My blood is boiling like hot lead to the tips of my ears. I fight the temptation to turn and get into it. I ignore him, one fist clenched and shaking at my side; I walk away.
Harry’s made it to the curb, where he’s hailed a passing cab. It pulls up and he opens the door. The throng of journalists move in around us like piranhas boiling on the surface of a lake. As I look over the top of the vehicle, I see a figure staring intently at me from across the street. It is Gus Lano, making no pretense of the fact that I am the center of his attention at this moment. I am wondering if he was in the courtroom to hear the opening, perhaps with Tony, or if he has heard the questions being propounded here on the steps.
Whatever Lano’s sense of our case had been before this moment, he is certain to have a whole new perspective now.
CHAPTER 18
Saturday morning and Sarah is cleaning her room. She is the master of the stall. My daughter, at eight years of age, can take an hour to make her bed in the morning and another to brush her teeth. She can daydream about a dozen things at once, hold her own in aimless conversation with unseen beings, and recite verse with no meter or rhyme. Put her in the shower with a bar of soap and she will drain the local reservoir.
Sarah’s mother, Nikki, who died two years ago, possessed artistic skills that seem to have passed to Sarah. She can draw human forms, men and women which shame my stick figures. But numbers elude her, and she has her own system for spelling that substitutes the consonants of any word interchangeably. I have talked to the teachers at her school and they tell me to be patient. Each child, they say, progresses at his or her own speed. For Sarah, except for the tasks she enjoys, this seems to be glacial.
“What’s she doing up there?” Lenore’s laughing, amused by the stomping sounds of little feet on the floor overhead.
Lenore arrived last evening, only to be corralled by Sarah, and the three of us ended up playing board games until Sarah went to bed. Then Lenore and I turned to the wine and some soft music.
“She’s supposed to be cleaning up. You want to go up for an inspection?”
“I think I’ll pass,” she says.
Lenore’s two children are off this week with their father, who lives in the southern part of the state and comes up only infrequently for visitation.
For several weeks Sarah has been pleading to ask a little girlfriend from school to the house to play. I have insisted that she wait but not told her the reason.
For a single father with a little girl these are dangerous times. I have a friend, a career prosecutor whose life was savaged by accusations that he fondled a child at his daughter’s slumber party. Despite the fact that his accuser later recanted and that he was acquitted after a three-month trial, he is now bankrupt and wears his own version of the scarlet letter.
It is for this reason that Lenore has agreed to spend the day. She is my alibi against paranoia, my own and that of others.
We sit talking in the kitchen while Sarah supposedly straightens her room. The doorbell rings and I look at my watch.
“A little early for her friend,” I tell Lenore.
“Mom’s probably looking for some free day care,” she says.
I excuse myself for a second and head down the hall for the door; I hear the patter of Sarah’s feet on the stairs.
“I’ll get it,” I tell her.
She makes it a race to the front door and of course gets there ahead of me, only to shrink in the shadow of the man through the screen, who fills the frame as she opens it.
“Is your daddy home?”
“I told you I would get it,” I tell Sarah.
By now she is pressing herself back into me, retreating in the way children do when confronted by a strange adult.
The guy’s wearing a khaki work uniform, a patch with his name-“Mike”-over the left breast pocket.
“Mr. Madriani?”
“Yes.”
“Capital Cable,” he says.
I give him a dense look. This means nothing to me.
“Your cable television service. We have some repairs we have to make to your system.”
“I didn’t call anybody.”
“Our office should have called you. They didn’t?”
“No.”
“Darn,” he says. “Somebody screwed up. We have to install a booster where the cable comes into your set. We’ve been getting a lot of complaints about weak signal in this area. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. And there’s no charge.”
He can tell by my look that I’m not happy with the interruption.
“Of course if it’s inconvenient I can come back another time.”
“That might be best,” I tell him. “I’m expecting company in a few minutes.” The fact is that Lenore and I were planning to take the girls out for a picnic to a local park.
“Maybe we can reschedule.” He’s looking at a clipboard in his hand, some coaxial cable in his hand still encased in its plastic wrapper.
“I should warn you that you’ll probably lose service without the booster. We’ll be adjusting the signal once they’re installed in the area here. Without the booster all you’re gonna be seeing for a while is a lot of snow.”
He studies his clipboard for a couple of seconds. “It doesn’t look good. I doubt if I’m gonna be able to get back here for at least a week, maybe ten days.”
I give him a look that is not kind.
“Sorry,” he says.
“How long will it take, if you do it today?”
“Ten minutes, in and out,” he says. “It’s very quick.”
“Do it.” I open the screen door and let him in.
He steps through the door and takes off his hat, just as Lenore is coming down the hall.
“Sorry for the interruption,” he tells her.
“Cable service,” I tell her.
“What do you need?” I ask the guy.
“Just your set,” he says.
“Over there.” I point to the cabinet against the far wall in the living room.
I offer him help moving it away from the wall. He tells me he can handle it, but he needs his tools first.
“Fine. We’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything else.”
He gives me a smile, puts his hat back on, and is out the door, leaving it open just an inch so that it does not lock behind him.
Sarah turns back down the hallway, her body filled with disappointment. “I thought it was Mindy.”
“How’s your room coming?” I ask her.
With this she is curving her little body into Lenore’s side, seeking sanctuary.
“Fine,” she tells me.
“You want me to come up and look at it?”
“No. I want her.”
“A court of higher appeal,” I tell Lenore.
“What’s wrong with our television set?” asks Sarah. To my daughter the thought of a broken TV is a tragedy on the order of a terminal illness. No more Disney.
“Whatever it is, the man will fix it. Not that it’s going to do you any good. Not until after you finish your room. Now get up there.”
To this I get a lot of moaning, and evasive body language. She bats her eyes at Lenore in hopes of intervention. When this doesn’t work she’s back to me. Your average manipulative child.
“Do I have to, Daddy?”
“Yes, you have to. Now go do it.”
She slumps her shoulders and trudges up the steps.
“I have a lot of authority with dogs and little children,” I tell Lenore.
“Wait until she gets a little older,” she says.
“You mean it doesn’t get any better?”
Lenore just laughs.
We settle in the kitchen again. I warm up her coffee. We talk just a little around the edges of Acosta’s case. Lenore wants me to bring her current, though I am careful what I tell her. There is no privilege for communications with Lenore out of the case. Anything Acosta has told me is protected information, attorney-client. Should I disclose this to Lenore, however, now that she is no longer of counsel, the state may be able to force her to reveal it on the stand.