Bullet Point

16

“Are you saying he was innocent?” Greer said.

“Wouldn’t go that far.” A tear rolled out of Morrie Wertz’s droopy eye, but he didn’t look sad, more annoyed, if anything. “No one’s innocent-not even a newborn babe, don’t fool yourselves. I’m talking about-” He made that gulping sound and went silent. His good eye got a faraway look; the bad one closed up even more. Oxygen hissed. Somewhere in Hillside Breeze a beep-beep-beep started up.

Wyatt and Greer crouched in front of Wertz’s chair. “Maybe we should call somebody,” Wyatt said.

Greer shook her head. “They’re like this,” she said.

Wertz gulped again. His bad eye quivered open a bit. “Reasonable doubt-that’s all I’m talking about. Understand the concept of reasonable doubt?” He looked at Greer. “You do, but what about Mister Handsome over here?” He turned his head, glared at Wyatt. “How come my goddamn legs hurt so much if I can’t even use them?”

“I don’t know,” Wyatt said.

“You should be a doctor,” said Wertz. He nodded to himself. “Booze destroys brain cells, but are they still in there, dead and black, or do they get flushed out? Am I pissing brain cells? I ask myself these questions.”

Greer rose, leaned against the wall. “What about reasonable doubt?”

“That’s an easy one,” Wertz said. “Reasonable doubt means inventing some crackpot story and making sure there’s at least one crackpot citizen on the jury to swallow it.”

“So what are you saying?” Greer said. “He wasn’t innocent, but you couldn’t come up with the crackpot story or a crackpot citizen?”

“Finding crackpot citizens is a snap,” Wertz said. His good eye blinked a few times. “Who are we talking about?”

“Christ,” said Greer, her voice sharpening; Wertz flinched. “Sonny Racine.”

“You blame me for losing that one?” Wertz said.

“Is that what happened?” Greer said.

Wertz shook his head. “Sonny Racine lost it himself.”

Wyatt didn’t understand any of this. “So he was guilty?” he said.

“I thought so when I first looked at the file,” Wertz said. “But then he insisted on taking the stand, testifying. Which was how he lost the case-a crazy thing to do, against counsel’s strong advice, although counsel wasn’t at his strongest at the time. The DA was practically salivating, tore him apart on cross. Sonny Racine gave himself a life sentence. See what I’m saying?”

“No,” Wyatt said.

“Nurse! Nurse!” The man in the other bed suddenly cried out. Wyatt jumped up, his heart pounding. The man was still on his back, eyes still closed, looked as though he hadn’t moved.

“Lid on it, you sack of shit,” said Wertz, not turning to look. The man began to snore again.

“I jumped a mile,” said Greer.

“That’s Mr. Coffee,” said Wertz. “Just ignore him.”

“What did that mean,” Wyatt said, crouching down again, “Sonny Racine gave himself a life sentence?”

The good eye was back on him. “You’re not completely stupid, are you?” Wertz said. “Course the girlfriend here’s smart as a whip, nothing could be more obvious. Two of you making big plans?”

They didn’t answer.

“And if you were, why tell me, right?” He made a gravelly sound in his throat that might have been laughter. “Okay, it’s simple. You tell a guilty guy, stay off the goddamn stand or you’re done, and he stays off. You tell an innocent guy the same thing, and he has a tough time buying it. He thinks, hey, I’m innocent, I’ll tell my story and this will all go away. Usually a ticket straight to the pen, but…oh well.”

“Oh well?” Greer said.

Wertz shrugged. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”

“But you’ve admitted you didn’t handle it well,” Greer said.

“I’m starting not to like you,” said Wertz, “despite how easy you are on the eyes. I never admitted any such thing. And you know what? I’ve had enough. So here’s your takeaway, children-Sonny Racine was covering up for someone.”

“Who?” Wyatt said.

“Don’t know,” said Wertz, his gaze fastening on Greer. “But if I had to guess, I’d say a girlfriend.”

Girlfriend? Wyatt didn’t understand. There was no girlfriend, just his mom. And then he remembered that his mom had never married Sonny; a wedding was in their plans but the crime had come first. Things shifted in his mind, and suddenly came a scary question: his mom was the girlfriend?

“What girlfriend?” Wyatt said.

“Show’s over,” Wertz said. He turned to the window. A dark bird swooped by.

“What does that mean?” Greer said as they drove away from Hillside Breeze. “Your mom was involved?”

“No way,” Wyatt said. The idea was out of the question, impossible, unthinkable.

“Then what’s he saying?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing. He’s kind of out of it, right?”

Greer nodded. She took his hand. Hers was trembling a bit. “If I ever get like that, shoot me,” she said.

“You? Get like that?” He glanced at her, couldn’t imagine her any different from the way she was right there in the passenger seat, her hand on his.

Greer was quiet for the rest of the ride back to her place. As Wyatt pulled up in front, she said, “Doesn’t it make sense to pay him a visit? I’m talking about Sonny Racine.”

No explanation necessary: Wyatt had been thinking the same thing. “Don’t want to,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“But then we’ll never know what really happened. Don’t you want to find out? I do.”

“Why?”

“For your sake,” Greer said. “I care about you, in case you’ve missed that somehow.”

Wyatt parked the car, shut it off, and turned to her. Her lips were slightly parted. “What’s it got to do with me?” he said.

“It’s part of your past.”

“I wasn’t even born.”

“Yeah,” said Greer. “But.”

The next day, when Wyatt got to school, Dub was waiting for him in the parking lot. He had a red welt on the side of his powerful neck. Catcher was a tough position: Wyatt could even see the imprint of stitches left by the ball.

“That hurt,” Wyatt said.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

Wyatt pointed to the welt.

“It’s nothin’,” Dub said. “What’s going on with you?”

“Headed for class,” Wyatt said.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. What are you up to? How come you’re not back home?”

“How come you’re not?”

“For fuck sake, ’cause of baseball, you know that,” Dub said. “Answer the question.”

“I’m staying here.”

“Why?”

“It’s a good school.”

“Since when do you give a shit about school?”

Wyatt shrugged. In fact, and to his surprise, he was starting to get more interested in school, English especially. He’d even done the homework last night, reading all of Act Three, Greer sitting nearby, playing her acoustic guitar.

“You’re throwing your life away, man,” Dub said.

“How’s that?”

Dub stared at him-more of a glare, really-and shook his head. “Talk to Aunt Hildy,” he said.

“About what?”

“I mean if your stupid-ass mind is really made up about staying here,” Dub said. “Apologize. Be nice. Maybe she’ll take you back.”

“To her place?” Wyatt said. “Uh-uh.”

“What do mean-uh-uh?”

“I’m fine where I am.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Hey, easy.”

Dub was getting flushed; the welt caused by the baseball disappeared in the general redness. “She went to this school,” he said. “Graduated two years ago.”

“I know that,” Wyatt said. “So?”

“So word is you’re not the first.”

Now Wyatt felt himself reddening, too. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No big secret,” Dub said, sticking out his chin, an aggressive habit he’d had since they were little boys. “She fucked half the football team.”

Wyatt didn’t think, just threw the hardest punch he could, right smack on the stuck-out chin. He felt the jolt all the way back down his arm and into his shoulder. Dub’s head snapped to the side and he staggered backward, almost fell. Wyatt was just starting to feel a bit bad about what he’d done, pretty close to a sucker punch, when Dub yelled, “Son of a bitch,” and came roaring at him, both fists flying. Wyatt blocked one but not the other, which landed on his nose, exact same spot where Rusty had connected. Blood spurted out and Wyatt sank to his knees.

“Maybe that’ll knock some sense into you,” Dub said. “Sure as hell need it.” He turned and walked away.

Wyatt sat on the pavement, leaning against the Mustang. He felt his nose-crooked again. He took a deep breath, counted a silent one-two-three, and snapped his nose back into place. That hurt, but not as much as the first time.

Wyatt found a sweatshirt in the trunk of the car, changed into it. When the bleeding stopped, he picked up his books and went into the school. The hall monitor wrote him up for tardiness, two demerit points, and glanced once or twice at his nose.

Ms. Grenville passed quiz sheets down the rows.

“Quiz?” said the funny kid in back. “Can’t just give a quiz with no warning.”

“Warning’s a bit dramatic for a mere quiz, don’t you think?” said Ms. Grenville. “I made an announcement at the end of class yesterday, but perhaps not loudly enough.”

“What does it count for?” the funny kid said.

“The usual,” said Ms. Grenville. “Five percent of your final grade.”

“Two and a half,” said the funny kid. “That’s my final offer.”

Wyatt looked over the quiz. There were three questions.

1. What is the title of the play within the play? When the King asks Hamlet for the title, what does Hamlet tell him?

Ms. Grenville demanded whole sentences. Wyatt wrote:

The title of the play within the play is The Murder of Gonzago. Hamlet tells the king it’s The Mouse-trap.

2. At the end of Act Two, Hamlet says, “The spirit that I have seen may be the devil: and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.” What does he mean, and what does this have to do with the play within the play?

Wyatt wrote:

It means the ghost can’t be trusted, so Hamlet thinks up this plan to trap Claudius. The idea is about getting a-

Wyatt couldn’t think of the word he wanted, stopped right there, went to the next question.

3. What is the result of Hamlet’s plan? Do you consider it a success?

Wyatt wrote:

When the poison gets poured in the player king’s ear, Claudius, the real king, sort of loses it, so Hamlet knows to trust the ghost. Claudius is for sure the killer of Hamlet’s father. So it’s a success.

Although maybe you couldn’t really say, not until the end of the whole thing, and Wyatt hadn’t read past Act Three. Wyatt was wondering whether to add something about that when Ms. Grenville said, “Time.”

He passed in his sheet, realizing two things. First, he hadn’t gone back and erased the unfinished sentence on number two, where he’d been stuck on a word. Second, the word he’d been looking for: confession. He’d wanted to say: The idea is about getting a confession out of the king. But too late. Had he blown the quiz completely?

When Wyatt got back to Greer’s, she threw her arms around him and said, “How was school?”

“I’m going to go visit him,” Wyatt said.

“Sonny Racine?”

“Yeah.”

“Good idea,” Greer said. “What changed your mind?”

“I guess you were right.”

She took a long look at him. “Hey! What happened to your nose?”

“Nothing.”

“Were you in a fight?”

“No.”

She stroked the side of his nose, very gently.