A Cure for Night

by Justin Peacock

"Not that I know of."

  "Devin never stopped by your apartment for a beer or anything?"

  "No."

  "How much money would Mr. Lipton take with him when he went down to the Gardens to score?"

  Amin winced slightly, as if answering these questions was causing him physical pain. "I don't know exactly," he said. "But from the amount of stuff he was moving, I'd guess it was kind of a lot."

  "So assuming that Mr. Lipton and Mr. Wallace were about to complete a drug transaction at the time they were shot, Seth Lipton would've been about to hand Devin Wallace a substantial amount of money?"

  "Objection," O'Bannon said. "Assumes facts not in evidence, calls for speculation."

  "I'll withdraw it," I said. "So if someone was owed money by Devin Wallace, he would have been well advised to allow these two to complete their transaction, wouldn't he?"

  "Your Honor—" O'Bannon began, still standing. But he was interrupted by Judge Ferano.

  "That's quite enough, Counselor," Judge Ferano said sternly to me. No surprise there; Amin had no direct knowledge of what had taken place at the Gardens that night, and the purpose of my questions was not to get him to answer them but to get the jury to think about them. "Is there another line of questioning you wish to pursue with this witness?"

  "No, Your Honor," I said, turning quickly on my heel and heading for my seat.

  "Mr. Saberi, have you ever met the defendant in this case?" O'Bannon asked to begin his cross.

  "I don't think so."

  "And you've never met Devin Wallace?"

  "I'd just heard Seth mention the name Devin, is all," Amin said. "I don't even know for sure if it's the same guy."

  "So you don't have any idea what the relationship between Mr. Wallace and the defendant was, do you?"

  "I don't have the first clue."

  "Did you volunteer to come here today and testify for the defense?"

  "They subpoenaed me."

  "Do you have any knowledge as to why Mr. Lipton was killed, or who killed him?"

  "No."

  "Thank you, Mr. Saberi," O'Bannon said, returning to his seat.

  MYRA AND I left the courtroom together when we broke for lunch after Amin's testimony. We were walking down the hallway leading to the elevator, debating between the diner on Clark and an Italian place on Montague, when Seth's mother came charging at us, her husband a few paces behind. They were dressed formally, the father in a dark suit and yarmulke, the mother in an ankle-length skirt.

  "You must be so proud of yourself," Mrs. Lipton said once she was directly in my face. "Dragging my son's name through the mud like that, and him being dead. How dare you!"

  In court I'd made a point of avoiding looking over at Lipton's family, although it was impossible not to be aware of their presence. "I can't talk to you, Mrs. Lipton," I said. "It's not appropriate."

  "You son of a bitch," Seth Lipton's mother said, looking like she was ready to strike me.

  "He didn't say anything that wasn't true," Myra said to Mrs. Lipton. "Now, please, we can't talk to you."

  "So he deserved to be killed by that man?" Mrs. Lipton said, including Myra in her fury. "Is that what you're saying? What kind of Jew are you? I don't know how you can stand to look at yourselves in the morning. You don't care about the truth at all, do you? You're only doing this for the money."

  Seth Lipton's father was standing behind his wife now, hands on her shoulders, trying gently to drag her away. Myra and I quickly resumed walking, leaving the Liptons behind.

  We were both silent until we were out on the street. Once we were outside I turned to Myra. "For the money?" I said.

  33

  MR. TAYLOR, we've heard testimony that you are the father of Yolanda Miller's son," I said to begin my examination of Malik Taylor when court resumed after lunch. I had glanced into the spectator section of the court before getting started, making eye contact first with Adam Berman, then with Devin Wallace, who stared back at me. Looking away from Wallace, I caught the eye of somebody slouched in the very back row of the courtroom, all the way in the corner, nobody else within ten feet. I flinched as I recognized Shawne Flynt, who nodded at me, a mirthless smile on his face. The mere sight of Shawne caused my heart to start pounding. I'd been hoping that I'd seen the last of him, that whatever game he'd been playing with me was over. I couldn't imagine what had made him decide to show up in court.

  Whatever he was doing here, I wasn't going to figure it out now. Instead I willed myself to focus on Malik Taylor to the exclusion of everyone else in the room.

  "That's right," Malik said. "Jamal's my son."

  I knew I had to be careful in questioning him. Although we were calling Malik as our witness, he, like Amin Saberi, was testifying under subpoena and would presumably be hostile. If he wasn't to begin with, Malik certainly would become so once he realized we were putting him forward as an alternative suspect.

  "And even though you and Ms. Miller are no longer a couple, you've made an effort to stay in your son's life?"

  "I try to be a father to my boy, best as I can."

  "And what is your relationship with Ms. Miller like now?"

  "We're not together no more, but we still awright. We both get how it's important to raise Jamal up right, and we try to be together on that."

  "So how did you feel, then, when Ms. Miller began seeing Devin Wallace?"

  "I ain't gonna say I liked it."

  "And how did you feel about your son being around someone like Mr. Wallace?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral, not wanting to get confrontational with Malik until I absolutely had to.

  "I didn't like that neither."

  "In fact, you had a fight with Mr. Wallace about it, didn't you?"

  "We had words, yeah. I pushed at him, he pushed me back, it went on like that some. It wasn't no real fight—nobody swung."

  "These words you had, where did they take place?"

  "At Yolanda's crib."

  "And how did this exchange of words begin?"

  "I was dropping Jamal off. Devin came by while I was still there. He started talkin' about how he didn't want me coming 'round like that. I tell him I'm just dropping off my boy. But Devin didn't want to hear that. He keep talking at me. I tell him I'm not gonna stop seeing my own son."

  "What happened then?"

  "We cursed at each other some. Ain't like neither of us was gonna back down. Then it was like I say, we shoved each other."

  "So how did the situation end?"

  "Yolanda started saying for me to go. She didn't want us fighting in there, especially in front of Jamal. I respected that, us being in her crib and all, so I was out."

  "So Devin Wallace essentially told you that he didn't want you spending time with your own son anymore?"

  "At least not so that I'd see Yolanda."

  "How'd that make you feel?"

  "What you want me to say?" Malik said.

  "I want you to tell the truth," I replied with a smile. "Did Mr. Wallace make you angry?"

  "Course he did," Malik said, letting his frustration show despite himself. "Who's gonna like having to put up with that kind of nonsense?"

  "Did you know that Mr. Wallace was a drug dealer?"

  "Everybody knew. Wasn't like he was trying to hide it."

  "You wanted to be able to see your son without some drug dealer interfering?"

  "That's right," Malik said.

  "And how long before Mr. Wallace got shot did he and you have this confrontation?"

  "Couple of weeks, maybe."

  "Was it two weeks?"

  "Something like that."

  "Did you approve of Ms. Miller raising your child around someone like Mr. Wallace?" I asked.

  "Course not. Would you?"

  I ignored the question. "Did you worry about what effect it would have on your boy?"

  "Sure I did."

  "And did you still care about Ms. Miller too?"

  "She's my boy's mama."

  "Did it bother you tha
t she would be with someone like Mr. Wallace?"

  "It bothered me, sure," Malik said. "I didn't like Yolanda falling into that."

  "And were you aware that Ms. Miller had started doing drugs herself?"

  "I heard about when she got picked up," Malik said. "I tried to get her some help. I even went with her to some meetings, just to be sure she went."

  "So you spent some time alone with Ms. Miller after she was with Mr. Wallace?"

  "True that."

  "In fact, you had sexual relations with Ms. Miller shortly after this crime, didn't you?" I asked, throwing it out there once again in the spirit of having nothing to lose, doing my best to seem casual, although I could hear a slight tremor in my voice as I spoke. I wanted to hammer home the point, not really expecting to get an answer but not really caring if I didn't.

  "Objection," O'Bannon said loudly.

  "I've already ruled before that this line of inquiry isn't relevant to this case," Judge Ferano said. "That's the last I expect to hear of it, Mr. Deveraux."

  I nodded brusquely, not wanting to appear distracted by the judge's ruling. Malik was glaring at me; then his gaze shifted out into the spectator section of the courtroom. "Tell me, Mr. Taylor," I asked. "Did the police ever question you about Mr. Wallace's shooting?"

  "No real police did," Malik said. "Just you and that lady lawyer, pretending to be five-oh."

  I'd been prepared for Malik to bring up our questioning of him, but I wasn't prepared for his claiming that we'd actually pretended to be police. I tried not to look thrown off, but decided I needed to do some damage control. "You're referring to when my colleague and I spoke to you at your workplace?"

  "You took me out of there and talked to me on the street."

  "You thought we were the police?"

  "Who else going to be rousting me out of where I work at?"

  "Did we ever say we were police?"

  "That's how you carried it."

  "If we had been the police that day, then the police would've learned what we've all learned today: that you had a motive to shoot Devin Wallace, didn't you?" I said, abandoning any remaining pretense that I wasn't going after Malik. The best defense, after all.

  "I didn't shoot him. I didn't shoot nobody."

  "That wasn't what I asked you," I said. "Or should I take that to mean you're admitting that you did have a motive to shoot him?"

  "Objection," O'Bannon said.

  "I'll withdraw it," I said. I decided that I'd gotten what I could get, and turned and sat down.

  Once again ADA O'Bannon was in the position of crossing a witness who presumably had no desire to hurt the state's case. "Mr. Taylor," O'Bannon began, his voice neutral, nothing to indicate that this was a cross-examination, "where were you the night Seth Lipton and Devin Wallace were shot?"

  "I don't even remember what night that was."

  "Mr. Taylor, did you shoot Seth Lipton and Devin Wallace?"

  "I never shot nobody."

  "Thank you."

  O'Bannon strode back to his seat. Judge Ferano thanked Malik for his testimony and dismissed him. The judge then turned to us. "Does the defense have any more witnesses?"

  Myra stood. "Approach, Your Honor?" she said.

  Judge Ferano gestured us all up for a sidebar.

  "Your Honor," Myra began once we were all assembled at the side of the bench. "We've yet to make a final determination as to whether Mr. Tate will testify. I would ask the court to adjourn for the day, and when we come back in the morning we will either put on Mr. Tate or we can go straight to closing arguments."

  Judge Ferano turned to O'Bannon. "Any objections?"

  "I suppose that's fine," O'Bannon said after a moment. "I'd assumed we'd do closings tomorrow."

  "We'll leave it at that then," Judge Ferano said.

  "IT'S SIMPLE," Myra said to Lorenzo once we were all down in the holding cell. I'd dawdled leaving the courtroom; by the time I did the room was empty, no sign of Shawne Flynt. "Right now that jury is thinking about Malik Taylor. They're wondering why the hell the police never talked to him, and thinking that this love triangle gone bad seems like a plausible explanation for what's happened here. We put you on, they get to ask about your relationship with Devin, and despite the judge's ruling they will still turn everybody's attention to drugs. It won't be hard for them to get the jury to connect the dots even without something explicit coming up. We want to end the case with everyone thinking about Malik."

  "I feel you," Lorenzo said, smiling at Myra without looking remotely amused. "But you been playin' me on this. You waited to say it till after Malik got up there. I could have testified before, but now you saying it's too late."

  "It was never a good idea for you to testify, Lorenzo," Myra said. "The cross would've been brutal, and the jury wouldn't have found your alibi convincing. Trust us."

  Lorenzo furrowed his brow, staring hard at the wall as he thought it through.

  "I liked what your boy did to Malik, yo," he finally said to Myra with a smile. "You all say for me not to talk, guess I'm not talkin'."

  AS SOON as we stepped out of the building into one of the first brisk days of early fall I saw him, leaning against a lamppost across the street, the same vaguely amused look on his face that I'd seen in court. There didn't seem to be any point in avoiding him; obviously he could find me whenever he wanted to. Whatever it was that Shawne Flynt wanted, I might as well find out. "Go ahead without me," I said to Myra, who looked puzzled, glancing over at Shawne.

  "Who's that?" she asked.

  "Former client," I said. "I'd better see if he's in a jam."

  Myra nodded, apparently satisfied by my answer, and headed off back to the office while I crossed the street and walked over to Shawne Flynt. I hadn't actually spoken to Shawne since his case had been dismissed; I'd simply called the cell phone number he'd given me and left a message telling him the DA had dropped the charges.

  "You looking for me, Shawne?" I asked once I was standing in front of him. We were maybe twenty feet from the entrance to the courthouse, a steady stream of people walking past us, a couple of cops doing guard duty just outside the court. It seemed like as safe a place as any to let Shawne make his play, whatever it was going to turn out to be.

  "You had it going on in there, yo," Shawne said. "You were taking that boy down and shit. I could see how you used to be some kind of real lawyer. Almost made me wish they'd been able to make some charge stick on me, could've watched you go to war."

  "I think you're better off the way things stand," I replied, looking up at Shawne. Somehow we'd ended up closer to each other than I wanted to be, which emphasized Shawne's height as he loomed over me.

  "True that, true that. Never good to be jammed up on a charge, even if it's just some bullshit."

  "Everything okay now? You in any kind of trouble?"

  "Naw, man, everything's cool."

  "Then why are you here, Shawne?" I said, trying to keep my voice neutral, not wanting to provoke him, but also not wanting to let him have even more control over the situation than he already did.

  "I just never got no chance to pay you back for what you've done for me," Shawne said.

  I didn't know how to interpret this. "You know you don't have to pay me," I said. "That's the point of having a public defender."

  "Sure, but you used to be a real lawyer and all, you probably got paid mad cheddar to help people out back in the day. Me, I can get you what you need, know what I'm saying?"

  "No, Shawne, I don't know what you're saying."

  "Awright, yo," Shawne said. "You got my digits, you ever want to reach out." Shawne held out his hand, his thumb tucked oddly against the flesh of his palm. I reached out to shake it, and as I did he moved his thumb and something fell into my hand, as Shawne reached out with his other hand and gently closed mine into a soft fist. Then he turned and walked quickly away.

  I knew what he'd done. It took me a moment before I opened my hand slightly, keeping it cupped to shield it
s contents from the view of passersby. But even before I saw the two small packets I already knew what was there.

  Shawne Flynt had just paid me in heroin.

  My first thought was that I was being set up. I flashed back to Shawne's behavior from the start of his case, his lack of concern, his knowledge of my past. Could the whole thing be a sting, Shawne working off a collar by taking me down? If so, the fact that I hadn't asked for it wouldn't necessarily matter; it'd be my word against Shawne's, with me having to explain why I was standing on a city street holding dope.

  I thought about just throwing it away, walking over to the trash can on the corner and tossing it. Of course, if the police were watching even that wouldn't necessarily get me out of trouble; they'd just claim that I saw them coming.

  Besides, dropping some smack into a trash can a few feet away from the courthouse in broad daylight seemed like a pretty bad idea. In addition to the two cops stationed in front of the courthouse, there was also a steady stream of cops and prosecutors going in and out of the building; I might have already drawn some attention for standing frozen on the middle of the sidewalk with my hands now jammed in my pockets.

  There was something else, too. There was the buzzing in my veins, an electrical charge dancing in my blood. The back of my throat had gone dry; my stomach had clenched into a fist. It had taken only a few seconds of having the stuff nestled in my hand for me to be deep in the clutches of a jones.

  It wasn't just the drug itself that I missed. I'd ended up doing most of the copping back when I was doing it with Beth; I'd come to enjoy that part of it too. I'd done it up on Amsterdam Avenue and 106th Street, sometimes buying from the dealers who worked out of a Chinese take-out joint, other times from the crew across the street that operated out of the vestibule of an apartment building. I'd enjoyed the charge of going up there, often the only white face around, trying not to get busted or burned. I hadn't expected to like it but I had. I liked scoring it and I liked having it, the illicit feeling of having heroin tucked in my pocket as I walked down the street. I had no illusions that any of this was a good thing.

  I couldn't just stand here in front of the criminal courthouse indefinitely. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to just go back to my office. When I turned around to head back I found myself staring into the eyes of Devin Wallace, who stood by himself five feet away. I stopped instinctively, then forced myself to keep walking past him, Devin just standing there, a smile on his face, his eyes locked on mine.