Joseph Teller - Depraved Indifference

They found seats toward the rear of what soon became a standing-room-only courtroom, even though it was the largest in the building. But if getting to sit was the upside of their early arrival, getting to wait was the downside. Jaywalker passed the time people-watching. That, and drinking in the perfume of Amanda Carter.

Finally, at ten-thirty, a court officer shouted "All rise!" and the judge entered, dwarfed by a pair of uniformed state troopers on steroids. "Be seated!" shouted the court officer, and everyone sat.

"The People of the State of New York versus Carter Drake Three," the same officer intoned, quickly demonstrating that his reading comprehension was no match for his volume.

So they meant to get right to the main attraction, Jaywalker realized. No lounge-act crowd warmers here. And as he and everyone else watched, an orange-jumpsuited Carter Drake was led into the well from a side door. Not only was he, too, flanked by a pair of large troopers, but he was handcuffed behind his back, and a set of leg irons restrained his ankles with a short chain.

Judah Mermelstein rose from his seat at the defense table and greeted his client. The two of them huddled for a moment.

"If the court please," said Mermelstein, "may my client's restraints be removed for this proceeding?"

"No," said the judge.

Jaywalker winced. Such things never happened in Manhattan. In Brooklyn or Staten Island, maybe, but only if the prisoner had earlier proved that he was a security risk. Up here, either it was s.o.p. or it was going to be for Drake.

The arraignment itself took less than five minutes. The court clerk announced that the defendant had been indicted for murder and related crimes, and asked him how he pleaded, guilty or not guilty. The courtroom fell stone silent as spectators leaned forward to hear.

"Not guilty," said Drake in a voice that was still barely audible. Though standing right next to his lawyer and surrounded by a phalanx of large men, to Jaywalker he looked absolutely alone.

"Forty-five days for defense motions," said the judge. "Anything else?"

"Yes, Your Honor." It was Mermelstein's voice, not much louder than Drake's had been. "My client is currently being held on five million dollars' bail. It seems to me-"

"This is a murder case," said the judge. "He's lucky there's any bail at all."

An approving murmur bubbled up from the audience, quickly silenced by the judge's gavel.

"People's position?"

Abe Firestone rose from the D.A.'s table. In New York State-court parlance, the prosecution gets addressed and referred to as "the People." The terminology had always infuriated Jaywalker, with its implication that the defendant and his lawyer were something else, something less. Non-people of some sort.

"The People oppose," boomed Firestone in a deep, practiced baritone. Again there was an approving murmur, quickly silenced by another bang of the judge's gavel. After a beat, Firestone began recounting the horror of the deaths Drake had caused. As soon as he realized it was going to be a stump speech, all about community outrage and totally unrelated to the facts of the case, Jaywalker tuned out. He'd been up against adversaries like Firestone in the past, usually when he'd ventured outside of Manhattan. The general rule of thumb was that the farther you got from the city, the more politicized prosecutors' offices became. And a corollary to that rule was that not only did the volume increase in direct proportion to the distance, but the competence decreased.

"…and for those reasons," Firestone was concluding, more loudly than ever, "the People request that bail be raised to the amount of f ifty million dollars."

This time the judge was able to quiet the courtroom by simply lifting his gavel. "I'm going to split the difference," he said, "and deny both of your applications. The bail will remain exactly as it is. The case is assigned to Judge Hinkley for trial. Next case."

It wasn't until they were filing out of the building that Jaywalker was recognized by a couple of reporters he knew. Courthouse regulars, they were, guys who used to hang around 10 °Centre Street and cover the juicy cases. On slow days, when they'd had nothing better to do, they'd sit in on a Jaywalker trial, if one was going on. Then again, a lot of people used to do that. One was from the P ost, as he recalled, the other from the Daily News, but he could never remember which was which. It didn't help that one of them stood about 5'4" and the other 5'2".

"How ya doon?" the short one asked.

"Not bad," said Jaywalker. He could see them staring at the beautiful blonde next to him, but he was pretty sure they didn't know who she was. And he wasn't about to introduce them.

"You gonna take this one over?" asked the shorter one. "Mumbles Mermelstein seems pretty overmatched."

"No comment," said Jaywalker.

"Off the record," promised the short one, lifting his right hand in a solemn oath of silence.

"Yeah, right," said Jaywalker, and all three of them laughed out loud.

"I'm hungry," said Amanda.

Great, thought Jaywalker. Not twenty minutes ago, her husband-okay, estranged husband-had been told that his bail would stay at five million dollars, virtually guaranteeing that he wouldn't get out before his trial. And getting out after his trial might well take fifteen to twenty-five years, if the parole board threw him a break. So what was her first reaction? She was hungry.

They walked to a nearby diner and found a booth. Amanda ordered an omelet of some sort, and an order of home-fried potatoes. Jaywalker stuck with a cup of tea with lemon, sipping it as he watched her down her food. She ate the same way she made love, throwing herself into it with no hint of self-consciousness. Halfway through the meal, Short and Shorter came into the place. Jaywalker spread his jacket out onto the seat next to him, a move intended to preempt the two reporters from joining them. But it turned out not to be necessary: they had a third man with them, a taller guy who wore a camera around his neck.

"So how do things look?" Amanda asked, wiping a bit of egg from one corner of her mouth. "And who's this Judge Hinkley that's going to try the case?"

"Never heard of him," said Jaywalker. "I'll check with

Mermelstein, first chance I get. As far as the case…" He finished the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.

"That doesn't sound so good."

"You were there," he told her. "You saw how they're all out for blood."

Amanda nodded.

"There's one thing that's bothering me," said Jaywalker.

"What's that?"

He leaned forward so he could keep his voice low. They were in a public place, after all. "Carter claims that in the instant he saw the van in front of him, he could not only tell it was a van, but he could see that it was white."

"So?"

"So that couldn't have happened," said Jaywalker. "For some reason, he's making that up."

"Maybe you misunderstood him," said Amanda. "Or misheard him."

"No," said Jaywalker. "I had him write it out. Those were his words."

She looked away at that point, as though her attention had been suddenly drawn to something off to one side of the booth. Jaywalker looked, too, but there was nothing going on there, nothing but the wall, the jukebox selector, their menus, and the salt and pepper shakers.

What am I missing here? he asked.

But he formed the words silently, asking only himself.

SUSPENDED LAWYER SPOTTED STEPPING OUT WITH KID-KILLING DRIVER'S WIFE

…read the caption beneath the photo. And there he was again, back on his least favorite place in the western world, Page Six of the New York Post.

Not that he ever would have known about it, had it not been for a call from his daughter. A friend of hers had spotted it and phoned her, exclaiming, "Is that your father?" And there was no missing him. There he was, in perfect profile, sitting in the booth of the diner he'd taken Amanda to the previous morning. Only it didn't look like a diner in the photo; it looked like a bar. And Jaywalker wasn't really sitting at all; he was bent halfway across the table, his lips parted and within inches of Amanda Drake's, their eyes locked on each other. He remembered the moment. It had been when he'd leaned forward and dropped his voice so that he could ask her, without being overheard, about Carter's claim that he'd been able to tell that the oncoming headlights belonged to a white van.