'What sense would that make, Senator, if the goal was to secure Kan-el's release? Core couldn't have made a better deal, could he, than the one he got for blaming Nile? One Eddgar is just as tasty as another to a hungry prosecutor. And this way, Senator, they can hold your feet to the fire, make sure you deliver on your promise about Kan-el. I bet he's out six months from now.'
'And I would sacrifice my son? Is that your theory? You know that isn't true. My God. This is evil, Hobie, what you're doing. This is the very face of evil!' His outcry resounds in the silent courtroom. Beside himself, Eddgar grabs hold of the lapels of his coat, he looks all around the witness stand, as if something that might help him is concealed there. Then he points at Hobie. ‘I understand this,' he says. ‘I understand just what you're doing to me.'
'It's called justice, Eddgar,' Hobie whispers. His eyes never leave the witness as he lumbers back to his seat. Next to him, Nile has laid his face down on the defense table with both hands over his head.
After court, a fragile foreboding air grips my chambers. Judgment is near. Annie and Marietta both keep their distance. Tomorrow, the state will rest. Hobie, if he's smart, will not offer much evidence for the defense. He'll capitalize on today's events and let the trial move quickly to conclusion.
I have motions to review on a number of other cases, but in the few minutes before I must go, I find myself stuck on the trial. It was like watching a car wreck today. Something awful. Destructive. Yet it's no longer possible to find Nile guilty. My assessment of the case has reversed so quickly I doubt myself at first. I still feel light-headed from sleeplessness and slightly poisoned, as if my heart is pumping battery acid, not blood. But my conclusion appears firm. Hardcore has been proven a liar about too much that's essential. Something about the money, the $10,000 he said Nile gave him, is simply wrong. The cocaine residue. The campaign check Nile cashed. There is real doubt. I ruminate on whether to rule from the bench at once or to make a show of some period of deliberation.
But that's only the formalities. I'm still wrapped heart and soul around The Questions. Who wanted to kill whom? Is it really possible, I keep wondering as I sift the facts, could it really be that Eddgar has engaged in a monstrousness of the order of Medea's, killed his wife and blamed his son? I could almost believe it about the man I knew so many years ago. And his silence about that $10,000 seems awfully telling. He probably went to Matt Galiakos and Brendan Tuohey, in hopes of keeping the DFU money out of the case. So he could save himself. Pondering all of this, I'm gripped by the profound elusiveness of the truth, as it drifts like smoke through every courtroom. Something happened. Something objective but no longer verifiable. When I was a child, they used to claim all history was knowable, if you could catch up with the light emitted by the body and traveling eternally in space. 'Light prints,' they talked about, better evidence than fingerprints. An intriguing idea. But Einstein said that wasn't possible. The past is always gone, retrieved only, ultimately, in the filaments of memory.
Near 5:00, with her hat and coat on to leave, Marietta knocks. One look at the smirk tautening her cheeks and I realize Seth is here. She scouts my countenance for any telltale sign. Oh, and isn't there a part of me which would love to boast? 'We had a fabulous night,' I want to say, 'he is a fine, sweet man, he loves every inch of my skin, just as you said.' Instead, I greet her with my frostiest judicial demeanor. 'Show him in.'
He slides past Marietta, thanking her effusively, making jokes - they are pals already. I signal discreetly and he gently closes the door, then comes around to my side of the desk and leans against it. He takes my hand.
'Okay?' he asks.
'Sore,' I say.
‘I take it as a compliment.' He peeks back over his shoulder, then leans down for a quick, sweet kiss. A lovely silent second passes, i didn't want to bother you, but I need a rain check tonight. I forgot Sarah's coming up. I'm taking her to dinner and she's staying over at my dad's to help him with some stuff tomorrow.'
We agree on tomorrow night instead. I shake his wrist. 'How about you? Are you okay?'
'Me?' He straightens up. He stretches. He beams. 'I've had the best twenty-four hours in years. Years,' he repeats, ‘I mean it.' Like me, he's pale with sleeplessness, but he's clearly inhabited by a tonic air. 'I've taken the cure,' he says. 'Like the Count of Monte Cristo: love and revenge.'
'Revenge?' I ask, but dampen the question in my voice, even as I'm speaking, for I understand. Eddgar, he means. 'You really hate him that much? After all this time?'
'You don't know the whole story.'
'And I don't want to hear it. Not now.'
‘I understand. But it does my heart good to see somebody finally catch up with him. Believe me. He's a bad, bad dude.' His eyes have sparked with an incendiary light. 'Now I finally get why Nile told me he didn't want a lawyer from around here. No one Eddgar could fix.'
There is something jarring in the remark. I rerun it several times before I catch hold of what bothers me.
'He told you?' Seth looks my way at length and I repeat myself. 'Nile told you? You said the other day you don't even talk to him.'
'Not during the trial. Hobie won't let me. But I'm the one who hooked them up.'
'Wait, Seth.' I stand. 'You? Are you still close with Nile?'
'Close?' He shrugs. 'I've stayed in touch. You know me. The Sentimental Heart. What did you think?'
'Think? I thought he was a little boy you baby-sat for a century ago. My God, Seth! The defendant? You're close to the defendant? Why didn't I know this? Why didn't you say something to me?'
' "Say something"? Jesus. Shit, that's exactly what you keep telling me not to do.'
'Oh God.' I feel polluted. The defendant! Seth's allied not just with the defense lawyer, an advocate with a limited stake, but with the man on trial. I've slept with Nile's friend, his crony, his guardian angel. 'Oh God,' I say again. 'What else don't I know?' And then, with this question, a connection whirls in place, possible only in the dizzy ether of little sleep. I search Seth for reassurance.
'What?' he says.
'Hobie's trick-bagging me.' I'm battling something now - the paranoid center, the injured child. 'Tell me you're not in this with him.'
'In what?'
'Tell me you weren't part of this from the start.' 'Jesus Christ. Of course not. I don't even know what you're talking about.'
But I've finally seen it all: why Hobie wanted a bench so I'd decide this case, why he took his mischievous steps to arrange that, and worst, perhaps, why Seth insinuated himself again into my life. A jury, another judge, would recognize Eddgar only as a solid citizen: respected legislator, grieving father, loyal ex. They would have scoffed at Hobie's ultimate suggestion that Eddgar was responsible for June's murder. They would never allow it to inspire any doubts. But I'm susceptible, willing. I have my griefs with Zora. I know Eddgar's past. And now I've heard more from Seth. Bad, bad dude. Heinous creep. That's the hellish thought. Because it seems so plausible that the two of them, Seth and Hobie, friends for life, could have engineered this together. And if that were so, then all of this, the sweet romance, the tireless if unbelievable claims of passion, are just part of a scheme molded against me. It makes sense - except when I look again to Seth, take in his confusion, the aura of sincerity always surrounding him, the solidness of his presence.
'Just tell me you're not in this with him.'
'With Hobie? Are you crazy? He's barely talked to me for two weeks. He works at Nile's all night and goes to sleep at his parents'. You know him. He loves the fact I don't know which end is up. I mean, Jesus, what's the trick?'
True - or an act? He would say the same thing either way. I am so tired, so unbelievably confused. I have an instant more intense than the one before - something from dreams: the world collapses and shows itself as a monstrous scam, a stage set where the paper walls fall in, revealing a director back there with a megaphone and people you've believed in now wiping off their makeup. I'm full of a terror as old as I am.
It's all these men, Tuohey and Hobie and Seth, able to play me, because they see what I can't recognize in myself. I sit here tormented again, feeling so vulnerable and incomplete I could almost reach inside myself and find the place where there's a missing piece. No father. That's what I always think at the ultimate moment. I blame Zora for too much. Half-orphaned, I simply can't be whole.
'What?' he asks. 'Now you don't believe me? Christ!' He tears around the desk, but wheels back in my direction when he's halfway across the room. 'I'm sorry I broke your rules, Sonny. But you've got so fucking many it's hard to keep track. And, frankly, it's what you're waiting for anyway. That's your deal, right, Judge? Let's keep everybody six feet below you and safely remote.'
He's right: he knows me. And how to hurt me, too. His anger literally takes away my breath. 'Go to hell, Seth.'
He thrusts a dismissing hand in my direction and rushes through the doorway, nearly crashing into Marietta, who, in her coat and hat, has been lurking there.
MAY 5, 1970
Seth
Another car arrived. Another Fairlane. The agent who'd caught me shoved me in the back seat and fell in beside me.
'Hey, Rudolph, you collared Frank Zappa.' The driver was looking in the rearview and smiling.
'Lucky for me he runs like Frank Zappa. Some dick from Jersey wandered by and stopped him.'
'Hard time? You give Special Agent Rudolph a hard time, Frank? What's his name?'
'Michael.'
'Michael, you give S A Rudolph a hard time? He's not as young as he used to be. He keels over from a hard attack, then it's murder.'
'All right, Dolens. You're supposed to be busting his chops, not mine.'
We were making our way slowly down the strip. It was well
past midnight by now and goodtime America was still thick along the broad walks, beneath the signs. Dolens lifted the radio microphone and told someone they had the subject on the lead out of San Francisco. The agent in back, Rudolph, pushed himself up so he faced me. There were spots of sweat visible on the front of his white rayon shirt. I hadn't run that far. I must have scared him, thinking he'd let me get away.
'You don't got as many friends as you think you do, goodbuddy. Somebody dropped a dime on you. You understand? We didn't turn up just by accident. You oughta think about that.' He watched me to see what effect the information had. 'Did you know there was a grand-jury subpoena out for you?'
'For me?'
He grimaced to show he didn't appreciate my act. 'Agents in Frisco tried to serve you today.' He looked at his watch. 'Yesterday actually.'
I vaguely recollected my instructions. Say nothing.
'See, I think you must have known that, Mike. Otherwise I have a hard time figuring why you were skedaddling through that parking lot.'
Rudolph wasn't particularly good-looking, a big guy with the close haircut that Hoover demanded - 'white sidewalls,' as they said. You could see the skin and the sweat at the sides of his head. His sideburns had crawled down past his ear, in an allowable concession to style. Assessing myself, I found I was not as fully terrified as I might have expected. The presence of the second agent relieved me a little bit. He had a sense of humor. I'd never heard of the FBI hitting. Local cops did it. Not the FBI.
'Where am I going?' I asked.
'Wait, Mike,' Rudolph said. 'Wait. Did you answer my question?'
'He answered your question, Rudolph,' said Dolens. 'You just didn't like what he said.' Dolens was a smaller guy, very happy. Either he liked driving around, or having a prisoner, or giving it to Rudolph. He wore a cheap blue sport coat and a tie. 'We're
taking you to the FBI Field Office, Mike. For processing.' 'Am I under arrest?' Neither of them answered at first.
‘I told you, Mike,' said Rudolph. 'There's a subpoena out.'
None of us said anything for a while. Dolens had turned the radio down after calling in, and at this hour there was little broadcast: sleepy voices and static. Eventually, we turned into a hulking squarish structure. By now we had left the land of glitz. It was just a Western downtown, the buildings sprawling rather than rising in this region where land was cheap. From the shapes, it all looked to have been constructed in the last few years. At the bottom of a subterranean driveway, Dolens hung out the window and inserted a key card. A segmented metal door rose with much creaking. I thought of a mouth opening, of Jonah and the Whale, a story which had paralyzed me with fright as a child. They parked and walked me through a maze of concrete corridors.
'Is this the record case?' Dolens asked. 'The guy who was duping records?'
'No, no. This is a possible UFAP.' Yew Fap.
'Christ, I got it mixed up. That's why I was calling him Frank Zappa. What's the violation?'
'Nine twenty-one,' said Rudolph.
'Christ,' he said. 'Kid just looks like a hippie.'
The lights were out when we got off the elevator. We were in a small carpeted reception room, furnished with a few cheap chairs. On a wall before me, I recognized the crest of the FBI, an eagle screaming, with the banner of justice in its talons. It surprised me to find that their office closed for the night. I would have imagined this as a twenty-four-hour operation, men in grey suits and glasses who never slept. Rudolph seemed more like a gym teacher. One of them hit some lights and they pushed me through another door.
Down the corridor was a horrible government room - grey asbestos floor tile, with those grained flecks of white and black and blue so that the grime of daily use didn't show, and ranks of green metal desks topped in Formica and stewing under painful fluorescence. There was not a thing that anyone could consider beautiful, except an American flag in the remote corner. Photos of Richard Nixon and his Attorney General, John Mitchell, hung askew on one of the sheet-metal partitions. Rudolph's desk was in the middle of the room.
'Have a seat here, bub. Michael. Okay. Let's see what Frisco says. Biddie-bee, biddie-bum,' he said as he read to himself. 'Okay. Okay. "Expected to arrive Eden's Garden Spa, approximately 23:00 hours PST." That part was right, wasn't it?' He smiled. 'City by the Bay,' he said. 'Great place. That was my OP, Office of Preference. Only then my wife got rheumatoid arthritis. So here I am. Life can turn out strange, can't it? Where you live out there, Mike?'
He was shuffling the few papers on his desk, but I knew it wasn't an innocent question.
'Damon,' I said.
'Girls with no bras. Must get kind of distracting.' I dipped a shoulder. Us guys.
'Whatta you have to do with that bombing, Mike?' He plunged the full weight of his meaty face onto his hand as he considered me.
I wasn't speaking. Whatever little lick of terror was left in me, after the depletion of my adrenal systems, flitted across my thorax. Rudolph had light eyes, a feature that seemed somewhat disarming.
' "What bomb?" Right? That lab where you work blew up four days ago. Did you know that? Or were you out of town for that, too?'
I murmured that I knew about it.
'What?'
‘I said, "I know." '
'Oh. Just wanted to be sure. Well, here's what it is, Mike. Guys in Frisco think headquarters ought to get a look at your prints. Cause if they match anything we got on any of those little bitty
pieces of what went boom, your ass is grass, and I'm not referring to anything you smoke. Follow me?' 'Yes, sir.'
'See now, my guess - I been doing this sixteen years next month, and I've gotten to be a pretty good guesser -1 think you may have taken flight when you heard about that subpoena. I think you think your fingerprints are all over that device. I think you smuggled in the pieces. That's what Frisco thinks.' He held the paper he'd read from beside his face.
'No, sir,' I said.
'Will you take a lie detector?'
I shrugged, as if I didn't care. I knew I should ask for a lawyer. That or shut up. But I had the feeling I was doing all right.
'What are you doing out here, Mike?'
I shrugged again. Rudolph sighed in manifest disgust and looked
down to an open space on his desk where there was absolutely nothing to see.
'What's the subpoena for?' I asked.
'Told you. Grand jury wants to see your fingerprints, Mike.'
'You can subpoena somebody's fingerprints?' ' Yessiree, Bob. There's one with your name on it. You go back to Frisco, you'll get a chance to see it.' 'Do I have to go along with it?'
'I'm not your lawyer, Mike. Far as I know, you gotta go along with it' He let his guard down a little. 'Some Commie took it to the Supreme Court years ago and they said you gotta.' He read the paper again. We were the only people in this vast area. Across the way, there was a large interior window revealing a brightly lit room banked with radios and electrical equipment. An older blond woman was speaking disinterestedly into a microphone suspended a few feet before her. She caught me staring at her and looked me off with malevolence.
Rudolph was laughing. He had picked up another piece of paper, a yellow pulpy sheet ragged at the bottom.
'Know who finked on you? I love this. Guess.' I decided not to oblige him. I realized by now I was getting the treatment. 'Your mom.' I didn't answer.
'Yep. Good old Mom. Apparently one of your neighbors reached her after the agents came out. Mom was real upset. Agent here in his teletype says he cut a deal with her. She tells us where you are, we take your prints. You clear, you go. You don't' - he lifted a hand - 'you don't. Standard deal,' he said. The greenish eyes lingered again, trying to measure my pain. 'Don't be mad at Mom. Sounds to me like she tried to bring you up right.'
Michael's mom was buried in Idaho. I was getting the entire picture now.
'So here's the deal, Mike. You wanna do like Mom said? Gimme your prints and see if we can clear this right now? Or you wanna go back to Frisco and face the music there?'
'You mean I can just go back to San Francisco?'