Scott Turow - Personal injuries

We had brought Robbie in through the back corridor and secreted him in the witness room, but there was only one door to the grand jury room. As Stan had planned it, Robbie would have to run a gauntlet of more than a dozen persons who felt their trust in him had been primitively violated. But the notion that they were all out there seemed to amuse him.

"Curtain call," he said. His mood was somewhat dislocated. He was clearly too exhausted to be going through this today, but because of his refusal to surrender the tape, I had no ability to appeal to Sennett. At that point, Moses knocked and beckoned us.

"Ready?" I asked.

Feaver wanted one second and motioned for Evon to follow him the other way down the corridor.

"When Stan asks me for that tape," he said to her, "if I tell him to go scratch, where does that leave me with you?" The cassette was in my briefcase, but I still had no idea what Robbie would do. I didn't expect Stan to try to coerce Robbie into surrendering the tape before the grand jury, because I had the upper hand on the law. If Sennett forced me to go to Chief Judge Winchell, he stood a good chance of losing the right ever to use the tape against Tuohey. Instead, I anticipated a personal appeal at some point, an apology to Robbie, and a request he give up the tape and sign a form acknowledging, somewhat fictitiously, that he'd consented to the recording. I thought in the end it would come down to whom Robbie hated more, Brendan or Stan, although shame was also a factor: in a way, the tape memorialized Mort's betrayal. In arriving at a decision, however, Robbie was worried about something else.

"If you feel like I'm screwing you over by not letting him have it," he told Evon, "then I'll give it to him."

She weaseled at first, said it was his decision, not hers, but he wouldn't let her off that way.

"You know me," she said. "It's black-and-white. That's why I have such a damn hard time with myself. Two wrongs don't make a right. That's where I come out. Personally. But I'll stand up for you either way, bub. You tell him to go spit, I'm right here behind you." She stiffened her chin and nodded. Her only hesitation was McManis. She cared about what he would say, the same way Robbie cared about her, and she told Feaver that. They returned to the conference room and Robbie put the same question to Jim. Would he feel personally messed over if Sennett didn't get the tape? Would he feel like he'd wasted his time?

Jim adjusted the large frames on his nose. His demeanor betrayed some of the intense calculation going on within, but his tone was placid.

"I think we did a lot of good work here. I'll always be proud of it. I'd like to get Tuohey. He's a bad guy. But I've lived twenty-two years on this job convinced that the government comes out the loser if you get a bad guy a bad way. So I'll handle whatever you decide. Personally, I'd say take some time. Sort it out."

Feaver nodded and looked at the three of us.

"I can't give it to him," he said. "Not today."

We all lingered there, perhaps waiting to see if hearing him say it changed anything, but it didn't seem to. Evon was as good as her word and patted his arm.

"Show time," Robbie said then, and opened the door himself.

"I think I'll come along just to keep you company," said Evon. "Just to make sure nobody gets disorderly."

Robbie reminded her that there were metal detectors at the entrance of the courthouse. The firearms and switchblades had presumably been left behind. But he seemed content to go forward with his honor guard, Evon leading and Jim covering him from behind and me at his shoulder. Robbie emerged from the shadowed corridor with his eyes fast and his stride certain. He looked handsome and heroic, fitting snugly once again into his role. His life as a lawyer was behind him and he had celebrated by appearing in a black shirt, beneath his suit, and no tie.

"Judas Iscariot!" cried Walter as soon as Robbie had stepped around the corner. The news that he was dying had filled Walter with abandon and rage. Evon immediately fronted between Robbie and Wunsch, and Tooley returned from one of his other clients to take hold again of Walter's arm. He was not easily stilled. "Fucking Judas Iscariot!" cried Walter. "You're just another loudmouth, stinking sell-out."

Robbie's wits remained in order.

"Right, Walter," he said, "and you're the Messiah."

His delivery was perfect and the acid rain of humiliating laughter drizzled down on Walter, even from a number of his confreres. Despite his condition, malice had revitalized Walter and it took a considerable effort from Tooley to push Wunsch back down into his seat next to his golf clubs.

At the door to the grand jury room, Sennett stood, his hands folded primly.

"Mr. Feaver," he said with imposing formality. He wanted Robbie to know he was prepared for anything. "How are you this morning?"

"Sick and tired," said Robbie, "especially of you."

Stan didn't flinch. God knows what he thought he deserved. Without a word, he opened the door to the grand jury room and extended a hand to show Robbie in.

I told Robbie I would be just outside and reminded him he had the right to stop Sennett at any time to consult me. Robbie smiled generously. He shook my hand and, as he often did, thanked me for everything I'd done, before he advanced to the threshold.

The sequence of events after that has always remained jumbled. In the ensuing moments, my reactions remained a step behind; I was still attempting to make sense of the first sensation by the time I was hit with the next one. Initially, I heard a sudden crescendo of voices, culminating in a drilling female scream. As it turned out, it was Judith, but for some reason I thought it was Evon and swung in her direction as something flew past me, stunning the air. A bird was my first impression, a pigeon, some silvery form. I jumped back in panic, and at the same time heard a flat sound, vaguely like the noise I knew as a boy when for mean sport we'd smash melons on the hot tar of the road. I realized, though, that something was broken. A small hard pellet ricocheted off my face and I was spattered with what I took first for mud. There was an animal smell from somewhere, sudden heat, then the low, guttural sound that Robbie Feaver made as he slumped against me.

I caught him and his completely inert weight pulled me to the floor with him. The back of his suit and the arm I had around him were warmed with what I improbably took first for soup, then realized was blood. There was enormous turmoil now, people yelling for the phone and for doctors, screams from inside the grand jury room, and Walter Wunsch hollering to leave him be, as Jim and Evon and three or four other persons subdued and disarmed him. In the process, they broke two of his fingers, but they pried from his fist the number two iron whose blade Walter had driven straight through Robbie's skull.

I saw the wound then, which looked wildly out of place, a welling gash distinct in spite of the gobs of thickened blood that already matted Robbie's crown. Somehow it resembled an open mouth, almost that wide, with red matter that might have been skin crushed inward and a single protrusion, white and ghastly, which I knew was a piece of Robbie's cranium. I had no idea what to do. For the moment everything in the universe seemed open to doubt. Realizing there was absolutely no point to it, I applied my handkerchief to the wound, watching the spreading bloodstain creep over the cloth. Evon had reached us by then and I told her quietly what I'd sensed from the first instant he'd fallen against me: I was afraid Robbie was dead.

Evon grabbed his wrist for a pulse, then tried his neck, and finally brought her face to his lips to feel for breath.

"Turn him over!" she screamed. Several of us helped her. She pounded his chest three times, then she grabbed his nose, from which a thick line of blood had already emerged, and, after a tremendous inhalation, applied her mouth to his. She went on with this for at least a minute as every person in the room, even those scurrying about at the periphery, watched. A phone rang repeatedly and no one picked it up.