Conviction

THIRTEEN

MAURIANI REFILLED HIS BOWL-SHAPED GLASS, THE WINE DEEP red beneath its sunlit surface. "Your other problem with Yancey James," Terri pointed out, "was that you couldn't use two lawyers to pit one brother against the other."

"True enough. James was a dead loss all around."

"Is that why you asked for the death penalty? To shake Rennell or Payton loose?"

Mauriani's genial expression became sober, almost severe. "That's not enough of a reason," he answered curtly. "Not for me."

"Then what was?"

Mauriani seemed to study the green bottle in front of him. "The tipping point," he said at length, "was the day the brothers Price resolved to kill again."

* * *

When Mauriani picked up the phone, Monk said abruptly, "I've got someone you should meet, Lou."

"Who's that?"

"Name's Jamal Harrison. He's a snitch in the Bayview—been shot three times already. Instead of feeling lucky, he's become a bitter man. Whole lot of anger in this boy, and a whole lot of cases for us. You might say he snitches out of spite."

Mauriani considered this. Snitches were notoriously self-interested and, therefore, of dubious reliability: the rule of thumb was that they had to help you make three cases stick before you'd forget whatever case you had against them. Which tended, at the least, to encourage a certain creativity.

"You can't be telling me you've found an honest man."

Monk chuckled. "Not saying that. I'm just saying you'd better hurry up. Jamal's got no sense of the future longer than fifteen minutes—including that his hobby is likely to get him killed. All he thinks about is that his homeboys treated him like a punk."

"So what's his deal?" Mauriani asked.

"The deal is that Jamal's been in the county jail, serving out his thirteen months for attempted rape." Monk's tone became serious. "Payton and Rennell wound up in the cell next door. Seems he knew them from the Bayview, and Payton started sharing his reminiscences. One of them concerns Eddie Fleet."

"I'm on my way," Mauriani said.

* * *

Jamal Harrison was a tubercular-looking runt so skinny that his collarbone stuck out. He wore a scraggly beard, and his darting eyes were filled with distrust.

Flanked by Monk and Ainsworth, Mauriani sat in the interrogation room across from the erstwhile prisoner. "Tell me what you've got," Mauriani said.

Jamal fixed his narrow-eyed gaze on Mauriani, a man determined to look power in the face. Portentously, he answered, "A death sentence, maybe."

* * *

They stuck the brothers by themselves in the cell next to the one Jamal shared with some losers whose crimes weren't worth more than his—a petty burglar, a small-time dope dealer, some moron who'd been fencing cell phones. Though prisoners awaiting trial for murder got much more respect, the first appearance of the Price brothers drew hoots from the motley orange-clad gallery. "Oh, suck me," a jailhouse satirist called out in imagined ecstasy. "Can't quite fit it in your tiny little pussy."

"Pussy?" someone else chimed in. "Can't find no such thing on a baby that small."

"Small," the first voice countered, "is why they were hoping they could please her. But there's nothin' that small."

As the sheriff's deputies pushed them into the empty cell, Payton kept staring straight ahead. Jamal could see him taking in what their lives would be like in a hard-core prison. Even murderers had no use for child sex killers—they were friendless, and they often wound up dead.

Jamal had no plans to talk to either one of them. At least he'd tried to fuck a woman, as he reminded Charles Monk.

* * *

For days, Payton gave Jamal no sign of recognition.

He sat there, stone-faced, the only clue that he acknowledged his surroundings the utter stillness of his eyes when fresh insults issued from the cages all around them. Then Jamal could see him imagining his future, or its end. This two-hundred-foot corridor with cells smelling of urine and packed with restless, stinking prisoners, divided by race—or by sanity from the babbling crazies or those gripped by catatonia—was merely the devil's waiting room; the final step for Payton Price would be hell itself. But his brother, a torpid mass, seemed not to care. Now and then Payton would murmur stuff to Rennell, too soft for Jamal to hear. Sometimes the big man nodded.

It was only on their fourth day in jail that Payton walked over to the bars dividing the brothers from Jamal.

Softly, Payton said, "I know you, Jamal."

Even through iron bars, there was something scary about Payton Price—a deadly quiet in his speech, a stone coldness in his eyes. From the next few words, Jamal knew that Payton had a purpose.

"When you getting out?" Payton asked.

Briefly, Jamal hesitated. "Seven days," he answered.

He imagined Payton smiling.

* * *

After that, Payton turned to small talk: who they knew in common, who was dead or in prison, whether Jamal had bumped into someone lately that Payton used to know, who maybe had killed someone and gotten by with it. It struck Jamal that Payton was reconstructing the Bayview in his head, like some fucking scientist studying tribes in Africa. Or maybe just some prison psychologist trying to look into Jamal's own head. But the weirdest thing was how soft he talked, so Jamal's cell mates could not hear.

"Could Rennell hear?" Mauriani asked.

"Don't know," Jamal answered. "Didn't seem like he much cared."

* * *

Three days before Jamal got out, Payton motioned him to the bars. Jamal stopped three feet away. "Come on over here," Payton demanded.

Apprehensive, Jamal did. Payton stuck his face through the bars until it was inches from Jamal's. "You know Eddie Fleet?" he asked.

Something in his tone made Jamal fear to answer. "Yeah," he acknowledged. "I know him."

For once, Payton's cold black eyes seemed to give off light. "You know why we're in this shithole?"

"Sure. That girl."

Payton grabbed the bars, eyes locking Jamal's. "We're here," he almost whispered, "because Eddie Fleet lied to that dude Monk."

Though Payton's voice was soft, Jamal could feel the intensity of his hatred. "Lied about what?" he asked.

Payton did not answer. When he spoke again, his voice was softer yet. "No Fleet, no case. You understand what I'm sayin'?"

Silent, Jamal nodded.

"So I want 'no Fleet,' Jamal. Who you know that could make that happen?"

Reflexively Jamal felt his mind begin to work. "For what?"

"A cut of my business," Payton answered calmly. "Maybe five hundred every week. But only if Rennell and me get out."

Beneath Payton's steel veneer, Jamal could hear the depth of his despair. He glanced over his shoulder at his cell mates, idling or trying to sleep. "All that," he murmured. "Just to kill a man."

Slowly, Payton nodded. "All that, Jamal. Maybe for once it could be you."

* * *

For the next two hours, Mauriani and the cops went at Jamal hard—exactly where Payton stood, who might have seen them, who else Payton might have approached. "Let's talk about Rennell," Mauriani prodded. "How do you know he knew?"

This made Jamal laugh out loud. " 'Cause after I told Payton I'd off Fleet for them, he sat back down beside Rennell and whispered in his ear. First time I ever saw Rennell Price smile."

* * *

"So where's Jamal now?" Terri asked.

"Dead." Mauriani smiled faintly. "Monk was right about him. He lasted three months past the trial."