David had taken Derek’s conviction personally. “I’m not political enough,” he told Derek in frustration during one of those first post-sentencing visits. “I don’t swing the weight, damn it.”
“You did everything you could have done.”
“I should have played dirty.”
“You can’t. That’s why I hired you. You have a sterling reputation.”
“Sterling? No, friend, you’ve got it wrong. I’m the tarnish on the sterling. I’m a black lawyer in a white system, which is just fine when my clients are black and already have that strike against them, but it sure didn’t do you no good.” He ended with the ethnic drawl that he could put on or take off—and indeed, it came off in the next breath. “This case stinks. One too many things just haven’t made sense. We’ll get them on appeal, Derek. So help me, we’ll do it.”
But they didn’t. One appeal after another, filed in one court after another—all denied. It was the latest denial that had brought David to Parkersville.
“The sentence stands,” he said, dropping his briefcase on the table in the small, private room reserved for lawyer-client visits. “I was hoping to get it reduced, but the bastards weren’t buying. I’m sorry.”
Derek was leaning against the wall. He hadn’t had to hear the words: one look at his friend’s face had told him they’d lost. He wasn’t surprised. “Don’t sweat it, Dave. We figured as much.” He pushed off from the wall, smirking cynically as he knelt down and peered under the table. “When you set out to screw someone, you don’t stop in the middle, do you?” Spotting the telltale wire, he nodded toward David, who was already in the process of removing a minirecorder from his case. “Anyway, I’m on the home stretch—or I will be, assuming nothing happens between now and November.”
David turned on the recorder, which, thanks to his fourteen-year-old son, spewed out a raucous heavy-metal sound. Setting it on the seat of the chair no more than twelve inches from the bug, he moved to join Derek against the wall.
“What’s the feel here?” he asked in a low voice. “Any hint of trouble?”
Derek gave a noncommittal shrug. “The guards are breathing down my neck. They watch every move I make. But I don’t think they’ll be the problem. I keep to myself. I don’t give them trouble. In their own warped way they respect that. It’s the other guys who scare me.”
“Like the two in the shower?” David asked, glancing briefly at the fading scar on Derek’s neck.
“It was no accident. They were set up to involve me in their fight.”
“Were they aiming to kill?”
“Does rain fall?”
“Were they disciplined?”
“Each did a day in the hole, but word has it that they got pizza for lunch, and when you get anything other than shit in there, it means you’ve got an in.” His voice dropped even more. “I really thought Greer had chalked me off. At this point, anything else he tries to do to me has to be a risk to him. The more people he involves, the riskier it gets. Somewhere, sometime, someone is going to slip up and squeal.”
David was more cautious. “He’s a powerful man, Derek. He gets things done. And he keeps his own fingers out of the till. No direct contact. No fingerprints. My guess is that if you ever did manage to get a squealer, the squealer wouldn’t know who in the hell Noel Greer was.”
“Which is why I have to get the files,” Derek muttered.
“Hmm?”
“He really is eyeing the Senate, isn’t he?”
“Looks that way.”
“I keep reading it in the papers, but, God, I find it hard to believe.”
“Why so? The man’s a natural. He’s a media expert. He’s suave, good-looking. At sixty, he’s not too old, not too young. He’s built himself an empire from the ground floor up, and all that began even before he took over the network. He’s the consummate executive, the embodiment of the American Dream, and if you think New Yorkers won’t eat him up, think again.”
“Then he can make it?”
“You bet. The election’s still a year and a half off, but—barring a catastrophe—he can make it. He has the money, the power and the organization. It’d be a damn shame if he wins.”
Derek had no intention of letting that happen. The Ballantine files were out there, and somehow or other they had to implicate Noel Greer. It was the only thing Derek had been able to come up with after months and months of racking his brain. The Ballantine files had to be the key.
“A lot can happen in a year and a half,” he murmured. His mind skipped ahead, picturing some of the possibilities, and suddenly he wasn’t thinking of Noel Greer. “David, have you ever heard of a man named Nicholas Stone?”
“I’m not deaf, dumb and blind. Of course I’ve heard of Nicholas Stone. There’s another natural for you. He’s got the golden touch. Has the smarts and the style. Tax laws change and investors panic. Not Stone. He’s cool.”
“I know his wife,” Derek tossed out quietly. He wasn’t quite sure why he did it. Maybe saying it aloud would make it more real. More likely, he wanted David’s reaction; he trusted and respected the man as he did few others.
“Too bad about that, isn’t it?” David tossed back, taking Derek by surprise. He’d been under the impression that the child’s problems had been kept under wraps.
“It’s hard on her. I don’t know about him, though. From what I understand, he distances himself from the whole thing.”
“Maybe that’s why it happened.”
“Nah. The boy isn’t emotionally disturbed. He’s brain-damaged.”
David frowned. “Say what?”
“Nicky is brain-damaged.”
“Who is Nicky?”
Derek frowned too. “Sabrina’s son. Nick’s son.”
“I didn’t know they had a son.”
“Then what’s ‘too bad’?”
“The divorce. They’re getting divorced.”
Derek heard the words, but it was a minute before they sank in, and then he went very still. “How do you know that?”
“Read it in the paper. It’s the kind of gossip society columnists love, and since I’ve always wanted to make the society page”—his eyes danced—“I study it faithfully for hints. I might’ve made it defending you if the trial had been in the city, but—”
“Getting divorced?” Derek echoed dumbly. There was a buzzing in his head that had nothing to do with the Motley Crue cacophony that shielded his conversation with David. “When did you read it?”
“A week, week and a half ago.”
Well before Sabrina’s last visit, Derek realized. “What did the article say?”
“It was more a little blurb than an article.”
“Little blurb, then. What did it say?”
“That they’re getting divorced.”
“Was that it? Just that the Nicholas Stones have filed for divorce?”
“Hey, man, I was just kidding about studying—”
“I need to know, Dave,” Derek said, his tone softening for the sake of his friend but losing none of its urgency. “Try to remember?”
David moved his shoulder against the wall and frowned. “It wasn’t that big a thing—something to the effect that Stone has become the man-about-town now that his marriage is off. How do you know his wife?”
The man-about-town. Derek didn’t know whom to be angry at, Sabrina or Nick. “We met a while ago,” he said, speaking distractedly, his voice aimed at the floor. “She’s been here a couple of times.”
“Here? To Parkersville?”
Derek looked up. “Is that so strange?”
“Yeah, man. She’s la crème de la crème. What’s she doing here?”
“Visiting me,” Derek answered indignantly. He was annoyed that David had so quickly and correctly summed up the situation. But he should have expected it. David was sharp. And honest. Which was why Derek had raised the issue in the first place.
“How well do you know her?” David asked.
“Apparently n
ot so well as I thought.”
“Do you think she knows Greer?”
Derek felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “No!”
“You sure?”
“Damn it, yes!”
“But if you don’t know her as well as you thought—”
“I know her well enough for that,” Derek insisted. “The idea that Greer sent her is absurd!”
“He’s capable of doing it, Derek. He’s tried to kill you more than once. Failing that, he might settle for sending a spy to learn your plans.”
“If he did that, it wouldn’t be Sabrina.”
“Why not? You know how the man works. He finds a person’s weakness, then preys on it. Sabrina’s marriage is on the rocks. You say she has a brain-damaged child. There’s a lot going on in her life that a man like Greer could use…”
“She’s a strong woman,” Derek interrupted. His eyes were dark, his voice low but vehement. “Nothing she’s done could be used for blackmail. Forget it, Dave. No way. And besides, the spy business is a little farfetched. Even the attempted-murder business is a little farfetched. Maybe I’ve imagined the whole thing. Paranoia is rampant in here.”
“Maybe, but let me tell you, I didn’t imagine what went on with that trial. The deck was stacked. We didn’t have a chance. It was tight and skillful, what they did. Greer pulled some very solid strings.”
Derek couldn’t argue with that. “What I don’t understand is why Greer doesn’t just give up on me and go after the files.”
“If the files are the problem, and it’s a big if.”
“There’s nothing else,” Derek said with a quick shake of his head. “I’ve been over the last four years of my life with a fine-tooth comb, and there’s nothing else. Greer and I had our differences from the start, but he went berserk when he learned I was onto Ballantine. He felt threatened, threatened in a big way. It has to be the files. I know it does.”
“My friend,” David drawled sadly, “you don’t even know for sure that those files exist. I’d hate to see you put too much store in them.”
“They exist.”
“Then the pertinent question is the one you just posed. Why hasn’t Greer gone after them himself?”
Derek inhaled deeply and shook his head.
“He has the resources,” David pointed out.
“I know.”
“All he’d have to do is find them and have them destroyed, and he’d be safe.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Tell me about it,” Derek said dryly, at which point David straightened and slapped his friend on the arm.
“Well, you’ve got till November to figure it out.”
For a minute, Derek didn’t respond. He pictured the calendar on the wall of his cell, pictured the X’s he marked through each day of his sentence that had passed, pictured those days left to be marked. Those remaining days could be fewer … or greater.
“I hope that’s all I’ve got,” he said, and felt the familiar pressure begin to gather. Prickles starting deep inside, working their way outward. An itching beneath the skin. Nervous energy building from a whine to a cry to a silent scream. Panic in its rawest form. “What if I’m denied parole?” he asked.
“There’s no reason why that would happen.”
“There’s no reason why any of this has happened.” He gritted his teeth and repeated the question. “Dave, what if I’m denied parole?”
“You won’t be.”
“I’m not sure I could make it if that happened. I think I’d explode inside, burst a blood vessel or something.” He wasn’t kidding.
David closed a firm hand on his shoulder. “I try not to make the same mistake twice. I played it straight during the trial. I did everything by the book. And I’m not doing anything illegal now, but two can play the game.” His eyes held Derek’s, mirroring the confidence that was in his voice. “I’m speaking to people, Derek. I’m setting the scene to make a lot of noise if that parole doesn’t come through when it should. Do you remember Jilly DeVries—the little girl who worked for me a couple of summers ago?”
Derek remembered her. She’d been in her third year of law school when she worked for David, and she wasn’t that little a girl that Derek hadn’t taken her out. She was cute and bright, a little wild, very aggressive.
“She’s working as counsel for the Department of Corrections,” David went on, “and she has access to figures—figures in New York, Pennsylvania, California, you name it. She gave me the figures for Massachusetts, and I’m letting certain people know I’ve got them. It’s a matter of precedent—how this particular parole board has acted over the past five years. Given your crime, your sentence, your record here at Parkersville, your lack of a record elsewhere, your profession—I could go on and on—there’s no reason for the board to deny your parole. And if they do, there’ll be hell to pay.” He paused for a breath. “The media is multifaceted. Greer’s network isn’t the only one in town. Okay?”
Derek wasn’t counting on anything; he’d learned not to do that; but David’s confidence had a calming effect. He held up both hands, yielding.
David nodded. “Good.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta run.” Returning to the table, he snapped off the cassette. “Ahhh,” he whispered, “peace.” He put the recorder in his case. “Anything you need?”
It was the timeworn question. Derek didn’t even want to consider it. “Nah—!” Then he caught himself. “On second thought, got a pencil?”
David drew one from his briefcase and handed it over along with a yellow legal pad. On it, Derek wrote the names of Gebhart, Amanda and J. B. Monroe, then tossed the pad and pencil back into the case and said quietly, “I want the latest books by each. Any bookstore should have them.”
David stared at the names on the pad, then stared at Derek. “Her family?”
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Derek nodded.
“I take it this is important.”
Derek repeated the nod.
“Do you know what you’re doing, friend?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t want you hurt,” David said. “You’ve got a lot on your mind. You’ll have more on your mind when you get out of here. It doesn’t matter who you are, why you’re here, what’s waiting for you when you get out. It’s gonna be hard at first. Added complications you don’t need.”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
David studied Derek for a final minute before closing his briefcase. “Okay, so you’ve thought of it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Just send the books, okay?”
“Sure thing, friend.” He took Derek’s hand in a firm grip. “Watch yourself, y’hear?”
* * *
Unfortunately, it wasn’t himself Derek had to watch, but everyone else. Second among the unwritten prison rules—after Don’t Get Involved—was Guard Your Back. To do so meant being forever cautious, which required concentration, which was fine as long as one’s concentration wasn’t elsewhere.
Unfortunately, over the next few days Derek’s concentration was elsewhere. He was trying to figure out why Sabrina hadn’t told him she was getting a divorce. He’d always thought he could fathom the female mind with some degree of success, but he couldn’t do it now. He supposed he was out of practice. More probably, he realized, he was afraid of what the fathoming would turn up.
Disillusionment was something with which he’d had to contend at an early age. As a boy, promises had been made to him, then broken. He’d idolized a father who had let him down at every turn. His mother had been a creature of high standards and lofty dreams—a lethal combination for a boy who wanted to see results. Derek had learned, therefore, to take promises lightly. He had learned to fully trust no one but himself. He had become an expert in self-reliance, which had proved its worth many times over during his climb to the top in a cutthroat field.
It was a little disturbing for him to realize that h
e’d come to rely on Sabrina’s straightforwardness. It was more than a little disturbing for him to wonder if he wasn’t in for a fall.
His mood went from bad to worse, from confusion to irritation to anger, which subsequently clouded his judgment.
That was why he wasn’t prepared when he was jumped and dragged into the shadows on his way back to his cell after dinner Monday night. The attack wasn’t life-threatening; it didn’t involve a knife or other makeshift weapon; nor did it have anything to do with Noel Greer. Derek had brought it on himself by absently sitting at the wrong table in the dining hall, then not at all absently compounding the error by taking too long to move.
The beating was administered by the two bodyguards of the inmate whose turf he’d violated. Derek’s first instinct was to fight back, and he had more than enough anger in him to do it with style. But he also had some sense. If he yelled or returned punches or did anything else to attract the attention of the guards, he’d be disciplined; and if that happened, the parole board would hear. His previous stint in solitary was the sole blemish on his record. He didn’t want another.
So he didn’t make a sound other than the occasional involuntary moan. He didn’t take a single swing at his opponents, even when their taunts took the form of slurs against his profession, his dead mother and the color of his lawyer’s skin. He did little more than try to protect those parts of himself that were more vulnerable than others.
Whether he succeeded was questionable. By the time he was left alone, his entire body was screaming in pain. Calling on the last of his battered reserves, he hauled himself up and stumbled to his cell. No one looked at him twice. No one noticed that he was clutching his middle, that blood stained his face, that he was half doubled over and limping.
He fell on his cot and, for more than an hour, didn’t move. Then, wincing with each breath, he made his painful way down the row of cells, past the common room where a group was watching the baseball game on television, and into the shower room. No one looked, no one saw, no one cared.
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