2 Grand Delusion

by Matt Witten

  Fortunately, though, the judge's attention was elsewhere. "Mr. Frick?" he said, and the public defender stepped up. Frick. The name fit him like a glove. He gave me a shrug. He was good at that.

  The judge turned back to me. His face had gone sour, and he looked like a guy with a killer toothache. "Mr. Burns, you are charged with homicide in the first degree. How do you plead?"

  "Not guilty," I said, trying to make my voice ring strong, but all that came out was a sickly little squeak. From the corner of my eye, I saw seven smug smiles.

  "Mr. Hawthorne?" the judge said, and another man came up and stood next to Frick. He was wearing a blue suit, nothing fancy, but compared to Frick he looked like an Armani model.

  "Mr. Hawthorne, does the D.A.'s office have a recommendation in this case?"

  "Yes, we do, Your Honor," Hawthorne declared. "Given the severity of the crime, the overwhelming evidence against the defendant, and the fact that he recently received one million dollars for a single screenplay and thus has sufficient wherewithal to begin a new life elsewhere, the People believe the defendant poses a significant flight risk. We therefore request that bail be set at ten million dollars."

  "But—" I said.

  The judge put out his hand to shut me up, then turned to my intrepid lawyer. "Mr. Frick?"

  And darned if Frick didn't just stand there and shrug. I stared at him, openmouthed. A little first-degree homicide sounded like an excellent idea to me right then. How could I possibly raise ten million bucks?!

  If I understood how bail worked, I'd only need to give the bail bondsman a tenth of that sum. But even so, three hundred K was my absolute upper limit. Three twenty tops, if we took out a second mortgage on the house. This was unbelievable. Was I doomed to spend the next year of my life awaiting trial in some urine-soaked jailhouse basement, sharpening my choral skills with a bunch of hopeless men wearing droopy pants and dabbling in Eastern religions?

  "Your Honor!" someone called out, and I spun around.

  It was my lawyer at last!

  Malcolm Dove came racing up the aisle toward us, all three hundred pounds of him, the floor shaking beneath his weight. The judge raised his thick black eyebrows in annoyance, but before he could speak, Malcolm barreled on. "Your Honor, I have been unconscionably detained by the chief of police on an utterly bogus security check. I was forced to actually remove my shoes to check for a hidden knife. Preposterous. Now may I consult with my client, please?"

  The judge wrinkled his nose in distaste, but he had no choice. "You have three minutes," he said irritably.

  While the judge made a big show of checking the clock, Malcolm pulled me aside.

  "Malcolm," I began, "I didn't do it—"

  "No time for that," he replied, briskly wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. He was sweating after his long run up the courtroom aisle. But even sweating, red-faced, fat and winded, he still looked somehow dignified—more dignified than that guy Frick would ever look on the best day of his life. Some folks have it, some don't.

  "How much money have you got?" Malcolm asked.

  I eyed him in amazement. They say lawyers are a money-hungry breed, but this took the cake. "Enough to pay you quite well," I said, fighting to keep my temper.

  The fat on Malcolm's chins jiggled as he shook his head impatiently. "Skip that. How much?"

  "Three hundred thousand," I answered, still nonplussed.

  "Okay. All I need to know." He clapped me on the back. "By the way, of course you didn't do it. No one whose favorite chess opening is the Hedgehog Defense would ever have the guts to commit murder."

  "Thanks. I think."

  Malcolm turned to the judge. "We're ready, Your Honor." The judge eyed him in surprise, then gave a flicker of a smile. It looked like Malcolm had scored points by coming in under three minutes.

  "Your Honor," Malcolm intoned, "the People's bail request is way out of line. My client does not represent a flight risk, far from it. He has no police record. He has a wife and two small children. He is a longtime resident of Saratoga Springs with deep roots in the area . . ."

  The judge looked bored, like he'd heard this shpiel a thousand times before, and I guess he had. He let Malcolm go on for a while longer, then interrupted. "How much money does the defendant have?" he asked.

  "Three hundred thousand dollars," Malcolm replied.

  "Bail is hereby set at three hundred thousand dollars," the judge declared, rapping his gavel when the District Attorney protested. So I would actually be able to raise the bond money! "Thank you, Your Honor," I said, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

  "Hare Krishna!" one of my crimies sang out.

  "Hare Krishna!" the rest of the gang shouted.

  The judge rapped his gavel again. "The prisoner is ordered remanded to the county jail until such time as bail is posted." The seven cops all stood up at once and grimly escorted me from the courtroom, with three in front of me, two beside me, and two behind. A special honor guard, designed to intimidate. But Andrea somehow broke through their ranks and embraced me.

  Just for a moment, though. Then the cops pulled her away.

  "I'll go get the bail money together," she called out as the cops led me off. "You'll be out of jail before tonight."

  "I'm sorry, sweetie," I called back to her, trying to keep my voice from breaking. "I guess there goes all our fuck-you money."

  "That's the least of your worries, sweetie," one of the cops said, and the others all snickered. I was about to make a snappy retort when I suddenly spotted Tony, just a few yards away.

  It was only for a moment. But from this distance, that moment was long enough to see a hideous black eye and several other cuts and bruises on the boy's face.

  Somebody had manhandled him—and I was pretty sure I knew who.

  Then Tony ran away and disappeared down the stairs, his floppy tennis shoes beating out a speedy rhythm.

  Damn it, I had to talk to that kid.

  And soon.

  8

  But I didn't talk to him soon. And I didn't get out of jail that day, either.

  We could have paid some bail bondsman from Albany a thirty-grand fee and I'd have gotten sprung right away. But I managed to reach Andrea from the one public phone that was accessible to prisoners, and I told her I refused to let some inane, trumped-up murder charge eat up thirty thousand dollars of my hard-won nest egg. Even though I was rich now, I still remembered all too well the days when thirty grand represented my entire income for two or three years.

  So Andrea had to pull together the whole 300K, and that took her until the next day. Our green stuff was spread among three different mutual funds, meaning three different sets of bureaucrats and factotums for Andrea to nag and yell at. I hope you never need to get money out of mutual funds in an emergency. It ain't pretty.

  In retrospect, I shouldn't complain too much about the one night I spent in scenic Ballston Spa County Jail. I wasn't gang raped, and I was only beaten once—painfully but professionally, so as not to leave any marks. I'm not planning to put this event on my highlight reel, so suffice it to say that those guards knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't going to let this rich "cop killer" get off easy.

  I had other excitement, too. My boss called from the state prison where I taught and fired me. "As someone who's been arrested for homicide," he explained, "I don't think you'll be a good role model for the men." I didn't attempt to fight him legally, even though I might have had a case. I doubted I'd have the stomach for prison work anytime soon.

  It was depressing: First I'd given up writing, at least temporarily, and now I was giving up my teaching job.

  I got even more depressed when I opened the Daily Saratogian on Saturday morning and read their account of the murder investigation. As I'd surmised, Pop had been shot with his own gun. The police theory went like this: The suspect, Jacob Burns, was awakened late at night by loud noises next door. Furious, he stormed outside to confront the tenants. Lo and behold, he ran into Pop inst
ead. They got into another knock-down, drag-out fight. Having seen Pop's gun come loose from its holster earlier that same night, Burns knew exactly what to do—and he did it. He grabbed Pop's gun and shot him.

  I had to admit, it was a good theory.

  "But what about fingerprints?" I asked my lawyer, when he came to visit.

  Malcolm and I were facing each other in the prison's small, windowless, cinderblock conference room. He shifted his large butt around on the tiny plastic chair. "There were no prints on the trigger," he said, "just smudge marks."

  I sensed he wanted to say more, but he didn't, he just sat there fidgeting. "What are you not telling me?" I asked.

  "Well," he answered hesitantly, "they did find your prints on the handle."

  I started shaking. The cops had actually planted my fingerprints on the gun?! But then I remembered. "That's easy," I said excitedly. "The prints are from earlier that night, when I took the gun away from Babe Ruth."

  Malcolm sighed. "Yeah, it's just one small detail that we could probably explain away—except there's a whole wagonload of other small details. And they add up. The thing is, that confession of yours doesn't help any."

  That confession of mine.

  The night before, on the 11:00 news—right before I was beaten up—some vacant-faced reporter with a silly mustache had quoted Chief Walsh as saying I'd confessed.

  "I told you, Malcolm, I didn't confess. It was just some Geraldo Rivera wannabe misquoting the chief!"

  "The chief was quoted pretty much the same way on every channel."

  I banged my head in frustration. "But why would Walsh lie? Won't he look like an idiot when it comes out I never confessed?"

  Malcolm tapped his fingers on the low plastic table. "Even if you didn't exactly confess to the homicide, you did confess—very stupidly, and on videotape—to having deep-seated homicidal feelings. So like it or not, the chief isn't completely off base. Also, you have to remember what he's doing here. He doesn't care about the truth; it's like with any other high profile case, he just wants to poison the jury pool."

  Poison the jury pool? My stomach churned. "You really think this will go to trial?"

  "Unless they come up with another suspect, yes."

  "But there's all kinds of other suspects! What about his wife and kids? God knows if I was stuck living with him, I'd have killed him by now!"

  "He didn't have any kids—and his ex-wife is married to a home shopping network mogul in Arizona."

  "Okay, then what about Zapper and Dale, the drug dealers? And what about—" I was going to say, "What about Tony?" but stopped. I still wanted to talk to the kid myself first, before the cops or Malcolm or anyone else got to him. "What about all the other people who hated Pop's guts? Maybe the killer was some homeless guy that got sick of Pop popping him all the time!"

  Malcolm just shrugged. But I wasn't finished. "Besides, the cops' theory about me killing Pop has huge holes in it! Like, what was Pop doing in that backyard in the wee hours of the morning?!"

  Malcolm put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, Jake," he said reassuringly. "We'll get you out of this mess."

  But I didn't feel reassured. Malcolm may have been a good lawyer, but he wasn't going out and beating the bushes trying to find the real killer. And God knows the cops weren't doing that either.

  Malcolm kept on talking to me, but I stopped listening. It was like he wasn't even in the room anymore. My mind hardened.

  I was in deep, deep shit—and there was only one man who could get me out. That man was me.

  Screw these bozos. I don't need Malcolm or the cops.

  I solved that other murder by myself. I can solve this one, too.

  Just let me out of jail and I'll do it.

  My twenty-nine hours at county weren't totally devoid of entertainment. I got phone calls from several local TV stations and newspapers, as well as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Variety. I was flattered to learn that as the screenwriter of the upcoming blockbuster movie The Gas that Ate San Francisco, my legal problems were national news. Okay, just a couple of paragraphs on the inside pages, but still.

  Maybe I'd have rated more paragraphs, or even cracked Page One, except that I obeyed Malcolm's orders and said my "no comment" mantra to one and all. The only reporter I might have trusted enough to talk to was Judy Demarest from the Saratogian, but oddly, she never called.

  I did get a call from my agent, though. Andrew and I hadn't talked much in the past several months. He was pissed at me for turning down all the opportunities that had come my way lately, including a highly lucrative offer to rewrite a movie about mutant killer beetles, of all things.

  For my part, Andrew represented everything I loathed about Hollywood. And, I suppose, loved.

  The last time we'd spoken, Andrew had called me a "fucking nitwit," if I remembered correctly, and I had called him a "pathetic Hollywood whore." But he seemed to remember none of that now. "Jacob, how you doing, buddy?" he boomed into the phone.

  "Not too good, Andrew," I replied.

  "Yeah, I read all about it, kid! This is fabulous'."

  "What is?"

  "You know how much dough you're gonna make off this murder situation of yours? It'll make that million bucks you got for your last screenplay look like chickenfeed. I've even got the title for your new movie figured out already: West Side Gory. What do you think?"

  "Look, Andrew, I'm too busy working on my legal defense to think about writing any screenplays."

  He didn't miss a beat. "Hey, you'll need money for your defense, right? And if you get convicted, you'll need money for your kids. So you better start working on that screenplay right away. I've already had calls from three studios—"

  I hung up on Andrew and asked the guard not to call me to the telephone anymore, just say I wasn't available. I was already getting dirty looks from the other inmates for hogging the phone. I didn't want to give anyone any more excuses for attacking me.

  Another good reason for refusing phone calls was that it limited my teary conversations with Andrea. Each time we talked, I just got more upset. Also, my phone boycott enabled me to avoid talking to my father or my three siblings. I wasn't ready to open that whole kettle of emotional worms.

  Andrea finally got me out of jail on Saturday afternoon, at 3:59. Just in time, too. One minute longer and I'd have been stuck in there all weekend. When I made it outside, I forgot all about smelling the trees. I just hurried into the safety of our car and buried my face in Andrea's neck. She held me tight and we just sat like that, practically without moving, for about five minutes.

  Neither of us spoke. I think we both had a feeling words might reveal something we didn't want revealed. From the undercurrents of our phone conversations, I'd gotten the vibe that she was aggravated at me for getting into this whole mess. And I was aggravated at her for blaming me. I mean, hey, it wasn't my fault Pop got whacked.

  Fortunately, Andrea and I had ten years' worth of love in the bank that we could draw on. So we sat there in the parking lot silently holding each other, and we might have sat there even longer except that a van from Channel 6 pulled up and Max Muldoon, my favorite Geraldo Rivera wannabe, knocked on our window.

  We immediately drove off, but he followed us home, where two other TV vans were waiting for us, too. It was awfully disconcerting, having those fat microphones shoved in our faces. I tried to say "no comment" in as boring a way as possible, though it was hard to keep a straight face when Muldoon called out, "Jake, is it true Pop Doyle was having an affair with your wife?"

  In a way it was good to have the TV guys bothering Andrea and me, because they gave us a common enemy to rant at companionably.

  Babe Ruth and Gretzky were at home when we got there, being babysat by Lorenzo from across the street. Ordinarily, because of his recent stroke, Andrea wouldn't have trusted him with our kids, but this was an emergency. As soon as I came through the door, both boys ran to me and hugged me so hard my heart almost broke.
r />   I hugged them back so hard their ribs almost broke. "Babe Ruth and Gretzky, I love you guys so much—"

  "I'm not Babe Ruth," Babe Ruth said.

  "And I'm not Gretzky," Gretzky added.

  "You're not?" I asked, befuddled.

  "We're Ninja Turtles! I'm Leonardo!" Babe Ruth shouted, and karate chopped me.

  "And I'm Raphael!" Gretzky announced, karate chopping me from the other side.

  This Ninja Turtle thing was getting out of hand. I mean, their heyday had to be at least a decade ago. Why couldn't my kids be into Pokémon and Power Rangers like all the other kids? I put up my arms to defend myself from their fierce karate moves while Andrea explained, "I forgot to tell you, the boys changed their names."

  "We're gonna get those bad guys!" Babe Ruth sang out.

  "Yeah!" seconded Gretzky. "Let's kill 'em!"

  I shushed them. "Guys, enough. There's been too much killing and talking about killing lately."

  "But we'll protect you, Daddy!" declared Babe Ruth, and his little brother chimed in, "Yeah, we won't let them take you back to jail! Watch my new Ninja move!" He did a one-two karate punch combination, and Ruth joined in with some kicks, and between the two of them they smashed an imaginary opponent to bits on the living room floor.

  "Boys, come here."

  But they weren't listening. They were too busy stomping another invisible bad guy.

  "Come here!"

  They came. I gathered them in my arms.

  "Sweethearts, Daddy's okay now," I said. "I know you're just trying to help me, and that's very sweet, but you don't need to worry anymore. Daddy's not going back to jail again."

  "You promise, Daddy?" Babe Ruth asked.

  "Yes," I lied. "I promise."

  9

  And I lied again an hour and a half later. I told Andrea I was going for a little walk around the neighborhood before dinner, to give my legs some post-prison stretching. Where I was really going, though, was Tony's house.