The End of Marking Time

by CJ West

  I was glad to be out of there even if I couldn’t sue.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  I burst into the marble hall, headed for the lobby and the quickest route to a cab when a white-shirted young man gripped my elbow reassuringly and asked if he could help. I told him I was fine and tried to pull away, but he didn’t let go. He said I needed his help then he moved around in front of me so I couldn’t get to the exit without knocking him over. I stopped, not because I was afraid of him or because I needed help, but somehow I knew he had something important to tell me. It wasn’t in his words. It was his eyes. They were both grave and supportive, like he knew exactly the kind of trouble I was in.

  He led me to a bench, and a minute later I had a towel filled with ice pressed to my cheek. I watched him through my unobstructed eye. He apologized for Officer Benson. He told me that Benson was a law-and-order guy. Benson didn’t like relearners and he’d do anything to see them fail. He didn’t know me, so it wasn’t personal. It was the system that had let him down. He’d spent an entire career chasing bad guys. He’d seen partners shot, stabbed, and killed. Then with the swipe of a pen, some crazy judge swept away everything he’d worked his whole life for.

  I thought about what Benson had said. How criminals needed to be kept away from decent people forever. Benson lumped me in with the rest and I worried he was right. Did I deserve to be free?

  The court officer, Mandla, told me he could see I was a good guy. He reassured me that I could make it out.

  I checked him for an ankle bracelet, but of course he didn’t have one. They wouldn’t let a relearner work here. Relearners didn’t work. Even after graduation I doubted I could work in the courthouse.

  “I know what you were trying to do,” he said.

  “Didn’t work very well, did it?”

  “Seems like you’re on the right track,” he said. “I’m proof. You can make it out.”

  The ice dropped from my face. I’d lost the hot dog vendor and that guy in the donut shop, but here was someone who’d actually graduated from the system. I wanted to grab onto him so he couldn’t get away. I imagined another court officer would call him back to work any second and I wanted to learn everything I could before that happened. “You got out? How?”

  Mandla told me he’d been one of the smallest kids in a rough neighborhood. His father was gone by the time he was two years old, so his mother enrolled him in self-defense lessons. He loved karate and became an excellent student. The problems started when larger kids began picking on him at school. Mandla sent them home with broken limbs, fractured ribs, and countless other injuries. Success brought opportunities to help his friends when they had a dispute. Finally, when he was eighteen, he was arrested and sent to prison for the first time. Years later, he was one of the first relearners.

  “But here you are,” I said.

  At first he was enthralled by the black box. He spent weeks working through the playground stories. Back then they were full of bugs and the black boxes stopped working three or four times an hour. He asked if they were better now and I told him they were. He chuckled and said it didn’t really matter anyway. The black box and all that stuff was just a distraction. The real test was what happened outside the black box—in the real world.

  He told me he was a good student and had already finished high school. It only took him two weeks to finish the videos Wendell assigned. He expected to graduate then, but he didn’t.

  “Wendell came to me,” he said, “and asked if I thought I’d made up for what I’d done. We both knew I hadn’t. I was arrested for beating up three guys in a bar, but that was only my latest trouble. I had sent dozens of people to the hospital. Fact is, I enjoyed it.”

  He told me Wendell had challenged him to save three people from violent situations. It was something he was trained for. “I thought it would be easy, but every time I helped someone, Wendell disqualified it somehow. Finally, I found a domestic abuse shelter. I saved three women from abusive husbands. The first two men backed off when I told them I knew karate. The third one punched me in the face.” He rubbed his jaw like it still hurt. “It was a good one, too. Didn’t see it coming. I could have dropped him and broken him to pieces, but I just walked away.”

  “After that they let you go?”

  They did. That was the lesson. Wendell wanted him to overcome the violence that led to his arrest. Standing up to the husband without hurting him was the proof Wendell needed.

  I was fidgeting with my hands and he stopped me. “You don’t need that book anymore. That cop, was probably working with them. They challenged you. Wendell challenged you to do something. You do that, and you’ll make it out.”

  He wanted me to tell him what it was, but just then a flood of worry swept over me. What if Mandla was working for the cat baggers? What if he wanted me to stop studying so I’d be sent there? If I had to choose between Mandla and Benson, it’d be an easy choice. But I couldn’t tell him what I’d been asked to do. Who knew how far Farnsworth’s influence reached?

  “I don’t really know,” I lied. “I thought if I caught someone doing something illegal and had them arrested, that would help me get out. But that didn’t go well. I guess I need to understand the system better before I can do anything.”

  Mandla knew the system better than I ever would. He didn’t disappear like the others. All he needed was a hint and he volunteered to help.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Mandla led me downstairs through a hallway that ran directly under the courtroom and into a huge empty room with chairs and tables arranged wherever they would fit. Prospective jurors came in every morning and waited there in case they were needed. First time defendants had the right to a jury trial, but most of them opted for a judge. The people were angry, Mandla explained, and the accused got fairer treatment from judges than juries. The new rules also had a lot to do with the jury room being so quiet. In the old days, many convicts were given probation or some other short sentence, then they’d be right back in court, sometimes within months. Under the new rules, once you were convicted of a felony you went to reeducation. If you got in trouble again, you went to relearner court.

  He led me through another large waiting room with magazines piled on long tables and blackened televisions mounted on the walls. A decades-old poster enumerated the rules for the new jurors who arrived each day. We were alone on the lower floor, but I wasn’t worried Mandla would turn on me like Benson had. Mandla wanted to help. I could feel it in his stories.

  We took a back stairway up to the main floor and when we came into the hall, Mandla looked around like we weren’t supposed to be there. This hallway to the judges’ chambers was off limits to the public. From there he took me back out to the lobby and showed me the district attorney’s office. The clerks shuffled papers and looked at computer screens, pretending to be busy when we came in. He told me they were managing the prosecution of every case that came before the court. Things were hectic in the old days. Now they had so much free time they worried about layoffs.

  Next door we visited the clerk and Mandla told me about all the scheduling and filings that happened in her office. I tried not to seem disinterested, but his tour of the workings of the court wasn’t really helping. If someone here was helping Nathan Farnsworth, they’d be doing it with computers or calling him on the phone. I had no way of knowing who it was and even if I did, I had no way of intercepting their communication.

  Mandla sensed my disappointment. He led me to a quiet corner of the lobby and said, “My tour’s not that exciting, is it?”

  I tried to reassure him, but wasn’t convincing.

  “If I knew what you were trying to do, maybe I could help.”

  I trusted Mandla after all the time he’d spent with me. He wanted to help, I could feel it in him, but I couldn’t betray Wendell’s trust. What I was doing was important, but I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own. I decided to ask, “Who works with the reeducation programs?”

  He tu
rned and waved me to follow. The small office was at the back of the courthouse, tucked away from original offices that had managed the court’s business for over one hundred years. The carpet was new, the walls freshly painted, and the desk was modern, not a built-in relic like the counters and connected desks in the district attorney’s office. I wondered if the furnishings were bribes from Nathan Farnsworth, but realized that this program hadn’t existed long. Everything about it was new, including the man behind the desk.

  Marc introduced himself, pressed down on both arms of his chair as if he was going to get up and shake my hand, but it was a bluff. He settled back and waved instead. I didn’t blame him. His bulk overfilled the chair. If he got up, he’d have to stuff himself between the bowed arms again. Standing across the desk, I couldn’t help notice how he pulled the hair from one side over his head to cover up the bald patch on his crown.

  Mandla told Marc I was curious about the workings of the court and that he was giving me a tour. He explained the important role Marc played assigning felons to reeducation programs.

  “I thought it was a random thing. That you got assigned to whatever program was next and which one you got was the luck of the draw.”

  Marc gestured to the hanging bins on the wall, one for each of the five reeducation programs. The cat baggers had no official place on Marc’s wall. “That’s true in general,” he said. “But it’s important to make sure that the groups work well together. If two people have a history of assault or some other problem, I make sure they don’t end up in the same program. It’s not like prison. There’s not a lot of supervision. So violence could be a real problem.”

  Not a lot of supervision? Who was he kidding? Obviously Marc hadn’t looked over his desk and seen my ankle bracelet. I couldn’t help feeling I was incredibly lucky. Marc was the one guy who controlled the fate of everyone coming from this court into reeducation. If Nathan Farnsworth was cheating the system, this is where he would start.

  “What if people know each other? Do you put them together?”

  “I try. But I need to be fair to all the programs. I can’t send a bunch to one program because they’re friends and send no one to the others. It takes some research.” He pointed to the files on the wall and then to the computer system in front of him. “I’ve got to do what I can to make sure they’re comfortable where they end up and that they have a fair chance.”

  Marc tried to show me his computer system, but there was no room to squeeze around his desk and I wasn’t big on computers anyway. I didn’t have to see it to know he had lots of leeway. I’d bet no one was watching who he assigned where. This fat guy was screwing Wendell and I was going to stop him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Mandla didn’t have to ask how glad I was for the last leg of our tour. When we got to the lobby, my mind was racing with ideas to catch Marc sliding marginal felons to Nathan Farnsworth and sending hardened criminals to Wendell. The locks on Marc’s office were nothing special, but there were guards and cameras all around. Maybe if I waited for his lunch hour I could dig through his files without being seen. There was no one working in that area of the building, but if I got caught breaking into an office in the courthouse it would be the end for me. Ditto tapping his phone line from the basement.

  The camera resting in my shirt pocket reminded me of my original plan. I pulled it out and tapped it against my palm. Mandla perked up. “You don’t have to catch them yourself, you know. There are plenty coming through here. I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but why don’t you just find your criminals in the lobby?”

  What a fantastic idea. Rather than kick myself for not thinking of it on my own, I wondered if he could he read my mind. Maybe the camera was an obvious clue. Could the implant in the back of my skull be transmitting my thoughts? Even if it was, how would Mandla receive them? My paranoia was foolish, but something about Mandla was too good to be true.

  He eyed me skeptically.

  “Good idea,” I said. “I’ll park out front and get to work.”

  I thanked him for his help and he sauntered down the hall and disappeared into the courtroom. The proceedings inside must have been carrying on without him for an hour and a half. I wondered if he’d be in trouble when he got back or if, like so many government employees I’d heard about, no one was keeping track of how much he worked.

  The lobby was mostly empty, the same bench waiting for me. Even without my book to disguise my surveillance, no one seemed to care that I was watching. They must have assumed I’d come early for trial and was nervously awaiting my appointment with justice.

  The first man who came through the door wore a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off, circling his upper arms with frayed white threads. His hair looked scraggly, his beard unkempt. He was destined for Wendell’s reeducation program. I didn’t have to know what charges he faced. I’d never seen anyone like him at Nathan Farnsworth’s. There was nothing to be proved by following this man. Marc had latitude to assign a single case where he wanted. I needed something bigger.

  Two lawyers and a police officer came out of the courtroom a while later. Once they left, no one new came into the hall for the next two hours. A few of the ladies from the offices walked back and forth, but it was a long time before the next group streamed in through the metal detector and assembled in front of me. When I saw the third man come in, I knew this was the group I was looking for. Every one of them had a suit, not a borrowed suit, but one that fit them perfectly. The creases were sharp, the shoes shiny. Every one of them had his hair cut short. And the best thing about this group, aside from the fact that they were young, there were eleven of them. Marc had latitude, but he didn’t have the latitude to assign eleven easy cases to Nathan. He wasn’t supposed to, but I knew Nathan would pay him well if he did.

  They talked with their lawyers. I assumed the three men with briefcases and a touch of gray hair to be lawyers and not defendants. The group huddled together for a while, nervously checking their watches every minute. Soon they marched down the hall to meet their fate. When I made it to the courtroom five minutes behind this group, I learned my assumption was correct. Another proceeding was in progress. All eyes were on the bench and no one paid any attention as I slipped up the stairs and sat in back.

  When the case was decided several minutes later, the eleven young men filed up front. Their names were called, but without anything to write on, I couldn’t commit eleven names to memory. I heard Murphy and Johnson, because I had dated girls with those names. The other nine escaped me.

  The prosecution opened with a bold statement that the men had been caught on tape, confessed to a police officer, and when their lawyers were confronted with this evidence they advised their clients to plead guilty. The point of the day’s hearing was to pass sentence. These days there were only two sentences for serious offenses. Either a defendant was innocent or he was headed to reeducation. The simplicity made the court amazingly efficient. Since no one went to prison anymore, defendants weren’t afraid to plead guilty. If they knew what I knew, these guys would have fought harder.

  The defense made a statement that convinced me these men were a prime opportunity for Nathan Farnsworth. The men had been at a house party for a friend who was going off to war. When the party wound down and the friends spilled outside, a car raced down the street, nearly hitting one of the men. Traffic stopped the car at the corner and the men ran and caught up. Someone recognized the driver as a suspect in a gang shooting a week earlier. The men pulled him from his car and held him for the police. The lawyer admitted his clients had been overzealous. They’d beaten the man and he had been taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with serious injuries, but the men had been trying to do the right thing.

  The lawyer pleaded for leniency. The men went too far, but their intentions were honorable. For a few minutes I thought the judge was going to let them go and that I’d have to go back to the lobby and follow another case, but I didn’t have to. The judge asked to see th
e footage from the traffic camera. When he did, he sentenced all eleven to reeducation.

  I knew they’d all be headed to Nathan Farnsworth. Now all I had to do was follow them and prove that Farnsworth was paying Marc for the favor. I assumed the first part would be the easiest, but when the judge banged his gavel, the men were led to a doorway I hadn’t noticed before. They disappeared into a part of the courthouse Mandla hadn’t shown me.

  I went out to the hall and circled around to where Marc sat, but saw no entrance along the left wall. It was as if the only entrance to the room they entered was through the courtroom. That door was guarded by the court officers and the bailiff. The only other possibility was the locked hall that led to the judge’s chambers. I didn’t remember a door that opened in the direction the men went, but we had only been in that hall for thirty seconds.

  Retreating to the back corner of the courthouse, I camped on a bench that gave me a view of Marc’s door and down the length of the building to the district attorney’s office. I couldn’t see inside Marc’s office, but I knew he was in there. I couldn’t quite see the front entrance, but there was no way to get to the front of the courthouse without following the hall. If those eleven guys went to see Marc, or went out the front door, I’d see them.

  Court was open until five o’clock on weekdays. When that time came, Mandla told me they were locking up and that I’d have to leave. The men still hadn’t come out. I wished I’d seen their cars to know if they were still there, but I was sure they were inside the building somewhere. As I reluctantly followed Mandla and picked up the pen camera at the checkpoint, I wondered if the eleven were getting their implants and ankle bracelets. They’d need to stay overnight for that. Once they were implanted, there was no escape for them. I waited outside the courthouse another two hours. No one came out. The seven cars remaining in the lot were proof enough that something was still going on in there. I couldn’t risk breaking into the courthouse, so eventually I gave up and caught a cab home.