For a split second, he pictured Lisa Chang smiling and brushing her long black hair out of her eyes and then quickly banished the image from his mind.
“But I am saying that when it’s counted, I’ve always been there for you. And you damn well know it.”
He eased forward in silence for a few seconds, watching an old man with a cane pat Fallon on the back before the cop went to join his wife in the front of their Caprice. He saw them lock their doors and put on their seat belts without looking at each other. And in that instant, he decided he did not want to live the rest of his life that way.
“Okay,” he said with a sigh.
“Okay what?”
“Okay. I’m going to believe you.”
“Gee, thanks …”
She checked her eyes in the mirror and then decided that perhaps sarcasm wasn’t quite the appropriate response here. She took a second to let the relief set in.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should say I’m glad. And I should say I’m going to believe in you too.”
“Yes, you should.”
“Though how we’re going to get through the next few months, I don’t know.”
“I’m more worried about the next few days.” Barry took one quick look back at Fallon’s car and then made a right turn out of the lot.
50
WHAT BOTHERED GWEN FLORIO most as she sat in the Riverview Diner with the client and his wife was not so much the quick craven stares from the old ladies in the booth across the aisle, the brusque pen-on-pad skitter as their waitress took their order without looking at Fallon, or even the grim tight-stitched expression Marie wore as she kept looking at her watch and dipping her tea bag nervously into her cup. It was the Thomas’s English muffin with a light smear of butter that sat untouched on Mike’s plate.
He’d skipped lunch to help her prepare for cross-examination this afternoon, and now she was urging him to eat something to keep his strength up.
“Marie, I know it’s hard for you to take time off from work, but your presence is so important in the courtroom at this point.” Gwen smiled at the wife in a show of womanly sympathy. “All you need to do is sit in the back for a few more minutes at the next hearing. Just to let the mayor and the rest of the board members know that you’re still there for Mike.”
Fallon bowed his head, still staring pensively at his plate. Probably meant nothing, Gwen tried to reassure herself.
“Because what you’re doing is sending a strong message to the board,” Gwen went on, not daring to break eye contact with Marie lest she get up and walk away. “You’re saying, ‘This is a family. This is my man. I believe in him. We’re standing together in the storm. You will not break us apart.’”
Marie kept giving little nods, as if she were a dashboard figurine going over a bumpy road. She was shaky, but she was going to be all right. She was a good girl, Gwen realized. A truehearted girl. The type who’d always said her prayers, scrubbed the toilets at midnight, organized the closets on weekends, and never contradicted her man in public—even when he was making a total fool of himself. Someone, in short, she could never be friends with in her own private life. But she wasn’t going to be the problem. She’d sit in the back of the courtroom and smile bravely and do whatever was necessary to keep up appearances.
Mike, on the other hand, was starting to scare her a little. He was getting the “dog face.” That sunken resentful expression that seemed to suggest he expected a good whipping. He was writing too many feverish notes to her in court as well, which did nothing to convey the appearance of confidence to the board members. His thumb looked hideous, almost incriminating all by itself. She kept telling him to get it looked at by a doctor, that it wasn’t healing properly. And finally, there was the matter of the uneaten muffin. Even as she kept up her spiel to Marie, Gwen found her eyes being drawn to it, thinking of how it was growing colder by the minute.
“I’m glad you were able to be there for this afternoon’s testimony, because we scored some real points on Mrs. Schulman …”
Her eyes nipped over again quickly, trying to see if there was anything obviously wrong with the muffin. A fly circling. Green mold. Rancid butter. Probably meant nothing. But Florio’s Grand Self-Indicting Cheeseburger Theory kept bothering her. Something her husband, Shep, used to say back in the old Yonkers days. Get a suspect in a room with a bag of White Castle cheeseburgers. If he starts eating, he’s guilty. If he leaves them alone, he probably didn’t do it—because what innocent man could stand to eat after he’d been falsely accused? As she did with most things her husband said when he was alive, she’d dismissed it out of hand.
Of course, now that he’d been dead five years, she’d started to admit there might be something to it. In the handful of cases she’d had in which the defendant was truly not guilty of all charges, she’d seen officers go on a kind of de facto hunger strike, picking disconsolately at their club sandwiches and potato salad like a bunch of bony-hipped schoolgirls. It was the part of the job she truly hated, watching substantial-looking men waste away like that. The guilty ones were always easier to represent. She never lost any sleep worrying that one of them was going upstate. You gave it your best shot, picked up the check, went home, and never thought about them again.
“So when do you think you’d need me?” Marie fumbled for the appointment book in her cloth handbag. “I have the kids out of school at three and meetings most of the day tomorrow. Are you still thinking this hearing is going to go for a full three days?”
“Hard to tell at this point. I’m supposed to have twenty-four hours’ notice before any new witness is called who wasn’t on the original list. Court is going to be closed tomorrow, and the chief and Mr. Schulman are on the schedule for the next day. But Jack Davis left the door open a little this afternoon, saying there might be some last-minute additions.”
Mike touched his silverware tentatively, not daring to look at either woman.
He was a fool, Gwen told herself. Probably guilty of all charges, in this case. It was only her sly brilliance and legal brinkmanship that would get him an acquittal. All hail Gwen Florio, queen of all strategists, defender of the boys in blue! The guiltier they are, the better I am for getting them off!
But something had alarmed her in court this afternoon. A look that crossed Fallon’s face when Sandi Lanier’s name was mentioned. It wasn’t the phonied-up outrage or even the fraudulent solemnity she would’ve expected. It was a sudden flinch in the eyes. No one else would’ve been close enough to see it. And even if they did, they might have taken it as the flinch of a guilty man confronted with the truth. But in that tiny spasm of muscle above the eyes, Gwen saw something else far more upsetting: a man facing a lie. And expecting her to do something about it.
“So do you think other people might come forward?” Marie put her appointment book away and leaned over her steaming cup of tea.
“That’s always a possibility in a public hearing like this.” Gwen lowered her voice. “Especially with that jingle of money from a civil suit in the background. Anybody can say just about anything, up to a point.”
She cleared her throat, trying to get Mike’s attention. But he was busy gazing off into the mid-distance, watching a long gray sliver of the Hudson churn past the restaurant windows.
“We’re still going to win this, though, aren’t we?” Marie asked. “We still have to live in this town. My children talk to their friends at school.”
“I know how hard this must be for you, Marie.” Gwen covered her hand for a second. “That’s why it’s so essential to show the board that you haven’t taken a step back from Mike.”
“You didn’t answer my question, though.”
Marie took back her hand and scooped the tea bag out of her cup.
“Are we going to win?” she said.
As Gwen watched Marie wrap twine around the sodden brown bag on her spoon, squeezing drops into her cup, she realized that she might have misjudged this woman. There was solid titanium u
nder those pixie bangs and apple cheeks.
“I think there’s a good chance we’ll prevail,” Gwen said, weighing her words carefully.
“I see.”
Gwen watched her daintily wring out the last of the droplets and then set the flattened tea bag down on the side of her saucer. And in that instant, she understood that this was a woman who would know when to cut and run.
“Marie, I wonder if you could give Mike and me a few minutes to talk on our own,” Gwen said. “There are a few minor points I need to go over with him.”
“Of course, I understand.” Marie signaled to a passing waitress. “Maybe I can get this tea in a cup to go. I have a few phone calls to make anyway. I can sit in the car outside.”
“Thanks, hon,” Mike said.
The first words they’d spoken directly to each other since they sat down. As Marie leaned over to give him a quick perfunctory kiss on the cheek, Gwen saw Mike’s hand go up as if he was about to grab her wrist and hold on to it. But she was on her feet and out of reach before he could touch her.
For a moment, Gwen felt a small warm tickle of compassion for him. But then her eyes fell back to the uneaten muffin on his plate, reminding her of the terrible burden of trying to save what might be a falsely accused client, and her pity cooled into a cold hard lump in the pit of her stomach. Don’t worry about him. Just do your job and let the court decide. But now he’d infected her with his misery. Goddamn the innocent.
“Okay,” Marie said. “He’s all yours. See what you can do with him.”
51
“BELIEVE ME, I UNDERSTAND your reluctance,” said Barry, sitting at a wobbly kitchen table with a neatly folded napkin under one of the legs.
“You do, do you?” Muriel Navarro set down a cup of microwaved Sanka before him and lowered her eyes.
The three other nannies who shared this cramped little third-floor apartment above the recently closed Genovese drugstore on River Road were gathered in the other room, eating chips and watching a videotape of a television show called Survivor. With grave misgivings and icy courtesy, Muriel had invited him upstairs after he approached her on the street a few minutes ago, just so she wouldn’t have to be seen talking to him out in the open.
“My wife was reluctant about testifying as well,” he said.
She put a pink botanica bag down on the kitchen counter. “You don’t want any milk with that?”
“No, thank you.”
“You know I’m not doing this, right?”
“I completely understand your reasons.”
“I only let you come up for a minute because I’m polite. It doesn’t mean anything. Once you finish your coffee, I’d like you to leave.”
“Of course.” He carefully turned the cup on its saucer. “Maybe I would like a little milk to go with this.”
She opened the buzzing old refrigerator, took out a quart, poured it into a delicate white pitcher with flowers around the border, and lightened his coffee for him. He sensed that there was a small chance here.
“She really took a beating in court today, my wife.”
Muriel put the milk back in the refrigerator and closed the door.
“They brought up all kinds of things that she’s never even told me about. Abortions, old boyfriends. They ripped her to shreds.”
She turned her back to him and started taking newspaper-wrapped packages out of the bag. One by one, she carefully unfolded them, revealing a series of brightly colored candles poured into tall glasses.
“Whaddaya got there?” he said, studying the lettering on their sides. “Votives or prayer lites?”
She gave him a bemused look. “You know about botanica?”
“I used to work in the Bronx. We had one right around the corner on Gerard Avenue. I lit a nice fat Causa de Corte and an orange Chango for good luck every time I tried a case.”
He didn’t mention that it was the idea of a secretary in the office or that his supervisor, Sean Heffernan, always bitterly complained about the smell they left.
“So, what’d you buy?” he asked.
Muriel pursed her lips, looking faintly embarrassed. She seemed like the kind of young woman who’d spent her teen years smoking blunts and hoisting forties on the corner and had only begun to admit that there might be something to that old-time secret religion Grandma practiced in a back room on Southern Boulevard.
“Is that a Saint Michael?” he asked, pointing to a red candle.
“Saint Anthony,” she corrected him.
She moved a long red-painted fingernail to the other candles in the row. “Infant of Prague,” she said, reluctantly enumerating the names one at a time. “Virgen Milagrosa, Sagrado Corazón de Jesus, Seven Angels. This here is for Elegua, keeper of the crossroads”—she paused on a pink candle—“because my cousin’s traveling. And this one …” She stopped on a green candle that said “Lotto” and had dollar signs on the glass. “This one is for me.”
“What’s that blue one on the end?”
“Saint Lazarus.” She let her finger trail along the rim of the blue candle’s glass. “Chiara, the little girl I look after, has been sick a couple of days. I’m praying for her. You’re not supposed to fall in love with them, but you do. Bet you think that’s dumb, right?”
“I won every single case when I lit a candle.” He shrugged. “And even I wasn’t that good.”
She smiled in spite of herself and turned around to get some kitchen matches out of a drawer.
“Look”—he sipped the coffee slowly, finding it bitter on the back of his tongue—“I know testifying against the lieutenant is taking a risk …”
“You’re damn straight. I don’t have a husband who’s a lawyer or a house in the West Hills. If I wind up in the river, ain’t nobody gonna care except them kids I look after.”
He watched her light the candles one by one. As each small flame sparked and slowly flickered up to its full height, he felt hope sputter and then revive again. He’d gotten no response to the twelve messages in four different locations for Iris Lopez, the other woman who’d filed a complaint against Fallon and then suddenly withdrawn it. If he didn’t get this Muriel, he wasn’t getting anybody.
“You know, my wife really surprised me today.”
From the next room, he heard the other nannies groaning and gagging in unison, with one of them yelling, “Ay dios mío! I can’t believe he ate that fuckin’ rat!”
“I mean, at the time, I was furious with her because I thought she’d been lying to me all these years.” Barry raised the coffee cup again. “But then, when I was outside waiting for you to show up, it occurred to me: she really went all the way out on a limb. Because she had to know she was going to take the hit. But she did it anyway. She got up and let them take their shots. Because she knew it was the right thing to do. It was an act of faith.”
She took a step away from the counter and turned around, somehow still holding the candlelight in her eyes.
Keep going, he told himself. This is your last shot.
“You know what I mean? It was like she was sending up a flare. Saying, Here I am. This is what happened to me. Is there anybody else out there? It was like lighting a candle to draw people out of the dark.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, studying the blue tips of the flames.
“So, what is it that you want me to do?” she said.
“I want you to go to the chief and the prosecuting attorney and give them a statement about what really happened between you and the lieutenant. And I want you to explain why you withdrew your original complaint. Because you know there’s probably other women out there in the dark.”
She looked back at the candles beside the sink, watching the flames waver and sway in the evening breeze through the half-open window. He almost missed it when she gave a tiny little nod.
“You want a fresh cup of coffee?” she asked.
52
AS HE GOT BACK from dropping all three kids off at school the next morning, M
ike saw Harold’s dark-blue LeSabre parked in his driveway. There was an instant pungency in the air, a bad smell about to reveal its source. He’d been in a foul mood to begin with. All this sitting around was starting to get to him. His body turning to mush: his face looking like a shucked oyster, his upper-body muscle dribbling down to his love handles. His thumb throbbing and changing colors with the season, the nail peeled back just enough to cause him constant discomfort without falling off.
He parked curbside, got out, and slammed the door behind him, taking an angry hunk out of the morning.
A pile of black pit-bull nuggets sat on the path to the front door. So this was how the neighbors welcomed him? Fine. He’d reckon with them too when the time came.
He stopped to pick up the mail on the porch and noticed he had a letter from his first wife, Doris, along with all the bills, probably complaining that he’d fallen behind on alimony again. Somehow she could sniff his wounds from three thousand miles away. Women.
He came up the steps and noticed that the door was already open. He went in and felt a pigeon fluttering inside his rib cage. The laundry had been put away. The refrigerator rattled, threatening to become the next appliance to turn on him. From the living room, he heard the hamster running on its treadmill, claws tumbling the steel bars over and over.
He came toward the kitchen and heard water dripping in the sink, reminding him about his latest failure with the plumber’s wrench. When he turned it off, he saw Marie’s teacup on the counter, with a bright scarlet lipstick stain still on the rim, as if she’d put it down in haste. The caulk gun was lying beside it. More evidence of her taking on the little projects he couldn’t complete because of his bad thumb.
“Honey, what’s going on?” he called out.
The door to the basement was wide open, deepening his sense of profound apprehension. The tensile roll of the hamster’s treadmill faded, and his heart began to thump. He heard men talking calmly just above the grunt and rumble of his boiler. “You couldn’t have got rid of it that easy,” one was saying.
The Last Good Day Page 37
