Dying Embers (29 page)

The deputy said, “I have a warrant for your arrest.”

“F
INNEY, YOUR CLIENT SHOULD TAKE THE PLEA OR HE'S FUCKED
,”
said Assistant Prosecutor Fred Timmer, in a loud voice. The deputy took my arm and tugged. The interview room door fell shut.

Timmer, a head taller than Pete Finney, never saw it coming. Pete seized him by the lapels and shoved. Timmer thumped onto the wall and slid down onto his fanny, exposing red and green plaid socks above his brown tasseled loafers. Papers exploded from his cardboard index file in a flurry of legal snow.

The deputies turned from me and seized Finney by the arms.

“Why don't you try thumb screws,” said Finney, his face red and eyebrows welded together. “It's not enough you've had the man beaten senseless?”

Timmer looked up from his seat on the floor, his mouth working on the syllables of non words until he arrived at, “Ass, ass, ass … assault? And battery!”

“Bloody inquisition!” said Finney. “I'll have your bar card shellacked to my dust bin!”

Timmer's face remained stunned. “I could have you arrested!”

“What is it for me?” said Finney. “The rack?”

“We had nothing to do with what happened to Lambert.”

“You're using the circumstances to your advantage.”

“We have no control over how your client is lodged,” said Timmer, gathering the papers from his lap and the floor.

“You remain an officer of the court,” said Finney. “Turning a blind eye is no less culpable. Mr. Lambert tells me he is passing blood.”

“He has been examined,” said Timmer, stuffing papers into his cardboard file.

The deputies let go of Finney and he straightened his suit. “I should like to have him seen again.”

Timmer climbed to his feet. “That's up to the sheriff. I'm prepared to overlook this accidental collision. But Hardin is wanted on an open warrant.”

“Mr. Hardin had no open warrants,” said Finney. “I checked before asking him to work on the case.”

“He'll have one shortly,” said Timmer. “I just signed the charges, possession of child pornography.”

I shook my head. “Talk to Matty Svenson.”

“The charges are written under state statutes,” said Timmer.

“Oh, I wasn't talking to you,” I said.

• • •

They spent forty-five minutes wadding my suit into a paper sack and deciding whether the metal brace on my nose was a weapon. They issued me a set of jail scrubs, but refused to return my cane and opted to have a trustee push me about in a wheelchair.

The guard called him Manny. His dark auburn hair stood out from his head in all directions. A scar raced down his forehead, divided his left eyebrow, and leapt past his eye to his cheek where it skidded to a stop just short of a threadbare moustache. At five feet ten he probably weighed a spare one-thirty. He said I should call him Flaco.

“What's the ‘Manny' stand for?”

“Manuel, as in Manuel Austin,” he said. “You got any smokes, man?”

“We got the same tailor,” I said. “No pockets.”

He pushed me down the hall, past a stairwell, toward a large maple veneer door attended by a uniformed guard and a sign made from a file folder. The
sign—hand lettered in black felt tip marker—read, “Arraignments.”

“Guess it don't matter,” he said. “They said you was going to the jail ward at county general. You don't got to buy a bed.”

“Austin?” I said. “You from Texas? What?”

“Baja, man. Lots of Anglo names there. Even some blue-eyed-blond chiquitas. You be right at home, eh?”

“No habla,” I said.

“No sweat, man. Everybody speaks money.”

A guard twisted a key into the door and pulled it open.

“You get in there, don't be making no noise,” said Flaco. “Piss off the judge and your bail go up.”

The room, darkly paneled and brightly lit, featured a wooden table, a straight-backed chair, and a video camera on a tripod aimed at the chair. A small microphone had been duct-taped to a soft drink can on the table. Against the wall a television was stationed on a cart.

Half a dozen men in green jail scrubs, belly chained together in a file, lined the back wall of the eighteen-by-twenty room. One guard briefed us: “When your case is called, sit in the chair, look at the camera, and speak in a normal voice.” The other turned on the television.

The picture rolled. Judge Mathews, Judge Mathews, Judge Mathews, I knew him from American Society for Industrial Security meetings, where he'd revealed that he wore Bermuda shorts and an Aloha shirt under his robes.

“It'll stop when it warms up,” said the guard.

I sat through a drunk driver, a dropsy case—man dropped drugs on the ground as he was approached by a police officer—and a grand theft auto. The picture was still rolling when they called my case: possession of child pornography for distribution. I could feel a half ton of eyes on my back as Flaco pushed me up to the table.

“Approach,” said the voice of Pete Finney.

Unseen, Fred Timmer said, “The rights of the people of the State of Michigan cannot be vindicated in the Federal venue.”

“William Meredith, United States Attorney's Office,” said a voice.

“This is highly irregular,” said Judge Mathews, Mathews, Mathews.

“We can save the Court a good deal of time, Your Honor,” said Finney.

“I object,” said Timmer.

“I'm prepared to file a brief,” said Meredith. “But given the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation we would ask the court for some leeway, Your Honor.”

Mathews lowered his chin, spread his arms like Christ on the cross, and said, “Approach.” Covering the microphone with his hand he closed his eyes and slowly nodded his head to his right, spoke to his left, and then shooed the lawyers from the bench like flies from a picnic lunch.

“Mr. Timmer,” said Judge Mathews.

“Based on the evidence at hand,” said Timmer.

“Starts with a ‘W,” Mr. Timmer,” said Mathews.

“I see no reason to withdraw the charges,” said Timmer.

“Adjourned,” said Judge Mathews. He struck his gavel.

“Your honor, my client is in custody,” said Finney.

“Release the accused, Mr. Timmer,” said the judge.

“Your Honor,” said Timmer, “if we can just reconvene and take a plea, I would be glad to discuss bail.”

Judge Mathews turned his head to the right and said, “Long date.”

Off screen a lady's voice said, “Yes, Your Honor.”

Timmer said, “Your Honor—”

Judge Mathews gaveled. “Contempt. Let's explore the idea, Mr. Timmer. What was it you were going to say?”

“Mr. Hardin will be released immediately,” said Timmer.

Judge Mathews struck again. “Fifty dollars. See the clerk. Next case, please.”

Hoots and stomps filled the room. The question came in a chorus. “Who's your attorney?”

“Pete Finney. He's in the book,” I told them as Flaco wheeled me away from the table. The door opened and the guard from outside the door stepped into the room, his face a question mark as he looked around the room and then at Flaco.

“This man been released, man—no shit,” said Flaco. “I got to take him to the desk.” The guard nodded and Flaco rolled me out the door.

The door closed and we were alone in the hallway, an administrative section of the jail. “Dude, you are too cool,” said Flaco. I lurched back in the chair as Flaco broke into a dead run. “This is a shame—no shit, man—but the Chingos got to say hello.”

A foot short of the stairway he let go of the chair. “Ola, motherfucker.”

I caught the hand rail and swung out of the chair as it bucked down the first step. The chair crashed down the stairs. Flaco backed up and looked up and down the hall. No one. He shrugged and took a sharpened tooth brush with a duct-tape handle out of his shoe.

“Think about it, Manny,” I said. I extended my left hand palm down. “Think about why my hand is so steady.”

“Maybe because you are stupid,” he said, curling his lip.

I stepped out of my one shoe and put it on my left hand. Pulling my shirt over my head, I wrapped it around my left arm and wrist. “Think something else,” I said.

“I think somebody already kicked your ass, and all that beef don't scare me.”

“Yeah? Keep thinking. I'll be right with you.” I started up the steps.

“I think you walk real good for a man I got to push around in a wheelchair,” he said. “And I think I already done what I was told.” He backed away several steps and then ran.

“Good thinking, Flaco.”

• • •

The barred gate closed behind me. The gray metal door in front of me slid to the right and revealed Matty Svenson waiting with her arms folded over a denim jacket that mostly covered a black turtleneck sweater. She wore gray slacks and had rolled the sleeves of the jacket up to her forearms.

“Slumming?”

“Trying to fit in,” she said. “How am I doing?”

“Great. Nobody'll notice you.”

“So the guys that just left weren't hitting on me?”

I walked over to the window. The guard—unseen through a one-way window—pushed a form out the window for me to sign.

“They offer you a can of Spam and a box of crackers?” I signed the form and it snapped back in the window like a frog's tongue.

“Mentioned a pizza and a six pack,” she said.

“Must be rutting season.” An envelope with my tie and belt came out. They'd issued me yet another check for the sheriff's check they confiscated.

We threaded our way through a maze of people with sullen faces seated on the wooden benches to the hallway and out the revolving door into the sun and a sweet breeze. Matty produced a pair of sunglasses and a set of car keys.

“The blue one,” she said.

“Four door sedan, black walls, and a spotlight,” I said. “We got ‘em fooled now.”

“This belongs to a friend of yours.”

“Yeah, Uncle Sam.”

“J. William Cameran,” she said. “He's currently sitting in the fifth floor lock-up at the federal building and sweating out the answers to some very hard questions.”

I climbed into the shotgun seat. A passing white pick up tooted as it passed and Matty waved.

“They with you?”

“They wish,” said Matty. She pulled her door shut and twisted the keys into the ignition.

“What are we doing in the J. Billster's ride?”

“I'm searching it.”

“Got any cigarettes?”

“J. William doesn't allow smoking in his vehicle.” Matty produced an unopened pack of smokes from the pocket of her denim jacket. “Pall Malls all right?” She dropped them onto the seat between us.

I hammered the silver end of the pack on the dash. “There's a chalky undertaste to the mousse here,” I said. “I'm up to my armpits in Bureau people. Former agents, informants, and whatever your Mr. El Guitmo was—he wasn't a stranger.”

“Paranoia, Art. You read too many paperback novels.”

“I go to the post office all the time,” I said, and zipped open the cellophane wrapper. “I'm so paranoid I actually look at the posters. A guy who looked like Fidel Castro kind of sticks in your mind.” I peeled open the silver foil corner of the pack and shook out a smoke. “I don't think he'd have much shelf-life on the street. And ‘El Guitmo?'” I lit up and savored the sweet smoke. “Give me a break.”

“Spur of the moment,” said Matty. “I thought it was pretty good.”

“You didn't need me to quiz him. What were you doing, waiting for him to tidy up?”

Matty turned north out of the lot and drove in silence with her cheek twitching over a tight jaw and her knuckles white on the wheel. At Michigan Avenue she turned right and said, “I told you I wasn't listening to the audio.”

“Right.”

Matty snapped on the radio and got a pig-and-whistle band, drumming and drilling at
After the Morning.
“I was in the weeds,” she said. “I had to relieve myself. Your wife was going in and out. The van belonged to the janitor—we ran the plate. I can't just hang it out the door like the guys.”

“They hang it out the door? That's disgusting.”

Matty turned south onto the Beltline. “You know what I mean. When I got back to the van your window exploded.”

“Sorry you missed it,” I said, and pulled open the ashtray—it was full of parking change. I flicked my ash into the coins. “He ratted you out.”

“I can't tell you anything,” she said.

“Your ‘El Guitmo' was under so long he went native?” I shook out a cigarette and offered it.

“We thought he was dead,” said Matty. She punched in the dash lighter and took the smoke. “Ebola in West Africa. We didn't ask for the body.”

I said, “You thought he was reincarnated?”

“He used someone else's contact code.”

“He played you?”

“He played Cameran,” she said.

“So now you're covering for Cameran.”

“I'm a Special Agent, not a prosecutor. Cameran's an asshole.” The lighter popped up. “On his best case—the only one that went to jail was his informant. When he retired, he opened Intelligence Research Associates and tried to run it from his desk at the Bureau.” She pulled the lighter out of the dash and lit her smoke. “We had to load his crap in a box and change the door code.”

“So they are going to cover for him?”

“Probably,” she exhaled in a cloud, “if he can give us the rest of the crew. We can't really ask you to continue.”

“What do I do? Post a want-ad: ‘Art Hardin, All-ey, all-ey in free.'”

“If you think you can still contribute,” she said, and looked at me, adding a smile with a flutter of eyelashes, “I won't need to ask you to return your orders.” She turned into my office parking lot and stopped in front of the steps.