Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 32

The time had come for Katherine and me to pay another visit to our client. With thirty hours left till the trial started, we’d reached what lawyers call the moment of decision. We climbed into the sedan and I insisted on hitting McDonald’s and the Class VI store, which, to the uninitiated, is the military version of a liquor store, only the prices are much cheaper because the booze is untaxed. If the drunks of America had any idea how much Uncle Sam gouges them, there’d be another American revolution.

I splurged on two six-packs of Molson and another bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I wasted a moment trying to persuade Katherine to get her OGMM buddies to recompense me for my costs, but she’s a stickler on these things. She said bribes don’t fall within OGMM’s idea of allowable expenses.

We actually had an amiable chat on the way over, although our discussion was intermittent and halting, and I could tell she was distracted and nervous. She kept tinkering with a leather band around her left wrist, and every now and again stared wistfully out the window, like she didn’t want to be in this car, like she really didn’t want to visit our client.

I guessed she was apprehensive about admitting to Whitehall that his defense was damn close to hopeless. That’s never a great feeling. On the other hand, Katherine had spent most of her legal career telling clients they didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know what her win-loss record looked like, but if it was 0 for 100, I wouldn’t be surprised. She’d won plenty of appeals, because that was the point of her strategy, but she was probably accustomed to seeing jury foremen shuffle their feet, and avoid her eyes, and look up at the judge, and say, “Hang the bastard.”

So what was making her so pent-up? It wasn’t the public spotlight, I didn’t think. She’d bathed in the public glare more than any other ten attorneys combined. She’d been cover-storied on magazines, profiled on those television news magazine series, had her glitzy moments with Larry King and Katie Couric.

Was it because this was a murder trial? After all, the worst that comes from your ordinary gay trial is maybe a few years in the slammer. More often than not, it’s a dishonorable discharge from the service, which is really nothing but a fancy epithet for being fired. Maybe the stakes were getting to her. Maybe the thought her client could get the death sentence was eating at her insides.

Anyway, the big bully rushed right down when the desk guard retrieved him. He broke into a huge, hungry smile when he laid eyes on me, and I winked and pointed a finger at the search room. He nearly sprinted for it.

He dug his hand inside the bag, withdrew his scotch, his two burgers, grinned hungrily, and then led us to Whitehall’s cell. I could teach that Pavlov guy a few tricks.

Again he said one hour, ushered us into the cell, then wandered off, actually caressing the bottle of scotch. I was smitten with envy. I wanted to caress that Johnnie Walker Blue with my tongue.

Thomas got up and studied both of our bleak faces for a stagnant moment. Then he reached out a hand and I shook it. He actually hugged Katherine, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t collapse into his body, then start sobbing on his shoulder. I heard these small, muffled moans. Her body was quaking.

He stroked her hair and said, “Hey, hey, come on. Take it easy, okay. Katherine, really. Don’t get all worked up. I know you’re doing your best.”

She finally pulled herself away, and I scratched my head a few times. I’ve seen some things in my day, but a defense attorney crying on a client’s shoulder? Everything was backwards in this case. But even more backwards was seeing Katherine Carlson with tears on her cheeks.

I decided it was time to immediately rearrange the mood in this tiny cell, so I put down my legal case, opened it, tossed two Big Macs at Whitehall, and then withdrew three beers.

I said, “Hey, Tommy, this guy walks into a bar with a monkey. The guy takes a stool at the bar, and the monkey perches next to him. The guy orders a drink while the monkey starts eating everything it can reach – peanuts, olives, lime slices, even napkins. The monkey wanders over to the pool table, where a couple of guys are playing, and he jumps up on the middle of the table, then lifts up the cue ball and swallows it whole. The monkey’s owner immediately knocks down his drink and says to the bartender and the other customers,‘Hey, I’m real sorry. The little bastard always eats everything he can get his hands on. I’ll pay for everything, I swear.’ So he does, and then he leaves. A month later, he and the monkey come back again, they take stools at the bar, and the guy orders a drink. Everybody in the bar watches as the monkey reaches across the bar, grabs a Maraschino cherry, holds it up to his eye, reaches down and stuffs it up his butt, then pulls it out and eats it. It’s so gross, people are getting sick. The guy says to the bartender, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry. I know it’s disgusting, but ever since he ate that cue ball, he measures everything he eats.’ ”

Tommy started laughing like hell. These huge guffaws were erupting from his throat. The joke was funny, but it wasn’t that funny. I guessed the tension and pressure had him teetering on an emotional cliff.

As for Katherine, she coldly said, “Is that a joke?”

Tommy said, “Actually, I think it’s a parable for my situation. I’m like that monkey. Now that I’ve been locked in this cell for ten days, I’ve measured my future.”

Katherine frowned, but I chuckled because he was right.

Then we all went over and sat down on Tommy’s sleeping mat. Katherine was in the middle, and we all propped our backs against the wall. For a few minutes, we took sips from our beers while Tommy wolfed down his burgers. This was actually a chivalrous attempt by Tommy and me to give Katherine time to stop sniveling and get collected.

Then Katherine skillfully explained everything that had happened over the past two days, from the massacre, through our meeting with the judge, through our interrogations of Jackson and Moran. She told him what we suspected and how disgustingly little headway we’d made in proving any damned thing. She explained how we expected Fast Eddie to handle our pitifully small inventory of revelations and courtroom surprises.

Tommy heard her out. He occasionally took another sip from his beer. Otherwise he was inert, peaceful, unresponsive. It struck me that he expected everything he was hearing.

I had to admire his self-control. If it were me, knowing I’d been expertly framed for murder and other hideous deeds, and I was hearing my attorneys say they were making a complete hash of my defense, I would’ve been screaming my lungs out.

When she finished, he got up and went over to my legal case and withdrew three more Molsons. He opened them and then handed one to Katherine and one to me.

“No shit,” he said, grinning proudly at me. “You actually went to the demonstration?”

“Couldn’t resist it,” I admitted.

“God, I wish I could’ve seen that.”

“You might be the only guy in the world who didn’t. The damn thing was broadcast by every network.”

“Think you’ll get in trouble?”

“Probably,” I admitted.

The Army’s not particularly vindictive, but like any organization, it has its limits. A picture broadcast worldwide of an officer in uniform amid a sea of homosexuals ain’t exactly what the Army means by “be all you can be.” I wasn’t looking forward to the next promotion board. But Tommy Whitehall’s problems were a little more grim than mine. Enough said.

Then Katherine said, “Thomas, sit down, please. We need to make some decisions.”

He squatted on his haunches and faced us. It was a very Asian gesture, that squat. Only ten days in a Korean prison and already he was going native on us.

Katherine said, “I’m going to be blunt. Golden’s a very shrewd and experienced attorney. Maybe we can get one of his witnesses to recant. Most likely Jackson, but not Moran, who’s a tough nut. And Bales is even tougher. He’s going to come across like a knight in shining armor.”

Tommy said, “Okay.”

Katherine let loose a heavy breath. “I recommend we take the deal.”

Tommy bounced up to his feet. “What?”

“Look, I don’t like it, but it’ll keep you out of the electric chair. It’ll buy us time.”

“I’m not pleading. Get it out of your head, because I’m not taking their deal.”

“Thomas, please listen. We’ve got one day left. The second we walk into that courtroom, the offer’s moot. It’ll be withdrawn. I’d like to approach the other side and try to bargain off the charges of committing homosexual acts and consorting with enlisted troops. If we plead on murder and rape, I think we can get them to go for it.”

“I don’t care.”

She reached over and grabbed Whitehall’s leg. “You’ll still be alive. I’ll dedicate my whole life to getting you an appeal. I won’t stop, Thomas. I’ll never stop. You know I won’t.”

“So what? We’ll both waste our lives over this thing? I won’t permit it.”

Katherine looked over at me. Her face was beseeching. She was pleading with me to intervene, to do my best to convince her client to take the rap.

I said, “Good call, Tommy.”

“What?” Katherine roared.

“He’s making the right call. It’s an obvious frame-up.”

“Can you prove that?” Katherine asked, knowing damn well I couldn’t.

“Nope,” I admitted.

“Then what in the hell are you doing? A few days ago you thought a deal was the right way to go. You helped convince me.”

I knew that and I felt bad about it, too. But I couldn’t tell Katherine I was working an angle with my CIA buddies. Granted, there were no sure bets, but if something broke we could be off to the races. So all I said was, “I changed my mind.”

I looked up at Tommy. Katherine was still holding his leg. He was staring down at me.

I said, “We’re going to break this thing. Maybe not before the trial, but we’ll get it eventually. I don’t care if I have to resign my commission and come over and do it myself. We’re going to break this thing.”

“You’d do that?” Tommy asked.

“I’d do that,” I assured him.

And I would. I’d just decided that. For one thing, a lot of people had been killed and something had to be done about that. And one of those people had died to save me, and it might sound corny, but didn’t I owe her something? For another, I’d had plenty of clients convicted, but I’d never had one where I was so thoroughly convinced he was being railroaded. I didn’t approve of Tommy’s lifestyle choices, but he’d been a damned good soldier. And as the judge said, if a soldier can’t get justice, then I was wearing the wrong uniform.

Also, Bales and his buddies had beaten me to a pulp. And like I mentioned earlier, I’m a vindictive guy.

Besides, I’m so stubborn I’m stupid. Anybody who knows me will tell you that.

Tommy said, “I, uh-”

But before he could finish the thought, Katherine suddenly erupted. “Don’t listen to him, Thomas!” She was glaring at me through a pair of blazing green eyes. “This isn’t about Thomas, is it? This is about Georgetown, right?” She spun and looked back at Whitehall. “He’s never forgiven me for being number one in the class. He came in second and he’s never gotten over it. Don’t listen to him. This isn’t about you. It’s about him trying to outdo me. Don’t listen to him.”

Whitehall’s eyes were roving from her face to mine. And mine was exploding with surprise.

“God, you gotta be kidding,” I blurted.

I mean, it was true she’d beaten me out – by one-tenth of a decimal of a hundredth of a point. By such an infinitesimal fraction the law school actually had to recompute both our grade points something like ten times. They actually had to go back and retotal three years’ worth of exams and papers and moot courts. Know what the spread was? Katherine got one more multiple-choice answer right than I did. That’s right – one lousy question. No kidding. And you know the worst part? She probably guessed on that one question: one lousy throw of a dart in a pitch-dark room.

Did that give me the gripes? Well, yeah, actually it did. At the time, anyway. I mean, had it been Wilson Holbridge Struthers III, the guy who lived in the library, the guy everybody agreed was the biggest legal geek who ever haunted the halls of Georgetown Law, I could’ve lived with that. It wasn’t, though. Struthers limped in at third place. It was Katherine Carlson. Of all people.

I took three deep breaths. I wasn’t going to let her provoke me. I was going to keep my cool and reason through this. Georgetown law school was a long time ago. Whitehall had said at the start that he wanted to make the tough choices, and, well, he was getting his chance. Maybe not the way he’d envisioned, but I had at least warned him it could come down to this.

With as much calmness as I could muster, I said, “I still wouldn’t take the deal.”

And Katherine contemptuously snapped, “Look, Thomas, you won’t have a death sentence hanging over your head. And let me tell you, getting a death sentence overturned is almost impossible these days. The courts have lost their patience with death sentence appeals. I’m no expert on it but I’ve done some research. Only one in twelve gets overturned. Plus, even the civil courts are accelerating death sentences, and this is a military court. These uniformed stooges could give you a chair appointment a year, maybe even six months from now.”

Thomas said, “Both of you, stop this right now.”

Katherine and I looked at each other in surprise.

His face was perfectly calm. “It has nothing to do with either of you. I won’t plead.”

Katherine said, “Why, Thomas?”

“Because I’m innocent. Because my love for No wasn’t wrong or evil. Because I won’t.”

He and Katherine stared at each other a long time. It was one of those moments where electricity flowed through the air, where words would only have gotten in the way. Finally Katherine got up and started shaking the cage and yelling for the guard.

The big goon showed up, weaving back and forth, and it was pretty damned obvious he’d broken into the goodies. He was so drunk he kept diddling with the keys. Finally he got the door open and Katherine stormed out.

I looked at Tommy. “I guess I have to go.”

“Yeah, sure. Keep me informed, will you?”

I assured him I would before I solemnly shook his hand. Then I walked out. I walked slowly. I was in no hurry to catch up with Katherine.

It was a long, tense car ride back to base.