Hear No Evil

by James Grippando

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll remember this. He said that you put a knife to his throat and threatened to slit him open from ear to ear if he told my mother not to have any more children.”

  Torres shook his head, but his demeanor changed, as if he no longer saw the point of denial-at least not as long as it was just the two of them behind closed doors. “I was nineteen years old,” he said, as if that was an excuse.

  “My mother was twenty-three when she died.”

  Torres said nothing, showed no emotion.

  Jack said, “I always thought she came to this country seeking freedom. She came here to get away from you, didn’t she?”

  “I loved your mother.”

  “No, you loved controlling her.”

  “I loved your mother and wanted to have a family with her. Is that a crime?”

  “You followed her to Miami.”

  “I came here on my own.”

  “You befriended my father just so you could find out more about her.”

  “So what if I did? Big deal. I carried a torch.”

  “A torch? More like a flamethrower. You were obsessed.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “You visited her grave.”

  “Somebody needed to. God knows your father didn’t.”

  “This isn’t about my father.”

  “I put flowers on her grave. Big damn deal.”

  “Flowers my ass. I know what you did there.”

  Torres went rigid. He clearly had grasped the meaning of that last remark, knew that Jack had spoken to his ex-wife. “I don’t have to listen to this crap.”

  Jack grabbed him by the lapel, shoved him against the wall.

  “What are you gonna do, hit me? Is that what you want to do?”

  Jack tightened his grip. He did want to hit him. He wanted to hit him hard enough to knock him back to Cuba.

  Torres was having trouble breathing, Jack was pushing so hard against him. “What good would it have done?” the prosecutor said, his voice strained. “What if I had let that doctor tell your mother not to have any more children. Where would that leave you, huh, Jack? You would never have been born. You got nothing to hold against me. You should be thanking me.”

  There was truth in what he said, but not the kind of truth that made Jack want to forgive him. Jack, however, wasn’t sure how it made him feel. There was just a surge of emotion. The sadness of his never having known his mother. The frustration of pulling snippets of information from his father and grandmother over the years. The utter dismay of learning that he hardly knew anything important about her. But mostly he felt anger-anger over the fact that, with or without Hector Torres, there had never been a chance for Jack and his mother to enjoy any kind of happy ending. At least not in the 1960s. One of them was destined to be buried, Jack or his mother, his mother or Ramón. There was still no one to blame, no clear culprit. Just this pathetic excuse for a human being standing before him.

  Jack cocked his arm, ready to paste one on that ugly puss. Torres recoiled-hardly a defense-but a quick knock on the door stopped Jack cold.

  The door opened. Sofia entered, and her eyes widened with surprise. “What’s going on?”

  Jack released the older man. Torres straightened his wrinkled lapels and said, “Just a little disagreement, that’s all.”

  Sofia looked confused, but she didn’t pursue it. “Jury’s back again. This time it’s for real. They have a verdict.”

  It took a few seconds for the message to sink in, to bring them back to the reason they were there in the first place.

  Torres grabbed his briefcase and started for the door. Then he stopped and looked back at Jack. “Just to finish up our conversation, Counselor. And I suppose this bit of advice applies equally well to the jury verdict as it does to what we were talking about earlier.” His eyes darkened, and his expression turned very serious, almost threatening. “Live with it, Swyteck. You’re just gonna have to.”

  It had been a long time since Jack had felt such hatred toward anyone. The prosecutor turned and was gone, but Jack could almost feel the heat rising from his own skin.

  Sofia seemed reluctant to say anything, but finally she had to. “Jack, we should go. Lindsey’s waiting.”

  He took a moment, then gathered himself. Lindsey. How strange it felt just to hear her name. How strange it was to know that her fate had finally been decided.

  Without another word, he started down the long corridor with Sofia at his side.

  54

  Jack returned to a packed courtroom. Someone had done a crack job of alerting the media of an impending verdict, and Jack suspected that his initials were H.T.

  Hector Torres was seated at the table nearest the jury box, drumming his fingers expectantly on the tabletop. Lindsey sat impassively between her two lawyers, saying nothing. The galley was filled nearly to capacity, fuller than it had been on any day since the first day of trial. A few journalists had fired questions at Jack and Sofia as they entered the courtroom. How was their client doing? What was Jack’s prediction? As if any of that mattered. The fat lady hadn’t quite sung, but she was at least exercising her voice. Is was all over but for the reading of perhaps one, hopefully two, simple words from a slip of paper. The verdict was in the can. Lindsey’s life was in the balance. The rest of Brian’s life would be forever changed, one way or the other, for better or for worse.

  Jack wished only that he knew with greater certainty which way was better and which way was worse.

  “All rise!” shouted the bailiff.

  The crowd was quickly on its feet, and the mull of numerous conversations ceased. A side door opened, and Judge Garcia entered the courtroom from his chambers. He climbed to the high-back leather chair atop the bench and instructed the bailiff to bring in the jury. Seven men and five women entered the courtroom in single file, each taking his or her assigned seat in the jury box.

  “Please be seated,” the judge told the rest of the courtroom.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder as he took his seat. Alejandro Pintado and his wife were behind the prosecutor in the first row of public seating. They were holding hands and locking arms, so close together they were practically one person. Jack couldn’t help but note the contrast: the pain and emotion all over the faces of the victim’s parents, the complete lack of expression on the face of the accused. Jack knew it wasn’t because Lindsey didn’t care. She was emotionally and physically drained from too little sleep and too many worries. At some point, the body’s defense mechanisms took over. Numbness was always the last defense, the place people landed when they were just too weary to fight any longer.

  The judge said, “Madam forewoman, has the jury reached a verdict?”

  A middle-aged woman in the first row stood and said, “We have, Your Honor.”

  A flurry of thoughts ran through Jack’s mind. The jury had chosen a fore woman. A good thing or a bad? Less likely to convict in a death penalty case? More sympathetic to an abused wife? Full of venom for a slutty mom who cheated on her husband? It was pointless to speculate. It was simply time to hope for good news and to brace for bad.

  Jack took Lindsey’s hand, but she pulled away, as if she preferred to handle this on her own and in her own way.

  The written verdict almost seemed to float across the courtroom, passed from the forewoman to the bailiff, from the bailiff to the judge. Judge Garcia adjusted his reading glasses, looked down, and read the verdict to himself. In hundreds of trials, Jack had never been able to tell which way a verdict had gone by reading the judge’s face as he inspected the verdict. Judge Garcia was the typical model of stoicism. He passed the verdict back to the bailiff and said, “The defendant will please rise.”

  Lindsey was slow to find her footing. Jack stood on her left, Sofia on her right.

  “Madam forewoman, please read the verdict.”

  The air in the courtroom suddenly seemed too thick to breathe. Jack glanced one l
ast time at the Pintado family in the first row. Mrs. Pintado was leaning into her husband, unable to watch. Mr. Pintado was drawing short, anxious breaths. Most of all, however, Jack noticed that their grandson wasn’t there.

  A good thing, thought Jack. Either way, that was a good thing.

  The forewoman took the verdict from the bailiff, unfolded it. Her hand shook as she read it aloud. “In the United States of America versus Lindsey Hart, Case Number 02-0937, we the jury, find as follows. As to Count I, violation of chapter eighteen, United States Code, murder in the first degree, we find the defendant…”

  She paused, and Jack felt a lump swelling in his throat.

  “Guilty.”

  Lindsey gasped as she collapsed into her chair. Jack went down with her, trying to hold her steady, though he too felt as if his knees had been cut out from under him. The courtroom was immediately abuzz with surprise, approval, and even some heartfelt dismay. Jack shot a quick glance toward the jurors, but none of them would look in his direction. Behind the prosecutor, tears were flowing. Oscar Pintado’s mother had let out a shriek, neither of delight nor despair. It was just an outburst that seemed to tell the world that justice had been done.

  “This can’t be!” said Lindsey.

  “Order!” the judge shouted as he banged his gavel. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your service. You are hereby dismissed. Counsel, please contact my chambers for a sentencing date. This court is adjourned.”

  With a final crack of the gavel, it was over.

  Jack looked out toward the crowd, people scampering for the exits, journalists sprinting to find a prime spot outside the courtroom where they could issue their live evening-news reports. It was all a blur, and Jack couldn’t focus. Finally, he looked at Lindsey. Her eyes showed only shock and disbelief.

  “This can’t be happening,” she said again and again.

  But it was happening, and for Jack, it was one of those distressing moments in life when he didn’t fully come to the conclusion that something shouldn’t happen until he actually felt it happening. Yet, deep down, he wondered if he would have felt the same way if the verdict had been not guilty.

  Jack felt a firm tug at his sleeve. Lindsey had taken hold of him. The federal marshals were at her side, ready to escort her to prison. It was the same marshals who had taken her away at the end of each day of trial for the past two weeks. This time, however, their presence had an entirely differently feel, the verdict having stamped a daunting sense of permanence on her journey back behind bars.

  “Jack, you have to do something!” she said.

  Jack wanted to put her at ease, but all he could manage were a few halfhearted words of encouragement. “It isn’t over yet,” he told her, but it sounded hollow.

  She glared at him through cloudy eyes, and Jack wasn’t sure if she was ready to cry or to tear his head off. She kept looking at him, her chin reaching over her shoulder as the marshals took her out the side exit.

  Jack drew a breath, his head pounding. Behind him, on the other side of the rail, reporters called out their barrage of questions. It was all just clatter.

  Hector Torres approached the defense table, but he didn’t offer a handshake. There was no smile on his lips, but Jack could see it in his eyes. The prosecutor said, “Well, I guess congratulations are in order. For me, at least. See you around, Jack.”

  “Shove it, jerk,” said Sofia.

  Jack raised a hand, quieting her as the prosecutor turned to face a flock of journalists just outside the rail. Jack showed them his back as he gathered up his briefcase.

  “That man is such an idiot,” said Sofia.

  “Don’t worry. What goes around, comes around.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Jack had a statement prepared for the press, but he had no inclination to give it. This was one time when he didn’t feel the need to explain anything. He was content to let the U.S. attorney have his moment of fame. He lifted his briefcase and headed up the center aisle. Sofia followed. A few members of the press were right with them, but Jack’s silence soon caused them to lose interest, particularly with the U.S. attorney holding journalistic court in the hallway. Jack exited through the double doors in the back of the courtroom. A circle of reporters had gathered around the prosecutor as he issued sound bite after sound bite. Jack watched with interest, wondering if he’d ever in his life seen a more pompous ass. Finally, nearly two minutes into his endlessly self-serving “I knew I would be vindicated” speech, the prosecutor was interrupted by a seasoned reporter who simply couldn’t hold her question any longer.

  “Mr. Torres, is it true that your name used to be Jorge Bustón?”

  The prosecutor did a double take. “What?”

  Another reporter chimed in. “Jorge Bustón. The same Jorge Bustón who worked in Havana in the early 1960s as a block warden for the Comité para la Defensa de la Revolución?”

  “I…I…” The prosecutor kept stammering, and the questions kept coming.

  “Sir,” another journalist said pointedly, “isn’t it true that you earned a commendation from the Communist Party for ratting out so-called enemies of the revolution in your neighborhood?”

  Torres’s mouth hung open, and the feeding frenzy had begun.

  “Mr. Torres-or should I say Mr. Bustón-aren’t some of those political dissidents that you fingered still sitting in prison?”

  “What was behind your fall from Castro’s good graces in 1964?”

  “Is that why you changed your name and became so vocal against Castro when you came to Miami? Because you were driven out of the party?”

  The U.S. attorney was speechless, and all color had drained from his cheeks. He looked utterly confused, until finally he glanced across the hallway and picked out his adversary in the crowd. Jack was silent, moving not a muscle-except to offer a hint of a smile that confirmed the fact that old Dr. Blanco had indeed been a wealth of information, and that Jack, too, had placed a few choice calls to the media before the rendering of the verdict. Jack wanted to say it to the prosecutor’s face, but he didn’t have to. He was certain that, by now, Torres had fully realized what was going on, that he could hear Jack throwing his snide remark right back at him, even if no words were actually spoken.

  Live with it, Jorge. You’re just gonna have to.

  Jack turned and headed for the elevator, hoping that perhaps, somewhere, a forever-young woman named Ana Maria was smiling.

  55

  Jack slept until nine-thirty the next morning.

  The previous night, Theo had brought over a broad selection of wheat beers that he was debating whether to stock at Sparky’s, figuring that a lost trial was the perfect occasion for Jack to sample all fourteen brands. It didn’t seem all that funny now, but at about two A.M. it had busted Jack’s gut to watch a lug like Theo turn into Truman Capote as he read aloud from the artsy-fartsy sales literature for each of the different German brews.

  “Ayinger BraüWeisse,” he’d said. Then he took a little sip, smacking his lips at hummingbird speed. “Fruity, yet herbaceous.”

  Jack slowly lifted his head from the pillow. The great thing about wheat beer was that it never gave you a hangover. Another one of Theo’s lies. It seemed to take forever, but finally Jack managed to sit upright on the edge of the bed. Then a friggin’ trumpet blasted in his ear, but it was only his telephone. He snatched it up before it could ring a second time. It was Theo, jovial as ever, showing absolutely no signs of overindulgence. The man was the devil.

  “Hey, Jack. Have you seen this morning’s paper?”

  “Only if it was printed on the inside of my eyelids.”

  “Here, let me read it to you.”

  Jack groaned. It was another of Theo’s quirks. Perhaps it was because he’d never been read to as a child, or maybe he was a closet television newscaster, but for some reason Theo enjoyed reading aloud, with feeling-and with incredible volume. Far more volume than Jack’s be
er-soaked brain could handle. He held the phone about a foot away from his ear and listened.

  Theo cleared his throat, mumbled through the introductory sentences, then skipped to the good part. “Says here, quote, ‘Reportedly, Ms. Hart’s conviction has been no small source of anxiety for her alleged lover, U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant Damont Johnson. Sources tell the Tribune that Lieutenant Johnson’s biggest fear is that Ms. Hart, now convicted of murder, will break her silence and reveal the truth about her husband’s shooting, which may well implicate Johnson. These same sources confirm that Lieutenant Johnson is in a race to beat her to the punch. In a telephone interview late last night, however, U.S. attorney Hector Torres would neither confirm nor deny that he is having any discussions with Lieutenant Johnson, and he declined to comment on whether the government is willing to cut a deal in exchange for the lieutenant’s tell-all testimony.’ ”

  Jack’s head was pounding, but it wasn’t the wheat beer. “Does it say who the source is?”

  “No. One of those anonymous jobs. You want me to visit Johnson, try to find out?”

  “No. Stay out of it.”

  “I don’t really get the point of this, anyway,” said Theo. “Lindsey’s already convicted. Why would the prosecutor want to deal for Johnson’s testimony now?”

  “We’ve still got a sentencing hearing. Torres wants a needle in her arm, and I’m trying to keep her alive.”

  “So Johnson is going to flip again and say it wasn’t the kid who done it after all?”

  “I don’t know. This is just an article in a newspaper, with anonymous sources to boot. Who knows what’s really going on? Could be true, or it could be someone with his own agenda who lied to an overeager reporter for his own purposes.”

  “Or this he could be a she.”

  “Yeah. Or that.”

  “Whatchya gonna do?”

  Jack massaged his temples, trying to stop the throbbing. “Go straight to my only source. I’ll talk to Lindsey.”