After I finished highlighting the details, I paused for a moment and waited for him to respond. When he just sat there, I said, “You don’t seem too excited about the news of your release, Al. Figured you’d be bouncing off the walls.”
“Who’s going to pay me?”
“Pay you? Pay you for what?”
“The twenty-nine goddamn years I spent in these goddamn prisons. They knew I was innocent when they locked me up.”
“Al, you pleaded guilty back then. No one’s going to pay you. Jesus Christ Almighty, they’re willing to let you walk. Don’t be a fool. Take the offer!”
He jumped to his feet. “I’m innocent, goddamn it! And I want you to sue the bastards. I want them to pay. And I want to see it in all the papers. I want everyone to know that they fucked up. That I’m no murderer!”
“Sit down, Roberts. And let me finish.”
He sat and glared at me.
“Look, part of the deal is for you to keep your mouth shut. They want you to get out of Dodge, pronto.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Maybe they did screw up back then. But now they want to bury this thing. No publicity. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Didn’t you tell me before, right after the parole hearing that you were going to get my conviction overturned?”
“I said I was going to try to get you a new trial. But, damn it, that was a tremendous long shot.”
“Were you stroking me?”
“C’mon, man, I’m here to help you. I’m not getting rich with this case and now you’re on my ass. I don’t know if I like your attitude, my friend.”
He looked at his hands again, kneading his interlaced fingers. “I’m sorry. I know how you’re doing everything you can to get me outta here, and for no dough.” He glanced up, his face twisted in agony. “Chrissakes, Jimmy, I’ve been in this hell-hole since 1945. Locked up for something I didn’t do. That’s bad, but a lot of innocent guys get sent up. The system makes mistakes. That’s the breaks. But goddamn it, I was railroaded. You said so yourself. You told me that rat-bastard Byron knew all along that I didn’t kill Haskell. I see that son-of-a-bitch’s smirking face every night when I go to sleep.”
“You’re in here because of Vera. You admitted committing the murder-”
“Because Byron lied to me! Said I’d get the DP in Arizona. I swear I didn’t kill her.”
We both stopped talking and sat there staring at each other. I felt his pain. I knew now for sure that he didn’t kill Vera. And with all that had happened lately, I knew there was a cover-up in progress, and I knew that it had been going on for nearly thirty years.
Someone out there knew Al Roberts was innocent, and therefore knew who had murdered Vera-and why she’d been killed. But my job wasn’t solving crimes. My job was to do the best I could for the poor guy who sat across from me. My job was to get him out of prison. No one could give him back his twenty-nine years.
“Okay, Al, what do you want me to do?” I asked.
He didn’t more a muscle, but his eyes twitched at the edges.
I pressed: “You want me to tell them no dice? Tell them to stick it, tell them you’d rather rot in here for the rest of your life?”
“Back in ’45, they picked me up just outside of Reno. I was walking at the edge of the road with thirty-five cents in my pocket. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.” He bit his lip, his eyes shifting around the room. “What’ll I do now on the outside, a sixty-year-old convicted murderer?”
“I dunno. Anything would be better than staying here. You play the piano. Maybe you could go back to New York, get a job at a cocktail lounge. They have sing-along piano bars now. It’s all the rage. I can chip in a couple hundred to help get you started,” I said, not knowing exactly where I’d get the money. “But it’s up to you now. What’ll I tell the DA about the offer?”
“I want out.”
“You’ll go along with the deal?”
“Yeah.”
I reached across the table and grabbed his arm. “For what it’s worth, Al, I know you’re innocent.”
“Thanks, pal. That helps. It really does. There’s no one else.”
Nodding to the guard standing in the corner, I slid the papers the DA’s office had prepared across the table. The officer handed Roberts a pen. He signed in the appropriate place and the guard signed as a witness.
I tucked the papers in my jacket pocket. “They’re buying you a one-way bus ticket. Got to tell them the destination. Where do you want to go?”
“The only place I belong.”
“Where’s that?”
“Loserville.”
“I’ll tell them New York City.”
“Why there?”
“You were born in New York. Easier to find a job in a town where you grew up.”
“I don’t suppose the Break O’ Dawn Club is still in business,” Roberts said.
I had Mabel check on the outside chance they might be willing to hire him back. From old phone books at the library, she’d discovered that the nightclub had been on the Upper West Side, close to 73rd and Riverside Drive. She checked the cross directory at the library and found the phone number of the location. The club closed for a while years ago when the owner died. New owners opened it again, changed the name, and decided to keep up with the times.
“No, afraid not, Al. The place is now a disco joint.”
“What’s that?”
“They play records, have go-go dancers jumping around.”
“Lot of changes on the outside, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Go-go dancers, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I better stay here.”
“I’ll pick you up outside the gates next Monday morning. I’ll have the bus ticket.”
I thought about the problems the case has caused me: the mystery woman and the beating I took from the thugs in the Buick, the trouble I got into because I mouthed off at the hearing, not to mention how much I’d imposed on Sol. Now it was over.
Of course, I’d still wonder who had actually killed Vera and why someone, after all these years went to all the trouble to cover it up. Maybe someday the truth will come out. But I did my job; my client will finally be free. Oh, I’d think about Roberts, and reflect on the injustice he suffered, for a long time. It’d be like an itch I couldn’t scratch, but I’m not a crusader, a man set out to make the world free of crime and corruption. I’m just a struggling lawyer trying to make a living. Leave the hero stuff to the martyrs and saints. But aren’t they all dead?
We both remained quiet for a moment. Roberts glanced at the clock on the wall behind him and started to climb out of his chair. Even though he’d soon be a free man, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He’d be alone in the world, out in the cold without money, prospects, or anyone to share his troubles. It would be daunting.
Twenty-nine years ago he thumbed rides all the way from New York to Hollywood just to be with his fiancee, Sue Harvey. He never made it. When Haskell stopped to pick him up on that deserted highway somewhere in Arizona, fate had intervened, his life took a wrong turn and rushed head first toward the finish line, a dead end.
But maybe Sue was still alive. Maybe Francis Q. Jerome didn’t have his facts straight. Maybe Barr hadn’t murdered her as Jerome had said. Barr went to prison for shooting his wife, not Sue.
I figured I could spend a little more time with the case if it would help Roberts. It wouldn’t be hard to check. If Sue were dead there’d be a record in the county files. But if she were still alive maybe he could complete the trip he’d started so many years ago.
We stood and faced each other, ready to shake hands and say goodbye. “It’ll be tough being alone out there,” I said.
“I’ll survive.”