to care. Someone has to fight it every blessed day and do the best they can. If someone doesn’t, the little people are going to go down the slop chute. Now I ask you, if you won’t do it, who will?”
“You keep asking these goddamned rhetorical questions, Mr. Liarakos,” she said bitterly. “And you’re representing Chano Aldana.”
“He paid the fee. The firm needs the money. I need the money. I’ll do my level best for the bastard.”
“Why?”
“Ms. Lewis, if you have to ask, you’d better stay here with the grade-school kids.”
“Aldana is going to walk.”
Liarakos snorted. “No, he isn’t. Zaba knows enough to convict Aldana. I’ve been reading the transcripts of the interr
ogations. He’s singing like a bird. They got everything chapter and verse. Names, locations, dates, amounts, quantities—everything. Zaba was the Cuban connection and he personally met with Aldana at least seven times. He even arranged for a couple of murders of DEA agents by Cuban intelligence. The prosecutors have got it.”
“So. What are you going to do?”
“Me? I’m just going to give Aldana a hundred percent of my best efforts and the prosecutors are going to nail his guilty hide to the wall. Clarence Darrow couldn’t get the sonofabitch off. There’s no way. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years and I know. Aldana’s guilty and the jury will see that and he’ll go up the river for the rest of his natural life.”
“And you?”
“I’ll go home afterward, Ms. Lewis, and pour myself a stiff drink and give thanks that God created the jury system.”
“But what if the jury won’t convict Aldana?”
“Judith, you have got to believe in your fellow man or you’ll have no hope at all. If the ordinary men and women on the jury won’t convict him, why try to get him off the streets? If they won’t convict him, they deserve him.”
She kept brushing at the coat.
“You made a fine little speech in my office a few weeks ago, Judith. Something about the law existing to protect those who can’t protect themselves. And here they are.” He gestured toward the school building. “I thought you meant it.”
She ran her hand through her hair.
She grimaced. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the office,” he said. “Or the next morning. Whenever you can get there.”
She kept brushing at her coat.
“Oh, and you and I have a new client. Guy name of Tom Shannon. A pro bono case.”
“Shannon? Isn’t he the man who led the lynch mob to the armory, the scapegoat they want to hang?”
“That’s the man,” Liarakos agreed. “You and he have a lot in common. He also says he knows the difference between good and evil.”
He turned and walked toward the door to the school and went through it, leaving Judith Lewis in the middle of the empty playground staring after him, flipping at her coat hem automatically.
“God damn you,” she whispered. “God damn you.” And she began to cry.
She had thought she was out of it. And now this! The principal and the school officials—when they hired her she promised to stay. They were going to think her such a terrible liar.
She went over to the bench against the wall and tried to compose herself.
Well, tomorrow was impossible. She would call the school officials this afternoon, but she should give them at least one more day so that they could find someone else.
She used the hem of her skirt to wipe the tears from her eyes.
The doctor had a breezy manner. He radiated confidence and self-assurance. Apparently he had picked up the patois in Patient Relations 101.
“You’re going to be fine. Every third day we’ll change the dressing and inch the drain out. But I think you’re well enough to go home.”
Harrison Ronald Ford nodded and swung his feet back and forth as the doctor examined the surgical incisions in his back. He was perched on the side of the bed, which was too far above the floor for his feet to comfortably reach. Normally the nurse had a little stool placed just so.
“Hold still please.”
Harrison obeyed. Since the doctor couldn’t see his face, he grinned.
“Yes indeedy. Looking very fine. Gonna be a dilly of a scar, but maybe you can get a big tattoo back here and no one will notice. I have a rather extraordinary picture of a naked woman on a stallion I can let you look at if you want to consider classical artwork.”
“Big tits?”
“Melons.”
“Bring it in.”
“Now if you have any trouble at all, you call me. Any time, day or night. And the people downstairs want you to continue in physical therapy every day. Make those appointments before you leave this afternoon.”
“Sure.”
The doctor came around to face him. “The nurse will be in in a moment to put a new bandage on you. I just wanted to check you one last time and shake your hand.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
They took him in a wheelchair to the administration office to finish the paperwork. The administrator asked for his address and telephone number and he gave them the apartment he had used as Sammy Z. “We’ll see you tomorrow at ten in the morning.”
“Sure.” The doctor popped in and Harrison shook hands all around, one more time.
At his request they called him a taxi. It was waiting out front when he scribbled his name for the final time. With the nurse holding grimly to his elbow, he maneuvered himself out of the wheelchair and into the backseat. She supervised the cabbie as he placed the two bags in the trunk that Freddy Murray had brought up from Quantico. Harrison waved at her as the cabbie put the car into motion.
She gave him a distracted smile and charged back inside pushing the wheelchair.
“Where to, Mac?”
“National Airport.”
“What airline?”
“Oh, I dunno. Don’t have reservations yet.”
“Well, you won’t have no problem. Holiday rush is all over. Where you heading?”
“Evansville, Indiana.”
“Go through Chicago or Cleveland?”
“One of those.”
“Maybe US Air.”
“Fine.”
Harrison Ronald sat back and watched the cars gliding along under the winter sky. He had been in Washington, what? Almost eleven months. Seemed like forever.
The cab driver whistled for a redcap to handle the bags and Harrison gave him a two-dollar tip. The driver was right. He had no trouble getting a ticket on the next plane, which was scheduled to leave in an hour.
Harrison Ronald strolled to the boarding area and sat watching the businessmen and mothers with children. The men in suits were reading or writing reports, darting over to the pay phones and making credit card calls. The kids were hollering and scurrying about and demanding their mothers’ attention. He sighed. It was so normal—so … almost like another world after all the stuff he had been through these last few months. He shook his head in wonder. Life does indeed go on.
Amazingly enough the airplane actually left on time. Most of the seats were empty. Harrison Ronald moved from his aisle seat to the window and took his last look at Washington as it fell away below.
It was over then. Really and truly over. No more terror, no more waiting for the ax to fall, no more sleepless nights wondering what Freeman McNally was hearing and thinking. Over.
What would he do now? He had been avoiding the issue but he examined it now as Washington slipped behind and the Alleghenies came into view like ribs.
The Corps—maybe. After he was healed up completely. He would go find a doctor to do all the therapy and bandage changing and drain pulling that the folks in Washington were worried about. Or perhaps he should go back to the cops. Maybe that. He would have to think about it some more. But now he felt so good, almost euphoric. It was hard to envision himself back on the street dealing with the would-be Freeman McNallys, all the lazy losers who thought that everyone should hold still while they carved off a chunk without earning it.
He was tired so he reclined the seat and closed his eyes. The important thing was that he was going back to the front porch. Spring would come eventually, then the summer with its muggy heat. He would sit in the swing and watch his grandmother string beans and shuck corn for canning. Maybe go to the ballpark on hot summer evenings. Paint the house for her—that was what he would do. He thought about the paint, the smell of it with the heat on his back. It would be very good. And there would be plenty of time—all the time he would ever need. With these images in his mind he dozed off.
He awoke on the descent into Chicago. The plane to Evansville was a four-engine turboprop which entered the clouds as it left O’Har
e and stayed in them until it was on final approach into the Evansville airport. Harrison was glued to the window looking at the Ohio River looping by the downtown and the streets and neighborhoods all neatly, perfectly square. He saw the high school he had graduated from and he saw the minor league ballpark where he had sold hot dogs all those summers growing up.
He took a cab from the airport.
The little house looked exactly the same. The swing was put away for the winter and the leaves were bare, but the grass had been mowed just before the cold stopped all growth. The house still needed painting. And the soffit under the eaves—he would fix those rotten places too.
The doctor had told him not to lift anything, so he had the cabbie put the bags on the porch. Then he tried the door. Unlocked.
He stepped in.
“Grandmom! It’s me, Harrison.”
“Who?”
Her voice came floating down the hallway from the kitchen.
He walked that way. He saw her before he got to the kitchen door. She was old and small and her hair was white. She didn’t move too quickly anymore, but he thought he had never seen a more beautiful woman.
“Oh, Harrison! What a wonderful surprise! You’re home!”
“Yeah, Grandmom. I’m home.”
He took her gently in his arms.
A Biography of Stephen Coonts
Stephen Coonts is a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight thriller, suspense, and nonfiction titles, including the blockbuster techno-thriller The Intruders (1994).
Born in 1946, Coonts grew up in Buckhannon, West Virginia, a small coalmining town in the western foothills of the Allegheny Mountains. His father, Gilbert, was a lawyer and his mother, Violet, was a schoolteacher and painter. He attended college at West Virginia University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1968. Following graduation, he joined the Navy and moved to Pensacola, Florida, to begin flight training at the age of twenty-two. He was stationed on the USS Enterprise for two combat cruises in the final years of the Vietnam War and flew an A-6 Intruder attack plane, an aircraft featured in many of his early novels. After completing a tour aboard the USS Nimitz, Coonts left active duty with an honorable discharge in 1977, having achieved the rank of lieutenant.
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