The Whole Truth

by James Scott Bell

  And he did. For half an hour he put the best face on the bad facts that he could. That was his job. Defense lawyer. You don’t lie down and die because a prosecutor has a slam dunk.

  He finished with, “So remember, ladies and gentlemen, only you represent justice here. Only you. And Mr. Mendez and I know you will do your task well.”

  This time, more than one head nodded in the jury box. Steve hoped that several members of the Mendez clan, out in the gallery, agreed.

  Then it was Moira Hanson’s turn to rebut. This would be the last word to the jury from either lawyer. The next step would be instructions on the law from the judge, and then deliberations.

  “Do not be fooled by the empty rhetoric of the defense lawyer,” she said. “You know, Abraham Lincoln said when the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table and shout for justice.”

  Steve’s face started to burn. He just hoped the jury couldn’t see it.

  Hanson took just twenty minutes to wrap it all up. In another half hour the judge had given the jury instructions. At 11:57 the judge told the jury to go get lunch and be back by 1:30 to start deliberations.

  Steve felt the urge to drink his lunch. He always felt that way at the end of a trial. Last time, in fact, he’d done that very thing and woke up in the parking lot in back of a Safeway.

  In the hallway he was surrounded by Mendezes, Carlos’s mother taking the lead. She was a fireplug of a woman looking up at him with ever-increasing intensity.

  “What happen now?” she said. “What happen now?”

  “The jury will come back to deliberate,” Steve said.

  “How long it take?”

  “We just don’t know.”

  “Carlos get out?”

  “No, Mrs. Mendez, Carlos is in the lockup.”

  “When he get out?”

  “Um, the jury has to — ”

  “He get out, right?”

  Several Mendez faces looked at Steve expectantly. As if he were Harry Potter and could wave a stick and make everything all right. What he really wanted was an invisibility cloak.

  “We have to wait for the jury, so I’ll call you when they have a decision,” Steve said. “So just try to relax and — ”

  “No relax! No, no!”

  Steve patted her arm and was grateful when a couple of the men took over and led her toward the elevators. But all the while he was thinking it was always true when a jury was out. No relax.

  NINE

  He sought some quiet in the courthouse law library. It was never populated with more than a lawyer or two trying to find that case the judge cited, or the occasional citizen representing himself or trying to find out how to sue his neighbor.

  Steve snagged a copy of the Daily Journal, the city’s leading legal newspaper, and scanned it to pass the time. Made sure his name wasn’t in it. No news is no noose. Last time he got his name in the paper it was as a disciplinary stat and his career was hanging by the neck from a tree.

  On the opinion page there was a column about a couple of horrific gang slayings. It wasn’t just drive-bys this time. Two black gang members had been ritually skinned. Their inner works, so to speak, were spread around and their outer casings nailed to a wall.

  Steve held in his breakfast. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in this world, good old reality comes along and gives you a fresh kick in the teeth. Nice place, the world. That’s what cocaine was for, after all. So you could forget you lived here for a while.

  Steve went to the editorial cartoon, this one of the US Supreme Court, and was admiring the rendering of Scalia when he sensed someone at his side. He tried to ignore the figure, but when a guy sat down in the chair beside his, Steve gave a quick look.

  The guy was looking right at Steve. He wore a black shirt buttoned to the top, but Steve could still see the tentacles of a tattoo above the collar. His hair was blond, cut close to the pate. He had the prison look. Steve had seen enough of that in his career to sense it. Like a bad smell before you see the actual Dumpster.

  “Mr. Conroy.” Not a question.

  “Who are you?”

  “I was watching you in there. Not a bad job.”

  “You a reporter?” Steve asked facetiously.

  “In a way,” the guy said. “I’ve got a report for you.”

  Steve waited as the guy pulled a fat white envelope from his back jeans pocket and laid it on top of the newspaper. As he did, Steve saw some letters tattooed on his left hand, on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Johnny says go buy yourself a couple of new suits,” the guy said. “He wants you to. As a gift.”

  “Johnny LaSalle?”

  “Right.”

  “My dead brother.” In a tone of annoyance.

  The guy nodded.

  “What’s in here?” Steve asked.

  “Five large,” the guy said. “Another five when Johnny comes home and you come work for him.”

  Steve’s instinct to push the envelope away was overcome by a neon thought blinking, Ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars.

  Five thousand of which, if the guy was telling the truth, was under Steve’s slightly trembling hand. Ten grand could keep more than a few wolves from the door. And a new suit sounded so right just about now. The one Steve was wearing, his best, had elbows you could almost see through.

  But he picked up the envelope and tossed it in front of the guy. With a dry throat Steve said, “Not interested.”

  “No, no,” the guy said. “That’s yours. Like I said, a gift.”

  “I don’t want any gift from Johnny LaSalle. You can tell him that. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Steve, there is no obligation. Johnny wants to give you a blessing. After all these years.”

  “And you both can stop calling me Steve. You can tell LaSalle I don’t want to hear from him again. Tell him he’s a sick man.”

  Aware that the librarian, a bespectacled man at the front desk, was looking at them with disapproval, Steve lowered his voice. “Is that clear?”

  “Please, Steve, this is your brother — ”

  “Listen.” Steve spun in his seat to face him. “There are cops and deputy sheriffs all up and down this building. If you don’t leave now I’m going to walk outside and get one of them to explain the law to you.”

  “So you don’t believe Johnny?”

  Steve suddenly sensed a security camera on him. In fact, there was. Looking at it only made him more nervous.

  This was absurd, something out of a Martin Scorsese movie. People didn’t just hand you envelopes with money, let alone somebody representing a guy who was still in prison.

  Steve noticed his chair vibrating. And then realized his right leg was twitching.

  “Take your money and get out,” he said.

  “Johnny told me you might react this way. He really is a good judge of character. He’s a man of God.”

  “That’s why he’s doing time, I guess.”

  “You do time when bad people are against you.”

  “Like the police?”

  The uninvited guest pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. He unfolded it. It was notebook paper, three holes and lines. He put it in front of Steve.

  “Johnny wanted you to see this,” he said.

  Steve looked at it.

  Brother I know I blew you away. I couldn’t tell everything at once. I want to tell you face to face when I get out but you don’t believe me and I guess I wouldn’t either if I was you. Something bad happened back then but not what you think. I didn’t die. I’m alive. My real name is Robert Conroy. And just to show you I tried to think of something that only you and I would of known of. That was kind of hard. We’re talking 25 years, bro. I don’t know how much you remember from that far back but I thought maybe you remember this.

  Once upon a time there were two monsters named Arnold and Beebleobble. One was green and one was blue.

  Steve’s world, inside and out, started
spinning. He thought for a second he might pass out. Light was fading and the guy’s voice sounded off in the distance.

  “The money’s yours,” he said. “Johnny’ll get in touch with you.”

  He got up and walked out.

  TEN

  It couldn’t be.

  It was.

  There was no way anybody would know about the monster stories Robert used to tell him. Oh, sure, maybe in a fantasy world of some kind, where coincidences rained like candy drops, this information could have come to a prisoner named Johnny LaSalle.

  That was so unlikely.

  Suddenly he was back in his old room. With the clown clock on the white chest of drawers and the red ball with the black stars. The way the sheets smelled like Tide and he’d put them up to his nose and breathe in deep.

  And Robert, lying on top of the bedsheets, a teller of tales and protector of little brothers. Once, they’d been sitting on the sidewalk one summer day, enriched with two packs of M&Ms and a Mountain Dew from Sipe’s Market, courtesy of Mom. Robert wanted to play Nerf football and ran in to get the ball.

  Stevie waited on the sidewalk. The day was hot and the Mountain Dew sweet and cold. Sipe’s always had the coldest drinks, and it was a good thing the store was so close to home.

  A shadow fell across his face and Stevie looked up and saw Cody Messina standing there. The Messinas were a family Stevie wanted to avoid at all costs. They were in some kind of business that involved junk, and their yard was always a stinking mess of rusty parts of things that used to work. Cody was ten, three years older than Robert, and as mean as the Messina’s Doberman, Deuce, who was kept on a chain in their backyard but who had enough chain to get to the fence and bare his teeth at whoever walked by.

  “Gimme a sip,” Cody said.

  No way. It wasn’t just the principle of the thing, as far as Stevie understood principle. It was the thought of the gross, slobbering lips of Cody Messina on his can of Mountain Dew. There would be no drinking it after that.

  Stevie was too scared to say anything. If he said no he’d probably get his jaw unhinged. And if he said yes he knew, even at five, that he’d be giving up too much of his spirit to a common bully.

  Sitting cross-legged, he was also not able to get up and run. Even if he did, Cody was big and fast and would catch him as easily as Deuce snatching a tossed tennis ball.

  “Gimme it,” Cody said.

  Stevie didn’t move. The Dew was cool in his hands. He tightened his grip on the can.

  “I’m gonna pound your head down your neck.”

  He could do it too. Stevie did not want his head to take that trip. But still he held to the can. He was, in fact, immobile.

  Cody started to reach for the can. “Give it!”

  Thunk.

  Cody’s head snapped back. A Mountain Dew, another one, clunked to the sidewalk. Cody slapped his hands on his head, yelping like a wounded puppy.

  “Run!”

  It was Robert. Stevie rolled right, shot to his feet, took off down Hoover Street. He didn’t look back for four blocks. He held onto his Mountain Dew and kept going. When he did finally stop he saw he was alone. No hot pursuit by the hated Cody.

  But what about Robert? Had Cody caught him? What would he do to Robert’s head?

  Stevie ran back, fast, scared that the whole neighborhood would be crawling with Messinas, from the oldest, Red, who drove and smoked and was mean, to the youngest, Danny, only three but who’d just as soon bite you as drool on you.

  Any one of that pack could jump out of a bush or trash can. And they could swarm over Robert like cockroaches.

  But when Stevie got home there was no one around. No! Carried off! Robert had been captured and was being hauled to the Messinas as fresh meat for Deuce! He’d get his leg chewed off! And it was all Stevie’s fault, because he ran away and left Robert for dead!

  “Get in here.” His mother, standing at the open front door.

  “Mom, Robert’s in trouble!”

  “You both are. Come here now.”

  Both? Running in, heart thumping, Stevie let out a huge gust of relief. Robert was there. Sitting on the hard wooden punishment chair, his red T-shirt ripped.

  “What happened?” Stevie said.

  “I bit him,” Robert said.

  Stevie laughed. The biting Messinas had gotten what they deserved.

  “It’s not funny,” Mom said. “He really hurt that boy. There’s going to be hell to pay. Don’t think there won’t be.”

  Hell? He could pay that, as long as he still had his head in the same place, on top of his neck.

  Yep, Robert could sure throw. He’d nailed Cody Messina with that can of Mountain Dew and changed the course of neighborhood history. No Messina ever bothered them again.

  In the law library, the vividness of the memory surprised Steve. It had been a long time since he’d thought about that day, and never so clearly, so emotionally as now.

  All because his big brother was still alive.

  If Johnny LaSalle was his big brother.

  And if he wasn’t, how did he know what he knew?

  The clerk read the verdict at 4:27 in the afternoon, that same day. The jury had deliberated just two hours.

  Carlos Mendez was found guilty of one count under penal code section 12021.

  Steve felt his client tense up next to him, as if this was some sort of surprise. There were grumbles from the gallery. The sounds of a family not pleased.

  They were sounds only half heard by Steve. He was still dazed by the money and the note he’d been given in the library.

  The half awareness was blitzed by Judge O’Hara’s voice as he polled the jury, then sent them on their merry way. None of them made eye contact with Steve as they filed out. A few smiled at Moira Hanson.

  “Any reason we shouldn’t set a date for sentencing?” the judge said.

  The defense lawyer’s tape player clicked on in Steve’s mind. “I move, Your Honor, to set aside the verdict under PC 1181.6.”

  It was the old insufficiency of evidence section, which gave judges discretion to set aside a jury verdict. The odds of that happening were about the same as the dice coming up thirteen on a Vegas crap table.

  “Denied,” Judge O’Hara said. “How’s August 20?”

  Moira Hanson checked her appointment book and said, “That’s fine with the People.”

  Steve didn’t check anything but mumbled an okay. He knew he didn’t have any appointments coming up. A bottom feeder usually has a calendar as clean and empty as a desert preserve.

  As the deputy approached, Mendez looked at Steve with a now what? expression.

  “There’s a sentencing package that needs to be worked up,” Steve said. “I’ll come see you and we’ll talk about it.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know when. Soon.”

  “Am I getting out?”

  Of course not. He was on the way to the slam, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Steve said, “I’ll do my best.”

  That didn’t inspire any look of confidence on Mendez’s face. The same look was on the faces of his family members who jumbled at the rail, chattering in Spanish.

  In his own head, Steve’s voice sounded far away. He heard himself say something about getting in touch and doing all he could.

  ELEVEN

  That night Steve had another dance with the demons.

  He well knew you never totally get rid of the mind vibe once you’ve been hooked on blow. You’re supposed to call your sponsor the moment you feel the hot claw of craving scratching at your brain. But you’ve got to decide to do it.

  First, you go through a little five rounder with the imps of addiction. You jab at them, but they have punches too. You start to think about driving downtown to the Box, that collection of drug-infested city blocks between 4th and 7th, where a rock can be had for a drive-by and a sawbuck. You think about the night and the easy road to forgetfulness, and you remember how good it feels. Your
body starts to vibrate with the remembering.

  It’s only a second before you make the decision and grab the keys, and once you grab them it’s over. You’re going all the way, there won’t be any turning back.

  In a world where your old nightmares come screaming back in the form of a guy who may be your dead brother, not dead anymore but alive, in that world you have a way out. Don’t think about things you don’t want to think about. Take the quick and easy road and float, get happy, that’s all that matters.

  Don’t grab the keys.

  Grab them.

  Call Gincy.

  Keys.

  Once you grab them it’s over.

  Grab.

  Was Robert really alive?

  Would it make any difference?

  Would it stop the pain?

  Or just make it worse? Just dredge up the whole thing again, make it fresh, because there’s no going back and revising your history. There’s no going back and taking away the horrors. Taking away the memory of when you were fourteen and almost jumped off the cliffs near the Palisades. You were close then, and if it all comes back, might you actually do it?

  Was Robert really alive? If he was, and that alone would be enough to blow an unstable mind, could he be saved this time? Given a new chance to live a good life?

  Ten thousand dollars. Who cared who was who?

  Or remember that first time you chased the dragon? You stopped then and knew it was about Robert. You had that instant insight that you were going to freebase because it was the only way to stop the dreams. And you thought about not going through with it, but then you did.

  Make it stop.

  Grab.

  Steve snatched the keys from his front table and looked at himself in the hall mirror. His hair was sticking out a little. He smoothed it down. The eyes, normally dark brown, seemed almost black, with a rim of fire-engine red around them.

  You’ll look worse in the morning, pal, but then again maybe you won’t wake up. That’d take care of a lot of things.

  He jangled the keys and walked out. Down the stairs to the parking area. Jumped in the Ark, his mind already on autopilot. The map in his head was on-screen and would take him to the drug supermarket.