‘That, Judge, is your decision.’ He was matter-of-fact. ‘If it’s any consolation, I have no intention of betraying your confidence.’
Fowler’s eyes seemed glazed. ‘Does May know?’
‘I’d bet against it. I told her it was free advertising for me. It seemed to go down.’
‘Jesus.’ He ran a hand through his hair. Suddenly he looked haggard and old. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He walked around in little circles, then stopped. ‘Do you think I could give her a fair trial, David?’
There it was, the rationality kicking in. That’s what people did, Freeman knew. They made their own actions, however wrong, somehow justified.
Fowler continued, ‘If it ever comes out, I’m truly ruined. Would she say anything?’
‘Why would she, especially since I’m going to get her off? It wouldn’t be to her advantage. Now or ever.’
‘You’re going to get her off?’
‘Of course. There’s no evidence, Andy.’
The judge lowered his voice. ‘But she did it, David.’
‘No one can prove my client killed anybody. If the prosecution can be kept from sexual innuendo and racial slurs, she will be acquitted. It will be essential to control the tone in the courtroom.’
The cigar had gone out and he chewed happily on the butt. It had been a satisfying performance, its outcome so sweet he almost wanted to dance a little jig when he left chambers.
Of course, on the downside, Andy Fowler, with whom he’d always gotten along, had his neck on the block. Andy couldn’t recuse himself without admitting his relationship with May, and he wasn’t going to do that. He was right, it would end his career, and the revelation at this late date in the proceedings would be particularly damning.
But he’d gotten himself in this position. You made your own luck. Good or bad. Andy was a big boy. He should have known better.
The walk had taken Freeman across the top of Nob Hill and back down its north side. He became subliminally aware that his steps were leading him somewhere, and he let them. Slowly, no hurry. He still chewed the cigar.
By night, the corner that May lived on was quiet. The cable cars had stopped running. The surrounding hills were steep, and people heading for North Beach or back out to the Avenues would take one of the larger thoroughfares, Broadway or Van Ness, Gough or Geary. He crossed the street and stood leaning against the window of the French deli, looking up. There was a light on in what he knew to be May’s kitchen. The front of the apartment, the turreted window, was dark.
Across the street in Mrs Streletski’s building shadows danced across the turret, and suddenly Freeman remembered a fourteen-year-old boy named Wayne Allred who’d been hiding in a closet when his mother ran from their apartment, who’d come out to shoot his father dead.
He threw his cigar butt into the gutter. He wasn’t quite disgusted with himself for being less than completely thorough earlier. It had been the end of another long day and he hadn’t been holding out any hope that May was innocent. In fact, he still didn’t.
But his feet, his subconscious – something – had taken him here, and now he knew why. He crossed the street and rang the bell to number 17, Strauss. The speaker squawked by his ear.
‘Who is it?’
Freeman apologized and explained briefly.
‘It’s ten o’clock at night. Can’t this wait until morning?’
He apologized again, and for a moment it appeared that he was going to strike out. But then the buzzer sounded and he was quietly climbing the carpeted steps. The door stood ajar and Nick Strauss leaned against the jamb, wearing white socks and a terrycloth robe. He was a big man, far bigger than Freeman, his black hair still wet from the shower.
‘I’m sorry,’ Freeman repeated. ‘But a person’s life is at stake here.’
‘Could I see some ID?’
The lawyer smiled. ‘Of course.’ It was the standard first line of protection, as foolish, Freeman thought, as most human endeavor. As if – were he a burglar or a murderer – possession of a driver’s license would make him any safer, as if all IDs weren’t routinely, expertly, forged or altered.
But he took out his wallet and offered it. He had a business card in his jacket breast pocket and he gave Strauss one of those too.
The man opened the door further. Freeman saw two boys – teenagers or a little younger – sitting together on the couch, trying to get a look at him. He gave them a little friendly wave, and Strauss said to come on in. ‘But I’ve already told you we didn’t see anything.’
‘Well, Mr Strauss, actually you told me you didn’t see anything. You said you’d ask the boys and get back to me.’
‘If they saw anything -’
‘What, Dad?’
‘Just a second, Nick. I’m talking to this man. This is Mr Freeman, guys. These are my boys – Alex, the big guy, and Nick, the big little guy. Aren’t you, Nick?’
The younger boy, Nick, seemed an echo not only of his father’s name but of the attitude – cautious, watchful. Freeman kept his hands in his pockets, the supplicant. ‘I don’t mean to push. People forget these things all the time. It’s just so terribly important.’
Strauss made some motion that Freeman took for acquiescence; he looked to the boys, then back to Strauss. ‘Would you guys like to show me your room, if it’s okay with your dad?’
The older boy, Alex, said ‘sure’ and jumped up. This was an adventure.
‘How about you, Nick?’
‘Naw. I’ll just wait here.’
Freeman said fine, but Alex was all over him. ‘Come on, you wimp, chicken-liver, baby.’
‘Alex!’
But that did it. Nick got up. ‘It’s all right, Dad. Alex is such a nerd.’ Then, to his brother, ‘you jerkoff,’ remembering the last time he had seen the Chinese woman through the telescope…
Nick Strauss loved his dad’s apartment at the corner of Hyde and Union, especially after the month of traveling with his mom and Alex, staying in those tiny stuffy rooms in Europe. First of all, Dad’s place was humongous, twice the size of his mom’s in Van Nuys, rickety-rackety pink stucco with peeling paint and cars parked all over the place where there should have been grass. Then, at Dad’s, nobody was above them – no Mrs Cutler and her two sons and the bass and drums coming down through the ceiling all day and night like in the Valley. No adjoining hotel rooms with people staying up all the time.
Plus the cable cars; it was a snap to get on and off without paying. And hills for skateboarding like you couldn’t believe, and no damn palm trees. In fact, no trees.
And finally this glassed-in turret in the front upstairs corner of the apartment, which was part of his and Alex’s bedroom when they came to visit on Saturday. And this time, since they’d been with Mom so steadily with school and then Europe and all, they were staying three weeks.
So after the lights went out you could take out the telescope and spy on anybody in the neighborhood, nobody noticing a thing. Or in the daytime, just drawing the drapes and making it all dark in there, looking all around, checking it all out.
And since they’d gotten here, checking her out.
Alex saw her first – across the street, upstairs just like them, probably figuring nobody could see her. It was supremely worth the fifty cents Nick had to pay for the first look – he wondered what Chinese custom it was to walk around your house naked, but he wasn’t complaining. Except for Mom (and she didn’t count anyway), he’d never seen a live naked woman. Even Playboy was hard to get when you were eleven.
And he thought this woman looked as good – at least -as anybody in Playboy, except for the smaller boobs. And being Chinese was a little funny at first. He kind of wished she was a regular American – he wondered if it really counted as seeing a naked woman if she was Chinese, but he asked Alex and Alex said it sure counted for him, and he was thirteen so he ought to know.
She hadn’t been there for a few days; the last time had been a couple nights ago. It had been almost eleven o’clock. He couldn’t get his weenie to go down and he couldn’t get to sleep. He also didn’t want to waste a minute when her lights were on. He put his eye to the telescope. It looked like she was doing some kind of exercise taking things down off shelves, reaching up, then bending over. She turned toward him, her face so full in the telescope he almost jumped back. It looked like she was crying, and that made him feel guilty, spying on her and all.