“Besides attitude, sure. Says so right on the indictment. You burned down a crack house. For at least the . . . what was it, fourth time? That’s first-degree arson, malicious destruction of property, attempted murder—”
“I didn’t—”
“What? Know anyone was home when you firebombed the dump? Doesn’t matter—the charge is still valid.”
“Yeah, well they can valid this,” Leonard said, making a gesture appropriate to his speech.
“You’re looking at a flat dime down in Huntsville,” Veil told him. “That a good enough summary of your ‘problem?’”
“No, it ain’t close,” Leonard said. “Here’s my problem. You come in here wearing a few thousand bucks of fancy stuff, tell me you’re a fighter, but your face looks like you lost a lot more fights than you won. You don’t know jack about Texas law, but you’re gonna work a local jury. And that’s still not my big problem. You know what my big problem is?”
“I figure you’re going to tell me sometime before visiting hours are over,” Veil said.
“My problem is this: Why the hell should I trust you?”
“I trust him,” I said.
“I know, brother. And I trust you. What I don’t trust, on the other hand, is your judgment. The two ain’t necessarily the same thing.”
“Try this, then.” Veil told him. “Homicide. A murder. And nobody’s said a word about it. For almost twenty years.”
“You telling me you and Hap—?”
“I’m telling you there was a homicide. No statute of limitations on that, right? It’s still unsolved. And nobody’s talking.”
“I don’t know. Me and Hap been tight a long time. He’d tell me something like that. I mean, he dropped the rock on someone, I’d know.” Leonard turned to me. “Wouldn’t I?”
I didn’t say anything. Veil was doing the talking.
Veil leaned in close, dropping his voice. “It wasn’t Hap who did it. But Hap knows all about it. And you, if keep your mouth shut long enough, you will too. Then you can decide who to trust. Deal?”
Leonard gave Veil a long, deep look. “Deal,” he finally said, leaning back, waiting to hear the story.
Veil turned and looked at me, and I knew that was my cue to tell it.
2.
“It was back in my semi-hippie days,” I said to Leonard. “Remember when I was all about peace and love?”
“The only ‘piece’ I ever knew you to be about was a piece of ass,” Leonard said kindly. “I always thought you had that long hair so’s it could help you get into fights.”
“Just tell him the fucking story,” Veil said. “Okay? I’ve got work to do, and I can’t do it without Leonard. You two keep screwing around and the guard’s going to roll on back here and—”
“It was in this house on the coast,” I said. “In Oregon. I was living with some folks.”
“Some of those folks being women, of course.”
“Yeah. I was experimenting with different ways of life. I told you about it. Anyway, I hadn’t been there long. This house, it wasn’t like it was a commune or nothing, but people just . . . came and went, understand? So, one day, this guy comes strolling up. Nice-looking guy. Photographer, he said he was. All loaded down with equipment in his van. He was a traveling man, just working his way around the country. Taking pictures for this book he was doing. He fit in pretty good. You know, he looked the part. Long hair, but a little neater than the rest of us. Suave manner. Took pictures a lot. Nobody really cared. He did his share of the work, kicked in a few bucks for grub. No big deal. I was a little suspicious at first. We always got photographers wanting to ‘document’ us, you know? Mostly wanted pictures of the girls. Especially Sunflower—she had this thing about clothes being ‘inhibiting’ and all. In other words, she was quick to shuck drawers and throw the hair triangle around. But this guy was real peaceful, real calm. I remember one of the guys there said this one had a calm presence. Like the eye of a hurricane.”
“This is motherfucking fascinating and all,” Leonard said, “but considering my particular situation, I wonder if you couldn’t, you know, get to the point?”
Seeing as how Leonard never read that part of the Good Book that talked about patience being a virtue, I sped it up a bit. “I was out in the backyard one night,” I said. “Meditating.”
“Masturbating, you mean,” Leonard said.
“I was just getting to that stage with the martial arts and I didn’t want any of the damn marijuana smoke getting in my eyes. I guess I was more conservative about that sort of thing than I realized. It made me nervous just being around it. So I needed some privacy. I wasn’t doing the classic meditation thing. Just being alone with my thoughts, trying to find my center.”
“Which you never have,” Leonard said.
“I’m sitting there, thinking about whatever it was I was thinking about—”
“Pussy,” Leonard said.
“And I open my eyes and there he is. Veil.”
“That’d be some scary shit,” Leonard said.
“Looked about the same he does now.”
“Yeah? Was he wearing that Armani suit?”
“Matter a fact, he wasn’t,” I said. “He looked like everyone else did around there then. Only difference was the pistol.”
“I can see how that got your attention,” Leonard said.
“It was dark. And I’m no modern firearms expert. But it wasn’t the stuff I grew up with, hunting rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. This was a seriously big-ass gun, I can tell you that. I couldn’t tell if he was pointing it at me or not. Finally I decided he was just kind of . . . holding it. I asked him—politely, I might add—if there was anything I could do for him, short of volunteering to be shot, and he said, yeah, matter of fact, there was. What he wanted was some information about this photographer guy.
“Now hippie types weren’t all that different from cons back then, at least when it came to giving out information to the cops. Cops had a way of thinking you had long hair, you had to be something from Mars out to destroy Mom, apple pie, and the American way.”
“Does that mean Texas too?” Leonard asked.
“I believe it did, yes.”
“Well, I can see their point. And the apple pie part.”
“I could tell this guy was no cop. And he wasn’t asking me for evidence-type stuff anyway. Just when the guy had showed up, stuff like that.”
Leonard yawned. Sometimes he can be a very crude individual. Veil looked like he always does. Calm.
“Anyway, I started to say I didn’t know the guy, then . . . I don’t know. There was something about his manner that made me trust him.”
“Thank you,” Veil said. I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not.
I nodded. “I told him the truth. It wasn’t any big deal. Like I said, he wasn’t asking anything weird, but I was a little worried. I mean, you know, the gun and all. Then I got stupid and—”
“Oh, that’s when it happened?” Leonard asked. “That’s like the moment it set in?”
I maintained patience—which is what Leonard is always complaining he has to do with me—and went on like he hadn’t said a word: “—asked him how come he wanted to know all about this guy, and maybe I ought not to be saying anything, and how he ought to take his pistol and go on. I didn’t want any trouble, and no one at the place did either.
“So Veil asks the big question: Where is the guy right now? I told him he was out somewhere. Or maybe gone, for all I knew. That’s the way things were then. People came and went like cats and you didn’t tend to get uptight about it. It was the times.”
“Groovy,” Leonard said.
“We talk for a while, but, truth was, I didn’t know anything about the guy, so I really got nothing to say of importance. But, you know, I’m thinking it isn’t every day you see a guy looks like Veil walking around with a gun almost the size of my dick.”
“Jesus,” Leonard said. “Can’t ever get away from your dick.??
?
“No, it tends to stay with me.”
“How about staying with the story,” Veil said, still calm but with an edge to his voice now.
“So I ask Veil, it’s okay with him, I’m going back in the house and get some sleep, and like maybe could he put the gun up ’cause it’s making me nervous. I know I mentioned that gun several times. I’m trying to kind of glide out of there because I figure a guy with a gun has more on this mind than just small talk. I thought he might even be a druggie, though he didn’t look like one. Veil here, he says no problem. But I see he’s not going anywhere, so I don’t move. Somehow, the idea of getting my back to that gun doesn’t appeal to me, and we’re kind of close, and I’m thinking he gets a little closer, I got a small chance of taking the gun away from him. Anyway, we both stick. Studying each other, I think. Neither of us going anywhere.”
“Neither the fuck am I,” Leonard said. “Matter of fact, I think moss is starting to grow on the north side of my ass.”
“All right, partner,” I told him, “here’s the finale. I decide to not go in the house, just sit out there with Veil. We talk a bit about this and that, anything but guns, and we’re quiet a bit. Gets to be real late, I don’t know, maybe four in the morning, and we both hear a motor. Something pulling into the driveway. Then we hear a car door close. Another minute or so, the front door to the house closes too. Veil, without a word to me, gets up and walks around to the drive. I follow him. Even then I think I’m some kind of mediator. That whatever’s going on, maybe I can fix it. I was hell for fixing people’s problems then.”
“You’re still hell for that,” Leonard said.
“Sure enough, there’s the guy’s van. I’m starting to finally snap that Veil hasn’t just showed up for an assassination. He’s investigating, and, well, I don’t know how, but I’m just sort of falling in with him. In spite of his sweet personality, there’s something about me and him that clicked.”
“I adore a love story,” Leonard said.
“So anyway, I wasn’t exactly shocked when Veil put the pistol away, stuck a little flashlight in his teeth, worked the locks on the guy’s van like he had a key. We both climbed in, being real quiet. In the back, under a pile of equipment, we found the . . . pictures.”
“Guy was a blackmailer?” Leonard asked, a little interested now.
“They were pictures of kids,” I told him. Quiet, so’s he’d know what kind of pictures I meant.
Leonard’s face changed. I knew then he was thinking about what kind of pictures they were and not liking having to think about it.
“I’d never seen anything like that before and didn’t know that sort of thing existed. Oh, I guess, in theory, but not in reality. And the times then, lot of folks were thinking free love and sex was okay for anyone, grown-ups, kids. People who didn’t really know anything about life and what this sort of thing was all about, but one look at those pictures and I was educated, and it was an education I didn’t want. I’ve never got over it.
“So he,” I said, nodding my head over at Veil, “asks me, where does the guy with the van sleep? Where inside the house, I mean. I tried to explain to him what a crash pad was. I couldn’t be sure where he was, or even who he might be with, you understand? Anyway, Veil just looks at me, says it would be a real mess if they found this guy in the house. A mess for us, you know? So he asks me, how about if I go inside, tell the guy it looks like someone tried to break into his van?
“I won’t kid you. I hesitated. Not because I felt any sympathy for that sonofabitch, but because it’s not my nature to walk someone off a plank. I was trying to sort of think my way out of it when Veil here told me to take a look at the pictures again. A good look.”
“The guy’s toast,” Leonard said. “Fucker like that, he’s toast. I know you, Hap. He’s toast.”
I nodded at Leonard. “Yeah,” I said. “I went inside. Brought the guy out with me. He opens the door to the van, climbs in the front seat. And there’s Veil, in the passenger seat. Veil and that pistol. I went back in the house, watched from the window. I heard the van start up, saw it pull out. I never saw the photographer again. And to tell you the truth, I’ve never lost a minute’s sleep over it. I don’t know what that says about me, but I haven’t felt a moment of regret.”
“It says you have good character,” Veil said.
“What I want to know,” Leonard said looking at Veil, “is what did you do with the body?”
Veil didn’t say anything.
Leonard tried again. “You was a hit man? Is that what Hap here’s trying to tell me?”
“It was a long time ago,” Veil told him. “It doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is: You want to talk to me now?”
3.
The judge looked like nothing so much as a turkey buzzard: tiny head on a long, wrinkled neck and cold, little eyes. Everybody stood up when he entered the courtroom. Lester Rommerly— the local lawyer I went and hired like Veil told me—he told the judge that Veil would be representing Leonard. The judge looked down at Veil.
“Where are you admitted to practice, sir?”
“In New York State, your honor. And in the Federal District Courts of New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, California, and Massachusetts.”
“Get around a bit, do you?”
“On occasion,” Veil replied.
“Well sir, you can represent this defendant here. Nothing against the law about that, as you apparently know. I can’t help wondering, I must say, how you managed to find yourself way down here.”
Veil didn’t say anything. And it was obvious after a minute that he wasn’t going to. He and the judge just kind of watched each other.
Then the trial started.
The first few witnesses were all government. The fire department guy testified about “the presence of an accelerant” being the tip-off that this was arson, not some accidental fire. Veil got up slowly, started to walk over to the witness box, then stopped. His voice was low, but it carried right through the courtroom.
“Officer, you have any experience with alcoholics?”
“Objection!” the DA shouted.
“Sustained,” the judge said, not even looking at Veil.
“Officer,” Veil went on like nothing had happened, “you have any experience with dope fiends?”
“Objection!” the DA was on his feet, red-faced.
“Counsel, you are to desist from this line of questioning,” the judge said. “The witness is a fireman, not a psychologist.”
“Oh, excuse me, your honor,” Veil said sweetly. “I misphrased my inquiry. Let me try again: Officer,” he said, turning his attention back to the witness, “by ‘accelerant,’ you mean something like gasoline or kerosene, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes,” the witness said, cautious in spite of Veil’s mild tone.
“Hmmm,” Veil said. “Be pretty stupid to keep a can of gasoline right in the house, wouldn’t it?”
“Your honor . . . ,” the DA pleaded.
“Well, I believe he can answer that one,” the judge said.
“Yeah, it would,” the fire marshal said. “But some folks keep kerosene inside. You know, for heating and all.”
“Thank you, officer,” Veil said, like the witness had just given him this great gift. “And it’d be even stupider to smoke cigarettes in the same house where you kept gasoline . . . or kerosene, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, sure. I mean, if—”
“Objection!” the DA yelled. “There is no evidence to show that anyone was smoking cigarettes in the house!”
“Ah, my apologies,” Veil said, bowing slightly. “Please consider the question withdrawn. Officer: Be pretty stupid to smoke crack in a house with gasoline or kerosene in it, right?”
“Your honor!” the DA cut in. “This is nothing but trickery. This man is trying to tell the jury there was gasoline in the house. And this officer has clearly testified that—”
“—That there wa
s either gasoline or kerosene in the house at the time the fire started,” Veil interrupted.
“Not in a damn can,” the DA said again.
“Your honor,” Veil said, his voice the soul of reasonableness, “the witness testified that he found a charred can of gasoline in the house. Now it was his expert opinion that someone had poured gasoline all over the floor and the walls and then dropped a match. I am merely inquiring if there couldn’t be some other way the fire had started.”
The judge, obviously irritated, said, “Then why don’t you just ask him that?”
“Well, judge, I kind of was doing that. I mean, if one of the crackheads living there had maybe fallen asleep after he got high, you know, nodded out the way they do . . . and the crack pipe fell to the ground, and there was a can of kerosene lying around and—”
“That is enough!” the judge cut in. “You are well aware, sir, that when the fire trucks arrived, the house was empty.”
“But the trucks weren’t there when the fire started, judge. Maybe the dope fiend felt the flames and ran for his life. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. And I thought the jury—”
“The jury will disregard your entire line of questioning, sir. And unless you have another line of questioning for this witness, he is excused.”
Veil bowed.
4.
At the lunch break, I asked him, “What the hell are you doing? Leonard already told the police it was him who burned down the crack house.”
“Sure. You just said the magic word: crack house. I want to make sure the jury hears that enough times, that’s all.”
“You think they’re gonna let him off just because—?”
“We’re just getting started,” Veil told me.
5.
“Now officer, prior to placing the defendant under arrest, did you issue the appropriate Miranda warnings?” the DA asked the sheriff ’s deputy.
“Yes sir, I did.”
“And did the defendant agree to speak with you?”
“Well . . . he didn’t exactly ‘agree.’ I mean, this ain’t the first time for old Leonard there. We knowed it was him, living right across the road and all. So when we went over there to arrest him, he was just sitting on the porch.”