“Yes. Yes, I’d like that very much.”
That night was Nick’s worst. Worst ever. Worst since the night after Myra died. He couldn’t get to sleep until nearly three, and kept thinking of poor Sally in some federal shithole for the next twenty years, of poor Bob being strapped into a chair and blitzed away, of goddamned Howard and his pet prosecutor Kelso and that hoary old fraud Meachum riding the publicity of their triumph on to better and better things.
Senator Howard D. Utey, the man who nailed Bob the Nailer!
It put Nick into dark rage and when he finally got to sleep, his memories were haunted by Howard’s laughing little face, his smug confidence. God, Howard, you’ve dogged me ever since Tulsa.
Why didn’t you shut up on that goddamned radio?
Why didn’t I hit that shot?
Poor Myra. Poor Sally. Poor women who made the mistake of falling for Nick Memphis.
The alarm went off at seven; Nick limped grimly into the bathroom and faced his own grave self, a sallow, scrawny, melancholiac. His crew cut had grown out and the pouchiness of his face had vanished. He was thin as death, and maybe just as hard.
He showered, dressed slowly, putting on a suit for the first time in months, had a cup of coffee and then went to pick up Sally. He had $11 in his pocket and $236 in his checking account and over $4,000 in bills. Today he would be indicted on three counts of a federal felony.
Again, the impulse flew at him to call Howard.
It probably wasn’t too late.
He tried to imagine life after selling out: how nice it would be.
But then he remembered the time Tommy Montoya was forcing the gun barrel of his Colt Agent toward his head and he was a second from his own death, when Bob’s shot had come from nowhere and saved him.
Howard never saved shit. Howard only took.
Hugh Meachum only took.
Okay, Bob the Nailer, thought Nick. In for a penny, in for a pound, going to heaven, going to hell, I’m along for the ride, my friend. Here’s hoping you’ve got it today.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“All rise, all rise, the Fifth United States Circuit Court is now in session, the Honorable Roland O. Hughes presiding.”
Nick and Sally stood up, with two hundred others, including dozens of reporters, about half the New Orleans FBI office and Howard and his prosecuting angel, Kelso, at the prosecution table, which happened by absurd coincidence to be near Nick and Sally’s seats in the front row of the courtroom. Hugh Meachum sat behind the prosecutor’s table, in a three-piece gray herringbone suit. He had a little red bow tie on and Nick decided he looked three hundred years old.
Sam Vincent also stood. He was a slouchy grand-pop with a face like a bowl of walnut shells, and not much hair on his head. He wore a string tie and a pair of bottle-bottom glasses; his fingers were long and gnarly and dirty from the pipe he was continually stuffing when he wasn’t in court, and the thick lenses inflated his pale blue eyes when they fixed on you, so they were as large as shark’s eyes. He was nearly eighty and had won the Silver Star in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
“You may be seated,” said Judge Hughes, a stern black man in his fifties. “Now ladies and gentlemen, first I want to warn you that although today’s case has national implications, it is first and foremost a case of law and it will be treated as such. I warn spectators, particularly those of you with the press, to conduct yourself with the proper decorum or I will clear this courtroom in one minute’s time, is that understood?”
His booming voice was met with silence.
“Now, today we are having, at the defense’s request, a preliminary hearing in the matter of the Government v. Bob Lee Swagger, in which Mr. Swagger is accused of murdering a Salvadoran citizen, the Archbishop Jorge Roberto Lopez, on federal property, namely the presidential podium erected in Louis Armstrong Park March first of this year. For you spectators let me explain: this isn’t a formal trial, it’s a hearing to make certain the government has, in my judgment, enough evidence to warrant the formal trial. So there’s no jury. The two attorneys will be arguing for my benefit. Furthermore, the defense is not entitled to bring evidence, but only to attack the evidence the government presents. Now, gentlemen, I want these arguments to be swift and clean. I don’t want procedural detail cluttering up the proceedings. You may save the logrolling for the trial, assuming there is to be a trial, and before you object, Mr. Vincent, please note I only said if there is to be a trial. I’m not prejudiced. Now you may bring in the accused, bailiff.”
And so Bob was led into the courtroom.
In a bright blue prison jumpsuit, with his hands manacled before him, and secured by a chain around his waist that was connected in turn to leg irons, he shuffled in, hair clipped short and face raw and white. He was calm, however, as calm as the last moment Nick had seen him, sitting next to Julie on the floor of Hard Bargain Valley, his face sealed off behind the war paint as Howard’s SWAT team surrounded him.
God, he looked so, so fallen.
“Your Honor” – it was Sam Vincent – “is it strictly necessary to humiliate my client, who has yet to be convicted of a single crime and who was a decorated Marine hero of this country, by festooning him in chains like a common thief?”
“Your Honor,” answered Kelso, just as fast, “Mr. Swagger has a known propensity for both extreme violence and escape. These precautions are merely prudent.”
“Ah,” said the judge, “Mr. Swagger, are you duly uncomfortable or humiliated?”
“Sir, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Bob.
“All right, we’ll undo the manacles, but the leg irons stay. Is that an adequate compromise, gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is, Your Honor.”
“Bailiff, would you make the adjustments. Now, Mr. Kelso, your opening statement please.”
“Ah, thank you, Your Honor.”
Manfully, Kelso strode to the center of the courtroom.
“Your Honor, the government will demonstrate very simply that adequate proof exists to conclude that at approximately twelve-nineteen P.M., on March first of this year, Bob Lee Swagger did in fact fire a shot from an attic at Four-fifteen St. Ann Street in the French Quarter of this city, that, though aimed at the president of the United States, did strike and kill Archbishop Jorge Roberto Lopez, of Salvador, El Salvador. Mr. Swagger had the classic three-part modus operandi to accomplish such an act, that is, motive, opportunity and means, as we shall demonstrate. And that, Your Honor, should be that.”
“All right, Mr. Kelso. Thank you. Mr. Vincent.”
Nick’s heart sank a little when the old man stood on rocky legs, and essayed a little sally past the defense table where he sat alone with Bob. It was a contrast to the team of bodies that surrounded Kelso and Howard at the prosecution table.
“Well, sir,” he said, looking fully his eighty years, his rheumy blue eyes staring at nothing in particular, his suit a collection of bags that hadn’t seen a dry cleaner but had seen more than a few pipe cleanings, his clunky black shoes unshined, “I s’pose you could say we’ll show the other side and that this decorated war hero could not – ”
“Objection, Your Honor, Mr. Swagger’s war record isn’t in question here and is irrelevant to the proceedings.”
“He’s got a point, Mr. Vincent.”
“Well, hell, sir, if they say he’s a shooter then damned if they oughtn’t to point out it was the U.S. Marines that taught him to shoot and who gave the boy a chestful of medals for it.”
There was an eruption of laughter at Old Sam’s zinger.
“Well stated, Mr. Vincent. But since there’s no jury here today and since I am in fact well acquainted with your client’s military record, perhaps we could forgo, in the interests of moving into the meat of the matter, any further references to Mr. Swagger’s wartime heroism, and perhaps that would encourage the prosecution to forgo any time-consuming pattern of objections.”