“I’ve been doing some checking,” Yocke said, “since I saw you at Aldana’s arraignment. Apparently you’re the senior officer in the antidrug operations section of the Joint Staff. So this little matter had to cross your desk.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Yocke. Why do you think I can help you with your story?”
“You’re saying you won’t?”
“Mr. Yocke, I drink coffee in the morning and go to lunch every day. Everything else I do at my office is classified. I cannot help you.” Callie frowned. Jake turned his back on her. “I suggest you try the Pentagon’s public information office.”
“Do you have that number handy, Captain?”
“Try the phone book.” Jake cradled the receiver without saying good-bye.
“Jake, that was rude.”
“Oh, Callie!”
“Well, it was.”
“That damned kid calls me at home and asks me to give him classified information? Bullshit! You tell him the next time he’s conjugating some verbs for you that he had better never pull this stunt on me again or I’ll rearrange his nose the next time I meet him.”
“I’m sure he didn’t know the information was classified,” Callie said, but she was talking to herself. Her husband was on his way to the bedroom.
Well, she told herself, Jake was right. A reporter should know better. Yocke’s young. He’ll learn. And fast, if he spends much time around Jake.
That evening when Harrison Ronald arrived at Freeman McNally’s house for work, Ike Randolph met him at the door.
“Freeman wants to see you.”
Ike grinned. It was more of a sneer, Harrison thought, and he had seen it before, whenever someone was about to lose a pound of flesh. Ike enjoyed the smell of fear.
In spite of himself, Harrison Ronald felt his heart accelerate. For some reason his armpits were instantly wet.
Ike patted him down. That was routine, but this evening Ike was more thorough than usual — on purpose, no doubt.
Ike Randolph, convicted armed robber, convicted child rapist — you had to have the milk of human kindness oozing from your pores to like Ike. He had, Harrison knew, grown up in the same cesspool that spawned Freeman. Mom McNally had fed them both and paid bail when they got arrested for shoplifting and, later, stripping cars. She hadn’t had the money to bail them out when they were caught mugging tourists. Ike had had the gun and taken the felony fall; Freeman had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Yet after his plea Freeman spent ten more days in jail while Ike walked on probation. The two of them still liked to laugh about that when they were drinking.
Several years later a judge decided to let Ike do a little time after a six-year-old girl required surgery on her vagina and uterus following Ike’s attentions. He had had a couple of minor possession convictions since — nothing serious.
This evening Ike gave Harrison a little shove after he finished frisking him.
“Hey!”
“Shut up, motherfuck! Go on. Freeman’s waiting.”
McNally was sitting on a sofa in the living room at the back of the house. Both his brothers were there too. Ike closed the door behind them.
“Called you this morning,” Freeman said.
Harrison Ronald concentrated on managing his face. Look innocent!
“Where were you?”
“Out. I do that every now and then.”
“Don’t gimme no sass, Z. I don’t take sass from nobody.”
“Hey, Freeman. I just went out to get some tail.”
“What’s her name?” This from the eldest of the brothers, Ruben. He was the accountant.
“You don’t know her.”
Freeman stood up and approached Ford, who was still trying to decide if he should break McNally’s arm and use him for a shield when Freeman slapped him. “You weren’t at your pad last Wednesday either. You’re gonna tell me the truth, bro, or I’m gonna unscrew your head and shit in it. What’s her name?”
This appeared to be an excellent time to look scared, and Harrison did so. It was ridiculously easy. The fear was boiling. “Her name’s Ruthola and she’s married. We got this little thing going. I sneak over on Wednesday morning when the kid’s at day care. Honest, Freeman, it’s just a piece of ass.”
Freeman grunted and examined Ford’s eyes. Ford forced himself to meet his gaze. McNally’s deep brown eyes looked almost black. The urge to attack was almost overpowering: Harrison flexed his hands as he fought it back.
“Call her.”
“Christ, her ol’ man might be home.”
“So this’ll be the end of a good thing. A piece of ass ain’t worth your life, is it?”
“Not to me.”
“Call her.”
Freeman McNally picked up the phone on the table by the couch and motioned to the one on the other side of the room. Ford lifted the indicated instrument from its cradle and dialed.
It rang on the other end. Once. Twice. Three times. Harrison held his breath.
“Hello.” It was a woman’s voice.
“Ruthola, this is Sammy.”
Silence. At that instant Harrison Ronald Ford knew he was a dead man. A chill surged through him. Then her voice came in a hiss. “Why’d you call? You promised you wouldn’t!”
“Hey, babe, I won’t be able to make it next week. Gonna be out of town. Just wanted you to know.”
“Oh, honey, don’t call me when he’s home!” The words just poured out. “You promised! Call me tomorrow at ten, lover.” She hung up.
Harrison Ronald cradled the phone. He felt a powerful urge to urinate.
Freeman snickered once. He rubbed his fingers through his hair while everyone in the room watched. “She a nice piece?” he said, finally, the corners of his lips twitching perceptibly.
Harrison tried to shrug nonchalantly. The shrug was more of a nervous jerk.
“Where’s her ol’ man work?”
Ford’s stomach was threatening to heave. This, he decided, would be a good place for the truth. He got it out: “He’s FBI.”
They stared at him with their mouths open, frozen. Harrison tried another grin, which came out, he thought, like a clown leering.
“You stupid—” Ike roared from behind him. “Of all the—”
Freeman giggled. Then he laughed. The others began laughing. The laughter rose to a roar. Freeman McNally held his sides and pounded his thigh.
Harrison turned slowly. Even Ike was laughing. Harrison Ronald joined in. The relief was so great he felt a twinge of hysteria. The tears rolled down his cheeks as his diaphragm flapped uncontrollably.
Eight months ago, when Hooper had told him that someday he might need an alibi and introduced him to Ruthola, he hadn’t anticipated it would be like this, hadn’t understood that he would be so taut he almost twanged.
Ruthola Barnes, wife of Special Agent Ziggy Barnes, she had known. “I’ve done this before,” she told him then. “Trust me. Just say you’re Sammy and talk to me like we just got out of bed, like we’re both still naked and standing in the kitchen making coffee. I’ll do the rest.”
That was eight months ago. He hadn’t seen her since. Yet when he needed her, she was there.
Ah, Ziggy Barnes, you are a lucky, lucky man.
The key to success for a trial lawyer lies in preparation, and no one did it better than Thanos Liarakos. Thursday morning he began to submerge himself in the reams and reams of witness interrogation transcripts that were spewing from the prosecutor’s office just as fast as the folks over there could run an industrial-size copy machine.
There were going to be a lot of transcripts, tens of thousands of pages, the prosecutor had told the judge. The people answering the questions were drug dealers, wholesalers, smugglers — pilots, guards, boat crewmen, drivers, lookouts, and so on — people from every nook and cranny of the drug business. At some point in their interrogation by police or FBI or DEA they were asked where they got the drug, when, how much, and of course, from whom.