“There’s nothing to worry about,” Chet said. I looked at him carefully, wondering whether he truly didn’t know there was a six-inch blade buried knuckle-guard-deep in his back.
“Are you really this stupid, Chester?” said Beth. “Or is this all an act?”
Chet didn’t get angry or start to shout. He clasped his hands together on the table and stared at them for a moment. “The councilman told me about this line of questioning last night,” he said finally. “If Prescott couldn’t get into evidence that Raffaello’s daughter was sleeping with Bissonette, then the councilman told me Prescott was going to do whatever he could to make it seem like the whole thing might not have happened the way Ruffing said it happened.”
“Well, did your friend Jimmy also tell you,” said Beth, “that if Prescott convinces the jury that you were taking money on the side and were the one making the threats, he could walk out of here smelling like a violet while you got the jail time?”
“He told me he was taking care of me,” said Chet.
“Sure he is, Chester,” she said. “He’s going to take care of you all the way to a twenty-year racketeering sentence.”
Chet stared at her without saying anything. I turned around to look out a window, but there were none in the room. For a moment I felt I was in a coffin.
Beth said, “With your prior convictions, Chester, Victor and I had no intention of putting you on the stand, so we didn’t want you to tell us what happened. But now we need you to. How much would Ruffing give you in that envelope?”
He shrugged, but he answered her. “A hundred thousand each time, like he said, a check for fifty and fifty in cash.”
I turned away from the wall and stared at him. “And you let Prescott lie to me about the money?” I asked.
“You said you were asking the same question the jury would ask,” said Chet. “Prescott told you exactly what we were going to argue to the jury, that’s all.”
“Why not the truth?” I asked.
“Because the truth looks bad,” said Chet. He shrugged, like a boy caught at a prank, and I turned away from him again.
“Who told you to get it in cash?” asked Beth, continuing her interrogation.
“Jimmy.”
“And what did you do with it once you got it?” she asked.
“I gave it to him.”
“All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. He sometimes gave some back to me. He liked me to have cash for his expenses. And sometimes he gave me cash for Ronnie.”
“You never took any out for yourself?”
“Never.”
“Come on, Chester,” she said. “Never even a little?”
“I didn’t keep my job for five years by stealing from the councilman.”
“Were you there the night of the murder?”
“No.”
“Who did it?” she asked.
“Raffaello.”
“Who told you it was Raffaello?”
“The councilman.”
“And you believe him?”
“Absolutely.”
“Chester, listen to me,” she said slowly. “Jimmy Moore is selling you out.”
There was a pause then. Chet sat straight-backed in his chair, his hands clasped before him, clasped tightly, his fingers twisting around each other like knotted ropes, and Chet was staring at those clasped hands, saying nothing. I tapped my fingers on the formica tabletop, fatatatap, fatatatap, fatatatap.
“Chester,” she said finally. “We have to fight back. If we act now we can still mount a defense. We have to point the finger at Jimmy and let the jury choose between you and him. My guess, everything being even, they’ll go after him.”
There was another pause, and then Chet looked my way. “What do you think, Victor?” he asked. “What do you think I should do?”
Here it was. Beth was staring at me, a sad uncertainty in her gaze. Chester was looking at me and I could see that boy again, the lonely one inside of him that all his careful manners had been hiding for so long, and the little boy was scared. I had to be careful here, I knew. I had to phrase it just right.
“It appears, on the surface,” I said, looking only at Concannon as I spoke, “that the councilman’s lawyer may be planning to make you a scapegoat. But it’s also possible that Prescott is simply trying to cast any doubt he can on Ruffing’s story to show the weakness of the prosecutor’s case. If so, he would argue in front of the jury that Eggert hadn’t proven whether Jimmy was at fault or you were at fault and therefore reasonable doubt existed. That’s exactly what defense attorneys are supposed to do, raise reasonable doubt. And, frankly, it might not be a terrible strategy. So what we should do, Chet, really depends on whether or not you trust the councilman.”
I kept looking at Concannon, only at Concannon, even after I finished speaking. I was almost disappointed to see the relief spread across his features.
“That makes it easy, then,” said Chet. “I’m going to trust Jimmy. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever known to a savior. If he says he’s going to get us both off, I’m going to trust him to do it.”
Beth banged the table with her hand. “You’re his sacrificial lamb, Chester,” she said. “He’s feeding you to the government to save himself. And it doesn’t stop here. After this trial there’s the trial in state court. You remember that, don’t you? The murder trial where ADA Slocum is going to ask for the death penalty?”
“I didn’t kill that man,” said Chet. “And Jimmy didn’t either.”
“It doesn’t matter who did what,” she said. “If you go down here, you’re going to go down there too, do you understand? Don’t throw your life away.”
When his answer came it was slow, precise, but the anger in it was clear and hard. “I was wasting away to nothing when the councilman took me from the street and gave me something to be. You don’t know what it’s like, feeling the frustration of wanting something so bad and knowing there is no way in hell you’re going to get it. And then along comes Jimmy Moore like an angel of God and he gives it all to me. We get one shot, that’s the rule for us, one shot if we’re lucky, and the councilman’s my shot. Victor says it’s all about whether or not I trust him, well, I do. More than anything else in this world. And I will continue to trust him until you can prove to me, I mean prove it in black and white so there is no doubt, until you can prove to me that his strategy is to dump me to save himself.”
“We can’t get proof like that,” said Beth.
“Then I want Victor to keep following Prescott’s orders. Prescott doesn’t want Victor to ask any questions of Michael Ruffing.”
“Is that right?” I asked.
“That’s what he wants. The councilman’s a loyal man, all he demands is loyalty in return. I’ve seen it over and over, people doubting him and him coming through for them. Get me the proof or do what Prescott tells you.”
I slapped the table lightly. “Well, I guess that’s that,” I said. “The decision’s made.”
“Why don’t you give us a minute alone, Chester,” said Beth.
After he left we stayed there in silence for a while, Beth and I. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, afraid of what I would see in her eyes. I thought she’d start out by screaming at me, but she didn’t. Her voice when it came was soft and even, but I could still feel the emotion in it.
“You should get the hell out of this case,” she said. “Cause a mistrial, leave Prescott holding a leaking paper bag with his spoiled strategy inside.”
“The judge won’t let me go,” I said.
“Then you should get Chester back in here and convince him that he’s getting screwed.”
“He’s the client,” I said. “He made his decision.”
“You could convince him,” she said. “What you told him was absolute bullshit and you know it. He listens to you, God knows why, but he does. You could change his mind, give him a fighting chance.”