Beach Road

Chapter 64. Raiborne

WHEN I NEED to work something out, I don’t go to a shrink like Tony Soprano. I wander into Fort Greene Park and sit down across from an impenetrable Methuselah of a chess hustler named Ezekiel Whitaker. That way I can think instead of talk, and sit outside instead of being cooped up in a shade-drawn room.

It suits me better, particularly on an Indian summer Sunday afternoon with the last brown leaves rustling sweetly in this Brooklyn park.

“Your move,” says Zeke impatiently as soon as my butt hits the stone bench. For Zeke, time is money, just like a shrink. Zeke has a face that looks as if it were carved out of hard wood and the long, graceful fingers of a former migrant fruit picker, and me and him, we’ve been going at it alfresco for years. So I know I got my work cut out for me.

But when I snatch his rook right out from under his haughty nose ten minutes into the game, I have to crow about it.

“You sure you’re feeling all right, brother man?” I ask. “Cold? Flu? Alzheimer’s?”

I should have kept my mouth shut, because of course, that’s when my mind leaves the board and circles back to work and the name chalked on the dirty blackboard of the precinct house. Instead of concentrating on how I might solidify my position on this chessboard and teach this old goat some much-needed humility, I think about Manny Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s unsolved murder has been eating at me for weeks. Every time I walk into the precinct, his name admonishes me from the board.

I never for a second bought that story the papers put out about a feud between Glock, Inc., and Cold Ground, Inc. Thing is, rappers are too hotheaded to make good assassins, and this killer didn’t leave a trace. Not only that, but Rodriguez, who picked up lunch and ran out in the rain to put quarters in the meter, was too low on the food chain to make any sense as a target.

Rodriguez was a gofer, or as us chess masters like to say, a pawn, and as I ponder that, Zeke reaches across the board with the precision of a pickpocket and plucks my queen off her square.

“Take her, Zeke. I never liked the bitch anyway.”

Now a win is out of the question, a draw unlikely, and the board looks like a big rusty steel trap waiting to clamp shut on my ass. If I had any dignity I’d resign, but I came here to think about Rodriguez anyway, so I’ll let Zeke earn his money while I try to earn mine. As I do that, Zeke sweeps through my ranks like Sherman went through Georgia. He picks off my last bishop and knight, and when my castle drops among all my other casualties, he says, “I guess you don’t have to worry yourself about my deteriorating mind no more, Connie.”

“That’s a relief.”

The end is swift but not particularly merciful, and like always, it reminds me of some Latin rumba-check, check, check, checkmate.

I pry open my wallet and hand Zeke a twenty and still feel better than I have in weeks-because I finally got an idea about who might have killed Manny Rodriguez.

Chapter 65. Raiborne

I HATE CALLING “Corpseman” Krauss on a weekend, but not so much that I don’t do it. He agrees to drive in from Queens, and when I pull into the fenced-in lot behind the morgue, he’s already there, sitting cross-legged on the hood of his Volvo. Except for the burning ciggie hanging from his mouth, Krauss looks like a little Buddha.

“Thanks for coming in,” I tell him.

“Keep your thanks, Connie. The in-laws have been over since Friday night. I was praying you’d call.”

We trade the sun-filled parking lot for beige linoleum corridors, which are even quieter than usual. We head to Krauss’s office, where he reads me the ballistics report on Rodriguez.

When he’s finished, I say, “Now do me a favor, Kraussie, and call up Michael Walker’s report.”

Walker is the teenager we found murdered in his bed three blocks away, about a month before. I’m thinking that maybe the two are connected. I know there are superficial similarities between the two, but I’m after something more specific and telling than the fact that both were essentially executed at close range at night in the same neighborhood.

But as Kraussie reads off the two lists of bullet calibers, bore size, etc., nothing matches up. Even the style and make of the silencers are different.

“The logic is different too,” says Krauss. “I mean, it’s not that hard to understand why Walker, prime suspect in a triple homicide, might get his ticket punched. But a messenger who had never been in any kind of trouble? That’s some domestic thing, or who knows what.”

“Or maybe they’re so different they have to be connected.”

We each grab a report and read through them again in the deep, depressing silence you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere other than a morgue on a Sunday afternoon.

Neither of us can find a damn thing worth discussing, and finally it’s the ocean-floor silence, so deep it’s deafening, that drives us back out into the sunshine and our so-called lives.

Chapter 66. Tom

ON MONDAY EVENING Kate and I go to Barnes Pharmacy to check out the new January mags. Like any media-savvy couple, we grab copies of Vanity Fair, New York, and The New Yorker and hustle them back to my car.

At Sam’s we get a table in the back room and spread out our glossy booty, the luxe, shiny covers sparkling like showroom sheet metal. Kate grabs New York and slides Vanity Fair to me. On page 188, Dante looks up at me through prison bars. It’s a devastating photograph, capturing Dante’s youth and fear, and also the false bravado that attempts to conceal it.

In all of the magazines, his face has been lit to make his skin appear darker. Race and the Hamptons are a winning newsstand combination, and they’re milking it for all it’s worth.

On top of everything else, it’s kind of nice to be here with Kate. Almost like a date. For the next hour, we read our mags and slide them back and forth, stopping only for a bite of artichoke-and-bacon pie or a gulp of cold beer. The New Yorker piece, accompanied by a stark black-and-white photograph that makes Dante look like a dancer or a pop star, is quite short, but Dominick Dunne’s, in Vanity Fair, and Pete Hamill’s, in New York, are ten thousand words easy, and both are fair, even sympathetic, to Dante. Every major theme Kate planted on the phone, from racism to an overzealous prosecution team to the rumored drug use of the victims, has bloomed into stylish, glossy print. To see it all spread out on the table, particularly since so much of it is little more than rumor, is a bit overwhelming.

Even more so is the amount of space given to the “courageous pair of young Montauk-born-and-raised attorneys” who have made the brave decision to represent the accused killer of their old friends.

I had no idea Kate and I were going to be such a big part of the story.

Dunne describes us as “a red-haired Jackie and a burlier JFK” and writes that “even Dunleavy’s Boston terrier, Wingo, is ridiculously photogenic.” According to Hamill, “their chemistry is not imagined. In their teens and early twenties, the two were a couple for more than five years.” Both Vanity Fair and New York run the same snapshot of us taken after a St. John’s victory in 1992.

“It’s a good thing everyone in town hates us already,” I say. “Because this is beyond embarrassing.”

We pay up and untie Wingo from the bench out front. Wingo seems to be adjusting quite well to sudden fame but is bothered by a foul burning smell in the air. As we walk to the lot behind the restaurant, a pumper truck from the East Hampton Fire Department races by.

The smell gets stronger, and when we round the corner of the white stone building, we see that what the local firemen have just put out was my car. Or what’s left of it.

All the windows have been smashed, the roof ripped off, and on the passenger seat is a soggy, charred stack of glossy magazines.

Chapter 67. Tom

WHETHER IN DOWNTOWN Baghdad or downtown East Hampton, a burned-out shell of a car is a riveting sight, even if the smoking remains are yours. For a while, Kate, Wingo, and I stare at it, transfixed. When it gets chilly, we retreat to Sam’s again, where we have a pair of Maker’s Marks on the rocks, and I give Clarence a call.

“A bunch of rednecks out here,” says Clarence when we return to the scene and he sees what’s left of my once-trendy convertible.

Then we all pile into his big yellow wagon, and he gives us a lift to Mack’s place in Montauk.

“Tom loved that old car,” Kate says to him, “but he hardly seems fazed at all. I’ve got to admit, I’m almost impressed.”

“Hey, it’s just a car. A thing,” I say, pandering for a little more of Kate’s respect.

The truth is, even I’m surprised by how little I care about the car. More than that, seeing it smoking in the lot made me feel kind of righteous.

Once we’re on the road, Clarence is somber, and his face and posture still bear the terrible effect of Dante’s arrest and the upcoming trial.

“Clarence, it may not look like it,” I say, “but things are turning our way.”

“How you figure that?”

“Those magazines burning on my front seat are filled with stories that are going to help us win this case. Even my car is going to make a great picture and will open people’s eyes to what’s happening out here.”

But nothing I say registers on Clarence’s face. It’s as if whatever optimism he has been able to muster and cling to over the course of a hard lifetime has been exposed as bunk.

On this Monday night in January, the Ditch Plains neighborhood is quiet and dark. Not Mack’s place, though! It’s lit up like a Christmas tree, and when we pull up, Mack stands in the doorway in his raggy plaid bathrobe. Two police cars are just leaving.

“Oh, no!” cries Kate, and jumps out of the car. But Mack, who’s got his walking stick in one hand and a scotch in the other, won’t hear of it.

“It’s nothing at all, darling girl,” he says. “Just a pebble through the window. At my age, I’m grateful for whatever attention I can get.”

Despite Mack’s protests, I insist on leaving Wingo with the two of them. A sweet-natured pooch who hasn’t met a face he didn’t want to lick isn’t much of a watchdog, but at least he’ll make some noise.

Then I get back into the car with Clarence. “You hear that shite Mack was saying to Kate on the porch,” I say with my best Irish brogue. “No big deal, darlin’ girl. Just a pebble. It’s the same shameless tripe I was saying about my car ten minutes ago. That son of a bitch is after my girl, Clarence, and we’ve got the same strategy.”

“You better keep an eye on the old goat,” says Clarence, almost smiling. “I hear he’s been stockpiling Viagra. Buys it over the Internet in bulk.”

“That’s not even close to being funny.”

Chapter 68. Tom

I DON’T LIKE leaving Kate at Mack’s, but she insisted she’ll be okay, that they’ll be okay. The thing is, I wish that Kate would stay with me tonight. I’ve felt that way for a while, and it’s driving me a little crazy, but especially after what’s just happened.

It feels strange to enter my house and not hear Wingo scamper on down the long, dark hallway, to not hear the jangle of his collar against his metal bowl or his tongue slurping up water.

Along with the dogless quiet is a faint metallic odor I can’t quite identify. Unpleasant, like dried sweat. Maybe it’s me. It’s been a long day.

I follow the hallway into the kitchen, grab a beer, and stare through the sliding glass doors at my backyard. I still don’t care that much about my car, but the intensity of the town’s hatred toward Kate and me is getting me down, particularly because I realize it’s never going away.

I’ve got two choices: the couch and some cathode rays, or the vertical pleasures of a hot shower. I opt for the shower, and as I walk back to my bedroom, that same metallic scent stops me in the hall.

This time it’s even stronger, so I guess it can’t be me.

Then I realize what it is. It’s the smell of fear, and then a floorboard creaks, there’s an urgent rustle of fabric and a rush of movement, and a large fist hits me square in the face.

Blood pours out of my nose, and the force of the punch throws me into whoever is standing behind me. He hits me too. My elbow digs a grunt out of the bastard, and the next half minute is the red-hot chaos of flying fists, elbows, and knees. This is my house, my hall, and even outnumbered, I like my chances, right up till the moment I start to go down.

I’m on the ground taking kicks to the head and ribs when a voice cuts through the pain. “That’s enough, I said! That’s enough.”

But I can’t say for sure if I’m hearing it, or thinking it, or praying it.

Chapter 69. Kate

WITH THE RUCKUS Wingo is raising in my car, it’s hardly necessary, but I grab the wrought-iron ring and deliver three hard raps to Tom’s front door.

It’s eight in the morning, so Tom has to be in the house, but neither Wingo’s barking nor my steady banging gets a response. I’m guessing he’s in the shower.

A towing service has dropped off what’s left of Tom’s car in the driveway, and Wingo and I walk around the burned-out shell to the backyard.

The sliding doors off the patio are locked, but I can see inside the house well enough. A living room chair has been knocked over. So has a bookcase.

I dial Tom’s cell and get his voice mail, and I’m starting to panic, when on the far side of the house, Wingo barks as if he’s treed a fox.

I race over and find him howling at a small shed off the kitchen.

The door has been left open. Inside are two tattered folding chairs and a musty beach umbrella. I call Tom’s cell again, with no more luck than the first time.

I hadn’t told Tom I was going to pick him up, so instead of breaking in, or calling the police just yet, I cling to the hope that he arranged a ride with Clarence. I shove Wingo back in the car and race toward our office in Montauk.

With everything going on in my head, and the steep early morning sun in my eyes, I very nearly hit a cyclist pedaling furiously along the shoulder of the road.

Only when Wingo yelps deliriously and tugs at my sleeve do I see in the rearview mirror that the man on the bike is Tom. I brake to a stop, then back up in a hurry.

My relief is enormous, but it only lasts as long as it takes me to see his face. One eye is completely shut, the other raw purple. There are welts and cuts on his neck and ear, and a jagged gash over one eyebrow.

“Two guys were waiting for me when I got home,” says Tom. “I mean, four guys.”

“You call the police?”

“Didn’t see the point. Like Mack said, it was more symbolic than anything.”

“It’s not a good idea to get hit in the head like this every couple of months. Concussions can be dangerous, Tom.”

“Tom? Is that my name?”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s pretty funny.”

“It is pretty funny actually.”

“I’m getting better with age, Kate, admit it.”

“You left yourself a lot of room for improvement.”

I stop at Barnes Pharmacy for disinfectants and sterile pads, tape and bandages. Back at the office, we clean the cuts. I do my best to remind myself that this is a slippery slope and that I didn’t take this case to hook up with Tom Dunleavy one more time. But beneath it all, I guess I’m just a sap, because I’m also wondering how smart it is to hold a grudge against someone based on how they acted when they were twenty-two, and if there isn’t a statute of limitations on bad behavior.

Chapter 70. Tom

AT THE OFFICE the next day, Kate writes up some interviews we did around the apartment where Dante was hiding out in New York City. Meanwhile, I pull the file on the.45-caliber semiautomatic pistol found behind the diner the night Dante turned himself in. In some ways, it’s the prosecution’s most persuasive piece of evidence.

So how can we use it?

The file includes five black-and-white, eight-by-ten photographs of the weapon, and I lay them on the table. According to Suffolk County Forensics, there was one set of prints on the handle, and they’re a perfect match for Michael Walker; ballistics tests prove the weapon was used to kill all four victims. But Dante swears he’s never seen the gun before.

“It’s not even close,” Dante told me in that first long, grueling session in Riverhead. “Michael’s gun was small, cheap, a Saturday-night special. This is a real gun. Twice the size and a different color. You were there, bro.”

It’s true. I was standing right next to Walker as he held the gun to Feif’s head, and if anyone could accurately describe the revolver, it should be me. But I never looked at it, made a point of not looking at it actually, and that’s why I was able to get him to put the thing down. I pretended the gun didn’t exist, that we were just two reasonable guys having a conversation on a Saturday morning.

But it’s the circumstances by which the gun was found that are particularly suspect. “If Dante kills Michael in Brooklyn when they say he does,” I say, half to Kate, half to myself, “he had plenty of time to get rid of the murder weapon. He can dump it in Bed-Stuy somewhere, or toss it in the East River. Instead he hangs on to it so he can throw it away at the last minute behind a diner in Southampton?”

“What’s the name on the police report?” asks Kate.

“I don’t recognize it,” I say, trying to read the signature on the bottom. “Looks like Lincoln . The first name begins with an h. Harry, maybe.”

Chapter 71. Tom

THE DESK SERGEANT tells me the officer’s name is Lindgren, not Lincoln, first name Hugo, and he’s working nights this week.

After locking up our office, Kate and I head to the barracklike station house and loiter by the back door, hoping to catch Lindgren as he arrives for his shift.

After being up for the last twenty hours, there’s not much left in me. Actually, I’m burned to a crisp, but I’m still not sharing that info with my partner.

“After we’re through here,” I say, stretching my legs and glancing at my Casio, “I think old Wingo and I are going to take ourselves a little run. Help us fall asleep.”

“Tom, you’re so full of shit it’s frightening.”

“Nothing ambitious, an easy fifteen, sixteen miles in the sand with boots on.”

An old Jeep rolls in, and a former friend of mine named John Poulis hops out. Then Mike Caruso, another former friend, shows up on his Honda. At this point “former” describes most of my friends, and both cops stare through us as if we’re made of glass.

The next car into the lot is a shiny silver Datsun Z.

“Pretty sporty for thirty-four grand a year,” I say.

“How do you know how much he makes?” asks Kate.

“Let’s just say that if the admissions director of St. John’s Law School hadn’t been a hoops fan, I might be arriving for work myself right now.

“Officer Lindgren?” I call out, and the stocky brown-haired man stops in his tracks. “Could we talk to you a couple minutes?”

“That’s all I got. I’m late already.”

I do the introductions, and then Kate takes over.

“That anonymous call that came in about the gun,” asks Kate, “did it go directly to you or the main switchboard?”

“Directly to me,” says Lindgren.

“Is that normal? For an anonymous tip to be directed at a specific officer?”

“How should I know what’s normal? What are you getting at?”

“I’m trying to prepare a case for my client, Officer Lindgren. It’s pretty standard stuff. Why are you getting all defensive? What’s the problem here? Am I missing something?”

Watching Kate effortlessly rattle Lindgren’s cage will definitely go on our highlight film for today.

“What I mean is,” she continues, “isn’t it odd that a caller who knows who he’s talking to would be so anxious to conceal his identity?”

Lindgren adjusts his tone from combative to condescending. “Not at all. The caller is doing something frightening-getting involved in a murder case and potentially making dangerous enemies. That’s why every police department in America has an anonymous hotline.”

“But the caller didn’t use the anonymous hotline. He called you directly.”

“Maybe he’d seen me around. Maybe he felt more comfortable calling me. Who the hell knows? Anyway, kids, that’s all I got time for. Some people have to work for a living.”

“So the caller was a man,” says Kate. “You said he.”

“Did I?” says Lindgren, and practically walks through us into the back of the police station.

Five minutes later-when Kate drops me off at my place-a silver Mini Cooper is parked behind what’s left of my XKE. As I hop out of Kate’s car, the driver gets out of the Mini. Now what?

He’s about twenty-five, Indian or maybe Pakistani, and, if it’s the kind of detail that interests you, ridiculously handsome.

“I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience,” says the visitor, who introduces himself as Amin. “I’ve been sent by my employer to deliver an invitation to each of you, and lucky day for me, I’ve found both of you at once.”

“How’d you know who we are?”

“Everyone knows you two, Mr. Dunleavy.”

Amin presents us with two envelopes made out of the paper equivalent of, I don’t know, maybe cashmere. Our names are scrawled across them in dark-green script.

“Can I ask the name of your employer?”

“Of course,” says Amin with a practiced deadpan. “Steven Spielberg.”

Chapter 72. Loco

IF THE BW is going to keep me waiting every time we get together to talk business, I’ve got to do the same to the folks working under me. How else will they know where they stand in the pecking order?

So even though I see Officer Lindgren on the bench behind the East Deck Motel, I circle the block and let the cop cool his heels. That’s what the BW does to me, right?

This makes Lindgren crankier than usual, and when I finally sit beside him in the shade, he doesn’t bother to look up from his Guns amp; Ammo.

“I pegged you more for House and Garden or O.”

“You’re late.”

“Unavoidable,” I say. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

“Halleyville’s lawyers, for one thing. They cornered me last night at the station. That snotty Ivy League bitch was all over me.”

“About what?”

“Why the call about the gun came directly to me and not through the main switchboard.”

I laugh, but it’s not that funny. “She’s just fishing in the dark.”

“I don’t think so. They’re onto something, and what I’d like to know is what are we going to do about it?”

“Not a thing. You expect me to kill somebody every time you get a heart palpitation? If you were the worrying type you should have stuck to the police manual and stayed away from drug-dealing slime like me. Give me your hand.”

“You a fag or something?” Lindgren says, and snorts out a laugh.

“Not that I’m aware of. Open your hand.”

You shouldn’t be a drug dealer if you don’t believe in the healing power of modern pharmacology, and when Hugo unclenches his fingers, I fill his palm with a dozen lovely white Vicodins.

“These little fellas will chill your ass out.”

“I think we got a real problem,” says Lindgren. “And I thought you’d want to be the first to know. But I’ll keep an open mind.”

And with that, Lindgren lays two Vicodin on his tongue, slips the rest into his shirt pocket, and marches off to fight crime in the Hamptons.

Chapter 73. Tom

I GUESS THIS is what you would call a high point, and actually, it is. At the very least, it’s a much-needed break for Kate and me.

Amin greets us as if we’re old pals and leads us through a succession of huge, airy rooms adorned with Picassos and Pollocks even I can recognize. Then it’s back outside to a flagstone terrace with endless views of Georgica Pond. I’ve thumbed through the mags with mansions shot like centerfolds, but maybe the real stuff never gets photographed, because this is way beyond that.

On the terrace a small cocktail party is in full swing, and the moment we step into it, Steven Spielberg, looking far more accessible without his baseball cap, disentangles himself from a nearby conversation.

“Tom! Kate! So wonderful to finally meet you,” he says as if only the most unlikely of circumstances could have delayed it this long, and waves over waiters bearing champagne and oysters.

“We feel the same way, Steven.” Kate grins so that I’m not really sure about her point of view here.

“To new friends then,” he says, “and, of course, to Dante Halleyville’s successful defense.” His bright, merry eyes light up as we take our first sip of his champagne. When I say “his,” I mean that literally, since it comes from his own Northern California vineyard.

Ten feet away, in front of a three-piece combo, a gorgeous black woman in a floor-length dress sings, “Just in time, I found you just in time,” and the air is full of silvery murmurings. Yet it’s obvious as the whiskers on Spielberg’s chin that Kate and I are the center of attention.

Then Steven-we’re on a first-name basis now-raises one hand as if he’s just remembered his hostly obligations and says, “Come! Let me introduce you.” We follow him from the periphery to the white-hot center, where the evening quickly slides from over the top to Twilight Zone.

“George and Julianne,” says Steven, “I’d like you to meet Kate and Tom.” And now we have no choice but to shoot the breeze with George Clooney and Julianne Moore, both of whom are as electrically on as if they are sitting on the hot seat next to Letterman, Leno, or Jon Stewart. Just as we’re getting slightly comfortable, it’s time to meet Clive Owen and Kate Winslet, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, and Ashley Judd. The only unrecognizable face we’re introduced to belongs to Alan Shales, whose Oscars are for screenwriting.

There are fewer than a dozen guests on the terrace, but they’re a sizable chunk of A-list Hollywood. They can’t all just happen to be in the Hamptons this weekend, particularly at this time of year. When I can’t resist asking about it, Steven says, “I flew them in this afternoon.”

A half hour later, we’re shepherded to a second terrace where a table has been set, and for the next two hours, Kate and I take turns answering questions about ourselves, our backgrounds, and the case. I guess we’re entertainment, the flavor of the month that Spielberg, on a whim, has decided to share with a dozen pals.

But that doesn’t make sense either. These actors and actresses are professional acquaintances of his, colleagues not buddies. And why are they all staring at Kate and me so intently and hanging on our every word as if there’s going to be a test on us the next morning? I swear I’m not making this up, but as I’m saying something about the case, I notice that Clooney and Damon are holding their hands like I do and sinking into their chairs with the same slouch.

Is that something actors do unconsciously, or am I being mocked? Or both? And then it comes to me. The movie about this case is already moving toward production. Steven has signed on, but everything else is up for grabs. What George and Julianne, Julia and Kate and Clive are doing at this glam gathering is auditioning.

To play us.

Chapter 74. Kate

ALL VISITORS TO the Riverhead Correctional Facility are welcomed with a hospitable placard:

GIVING MONEY, FOOD, OR ANY OTHER CONTRABAND TO AN INMATE IS A FELONY PUNISHABLE BY UP TO A YEAR IN JAIL. IF YOU ARE CAUGHT BRINGING CONTRABAND INTO THIS FACILITY YOU WILL STAY HERE.

Tom and I have walked past it umpteen times, but this morning, Tom nudges me and clears his throat.

“Whatever,” I say.

Five minutes later, after stashing our money and keys and passing through metal detectors and locked-off checkpoints, we are back in the tiny attorney’s room that has become our second office.

But this isn’t going to be a normal workday, and when Dante steps into the room, I point him to the chair in front of the Mac PowerBook on what’s normally my side of the table. Then I close the door behind me.

“Dante,” I say softly, “we know it’s your birthday Sunday, so we’re giving you a little party.”

As Dante flashes a smile of surprise and affection I won’t forget if I live to be a hundred, Tom slips a pair of headphones over his head. He hits a key on the computer, and I turn off the lights.

“Happy birthday, Dante!!!” marches across the screen to a hip-hop beat, and Dante taps his feet with delight. It’s pretty amateurish. As auteurs, Tom and I have a ways to go, but after we stumbled out of Spielberg’s backyard a couple weeks ago, we figured Dante could use a break from reality too.

Following the birthday greeting, the brand-new, not-yet-released Jamie Foxx movie, which we procured with considerable help from our new best buddy, fills the computer screen, and Dante, eighteen or not, smiles like the kid he still is. As the opening credits roll, I open my briefcase and hand Dante an important legal document. That’s not strictly true. What I hand him is a small tub of popcorn. I read the sign. I know it’s a felony, but it just isn’t a movie without popcorn.

Two hours later, when our feature presentation comes to a close, Tom hits the Return key one last time. Among the countless things Dante has been unfairly denied over seven months is the dunk contest at the NBA All-Star Game. No more. Last night we downloaded it into my laptop, and for the next fifteen minutes, I watch Dante and Tom shake their heads and whisper astute commentary like “Nasty!” and “Sick!” and “Ridiculous!”

I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun, and I realize that my whole world is inside this little room.

Chapter 75. Dante

I DIDN’T THINK it was possible. Not in this hellhole. Not walking down a long, nasty tunnel, wrists and ankles in chains, locked up for something I didn’t do.

But I actually feel good. Instead of thinking about how messed up everything is, about my broken-hearted grandmoms back in her trailer, I’m thinking about what Kate and Tom did this morning. It makes me feel warm inside.

I guess you live in your head more than anyplace else. If your head is in a good place it doesn’t matter quite as much if the rest of you isn’t. For the first time since I got here, time doesn’t feel like a stone I got to drag from one end of the day to the other. It feels like it can pass by on its own.

The tunnel taking me back to my cell runs some two hundred yards before reaching the stairwell up to my cell block, and because of how unusual the morning’s been, it takes me half of that to notice that the guard, whose name is Louis, is kind of quiet today. What’s up with that? Most of the time, Louis is a chatterbox, always wanting to talk hoops and tell me about all his old-school favorites from the eighties and nineties, but this morning, when I actually feel like talking, he’s not saying a word. I realize it must be tough, being a prison turnkey.

“I got to use the bathroom,” says Louis. “I’m going to leave you for a minute.”

“Whatever. I’m in no hurry.”

Louis bolts the chain running from my ankle to a pipe along the wall, and when I see his expression as he steps into the bathroom, everything comes together in a rush. I know what’s happening.

Then I hear heavy footsteps coming fast from the far end of the corridor.

I try to reach for the fire alarm five feet away on the wall, but the way Louis has me attached to the pipe I can’t reach it. Then I try to rip the pipe off the wall, but I can’t move it, hard as I yank.

A voice from inside a nearby cell cries, “Run, youngblood! Run!” But how can I run with my hands and feet in chains? Too late for that. I can’t even grab the fire extinguisher from the wall. The answer has got to be somewhere in my head. The answer has got to be somewhere, and it better come fast.

The pounding footsteps are louder now, and when I look down the corridor again, I see they’ve sent a brother to do the job. A big brother. He fills the corridor like a subway coming through a tunnel.

And now I can see his face-it’s no one I’ve seen before-and something shiny is in his right hand.

I can only take three steps, but it’s enough to reach the bathroom door, the one behind which Louis is hiding right now, waiting for this to be over so he can jump out and pull the alarm.

I don’t bang on the door like a desperate man who is about to die. I tap on it real soft with my knuckles, like the one who has just done the killing, and I whisper in a strange voice-“Louis, it’s done.”

Then I step to the other side of the door real quick. I also start to pray.

My killer is less than ten feet away, close enough for me to see that he’s looking scared too. And I need for him to see that I’m every bit as big as him, and my fists out front let him know I’m not going down without a fight. That makes him pause for a second, but just a second.

Then he takes one more step, with his knife held out in front of him like a spear. He lunges at me with the shiv just as the bathroom door opens, and as I duck down, Louis steps out.

The killer is so startled it gives me time to spring up from my crouch, and holding my fists together, I hit him right under his chin. I catch him solid with all I got. It knocks him out cold and sends the homemade knife clattering to the ground at his feet.

Even with both hands and feet manacled I could reach the knife and kill the thug they sent to kill me, but despite what some people think, I haven’t killed anyone yet and don’t plan to start now.

Chapter 76. Raiborne

THE FACT THAT there’s nothing in the forensic reports linking the murders of Michael Walker and Manny Rodriguez helps me keep my mind off the two dead men for a while. Then I start to get nuts again. I call Vince Meehan. Vince, who runs the evidence room, gives me the number of the individual who picked up Rodriguez’s silver crucifix, empty wallet, and packed iPod.

It belongs to a twenty-three-year-old waitress named Moreal Entonces, and a few hours later, I’m at the counter of a trendy Cuban diner in Nolita listening to Moreal tell me her and Manny’s life story.

This one’s sadder than most. Not just because Moreal and Manny had a cute eighteen-month-old daughter, but because she really believed in the guy. And the guy actually may have been worth believing in.

“Manny had talent,” says Moreal, whose caramel skin is the same color as the flan she puts down beside my coffee. “But he couldn’t catch a break.

“That’s why he was at Cold Ground,” she continues. “Manny was an artist, but he was working as a gofer for free. Not even that. He bought sandwiches and coffee with his own money sometimes, all on a chance that a big-shot producer would give him four minutes of his precious time.

“And what happens when a producer finally does agree to hear his song? Manny gets shot in the back of his head the night before, caught in the middle of some nonsense he had nothing to do with.”

“What was the song? The last one?” I ask her.

“‘Arroz con Frijoles’: ‘Rice and Beans.’ And that track was something. For real.”

“Is that what your name means, Moreal? More real?”

“That’s good. I might even borrow it. But no. In Colombia, where I’m from, Moreal is like Mary or Martha.”

I nurse my café con leche and scan the pictures of Cuba on the wall-beautiful, ornate streets filled with big-finned American cars from the fifties. I let Moreal decide when her story is over, and it’s another ten minutes before I ask the one question I came here to ask.

“Moreal, I know this may sound ridiculous, but had Manny been spending time in the Hamptons?”

Chapter 77. Raiborne

NOW I FEEL as if maybe I’m pushing the envelope too far, even for me.

The next morning, instead of driving to the precinct house in Brooklyn, I take the Grand Central Parkway to the Northern State and follow the signs for Eastern Long Island. Two hours later, I’m rolling through the shade of the biggest, oldest elms I’ve ever seen into downtown East Hampton.

Since it’s my first time out here, I squeeze my Taurus between a starter Porsche and a bright-red Ferrari and have a look around.

It’s Main Street USA. I’m two hours from Bed-Stuy, but I feel as though I’m on some kind of National Geographic expedition, like Darwin in the Galápagos. I’d buy a notebook and jot down my impressions, except there’s no place to buy one.

The only things for sale seem to be cashmere, coffee, and real estate. Shit, there are more real estate agencies here than bodegas in Brooklyn. In two blocks I count seven, all in white clapboard houses with cute, preppy names: Devlin McNiff and Brown Harris Stevens.

But there’s nothing cute about the prices under the black-and-white photographs, eight-by-tens, like the ones Krauss takes in the morgue. Twenty million for something grand, four million for something nice, and $950,000 for a shack on an eighth of an acre. Is that possible?

When I tire of walking, I check out a “bodega” called the Golden Pear Café, where oddly enough everyone behind the counter is Hispanic, like in a real bodega. I pick one of the six kinds of coffee and a four-dollar slice of angel cake, and take them to a bench out front.

The coffee’s way better than I’m used to, the pastry beats the hell out of a Hostess Twinkie, and there’s something about the light out here. But there’s so much money dripping off of everything I can’t tell where the town ends and the money begins. Instead of wasting any more time figuring it out, I cut myself a break and spend the next ten minutes warming up in the sun and smiling at the girls walking by, suddenly remembering life’s too short to do much else.

Chapter 78. Raiborne

THE EAST HAMPTON Police Station isn’t quite as idyllic as the sidewalk outside the Golden Pear. To my disappointment, it looks like a police station-squat and grim and overcrowded and sweaty. Three beefy, Irish-looking detectives are stuffed into one room. The chief detective, the youngest of the four, has got his own little office, the size of a small closet.

“Make yourself at home,” says Detective Van Buren. He dumps the contents of one chair onto the floor. “We’ve been about to move to new headquarters for two years now.”

I wasn’t expecting much civility, and I don’t get any. Just typical cop shit. Who wants a visit from a big-city cop who’s going to look at him like he’s some kind of pretend cop? But Van Buren seems like any other young, ambitious detective, and there’s nothing pretend about the bodies piled up in his backyard.

“I’m here,” I say, “because about a month after Michael Walker got shot I investigated the murder of Manny Rodriguez, a rapper who was also shot. Yesterday I found out he also had been hanging out at Wilson ’s place. That makes five dead bodies connected to Wilson ’s court.”

“A starting squad,” cracks Van Buren, and I have to smile because I think it might help me get somewhere with him.

“An all-dead team,” I say.

“You probably should be talking to Suffolk County Homicide. After the first couple weeks, they’ve been running the show out of Southold. But since you came all the way out, I’ll be glad to drive you over to Wilson ’s place.”

I leave my black banged-up Taurus in the lot and get into Van Buren’s black banged-up Crown Vic, and we drive to the good part of town. Soon we’re in a neighborhood that makes Main Street look like the projects.

“Through those hedges,” says Van Buren, “is Seinfeld’s place. Stole it from Billy Joel for fifty-six mil. Just up that road to the left is where Martha Stewart used to live.”

“This is all very interesting, but where the black folks live at?”

“We’re almost at Wilson ’s place right now,” says Van Buren, turning onto a particularly wide country lane called Beach Road.

Van Buren unlocks the police chain on the rustic wooden gate, and we take the long driveway toward the ocean. The basketball court is also locked, but Van Buren has the key for that too.

“Were you the one who talked to Wilson originally?” I ask.

“No.”

“One of the other detectives?”

“No one talked to Wilson.”

“Three local kids are piled up on his lawn. Another deceased individual shows up afterward, and no one feels it’s necessary to talk to Wilson?”

“Ahh, no. That’s not the way we do things out here.”

I look around the estate, but other than the spectacular ocean views, there’s not much to see, or make notes on.

Eventually, Van Buren and I are standing on the veranda of the massive house, which, he says, is for sale.

“I’m a little pressed for cash right now,” I tell him.

Van Buren laughs, and actually, we’re getting along fairly well under the circumstances.

“There’s one name that’s come up,” he finally says. “Local dealer who calls himself Loco.”

I nod, scratch my head some. “You talk to this Loco?”

“Nobody’s been able to find him.”

“Mind if I try?”

Chapter 79. Raiborne

WHAT’S WRONG WITH this messed-up picture? Three days ago I was kicking back in the Hamptons. Now I’m in NYC, on my hands and knees on the floor of a beat-up surveillance van eyeing the entrance of a take-out joint in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Soon as I got back to the city, we leaned on a network of junkie snitches to see what could be learned about a drug dealer named Loco.

The name didn’t mean a thing to several lowlife informants, but we found out that on the last Monday of the month, a major dealer drives in from the Hamptons and replenishes his supply from the Colombians operating out of a take-out place in South Williamsburg.

It’s called Susie’s Wok, and for the last two hours, I’ve had a pretty good view of its side door as a parade of tattooed hipsters in skinny black pants and old-school sneakers comes and goes. Remember when arty white kids like Hemingway went to Paris to write a novel? Well, now junkies from Paris come to Williamsburg to start a rock band.

The DA’s office has been doing surveillance on the Colombians for months, running wiretaps, working up to a major sting. So we can’t touch Susie’s. All they’ve cleared us to do is watch out for Loco. If there is a Loco.

If we spot him, we can follow him back to the LIE and pull him over for a traffic violation or something.

That’s if Loco shows at all.

I haven’t seen a single nonjunkie come up to Susie’s door in hours, and my knees are killing me. When I see a lumbering Hasidic Jew sneak in for an illicit fix of outlawed swine-I guess we all got something we’re afraid of getting busted for-I call it a wasted day and follow him in.

After staring at Susie’s Wok all day, I’m starving for some fried pork myself.

Chapter 80. Loco

ON MONDAYS, WHEN I make my pickup in Brooklyn, I leave the Tahoe at home and get a loaner.

“Weekenders” not due back till Friday are generous enough to leave a fleet of cars for me to choose from at the railroad station. Today, I select a ten-year-old off-white Accord so generic it’s practically invisible. After thirty seconds to pick the lock and hot-wire the ignition, I’m off to Crooklyn.

The cops have their network of snitches, and I got my network too. Actually, it’s the same network. I just pay a little better and play a lot rougher.

They tell me Susie’s Wok has been getting a lot of attention lately. Something about too many cops spoiling the Wok, so when I get there, I circle the block a couple times to scope things out.

The first time I drive around, everything looks copacetic to me.

The second time, I notice this white van parked a little too conveniently across the street. The third time by, I can see that the van’s blacked-out windows are a lot newer than the banged-up body.

If I had the IQ of a piss clam, or an iota of criminal discipline, I’d turn around and keep going, but I spent three hours getting into makeup and wardrobe, and in my gray-flecked beard and side locks, I barely recognize myself. So I park a quarter of a mile away, put on my wide-brimmed black hat and baggy black jacket, and head back to Susie’s Wok on foot.

I know my disguise is kosher because on the four blocks back to Susie’s two guys dressed just like me wish me “Good Yontif,” and a cute little Hasidic mommy gives me the eye.

Inside Susie’s, my man Diego is pacing impatiently outside his little back office.

“Shalom,” I say.

“Shalom to you too, my friend,” says Diego, nervously looking at his watch.

“When I say shalom, I truly mean shalom. It’s not something I’m just saying.”

That gets Diego’s attention, and he stares at me warily before a faint smile sneaks across his lips.

“Loco?” he whispers.

“This would be true, my friend.”

Behind closed doors, our transaction is handled with brisk efficiency. Twenty grand for Diego and his people, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of goodies for me. The drugs are packed up in little cardboard boxes and metal take-out tins, with a handful of menus scattered on top.

It’s a good thing too, because as I step out the door I almost bump into a large black guy whose carriage and black leather jacket shout NYPD.

“Good chow?” he asks.

“The best,” I say, and keep on stepping. I don’t even let myself look in the rearview mirror until my take-out and I are out of Williamsburg and back on the LIE.

“Lo-co!” I shout at the windshield of the stolen Accord. “You da man!”

Chapter 81. Tom

IT’S FRIDAY, JUST days before the start of Dante Halleyville’s trial, and the first buses filled with protesters arrive in East Hampton just after dawn. The people out here are about to understand the scale of this case, its national implications.

The buses aren’t Jitneys, the tall, sleek air-conditioned models that drop queerly dressed Manhattanites at quaint bus stops up and down 27. They’re a rolling armada of rusted-out school buses, long-retired Greyhounds, and dented-up vans. There are hundreds of them, and they come from as far north as New Hampshire, as far south as the Florida Panhandle.

Like a medieval army laying siege, they stop just outside of East Hampton. Early arrivals fill the field across from the Getty station, and when it can’t hold any more, the protesters fan out onto the tony south-of-the-highway streets that lead to the water.

At noon, a mile-long column, twelve people across, marches into town, and East Hampton’s two perpendicular blocks, where you could go a week without seeing an African American, are overwhelmed with thirty thousand mostly black protesters-men, women, and children.

They are waving homemade signs that read FREE DANTE HALLEYVILLE! and STOP LYNCHING OUR TEENAGERS! They’re everything East Hamptonites are not-loud, unself-conscious, and angry.

The crowd marches past the hastily boarded-up windows of Cashmere Hampton, Coach, and Ralph Lauren. They turn left on Newtown Lane and file past Calypso and Scoop and Om Yoga until they reach the middle school.

There, frantic police and just-arrived National Guardsmen steer them across the street into the park.

A low stage has been set up in the infield of the softball diamond in the far corner of the twenty-acre field, and Reverend Marvin Shields, in a dazzling white three-piece suit, grabs the mike.

“No justice!” bellows Shields.

“No peace!” reply thousands of voices in unison.

“I can’t hear you,” shouts the reverend, one cupped hand to his ear.

“No peace!”

“What was that?”

“No peace!”

“We’ve got a very special guest here this morning,” Shields says. “A man who has proved himself to be a friend time and again, a man who now works out of an office in my neighborhood in Harlem, the former president of the United States, Mr. Bill Clinton!”

President Clinton saunters onto the stage to a deafening roar, and for a full minute, he waves and smiles, as comfortable in front of this enormous, mostly black crowd as if he was in his backyard. Then he puts one arm around Reverend Shields and grabs the microphone with the other.

“Welcome to the Hamptons, y’all,” he says. “Nice out here, ain’t it?”

Chapter 82. Tom

BILL CLINTON IS still talking when Kate takes my hand and pulls me away. East Hampton can burn for all she cares right now. We have a capital murder defense to prepare, and we’re still way behind.

The road back to Montauk is so empty it’s as if the eastern tip of Long Island has been evacuated. The ride with Kate brings back memories of our days together when we were younger. We used to hold hands all the time, and I want to reach out for Kate’s hand now. But of course, I don’t, which makes it even worse. When we get to Montauk, there’s not a single car in the parking lot outside our office.

Aided by the unlikely quiet, Kate prepares a folder on every witness we might call to the stand, and I attempt a first draft of our opening statement. At one point, she gives me a little hug. I don’t make a big deal out of it, even though I don’t want it to end.

The historic sense of the day is inspiring, and the sentences and paragraphs begin to flow for me. But Kate is underwhelmed. When she slides back the draft, half of it is crossed out, the rest festooned with notes. “It’s going to be great, Tom,” she offers as encouragement.

Grateful for standards higher than my own, I churn out draft after draft, and until a car pulls into the empty lot outside, I have no sense of the time. I suddenly notice that the afternoon is long gone, and our one window has turned black. In fact, it’s close to 10:00 p.m.

Car doors open and slam shut, and then heavy footsteps clomp up the steep stairs. It sounds as if there are three or four people coming, and based on the creaking, they’re all large and probably males.

I reach for the baseball bat I’ve been keeping beside the desk and look over at Kate. She returns my nervous smile and shrugs, but the glint in her eye says, “Bring it on.”

Chapter 83

Tom

THE HEAD THAT pokes through the door doesn’t belong to a drunken local lout. It’s Calvin Coles, the minister at Riverhead Baptist. Calvin has been over a couple times in the last few months and apologizes for the lateness of the visit as two other formidable black men, both wearing dark suits, follow him into the room. The heads of all three nearly scrape the low ceiling.

Coles smiles awkwardly and introduces his companions, as if it’s necessary. One is Reverend Marvin Shields, the other Ronnie Montgomery, the dapper black attorney who became a celeb after winning the acquittal of former Major League Baseball star Lorenzo Lewis for the murder of his wife.

“I’ve got some very exciting news,” says Reverend Shields, stepping forward and clasping my hands in both of his. “After some serious cajoling and arm twisting, Mr. Montgomery has generously volunteered to take over Dante Halleyville’s defense.”

“The trial starts in a few days,” says Kate, her voice calm, her eyes red hot.

Ronnie Montgomery responds with a condescending smile. “Obviously, I’m going to ask for an extension,” he says. “And I have no reason to believe I won’t get it.”

“Have you spoken to Dante?” I finally say.

“I wanted to come here first,” says Montgomery, “as a professional courtesy.”

Montgomery takes in our modest office, conveying with a shrug what it suggests about our inappropriateness for this huge case and about our chances in the upcoming trial.

“I know you mean well, and I’m sure you’ve worked terribly hard. And both of you are welcome to stay on to help with the transition. But you’re way out of your depth here, and Dante Halleyville deserves more.”

When Montgomery serves up another condescending smile, I’m kind of sorry I put down that baseball bat.

Chapter 84. Tom

THE NEXT MORNING as Kate’s Jetta pulls into the lot behind the Riverhead Correctional Facility, Ronnie Montgomery’s black Mercedes limo pulls out. This is the end of the line for us. It’s like arriving for your last day of work to find your replacement already sitting in your chair, cleaning out your desk.

But Kate and I adhere to our routine. We park in our spot, exchange pleasant greetings with Mike and Billy at the front desk, and stash our watches and keys in locker number 1924.

For presumably the last time, Sheila, the only female guard at the maximum-security jail, who has somehow worked here twenty-three years, escorts us through the sliding steel gates into the purgatory of the attorney rooms. Dante, having just met with Montgomery, is already there.

He looks at his feet and says, “We’ve got to talk.”

Kate and I sink into our seats at the small metal table. I bite my tongue and wait for the ax. I haven’t felt this awful in a long time.

“I just had a visit from Ronnie Montgomery,” says Dante. “The brother that got off the baseball player Lorenzo Lewis.”

“He stopped by our office last night,” says Kate.

“Then I guess you already know he’s offered to take the case. He said he hasn’t lost a trial in fifteen years.”

“Might be true,” says Kate.

“He said that this is the most important decision I’ll ever make. That I need to take some time with it.”

“What’d you say?”

“Time’s up, Mr. Montgomery. I already lost ten months in here. I know what I got to do.”

“Which is what?” I ask.

“You got to understand this ain’t personal. Lorenzo Lewis’s clothes were smeared with his wife’s blood. When the cops arrived he locked himself in his bathroom, took thirty sleeping pills, and called his mama. Montgomery still got him off.”

“That was a unique case,” says Kate, “but we won’t take it personally.”

“You sure?”

“For Christ’s sake, Dante, what did you tell him?”

“I told him, no thanks, bro’. I like the lawyers I got.

“You think I’m crazy?” says Dante, pointing a long finger at Kate and smiling as though she’s just been Punk’d. “I hire Montgomery, and everyone, including the jury, is going to assume I’m as guilty as Lorenzo Lewis. Plus, I figure Montgomery used up his luck for three lifetimes on that other case. Kate, you crying on me, girl?”

Chapter 85. Kate

DANTE’S GRANDMOM MARIE bows her head and reaches for my hand, which I gratefully give her.

“Thank you, Lord, for the abundance we are about to receive,” she says. “Thank you for the strength to endure this terrible, terrible ordeal and most of all for delivering such dedicated attorneys as Tom and Kate. Bless this meal, oh Lord, and please find it in your heart to keep an eye out for my grandson Dante. My innocent grandson. Amen.”

Saturday evening, two days before the trial, and every friend Tom and I have left sits around Macklin’s dining room table. With only Mack and Marie; Tom’s brother, Jeff, and nephew Sean; Clarence and his wife, Vernell, there’s plenty of leg and elbow room.

“To this time next year,” says Mack, raising a glass and trying as always to lighten the mood. “When Dante sits next to us, stuffs his face, and tells barely believable tales of Shaq and Kobe, Amare and LeBron.”

The guest list for the meal is short, but the table groans under a rarely seen combination of Caribbean and Irish standards. After almost a year in near isolation, the company means more than the food to me. But the food is wonderful too. We’re in the process of eating way too much of it when the ringing of Tom’s cell pierces the room. “I better answer it,” he says.

He pulls it from his pocket and raises one hand in apology as the blood drains from his face.

“We’ve got to turn on Fox News,” he tells everybody.

Half of us are already in the living room with our desserts, and the rest shuffle over and twist a chair to face Mack’s antique Zenith. Sean finds channel 16 just as the anchor turns it over to a field reporter.

“I’m live in Queens,” says a perky blonde, “directly across from St. John’s Law School, alma mater of Tom Dunleavy, cocounsel in the capital murder trial of Dante Halleyville. According to documents just obtained by Fox, Dunleavy, a star basketball player at St. John’s, was accepted into the law school despite grades a full point below the admission minimum.”

“Quite a scoop,” says Macklin, snorting.

“Despite graduating in the bottom fifth of his class,” continues the reporter, “Dunleavy was hired by the Brooklyn Public Defender’s Office, where he received mediocre evaluations.

“The most troubling allegation, however, is that in 1997, Dunleavy had someone take the Law Boards for him.

“According to copies of the test obtained by Fox and examined by independent handwriting experts, Dunleavy’s exams, on which he scored surprisingly well for a student with his grades, were taken by someone who is right-handed. Dunleavy, a two-time All-American, is left-handed.

“If this is true, Dante Halleyville, who faces capital punishment and whose trial begins in forty-eight hours, has put his life in the hands of someone who is not even a lawyer.”

Chapter 86. Tom

AT 9:00 P.M. the following night, the somber-faced clerk for Suffolk County Supreme Court judge Richard Rothstein waves me, Kate, and District Attorney Dominic Ioli into his well-appointed chambers, where we take our seats at a long mahogany table.

Ioli, a loquacious career pol with a full head of gray hair, makes a couple stabs at idle chatter, but when he sees we’re in no mood, he abandons the effort and thumbs through his Times. I know this much about Dominic Ioli-he’s a whole lot smarter than he looks, and he rarely loses.

When Judge Rothstein strides in, wearing khakis and a button-down white shirt, his penetrating black eyes and long sharp nose tell me I’m exactly the kind of dumb Irish jock he’s got no time or use for.

Bypassing pleasantries, he turns to Ioli and asks, “What’s your office’s position on this, Dominic?”

“We haven’t had time to fully assess the charges,” he says, “but I don’t think it matters. Whatever decision this court makes should be beyond reproach. If defense stays on, we leave the door wide open for appeal. Assigning new counsel will require a delay, but it’s better to spend that time now than to have to come back and do this all over again.”

“Sounds reasonable,” says Rothstein, and turns his eyes on me. “Dunleavy?”

I’m prepared to argue forcefully, but I have no intention of getting down on my knees for anyone. “Your Honor, the grades and evaluations are what they are,” I say in an offhanded tone. “But I’m sure in your career you’ve come across at least a couple of excellent attorneys who weren’t brilliant law students. For all I know, the district attorney is one of them.”

Encouraged by the hint of a smile in Rothstein’s eyes, I barge ahead.

“So the only charge that matters is that I had someone take the Law Boards for me, and that’s absolutely false. Here’s a copy of X-rays of my left wrist, taken the night before I took the boards, and here’s a record of my visit to Saint Vincent ’s emergency room April 5, 1997.

“I was playing a pickup game at the Cage in the Village that night and took a hard fall. I could have gotten a medical extension, but I’d spent months preparing and, frankly, at that point, wasn’t sure I wanted to be a lawyer. I decided to take them right-handed and let the scores decide for me.”

“You telling me you passed the bar writing with your wrong hand, Dunleavy?”

“I don’t have a wrong hand. I’m ambidextrous.”

“The multiple choice maybe, but the essay?”

“It’s the truth,” I say, looking straight into his eyes. “Take it or leave it.”

“We’ll see,” says Rothstein, and slides a legal pad across the table. Then he reaches behind him and blindly grabs a book off the shelf.

“You’re in luck, Dunleavy-Joyce’s Ulysses. I’ll dictate the first line, you jot it down right-handed as fast as you can. Ready?”

“It’s been seven years since I’ve had to do this.”

“What do you care? You don’t have a wrong hand. Ready?”

“Yup.”

“‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan,’” reads Rothstein with pleasure, “‘came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.’”

I scribble furiously and slide the pad back.

“Now I know why you went to your right so well, Dunleavy,” says Rothstein, the smile in his eyes moving down to his thin lips. “Your handwriting’s better than mine. By the way, I made a couple phone calls this afternoon, and it turns out this rumor came out of the offices of Ronnie Montgomery. I’ll see you in court tomorrow morning.”

“But, Your Honor,” says Ioli.

“I’ll see you too, Dominic.”

Chapter 87. Kate

DRAINED BY THE test in Rothstein’s chambers, Tom slowly drives my car through Riverhead toward the Sunrise Highway. Neither of us says a word.

The full moon lights up the road, and some of that light spills onto the front seat where Tom’s right hand lies on the armrest between us.

To be honest, I’ve always loved Tom’s strong hands, with their thick, raised veins running from his battered knuckles to his wrists. In two decades of basketball, every finger has been dislocated so many times that not one of them is straight. They’ve become a kind of relief map of his life revealing everything he’s been through.

Without really thinking about it, I lay my hand on his.

Tom’s hand jumps, and he looks at me, stunned. Then, just as quickly, he turns away. Why’d I do it? I’m not really sure. It could have been for the balls and charm he showed winning over Rothstein and pulling victory out of his hat one more time, or maybe it’s everything the two of us have been through in the last year. Or, I’ve just wanted to do it for months.

But I don’t regret it-and to let Tom know it was no accident but an intentional piece of insanity, I wrap my fingers around his.

For the next half hour, the car is filled with a very different kind of quiet. “I’ll pick you up at seven thirty” is the only thing Tom says the whole way, but by the time he pulls up in front of Mack’s house, I feel as if we’ve been talking for hours.

“Get a good night’s sleep,” I say, and hop out of the car. “You did good, Tom. I’m proud of you.”

And that makes Tom smile in a way that I haven’t seen since we were both kids.