The Pardon js-1

by James Grippando

  He glared at Jack through an irritated eye.

  “Should have been Raul,” he muttered to himself, “not you, Swyteck.” He took one last look, imagining Jack telling his pretty girlfriend the good news. Then he stormed from the courtroom, determined to give the Swyteck family something else to think about.

  Chapter 45

  The parking lot at Jiggles strip joint was full from the Thursday evening crowd, so Rebecca had to find an empty spot on the street. She was wearing baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, her usual attire on her way to and from the bar. There was just one cramped dressing room inside for all the dancers, which was a hassle-but it was safer changing in there than walking the parking lot in some skimpy outfit that was sure to invite harassment or worse. Rebecca checked her watch. Ten after ten. “Damn,” she muttered, realizing she was late for her evening shift. She locked her car and started across the parking lot. In one hand she carried a gym bag, which held her dancing clothes and makeup. In the other was her mace, just in case.

  “Hey, Rebecca,” came a low, husky voice from somewhere to her left.

  Her body went rigid. Her name wasn’t really Rebecca, which meant that it had to be a customer calling. She quickened her walk and clutched her can of mace, making sure it was ready. She jerked to a halt as a man jumped out from between cars.

  “Get back!” she shouted, pointing the mace.

  “It’s Buzz,” he said.

  She took a good look, then recognized him beneath his hat and behind the dark, wraparound sunglasses that he wore, even after dark, to conceal his irritated eye. “Let me by,” she said sternly.

  “Wait,” he replied, his tone conversational. “I have a proposition for you.”

  “Not now,” she grimaced, her jaws nervously working a wad of chewing gum. “I’m supposed to punch in by ten, or I can lose my job. Come inside.”

  “Not that kind of proposition,” said Buzz. “This is something different. I want your help.”

  “Why should I do anything for you?”

  “No reason. But I’m not asking you to do it for me. I want you to do it for Raul.”

  Rebecca averted her eyes. The name clearly meant something to her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about revenge. I’m gonna nail the fuckers who put Raul in the chair.”

  Her shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh, then she just shook her head. “That’s history, man. Raul was a punk. He treated me like dirt, even when I was giving it to him for free. Shit happens to punks.”

  Buzz stifled his fury. He would have liked to put her in her place with the hard truth that to Raul she was just a free blow job, but that wouldn’t advance his purpose. “Fine,” he said with a shrug. “Just go on pretending you weren’t nuts over him. Don’t do it for him. Just do it for the money.”

  Her interest was suddenly piqued. “How much?”

  “Ten percent of my take.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard that one before. Ten percent of nothin’.”

  “Yeah. But ten percent of a quarter million is more money than you’ll ever make sucking cocks.”

  She flashed a steely look, but she was more interested in the proposition than in refuting the insult. “Don’t bullshit me. Where you gonna get that kind of money?”

  “I’m not bullshittin’ you. I’m serious. We’re talking high stakes. And all you gotta do is make one phone call. That’s it. A cush job.”

  She paused. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. I’ve already conned sixty grand out of him. I’ll show it to you. Count it, if you want. It’s all right in my van. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So what do you say? You in?”

  Rebecca pressed her tongue to her cheek, mulling it over. “Sure,” she said with a crack of her gum. “But I want ten percent of the sixty grand you already got, up front. Then I’ll know you’re for real.”

  Buzz flashed a thin smile. “I’m for real. You can have your six thousand. But you gotta come with me now.”

  She twitched, practically kicking herself for not having asked for the whole sixty thousand. “I can’t come now. I gotta go to work.”

  “Six thousand dollars,” he tempted her. “You can come now. Fuck work.”

  She cracked her gum, then sighed. “All right. I’ll go. But I want my money.”

  He smiled and nodded toward his van. “Just get in.”

  “And I want to know more about what I’m getting into,” she said as she heaved her gym bag over her shoulder and started walking. “I want to know everything.”

  He focused on the wiggle in her rear end as she reached the other side of the van, his eyes narrowing and a smirk coming to his face. No way you really want to know everything, he thought.

  Chapter 46

  Cindy received a bouquet of flowers when she arrived at the studio that Friday morning. They were from Jack.

  “Please be there for me today,” the card read. “I need you.”

  She wanted to pretend that the message didn’t affect her, but it did. Leaving Jack hadn’t made her stop loving him. In fact, leaving him was the easy part. It was staying away that was the test. Tuesday morning, after attempting to be cool and distant with him, she’d felt her resolve eroding. Gina’s death had reminded her of how little time there is to do anything in life-of the purposelessness of grudges and resentment. Gina had probably died believing that Cindy hated her. Cindy didn’t want the same thing-God forbid! — to happen to Jack.

  By the time she received the phone call, at ten o’clock in the morning, she’d already made up her mind to go over to the courthouse.

  “Miss Paige,” a woman said over the phone. “This is Manuel Cardenal’s paralegal. Sorry to bother you, but he asked me to call you right away.”

  “Yes,” she said with trepidation, afraid the trial had already accelerated to a verdict.

  “Both Mr. Cardenal and Mr. Swyteck are in court right now, so they couldn’t call you themselves. But they need you to come down to the courthouse. Mr. Swyteck needs you to testify for him. It’s extremely important.”

  Cindy was confused. How could anything she had to say help Jack’s case?

  “I was about to go over there.” She looked at her watch. “I can be there by ten-twenty-will that be in time?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” the woman said, “but please hurry.”

  Once Cindy heard the click on the other end, she sprung into action. She picked up her bag and rushed out of the office to the parking lot. The tires of her Pontiac Sunbird squealed as she accelerated out of the lot. She weaved in and out of traffic as she raced toward Frontage Road-the quickest route to the courthouse.

  Ordinarily, Cindy was no speedster, but now was the time to see just how fast her Pontiac could go. She jammed down the accelerator and squeezed the steering wheel tightly, glancing intermittently at the speedometer as it pushed its way toward uncharted territory, past eighty-five miles per hour. The road was nearly deserted, and she was covering the distance in record time until she rounded a wide turn and suddenly the engine started to sputter. She was quickly losing speed.

  “Come on,” she urged as she pumped the accelerator. The car lunged forward a little, but the engine just gasped, then died. She coasted to a stop and steered off the road to the gravel shoulder. She pressed the pedal to the floor and turned the key. The ignition whined, but the engine wouldn’t fire. She tried again. Same response.

  “Not now,” she groaned, as if she could reason with the vehicle. She didn’t see a single car on the road, and she suddenly wished she had a car phone. She glanced in her side-view mirror and gave a start as she was suddenly staring into the face of a stranger.

  “Can I help you, miss?” he said-loud enough to be heard through her window.

  Cindy hesitated. The man’s voice sounded pleasant enough, but the way he’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere seemed strange. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw an old gray van parked a short distance down the road. She
looked at the man but couldn’t read his expression, since most of his face was covered by the brim of his baseball cap and big dark sunglasses. Then she remembered: Jack needs me. She cracked the window half an inch. “My car-”

  “Has sugar in the carburetor,” he finished for her.

  Cindy gulped. “I need-”

  “To get to the courthouse,” he interrupted again.

  Her eyes widened with fear, but before she could react, the window suddenly exploded, and she was covered in a shower of glass pellets. She screamed and pounded the horn, but her cries for help quickly turned to desperate gasps for air as the hand of a very strong man came through the open window and wrapped tightly around her throat.

  “Ja-ack!” her strangled voice cried.

  “It ain’t Jack, baby,” came the snide reply. Then he reached for his sheath and showed her the sharp steel blade that had grown very cold since it had been used on Gina Terisi.

  Chapter 47

  Jack had wanted to see his father before returning to the courtroom on Friday morning, but Manny insisted that father and son have absolutely no communication until the trial was over. Since McCue had reserved the right to call rebuttal witnesses, the possibility remained that he’d recall the governor, and anything Jack and his father discussed would be fair game for cross-examination.

  As it turned out, McCue called no further witnesses, and closing arguments were finished by one o’clock. Manny was brilliant, expanding on the speech he’d delivered during the governor’s testimony. He reminded the jurors that the law did not require Jack to prove he was innocent-that it was the government’s heavy burden to prove him guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  McCue did the best he could, then retreated to his office. Jack and Manny waited in the attorneys’ lounge, down the hall from Judge Tate’s courtroom. At five-fifteen, the courtroom deputy stuck her head into the lounge and gave them the news.

  “The jury has reached a verdict,” she told them.

  In a split second they were out the door, walking side-by-side as quickly as they could without breaking into a dead run down the hall and into the courtroom. The news of a verdict had traveled fast, and the expectant crowd filed in behind them. Wilson McCue was already in position. Manny and Jack took their places at the defense table. Jack glanced behind him, toward the public seating. Ten rows back, Neil Goderich gave him a reassuring wink. On the opposite side of the aisle, Mike Mannon looked worried but gave him a thumbs up. Cindy, Jack realized with a pang, wasn’t in the courtroom. Not even the flowers had worked.

  “All rise!” cried the bailiff.

  Judge Tate proceeded to the bench, but Jack gave her only a passing glance. He was focused on the twelve jurors who were taking their seats for the final time. He was trying to remember those indicators jury psychologists relied on to predict verdicts. Who had they selected as foreman? Did they look at the defendant, or at the prosecutor? At that moment, however, he couldn’t think clearly enough to apply any of those tests. He was consumed by the feeling of being on trial-of having twelve strangers hold his life in their hands.

  “Has the jury reached a verdict?” Judge Tate asked.

  “We have,” responded the foreman.

  ‘Please give it to the clerk.”

  The written verdict was passed from the foreman to the clerk, then from the clerk to the judge. The judge inspected it, then returned it to the clerk for public disclosure. The ritual seemed to pull everyone to the edge of his seat. Yet the courtroom was so deathly quiet that Jack could hear the fluorescent lights humming thirty feet overhead.

  This is it, he thought. Life or death. He struggled to bring his emotions under control. Everything had seemed so encouraging moments ago, when he and Manny had assessed his chances. But odds were deceiving. Like a year ago, when Cindy’s mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They’d all taken comfort in the doctor’s assurance that her chances of survival were 80 percent. Those odds sounded pretty good until Jack had started thinking of the last hundred people he’d laid eyes on-and then imagined twenty of them dead.

  “The defendant shall rise,” announced the judge.

  Jack glanced at Manny as they rose in unison. He clenched his fists tightly in anticipation.

  “In the matter of State versus Swyteck, on the charge of murder in the first degree,” the clerk read from the verdict form, “we, the jury, find the defendant: not guilty.”

  A roar filled the courtroom. On impulse, Jack turned and embraced Manny. Never had he hugged a man so tightly-not even his father. But had the governor been there, Jack would have cracked his ribs.

  “Order!” said the judge, postponing the celebration. The rumble in the courtroom quieted. Manny and Jack returned to their seats, smiling apologetically.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” the judge intoned, “thank you for your service. You are discharged. A judgment of acquittal shall be entered. Mr. Swyteck,” she said, peering over the bench, “you are free to go. This court is adjourned,” she declared, ending it all with one last crack of the gavel.

  Happy cries of congratulation flew across the courtroom. Neil and Mike and the other friends who’d never stopped believing hurried forward and leaned across the rail that separated players from spectators, slapping Jack’s back and shaking the hand of an innocent man. Jack was elated but dazed. He canvassed the buzzing crowd, still hoping for a glimpse of Cindy. Then he thought of the other person who was missing.

  “Where’s my father?” Jack asked Manny. His voice was barely audible in the thundering commotion of the crowded courtroom.

  Manny smiled. “We’ve got a special celebration planned,” he said with a wink. “Back at my office.”

  Jack was overcome with a sense of euphoria. He felt like a death-row prisoner released into the bright light of day. He’d never been so eager to see his father. As he and Manny started toward the gate, they were stopped abruptly by Wilson McCue.

  “I’d lose the smiles if I were you,” the prosecutor said bitterly. He spoke in a low, threatening voice that couldn’t be overheard by the noisy crowd on the other side of the rail. “This is only round one, boys, and round two is about to begin. It’s just a matter of how fast I can assemble the grand jury and draft the indictment, that’s all. I warned you, Swyteck. I said I’d come after you for the murder of Gina Terisi, and I meant it. Right now the only question is whether I’ll do it before or after I indict your old man for the murder of Eddy Goss.”

  Jack’s eyes flared with contempt. “You just won’t take those blinders off, will you, McCue?”

  “Jack,” Manny stopped him. “Say nothing.”

  “That’s right,” McCue countered. “Say nothing. Take the fifth. It runs in the family.” He shook his head with disgust, then turned and stepped through the swinging gate, into the rabble of reporters clamoring at the rail.

  Jack desperately wanted to rush after McCue and set him straight, but Manny held him back. “Just take it easy, Jack,” he said, pulling him toward the bench, away from the media frenzy. “McCue can afford to talk out of anger, but you can’t. So for now, just let me handle the press. The best thing you can do is to say nothing and go back to my office. We need to regroup and talk with your father.”

  “My father. .” Jack said slowly, as if tapping into a source of strength. Then he nodded. “All right, I’ll meet you there.” Then he opened the gate and pushed his way into the swarming press. He kept his head lowered, ignoring all questions until he reached the elevators. Less than three minutes later, he was behind the steering wheel of his Mustang, ready to pull out of the courthouse parking lot.

  He’d just put the car into gear when he heard the ringing of his car phone. Cindy, he hoped. But why would she use this number? Could she have already heard the verdict? It didn’t seem possible.

  He moved the shift back into park and picked up the phone.

  “Jack,” he heard her voice. “It’s me, Cindy.”

  He started to say something, bu
t words wouldn’t come. “Cindy,” he said finally, just wanting to say her name. “Where are you?”

  “Balcony scene’s over, Romeo,” came the ugly reply. It wasn’t Cindy’s voice anymore. It was the same voice he’d heard while on his belly in the bus. “She’s with me.”

  Jack’s hand shook as he pressed the phone to his ear. Some part of his brain that wasn’t absolutely terrified directed his other hand to turn off the ignition. He moved slightly forward in his seat. “What have you done with her!”

  “Nothing,” the caller said coolly. “Yet.”

  “It’s me you want, you bastard! Just leave her out of it.”

  “Shut up, Swyteck! I’m through fooling around. Your legal system has fucked everything up again. This time we’ll play on my turf. And this time I want real money. I want a quarter million. Cash. Unmarked fifties.”

  Jack’s head was spinning. He tried to focus. “Look, I’ll do whatever you want. But that’s a lot of money. It’ll take time to-”

  “Your girlfriend doesn’t have time. Talk to your father, asshole. He’s so eager to help you.”

  “Okay. Please, just don’t hurt her? Just tell me how to get you the money.”

  “Take it to Key West. Just the two of you.”

  “The two of us?”

  “You and your father.”

  “I can do it myself-”

  “You’ll do it the way I tell you to do it!” the caller snapped. “I need to know where everybody is who knows anything about this. I’m not gonna be ambushed. No police, no FBI, no National Guard-not even a meter maid. Any sign of law enforcement and your pretty girlfriend’s dead. If I see any roadblocks on U.S. 1, any choppers in the air, any news reports on television, anything that even looks like you called in the cavalry-she’s dead, immediately. It’s me against the Swytecks. End of story. You got it?”

  “I got it,” Jack said, though he could barely speak. “When do you want us there?”