The Juror Read online

  He shrugs. “Messages. Couriers, go-betweens.”

  “You never see him?”

  “Once in a while. On Sundays at five he goes to visit his family tomb at Greenview Cemetery. The authorities never bother to follow him in there.”

  “Today?” she says.

  “What?”

  “Today is Sunday. Will you see him today?”

  “Should I?”

  “I just—I don’t know. It is exciting, Zach. It’s compelling. OK? You’ve shown me that. What I still haven’t learned, though, what I wish I understood is why it’s so compelling.”

  He tells her, “We love temporal power because it all derives from the Unvarying Power. From the Tao. That’s what draws us to it.”

  “I’m not sure I get that.”

  He grins. “I’m not either. And there are times when I think I’ve had my fill of it. More and more now. Enough of these lessons in power. I think maybe I’m ready to learn another kind of power. Give all this up. Go hide out in a monastery somewhere. Maybe the Ajanta caves near Hyderbd. Somewhere clean and spare and simple. Or even better… even better, Annie. Come look at this.”

  He reaches, takes her hand.

  She doesn’t pull away.

  They walk together up the hill.

  They quicken their pace, and he leads her to the top of the rise. From there they can look down to the other side and see the old sagging farmhouse under its stand of sugar maples. The windows all broken, the porch pilasters rotten. As they gaze at it, he strokes her palm with his fingertips. The lightest touch possible—but he can feel how it makes her shiver.

  He tells her, “I’d like to restore this house. It’ll cost me more than building from scratch. But think of it, Annie: a farmhouse with calico curtains and a rocking chair on the porch. And polished floors. And kids. A kid like Oliver. And then no more trafficking with power. Then nothing but love. Do you think I could turn myself into sheer love, Annie? Do you think I have that power?”

  He doesn’t look at her, but he can feel the warmth of her.

  He says, “I want to find a lover who’s creative and maybe a little chaotic, a chaos to balance my structure, does that, does that—? Annie? Let me say this, Annie. OK? I’m sorry you hate me. Because I love you.”

  They stand there gazing at that house. Is she as scared as he is? he wonders. He’s scared, but he’s devoted to his fear. He’s devoted to the feel of the big clapper ringing inside his hollow chest.

  He turns to look at her, and then she meets his eyes and she reaches up and lays her hands on his temples and draws his face down to her.

  She weeps as his lips touch hers.

  No tongue, no pressure. Just the touch of her lips against his, the taste of her tears.

  Never been kissed that softly in his life.

  He leans into her but she pulls back. “No,” she says. “No.”

  She turns and hurries away from him, back down the wide-open slope.

  He catches up with her at the car. She’s standing at her door. “Drive me back,” she says.

  “When will I see you again?”

  It’s hard for him to have to ask. But it’s hard for her, too. She can’t speak. She seems as though she’s going to shake her head, but then she’s saying, “Soon. Yes. But not tomorrow. Soon. Oh, give me time, Zach. Please.”

  ANNIE, forty minutes later, is back in her favorite FBI cubicle, and Carew is giving her hell. He’s flushed and squinty-eyed, hoarse.

  “What the HELL were you doing getting out by Papa Taco?”

  “Excuse me?” she says.

  “On Route 22. In Stoneleigh. You were riding with the guy you call Johnny, he pulled off the road. We heard the door open, we heard the door shut. Why? What was going on?”

  “He told me to get out.”

  “Oh yeah? How come we didn’t hear that?”

  “He motioned me, OK? I thought that’s where I’d be meeting the Teacher. But after a minute nobody showed up, so he told—he motioned me to get back in the car.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we drove around.”

  “Without saying a word?”

  “He wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Maybe that’s because you told him to shut up.”

  “Maybe. Did you want me to talk to Johnny? I thought you wanted me to talk to the Teacher.”

  “Then half an hour later you went back to the same place?”

  “Yeah. Same thing happened all over again.”

  “That doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “For some reason,” she says, “the Teacher didn’t show up. I think he must have guessed what’s going on.”

  “How would he have guessed?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. You figure it out. Me, I’m going home.”

  He shakes his head. “We have a lot of things to talk about.”

  “Great.” She grins. “We’ll talk tomorrow. We’ll set up another sting, huh? Oh boy. It’ll be a blast. But right now I’m exhausted and I want to go home.”

  She rises.

  “We’re not done, Ms. Laird.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “Sit down. I want to know what the hell is going on in your head.”

  “What’s going on in my head? My child. I’m thinking about my child. That’s all. Nothing else. Nothing fancy. Just my child.”

  “Sit down.”

  “No.” She fixes him in her gaze. “You want more out of me today, arrest me. Get me a lawyer. Otherwise I’ll be in tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon, say four o’clock?”

  “Annie—”

  “Don’t call me Annie.”

  “Ms. Laird—”

  “Meanwhile, get fucked.”

  She walks out.

  She gets in her car and drives toward Greenview Cemetery.

  FRANKIE and Archangelo stand guard at the Boffano mausoleum while Louie Boffano communes with his late beloved mother. Frankie’s looking down the long corridor of angels when suddenly this woman appears. Wearing a black windbreaker with the hood up, walking swiftly toward them.

  He barks the news to the others: “Who the fuck is that?”

  Can’t be a mourner. No mourners are allowed in here this late on Sunday. Except Louie Boffano.

  Louie turns and sees her himself. “Wait a minute,” he says.

  Frankie knows that if anyone were of a mind to, it’d be a good time to kill Louie Boffano. After his stretch in stir, he’s vulnerable. He doesn’t have his land legs under him yet. This babe coming on, coming so quick out of nowhere—this babe could be bad news.

  Frankie steps back to stand in front of Louie. He calls out, “Hold it!”

  She keeps coming.

  He reaches into his jacket and puts his hand on his Glock. “I said hold it!”

  She keeps coming. “Mr. Boffano?” she says. “I need to talk to you.”

  Nothing in her hands. Her handbag’s slung over her shoulder—no immediate problem there. Unless she’s planning on strangling Louie with her bare hands, we’re all right, Frankie thinks.

  But Archangelo isn’t feeling so relaxed. He pulls out his piece and drops into a stance and bellows: “STOP OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKIN HEAD OFF!”

  Just like a police.

  Jesus.

  It works, though, the woman holds up. Ten yards away. She stands there on the grass in the corridor of angels.

  “Archangelo,” Louie chides gently. He waves the pistol down. Then he asks the woman, “What can I do for you?”

  She says, “Do you recognize me?”

  “Yeah, sure. The lady juror. What do you want?”

  “I have something for you.”

  Reaching for her handbag.

  Frankie shouts, “DON’T TOUCH THE BAG!”

  She shrugs. She dips one shoulder and lets the bag slump off of her. “Then you come get it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a peace offering,” she says. “I want to make an arrangement with you. I give yo
u what’s in my bag. And I promise I won’t cooperate with the state investigators. And you leave me alone. Me and my family and my friends.”

  Says gracious Louie, “Of course I would never hurt your family. Nor you, nor nobody. I don’t even know you, why would I—”

  “Swear it, Louie, and I’ll give you your gift.”

  “Well, I tell you the truth, I’m not interested in your fuckin gift.”

  “Oh, yes you are,” she says, and goes for the bag again.

  “DON’T!” cries Frankie.

  She smiles at him. “You think I would want to kill Louie Boffano?” Contemptuous sneer when she speaks his name. “But he’s nothing to me. Why would I want to kill him?”

  Louie signals Frankie to ease up.

  The woman picks up her handbag, and opens it. She brings out a minicassette recorder. She presses the PLAY button.

  They hear the Teacher’s laughter.

  “Louie Boffano’s not anyone’s friend. He’s a freak. He’s a monster. But he intrigues me. Does it seem depraved—my fascination for that man?”

  She stops the tape. “Did you enjoy that, Mr. Boffano? Would you like to hear more?”

  “When did you tape this?” says Louie.

  “Today.”

  “Who wired you?”

  “I wired myself. It’s an Olympus something—I bought it last night on Forty-second Street.”

  Louie holds out his hand. He wants her to bring the thing to him. Frankie can see that his hand is trembling.

  “Louie,” Frankie warns him under his breath, “this could be some kind of tricky shit. The Teacher wouldn’t, he wouldn’t—”

  “Get that thing from her,” Louie tells him.

  She says, “No. Not till you swear. Swear you’ll never hurt me. Not me, not my child, not my friends—”

  “Just gimme the tape,” he says. “I swear I’m outta your life forever.”

  She fixes him with her huge eyes, with the black pouches under them. Frankie thinks, Isn’t she the one Eddie called a beauty? But she’s no beauty. She’s a scary damn witch.

  She walks up to Louie, and she hands him the machine.

  “Waste no time,” she tells him.

  She turns and walks away. As Louie finds the PLAY button and depresses it. They watch her walk down the corridor of mausoleums. On the tape they hear her asking the Teacher, “Then why don’t you run that family yourself?”

  And they hear the Teacher laugh and tell her, “Maybe someday I will.”

  They watch her disappear among the graves.

  On the tape the Teacher is saying, “I might discard old Louie, or I might not. Perhaps I think it’s wise to have a figurehead. To take the heat off me. Let him be the mountain, I’ll be the ravine.”

  14

  Struggle as hard as you like and I won’t love you any less for it….

  THE TEACHER, bright and early on Monday morning, rides in Eddie’s car down the long rutted drive of what was once St. Theresa’s on the Hudson. Used to be a private school for girls, until that went belly up a few years ago. The campus is still used in the summer by the Fresh Air Fund, but the rest of the year it’s deserted.

  Eddie pulls up beside a cedar-and-glass cafeteria. They get out and wait. The Teacher rests his briefcase on the hood of Eddie’s car, and gazes down through the chestnut oaks, through branches as dark as the lead in stained-glass windows, to a shattered view of the river. He waits calmly, saying nothing.

  But Eddie keeps checking his watch and muttering, and finally he says, “Hey, Vincent, if you’re worried about this, let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Are you worried, Eddie?”

  “Yeah. To be honest? Yeah.”

  The Teacher smiles. “Louie’s not going to hurt me. Louie and I, we go back a long way.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “He says he wants to talk about the deal with the Calabrians. Why shouldn’t I believe him?”

  “’Cause why is it such a fuckin emergency? Why does he want to see you today?”

  “Louie’s been in prison. He’s restless. He wants to get moving on our plans. Seems reasonable to me.”

  “I dunno, Vincent.”

  The Teacher ambles up to the cafeteria’s door, to examine an alabaster Virgin in her alabaster niche. What do they find to worship, he wonders, in such a bland, expressionless totem?

  Except perhaps that her eyes look a little like Annie’s eyes.

  He waits.

  At last the black Lincoln appears. Louie Boffano and his party—his brother and Frankie and Archangelo. Frankie gets out of the backseat and stands by the open door. Louie, in the front passenger seat, asks the Teacher, “What’s in the briefcase?”

  “Spreadsheets. Plans for the Calabrian deal. Isn’t that—?”

  “Check it, Frankie.”

  Frankie opens the briefcase, rifles through the papers, feeling for a false bottom.

  “Nah, it’s just fuckin paperwork, like he says.”

  “Search him.”

  Frankie pats him down.

  “He’s clean.”

  “All right. Gotta check these things, right, Vincent? You never know, right? Come on in.”

  The Teacher gets in the back. But when Eddie moves toward the door Louie says, “Ah, not you. We don’t need you for this one, Eddie.”

  Eddie peers anxiously into the car.

  Says the Teacher, “I’ll be fine, Eddie. I’ll see you later.”

  Says Eddie, “Well, I’ll wait for you here then.”

  Says Louie, “Nah, go on home. Why wait? Wait for what? You just take the day off. How’s your daughter? How’s Roseanne?”

  “She’s OK, Louie. But—”

  “Spend some time with her. Give her a smooch from Uncle Louie, huh? We’ll get Vincent home.”

  They drive off, down the narrow road.

  The Teacher is squeezed between Frankie and Archangelo in the backseat. Louie sits up front. His brother Joseph is at the wheel.

  “Vincent,” says Louie, and he turns to give him a smile. “I’m glad you came.”

  The Teacher shrugs. “Command performance, what could I do?”

  The lane gets rougher as they descend toward the river. A gopher-haunted soccer field opens to their left, and they start to angle across it. But in the middle of the field, they stop.

  Louie turns again. “More than twenty years we’ve been working together, isn’t that right, Vincent? Any time you had some fancy idea, well shit, I got the manpower, I got the organization, we worked it out. We both got rich. More than twenty years of this, you know?”

  The Teacher has a sparkle in his eye. “An extraordinary alliance, yes.”

  “But you know what?” says Louie. “I don’t know the first fuckin thing about what makes you tick. In all those twenty years. Didn’t learn nothing.”

  The Teacher tells him, “It seems simple to me.”

  “It does?”

  “It seems simple.”

  Says Louie, “This woman, this juror woman, yesterday at my mother’s grave she comes to me, she says you was saying ugly things about me.”

  “Annie came to see you?”

  “You spoke ugly about me?”

  The Teacher ponders a moment. “Well, nothing really ugly, Louie. Dismissive, rather. I think I called you a fool, or a freak, or some such—”

  “You called me a motherfuckin monster! Don’t bother to fuckin deny it, shitsmear, ’cause it’s on tape.”

  The Teacher chuckles. “I wouldn’t deny it. I’d only deny that I spoke with malice. Not at all. I spoke with indifference.”

  “You said you’d fuckin discard me—”

  “I said I might discard you. I might or I might not. I said it didn’t matter to me. Does that offend you?”

  “Offend me? You cocksucker.”

  “There are no blood ties between us, Louie. We never pretended to be soulmates. I’m sure you and your b
rother here have called me worse things than a freak.”

  Joseph breaks in. “You want to know what I call you? I call you a fuckin sicko pervert, like you always been. When you was a kid you was a sicko. I told Louie, I said stay away from this cunt.”

  Says the Teacher, “This is such a useful dialogue, Joseph. I’m so glad you’re sharing these feelings.”

  Joseph leans over the seat and spits in his face. “Fuck you, asshole. Get him outta here. Let’s get this over with.”

  Archangelo opens his door and steps out. “Let’s go.”

  Frankie pushes the muzzle of his Glock into the Teacher’s temple. “Move.”

  The Teacher slides across the seat and gets out.

  They walk across the desolate field. Frankie on one side of the Teacher, Archangelo on the other. While Louie and his brother wait in the car.

  They come to a rock wall and a belt of woods. The Teacher looks through the trees, down to the railroad tracks and the river. He says, “Hey guys? Do I get a last request?”

  “What?”

  “I want you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to watch Louie’s car.”

  He digs the heel of his hand into his thigh—pushes down on the trigger of the transmitter in his pocket. He doesn’t get to see the blast directly. Only the flash against the trees and then the whump and the glass shattering, and afterwards somebody—he thinks it’s Joseph Boffano—shrieking with pain.

  He turns to Archangelo, who’s gazing stupidly at the wreckage of the car. The Teacher takes Archangelo’s Beretta 92 away from him. Then Frankie pours three shots into Archangelo’s left ear.

  Frankie and the Teacher hasten back to the car. The passenger door is open, and Louie has crawled out. He’s missing an arm. He’s covered with pieces of his brother. His face has come loose and it hangs down from his chin like a bib. The Teacher kneels and says, “I’m sorry this was so untidy. I couldn’t fit much Flex-X in that briefcase. Forgive me?”

  He fires into Louie Boffano’s head, shielding himself from the blood-spatter with an open palm. Then he and Frankie hurry across the soccer field and up the hill.

  On the way he says, “Listen, Frankie, I’m grateful to you for tipping me off, I really am.”