Past Due

Chapter 64

HE WALKED UP the path with a slow, awkward gait, his head swiveling guiltily, his blue suit bunched around his hunched shoulders. It was Rittenhouse Square in the middle of a fine spring afternoon and the park was lousy with pretty girls and slackers and office workers taking in some sun and shoppers with their bags, resting before another bout of rabid acquisition. It was crowded, loud, urban – a perfect place for an anonymous meeting. Across the park, on the southwest corner, stood Eddie Dean’s rented and now-deserted mansion, a touch that gave me a nice ironic jolt even if as yet it meant nothing to the man in the suit cautiously making his way to my bench. When the man spotted me, his head recoiled as if from some stark fulsome scent. I seem to get that a lot, but not often from a Supreme Court justice.

“Well?” he said, standing before me.

He was bent forward, his high forehead glistening with sweat, his thin blond hair disheveled, his fists balled with anxiety. I was leaning back on the bench, my arms spread leisurely on either side.

“Sit,” I said.

“I don’t have much time.”

“Yes, you do,” I said. “You have all day. Sit.”

He sat at my command like a lapdog.

The hardest thing was getting him on the line. When I gave my name to the secretary she patched me right through to the vigilant and violent Clerk Lobban. No, said Curtis Lobban, the justice was not available. Why don’t you tell me, said Curtis Lobban, the purpose of the call? Of course, said Curtis Lobban, whatever you say I will relay to the justice word for word. No, said Curtis Lobban, it is not possible for you to speak to him right now. There was again an ominous note in his voice that raised the hair on the back of my neck. This was not simply a gatekeeper, this Curtis Lobban, shuffling files and appointments, beating up trespassers, doing the bidding of a sitting jurist, this was something else, something fearsomely protective. I wasn’t getting through, he wasn’t letting me through, and I didn’t quite know what to do until a voice broke into our conversation.

“I will speak to Mr. Carl,” said the justice, harshly.

“Yes, sir,” said Curtis Lobban.

“We need to meet,” I said.

“When,” said the justice.

“Now.”

“That is impossible,” said Curtis Lobban, still on the line. “There are appointments.”

“Hang up the phone, Curtis,” said the justice, “and cancel my appointments.”

And now here he was, Jackson Straczynski, standing before me, fidgeting and wincing as if preparing to be beaten about the head. And now sitting down next to me, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, wringing his long pale hands as if he were auditioning for a role.

“I want to apologize, Mr. Carl,” he said, speaking as if it were a struggle to get the words out. “After your last visit, I made the inquiries I told you I would make. Everything you said turned out to be true, and I am appalled.”

“But of course you knew.”

“No.”

“About my being locked up at Traffic Court? About Rashard Porter.”

“No, I did not.”

“It was your doing. It had to be.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“Then who could-”

I stopped in midsentence and thought it through. The secretive Clerk O’Brien in Traffic Court. The dour Clerk Templeton in Common Pleas Court. The fearsomely protective Clerk Lobban in the justice’s own chambers.

“Son of a bitch.”

“I fear,” said the justice, “that one of my employees might have acted to safeguard my position well beyond his actual authority.”

“A conspiracy of clerks.”

“Clerk Lobban’s loyalties run very deep, deeper than in a normal employee-employer relationship. He knows my wife, in fact it is she who hired him for me. His wife is ill and my wife helps in her care. It is very complicated.”

“I can imagine.”

“No,” he said. “No, you can’t.”

“What kind of car does your clerk drive?”

“Something small, I think. Foreign.”

“ Toyota?”

“I suppose.”

“Color?”

“I don’t know. Look, I have spoken to Judge Wellman. He denied any pressure was brought to bear, but I have reason to believe a motion to vacate Mr. Porter’s sentence would be well received.”

“What about Lonnie?”

“I read about Mr. Chambers in the newspaper. Very distressing, and I know what you must think. But I never told Curtis anything about him. Our prior conversation remained absolutely private.”

“And Joey Parma?”

“Who?”

“Joseph Parma. He called you a number of times.”

“No. You must be mistaken. I never heard of Joseph Parma.”

“He was a friend of your brother’s.”

“Benny?”

“Yes. An old friend.”

“Benny did have a friend named Joey when he was younger. They were altar boys together. I think they called him Joey Cheaps.”

“Bingo.”

“But why was he trying to call me?”

“Because Joey was an idiot. And he had done something twenty years ago for your brother. And he thought he could turn what he did twenty years ago into cash today.”

“And that was the client you were referring to, who had his throat slit.”

“That’s right.”

“Mr. Carl. Oh God. Mr. Carl. I think I am going to be sick.”