The Gentlemen's Hour

161

Boone, Petra, and Alan are already seated at the table.

Mary Lou and Johnny sit down across from them.

Alan smiles and opens, “I’m taking it to trial.”

“You’ll lose,” Mary Lou says.

“The fuck I will,” Alan answers. “Your first three witnesses are garbage, the next two have recanted, which will make clowns of your investigating officers.”

Boone glances at Johnny. Face set in stone, but his cheeks turn red.

Boone looks away.

“We still have the confession,” Mary Lou says.

“Yeah, go with that,” Alan says. “I can’t wait to feed it piece by piece to Sergeant Kodani here. How do you like your crow, detective? A little salt and pepper?”

Johnny doesn’t say anything. Boone can’t look at him, and Petra stares at the table.

Mary Lou stands up. “If there’s nothing else . . .”

Johnny stands up too.

Looks at Boone with disgust.

“Come on, sit down, Mary Lou,” Alan says. “We don’t want it to end this way.”

Mary Lou sits back down. “Neither Harrington’s borderline subornation of perjury nor Kodani’s assertive interview of the defendants changes the fact that your client, at least partially motivated by racial hatred, at least participated in a beating that cost a human life.”

“Agreed.”

“He has to do some serious time for that, Alan.”

“Also agreed,” Alan says. “But he didn’t throw the fatal punch, Mary Lou. That was Bodin. And he wasn’t the ringleader. That was Bodin too.”

“There are practical reasons why I can’t go after Bodin.”

“That doesn’t mean you should single Corey out for special punishment,” Alan responds. “There’s an issue of justice here.”

“There’s an issue of justice for Kelly, too.”

“I share that view,” Alan says. “My client participated in a disgusting act with a tragic result, and he should face the consequences. I’ll go vol man.

“With max sentencing—eleven years.”

“Minimum—three.”

It’s kabuki theater—they both know the next step in this ritual.

“Fine,” Mary Lou says. “Medium-range. Six.”

“Done.”

They shake hands—Alan and Mary Lou, Alan and Johnny, Petra and Mary Lou, Petra and Johnny, Boone and Mary Lou, not Boone and Johnny.

They avoid each other.