by James Mills
21
Where’s Harrington?”
“Not here, Ernie. Too late for John. Never comes out after dark.”
Carl had taken a two-hour flight to O’Hare, drove another half hour to the prison. He could see Vicaro, be back in the command truck by midnight.
Vicaro oozed around the edges of the visiting room chair, his prison shirt straining the buttons over his belly.
“He told me he’d be here.”
“He lied.” Carl smiled. “I brought Mr. Brodski instead.”
“I don’t wanna see Brodski.”
Brodski, a squat, heavy man, black mustache but no hair on top, was sitting right there in front of him. He said, “You’re hurting my feelings, Ernie. Damn, it stinks in here. They take away your shower privileges?”
Brodski was warden of the federal maximum-security prison in Bradley, Montana, the toughest in the country, and Vicaro had almost died there. He blamed Brodski for the attacks against him.
Vicaro said, “I don’t wanna talk to you.”
“You really gave me a bad rap, you know, Ernie.” Brodski aimed a finger at Vicaro’s stomach and made a plunging, slicing motion. “I never had anything to do with what happened to you.”
Vicaro had been virtually disemboweled by another prisoner during an afternoon exercise period. He had a reputation for betraying enemies to the government, and found prison an unhealthy environment.
Vicaro’s jaw muscles tightened, and he fixed his eyes on Carl, struggling not to respond to Brodski’s taunts. When Vicaro had emerged from the prison hospital with thirty-seven stitches in his belly, Brodski refused his request for administrative isolation and put him straight back into population. Two days later he was in the hospital again, with groin wounds inflicted by a screwdriver in the hands of an angry tier mate named Tulio Huega.
Carl said, “Now, what’s all this we hear about an agreement between your father and some tobacco company and Judge Parham’s father? You ought not to be telling lies like that, Ernie.”
“It’s not a lie, and you know it. I’ve got a signed document.”
“A phony signed document. You made the whole thing up.”
Vicaro’s black eyes darted from Carl to Brodski and back. “What’re you guys up to?”
“To tell the truth,” Brodski said, “we’re not really here to talk about the agreement or Judge Parham or any of that stuff. We’re just here to let you know about the transfer.”
“What transfer?”
“You’re comin’ back.”
“Screw you, Brodski.”
“Now don’t you talk to me like that, Ernie. You know I wouldn’t lie to you. This institution’s too crowded, and the director decided to move some of the more difficult prisoners back to Bradley.”
“You’re just—”
“Frankly, I’m glad to get you. I’ve missed you. We’ve all missed you.”
“You’re—”
“A lot of your old friends, Ernie. ‘Where’s Ernie? What’s become of Ernie? We miss him. We want him back.’ We’re all so glad to get you back, let me tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m movin’ everyone outta Tier Three on D Block, and I’m gonna fill it with all your friends. Tulio Huega, remember him? Asked especially could he cell with you. Already moved in, got the place spruced up, waitin’ for Ernie. What? You got somethin’ you wanna say? Don’t thank me, Ernie. I’m happy to do whatever I can, you know that—make people happy.”
Vicaro tried to twist in his chair, turning his body toward Carl. “What’s all this about?”
Carl said, “You heard the man.”
“You’re tellin’ me if I don’t take back that agreement you’ll send me back to Bradley?”
“I didn’t say that. You hear me say that?”
“I go back to Bradley, I’m dead. I almost got killed there last time. Twice.”
“So don’t go. Why go? Tell Mr. Brodski here you don’t wanna go. Simple as that.”
Vicaro looked at Carl and nodded, his tiny chin bone bobbing on top of the cascading layers of flesh.
Brodski said, “You heard the man. Simple as that.”
Vicaro said, “You don’t have the authority to do this. You can’t just send me anywhere you want, send me someplace where I was taken out to keep from gettin’ killed.”
Carl said, “You’re right, Ernie. We can’t do that. The only one who can do that is the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.”
“Right. The director of prisons. My lawyer told me that when I was brought here. There’s a note on my record, in the computer, says do not move without the authority of the director of prisons.”
“That right?” Carl said to Brodski. “His package have a note like that?”
“Seems to know what he’s talkin’ about. Knows more than I do.”
“Ernie,” Carl said, “how’d the director of prisons get his job?”
“I don’t know. Same way all you bastards got your jobs.”
“Now don’t be unpleasant, Ernie. He got it from the President. The President appoints the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.”
“That true?”
“Well-known fact.”
Carl waited, staring at Vicaro. Vicaro didn’t move.
“Ernie, who nominated Judge Parham to the Supreme Court?”
Vicaro’s body started to slide forward out of the chair. He grabbed the armrests.
“You’re tellin’ me the President’s gonna move me back to Bradley?”
“I didn’t tell you that. Stop jumping to conclusions. We’re just talking politics here. Friendly conversation.”
“If I don’t back off and forget about the agreement, the President’s gonna tell the director to send me back to Bradley? You’re tellin’ me that?”
“Not telling you anything, Ernie. Talking politics. Friendly conversation. Just stopped around to say hello.”
No one spoke. Vicaro tried to twist in the chair. He sighed, exhaling droplets of saliva.
Brodski said, “You’re a smart man, Ernie.”
A bead of sweat ran down Vicaro’s left cheek, dropped into a fold of neck flesh, and disappeared. He said, “I’m gonna tell Harrington, forget the whole thing, I made a mistake? He’d never believe that.”
Carl said, “Oh, I think he might. You could persuade him. You’re a major client, big bucks, he’s done a lot for you, right, Ernie? Some of it maybe a little—” Carl cocked his head and made a back-and-forth tilting gesture with his flattened hand.
“Anyway,” Carl said, “he doesn’t come around, you need a little help, I’ll be happy see what I can do.”
The confirmation fight was getting nasty, and if it got any nastier, Harrington would be happy to disengage, get the hell out. No one wants to be on the receiving end of a car-bomb investigation.
Vicaro said, “He’s already seen the agreement.”
“Agreements get forged. Just tell him you made it, had some friends forge it ‘cause you don’t like the judge. Everyone already knows you don’t like the judge. No surprise there.”
“What if Harrington uses it before I see him?”
“I don’t think that’ll happen. He’s got an appointment with you for”—Carl looked at his watch—”thirty minutes from now. Probably waiting outside already.”
“Waiting outside, my ass. You said yourself he don’t work this late.”
“For you, Ernie, a top client, he’d come out anytime.”
“I don’t have an appointment with Harrington.”
“Yeah, you do. It’s in the book. Saw it myself.”
“Made it yourself, too. You’re really a cocky kind of bastard, aren’t you?”
“Not really, Ernie. I just have confidence in your intelligence. You see what has to be done, you do it. You’re not one of these guys has to be shown something over and over. You get it right the first time. You understand how the world works. Am I right?”
Vicaro sat there, breathing hard.
Carl said, “Mr. Brods
ki and I’ll just hang around for a while, see how it all comes out. Anyone needs to say anything to John, we’ll be here.”
Vicaro was silent.
“So we have an understanding?” Carl stood and signaled through the window for the guard. “Don’t disappoint us, Ernie.”
Standing, Brodski said, “How’s the belly? Give you any trouble?”
“Screw you.”
Outside it was getting dark, diminishing even the few rays of light that made it through the garage windows and the limousine’s tinted glass. Gus allowed Samantha and himself a thirst-quencher. He had an ounce of gin and Samantha had a Coke. Samantha said he should have tonic water with the gin.
“No, thanks. I’ll have it straight.”
“I could make it for you. I know how.”
“You can still make it for me. Just leave out the tonic.”
She took the shot glass out of the cabinet, filled it with gin, emptied it into a glass. “Lemon?”
“Thanks.”
She found a lemon and the knife, cut off a slice, squeezed it into the glass, dropped in the peel, set the glass in the center of her hand, like a tray, and handed it to him.
“Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You do that very well, Samantha.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve mixed drinks, but I never forgot.”
What other memories of Doreen’s brothel would she never forget?
Gus searched through the cabinet. The hunger was almost as bad as the thirst and the heat. “Nuts and crackers.”
Samantha said, “Go for it.”
“They’re salted, make us even more thirsty.”
“I couldn’t be more thirsty.”
“Let’s wait. Can you wait?”
“If you can wait, I can wait.”
“You’re brave, Samantha.”
She had a swallow of tonic water. “Just one swallow,” she said, and kept to her word, pressing the metal cap back onto the little bottle.
They sat silently, sweating, dozing. They’d stopped asking each other when it would end. They talked about Larry, where he might be, what he would think of all this. They both tried to keep it light, struggling to encourage each other. Gus thought, She’s young, she’s only thirteen, she should be crying, moaning, demanding to leave. But she seemed almost to be enjoying it. An adventure.
They played poker. She divided out the “postage stamps,” two little stacks of torn bits of paper on the leather seat.
She said, “You know, this isn’t much fun if you don’t try. Last time you folded with three kings. My dad let me win, but at least I had to struggle a little.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”
She dealt.
Gus said, “Did you and your dad play cards a lot?”
“Yeah, mostly at night when I couldn’t sleep. I had trouble sleeping. We’d play and talk. It was neat.”
She won again, and they decided to put the cards away and just sit and talk. After half an hour, Samantha said, “Gus?”
“Yes.”
“You know all that business about living with my mother and the girls and I killed that guy?”
“Yes.”
“That was pretty bad, right?”
“Not too good.”
“But it wasn’t my fault.”
“I know that. You didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Silence, the loudest silence Gus had ever heard. He said, “So?”
“You said you’d always love me. No matter what?”
“That’s right.” He held his breath. Fatigued and defiant, challenging any intention to make their lives even more complicated, he said doggedly, “No matter what.”
“It’s just that I feel so—I mean, killing someone. That’s really bad, and I want to be sure you understand. I don’t want you to think your daughter’s a murderer. Even the police and the judge, they said it was self-defense, that I had to do it.”
He held her hand. “I know you did, Samantha. It wasn’t your fault. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“Okay.”
They were silent.
Then Samantha sighed and said, “I don’t want to spend another night in this thing.”
It was her first complaint since the outburst about a toilet.
“I don’t either, Samantha. Maybe we won’t have to.”
She gave him a look. “You think so?” Full of a child’s hope.
“Who knows? There’re a lot of people out there trying to get us out.”
“When do you think they’ll go into the Mercedes?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure it takes time to set something like that up. But it should be soon.”
“Boy. Go inside. I sure wouldn’t want—”
The phone buzzed. Gus picked it up. “Phil?”
“Is this Judge Parham?”
An unfamiliar voice. A man. Young.
Resisting an impulse to hang up, Gus said, “Who is this, please?”
“Is this Judge Parham?”
“Who’s calling?”
“This is Roy Jenkins of the Associated Press. Is this Judge Parham?”
“How’d you get this number?”
Coming in from a conventional instrument, the call would not be scrambled.
“Excuse me, but could I know if this is Judge Parham?”
“Yes, this is Judge Parham. I can’t—”
“Judge Parham, we’ve just had a report concerning your daughter, Samantha, and I would like your reaction, whether you can confirm it?”
“What’s the report?”
He knew he shouldn’t be talking to this guy, but—well, a day and a half locked in a limousine does things to you. And the reporter was smart enough to play on his curiosity.
“We’ve been told that when she was about seven or eight she was living in a brothel in Milwaukee.”
Gus felt his hand tremble. The Associated Press. Every word he spoke would be on the lips of every TV and radio news broadcaster within minutes after this conversation ended. And the words would stay with Samantha for the rest of her life.
“I’m sorry. I have no comment. I’m going to hang up now.”
“Judge Parham. There was more. We—”
Gus hesitated. He had to hear it.
“We were told that there had been statements by her adoptive mother that she was actually a participant in the functioning of the brothel. That she in a sense worked there. Can you confirm any of this? Do you—”
“Who told you that?”
“Do you know what she actually did there, if she—”
Gus hung up.
Samantha said, “What’s wrong? Who was it? You look really mad.”
Gus tried to get the rage off his face, out of his voice. Calm down. Think. Once in court a female murder defendant had come at him with a knife, leaving him mentally paralyzed for half a minute while bailiffs wrestled her to the floor. This was worse.
“It’s okay, Samantha. It’s okay.”
“Who was it? What did he say?”
He had to tell her.
“It was a reporter. He said he’d heard about how you used to live …”
“With the prostitutes?”
“Yes.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, it’s …”
“That’s okay. I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“I just didn’t like hearing it.”
She said, “Forget it.”
She put a hand on his knee, gave him a consoling little pat. “Have another gin. I’ll make it for you.”
He called Rothman.
“Would you be surprised to hear that I just had a call from a reporter for the Associated Press?”
A pause. “Not really. Some people have ways of getting phone numbers. It had to happen eventually. What’d he say?”
“He said they had a report that Samantha was raised in a brothel.”<
br />
“A brothel! What made—”
“It’s true, Phil. It’s a long story, but it’s true.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing, of course.”
“It’s probably on the news already. I’d better get it to the boss. I’ll call back.”
Gus hung up, and Samantha said, “Is he mad?”
“I don’t guess he’s too happy. But he’s calm. That’s his job. Stay calm.”
He smiled at her.
She nodded her head. “Good thinking. Stay calm. Keep cool.”
Rothman called back.
“It’s everywhere, Gus. You can’t turn on a radio or TV without hearing about how Samantha lived in a brothel when she was eight. You wanna change places? It may be hot and smelly where you are, but it’s plenty hot and smelly out here, too.”
“What’d the President say?”
“Enraged doesn’t begin to cover it. He wouldn’t withdraw you now if they had nuclear missiles.”
They hung up, and after twenty minutes the phone rang again.
“It’s Lyle Dutweiler, Gus. I have someone with me who wants to talk to you.”
In a second Gus heard the voice of the President.
“Gus? It’s Dave. How are you?”
“Fine, Dave. How’s it going?”
“I wanted to tell you personally, Gus, that I appreciate what you and Samantha are going through. I admire your courage, and I want to say something.”
Gus waited. Silence. Then he said, “Yes?”
“We are going to win this, Gus. I want you both to know, you and Samantha, sitting in that limousine, that the country is going to have you on the Supreme Court. We are going to find out who put that Mercedes where it is, who’s behind this, and we’re going to get it out of there, whatever it takes. Period. That’s it.”
“I appreciate that, Dave. I’ll pass it on to Samantha.”
“May I talk to her?”
“Of course. Here she is.”
Gus handed the phone to Samantha. Taking it, she asked him, “Who is it?”
“The President.”
“The President! Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Say hello. Talk to him.”
“Hello?”
She listened.
“Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you. Me too. Yes, sir. I will. Thank you. Goodbye.”
She hung up.
Gus said, “What’d he say?”
