I felt guilt and gratitude in one rush. I knew he was in no condition to make the trip, but he was right. Without him, I didn’t have a clue.
“How about day after tomorrow, Harry?”
20
It was just after noon when I got back to Franklin Street. My first port of call was Mr. Devlin’s office. The Cerberus at the door no longer even looked up as I passed. She did flick the end of a pencil in the direction of the high chamber, just to show that I entered with her permission and that she still had the power to bar the door. I blew her a kiss, which she accepted with all the effusion of a kindergarten teacher when little Winston brings her a dead mouse from recess.
I briefed Mr. Devlin on what I’d learned since our last meeting. He just listened through my account of the Harvard group, nodded in what I took for approval of my visit to our client, scowled at me for rerunning the gauntlet of the Chinese Mafia at the Beach Street brothel, and paced to the window when I told him that Mr. Qian, witness for the prosecution, had seen our client on multiple occasions dining with a Chinese gentleman of questionable honor at the Ming Tree-counter to our Mr. Bradley’s consistent recitation of the facts.
“How’s your confidence in that look in young Bradley’s eyes now, sonny?”
“Waning. Not gone, but waning.”
“This could be the best thing that happened to Bradley.”
“You lost me, Mr. Devlin.”
“Any time you base a defense on your belief in your client’s innocence because he told you so, you’re a loose cannon. Often as not, you’ll wind up exploding in your client’s face. Go with the facts as you find them. You’ll do the best job for your client.”
“Yes, sir. I remember you said that.”
He gave me a sharp look when he caught the lawyer’s difference between agreeing with him and noting that he’d said it.
“Mm. What about this Mr. Qian? Is he a solid witness?”
“In the worst way. Mrs. Lee is strung tight as piano wire. She could fold under pressure. But Mr. Qian is… gentle, intelligent, confident, humble… wise. He won’t be shaken.”
He was leaning against the chair, but his eyes came up.
“Wise?”
I thought about it. How many people do you meet in a lifetime that fit that description?
“Yes, sir. Wise.”
“What about the Harvard group? Anything there?”
“Nothing substantive. Couple of possible character witnesses. One in particular. I think she has a crush.”
“Then she’s useless. The jury’ll see it. Anything she says’ll be considered biased. The only remote possibility for an affirmative defense seems to be this girl, Mei-Li. And she’s an unknown. The rest of it’s blowing smoke.”
I was pleased in a frightening sort of way that we had reached the same conclusion.
“I want you to get a detective up to Toronto. Get Tom Burns on it.”
“No, sir.”
I think the last one to say the n word to him was his mother. He hadn’t heard it in so long, he looked as if he wanted me to define it for him.
“What I mean, Mr. Devlin, is he’s good, but not for this. This is an outfit that runs on secret code words, and numbers, and mostly well-orchestrated fear. It’s a matter of always touching the right buttons. I couldn’t have gotten this far without a Chinese friend who runs interference for me.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“My friend and I are going up to Toronto tomorrow.”
That lit a fuse and raised the decibel level to where I’m sure Julie could hear it comfortably.
“The hell you are, sonny! You’re not going outside of this commonwealth. You’ve gone far enough. Too far. No more foolish risks. Get Burns on this. And do it now. I want a statement from that girl. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
He swung the chair around and focused the full Devlin heat at me from three feet.
“Let’s get this straight, sonny. Do we understand who’s running this show?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right then. You stay put.”
He eased back a bit, and I felt the furnace subside. The change of subject was a relief.
“I got a call from Judge Posner’s chambers. The case has been assigned to him. He’s called a pretrial conference for three days from now at two. I want you there. He’s going to be pushing for an early trial date before the press and the Chinese community get more revved up than they are already. The DA has the cards, so she wants a quick showdown too.”
“We need time, Mr. Devlin. This case is not shaping up fast. It gets more complicated every time I talk to a witness.”
“I’ll do what I can at the conference to buy us some time.”
“How do you feel about Judge Posner?”
He grabbed a pair of reading glasses and paced to the window.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had a criminal case before him in ten years. He’s good on evidence. Tough on lawyers, at least the young ones.”
“That’s not what I mean, sir.”
“I know what you mean, sonny. In plain English, is he going to give Bradley a fair trial? I wish I knew. You know what they say in Chicago. ‘If the fix is equal, justice prevails.’”
“And is the fix equal here, Mr. Devlin?”
He rubbed the morning shadow of regrowth on his chin. I knew we were both thinking of the DA’s sudden reversal on a plea bargain and Conrad Munsey’s warning about unrest upstairs.
“Let’s hope so, sonny. Without solid grounds for a motion to have him recuse himself, that’s the best we can do at this point. Let’s get on with it.”
He came back to the papers on his desk. I was halfway to the door when his voice caught me.
“Sonny! You be damned careful in Toronto. ”
I was caught flat-footed. “But didn’t you just say…”
“I know what I said.” He stood up, and the chair spun. “And I know you. I could order you to hell and back, and you’d still go to Toronto, wouldn’t you?”
There was no point in not telling him the truth.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’ll probably go on taking these foolish chances for the rest of your life. You’re too damn much like me.”
I was grinning, and I didn’t hide it. I think inside maybe he was, too, in spite of the fierceness of the scowl.
“If you get hurt up there, you’ll get it double from me when you get back! You understand?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll watch it.”
“I want to see you right here the instant you get back.”
I nodded. “The instant I get back.”
I walked out of there on six clouds. I got looks of sympathy from the corridor dwellers who heard the ruckus and thought Mr. D. had devoured another associate. I sensed that back of the bellowing, the man cared whether I lived or died. I never got that feeling from anyone else at Bilson, Dawes.
I decided to check into my office, as briefly as possible. Julie held out a pink please-call-back slip.
“Are you and ‘Lex’ still tight? Sounds like there’s trouble in Paradise.”
I said it quietly while I checked the slip. Tom Burns wanted me to call him back at his office. “We’re cool. I’ve got him right where I want him.”
“Right. On your back, taking bites out of your neck.”
I just shook my head and smiled. I looked back down the corridor.
“Did you ever notice something, Julie? When you walk down toward that office, the floor seems to rise. You know why that is?”
She looked blank and curious, and I just winked.
Tom Burns picked up on the second ring. It was his private line with no secretarial intermediates.
“Any pay dirt, Tom?”
“I checked the twelve jurors. The twelve of them continued on with about the same lifestyle they had before the Dolson trial. The only exception was that one of them died about a year after the trial.”
“Of what?”
“Heart attack. Nothing suspicious. He had heart problems before the trial.”
“So we struck out.”
“Did I say that, Mike? Hold your horses. I checked probate. The one who died left the usual things a carpenter from South Boston would leave his daughter in his will. Plus a three-hundred-thousand-dollar bank account.”