Two hours later Randy Boggs got to: "That's when I decided to hitch to New York. And that was the biggest mistake of my life."
"You were tired of Maine?"
"The lobster business didn't work out like I'd hoped. My partner – see, I'm not much for figures – he kept the books and all this cash coming in didn't no way equal the cash going out. I suspicioned he kept the numbers pretty obscured and when he sold the business he told me he was letting it go to a couple creditors but I think he got paid good money. Anyways, I had me maybe two, three hundred bucks was all and two new pair of jeans, some shirts. I figured I'd be leaving that part of the country before another winter come. Snow belongs in movies and in paper cones with syrup on it. So I begun thumbing south. Rides were scarce's hens' teeth but finally I got me some rides and ended up in Purchase, New York. If that isn't a name I don't know what is." He grinned. "Purchase… It was raining and I had my thumb out so long it was looking like a bleached prune. Nobody stopped, except this one fellow. He pulled over in a – we call them – a Chinese tenement car. Big old Chevy twelve or so years old – you know, could ride a family of ten. He said, 'Hop in,' and I did. Biggest mistake of my life, miss. I'll tell you that."
"Jimmy."
"Right. But then I told him my name was Dave. I just had a feeling this wasn't a person I wanted to open up with a real lot."
"What happened after you got in?"
"We drove south toward the city, making small talk. 'Bout women mostly, the way men do. Telling how you get put down by women all the time and how you don't understand them but what you're really doing is bragging that you've had a ton of 'em. That sort of thing."
"Where was Jimmy going? Further south?" "He said he was only going so far as New York City but I was thankful I was getting a ride at all. I figured I could buy a Greyhound ticket to get me on my way to Atlanta. In fact I was thinking just that very thing when he looks over at me in the car and says, 'Hey, son, how'd you like to earn yourself a hundred bucks.' And I said, 'I'd like that pretty well, particularly if it's legal but even if not I'd still like it pretty well.'
"He said it wasn'treal illegal. Just picking up something and dropping it off. I told him right away, 'I've got a problem if that'd be drugs you were talking about.' He said it was credit cards and since I've done a little with them in the past I said that wasn't so bad but could he maybe consider two hundred. He said he'd more than consider it and said if I drove he'd make it two hundred fifty. And I agreed was what I did. We drive to this place somewhere. I didn't know New York but at the trial I found out it was on the Upper West Side. We stopped and he got out and I scooted over behind the wheel. Jimmy, or whatever his name was, walked into this courtyard." Rune asked, "What did he look like?" "Well, I wasn't too sure. I oughta be wearing glasses but I'd lost them overboard in Maine and couldn't afford to get new ones. He was a big fellow, though.
He sat big, the way a bear would sit. A moustache, I remember. It was all in profile, the look I got."
"White?"
"Yes'm."
"Describe his clothing."
"He wore blue jeans with cuffs turned up, engineer boots-"
"What are those?"
"Short buckled boots, you know. Black. And a Navy watch coat."
"Weren't you a little nervous about this credit card thing?"
Boggs paused for a minute. "I'll tell you, miss. There've been times in my life – not a lot, but a few – when two hundred fifty dollars hasn't been a lot of money. But had then it was. Just like it would be now and when somebody is going to give you a lot of money you'd be surprised what stops becoming funny or suspicious. Anyway, I sat for about ten minutes in the car. I had me a cigarette or two. I was real hungry and was looking around for a Burger King. That's what I really wanted, one of those Whoppers. There I am, feeling hungry, and I hear this shot. I've fired me enough pistols in my life to know a gunshot. They don't boom like in the movies. There's this crack-"
"I know gunshots," Rune said.
"Yeah, you shoot?"
"Been shot at, matter of fact," she told him. This wasn't ego. It was to let him know more about her, make him trust her more.
Boggs glanced at her, decided she wasn't kidding, and nodded slowly. He continued. "I walk carefully into the courtyard. There's a man lying on the ground. I thought it was Jimmy. I run up to him and see it'snot Jimmy and I lean down and say, 'Mister, you okay?' And of course he isn't. I see he's dead. I stand up fast and I just panic and run."
Boggs smiled with a shallow twist of his lips. "And what happens? The story of my life. I run into a police car cruising by outside. I mean, I really run right into it, bang. I fall over and they pick me up and collar me and that's it."
"What about Jimmy?"
"I glanced around and seen the car but Jimmy wasn't inside. He was gone."
"Did you see any gun?"
"No, ma'am. I heard they found it in the bushes. There wasn't any of my prints on it but I was wearing gloves. The DA made a big deal out of it that I was wearing gloves in April. But I got me small hands…" He held one up. "I don't have a lot of meat on me. It was real cold."
"You think Jimmy shot Mr Hopper?"
"I pondered that a lot but I don't see why he would have. He didn't have any gun that I saw and if it was just a credit card scam Mr Hopper wouldn't've been in on that, credit cards're small potatoes. I think Jimmy had the cards on him and just panicked when he heard the shot. Then he just took off."
"But you told the cops about Jimmy?"
"Well, not the credit card part. It didn't seem that was too smart. So I kept mum on that. But sure I told them about Jimmy. Not one of them – to a man -believed me."
Not even your own lawyer, Rune thought. "Assuming Jimmy didn't shoot Hopper, you think he might'veseen the killer?"
"Could've."
"There isn't a lot to go on, what you've told me."
"I understand that. He sighed. I was just biding my time, waiting for parole. But there're people here I got on the bad side of somehow. I'm really worried they're going to move on me again."
"Move on you?"
"Kill me, you know. They triedence. I don't know why. But that's life here in prison. Don't need to be a reason."
Rune asked, "How bad do you want to get out?"
Boggs glanced at the camera. Rune stood up and looked through the viewfinder to frame him better. What she saw troubled her because she wasn't looking at animal eyes, or criminal's eyes, which would have been scary but expected; she saw gentleness and pain and – even harder to bear – a portion of him that was still a lonely, frightened young boy. He said, "I'll answer that by telling you what it's like in here. It's like your heart is tied 'round and 'round with clothesline. It's like every day is waking up the morning after a funeral. It's like you welcome fear because when you're afraid you can't think about being free. It's a sadness so bad you want to howl when you see a plane flying by going to a place you can imagine but can't ever get to, no matter how close it might be."
Randy Boggs stopped and cleared his throat. "Do what you can for me, miss. Please."
10
Rune gave motherhood her best shot. She really did.
Courtney was probably three-fourths toilet-trained. The remaining quarter was tough to cope with but Rune managed as best she could.
She bought healthy food for the girl.
She bathed her twice a day.
She also leapt right in to improve the little girl's wardrobe.
Claire, who had super-crucial taste in her own fashion, had bought the poor kid mostly sweats blouses with bears or Disney cartoon characters on them and corduroy jeans (corduroy! In New York!). Rune took her straight down to SoHo, to a kids' store where Rune knew one of the salesclerks. She dropped some bucks on real clothes: A black Naugahyde miniskirt and a couple of black T-shirts. Yellow and lime-green tights.