The Touch of Treason (32 page)

Thomassy knew that however low he spoke, if the court reporter were to hear, Francine would hear. He could ask for her to be excused. He couldn’t do it. She would hear.

“Your Honor,” he said, “this is not a treason trial.” He heard his own subdued words echoing in his mind. Thomassy cleared his throat. “None of the charges against the defendant allege that he was working for one government and passing on classified information to another government. Yet we must all be aware that a jury does not draw distinctions the way Your Honor and honorable counsel do, and if Miss Widmer’s testimony is allowed to stand, there is the undeniable risk that even one juror will interpret some connection between Soviet officials and this defendant and react emotionally to the implied charge of treason rather than to a judgment of the facts at issue in the specifics of the indictment.”

Judge Drewson, watched by everyone, could not let his own disquiet show. He didn’t like what had happened to the justice system, people being tried under the grab-bag of the conspiracy statutes instead of for what they did do because the government couldn’t prove it. He didn’t like people being tried for perjury in lieu of what he thought of as their original crime that they later lied about. He didn’t like mobsters having to be sent away for income tax evasion. He was doomed to judge an imperfect world under an imperfect system he had sworn to uphold.

“Mr. Roberts,” he said more sternly than he might have under other circumstances, “none of the charges in this case concern the espionage statutes, which would in any event be a matter for the federal bench and not for this jurisdiction. I don’t want the jury left with any implication that a possible sighting of the defendant trying to communicate with Soviet nationals at the UN is related to the crimes he is here charged with unless you are going to be able to produce witnesses who will clearly, concretely, and without ambiguity associate this defendant with a foreign government and address the issue of intent.”

Roberts glanced over in the direction of Koppelman. Koppelman shook his head.

“Your Honor,” Roberts said, “it is possible that the people may have access to photographs supporting Miss Widmer’s testimony.”

“Do you have such photographs?”

“Not yet, Your Honor.”

“Are you certain you will have access to them?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“And no witnesses such as I just described?”

“I have no such further witnesses, Your Honor,” Roberts said.

“Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “I have moved to strike Miss Widmer’s testimony. I now move for a mistrial.”

“Denied,” the judge said. “Mr. Thomassy, I’m going to leave the testimony stand but when I instruct the jury I will make it clear that even if the other evidence offered provides them with sufficient proof that the defendant was the only possible perpetrator, they may consider Miss Widmer’s testimony solely as substantiation of motive or intent. If they are not impressed by the other evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I will tell them that they cannot consider Miss Widmer’s testimony in any respect and are to treat it as if it were not given by her or heard by them.”

Roberts objected to the judge’s news in vain.

Thomassy said nothing. The breath of treason had brushed by. If it was by the skill of his argument, was he then the traitor?

As they went back to their respective places, the judge dismissed Francine.

You son-of-a-bitch,
Thomassy told himself,
you love to win, but at what cost?
Francine was just being ushered out by one of the guards. She should have told him. He’d have told her to get lost so they wouldn’t find her. And she’d have said he was obstructing justice. She’s been contaminated by that damn UN mentality, moral farting into the wind, when the only thing that counted here or in the spats among nations was winning. Then why did he feel as if he had suddenly lost something irretrievable?

*

During the recess, Ed said he wanted to make a phone call in private.

When he returned, he seemed to have regained his self-confidence.

“Who were you talking to?” Thomassy asked him.

“Franklin Harlow.”

“You thinking of changing counsel?”

“Of course not. I was merely asking Mr. Harlow if an attorney heard conflicting information from his client and from a so-called personal friend, did that make representation of the client difficult?”

“And what did Mr. Harlow say?”

“He said that given the blanket of confidentiality that exists between you and me that does not necessarily exist between you and a friend, you are to assume for purposes of this trial that what I say is what you act on. To do otherwise, Mr. Harlow said, would be against the code of ethics. You are
my
lawyer and you are bound to help
me.”

“I will talk to you later,” Thomassy said. “If I talked to you now I’d tell you what I thought of you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Alice finally connected with Ludmilla Tarasova in her Central Park West apartment. She put Thomassy on.

“Miss Tarasova,” he said, “do you know who I am?”

“I read the papers,” she said, her accent guttural spice.

“I would like to call you as a witness in the Porter Sturbridge case.”

“I don’t think I have much to contribute,” she said quickly.

“You know a great deal that I want the jury to hear and that I believe to be extremely relevant. If you would give me the courtesy of an hour of your time—I’d be glad to go wherever it would be convenient for you—I think I could persuade you that you would prefer to appear voluntarily rather than under a subpoena.”

“I must speak to my lawyer.”

“You can have him present if you like.”

“I will call you back.”

She was ready to hang up so he said, “You’ll need my phone number,” and gave it to her.

As he suspected, she didn’t phone back. And so the following day he called Ludmilla Tarasova again.

“You are very persistent,” she said.

“Have you spoken to your attorney?”

“He will be at my apartment at eight this evening.”

“Would you like me to come an hour later?”

“You can come at eight, too, Mr. Thomassy. My lawyer and I have already spoken.”

*

Thomassy reached Francine at her office. “I called you last night.”

“I was out.”

“I wanted to apologize,” he said.

She left him hanging in her silence. Then, a flutter in her voice like a bird suddenly bereft of its air current, she said, “I’m sorry I had to testify. I knew how angry you’d be.”

“I guess I was a bit rough with you on the stand. I’m sorry. It’s the way the game is played.”

“They say pretty rough things at the UN sometimes,” she said, not meaning the touch of frost in her voice, “but it’s not
personal
.”

“Mine wasn’t personal, Francine, believe me. We both got caught in somebody else’s trap. I was hoping to see you this evening, but I have to go somewhere in connection with the case.”

“I’m going out, too,” she said. “No connection to the case.”

“Oh,” he said.

She, skilled mind reader, laughed. “Matilda Brewster’s flying in for a quick visit to New York. We roomed at school. We’re doing the night on the town. I can’t let her stay at a hotel. And I can’t ask her to stay at your place, so she’s staying at mine.”

“You’re being decorous. There’d be no problem with her sleeping in the living room. Does she think you’re still a virgin?”

Francine laughed. “Let’s say that Matilda, like all married people, thinks unmarried types like us fuck all the time, and I don’t want her staying up all night trying not to listen.”

“Have a good time.”

“If the show’s good, we will. I know she’ll enjoy dinner. I’m taking her to an Armenian restaurant.”

“Very funny.”

“George, I want to say something to you.”

“Shoot.”

“Are you listening carefully?”

“Sure.”

“Sure you’re sure?”

“Come on!”

“Despite yesterday,” she said, “I love you.”

He hated the way people parrotted each other, so he didn’t say
I love you, too.
But after he hung up, he stared at the phone wondering whether, after law school, he had stopped learning about himself.

*

Thomassy drove down toward New York City, got off the West Side Highway at the Seventy-ninth Street exit, made his way crosstown through light traffic, saw someone pulling out of a parking space just east of Columbus Avenue and did what New Yorkers do—he backed up to claim the precious space. If you parked in a garage these days, you were taking a chance on the cassette deck vanishing or an unexplained dent that they’d claim was there when you drove in. If you left your car in the street, you could still lose the cassette deck, but at least no parking lot jockey would use his car to practice U-turns in reverse.

Ludmilla Tarasova lived in one of those grand old buildings he’d liked when he first came down from Oswego. Now, in addition to the doorman, they had a security guard and a TV monitor. The doorman looked him up and down to see if this unfamiliar male was a potential problem. The security guard called the Tarasova apartment, mispronouncing his name. The guard gestured him in.

He stood in front of her apartment door. He’d expected her to be standing there, the door open. After a moment, he rang the bell. He heard steps. Then he realized there was a peephole magnifier at the door that was at the height of his Adam’s apple. He bent a bit so she could see his face. He heard the chain come off. Then the door opened.

He was surprised at how female a sixty-year-old woman could be. Her hair was shoulder length, and he could imagine her brushing it vigorously. Her eyes, dark in a bright face, looked at him as if with a glance she could fathom his thoughts. Her figure was spare, though fuller in the breast. She shook his hand with stark strength. “Come in, Mr. Thomassy.”

He wished he was wearing a hat so that he could take it off. The apartment had a slightly musty smell, which was immediately explained by the thousands of visible books, lining the hall, and then the living room.

“I believe you know my lawyer,” she said.

From his armchair, Archibald Widmer rose to shake Thomassy’s hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

As Francine made the right-hand turn from the service road into LaGuardia, she thought
Departures are from stages.
For her, airports, railroad stations, intercity bus terminals provided expectations of drama. According to the dashboard clock, in one minute Tilly Brewster was due to arrive from Detroit. Did that mean touchdown, arrival at the gate? Maybe the plane was ahead of schedule. Fat chance. And the baggage wait, at best, was twenty minutes. Though Tilly was coming for two days, she was always loaded with presents as if it were Christmas. Even in school Tilly had felt she had to buy her space on earth.

The parking lot was jammed. Francine spied a child-loaded station wagon backing out of a slot, and positioned her bright red Fiat.
Fight for the space if you have to.
No opponents, a potential fracas aborted, she slipped into the spot, got out, locked the door, and ran through the lot to the walkway, pushed the button on the pole. The light seemed to take forever to say “walk.” When there was a momentary gap between taxis, she ran across to honking and made it, breathless, into the terminal. She checked the
Arrivals
side of the TV monitor: the plane was
in.
Down the stairs—don’t run!—Francine scanned the grouped crowds waiting for baggage. “Tilly,’’ she shouted, just as Tilly was reaching for her large red suitcase. Tilly glanced up, and the bag went by ungrabbed. They had a good laugh, hugging each other, till the winding carousel brought the red suitcase around again.

The bag retrieved, Tilly stared at Francine the way old friends permit each other. Finally Tilly said, “How do you stay the same?”

“I’m not,” Francine said.

“You look the same.”

“I feel different,” Francine said.

“Ooooh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Tilly?”

“What’s his name?”

“He’s a crazy lawyer named George.”

“Not the Princeton George who jilted Arabella?”

“This is an Armenian George. I told you about him months ago.”

“I guess it didn’t register. You know I never knew anyone who actually knew an Armenian,” Tilly said.

“Maybe you did, and didn’t know he was Armenian.”

They both guffawed as if the word Armenian triggered the memory of how they once laughed together at school.

“Is he very handsome?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

“You’re in love, Fran. It’ll pass in three weeks. Don’t give it a thought.”

“It’s been nearly a year, Tilly.”

“Oh my God, what are Mummy and Daddy saying?”

“They’re not in the prompting box anymore. Besides, my father dotes on criminal lawyers like George who—”

“He’s not the man…”

Francine nodded. Tilly paid a moment’s respect to the rape. They’d spent many hours on the phone around that time.