by Reed Arvin
“Ireland,” I say. “I’m the Irish one, but Becker wants to convert.”
“I’m a Miller Lite man,” Stillman says, looking around the club.
Carl looks struck. “Good Christ, Stillman. We found you just in time.” He puts his hand on Stillman’s shoulder. “I trust your charge cards are all in working order.” Stillman gives a worried look—the revolving bill for the CEO-level clothes he’s wearing is probably floating through his mind—and mutters something unintelligible.
“Junior prosecutors always buy,” I say. “It’s how we keep smart young guys like you from leaving. After you buy drinks for a few years, it finally gets to be your turn. You can’t afford to leave all that money on the table.”
“Precisely,” Carl says. We sit on a couple of couches facing each other, Carl and me on one side, Stillman on the other. A gorgeous waitress wearing a breast-defining T-shirt walks up to take our order. I order a Paulaner Hefe-Weizen—which gets Carl’s approving nod—and Carl orders a little number called a Ratsherrn Trunk, a beer so sharp and pungent just hearing him order it makes my eyes water. Stillman flashes his TV smile at the waitress but doesn’t get to open his mouth. “Young Stillman will have a Boundary Bay,” Carl says. “We’ll start him on the West Coast, and work our way east.” Carl smiles at the waitress. “Three corned beef and ryes, please. And we’ll be running a bit of a tab today, dear,” he says. “Stillman will give you his card.”
Stillman pulls out a Visa with as much aplomb as he can manage, but he watches it disappear into the smoky distance like a best friend marching off to war. As much as I enjoy seeing him squirm, I put him out of his misery. “Don’t panic, Stillman,” I say. “One beer’s the limit at lunch. You’ll get out of here alive.”
Stillman exhales slightly, and we settle in, Carl filling his space on the sofa so comfortably it’s hard to imagine him more at home where he actually lives. The one-beer rule is only a lunchtime thing; after hours he’s always been a heavy drinker, but at least he’s positively religious about taking taxis home. He’s never been less than razor sharp the next morning, either, which is testimony either to his constitution or to his alcohol tolerance after thirty years’ practice. I watch him quietly, wondering what he’ll do other than drink when he retires in a few days. Drinking has been social for Carl, it’s been a hobby, and, above all, it’s been something he’s done expertly, with élan and good humor. His love for the color and taste of fine beer has always had a powerful counterbalance in his life, namely, his even greater love for the law. With that removed, I wonder what will happen. He fits so comfortably in his seat now, I can imagine him receding farther and farther into the upholstery, until he vanishes completely, a perpetual buzz of forgetfulness flowing through his veins. God knows he hates to go home if there’s friendly conversation and good beer to be found. To wit, he raises his pint and gives his usual toast: “Gentlemen, here’s to men with nothing to do but save the world.”
“Saving the world,” I say, sipping my Paulaner. The gold slips down my throat, the perfect blend of bite and comfort.
Stillman tastes his beer, looks pleasantly surprised, and takes a bigger sip.
Carl leans back in the couch, the back of which comes up to the top of his shoulders. “Here’s Paul,” he says, nodding. “Late, as usual.”
Paul Landmeyer, the third part of our usual threesome, is a brilliant, humorous man, with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and has written papers for the Journal of Police Forensics. When he’s not picking evidence apart for the police, he’s grinding through the teenage years of his kid, a fourteen-year-old boy whose idea of accomplishment is mastering a new skateboard trick. Paul is thirty-eight, with a scholarly look: brown, thick hair, glasses, and deep, thoughtful eyes. He shakes hands with me and Carl, and I introduce him to Stillman. Paul looks at Stillman awhile, a thin smile on his lips. He orders iced tea and a sandwich, sits back, and says, “Stillman. Yeah, that was the name I heard.”
Stillman looks up, surprised. “You heard my name?”
Paul nods. “I just got back from a thing out at the Nation. You and your partner are a major topic of conversation out there.”
He looks up. “Us?”
Paul smiles. “You’re the two guys who let that Sudanese guy out on bail, aren’t you?”
Stillman stares. “Yeah. I mean, Thomas…yeah.”
“And he’s accused of raping and murdering a white girl from the Nation, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there ya go.”
Stillman’s TV smile vanishes. “Am I supposed to be freaked out about this or what?”
I shrug. “You work for the Justice Department, so they hated you already, Stillman. They just didn’t know your name yet.”
“Tell us what you heard, Paul,” Carl says. “It’ll be good instruction for young Stillman.”
Paul nods. “I was doing some fieldwork down there on a thing. There was a crowd of Nationites standing around, talking shit like they do. And I hear Thomas’s name.”
“Glad to be on their minds,” I say, taking a bite of sandwich.
“Well, they seem to feel the two of you fucked up.”
“We did,” I say, washing the bite down with a sip of Paulaner. “Royally.”
Paul smiles. “You might not want to have your car break down in that area for a while,” he says.
Stillman looks like he’s about to shit a kitten. “So what’s the story on these guys?” he asks. “What are they gonna do, slash our tires or something?”
Carl gets one of his sage looks. “You know what the problem is with criminal law, Stillman?”
“No.”
“You’re always dealing with criminals.”
Paul and I laugh, and Stillman shuts his mouth, deciding he’s had enough. I can see his mind working, though. I’ll talk him down later, but for now, it’s more important to let him suffer a little.
While Paul’s talking, Rita West comes in with a couple of lawyers from the public defender’s office. Rita looks good, as usual—for not being that tall, she’s got great legs—but the two guys with her have on mediocre shirts, no ties, and slacks from another decade.
Stillman watches them take seats on the other side of the club, about forty feet away. “Public defenders make the same money prosecutors do, right?” he asks.
“To the penny,” I say.
“Then why do they dress like that?”
Carl smiles. “Long tradition, Stillman. They say it’s to relate to their clients, but it’s actually just that they have no style.”
“No shit,” Stillman says, shaking his head. “They look like they work at Sears.”
“The one on the right’s no problem,” I say. “He’s a UT grad, just marking time. The good-looking kid with the brown hair is smart. Dukie named Kurt Mayer. You have to watch him.”
Stillman glances over. “That guy went to Duke? What’s he doing at the PD’s office?”
“Defending democracy against the pernicious power of the state,” Carl says, smiling. “Or, as Thomas prefers to put it, ‘Learning the ropes until he goes private and gets rich.’”
I grin and say nothing. It’s enough to watch Carl in his element: drinking excellent beer and holding forth on the law and lawyers.
“And I believe you’ve already met Ms. West,” Carl says pointedly. He pulls out a cigar and begins unwrapping it. “Buy them a round, Stillman,” he says, without looking at him.
Stillman stares. “Them? Why, for God’s sake?”
“Because it’s civilized,” he says, getting out his lighter. “You had your ass kicked in that bail hearing, and you’re letting them know it’s not personal.”
Stillman looks dubious. “Maybe if the cute one blew me,” he says.
“I’m pretty sure Mr. Mayer is heterosexual,” Carl says, lighting the cigar.
I burst out laughing, and Stillman’s face turns red. “All right, damn it,” he says. “But not this five-dollar-a-glass stuff.” He motions the waitress
over and sends over three domestics in bottles, which are going for two-fifty.
The drinks go to the other table, and Rita nods a thanks and waves.
“Nicely done, Stillman,” Carl says. “You’re doing fine.”
So far, Stillman has had to pay for four lunches, bought drinks for a table of public defenders, and had the shit scared out of him.
I smile and finish my beer. After the last couple of days, I almost feel human.
Paul brings me down to Earth. “I’ll tell you who needs to stay on his toes,” he says. “That Sudanese kid. The Nationites just might finish your job for you.”
CHAPTER
6
HOVERING OVER OUR HEADS like the angel of death is the name Kwame Jamal Hale, née Jerome Hale. His lawyer, Georgetown law professor Philip Buchanan, has arranged for us to drive to Brushy Mountain State Prison and interview his client. Kwame Jamal has it in his mind to confess to a crime we sincerely hope he did not commit. And since another man has already been executed for it, we had better be right. If we aren’t, it’s not hard to imagine a conflagration of epic proportions: the Nation calling for Bol’s blood; the Africans defending themselves in whatever tribal way they brought back from their long-running civil war in Sudan; Fiona Towns and her peaceniks, caught in the middle.
The next morning, Tuesday, Carl, Rayburn, and I meet at Shoney’s for the early-morning drive out to Brushy Mountain. We pile into Rayburn’s Ford Crown Vic and pull out past the kitschy tourist traps selling country music memorabilia, heading east on I-40. We’re nervous, except for Carl, who just looks annoyed. Kwame Jamal is taking a lot of the shine off Carl’s last seventy-two hours as an employee of the state of Tennessee. Rayburn, who is holding a cup of black coffee from a fast-food joint in his left hand, doesn’t look like he slept much. He probably spent most of the last few hours praying that Hale is certifiably insane.
Brushy Mountain is the prison James Earl Ray tried to escape from, and the one Hannibal Lechter tried to get sent to. Neither man got his wish, although Ray managed to spend four days on the run. Brushy prison rises, castlelike, from within the hollow of a mountain’s hand, surrounded on three sides by sheer, white granite walls eighty feet high. Walking with a guard through Brushy at night—the steam curling up around the razor wire fence, the glare of spotlights illuminating the worn walkways, the clanking of keys at the guard’s hip—is like stepping back in time. It’s going to be torn down in a few years, and there are good economic reasons for that, I suppose. When it goes, it will take an era with it.
We ride in silence for a while, heading toward the mountains of east Tennessee. The poor South emerges, comfortable in its manufactured housing, wood-burning stoves, and junked cars parked up on blocks in yards.
Carl harrumphs from the backseat. I turn around, and he looks like he’s smelled bad fish. “I bet this guy Buchanan is nothing special,” he says. “He’s probably just your ordinary, everyday-variety, bleeding-heart. The kind of guy who can’t stand the thought of a mass murderer feeling a pinprick when the needle breaks the skin.”
“Prick’s the word,” Rayburn says, and he’s off, thirty solid minutes of pure Republican propaganda on everything from legalizing drugs to teenage pregnancy to what the hell has happened to the school system. Being silent so long has topped up his fuel, and we glide on Rayburn’s invective until we turn onto State Road 61.
“Maybe we should ask for a continuance on the Bol case,” Carl says. “At least until we see where we are on this thing.”
Rayburn looks stricken. “We are going to conduct business absolutely as usual,” he says. “Nobody is even going to flinch around our office.”
“Sure, boss,” I say, but I can’t help thinking that Moses Bol may end up the luckiest defendant in the history of the Tennessee court system. It’s going to be pretty damn hard to convince a jury to send Bol to death if it turns out we fucked up the last time.
The car crests a final hill, and Brushy looms in the near distance. The road gently descends into the excavated pit that envelopes the main buildings, and Rayburn stops at the guardhouse. We’re issued badges and drive slowly down the gravel road, passing outbuildings and the occasional trustee in his state blues. We park in front of the castle and walk up to the prison entrance, an electronically controlled gate topped with nasty-looking barbed wire. Our pockets are emptied, our briefcases searched. A guard stamps our hands with a number in invisible ink; the number shows only under black light and is our ticket out. It changes every day, so the inmates can’t predict what it is. A voice calls out, “Free-world personnel coming inside.” The door before us opens, and we walk past the blocks of medium-security cells. A few inmates are working in the main areas, scrubbing floors and walls. The inmates say hello with exaggerated politeness, anxious for conversation and brownie points. Hale waits in high security, a prison-within-a-prison where the worst-behaved prisoners are held.
We make our way through the building to the courtyard that leads to high security. We hear, “Free-world personnel coming across the yard,” and we take the short walk to the concrete building where Hale is housed. Inside high security we’re greeted by John Palecek, Brushy’s warden. Palecek is the new face of criminal justice, which means he’s an administrator who’s comfortable with things like keeping the bill for cleaning supplies under control. He’s also the man who physically gave the order to execute Wilson Owens. “So,” he says, summing up how fucked we all are. He points to the shift manager’s room. “Buchanan’s in there.”
“Is there anything to this?” Rayburn asks. “I mean, this guy Hale. He’s a fruitcake, right?”
“He’s got religion, David,” Palacek says. “If he doesn’t screw up pretty soon, I’m going to have to send him back to the general prison population.”
A man walks out of the shift manager’s room. He’s smiling, which makes him a population of one in Brushy Mountain prison. Buchanan, I think. Buchanan dresses hip for a university type, with a pair of expensive-looking black pants, an open-collared shirt, and what look like—no shit—boat shoes. “Jesus,” he says, “I knew I was going to the South, but nobody told me it’d be a million degrees out there.” He sticks out his hand, and there’s a nice, awkward moment before anybody takes it.
Rayburn, ever the politician, goes first, but he doesn’t say “good to meet you” because it isn’t good to meet Professor Buchanan. Maybe one day there will be five or ten people who are proved to have been wrongly executed, but there’s only going to be one first time, and the people behind that will be the names who get remembered. They will be the Fuckups Royale, the ones who will be publicly skewered, left to wrestle with their consciences the rest of their lives.
“Are we clear on the ground rules here?” Buchanan asks. He pulls out the original of the paperwork Stillman showed us in the office. “Kwame Jamal doesn’t come in the room until we get some signatures.”
“We came to hear what the man says,” Rayburn mutters. He signs the papers, holding the pen like it’s poison.
We file into the shift manager’s office, which is square, about fifteen by fifteen. A metal desk has been put in the middle of the room, the parties situated around it. Two video cameras sit on stands, one for each side of the conversation. One chair remains empty for Hale.
Palecek nods to the guards, and a minute later we hear the massive cell-block door grind open. A few seconds later Hale enters, flanked on each arm by a burly guard. Hale wears the regulation white T-shirt and sweatpants of high security, with a pale green kufi skullcap. His arms are massive, the result of years of weight training. His left bicep is covered in an ornate tattoo, now stretched beyond recognition. He’s growing a ragged and unkempt beard. He looks as evil and dangerous as any inmate in Brushy. He does not, however, look insane.
Hale sits beside Buchanan with a detached expression, as if this meeting is something he has to do, and when it’s over, he’s ready to go back to whatever it was he would have been doing. “As salaam alaikum,” h
e says, and it’s clear he’s speaking only to me.
Buchanan nods and repeats the phrase, with the goofy, eager look of a man who wants to be down with the brothers, especially when he’s on the safe side of the bars. “Kwame Jamal asked for this meeting because he wants to set the record straight,” he says. “He does this of his own free will.”
Hale watches his lawyer with vaguely bored eyes. He knows that no matter what happens in this room, he isn’t going to feel the free sun on his body again in his lifetime.
“Why are we here, Mr. Hale?” I ask.
“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says he who blame another for his crime get the punishment multiplied to him tenfold. May Allah accept my good deeds.”
“Did you blame someone for a crime you committed, Mr. Hale?” I ask.
“I killed that man at the Sunshine Grocery Store,” he says. “The woman, too.”
“Wilson Owens has already been tried and convicted of that crime, Mr. Hale.”
“May Allah forgive me.”
“Did you know Wilson Owens, Mr. Hale?”
He nods. “We was incarcerated together.”
“Were you friends?”
Hale shakes his head. “Owens was a shaiton. A devil.”
“Because?”
Hale shrugs. “He wanted what was not his.”