Conviction

TWENTY-ONE

EDDIE FLEET HAD TOLD TERRI TO MEET HIM AT THE DOUBLE Rock Bar.

It was the scene—according to Payton—of their last meeting before Fleet's betrayal. If that was true, Terri found it an unsettling choice, as though Eddie Fleet were indifferent to the demons of his own past. Pushing open the swinging double door, Terri entered a dim-lit world which must have changed little in fifteen years: laminated tables, a long bar facing three neon beer signs, the whiff of smoke too fresh for attribution—despite the city's smoking ban—to the stale smell of old cigarettes absorbed by older leather.

Two men leaned on the bar—one, turning, gave Terri the cool once-over reserved for a strange woman or, perhaps, anybody not black. Then she spotted a lone man at a corner table, his appraisal seeming more amused and openly sexual. Approaching, she felt his smile as a form of muted aggression.

"Eddie Fleet?" she asked.

Gold teeth flashed. His eyes, unusual in their slightly Asian cast, held the insinuating power of a less than wholesome man from whom an attractive woman needs a favor. "Howard Flood," he amended. "Mr. Ed-ward Fleet's rep-re-sentative. Mr. Fleet's, how they say, re-clusive."

Terri sat across from him. He seemed tall—roughly Rennell's height, though not as bulky—and his face was thinner, its calculation animated by a cleverness wholly lacking in Rennell. But then Fleet had outrun the dire prospects of his youth: in his late thirties he was neither dead nor in prison. What had compelled him to meet her, Terri suspected, was a well-honed instinct for survival.

He nodded toward the beer in front of him. "Have a drink, lady? Make this more of a social occasion."

"Budweiser's fine."

Fleet stood, confirming Terri's estimate of his height. He wore a tight black T-shirt which displayed his muscles and the tattoos on both arms, and moved with what Terri supposed was meant to be a swaying, calypso rhythm. Suddenly she imagined Fleet in a bulky sweatshirt sauntering toward Thuy Sen, and conjured the man Flora Lewis thought was Rennell Price, mistaking Fleet's swagger for the lurching gait of impaired coordination. Startled, Terri imagined Fleet—as Payton had described him—at the moment Thuy Sen died.

She kept her face expressionless. Returning with a chipped glass, Fleet poured beer for her with exaggerated delicacy. Raising his own glass, he offered in satirically pious tones, "To Rennell Price, and our Lord Jesus's promise of e-ternal life."

Terri stared. "I'm not in the eternal life business, Eddie. That's why I'm here."

Fleet emitted a terse chuckle, eyes still bright as he took a long sip of beer, gazing at her over the rim. Slowly placing down his glass, he said, "What you want from me? At least that I want to give you."

"Anything you can tell me about Rennell. Maybe just what he was like."

Fleet grinned. "The boy stood out, that's for sure. Want to know the first thing I remember about him, from when we was kids?"

"Sure."

"Sucker couldn't play hide-and-seek." The memory produced a laugh. "Should have heard him try to count to twenty. If Payton hadn't helped him, he'd still be It, standin' there with his eyes closed, stuck on 'twelve.' " Fleet's full lips formed a sour smile. "You got one thing right. Rennell's dumb as a rock."

Dumb enough to be framed for murder, Terri thought. To her, Fleet's manner betrayed a man lethally Darwinian—taught from childhood to seek out, and exploit, the weakness of whomever he encountered. "Ever say that to the police?" she said.

A corner of Fleet's mouth flickered upward. "They never asked. Guess they figured e-jac-u-lation don't require no college degree."

"No," Terri said agreeably. "All it takes is interest. Did Rennell have any?"

Fleet's eyes glinted. "Maybe in little girls. No way he could handle a woman. You know how it is. Women got more in the way of requirements, and need more in the way of managing."

Like a few blows to the face? Terri wanted to ask. Instead, she inquired mildly, "Do you really think Rennell was sexually interested in children?"

Fleet shrugged. "Liked this one, didn't he?"

"I don't know that. If you've got some reason to believe that it was Rennell who choked Thuy Sen, I'd like to hear it."

The look Fleet gave her was cooler. "When I saw her on the floor," he said coldly, "somebody's come was dribbling out the corner of her mouth. Didn't seem like the occasion to ask whose."

"Did you ever find out?"

Eyes distant, Fleet took another swallow of beer. "Let me paint you a picture, lady. When I come on the scene, that girl was already dead—nothin' I could do to save her. Payton was crashing hard, sweat pourin' off him like he was a sponge and somebody be squeezin' him. And you're expectin' me to be conductin' interviews?"

Terri took a sip of beer. "How did Rennell act?"

Fleet studied the table. "Like he'd gone to some other planet. Maybe had his brain taken over by aliens."

"And he was like that when he came to your door."

"Yeah." Fleet seemed to think, then swiftly added, "Maybe a little more jittery, like I told the cops."

Terri angled her head. "I guess Payton didn't rely on Rennell much, at least when it came to dealing crack."

Behind his newly impassive mask, Fleet seemed to watch her, wondering what lay behind this unexpected question. "Too stupid," he answered. "Boy get himself busted."

"So why didn't Payton come for you himself, instead of sending Rennell?"

"Payton was too screwed up, maybe. Or maybe he didn't trust Rennell with her alone."

"Are you saying Rennell liked dead children, Eddie?"

Fleet shrugged. "Maybe Payton was worried—leave Rennell alone, and he'd do somethin' stupid. Maybe tell Grandma, and then she'd call the cops."

Then why didn't he just call you? Terri thought. But Fleet was no fool, then or now—the image of Rennell arriving at his door made him sound more culpable, his brother's partner in a terrible crime. "Why'd you tell the cops?" she asked.

Fleet's eyes widened in satiric amazement. "What planet are you on? Cops are puttin' pressure on us all. Maybe Payton's not gonna crack, but guy like Monk could think rings around Rennell. If he confesses, I'm on my way to prison just for helpin' dump her body." His voice took an edge. "No time for sentiment. That's why I'm sittin' here, enjoyin' your so-ciety, and those boys about to die."

Terri appraised him. Fleet's story, while plausible enough, could be a fun-house mirror of the truth: if Payton had confessed, choosing to save Rennell, then it was Fleet who might wind up on death row. And so Fleet had chosen to frame the retarded brother, and dared Payton to choose between keeping silent and contradicting Fleet at the cost of his own life.

"So what did Monk offer you?" she asked.

"Just what I told their fool lawyer at the trial—consideration for cooperation, long as I told the truth. Nothin' more than that."

"Did you have anything against either Payton or Rennell?"

Eddie's smile was brief and chilly. "Not until they tried to get me capped."

"Think that was Rennell's idea?"

"Nothin' was ever Rennell's idea. Spent his whole damned life waitin' to have one. You can bet it was Payton that dreamed up my de-mise."

In that moment, Terri felt Rennell—and she—were caught in a continuing war between Payton and Fleet. But whether Fleet was trying to save himself or Payton was lying to exact revenge before dying, she didn't know. For now, desperate as she was, she could only try to exploit Fleet's animus toward Payton by inducing him to help Rennell at the margins.

"You knew them both," she said, "pretty much all your life. If you had to guess, which brother strangled Thuy Sen?"

Fleet seemed to ponder the question and, perhaps, the advantage of answering. Then a fresh thought appeared to hit him so hard that he flinched, his eyes narrowing in distrust. "What about this DNA stuff?" His tone, though soft, was wary. "Can't they test the come now, figure out whose it was?"

It was you, Terri thought. For an instant, all the time she had, Terri weighed the merits of keeping him in doubt. But the advantage would be temporary, the risk too great—inducing silence, or even flight. "No DNA available," she answered. "Thuy Sen was in the bay too long."

Light crept back into Fleet's eyes. "Then I'd guess Payton," he answered flatly. "Don't think Rennell's brain could send signals all the way to his thing. Or figure out a nine-year-old's mouth might work better than her pussy."

But you could, Terri thought. "Think so?"

"Yeah." Fleet smiled slightly. "Rennell's way too stupid to teach a child no tricks. Even ones that want to learn."

Terri felt the pinpricks on her skin. Fleet had let his mask slip, exposing the narcissism and perversion beneath the veneer of a survivor. Some men, Terri knew too well, could want both a woman and her child.

Softly, she said, "I think you can help me, Eddie."

Fleet had begun studying her mouth. "How might that be?"

"I'd like you to execute a declaration—saying that Rennell was slow, and that he depended on Payton for everything. Maybe that you never knew Rennell to be sexually involved with women of any age."

Once more, Fleet seemed to weigh his choices. "Maybe," he allowed. "Them executin' that fool won't do nothin' much for me. Let Payton pay the piper."

Of course, Terri thought. Payton's the brother who knows what happened, the one that you need dead. "Can I draft a declaration and bring it to you?"

"Why don't you bring it to my place?" Smiling, Fleet gently placed his fingers on her wrist. "You can read it aloud, just you and me. Sort of an oral pre-sentation."