Lawrence Block - Hit List

“This cop bought a VCR,” he said.

“Probably a good idea, Keller. The poor guys work long hours, and sometimes they pull double shifts, so how can they be sure of keeping up with their favorite soap operas? The only answer is to tape the shows and watch them later on.”

“It was stolen.”

“Which means he’ll have to buy another one. I hope he’s got insurance.”

“Look, it’s late,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I’ll behave,” she said. “I promise. The cop bought a stolen VCR. I suppose the question is did he know it was stolen when he bought it.”

“That’s why he bought it. The guy who sold it to him didn’t know he was a cop, and now he’s on trial for trafficking in stolen property.”

“Sounds open and shut.”

“If the cop’s telling the truth.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “We haven’t even heard the cop’s testimony yet.”

“You haven’t?”

“We’ve hardly heard anything. The lawyers keep having private conversations, and I gather what they’re mostly doing is arguing about what we get to hear. The way it works, the people with the least knowledge of what’s going on are the ones on the jury.”

“Well, that’s the American Way, isn’t it?”

“Evidently. The judge said we could read the papers and watch TV, but if there’s anything about the case we’ve got to stop reading.”

“Or change the channel.”

“Right.”

“A guy got hold of a hot VCR and sold it to a cop, I don’t think that’s going to be the lead item on ‘Live at Five.’ But you’re playing it safe, hiding out in Baltimore. Or are you planning on coming home early?”

“I’ve got the room booked. I might as well stay.”

“The more time you spend there, the more attention you attract.”

“I leave the inn ahead of schedule, that attracts attention, too.”

“You’re staying at an inn?”

“Sort of a bed and breakfast.”

“Is it quaint?”

“It’s nice,” he said. “I’m never too sure what quaint means.”

“It depends on your tone of voice when you say it. I’m sleepy, Keller. I’m going to bed.”

He rang off. He was tired himself, and his canopied four-poster bed had looked inviting, although you wouldn’t notice the posts or the canopy once you had your eyes shut.

Quaint.

He hesitated, then started walking in the opposite direction from the inn. He wasn’t that tired, and he could sleep as late as he wanted in the morning. So there was no reason not to drop in for a nightcap at Counterpoint.

At lunch Monday Gloria said, “You know how I spent the weekend? You’ll think I’m completely nuts.”

“You bungee-jumped off the World Trade Center.”

“Close. I sat on the couch watching Court TV.”

“Bungee-jumping would be nuttier.”

“It would also be more exciting. Like I don’t get enough of this garbage during the week. You know what I was doing?”

“You just told me.”

“No, what I was really up to, in my heart of hearts. It took me a while before I realized it. I was hoping I’d accidentally-on-purpose wind up watching some coverage of our case.”

“Unconsciously, you mean.”

“Unconsciously at first, right, and then consciously, because I saw what I was doing and went right on doing it. Of course, you know how likely it is that Court TV would waste their time on our case. It’s not exactly the Great Train Robbery.” She took a forkful of whatever it was they were eating. “And of course they didn’t. I don’t think there are even any cameras in the courtroom, are there?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“When I said I’d been picked for a jury, the first thing my sister-in-law said was maybe I’d be on TV. You know, if they panned the jury. Which I don’t think they’re supposed to, but who cares anyway? What’s the big deal about having your face on a few million television screens?”

“I think it makes it real,” Keller said. “You’ll see some woman, her baby gets eaten by a coyote, and some reporter sticks a microphone in her face and asks her how she feels.”

“And instead of telling him to go fuck himself, like you’d think a normal human being would do-“

“She answers the question and shares her pain with the world. People think that’s what they’re supposed to do. They think you have to be on television if you get the chance, because it validates your experience.”

“Dum-de-dum-dum. ‘Deep Thoughts.’ But you know what? I think you’re right.”

The next day she said, “I was talking to my brother-in-law about Mr. Bittner and how he can’t keep his eyes open.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t say he was on the jury, and I didn’t mention his name. He said it might have something to do with Mr. Bittner being morbidly obese.”

“Morbidly obese?”

“He’s a paramedic, he knows all the terms.”

The man was obese, Keller thought. Large enough to have his own zip code. But where did morbid come into it? Did carrying all that weight around make you think depressing thoughts? Did you spend hours wondering how many men it would take to carry your coffin?

“Maybe he’s just tired,” Keller suggested. “Maybe he can’t sleep nights because he’s weighed down by the responsibility of sitting in judgment over his fellow man.”

“Or maybe he’s just bored to the point of petrifaction. It’s really boring, isn’t it?”

“It has its moments,” he said, “but they’re few and far between, and the rest of it’s like watching water evaporate.”

“On a humid day. The lawyers go over everything until you want to scream. They ask the same question over and over. They must have a real high opinion of jurors.”

“It’s not like TV.”

“No, or you’d turn it off. Well, take Law and Order. The two cops catch the guy in the first thirty minutes, and Sam Waterston puts him away before the hour’s up. It takes this prosecutor longer than that to find out what brand of VCR we’re talking about.”

“Court TV’s more realistic.”

“When they’re reporting live. Otherwise they just show you the part where something’s happening. And even with their live coverage, they tend to cut away during the dull parts.” She stirred her iced coffee. “I guess we shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“You can relax,” he said, deadpan. “I’m not wearing a wire.”

She stared at him, then burst out laughing. And put her hand on top of his.

“The cop’s black,” he told Dot, “and the defendant’s white. I don’t think I mentioned that before.”

“You and Justice,” she said. “Both color-blind.”

“At first,” he said, “we didn’t know. I mean, we knew about the defendant, because there he was sitting with his lawyers, a middle-aged white guy with an OTB face and a bad rug named Huberman.”

“His rug’s got a name?”

“What is this, English class? You know what I meant. His name is Huberman.”

“I know what a rug is,” she said, “whether it’s got a name or not, and I never saw a good one. But what’s an OTB face? Off the books? On the button?”

“Off-track betting,” he said. “There’s a look horseplayers get.”

“A kind of a woulda-coulda-shoulda look.”

“That’s the one. Anyway, you don’t get to see the cop until he gives testimony, and the prosecution’s case is fairly far along by then. And it turns out he’s black. And the thief’s black, too.”

“A minute ago you said he was white.”

“Not the defendant. The thief, the guy who stole the VCR in the first place and sold it to Huberman. He’s a prosecution witness, and he and the cop are both African-Americans.”