Steve Martini - Undue Influence

Cassidy hesitates for only the briefest moment, the answer is not on her lips, but in her eyes, an admission that Woodruff reads as well as I. It is in this instant of hesitation that I hear the silence of salvation.

‘That’s what I thought,’ says Woodruff. ‘I will not subject the defendant to the uncertain anxieties of a second trial,’ he says.

‘The case is dismissed. The defendant is discharged. I will make my findings of malice in writing, to be submitted to the parties.’ As he says these words, there is a baleful smile that passes across Austin Woodruff’s face, the kind you see when a judge knows that he has, in the end, dispensed justice.

‘This court stands adjourned.’

I don’t even have time to thank him. There is a throng coming around the railing, Laurel pressed in a sea of bodies. I move to the table.

‘What happened?’ she says.

‘You are free.’

For what seems like an eternity, I think she cannot comprehend this, then suddenly she stands, her arms about my neck, the warmth of wet tears on the side of my face. ‘Can I go to my children?’ she says.

‘You can go anywhere you want,’ I tell her. ‘You are free.’

I tell her that Danny is in town. This brings her instantly back to the realm of sobriety. ‘Where?’ is all she asks. I tell her at her apartment. She wants to see him immediately, and asks me to call Julie.

People pushing in with notepads, asking questions, how she feels, whether she thinks justice was done, whether she is angry with the government for not disclosing the truth about the federal witness, whether she is considering a civil suit.

Harry stops her from answering this last in a moment of euphoria. ‘We are studying it,’ is all he will say. Harry has his abacus out, wondering if we can add to the national debt.

In this instant of chaos I am pushed away, floating in a current of bodies beyond Laurel’s reach as several reporters and some well-wishers get between us.

Laurel shouts, cupped hand to mouth. I cannot understand her.

There is a fleeting image, a face beyond the crowd like a subliminal image on film, something from an arched church window in Hana, and then it is gone. I shake my head, fatigue and stress.

She is shouting again.

‘Dinner at Fulton’s, six o’clock,’ she says. ‘My treat.’

I nod, and she is gone.

And so we end on a cheery note, five happy humans sitting around a table in the underground digs of Fulton’s, a steak house in Old Town. Outside are flickering gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and broad board sidewalks that front the river where miners and gamblers once mingled in the heyday of the gold rush.

We congregate around a table and toast Laurel and her freedom with after-dinner drinks. She is flanked by Danny on one side and Sarah on the other, and spends much time this evening alternately squeezing and kissing each of them. Julie is on a flight from Michigan, scheduled to arrive at the airport late tonight. I take it as a sign that this, the freedom to hold and love, to bond with the children, is in the end the ultimate reward of liberty, at least for Laurel.

The kids join in salute with some dark fizzing cola from their glasses. Danny actually proposes a toast ‘to the greatest mother a kid ever had.’ I give Sarah a squeeze as her expression becomes distant and her eyes misty with this, the knowledge that she will never be able to honor Nikki in this way — what would make this night complete.

Laurel exudes the weariness that comes from victory after great struggle, an emotional release that gives itself up in a kind of quiet and restrained euphoria, as if she might crack like eggshell china if she were to completely let go. After half a bottle of wine and a couple of cocktails the smile seems durably planted on her face, but she is rapidly becoming maudlin. I sense a flood of tears just under the surface. What seven months behind bars and the prospect of death at the hands of the state will do to the normal psyche.

Except for Danny, who arrived on the little Vespa, Harry called a taxi to bring us all here, to avoid the designated driver, a pack of drunks out on the town. He does me a favor and takes Sarah home. It is late and she needs to get to sleep. He will baby-sit for just a few minutes, as I have things to discuss with Laurel. Then I will head home myself, to the first restful night’s sleep in months.

Laurel and I do Alfonse and Gaston in front of the waiter, fighting over who will pick up the check. When he finally takes her credit card it is only to return three minutes later to inform her that because payment has not been received in several months it is no longer valid. The final humiliation. Laurel is mortified. She leaves with Danny to wait for me outside by the Vespa while I pick up the check, assurances that she can pay me back when she has the means.

It takes several minutes, and finally I climb the stairs to the street level and exit onto the plank sidewalk in front of Fulton’s. Second Street in Old Town on a weekend is racing cars and young girls in skirts to the crotch, hitting bars where the boys hang out. But tonight, a Monday, it is largely deserted. A single car, a small van, is parked at the curb in front of the restaurant.

Across First Street at the corner, maybe seventy-five yards away, Laurel and Danny are talking by the little motor scooter with its wooden box, Danny’s catchall of possessions on the back. He has parked near a bike rack in front of the State Railroad Museum, a two-story brick-and-glass structure that takes up an entire block adjoining the old S.P. railyard. Laurel has her back to me, and seems deep in conversation with Danny as he works the combination on the chain lock to the scooter.

It is early spring and the Delta breeze has kicked up, putting a chill to the night air. I stop on the corner for a moment to tuck the receipt for dinner into my wallet so Laurel does not see it. She would insist on taking it and somehow paying me back tomorrow.

A janitor is rolling the tools of his trade in a small cart over the rough pressed concrete sidewalk across the street, unlocking the main entrance to the Railroad Museum for his nightly rounds.

I hoof it to the corner and step down a long foot onto the cobblestone street and start to walk. Like a firefly in the tropics it alights on the stone surface a few feet ahead of me and just as quickly disappears. I saunter a step or two to the left, and it appears, only this time it seems to dance off the shoulder of my coat before projecting onto the roadway a dozen feet ahead of me, then, just as quickly, is gone again. It is then that it strikes me — the intense narrow beam, the concentrated red dot of laser light. Before I can think, I take three quick steps to the left, and hear the pop of the silenced bullet as it streaks past my right ear and ricochets off the cobblestone street. Caught by the tenor of metal fracturing at the speed of sound, Laurel turns.

By this time I am in full stride running away from Fulton’s, across the intersection, my arms flailing.

‘Run! Go! Get the hell out of here!’ I must look like a rag doll.

For the moment I get dazed expressions from the two of them, Laurel with a hand on her hip, slimmer and rock-hard as if she’d spent seven months in a health club.

But Laurel and Danny have an angle on the shooter, looking behind me. I do not hear the bullet that tears the fabric of my coat at the sleeve and singes flesh, a bloody crease that I reach over and feel with one hand.

By now my feet are flying, as much zigzag as I can do, like a jackrabbit ahead of shotgun pellets, bullets zapping past me. Any moment one will shatter my spine, blast through my chest. The thoughts that race through your mind — Nikki and Sarah.