Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

‘Now, I did some asking around, lined a few palms with silver, and while I don’t have any solid evidence of it at this point it looks like Manning controls and funds the publishing company as well, uses both it and his printing company to clean dirty money. To twice-filter it, so to speak.’ He pauses, glances down at his file, flips through the pages, looks up again. ‘Okay. Those are the facts.’

Seymour nods but says nothing. He licks his lips, shuffling and reshuffling the information in his mind to see what kind of hand he might deal himself. He taps his fingers on his desk. The clock ticks. After half a minute of silence he leans back in his chair and puts his hand over his open mouth, covering an unbelieving smile. Then, in a hushed tone, as if he might frighten the fact of it away if he speaks too loudly, he says, ‘This could make my career.’

Barry nods.

‘I mean, Kefauver’s all but guaranteed the Democratic nomination come July, and all he did was bring a bunch of gangsters down to various courthouses to plead the fifth on television. J. Edgar Hoover’s been trying to get to Manning since the days when his business was confined to breaking kneecaps in New Jersey, and I actually have a chance to nail the son of a bitch. Forget taking on Fletcher Bowron. If this goes right I could have the governorship.’

‘Oh,’ Barry says. ‘I forgot the most crucial part of all this.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Sheriff’s Department arrested James Manning’s accountant last night. Picked him up in front of one of those gambling joints out there on Sunset Boulevard west of LAPD jurisdiction.’

‘What’d they get him on?’

‘Murder.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘I wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

Seymour shakes his head, barely able to believe it. Up until only a minute ago he’d thought his career might be finished.

‘I’ll talk to the accountant tomorrow morning. I want you to head over to the juvenile-detention facility and talk to the boy, see how malleable his recollection of the evening might be. Take the mother along if you think it will help.’

‘Right,’ Barry says, and gets to his feet. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

2

Next day Teddy Stuart is sitting at a metal table in a white room. His hands are cuffed. They rest like dead spiders on the table, only inches from a glass ashtray with three smashed cigarette butts in it. He doesn’t know why he’s here. There’s no reason for him to be in an interrogation room. The next step should be the arraignment, at which he’ll plead guilty. He’s already confessed to killing the card dealer. He’ll take what punishment they prescribe without argument.

Last night he dreamed about it: the murder. He believes he’ll be dreaming about it, red splashed across the walls of his mind, till the day he dies.

The door opens and a neat little bespectacled man in a blue suit walks in. He looks like the kind of man who’d use tongs to hold his own dick when taking a leak. Hanging from his right hand is a black briefcase.

The door closes behind him and as it latches he twitches slightly. Then he walks to the table and sits across from Teddy. He sets his briefcase on the table, nudging it so its edges are parallel to the table’s edges.

‘You’re Theodore Stuart.’

‘I am.’

‘My name is Seymour Markley. I’m the district attorney.’

Teddy doesn’t respond. He looks down at his dead-spider hands, brings them to life, pressing his fingertips together, pushing them until the skin beneath the nails is white. He doesn’t want to talk to this man. He knows prison will be difficult, knows he might not make it through, but he knows also that he could. Meanwhile this man, this district attorney, is here to suggest that Teddy commit suicide. Teddy knows it without needing to be told. There’s no other reason for either of them to be here.

Teddy regrets what he did, but he wants to live.

It’s true there’s some small part of his mind, some biblical corner, where his being stoned to death is the only true justice, and that corner of his mind is sometimes given voice at night, when the moon is the only light in the sky and the shadows on the ceiling move like the living, but it’s morning now, and beneath the sun that part of his mind is silent as the dead.

After a while the man says, ‘Do you not want to know why I’m sitting across from you?’

‘I know why you’re sitting across from me.’

‘You do?’

‘Because we don’t know each other well enough for you to sit in my lap.’

‘You’re facing a long prison sentence, Mr Stuart. Do you want to know why I’m here or not?’

‘Like I said, I already know why you’re here.’

‘Enlighten me.’

Teddy shakes his head. ‘I’ve confessed to what I’ve done. I’ve signed my confession. I want nothing to do with anything else.’

‘I just want to talk.’

‘That’s exactly what I don’t want to do.’

‘Do you go by Theodore or Teddy?’

‘My friends call me Teddy.’

‘What would you like me call you?’

‘Mr Stuart.’

‘No, that won’t do. I think we can be friends. In the end I think you’ll want us to be friends, Teddy.’

Teddy knows a threat when he hears one and knows he’s hearing one now. It’s in the tone of the district attorney’s voice. He doesn’t need it spelled out. He’s confessed to murder in this man’s county; he owns Teddy. At least he believes he does.

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘James Manning.’

Teddy blinks, but for a moment doesn’t respond. Then: ‘Who?’

‘You don’t know who James Manning is?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

‘You must be the only person who lives on the East Coast who wouldn’t recognize the name. He runs criminal activity in half of New Jersey and in the last ten years has spread his influence to lower Manhattan, particularly Greenwich Village, where he controls the heroin trade. He has associates in Chicago and Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He’s been connected with two dozen murders. He’s most decidedly not smalltime.’

‘He’s done all that, huh? Someone should arrest him.’

The district attorney leans in toward Teddy. ‘I know you know who Manning is.’

‘I think I’ve heard of him.’

‘You’ve more than heard of him. You work for him.’

‘You’ve been misinformed. I’m a small-business owner.’

‘A small-business owner whose client list consists of a single name.’

Teddy says nothing.

The district attorney frowns a moment, then says, ‘I’m trying to help you, Teddy.’

‘You’re trying to help yourself.’

‘Is that so bad if it also helps you?’

‘Prison doesn’t frighten me as much as the grave.’

‘You’re afraid of Manning?’

‘I don’t step in front of trains either. That doesn’t mean I’m scared of em.’

‘I can protect you.’

Teddy laughs. ‘You gonna pray for me?’

‘I can keep you in protective custody for a start.’

Teddy shakes his head. ‘I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘It amounts to the same, doesn’t it?’

The district attorney taps his fingers on the metal table and cocks his head to the left, looking at him as though he were an interesting species of insect.

‘What do you want, Teddy?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I can offer you immunity.’

‘Only God can offer me that.’

‘This card dealer you killed, why did you do it?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘The deputy who brought you in said you were a wreck. Said you wept. And I’ve heard you haven’t been eating much. You don’t look like a man with small appetites.’