Mortal Allies

by Brian Haig

  I can’t ever remember seeing any hint of anxiety or self-doubt on Carlson’s face. But I thought I did this time. Just a flicker, but I was pretty sure it was there.

  I said, “Say Eddie does offer a deal? Would you take it?”

  She brought her hand up to her forehead and began kneading it, as though her head was about to explode into a thousand shards unless she held it together. I never thought I’d feel sympathy for Katherine Carlson, but I did.

  “Would you?” she asked, staring at me with doleful eyes.

  “Depends on the deal, I guess. Wouldn’t take much, though. Anything less than murder one or a sentence less than death, and I’d probably leap at it.”

  “Why? Because we’re six days out and all the evidence points at Thomas? Or because you believe Thomas is guilty?”

  “Because it’ll keep him out of the electric chair. That’s maybe the most we can hope for at this moment. We can appeal later. Maybe we’ll find something down the road that exonerates him.”

  “We, Drummond? As soon as this trial’s over, you’ll be assigned to your next case, right? And OGMM will damn sure try to shift me to my next case.”

  “He’ll get somebody to represent him.”

  “It’s not an option. Thomas won’t buy it. He told me, no deals,” she said, sounding as distressed as I’d ever heard her.

  I reached across and took hold of her tiny hand. I tried to sound soothing. “Take a deep breath and count to ten. You’re taking it too personally again.”

  “Damn right I am!” she exploded, suddenly yanking her hand back and giving me a perfectly pernicious glare.

  I thought she was going to slap me. I don’t pretend to understand women, and I’m even more perplexed when the woman is gay, like Katherine. But this caught me completely by surprise. This woman changed moods faster than models change clothes.

  “Damn it, Katherine, I’m just trying to get you to think rationally. You better know what you’re doing when you meet with Golden. Trust me on this — the guy can take you to the cleaners and have you steamed, pressed, and folded before you blink. He ain’t called Fast Eddie for nothing.”

  Although, actually, we called him Fast Eddie because he could get into and out of a girl’s pants faster than any human being on earth. Not that I worried about that part with Katherine, because, after all, her electrodes were upside down.

  Her face was still surly, but she said, “Maybe you’d better come along.”

  “Love to,” I said, although actually I wouldn’t love to at all. In fact, I’d be perfectly happy if I never saw Eddie Golden again for the rest of my life. A man’s got to know his own limitations, and Eddie had amply demonstrated mine, twice, before a jury of our peers. The truth was, Eddie scared the hell out of me.

  CHAPTER 21

  I’ll give Katherine credit; she collected herself with inhuman speed. She was as cool as an ice pick when we got to Eddie’s office. She bounced with confidence as she walked through the door, entered like she owned the place; as though she was the one who had the judge and every piece of evidence in her hip pocket.

  Unfortunately, Eddie wasn’t easily flustered. He stood behind his desk and flashed his most Redfordesque, gorgeous-boy-next-door, I’m-gonna-cut-your-ass-into-tiny-pieces smile.

  “Miss Carlson, I can’t begin to say what a great pleasure it is to finally meet you,” he announced, warmly shaking her hand and playing the perfect gentleman to the hilt. Then he tilted his head and looked at me curiously. “You’re, uh, Drummond, right? Haven’t we met before?”

  Eddie Golden, if I hadn’t mentioned it before, is a master at playing mind games.

  I nodded shyly and said, “We’ve . . . uh, we’ve met twice, Eddie.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, like he wouldn’t have recalled it if I hadn’t jogged his memory. “The Dressor case, back in, uh . . . When the hell was that? The summer of ’95, right? And . . . uh, Clyde Warren, back in ’99? You were defending them, right?”

  Depend on Eddie to remember everything about every case he ever won.

  “That’s right, Eddie. I’ve got two of your baseball bats stored in my closet at home.”

  “Heh-heh,” he chuckled, like, What a silly habit, but, aw shucks, I just can’t help myself. “Well,” he said, returning to his most-charming-host-in-the-universe routine. “Won’t you be seated? Can I get you anything? Coffee? Soda?”

  “No, nothing,” Katherine said. “This isn’t a social visit.”

  “Of course,” he replied, still smiling, but with just the right amount of sympathetic edge on it.

  Katherine and I sat side by side. She pinched my leg to remind me to let her handle this, especially since Eddie had already used our past history to pound me into place.

  She said, “So what is it you want, Major Golden?”

  “I just thought we should get to know each other before the trial convenes,” he replied with a dimpled grin I would’ve dearly loved to wipe off his face.

  “I already know about you. What is you want to know about me?”

  “Oh, you don’t need to explain anything about yourself, Miss Carlson. Anybody who’s read a newspaper or magazine these past eight years knows about your brilliant legal exploits. I can’t say what a great pleasure it is to finally meet you. At the risk of sounding redundant, it will be the honor of my life to tilt with you in court.”

  Had that come out of anybody else’s mouth, it would’ve been instantly recognizable as an obnoxiously oozy, completely insincere sentiment. Not from Eddie’s lips, though. He was the master. He could get standing ovations from juries. You had to look at his face, his physical bearing; you could swear he was being presented to the Queen of England.

  I was praying Katherine wouldn’t succumb to this unctuous horseshit.

  I stole a glance in her direction, and Jesus! She was beaming and blushing like a high school freshman being asked to the senior prom by the captain of the football team. She crossed and recrossed her legs once or twice. She twiddled her fingers.

  “Thank you, Major Golden. I’m looking forward to it also.”

  “Call me Eddie, please.”

  “Of course, Eddie. And I’m Katherine.”

  “Of course you are. Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?” her new buddy Eddie asked again. I was getting sick.

  “No, really. With this heat, I’ve been drinking all day,” Katherine said, giving him a blast of her most angelic smile.

  If I didn’t mention it before, Katherine’s a beautiful woman, but in a way you’re almost afraid to touch, like a delicate porcelain doll. She’s not the type you dream of taking to a cheap motel for an afternoon of wild, raunchy sex; she’s the type you pray Mom sees you with.

  Of course, she’s also a lesbian, so Eddie’s sexual charms and sterling good looks should’ve fallen on blind eyes. That’s not the way it was going down, though. She was melting in his hands.

  “I’m terribly sorry about the case you’ve been handed,” Eddie said. “It’s really a raw deal.”

  “Why’s that?” Katherine asked, smiling sweetly.

  “Well, there isn’t a reasonable defense, is there? It wasn’t self-defense. He wasn’t framed. And the sexual perversions, Jesus! That isn’t going to sit well with a board of Army officers.”

  “Some cases are more difficult than others.”

  “I’ll say,” Eddie replied with an agreeable grin.

  “Of course, there’s a great deal you probably haven’t discovered yet,” Katherine said, smiling coyly.

  “Like what?”

  “Come on, Eddie, a girl has to have a few secrets.”

  He chuckled amiably. “Right, of course,” he said, as though this were complete baloney, but if Katherine wanted to fence, it was all good fun for him.

  “So, Eddie, is there something specific you want to talk about?”

  He took his eyes off her for the first time since we’d entered and toyed with something on his desk. He looked reluctant, like he
really didn’t want to talk business, he just wanted to bask and reflect in Katherine’s glory. I mean, the guy was really, really good.

  He finally said, “Actually, yes. I want to discuss the possibility of a deal.”

  “A deal?” she asked, as though the very notion couldn’t have come as a greater surprise.

  “I need to start by telling you,” Eddie swiftly said, lifting his arms helplessly, “my bosses are opposed to this. They want a full-blown trial. They want to use the trial to bolster Korean faith in the American legal system. They want Whitehall punished. Severely punished. They won’t be happy with anything less than a death sentence.”

  Katherine swiftly bent forward and her eyes grew wide. “The death sentence? Oh my God.”

  “That’s right. Only a trial’s a complete waste of time and needless trouble. You know that, right? And I know that, right? The outcome’s obvious, isn’t it? Besides, frankly, I’ve never been a fan of the death sentence. What does it accomplish? It doesn’t bring the victim back to life, does it? It doesn’t undo the crime, does it? So what’s the point?”

  This was part of Eddie’s style. He liked to coax you into agreement by asking a thousand rhetorical questions that allowed you to think you were coming up with the answers. I thought it was a tacky stunt. It worked for him, though. I’ll say that.

  And he was playing to Katherine’s obviously liberal tendencies, knowing damn well she must be opposed to the death sentence. He was trying to show they had common ground.

  It was just a damned good thing he was having this conversation with her instead of with me, because I would’ve felt duty-bound to point out that Eddie’s Hangman Awards were owed substantially to the fact that he’d achieved something like four death sentences. He had more death sentences on his record than any other three Army lawyers combined.

  But Katherine was nodding right along, completely mesmerized, under the thumb of the spellbinder.

  “So what’s the deal?” she timidly asked.

  Eddie leaned back in his chair and hooked both his thumbs under his belt. He sighed and appeared completely distressed by this whole thing, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It was an unbelievable performance. Truly remarkable. I have to admit that.

  “Plead guilty to all counts. He’ll get life, no chance of parole.”

  “All counts?” Katherine asked, in shock.

  Eddie’s hands came out of his belt and he bent way forward, nearly all the way across his desk. His hands were palms up, beseeching the heavens, and his eyes were so sympathetic you could swear he was bleeding internally for her.

  “Katherine, Katherine, I have to tell you, I’m going way out on a limb for this. I swear I am. He pleads to all counts or I can’t get a deal.”

  Now he was wheedling and cajoling like a car salesman — like, Hey, I’d love to sell you this car; you only have to come up a little in price so I can persuade that tightfisted, asshole manager in the back room.

  Katherine was seated pertly in her chair, her eyes riveted on his. “All counts?” she repeated, as though maybe she had a hearing problem.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I truly am. It’s all or nothing. But think about it. What’s the difference? He pleads to murder one, who gives a crap about the other stuff? You get a life sentence for murder, the rest is peachfuzz, right? Doesn’t really add a single year to his sentence, does it? It’s as generous as I can go. Think about it.”

  Katherine’s expression turned pleading. “You’re sure, Eddie? All counts? You couldn’t drop something as insignificant as the engaging in homosexual acts? Not even for me?”

  He somehow came even farther across the desk, literally out of his chair, until his absurdly handsome face was within inches of hers.

  “I’m sorry, Katherine, this is the way it has to be,” he whispered.

  “Fuck you!” she roared so loud even I bounced in my chair.

  Eddie reeled backward. “Huh?”

  “Fuck you, Golden! You want me to spell it for you? I’m going to take this case and break it off in your ass so deep it’ll scar your tonsils. You arrogant jerk-off. You’ve got no idea what nasty little surprises Drummond and I have in store for you. Just wait, you puffed-up asshole.”

  Poor Eddie was in complete shock. Like General Spears, he’d just gotten his first unexpected dose of what I’d had dished at me for years. I almost felt sorry for him. She’d been so girlish, so pliant in Eddie’s skilled hands. She’d walked him down the primrose path. One moment the poor putz was sauntering joyfully in the middle of a flat, open, warm meadow, and all of sudden, out of the blue, Whoosh! — an avalanche of snow and ice crashed down on his head.

  Katherine abruptly stood up and I followed her out. I barely had time to turn around and give Eddie Golden the bird. It was juvenile as hell, but hey; I got swept up in the mood of the moment.

  Outside the JAG building, I lost control. I literally grabbed Katherine, picked her up, and spun her around in the air. She smiled and giggled and ordered me to put her down right away or she’d knee me in the nuts so hard they’d pop out my ears. So I did.

  “God, that was great!” I yelled, exultant.

  “No, that was fun,” Katherine corrected. “Great would be if I could back it up.”

  “Good point,” I admitted, starting to come down off my high.

  “Boy, he is a slick bastard, isn’t he?”

  “Slick? You think that was slick? Wait’ll you see him in court,” I ruefully warned.

  We walked to the gate, neither saying a word, just privately mulling.

  Katherine finally said, “Why do they want a deal?”

  “They want to reduce the risk, especially on this case. And they want to prevent us from humiliating Minister Lee by outing his son. They must suspect we have something.”

  “You think your visit to his house might be behind this?”

  “Yeah, I think. That must’ve been why Janson was so pissed. Unless I miss my guess, somebody damned important, maybe Brandewaite or Spears, ordered Golden to get a deal. Janson probably argued against it, lost, and got so incensed he decided to take it out on me.”

  I kept to myself that Clapper, the chief of the JAG Corps, might’ve authored the idea of a deal because, if we lost, I could always launch an appeal based on command influence, citing him as the cause. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed Clapper was behind it. Boy, would I have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

  She said, “I think you’re wrong. I think they’re afraid of the six hundred protesters OGMM brought in.”

  “That could be a factor,” I admitted.

  “A factor? They’re scared to death of what we might do next. In fact, I think it’s time to turn up the heat.”

  “And what would be the purpose of that?” I asked, sounding edgy and concerned, because I was.

  “If things don’t improve in five days, we may have to consider a deal. Let’s see if we can convince them to sweeten the pot.”

  “To what?”

  “Make them drop the engaging in homosexual acts and fraternization charges.”

  “What’s the sense in that?”

  “They’re just the two I want dropped,” she said, refusing to elaborate. “Trust me on this,” she continued. “To quote your friend Fast Eddie, if they convict on murder one, the other stuff’s just peachfuzz anyway.”

  Knowing Katherine, I didn’t believe for a second she was being anywhere near so arbitrary. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but she was hatching some plan.

  CHAPTER 22

  I hit McDonald’s again and picked up four Big Macs to go with the medicinal necessities I’d already bought, which included another six-pack of Molson and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, which, if you don’t know, is the best brand of Johnnie Walker money can buy. And in case you don’t know, it cost a fortune. I almost cried because I wasn’t going to get a drop.

  The guard at the desk instantly recognized me, so I d
idn’t have to pantomime or otherwise act like an overanimated clown to make him understand I wanted to see Whitehall. He went and got the big brute, who walked in grouchy-faced, not the least bit happy to see me.

  He ordered me over to a side room, and once we were there, said, “No more contraband may be smuggled in to Whitehall. Open your briefcase so I can search it.”

  I did and the odor of the Big Macs poured out. He grinned, then bent over and reached his big paws inside. What he pulled out was the Johnnie Walker Blue, which he stared at like it was the Holy Grail.

  “That’s yours,” I announced. “And two of the Big Macs.”

  His eyes fixed on mine, he tilted his head sideways, and his shoulder muscles got all bunched up. I couldn’t tell if this was moral indecision or preparation to punch me for so blatantly trying to bribe him.

  I quickly said, “You got any idea what a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue costs?”

  “Two hundred and twenty-two dollars,” he murmured. Somewhat passionately, too. When it comes to a man’s taste in booze, my prescience can be uncanny. Of course, anybody who looked like him had be a scotch man. He was too damned ugly to sneak up on any other kind of hooch.

  He eagerly stuffed the bottle down his shirt, crammed the two burgers in his side trouser pockets, and closed the lid on my briefcase. He handed it to me, then slyly hooked a finger.

  When we got to Whitehall’s cell, he opened it and waved for me to enter. “One hour,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I replied, and he locked the door behind me and disappeared. I turned around. “Hi, Tommy.”

  Whitehall didn’t get up. He lay on his back. “Hello, Major.”

  I kicked my briefcase in his direction. “Open it. I brought you more treats.”

  My eyes still weren’t adjusted to the near-darkness, but I heard him rustle around. The clasp clicked open, and the disruptive odor of fast food again permeated the cell. It was a good thing, too, because once again Whitehall’s cell smelled like human dung, the consequence, I guess, of my earlier visit.