Absolute rage

7

Karp dialed the number on the message slip, area code 202, a Washington number. Saul Sterner was a macher in that town, or had been. Karp tried to figure out how old he was. He'd been general counsel at Labor in the Johnson administration and then done labor law for a while at the highest levels, chief counsel for the mine workers and then for the AFL-CIO. Somewhere in between all that, he had taught for a half dozen years at Boalt Hall, the University of California Law School, which was where Karp had met him. They had kept in touch on and off over the years. He must be eighty, at least, Karp thought.

But the voice over the phone was vigorous, the old New York accent softened neither by the years nor by dwelling among the mighty.

"Butch, you momzer, how the hell are you?"

"Can't complain. How about you?"

"I can complain, and I do, but no one listens. How's Keegan treating you?"

"Oh, you know Jack. He has his little ways."

Sterner chuckled. "That's what I hear. Listen, let's get together. I need your counsel on an issue."

Karp doubted this; Sterner famously had as much use for counsel as a guided missile. "I'm flattered. What kind of counsel?"

"Ehhh… a little something out in the country, a union thing."

"You don't want to talk about it on the phone."

"Not particularly. Let's have lunch tomorrow. I haven't seen you in a million years."

"You want me to come down there?"

"Nah, I'll come up. I got some things at the federal courthouse in the morning. We'll sit, we'll eat pastrami, we'll talk."

"Sam's on Canal?"

"Perfect!"

"I'll be there. Listen, Saul… it's funny, because I was just about to call you. It's something you'd probably know about. Marlene's down in West Virginia working for some friends, a couple of young men. Their dad was killed, actually the whole family, father, mother, and sister, all shot in their home. Marlene thinks it could be related to a labor problem. There's a possibility that the murders came out of a disputed union election. What'd be the federal interest there, if any?" There was silence on the line for so long that Karp thought they might have been cut off. "Saul? Hello?"

"Yeah. What's she doing there, Marlene? I thought she was out of the PI business."

"Well, yeah, she is. This was a favor. The woman who was killed was a friend of hers, from the Island, and her kids think there's something fishy going on with the investigation. From her first pass at it, so does she. They picked up a retarded guy and tried to stick him with it, but she says it's a frame, and clumsy, too."

"Well, that's very interesting, Butch. I should say, small world. That was just what I wanted to talk to you about as a matter of fact."

"The Heeney murders?"

"Them. Let's say twelve-thirty at Sam's on Canal." Click.

Karp recalled that Saul Sterner had a thing about punctuality. Teaching, he would ceremoniously lock the doors of his classroom at the stroke of the hour. After a couple of weeks, everyone was on time or had dropped the course, and at that point he gave a little lecture on the subject: Ladies and gentlemen, the legal profession begins with the ability to show up at a certain place, a courtroom, at a time certain. If you can't do that, I don't care to waste my time talking to you.

Karp was, accordingly, there at the minute and found Sterner waiting for him in the bright and noisy dining room, dressed, as always, in a brown suit off the rack and 100 percent made by union labor in the United States. No pinstripes for him, the uniform of the enemy, no foreign-sweated stitchery. In the old days, it would have been covered with cigarette ash, but no more. As Karp approached the table, Sterner was reading the menu through bifocals, reading it suspiciously, as if it were a defective opinion, his chin down on his chest, his pugnacious jaw and the thick lower lip thrust out in concentration. His head was large for his stocky body, his nose was large, too, the forehead over it wide, freckled, and fringed by white, curly hair. His hand delivered a crushing grip still. Karp thought he looked good for a man as old as he was and said, as he sat down, "You're looking good, Saul."

"Ahhh, you don't know. It's no fun getting old. Every time I forget my keys nowadays, it's oy vay, Alzheimer's."

"Never."

"Hey, everything passes. I'm happy, I had a good life, I knocked some heads, I kicked some heinie. What more can you ask?"

"That's the secret of life? Knocking heads?"

"You mean it's not?" said Sterner, miming wonder, and laughed. "Meanwhile, I'm having the corned beef. The waiter says the pastrami is dry. This I take as a symbol of the end of the world as I knew it. That there should be dry pastrami at Sam's on Canal Street. A shandah! Also, the waiter was a Lebanese kid instead of an old Yid who would tell me I was lucky to get pastrami at all." Sterner laughed again. "Tell me, do I sound enough like an old fart yet, or should I mention my bladder?"

The waiter arrived and took their order without insult or badinage. The two men exchanged small talk for a while, until Sterner leaned closer and peered at Karp over the tops of his lenses. "So. Tell me what you know about Red Heeney."

"Next to nothing. His wife's family happened to own the place next to the one Marlene bought out by Southold. They became friendly on the beach. Their youngest is… was, I mean, the same age as our twins. I met Heeney once at a cookout."

"What did you think?"

Karp hesitated. "Frankly? Not to speak ill, but he wasn't my type. He jumped me as a matter of fact. Wanted to punch my face."

"You probably deserved it."

"I usually do. But I take it you were a fan of his."

"Well, he wasn't a friend, if that's what you mean, but, yeah, I guess you could say a fan. What I liked about him, he was a fighter. My God, twenty-five years of organizing, and in that hellhole, too, first with the chemical workers and the operating engineers, and then with this cockamamy union they got, the Mining Equipment Operators."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Oh, it's a company union," Sterner answered with a sneer. "A piece of shit. It belongs to the Majestic Coal Company, has since the year one. Red thought he could get in there and turn it around from the inside. And they killed him for it. Something like this hasn't happened since Jock Yablonski back in '69. You remember that, don't you?"

"Vaguely. They killed the whole family there, too, didn't they?"

"Yeah, in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. Jock was fighting for the presidency of the UMW. Tony Boyle was president, a corrupt dirtbag, and they had an election and Tony stole it. Tough Tony Boyle. He had some local hillbillies do it, and we were able to trace it back to him, through the payoffs. He died in jail."

"And you're assuming it's the same deal here?"

"Absolutely. They never learn anything, these bastards. I'll tell you one thing about Red Heeney. He was the real stuff. You know, the goddamn pathetic labor movement we got in this great land of ours, they're all waiting for the one, like the Jews waited for Moses. They don't expect the revolution anymore, they're not that stupid. They just want a labor leader who won't make them sick, who won't be found with his hand in the pensions or in bed with the Mob. A mensch-a Gene Debs, a Walter Reuther. A working-class leader, with arms on him." Here he made a fist and pushed back his sleeve to demonstrate what an arm was. His was still impressive; he had acquired it humping sides of beef at a meatpacker's while working his way through college and law school. "Not one of these shifty-eyed bozos in sharp suits they got in there now. And not one of you middle-class well-meaning types either."

"I thought that was the point. The workers get rich, send their kids to college, and give them a social conscience."

"Forget it. We live in a classless society, remember? Social mobility. The ruling class lets a couple of workers' kids win the lottery and this lets them grind the faces of the poor with impunity. 'Hey, they had their chance at the gold ring and they muffed it, so fuck 'em.' Some chance! So the kids go to college, and start working, and they get some money, and have some nice things, they learn how to dress, and talk nice, and before you know it, they're voting Republican."

"That's progress," said Karp with a smile.

"Pish on progress, then! Yeah, it's progress if you win the lottery; everyone else can rot in trailer parks on a minimum wage that wouldn't support a family even if both parents work full-time."

Their food arrived, sandwiches thick as dictionaries, and Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray, in cans, instead of the beautiful brown bottles it used to come in. Sterner took a big bite of his and continued to talk around the wad. "And so everything is fine and dandy, we say. Better than Russia, yeah, but that's some better! The problem is the public is too insulated now."

"How do you mean, insulated?"

"From the concrete realities. Think about it. Take a look around this place." Sterner made a broad gesture. "Every single object you see except the human bodies-all the clothes, the shoes, the tables, the plates, the silverware, the floor tiles, this corned beef sandwich, which by the way is cold in the middle, the patzers used a microwave, and this is not real Jewish rye either- ev-er-y-thing, was made at some stage by a worker using his body, and not only using his body, using up his body. And probably none of the people in this restaurant have a single friend who does that. See, that's the difference between us and them. They consume themselves making the world we live in; they're less every year, just like piles of coal. And they deserve better than what we give them, which by and large is bubkes." He put the sandwich down and examined Karp closely. "What, you're not impressed by my argument?"

"I'm always impressed by your argument. But what's the alternative to what we got now? Socialism? Great idea, doesn't work."

Sterner frowned and extended his jaw like the ram on a trireme. "Listen, do me a favor and don't talk to me about socialism, because you don't know what you're talking about. When anyone says the S-word, you've been trained to think, 'Ugh, Stalin!' You think I'm talking that shit? I spent years fighting Stalinists, and I mean literally sometimes, with this" -again the fist held up-"but I will say one thing for that shithead, for the Soviet Union, their one good deed: They scared the bejesus out of the plutocrats, which was why they let Roosevelt save capitalism, and why they finally legalized unions. Unfortunately, the Reds were too far away to scare our plutocrats enough, which is why we're the only industrial democracy with no real social democratic party. I except the Japanese; who the hell can figure them out? And when the Cold War started, our marvelous union leaders kicked out everyone who had any tinge of socialist leanings, leaving what? Gangsters and turtles. Ostriches! The result? Unions are down to, I don't know, 11 percent of the labor force? The Chinese make half our consumer goods in their sweatshops and two-thirds of our country has no unions at all. That's why Red Heeney was important."

"I was wondering when you'd get back to him," Karp said. "I take it he wasn't called Red just because of his hair."

"No, like I said, he was a true believer. And I'm not going to let them get away with it."

"What's your involvement?"

A sly smile here, a waggle of the hand. "Eh, you know, some phone calls. I'm a kibitzer now. I make suggestions."

"I thought you were a mover and shaker."

"Please. That was years ago. You want some cheesecake? On second thought, they probably ship it in from Korea. What I did do was, I called Roy Orne. A good guy. I knew his dad from the CIO days, a coal union man. So we talked, and he wants to handle it on the state level, but quick and quiet. I said I'd get back to him with some names."

"Wait a second, Saul, slow down. Who's Roy Orne?"

"What, you still don't read anything but the sports pages?"

"And the crimes," said Karp. "Who is he?"

"Dumbbell! He's the governor of West Virginia, that's who! Look, here's the situation. Robbens County, where the murders took place, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Majestic Coal Company. Not only does the company own the union, it owns the district judge, the sheriff, most of the land, all the mineral rights, the congressman, and at least one U.S. senator. This has been going on for eighty years. Clarkesville, PA, was a rough and dirty town, but Clarkesville is Scarsdale compared to Robbens County. It's in a class by itself. You know anything about the history?"

"Not a thing, except what I gathered from Heeney and his wife. Union troubles?"

"More like a war. The first thing you have to know is that when coal got big, back in the 1880s, all the way through to the 1920s, West Virginia had the worst mine safety record of any state. They were able to keep the UMW out of the state until 1902, and even after that, there were whole chunks of it that organizers just couldn't get to. Organizers were arrested as a matter of course, and beaten, all over the state, but in Robbens they were just shot, bang, and sometimes their families, too. Okay, World War One there was a boom in coal, and after the war the operators laid off the miners they'd hired and cut wages. The UMW targeted three counties in southern West Virginia as its top priority-Mingo, Logan, and Robbens. There was a full-scale war in Mingo County. The operators brought in thugs, the so-called detective agencies, the miners armed themselves, dozens of people got shot. Then a couple of miners going to a trial on trumped-up murder charges were assassinated on the steps of the courthouse by company dicks. The miners went crazy. They took hostages. The mine owners and their political allies called in the National Guard-machine guns, tanks. Airplanes dropped bombs on the miners' camps. This is in America, remember. Finally, President Harding, the old fascist, sent in federal troops and the miners surrendered. That was the end of the war and the organizing drive. The coalfields didn't get unions until the New Deal came in. You knew any of this?"

"Some. And I assume the same thing happened in Robbens."

"You would assume wrong. Majestic had two advantages in Robbens: one, they owned the whole thing, all the coal patches. Two, they didn't bring in outside detectives. They used locals, and the locals were a lot worse than the goons. What they did was they fomented a civil war, based on existing feuds. Everyone in those parts has a connection to one of two families. You're either a Cade or a Jonson. Majestic hired Cades to kill Jonsons and Jonsons to kill Cades, and of course, anyone came in from outside got killed just on general principles. They set up a phony union, the Independent Mine Workers, so that by the time the feds got around to investigating, they had everything nailed down. There's no local law enforcement to speak of. This is like Latin America, no difference."

"I don't understand," said Karp. "No one did anything? The state? The feds?"

"No one complained. They were afraid to. Finally, underground mining became unprofitable and they switched to surface mining. The same kind of union, of course. They junked all the underground miners, put a bunch of mostly sick, busted men out to pasture on miserly pensions. But their stock does very well. Majestic's part of AGAM, a multinational commodity operation. Believe me, their corporate officers don't eat at Sam's on Canal. So into this mess walks Red Heeney. He's got two strikes against him-one, he's an outsider. They don't care much for outsiders in Robbens. The other thing is, everyone's scared there. They're used to taking what the company cares to give them, or else. So he performs a little miracle. He goes in there, gets a job driving some kind of big tractor, a bulldozer, whatever. And he starts organizing, finding men he can trust. All this is done secretly, just like in the bad old days, which, by the way, are still going on down there. And not just down there, either. He joins the company union, plays it cagey; for years this is, he's quietly building trust. He's waiting for his chance."

Here Sterner paused and took a sip of his drink, the ice clashing noisily in the glass. His eyes were glittering; he loved to tell a story, as Karp remembered from law school. It was part of what made him such a good teacher.

"So, one day he gets his chance: there's a disaster. The company has all these old impoundments, big ponds, where they keep the water they pumped out of their underground mines. They're supposed to maintain them in perpetuity, but, needless to say, they don't. Also, they're blasting at the strip mines. They're supposed to be limited as to when and where they blast, and how heavy the blast can be, but again, they cut corners. What happens is, they set off a charge and a dam gives way and a wall of water rushes down one of those little valleys, and twelve people die, five of them kids. A whole family's wiped out. Red organizes a meeting at a church, he gives a speech, and believe me, that man could talk! Holy Moses, what a mouth on him! He gets them all stirred up, he mobilizes his shadow organization, and the next day the whole workforce goes out, a wildcat strike, the first strike in Robbens County since 1921. And, alevai! The company backs down. It's finally dawned on them it's not 1921 anymore. Red's a hero. At first they figure they can coopt him. He plays along, acts nice. Then, this year, he challenges this dirtbag Weames for the presidency of the union. Of course, they steal the election. But Red comes to me, I go to Labor. I still have some clout there, not much, but I use what I have. They're going to contest the election, send in investigators."

Sterner stopped, shook his head. Suddenly, but just for a passing instant, he looked his age. "What a waste! And I consider it partially my fault. I encouraged him. I honestly, so help me, did not think they would stoop to this."

"You're pretty sure it was them?" Karp asked. "The union?"

"No question," said Sterner with finality. "All right, Governor Orne's got a problem. He's a decent guy, but if you're the governor of West Virginia, you can't just spit in the face of Big Coal. On the other hand, he needs to show the state he's not a coal company patsy either. He needs a victory where the bad guys are really, undeniably shits. But if the feds come in on this, if it's a big national story, he's essentially out of the picture. He's got political assassinations happening and he can't cope by himself? He looks like a patzer. Not to mention, we got a U.S. AG in there now who's not exactly a friend of the working man. So let's say Orne does it himself. He's still got a problem. His own legal apparatus has been lying down for Big Coal for years. It's his first term, he's not sure who he can trust. Also the state's attorney in Robbens is a kid. Orne put him in there, true, but he's not up to this kind of case, this kind of pressure. The governor wants to send in a special prosecutor."

Karp nodded. "That seems like a good idea."

"It is a good idea. My good idea, as a matter of fact." Sterner looked at Karp expectantly. "Well? What do you think?"

"I told you. I think it's a good idea."

Sterner wrinkled his nose and looked upward. "No, no! I mean doing it. You doing it. You think I'm buying corned beef sandwiches-even mediocre corned beef sandwiches-just so a fella can tell me I got a good idea?"

"You're serious?"

"Of course, I'm serious. I told Roy about you. He thinks you'd be perfect. Superb reputation, all the right skills, no local interests…"

"No license to practice law in West Virginia," added Karp, "no knowledge of the laws and procedures thereof, no interest in doing it. Plus I have a job."

Sterner's eyes seemed to drift away from Karp's for a moment. Could that be a tinge of embarrassment?

"Well, as to that," said Sterner, "I talked to Jack. He's all for it."

"You talked to Jack?" Karp asked coldly. "Before you talked to me?"

"It came out. We were at a party thing the other night, meet and greet with some little Kennedy. Your name came up and I mentioned this thing and… you know how people discuss."

"Actually, I don't. I never go to meet and greets. But I'm not surprised that Jack is less than reluctant to let me go for a long stroll through the woods. I put him in a situation he'd like to slide out of, and he can do it a lot easier if he doesn't have to look me in the face every day." Here Karp summarized for Sterner the business with the congressman, the pimp, the pimp's girlfriend, and the hapless Bailey.

To Karp's surprise, "So what?" was Sterner's reply. "You want this fella, you'll get him on the next round. He's not going to go away. Although you force me to say that your target has a first-class voting record on labor issues."

"Saul, he fucking takes money from a pimp and a murderer," said Karp, loud enough to draw glances from the surrounding tables.

"Yeah, and pimping is bad and murdering is bad and bribery is bad, and worst of all are infractions of an election statute that nobody understands in the first place. And you know what? Pimping and murdering and bribery went on before you got there, and believe you me, they'll be there a long time after you go."

"Saul, stop it…"

"No, listen to me! Every year, I used to look out into the lecture hall on the first day of my litigation class and I would think to myself, another bunch of embryo shyster assholes. Ninety-five percent of them were going to end up with the three-car garage and the Jags and the Guccis. I wasn't interested in them; I was looking for the few that had a real passion for the law, a real understanding for what it meant to the human race. I didn't find all that many, sad to say, but you were one of them. I kind of hoped you still were."

"Sorry, I'm a shyster asshole, too, now, and I don't even have a Jag."

Sterner did not return Karp's smile. "Butch, be serious! This is a major thing here. This is epic. It's bringing the relief of law to a bunch of people who have hardly known what law is. It's freeing the serfs, for crying out loud. Are you telling me you can't do it because you're more concerned with pinching a guy who took a little dirty money?"

Karp raised other objections; Sterner countered them. Karp felt himself rolling. He was no mean arguer himself, but he understood that he was up against one of the great negotiators of the twentieth century, a man who had reportedly wrestled Lyndon Baines Johnson to the mat more than once. It was like batting against Nolan Ryan, almost an honor to be struck out.

Why am I sleeping in bloody sheets? Marlene asked herself, and immediately the answer came: because I am in the bed where Lizzie was murdered. She tried to move and found she couldn't; something was holding her down. The killers. She felt a thrill of terror and struggled to move. A heavy weight was resting on all her limbs; she screamed. The weight diminished. She was in a dim room. There was a shape there, a man. She let out a little shriek and felt on the bedside table for her key ring.

She lit the little Maglite attached to her keys. Dan Heeney, dressed in a faded bathrobe, blinked in its beam.

"Marlene, are you all right?"

She dropped the beam. "Yeah, I'm fine." She was in fact in Lizzie's room, but on a new bed with fresh bedclothes.

"You were screaming. I thought…" He hefted the pistol in his hand.

"No, just a nightmare. What time is it?"

"Around four."

"Oh, great! I must have woken you up. Sorry."

"No, I haven't been sleeping much lately."

"I bet. Why don't you put that thing down?"

He dropped the pistol into the pocket of his bathrobe. Its weight pulled the robe ludicrously down on one side. He made no move to depart, and he looked so woebegone that she said, "Pull up a bed. I'll never get back to sleep now." She yawned and stretched. He sat gingerly on the corner of the bed.

"So, what do you do when you're not sleeping?"

"Oh, I'm on the Net mainly. Talking to people, insomniacs and people in other time zones. Reading physics. Trying to find answers."

"To physics?"

"No. Just stuff." A self-deprecating laugh. "Religion. Life after death. I can't believe they're just, you know, gone." It was dim in the room, the only illumination coming from a baseboard night-light, a white plastic duck. His face was a blur, but she could feel his eyes on her. "Do you… I mean, are you like Lucy? You know, heaven and hell and all that?"

"And purgatory. I guess I'm what they call a recovering Catholic. You are not religious at all, I presume?"

"No. The opiate of the people. My mom was. I caught her a couple of times in their bedroom, with her eyes closed and her hands clasped, like in those pictures. Praying, I guess. But she kept it to herself. He was so down on it and there were enough things that got him pissed off, she probably figured she didn't need one more." He let out a long breath. "So, the deal is what? They're all in hell according to you?"

"Actually not. The Church teaches that we can't tell for certain anyone's in hell who doesn't really want to be there. We think it's presumptuous to try to second-guess the mercy of God. What we have is the assurance of heaven if we live a certain kind of life. That's not the same thing as saying people who don't live that kind of life are going to end up frying."

"Why would anyone want to be in hell?"

"The same reason lots of people manufacture a hell on earth. Sin. Evil. Why would you think they'd stop just because they're dead? They might not even know they were in hell."

"But you think that, assuming heaven exists, we'll, like, be reunited with our loved ones when we die? Like in the gospel songs on the radio?"

"You know, I am absolutely the wrong person to talk to about this," said Marlene, a little more sharply than she meant to. "Lucy could give you chapter and verse. My take is, it's either nothing-in which case, who cares? We experience nothingness every night of our lives and it doesn't bother us. Or it's an indescribable adventure, full of the ineffable pleasures of the beatific vision, in which case, whoopee!" This last was delivered in a light tone, to which he did not respond.

He shook his head, as if to clear it of something sticky. "I just feel this pain; not all the time, but sometimes I'll just be going along and it hits me. They're dead! It's like taking a shot to the belly. I have to sit down and catch my breath. Is that ever going to go away?"

The line "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" floated for an instant through Marlene's mind, but she banished it. She feared being hypocritical more than nearly anything, and so she said, "I don't know, but I think finding who did it and nailing them would be a good first step." Did she really believe this? That was the problem: What did she believe anymore? She sat up in bed. "And, as long as we're up, why don't you let me get dressed and I'll get started on the laws of your fine state."

He shot to his feet. "Um, sorry." He went to the door. At which he paused and asked, "You think I should call Lucy? I mean, would she mind? I don't feel like talking to anyone from around here. They're all, I don't know, involved. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think calling Lucy would be a good idea. Making a gigantic pot of coffee would be another one. Also, you can find me the number of the nearest television station."

By eight, Marlene was washed, combed, dressed, caffeine-wired to the gills, and pounding on the door of a frame house on Maple Street, McCullensburg. The house belonged to Ernest Poole and needed a coat of paint. And a mowing out front. No answer, front door locked, so she went around the back, jiggled open the cheap lock, and went in with her dog. A smell of garbage in the kitchen, and the remains of a Colonel Sanders on the greasy table. Poole himself had not made it up the stairs last night. She found him in a club chair in the dusty living room, a neat pool of vomit between his feet and an empty bottle of Harper stuck upright between his thighs, like a transparent erection. After making a quick recon of the ground floor, she found a carpet runner in the hall and tipped the man out of his chair onto it. He groaned and twitched, but did not shed his stupor. The floors were hardwood, worn and smooth, so she had little trouble dragging him down the hall to a bathroom. She got him into the tub in sections, upper body first and then the legs. The mastiff looked on with interest, having licked up the vomit while Marlene was thus engaged, and hoping for more.

Poole writhed like a bug on a grill when the cold water hit him and sat up, banging his head on the tap. It took a moment for his eyes to focus. When they did, they fixed on Marlene, at first in stunned amazement and then in fury. He clambered to his knees and shut off the water.

"You! What the hell are you doing in my home?"

"I'm helping you get ready for court this morning, counselor," she said brightly.

"You're trespassing. Get out!"

"Gosh, and here you invited me in. That's not trespass."

"I did not invite you."

"Yes, you did, the other day. Don't you remember? I thought we had a good understanding. Oh, no! Don't tell me you forget everything that went on."

His eyes shifted. His brow wrinkled with the effort to recall.

"Why don't you take off your clothes and have a nice, soothing shower, and shave. I'll make you some breakfast. We have plenty of time to be in court at nine-thirty." She flounced out.

She found coffee, but the milk was sour. The bread was stale. Butter had he none, but she found a jar of strawberry jam in the back of the nearly bare refrigerator, which, when scraped of its interesting fungal cultures, did for smearing across the toast. She produced a tall pile of this, perked the coffee, and set the table. In the cabinet above the stove she located the inevitable reserve bottle and poured a shot into a mug of coffee. Next, a quick dump and wipe in the kitchen; not for nothing had she raised three children and a husband of more than usual sluttishness.

He came in dressed and clean-shaven, if red-eyed, smelling of Listerine and some old-fashioned lilac cologne. He looked around the kitchen suspiciously. His glance drifted to the cabinet above the stove.

Observing this, she said, "It's in the coffee. That's all you get until after court."

He sat down. He took a long swallow of the spiked coffee, closed his eyes, sighed. "Would you mind telling me why you're doing this?"

"I need you. Isn't it nice to be needed? I'm converting you temporarily from a dysfunctional drunk to a functional one, like half the people in the country. After this business is resolved, I'm out of here, and you can finish converting your liver into Silly Putty and die. It's nothing personal. Eat some toast while it's warm."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat some anyway. Your body needs calories and carbs. You should take some B vitamins, too."

He took a piece, nibbled it. Finishing one, he took another, and another. She sipped coffee and watched him. "See? Advice from one who knows."

He regarded her balefully over his cup. "A functional drunk?"

"Extremely. Why do you drink, by the way?"

"Why do you?"

"To quell my rage and my sympathies," she said. "I see cruel, malevolent people getting away with murder all around me and I want to stop them. Not to put too fine a point on it, I want to kill them, and I'm good at it. My options are being either a sober and happy murderess or a slightly stoned mom and businesswoman. I raise and train dogs, and I have three lovely children and a husband. I wish to retain them and their affection, which I can't do if I'm my real self. Now you."

After a silence he said, "I killed my wife."

"On purpose?"

He stared at her, his mouth a little open. "Of course not! It was a car accident. We were driving home from a Christmas party in Charleston. The roads were slick and it was foggy. I ran right into the rear of a truck carrying pipe. The pipe came through the window and hit Sheila. She was decapitated. I didn't have a scratch. She was six months pregnant and happy as a horse in clover. It was a really great and loving marriage. That sad enough for you?"

"Yup, that's pretty sad."

"Can I have another drink?"

"Not until after court, counselor. It's not that sad."

"Tell me something," he said after his eyes dropped. "How did you get to be such a colossal bitch? Was it heredity, or did you work on it over the years?"

"It took a lot of work. When I started out, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth," she replied without rancor. "You finished with that? Excellent! Let's go." This was good, she thought. If he hated her, it might move his mind off its dead center. He might even get mad enough to kick some butt in a courtroom.

It was wide and high, paneled dark and painted white. Its Georgianglass windows were open to catch any breeze, and through them, besides an actual grassy breeze, there came the sounds of light traffic, a lawn mower, and farther off, someone practicing scales on a trombone. Small town, thought Marlene, this is what it would be like practicing law in a small town. The only discordant note was a television crew-a cameraman, a sound technician, and a reporter with spray-fixed hair and tan blazer. Every seat in the courtroom was occupied, in the main by the sort of people who occupy seats in courtrooms the world over-retirees and idlers of a certain stripe-but there was also a contingent of hard-looking younger men in one of the back rows. Unlike the people in New York courtrooms, she observed, all of these were white. Moses Welch was there, at the defense table, blinking amiably, his moon face untroubled by complex thought or obvious fear. At the prosecution table was a burly man in his late twenties wearing a blond crew cut and a cheap blue suit. On his face was the overly serious expression of a young man who wishes thereby to acquire gravitas. This was, Poole informed Marlene, the state's attorney, Stanley Hawes. Marlene nodded politely to him. He seemed surprised at this, but, after an awkward pause, nodded back. The judge entered. As she rose with the others, Marlene had to stifle a giggle. Judge Bill Y. Murdoch was practically a caricature of a corrupt judge; he could have walked out of a Daumier, lacking only the little round cap that French judges wear. He was pink, plump, beautifully barbered, with a boar's snout, a carnivorous slash of a mouth, and small avid eyes set off by dark eyebrows pointed like chevrons.

The judge spent a few moments speaking with some court officials and a very fat man in a tan uniform, pointed out to Marlene as J. J. Swett, the county sheriff. Murdoch kept looking up at the TV crew. He did not look pleased to see them. After the sheriff and the others had dispersed, Murdoch stared down at Poole and rattled some papers in his hand.

"Ernie, you mind telling me what this is all about."

"They're motions, Judge," said Poole, getting to his feet.

"I know they're motions, Ernie. I can read. I mean why are they being filed at this date? I thought we had agreed to a disposition of this case. And you're changing your plea to not guilty?"

"Yes, Judge. What's happened is the defendant has a new counsel, a co-counsel, actually, who has a different idea as to how the defense should proceed."

Murdoch inspected the papers again. "That's this Kee-ampi fella?"

Marlene rose. "That's Ciampi, Your Honor. That's me and I'm not a fella."

A rustle of titters in the courtroom. Murdoch banged his gavel and glared them down and glared particularly at the cameraman, who had switched on his lights.

Murdoch turned his glare onto Marlene. "And what exactly are you doing here, Miss Ciampi?"

"I'm representing the defendant, Your Honor."

"He already has counsel."

"Yes, and he decided to retain additional counsel."

The dark eyebrows compressed in a scowl. The judge made a summoning motion. Poole, Marlene, and Hawes approached the bench.

The judge said, "All right, what's going on here? Ernie, you know Mose Welch can't hardly decide which flavor of ice cream he likes. How the hell can he opt for new counsel?"

"You declared him competent to stand trial, Your Honor," said Poole. "He can aid in his own defense, and choice of counsel runs along with that competence."

Murdoch's color rose. "Ernie, damnit, whose side…" He stopped short; no, he couldn't really say that. He turned his attention to Marlene. "And what's your interest in this case? A do-gooder, are you?"

"Not at all, Judge. I am an attorney licensed in the state of New York, and I was a friend of one of the victims, Rose Heeney. Her sons called me and asked me to defend Moses Welch."

"The victim's sons called you? They're paying for this?"

"No pay is involved, Your Honor, but, yes."

"Would you mind telling me why the victims want to get the murderer off?"

"Because he's not the murderer," said Marlene.

"He confessed to it," said Hawes.

"Yes," said Marlene, giving the prosecutor a mild look, such as elementary-school teachers give pupils who are trying very hard. "And as you see, we're moving to suppress the confession. My client was kept incommunicado for fourteen hours, his family was kept from him, and he was coerced into signing a document he could not read by the promise of ice cream. He now repudiates his confession."

"There was no coercion," said Hawes, "and I resent the implication that the confession was obtained through force of any kind."

"Force isn't necessary," said Marlene. "We're not arguing from Brown. We would argue from Spano that the offer of any substantive good desired by the person in custody, whether food, or reading materials, clothing, or any ordinary or extraordinary privilege, as a quid pro quo for confession, is coercive per se, especially after an all-night interrogation, as was the case here. Also, given the defendant's mental abilities, his waiver of his right to counsel is highly suspect under Tague."

Hawes stared at her, perhaps trying to remember who Tague was.

Judge Murdoch frowned again and looked up at the TV camera. "All right, all right. I'll hear arguments now." He waved them back to their places.

Marlene began. Her essential argument was from Tague v. Louisiana, a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the burden was on the state to demonstrate that the defendant understood his waiver of the right to counsel. Moses Welch had the mind of a five-year-old, which any reasonable person observing him could see. He should have been treated like a five-year-old therefore, and no confession should have been elicited from him without the presence of his family and legal counsel. The bribery of the ice cream was in violation of the Supreme Court decision in Spano v. New York, in that the combination of the all-night session, the denial of contact between a childlike prisoner and his family, and the bribe combine to produce an inherent untrustworthiness.

In his rebuttal, Hawes cited Connelly, in which the Supreme Court ruled that even if the mental incapacity of the defendant is the cause of the confession, due process is not violated absent police conduct causally related to the confession. He called J. J. Swett as a witness. Swett, a moonfaced porker with beetle-black eyes, long silver locks, and lobe-long sideburns, took the stand and lied that there had been no bribe of ice cream. Marlene did not bother to cross-examine. Murdoch denied the motion with obvious relish.

Marlene argued the next motion, to suppress the key evidence in the case, the bloodstained boots. She had not expected much from this and was not surprised when it was denied. She also applied for reduced bail, on the grounds that Mose Welch could not drive, had no money, and was hardly a flight risk. This was also denied. Swift justice in Robbens County, Marlene thought as she gathered her papers. In the real world, sometimes judges took a couple of days to reach a literally judicious decision on motions of these types, but not here apparently.

Three strikes, then, but Marlene still felt some satisfaction, and this increased after her interview with the young man in the tan blazer. She figured that justice in Robbens County was not used to the glare, its usual habit being to crawl around under damp rocks, and she had no compunction about accusing the county of trying to railroad a helpless mentally handicapped man because they were too stupid or too lazy or too corrupt to search for the real killers. She hoped that at least five seconds of that would that evening bounce out of space down through every dish in the county.

She walked out of the courthouse with Poole.

"See what I mean?" said Poole.

"Oh, I thought we did okay. They're on notice that we intend a real defense. In my experience with small-town cozy corruption, that tends to shake them up. They'll make mistakes, which we will capitalize on. You didn't doze off at any rate."

"No, but I intend to shortly. I intend to sink into my accustomed alcoholic stupor. Care to join me?"

"No, thank you. Before you collapse, I'd appreciate it if you'd assemble all the discovery material we asked for. I'm particularly interested in any crime-scene photos and a sense of where these bozos looked before old Mose dropped into their laps."

Poole was shaking his head. "You still don't get it, do you? Motions? Discovery? The bottom line is still, they get what they want. They like to get it with all the legal niceties if they can, but if they can't, if you block them there, they'll get it anyway. You see those cars?"

He pointed to a Mercedes sedan and a Land Rover parked in the stalls nearest to the courthouse curb. "The Merc belongs to Judge Murdoch. The Rover is Swett's. Both vehicles each cost more than the annual salaries of their owners. We are not subtle about corruption in Robbens County. Unsubtlety is in fact the point. The message is, play along and you get taken care of. Don't play along and you also get taken care of, which is the message of what happened to Red Heeney and his family. The Heeney murders are not going to be investigated and the murderers are not going to be caught, tried, and convicted."

"We'll see about that." Marlene reflected that she had used that line rather too much lately.

Poole flapped his hand weakly at her and turned away. "Go home, Ciampi," he said over his shoulder. "Go back to America."