Around the room, some people read books, and some filled out job applications. They chatted about winning the lottery, about the weather, the Red Sox, or the wisdom of taking their Social Security money to the Indian casino. They gossiped about the homeless guy they thought they knew, who might not really be homeless, because a friend of a friend had sworn he saw the guy dressed in a duck costume as the full-time mascot for the Quack-in-the-Box takeout joint.
The hookers staying at the shelter wore short shorts and shook their asses for people.
Crazy folk sat alone and grabbed at invisible flies.
There were some quiet, tidy people embarrassed to be there, and loud, stinky people who didn’t know that they were there.
Mostly, the homeless just passed time. Funny thing about being homeless in Providence, Flagg had noticed: Time passed as slowly as it had in prison.
The staff who served the free sandwiches at noon—bologna, yellow cheese, and a smear of Miracle Whip on white Wonder bread—were all saints, of course. The executives who worked in the upper floors of the bank tower next door probably threw staff parties every month that cost more than these saints earned in a year.
Flagg pitied the saints of the day shelter.
He might have been a homeless ex-con, but he was not shackled to the shelter forever by any sense of Christian duty, unlike the saints. At least Flagg had a chance to get away from there and make some money someday.
From across the room, Flagg watched Mia, the little redheaded saint who dyed the tips of her spiked hair a different color every week. At the moment, her hair was teal blue. She was a teeny thing, dressed in black slacks and clunky black heels and a long, flowing silk shirt tied at the waist by a matching silk belt. From the patterned splotches over the shirt, Flagg thought it looked Far Eastern, like a tiny bathrobe from Japan.
Mia had coaxed Flagg into the shelter system.
Flagg remembered her walking without fear beneath the highway overpass under which he had settled in a nest of trash to ride out a cold night. The social services called what she did “outreach”—to go where the bums were and to bring them inside.
Flagg lusted for her.
He listened to her laugh louder than anybody else in the room and watched her ass swing side to side when she walked. That would be a good time, he thought. He wanted to strangle her, too. She had taken him off the street but had landed him in this cycle of shelters that kept him barely alive. He couldn’t escape. Maybe Flagg would have been better off living without a net, on the street, where you either clawed yourself back into a normal way of life or died.
Flagg read a battered crime novel from the shelter’s meager library. Every few pages were ripped or missing, and he had to guess at what he had missed. He kept close watch on the clock. Around four in the afternoon, the daily migration of homeless reversed—as people started scheming to get back to the overnight shelters. The Goose bus would take you back for free, but it was slow. By the time you got to where you wanted to sleep, the place could be full and your ass would be on the street. The city bus was faster, but it cost money. The homeless traded bus passes like their own legal tender.
At three minutes past two, a tall man in dark slacks and a white shirt descended the concrete steps and entered the shelter. He balanced a pizza box on one hand, like a waiter carrying a tray. The deliveryman looked close to fifty, which seemed too old to be driving pizza for tips.
“Yo, pizza guy, over here,” beckoned a hoarse voice from the back of the room.
The deliveryman ignored the cry and spoke to a clique of homeless women, each in matching red caps they had scavenged from the pile of free clothes at the day shelter. The women glanced at one another and shrugged, and the deliveryman moved on.
Flagg watched him bounce from table to table, working his way around the room, obviously looking for somebody. He spoke to the fat man whom Flagg had taken for two bus passes in a tense game of cribbage a few weeks before. The fat man rubbed his bottom chin and jerked his thumb in Flagg’s direction.
The pizza guy thanked him and walked the pizza box to Flagg.
“Franklin?” the deliveryman asked.
Ten years in the slammer had taught Flagg to trust nobody. But the scent of the pizza pie overpowered his wariness. Maybe the delivery was a lucky mistake.
“Yeah.” He put his hands out for the pizza.
“Franklin Delano Flagg?” the deliveryman asked.
“You got him.”
The deliveryman reached to his back pocket, drew out a sheet of paper folded into thirds, and gave it to Flagg.
Flagg unfolded it.
A court summons.
Flagg had been had. “You’re a fucking process server,” he muttered, irked at himself for falling for the pizza gag. The summons ordered to him appear as a witness in a murder trial—for the kid on the hook for killing Garrett Nickel.
A swirl of hot rage stirred in Flagg’s belly as he recalled what Garrett Nickel had done to him in prison, the way that son of a bitch had humiliated him. He caught himself grinding his teeth, and then reminded himself that Nickel was dead.
Dead in the stinking river.
Flagg smiled at the thought.
The process server left the pie on a table and started to leave.
“Wait,” Flagg said, suddenly remembering the rules of the court. “I’m supposed to get, like, eighteen bucks in travel money to get to trial.”
“I spent it,” the guy said, “on the pizza.”
seven
Martin Smothers stared at a speck of dirt on the wall ten inches from his face and tried to concentrate on the critical business of the moment, despite the prosecutor whining in his ear.
“Come on, Martin, take the deal.”
“I’m busy, Ethan.”
“Don’t bother holding out on me,” the prosecutor said, his voice echoing faintly in the tiny white-tiled bathroom. “I can’t go any lower than manslaughter for Peter Shadd.”
“Can you see that I’m trying to take a piss?”
Assistant Attorney General Ethan J. Dillingham stood back, rested an elbow on the neighboring urinal, looked Martin up and down, and frowned. “Yeah, what’s taking so long? Stage fright?” He laughed through his sinuses, an annoying hiss-hiss-hissing. Goddamn that laugh … “I know I intimidate defense lawyers in the courtroom, Marty, but the courthouse men’s room, too?”
“We’re not taking any deal.”
“Thirty years on paper, he’s out in ten.”
“Oh bullshit,” Martin muttered. “He’s already got thirteen years left on his original bid for the armed robberies, plus the three additional he’ll get for escaping. He has to serve that time before he’ll even start a new sentence.”
“I won’t ask for the three.”
“Who gives a crap? There’s no way he’s taking the offer. With Peter’s record, his file would be delivered to the Parole Board in a steel box with a biohazard sticker. He’d do the full thirty years.”
Ethan paused a moment, then gave a disapproving cluck. He held up his hands—Yankee hands that were calloused only from gripping the silver spoon he’d been born with, hands that had never touched a rake or a mop, hands as soft as a virgin’s thigh. He touched lightly on Martin’s shoulder and said gravely, “The case is a slam dunk. If we go to trial, Shadd will leave prison in a hearse, however long that takes.”
Martin stared at him. Ethan was forty-seven, handsome, even striking at first glance, but slightly unreal when you looked a little closer; it was hard to pinpoint, but maybe it was the orange-tinted salon tan. Or the colored contact lenses, too pure a shade of ocean blue. Or the impossible perfection of his chemically whitened teeth. At least the hair was real, unless Ethan had somehow dyed it salt-and-pepper. The prosecutor was six three, slim and fit. The tan suit Ethan had worn to court probably cost more than the car Martin had driven there.
Oh hell. When the two lawyers stood side by side, Ethan would remind the jury of an anchorman, somebody they tru
sted by habit. As for Martin? He’d look like Ethan’s reflection in a fun-house mirror. Oh well, at least Martin knew it—lots of potbellied, dumpy guys enjoyed the delusion of being studs, but not Martin Smothers. He was aware he could pass for a porked-out, hippied-up Colonel Sanders.
Martin finished his business and zipped up.
Ethan stared down at Martin, lips pressed tight enough to squeeze the pink out of them. “The kid is twenty-two years old,” Ethan said. He let Martin digest the number a moment. “To be convicted at that age of murder one? If he’s unlucky enough to stay healthy, he could do sixty years.” He repeated at a whisper, “Sixty years, Marty.” He turned his palms up, then made fists and gently shook them in the air, saying, “Why not take the deal and at least give him some hope of one day seeing a sunrise over Conimicut Point?”
Martin breathed deep, looked up into those Pacific blue eyes, and replied, “You are so full of shit, you should be pumped clean twice a year.”
Ethan’s hands covered his heart. “Marty!”
“Why do you need a deal so bad?” Martin glared up at him. “Is it because the Yankees are at Fenway this week?”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“Or maybe you’re afraid of this case.”
Ethan’s face wrinkled. “What rubbish,” he said, his tone hardening. He folded his arms, leaned against the wall, and gave Martin a blank face. “You won a minor skirmish in pretrial—because of your motion, I can’t mention the hack job your guy did on that other junkie. Big deal.”
“Nothing connected Peter to that body—no blood, no evidence, no nothing,” Martin reminded him. “That’s why I won the motion to suppress, remember?”
“It’s hardly going to matter, with the case I’ve assembled,” Dillingham said. He gave an awkward grin that might have been intended as a menacing grimace. “I will swat that bug Peter Shadd with a polo mallet.”
Martin smiled. Was there anything funnier than blue-blooded bravado?
“You’re scared,” Martin said with a snicker. “Everybody knows you hired a pollster to test the electorate for a run for governor. How’s your name recognition? Did you top the magic fifty percent barrier? You obviously can’t afford a loss in court before the election. Especially with this case—like you said, it’s a slam dunk.” He needled Ethan with a cheerful grin.
“Okay, you’ve been right all along,” Ethan said dryly. “I have Yankees tickets.”
Martin laughed. He had gotten to the unflappable Ethan Dillingham. For a defense lawyer, that was difficult—and fun. “Put your tickets on eBay,” he said, “because we’re going to trial.”
Ethan dropped the soft sell, put a finger in Martin’s chest, and seethed. “I’ll hang life without parole on that skinny son of a bitch.”
Hiking up his pants, Martin rose to his tiptoes and leveled his eyes with Ethan’s craterous chin dimple. The hair on Martin’s neck rose to attention. He said, “Not if I beat you.”
Ethan stared back, unblinking. He chuckled, just making the noise; there was no humor behind it. He said, “You think you can get him off?” and then paused, as if the question was not really rhetorical. When Martin said nothing, Ethan continued: “Nobody cares about this case—this was scumbag-on-scumbag crime. Garrett Nickel is dead and that’s a blessing. We ought to give Peter Shadd a medal before we lock him away and weld shut the door. Two predators thinning their own ranks. Who gives a goddamn?”
Ethan laughed again through his nose; this time, it seemed he really did see some humor. “But I guess that’s why they call you Saint Smothers—the patron lawyer of hopeless causes. You want to take this case to trial? Fine!” The word landed wet on Martin’s face. “It’s your reputation, what there is of it.…” He banged a fist on the chrome lever and brought water rushing into Martin’s urinal. “You’re free to flush it.”
Martin watched the water pool around the disinfectant cake.
“Forgive me,” Ethan added bitterly on his way out, “if I neglect to shake your hand at this moment.”
Peter Shadd sat on the lower bunk, feet tucked against his bonyass, knees drawn up to his face, arms tightly wrapped around his legs. He rocked gently from side to side. His back was to a concrete wall streaked with black scuff marks from where somebody had tried to kick his way out of the holding cell. The top bunk blocked the bleak yellow light of the ceiling bulb and threw a sheet of shadow over Peter. He was in his court clothes, Martin was relieved to see: black denim jeans that looked dressier than they really were, a white cotton dress shirt—the long sleeves hid the needle scars—and sparkling maroon leather loafers. Martin frowned. He could see Peter’s ankles where the pants rode up his legs. No socks. Some knucklehead juror might take that as a sign of disrespect.
Martin stepped into the cell. The door boomed shut. He had trained himself not to flinch at the noise, but he still felt a flutter whenever he heard his freedom being crushed, however briefly, in a steel door.
Peter stared a moment at Martin. The young convict’s round brown eyes bulged from his face, as if one size too big for their sockets. Martin sighed. With those insect eyes, the sunken chest with two points of rib cage jabbing knifelike from under his shirt, those drawn cheeks that told a history of street fights through fading scars, and the long, hooked fingers that moved in a meticulous, buglike way that was graceful and creepy at the same time, Peter looked like a madman’s dim-witted henchman.
That’s how the jury would have to see him. A dimwit, a follower, a lamb.
Peter looked away, buried his face between his knees, and hugged his legs so hard that his skinny arms shook.
Martin watched Peter rock on the bunk. He said, “The jury can’t see you this way.”
You look too fucking guilty.
“I’ll pull it together, man.” Peter’s voice was low and smooth, like the third-shift DJ on a slow-blues station; it was a fat man’s voice, too deep and textured for such a thin face.
Martin stepped to the bunk, taking notice of the sharp click of his shoes on the unpainted concrete floor. He had worn his one pair of real leather cap-toe dress oxfords—his trial shoes, bought in secret with money he had cleverly laundered within his own household.
He sat next to Peter, leaned back, and stared at the underside of the upper bunk. After a minute of silence, he said: “Remember I told you they would offer a plea?”
“Don’t want no deal.”
“That’s what I told them.” Martin reached out an index finger to test if the little black spider under the upper bunk was alive. It reared back from his touch. He told Peter, “Their offer is a little better than I had expected.”
“Unless it’s an apology and a blow job, I ain’t interested.”
“Manslaughter. Thirty years, with a free pass on your escape.”
Peter reared away from Martin, as the spider had. “What’s that?” he cried. “Thirty? I already got thirteen.”
“You’re parole-eligible after doing one-third.”
“ ‘Eligible’?” He looked away briefly, doing math. “Shoot, my parole officer ain’t been born yet.” Peter gaped at him. “Are you telling me to take it?”
Martin couldn’t look at him. He turned away. “I’m telling you what they told me to tell you.”
“What they told you to tell me?” Peter echoed. “Christ! Who’s in charge of my case? You or them?”
“You’re in charge, Peter—you. I just present the options.”
“It’s a shit deal, man.”
The spider rappelled silently from the top bunk on an invisible web.
Martin spun around on the bunk, put his leather shoes to the wall, and lay on his back, his face directly below the spider. It levitated eighteen inches above his nose.
Peter warned, “He’s gonna land on your head, man.”
Martin blew gently at the spider and sent it swaying. “This case,” he said, “is a son of a bitch. I can’t tell you how it’s going to go.”
“It’s all circumstantial, ma
n.”
“These spiders aren’t poisonous, are they?”
“If they are, can I get a mistrial?” Peter said. “On the grounds that my attorney was too busy fighting paralysis to present my arguments.”
Martin chuckled. “Ethan Dillingham doesn’t need DNA to win a conviction,” he said. “He’s a master of drawing a logical picture from circumstantial evidence. The opportunity, the motive, the gunpowder residue on your hands—he’ll make a good show. He’s a prick in real life, but the jury won’t know that. They’ll like him.”
The spider sank another six inches and held there. Martin could make out the teeny hairs on its legs.
“How come you never asked me if I was guilty or not?” Peter said.
Martin’s stomach tightened. Not this conversation, not now. Their discussion was protected by attorney-client privilege, but Martin’s conscience was not—and it was too late to pull out of the case if Peter admitted something.
“I never ask that question,” Martin said. He shot Peter a glance. They skinny young con had stopped rocking. He was rubbing his chin and studying Martin’s face. “I wouldn’t expect the truth, regardless,” Martin explained. “Everybody in this county jug is innocent, right?”
“What if somebody was to tell you he was guilty of something?”
Don’t say it, Peter.
“I’d have to quit as his lawyer.”
Peter laughed and clapped his hands once. “You saying you never defended a guilty person in your life?”
“I assume,” Martin said as the spider slowly dropped toward his face, “in a philosophical sense, that all my clients are guilty. That doesn’t matter to me—every accused person deserves an intelligent and vigorous defense. But I can’t argue that they’re innocent if they tell me they’re not.”
“That spider’s gonna bite you, man.”
“This is a tough case to win, Peter. I’d say it’s a long shot.”
Peter laughed. “He’s gonna wrap you up in a big cocoon. Then he’ll eat like the King of the Spiders for the next hundred years.”
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