James Grippando - The Pardon

“No, I knew we had to talk, but it just wasn’t that easy. It gets a little more complicated.”

“In what way?”

She looked at her toes. “I’m not going alone,” she said sheepishly. “It’s me and Chet.”

His mouth opened, but the words wouldn’t come. “Chet,” he finally uttered. Chet was Cindy’s old boss at Image Maker Studios, her first employer out of college-and the man in her life before Jack had come along. Jack felt sick.

“It’s not what you think,” Cindy said. “It’s purely professional-”

“Why are you doing it this way?” he asked, ignoring her explanation. “Do you think I’m gonna go over the edge if you just tell me the truth and dump me? I won’t, don’t worry. I’m stronger than that. For the past month, every time I turn on the nightly news or read a newspaper, it’s one story after another about confessed killer Eddy Goss and his lawyer, Jack Swyteck-always mentioned in the same sentence, always in the same disgusted tone. I walk down the street, and people I know avoid me. I walk down the other side of the street, and people I’ve never even seen spit at me. Lately, it’s been worse.” He thought of his near rundown just two days ago. “But you know what? I’m gonna come out of this okay. I’m gonna beat it. If I have to do it without you, that’s your choice. But doing it without your pity-that’s my choice.”

“I’m not pitying you. And I’m not leaving you. Can’t you just accept what I’m telling you as my honest feelings and be honest with me about your own feelings?”

“I’ve never lied to you about my feelings.”

“But you never tell me anything, either. That bothers me. Sometimes I think it’s me. Maybe it’s my fault. I don’t know. Gina thinks it’s just the way you are, because of the way you and your father-”

“What the hell does Gina know about my father?”

She swallowed hard. She knew she’d slipped. He was shaking his head, and his fists were clenched. “Did you tell her the things I told you?”

“Gina’s my best friend. We talk. We tell each other the important things in our lives.”

“Damn it, Cindy!” he shouted as he sprung from the bed. “You don’t tell her anything I tell you about me and my father. How could you be so fucking insensitive!”

Cindy’s hands trembled as her nails dug into the mattress. “Don’t talk to me that way,” she said firmly, “or I’m leaving right this second.”

“You’re leaving anyway,” he said. “Don’t you think I can see that? You’re going to Italy with the boss you used to sleep with. You’re out with Gina till two in the morning checking out guys and prowling the nightclubs-”

“That’s not what we were-”

“Oh, bullshit!” His emotions had run away so completely that he’d forgotten his own whereabouts the night before. “You’re not hanging with Mother Teresa, you know. Hell, I’ve had more meaningful conversations with tollbooth attendants than Gina’s had with half the men she’s slept with.”

“I’m not Gina. And besides, Gina’s not that way. Just stop it, Jack.”

“Stop what?” he said, raising his voice another level. “Stop looking behind what this is really all about? Stop taking the fun out of Cindy and Gina’s excellent adventure?”

She sat rigidly on the side of the bed, too hurt to speak.

He charged toward the bedroom door. “You want to go?” he asked sharply, flinging the door open. “Go.”

She looked up, tears welling in her eyes.

“Go on,” he ordered. “Get outta here!”

She still didn’t move.

He moved his head from side to side, looking frantically about the room for some way to release months or maybe even years of pent-up anger that Cindy hadn’t caused but was now the unfortunate recipient of. He darted toward the bureau and snatched the snapshots of them she’d tucked into the wood frame around the mirror-their memories.

“Jack!”

“There,” he said as he ripped one to pieces.

“Don’t do that!”

“You’re leaving,” he said as he took the picture of them taken in Freeport from his stack.

She jumped up and dashed for the walk-in closet. He jumped in front of her.

“I need to get some clothes!”

“Nope,” he sad, holding another photo before her eyes. “You’re leaving right now. Go back to Gina-your confidante.”

“Stop it!”

He ripped the entire stack in half.

“Jack!” She grabbed her car keys and headed for the door, wearing only her T-shirt. She stopped in the doorway and said tearfully, “I didn’t want it to turn out this way.”

He scoffed. “Now you sound like the scum I defend.”

Her face reddened, ready to burst with tears or erupt with anger. “You are the scum you defend!” she screamed, then raced out of the house.

At eight-thirty that Saturday evening, Harry Swyteck parked his rented Buick beneath one of the countless fifty-foot palm trees that line Biscayne Boulevard, Miami’s main north-south artery. The governor was alone, as he’d promised his blackmailer. It was a few minutes past sunset, and the streetlights had just blinked on. Harry sighed at the impending darkness. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about, now he had to carry around ten thousand dollars in cash in Miami after dark. He checked the locks on his briefcase and stepped quickly from the car, then scurried across six lanes of traffic to the east side of the boulevard, following the sidewalk into the park.

Bayfront Park was Miami’s green space between bustling city streets and the sailboats on Biscayne Bay. Granite, glass, and marble towers lit up the Miami skyline to the south and west of the park. Across the bay toward South Miami Beach the lights of Caribbean-bound cruise ships glittered like a string of floating pearls. Cool summer breezes blew off the bay from the east, carrying with them the soothing sound of rolling waves breaking against the shoreline. At the north end of the park was Bayside Marketplace, an indoor-outdoor collection of shops, restaurants, and bars, and the starting place for the horse-and-buggy rides through the park that were favored by tourists.

Tonight it was Governor Swyteck’s turn to take a carriage ride. He hoped to blend in as a tourist, which was the reason for his white sailing pants, plaid madras shirt and Marlins baseball cap. But the leather briefcase made him feel conspicuous. He bought a stuffed animal from one of the cart vendors, just to get hold of the paper shopping bag, and stuck the briefcase in the bag. Now his outfit was complete: He didn’t look at all like a governor, and that was the whole idea-though he did have a plan in case anyone recognized him. “Another stop on my grass-roots campaign trail,” he’d say, and they’d probably buy it. Four years ago he’d manned a McDonald’s drive-through, taught phonics to first-graders, and worked other one-day jobs-all just to look like a regular Joe.

“Carriage ride?” one of the drivers called out as he reached the staging area.

“Uh-I’m thinking about it,” Harry replied.

“Forty bucks for the half hour,” the driver said, but the governor wasn’t listening. He was trying to figure out which of the half dozen carriages belonged to Calvin, the man he’d been told to hire for the nine o’clock ride. By process of elimination he zoomed in on a sparkling white carriage with red velvet seats, pulled by an Appaloosa with donkey-like ears poking through an old straw hat. The governor felt nervous as he approached the wiry old black driver, but he told himself once again that he had to see this mission through. Sensing he was being watched, he looked one way, then the other, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.