Pleading Guilty

by Scott Turow

  He was back by the desk, haunted, caught up in the vastness of all these troubles. He said it aloud a couple of times - 'God, what am I going to do?' - and then without any real warning or connection he focused on me.

  'And what's with you?' he asked. 'I don't get why you're here, man. Who sent you?'

  'Our partners, basically, Bert.'

  He drew back again. He closed one eye. 'For what?'

  'They want the money back, Bert. No questions asked.'

  I'd caught him, surprised him. He hung there, mouth vaguely parted as he sought the right words. Taking a step closer to him, I was startled by my own impulse. I was actually halfway to some sly remark, some ingenious quip about splitting the dough. It was as if I'd stuck a hand inside myself, trying to find out what was there. But it was just the same awful mess and I said nothing.

  There was a tremendous commotion outside about then. Footsteps, pounding, lots of voices. My first thought was that the ball had rolled down the tunnel and they were playing the game right there. Someone began hammering on the door so that it seemed ready to jump out of the frame. But that happened only after Bert had looked me square in the eye, blinked, and swallowed so his large Adam's apple wobbled in his long throat where the hair grew coarse and unshaven. His face was utterly empty of guile.

  He asked me, 'What money?'

  XVIII. RUNNING MAN

  'Okay, pissface, open up.' I recognized Pigeyes's voice. 'Come on, Malloy. Give it up. Come on,' he kept saying. He'd had me again. The guy gets a surveillance van to watch me gambol down the avenues and I don't wonder. I was a dangerous fool. I had been followed.

  Bert started to speak and I lifted a finger in warning. When I mouthed the word 'Police', Bert circled his jaw and did a brief swoon.

  Pigeyes was still pounding, while I waited. The tail could not have been that good because I'd have heard somebody behind me in the gangway. So they were guessing. It was a good guess, but there was always the chance they'd go away.

  I found my datebook in my pocket and wrote Bert a note: 'If I can get rid of these guys, grab your pal as soon as the game is over and scram.' We both started hopping around, trying to figure out where he should hide, while Pigeyes went on walloping the door and calling me names. Finally we noticed the shower and I helped Bert chimney up so that his back was braced against one tile wall and his feet were parallel. I drew the blue curtain slowly; none of the rusty hooks gave even the slightest tinkle. It looked okay.

  By now somebody was working on the door hinges. I heard the tapping of a hammer and a screwdriver. 'Who is it?' I called sweetly.

  'It's Wilt Chamberlain. Open up so we can play one on one.'

  Pigeyes was dressed the same as yesterday. With him, he had his reptile-skin sidekick, Dewey, who was holding the screwdriver and hammer, and the two security guys I'd seen at the top of the runway up to the court, who were along for the ride.

  ' KoZ-fucking-Zd,' Gino said. He pointed a finger at me and said, 'Back.' He was awfully pleased. He'd got the drop on me twice now, counting U Inn. You'd never take this out of Pigeyes. He loved hunting some scumbag down, the whole pure adventure. Plenty of squirts come on the Force like that, adventure their watchword, it's all in their head, car chases, street scenes, kicking doors in, girls in the cop bars who can't wait to see them get hard. But the biggest adventure most of the time turns out to be department politics, seeing who gets back-stabbed in the latest downtown deal. Oh, plenty of excitement in the abstract. Every day you go to work and know in some fraction of your heart you might not come home. But usually, everyone does. Instead, there are hours of paperwork; there are nights of lame jokes and burning your tongue on bad coffee; the same old same-old on the street. Lots of folks, and I'm one, they get their fill and move on, knowing that life's life and can only be so much of an adventure. The guys who want adventure and stay - Pigeyes - they're the ones who seem to go wrong. Being a smartass, a wise guy, a rogue on your own - that's an adventure too. That's how they figure. That's one of the reasons he is like he is.

  The two security types followed Pigeyes in, both of them looking around, deeply chagrined. As Bert said, no one was supposed to be in here. Dewey stayed at the door. I talked to the security men, one white guy, one black, with matching potbellies, and the same vermilion sport jackets with the university crest on the breast pocket, both with polyester trousers and cheap shoes. This was too good a gig, getting paid to watch basketball games, for me even to have to guess what these fellas did for a day job. Coppers off duty, or my ma wasn't named Bess.

  'You didn't let him get away with that old thing that he was looking for someone, did you?' I asked. 'I've seen him badge his way into Sinatra. He'll say anything to get in for free.'

  Pigeyes cast me a dirty look as he wandered around. He flipped the doors on the three banged-up lockers against the far wall, not really expecting to see anything inside.

  'What gives, Malloy?'

  'I'm hiding.'

  'Funny place.'

  I told him about representing the U, getting the tour, learning about all the out-of-the-way places in here. 'Billy Birken from Alumni Relations took me around.' The name, I could tell, bought me a little something with Security.

  Sensing this, Pigeyes said, 'He's full of shit' and, as if to prove it, pointed one of his thick fingers at me. 'Who you hiding from?'

  I went to the door and grabbed the doorknob, which was so old and so often handled that the brass had worn off. I leaned past Dewey, who laid a hand lightly on my chest as I scouted the hall. Both the gangway and the tunnel runway up to the court were clear. I looked back at Pigeyes.

  'You,' I said and with that gave Dewey a little shove so he wouldn't be hit as I slammed the door between me and them and took off. I turned back once to make sure they were all right behind me.

  I got a hell of a lot farther than you would think. Four hardass cops shagging my fanny, but all of them heavier smokers than me, and they were lagging after the first twenty feet. Mack the Moose with one bum wheel made a hairpin when I got courtside and bolted up the aisle beside the first-tier seats, taking the stairs three at a time. As I came up from beneath, the smell and color of the enormous crowd in all its great clamoring power seemed startling, like falling into the hot breath of some beast. Pigeyes was shouting prosaic things like 'Stop him!' but nobody seemed inclined. People watched us - those who didn't crane around so they could keep up with the game - with the same amused curiosity they'd take in a parade. It was nothing to them, part of the spectacle. Though it slowed me down, I could not keep myself from laughing, especially with the thought of Bert sneaking out of the room. One guy in a Milwaukee sweatshirt yelled, 'Sit down, you clowns.'

  When I reached the mezzanine level, my knee hurt like a bastard from my gallivanting, but I was holding my lead. Huffing and puffing, I went down the exit passageway, ran past a big refreshment stand, with its Coca-Cola sign clock and long stainless-steel counter, and took a quick right up the old concrete stairs for the upper tiers. I could hear their voices ringing up the stairwell behind me. On the top level, I popped into the men's room and hustled into one of the stalls and waited. In about five minutes the game would be over and I'd have a chance to get out with the crowd. But that meant entertaining Pigeyes at my house. Besides, if they lost me completely, they might go back to the changing room, near which Bert would be lingering, waiting for Orleans. So I hid out another minute or two, then adjusted my sport jacket and found a seat in the second balcony.

  There were about forty seconds left on the big game clock when Pigeyes sat down beside me. The Hands were losing now by eighteen and were taking bad shots for treys, with the Meisters picking up the long rebounds. Gino was winded. His forehead was bright with sweat.

  'You're fucking,' he said, 'under arrest.'

  'For what? There a law against running in a public place?'

  'Resisting.'

  'Resisting? I'm sitting here talking to you almost like we were friends.' Dewey came up then. He pu
t his hands on his knees for a minute to catch his breath, then he sat down in the seat on the other side of me. The place was emptying, but there were enough people left to keep me safe. ‘I wanted to see the end of the game.'

  Pigeyes told me to fuck myself.

  'Did you tell me I was under arrest, Gino? Did you have a warrant?'

  Pigeyes looked at me levelly. 'Yes,' he said.

  'Fine,' I said. 'Show me the warrant. Hey, miss,' I called to a fat college girl two seats down, and reached for her sleeve. 'Would you please witness something?'

  The girl just stared.

  'Don't be a smartass, Malloy.'

  'Battery of a police officer,' said Dewey.

  'The way I remember, you put your hand on me first.'

  They exchanged a primitive look. I could remember how much I hated lawyers when I was a cop. The game horn went off then. Various people swirled out on the floor, the cheerleaders, photographers, TV crews, more security guys and kid ushers, the players from both benches. Bert Kamin was right at the edge of the court, among a hundred gawking fans. I saw him from three levels above, a distance of two hundred feet. He motioned to Orleans and went running down the tunnel behind him.

  'I think they could play in this conference,' I said, 'if they had a big man inside.'

  'Listen, pencil-dick. You're way past being humorous.'

  'Have I forgotten something, Gino? Did I take a shower with you?'

  'Keep it up, Malloy.' He sighted me down the line of a finger. 'We been on your ass since six tonight. You tear out of your house, you run around here like some fuckin mutt smelling heat, I say you're here for a meet. You got a call and you showed, lickety-split.'

  'And who would I be meeting?'

  'Stop playin, Malloy. Who am I looking for?'

  He still didn't have the remotest idea who Kam Roberts was. He was suspicious of course, because this was a basketball game and that was what Archie was fixing. But he didn't know how. Eventually, of course, the significance of my presence in the refs' room would come to him. But he'd been too busy running after me for that glimmer to strike home yet.

  'I'm going to tell you this again, Pigeyes, and so help me, if I'm lying then put me in the paddy wagon. I've never met this Kam Roberts. Never said boo to him.'

  'Then it's the other guy. What's-it. Bert.'

  Tm a basketball fan.'

  'I've had it a lot with you, Malloy. Not a fucking little. A lot. I want to know what gives.'

  'Forget it, Gino.' I puckered my lips and made that little motion, the lock and the key.

  He wasn't kidding about having had it. He was all gone. Looking into Gino's eyes, no one would be surprised to find that humans are carnivores.

  'Stand up.' I didn't at first, but when he repeated it, I figured I'd about run out the string. He tossed my pockets then. He pulled them out viciously so they were hanging from my trousers. He threw my keys and folding money down on the floor. He jammed his hands in my sport coat and found my datebook there, which he went through page by page until he got to the note I wrote Bert. He passed Dewey the book and was so overheated that his lips were sort of rumbling around on their own. Finally, for lack of anything else to do, he spat a big wad on the floor.

  'Illegal search,' I told him. 'With only two, three hundred witnesses. And all of them holding season tickets. I don't even have to take names.'

  He snatched the datebook from Dewey and threw it as hard as he could toward the scoreboard over the court. It flipped around in the air over the seats, then opened along its main seam and looked like a swallow in flight, diving at last and disappearing between the lights. Pigeyes got up close and lowered his voice.

  'I'm coming back with a subpoena.'

  'Do what you like. You start subpoenaing a lawyer, Pigeyes, with all those privileges and stuff, you'll have some poor assistant prosecuting attorney still dragging to court after you've got your thirty.'

  'Malloy, I cut you too much slack, twice now. I could have jacked you up good with that credit card, and I'm feeling what I always felt about you. That you're an ass-wipe. That you don't know dick about how to say thank you.'

  'Thank you, Pigeyes.'

  It was as close as I'd come yet to getting cracked. He was about ready to handle the beef. Public place. Lots of witnesses. He didn't care. He'd make up some outrageous insult I'd uttered, one that took in his manhood, his mother, the Force, in one breath. I didn't flinch either. A scaredy-cat like me, but I was ready to take what was coming. Go figure. Something with me and this guy. I couldn't back off or give him a break. We were an always thing, me and Pigeyes. With the death rattle I'd have one hand groping to yank on his chain.

  And he, in the meanwhile, had to hold back. He didn't have the room he wanted. It was the past, I suppose. I had more liberty with him than just any stray dog on the street. An instant passed before Gino got his impulses under control. Then he did what he liked to do. He threatened me.

  'I'm still making you as dirty on this thing. You were stinkin with sweat yesterday when I was puttin you in it. And I'll find out why. I'm going to be as close behind you as a fart. You better mind your fuckin manners. Cause when I tag you, Malloy' - he touched me on the lapel, just his fingertips - 'you'll be It.'

  He and Dewey walked away. They were about half a row down when Gino turned back.

  'And by the way. We got an amazing videotape of your bathroom window. Strictly fucking amazing. I'm gonna show it in the Squad Room tomorrow night in case you want to come by.' He had that slug smile, oily, evil, enjoying the contemplation of pain.

  I picked up my things eventually, after they were gone, figuring all in all it probably wasn't going the way I would have liked. A guy from the cleaning crew appeared, filling a huge trash bag and advancing me little dark looks in the hopes I would beat it, but I stayed put. I was wondering about Bert. Did he have the money or not, and if he didn't, who did? In the big empty stadium, I felt the perpetual nature of doubt, the way it's always with us. In life, we just never know.

  It struck me eventually that I was going to have to find some way to get home. I walked out, hope against hope, but I knew it. My car had been towed.

  Saturday, January 28

  XIX.

  SATURDAY

  A. Possible Connections

  On Saturday morning I went to the office. I had little to do but attend a lunch of the Recruiting Subcommittee and answer my junk mail, but I came in as a matter of habit on Saturdays. It kept me from fighting with Lyle and impressed those of my partners who saw the sign-in sheet. I liked the day, in fact, wandering down the uncrowded streets of Center City where other attorneys headed to work, moving at leisure with their briefcases and overcoats and blue jeans. The whole day had the off-center, underwater slowness of a dream. No flipping telephone. No secretaries sneaking looks at the clock. No hubbub, no filing dates. No stressed-out aura from all those striving young people running around. I got in early and checked my voice messages and E-mail, thinking I might have heard from Bert, but the only word was from Lena, asking me to call when I arrived.

  She came up from the library, wearing a button-down shirt of broad green stripes. She'd gotten the plane tickets and a beachfront hotel booking for Pico.

  'What are we going to do there?' she asked.

  'Investigate. Meet with a lawyer named Pindling. Find out what we can about an account at the International Bank of Finance.'

  'Great.' She seemed pleased by the prospects, by me.

  When she was gone, I took out the file on Toots's case, reviewing some of the records we would be offering to complete the defense, once Woodhull finished mauling

  Toots on cross-examination. My mind though remained on Bert and his problems, which would soon be getting worse. By now, Gino would have done the arithmetic: he'd seen the note in my datebook; he'd found me in the refs' room. Pigeyes would figure one of last night's refs was involved and would start hunting. I wanted to warn Bert -and finish our conversation about the money.

&nbs
p; I tracked down a copy of the morning's Tribune in a stall in the John, but the refs' names weren't listed in the box score. After some reflection, I called Media Relations at the U. I figured they might not answer on Saturday, but I got hold of an obliging young woman. Introducing myself as Detective Dimonte, Kindle Unified Police, I awaited a telltale response, something like 'You again?' but she seemed unsuspecting.

  'Brierly, Gleason, and Pole.' She was reading to me from last night's press handout. Those were the refs' names.

  'How about their first names and addresses?'

  'Care of the Mid-Ten. Detroit.'

  'You're not gonna make me send a subpoena?'

  She laughed. 'You can send what you want. We don't have that information. The conference doesn't even like giving out the last names. There was a lawyer a couple of years ago who wanted to sue one of these guys for smashing somebody's car in the parking lot and he had to get a court order. I mean it. As far as I know, you will need a subpoena. You can call Detroit Monday, but they're incredibly tight with this stuff.'

  That made sense. No off-color fan mail. No fixes. When I put down the phone, I got out the local phone book. I found an Orlando Gleason, but nothing else close. Bert must have made Orleans's acquaintance out of town. All in all, Pigeyes had more hurdles ahead than I'd figured.

  Not long afterwards, Brushy came in, full weekend regalia, blue jeans and running shoes. She looked pretty cute, wearing a big tan hat and carrying her briefcase, big as a saddlebag, and a bundle from the laundry wrapped in bright blue paper. She took just a step or two inside my door.

  'That was nice yesterday,' she said.

  'I'll say.'

  'You mad? About your rash?'

  'Hey,' I said amiably. I told her I'd called her doctor.