The Pardon js-1

by James Grippando

  “Lot longer than you been guvnuh, suh.”

  So much for anonymity.

  The journey began at the towering bronze statue of Christopher Columbus and headed south along the shoreline. Palm trees and musicians playing saxophones and guitars lined the wide pedestrian walkway of white coral rock, the south Florida version of a quaint cobblestone street. Calvin played tour guide as they rolled down the walkway. He was a veritable history book on wheels when it came to the park and its past, talking about how they had filled in the bay to build it in 1924 and how the sea had tried to reclaim it in the hurricane of 1926. He spoke from memory and of practice, but he was clearly putting a little emotion into it for his distinguished guest. The governor listened politely, but he was fading in and out, to remain focused on the purpose of his trip. His anxiety heightened as the carriage curled around the spewing fountain and headed west, away from the brightly lit walkway along the water to the interior of the park, where palm trees and live oaks cast shadows beneath street lamps that were becoming fewer and farther between. As they reached the amphitheater, the carriage slowed up, just as Calvin had warned and the blackmailer had said it would.

  “Whoa,” Calvin said gently to his horse, bringing the carriage to a halt. He turned and faced the governor. “Now this is what I call the dark side of my tour, sir. For it was right here, where the old bandstand used to be, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty-three, President-Elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a crowd of fifteen thousand people. Amidst that huge crowd there stood one very angry young man-a man who doctors would later describe as a highly intelligent psychopath with pet schemes and morbid emotions that ran in conflict with the established order of society. That disturbed young man stood patiently atop a park bench until the president finished his speech, then took out his revolver and fired over the crowd at the dignitaries onstage, intending to kill Mr. Roosevelt. The president escaped unhurt, but five innocent people were shot. The most seriously injured was Anton Cermak, the distinguished mayor of Chicago, who, before he died, told the president, ‘I’m glad it was me, instead of you.’ “

  Calvin saw the expression on the governor’s face, then looked down apologetically. “Didn’t mean to frighten you, Guvnuh. I always tell that story to all my passengers, not just to politicians. Just a part of our history, that’s all.”

  “That’s quite all right:’ he said, trying to ignore the chill running down his spine. But he wondered if his blackmailer knew that Calvin did indeed tell this story to all his passengers. Maybe that was the reason he had selected this particular carriage ride for the exchange. It was certainly possible-the man had apparently been planning this for two years, since the Fernandez execution. The governor suddenly wanted to hear more. “So, Calvin,” he said casually, “I imagine this assassination must have been pretty big news back in ’33.”

  “Oh, sure. Was front-page news for about a month or so, as I recall.”

  “What happened to the assassin?”

  Calvin widened his eyes and raised his bushy white eyebrows. “I don’t mean no disrespect, sir. But this man pulled out a pistol in front of fifteen thousand people, fired six shots at the president of the United States, wounded five people and done killed the mayor of Chicago. They dragged him into court, where he proceeded to tell the world that his only regret was that he didn’t get Mr. Roosevelt. And to top it all off, the man begged the judge to give him the chair. Now whatchoo think they done to that fool?”

  “Executed him,” he said quietly.

  “Course they executed him. Four days after they laid Mayor Cermak’s dead body in the ground they done did execute him. Swift justice was what we had back then. Not like we got these days. All these lawyers we got now, hemmin’ and hawin’ and flappin’ their jaws. Appealin’ this and delayin’ that. Anyhow,” Calvin said with sigh, “that’s enough bellyachin’. I’m gonna let Daisy rest a spell and get myself a nice iced tea. Somethin’ for you, Guvnuh?”

  “No, thank you, Calvin. I’ll wait here.” Harry watched the old man hobble over to the concession stand and he began to wonder about this whole curious arrangement. Was the blackmailer revealing his deeper, darker side-the “morbid emotions that ran at conflict with the established order of society?” Could he be that clever, that he had purposefully sent the governor to this old tour guide who in his own melodramatic way could make so painfully obvious the difference between the relatively easy capital cases and the unbearably difficult ones, between a man who boasts of his crime all the way to the electric chair and a man who proclaims his innocence to the end-between a crazed political assassin and someone like Raul Fernandez? Or maybe the message was less subtle, less philosophical. Maybe he was simply telling the governor that the very site of Florida’s most famous political assassination was about to be the site of its next political assassination-tonight.

  Harry glanced nervously toward Calvin, who was smiling and chatting with the concessionaire, an attractive young Hispanic woman whose shapely appearance alone explained the regularity of Calvin’s nine o’clock stops. He pulled the carriage blanket over his lap, even though it was seventy-five degrees outside, so as to hide his movements. Then he touched the edge of the red velvet seat cushion beside him and got ready to lift it off. His heart began to race as he suddenly wondered whether a pistol-wielding madman would leap from the darkness or a bomb would explode when he lifted the carriage seat, writing the final chapter to Calvin’s history lesson. He took a deep breath and pulled up. The seat popped out, just as his blackmailer had said it would. No explosion. No rattlesnakes inside. He checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking. Again he sensed he was being watched. But he saw nothing. He looked down to see what was beneath the seat.

  Inside the little cubbyhole was a brown shoe box, with a note on the side: “Leave the money. Take the box.” There was no signature. Only this warning: “I’m watching you.”

  The governor didn’t dare turn his head to look around. He opened the briefcase in his shopping bag, emptied two stacks of crisp fifty-dollar bills under the seat, stuffed the shoe box into his bag, and put the seat cover back in place.

  Calvin returned a few minutes later, and the ride back to Bayside Marketplace took only a few minutes more, though it seemed like an eternity. Harry thanked Calvin for the ride and quickly retraced his steps across the busy street to his car. As soon as he was behind the wheel, he set the shopping bag on the front seat beside him and took a deep breath, relieved that no one had stopped him. He turned on the ignition, but before he could pull into traffic he was startled by a short, high pitched ring. It stopped, and then started up again. It seemed to emanate from the box inside the shopping bag He took the shoe box from the bag and unfastened the tape on the lid. The shrill ringing continued. He flipped off the top and found a portable phone inside, resting on top of a sealed white envelope. He switched on the “talk” button and pressed the phone to his ear.

  “It’s in the envelope,” came the familiar, thickly disguised voice.

  The governor shuddered. Of course it would be him, but he was disturbed by the voice nonetheless. “What’s in the envelope?”

  “You have to ask, Governor?” came the reply. “I have your money, and you’ve got the proof it was me, not Raul, who killed the girl. That was our deal, wasn’t it?”

  The governor was silent.

  “Was that our deal, Governor?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Good,” said the caller in a calmer voice. “Now open the envelope. Just open it. Don’t take anything out.”

  Harry tucked the phone under his chin and unsealed the envelope. “It’s open.”

  “There’s two photographs inside, both of the girl Raul got the chair for. Take out the one on the left.”

  The governor removed the snapshot from the envelope and froze. It was a photo of a teenage girl from her bare breasts up. She was lying on her back with her shoulders pinned behind her, as if her hands were bound tightly
behind her back. A red bandanna gagged her mouth. The long blade of a knife pressed against her throat. Her blood-shot eyes stared up helplessly at her killer. The rest of her face was puffy and bruised from unmerciful beatings.

  “You see it, my man?”

  “Yes,” his voice trembled.

  “That’s real fear in those eyes. You can’t fake that. Sometimes I wish I’d videotaped it. But no need, really. I play it over and over again in my mind. It’s like a movie. I call it ‘The Taming of Vanessa.’ Vanessa was her name, you know. It’s nice to know their name. Makes it all more real.”

  The photograph shook in the governor’s hand as his whole body was overcome by fear and disgust.

  “Take out the next picture,” said the caller.

  Harry closed his eyes and sighed. It would have been difficult to look under any circumstances, but it was doubly painful now, realizing that Raul Fernandez was not responsible for this girl’s death. The enormity of the governor’s mistake was beginning to sink in, and all at once he was filled with self-loathing. “I’ve seen enough,” he said quietly.

  “Look at the next one. Look what I did with the knife.”

  “I said I’ve seen enough,” Harry said firmly as he shoved the photo back into the envelope. “You’ve got your money, you monster. Just take it. That was our deal. Take it, keep your mouth shut, and don’t ever call me again.”

  The caller chuckled with amusement. “Harry, Harry-that’s not how the game is played. We’re just getting started, you and me. Next installment’s in a few days.”

  “I m not paying you another cent.”

  “Such conviction. I guess you still can’t feel that noose around your neck. Here, give this a listen.”

  The governor pressed the phone closer to his ear, straining to hear every sound. There was a click, then static, then a clicking sound again-and then a voice he clearly recognized as his own: “You’ve got your money, you monster Just take it. That was our deal. Take it, keep your mouth shut, and don’t ever call me again.”

  Another click, and the caller was back on the line. “It’s all on tape, my man. You, the esteemed Governor Harold Swyteck, bribing an admitted killer to keep his mouth shut to save your own political skin. Every word of it s on tape-and ready to go to the newspapers.”

  “You wouldn’t-”

  “I would. So consider your piddling ten grand as nothing more than a down payment. Because you’re gonna a take another ten thousand dollars to four-oh-nine East Adams Street, Miami, apartment two-seventeen. Be there at four A.M., August second. Not a minute before not a minute after. The door will be open. Leave it right on the kitchen table. Be good, my man.”

  “You son of a-” the governor started to say, but the caller was gone. A wave of panic overcame him. He pitched the phone and the envelope into the box beside him, holding his head in his hands as a deep pit of nausea swelled in his stomach. “You idiot,” he groaned aloud, sinking in his car seat. But it wasn’t just his own stupidity that had him shaking. It was the whole night that sent a current of fear coursing through him. The “history lesson” in the park, the photographs of the young girl, the tape recording in the car-and, most of all, the dawning realization that in this confrontation with a cold-blooded killer, he was clearly overmatched.

  Chapter 12

  Jack Swyteck bent low to avoid the doorway arch as he carried the last stack of boxes into the house. Behind him, carelessly flicking ashes from a fat cigar and obviously enjoying his friend’s huffing and puffing, was Mike Mannon.

  “I do believe you’re out of shape,” Mike needled.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Schwarzenegger, but I didn’t notice you setting any weight-lifting records today. And get that stink-rod out of my house.”

  Mike shrugged and blew a thick cloud of smoke at Jack. “Not my job to lift. You said you needed wheels because your ‘stang was in the shop. You didn’t say I had to play donkey.”

  “Well, I guess that’s about it,” Jack said, surveying office haul. “God knows why I went back to get all this stuff, but I suppose it’ll come in handy one of these days when I find a new job.”

  Mike looked down at the stack of legal volumes poking out of the biggest carton. “Yeah,” he said, “McDonald’s crew chiefs find frequent reason to cite legal precedent.”

  “I’ll remember that, Mannon, next time some collection agency’s breathing down your deadbeat neck.” Jack smiled bitterly. “Hell, what am I saying. I’ll probably be the guy breathing down your neck. That’s about the extent of my options in this town until this Goss thing blows over.”

  “Ah, don’t sell yourself short, old boy. One of those big law firms can always use an unscrupulous man like you.”

  Jack gave a short laugh, then turned serious. “Sure you can’t hang out for a while?”

  “Nah, got to get back to the shop. It takes Lenny about two and a half hours to create a major crisis.” He looked at his watch. “One should be brewing about now.”

  “Okay, then,” Jack said, following him out the door. He looked down to see Thursday wriggling through his legs with a bookend in his mouth. “Hey, give me that,” Jack said, reaching down and patting his head. He called out after Mike, who was walking down the wood-chip path. “Thanks for the help.”

  “No problem,” Mike said, turning around. He gave a short wave as Thursday bounded after him and nipped at his heels. In a few seconds the car had pulled away from the curb, and Jack was left alone with his thoughts.

  He closed the door and headed to the living room. The sofa felt good as he fell back onto it and propped his feet on the hassock. He looked around. Emptiness-a lot of emptiness. Sitting there, it seemed as if he were the only occupant of a grand hotel. Why had he ever bought such a huge house? Cindy once told him that as a girl she’d dreamed of living in a mansion. Sharing a small apartment with her parents and three brothers probably had something to do with it.

  There he went again. Thinking of her. Ever since yesterday morning, when he’d made such an ass of himself and insisted she leave, he couldn’t get her out of is mind. For perhaps the thousandth time since watching her go, he marveled at his stupidity. Deep down, he’d been worried that her relationship with Chet might be starting up again, and what did he do but drive her into his arms.

  Brilliant move, Swyteck. Jack was tempted to call her, plead for forgiveness, but some inner voice told him he needed to get his life together-that he was too much at loose ends these days. For now, he stalled.

  He had been reduced to counting the motes of dust that swirled in a shaft of sunlight when the phone rang. Cindy, maybe? His face darkened as he considered that it could be the guy who was hassling him. He decided to let the machine pick up.

  “Jack,” came a woman’s voice. But it wasn’t Cindy. “This is your-” she began, then stopped. “This is Agnes.”

  He felt a rush of emotion, of which most was confusion. He hadn’t heard Agnes’s voice since law school. She sounded worried, but he resisted the urge to pick up.

  “I can’t be specific, Jack, but there’s something going on in your father’s life right now that I think you should know about. He’s not sick-I mean, your father is definitely healthy. I don’t mean to worry you about that. But please call him. And don’t tell him I asked you to do it. It’s important.”

  He sat upright, not sure of what to make of the message. He couldn’t remember the last time his stepmother had phoned him, but her voice had temporarily taken his mind off Cindy. He had caught the slip at the beginning of the message-Agnes’s almost saying the words “your mother.” Brooding on that phrase, he felt himself drifting back, to when he was five years old. .

  “Your mother isn’t dead, she just didn’t want you!”

  “You’re a liar!” Jack screamed as he ran from the family room, leaving his stepmother alone with her gin martini. Tears streamed down his face as he reached his room, slammed the door, and dove into the bed. He knew his real mother was dead. Agnes had to be lying when he s
aid his real mother didn’t want him. He buried his face in the pillow and cried. After a minute or two he rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. He was thinking about how he could prove to Agnes that she was wrong. At the age of five, he was planning his first case.

  He rolled off the bed and went to the door. He peered out and heard the television in the family room. It was less than fifteen feet to his parents’ room. As he approached the closed white door, he looked over his shoulder. There’d be big trouble if he were caught. But he went in anyway.

  At the far corner of the room, he pulled out the bottom drawer of the Queen Anne highboy. It was his father’s drawer. Jack had first rummaged through it two months earlier, searching for some after-shave he could slap on his face after having “borrowed” his father’s electric razor. He hadn’t found the after-shave. But tucked beneath the T-shirts and underwear, he had found a box. It was a jewelry box, burl maple with fancy, engraved silver initials that Jack couldn’t read. The initials were his mother’s. His real mother’s.

  As he had that day two months earlier, he lifted the box and opened it. Quickly, he lifted out the top tray of jewelry to reveal the compartment below. There it was. A heavy brass crucifix, concave on the back, the way cookie dough curved when it stuck to the rolling pin, he thought, only not as much. The first time he’d seen the crucifix, the concave back had completely perplexed him. He’d never seen one like that. So, after swearing his grandmother to secrecy, he’d told her about his discovery, and she’d explained the strange shape. It was the crucifix that had lain flat atop the rounded lid of his mother’s coffin. His mother was dead, and this was the proof.

  He removed the crucifix and put the jewelry box back in the drawer. Squeezing his physical evidence tightly, he left the bedroom and walked determinedly down the hall.

  He saw his stepmother on the couch. “You’re a liar!” he called out.