Уолтер Мосли - Odyssey

Sovereign studied Sutter’s profile as he sat down. The prosecutor seemed sure and a little self-satisfied. Sovereign thought that this was just the kind of young man he’d hire for a job at Techno-Sym.

“Ms. Altuna,” Judge Lowell requested.

“The facts in this case are not in question, Your Honor,” Lena said as she rose. “But the intentions of my clients are mere supposition on the behalf of the district attorney. Miss Loam misguidedly and under the sway of her former lover brought Mr. Johnson into Mr. James’s home, a home that she had free access to. Mr. James had just returned from an unscheduled doctor’s appointment. An appointment, I might add, that corroborated my client’s experience of hysterical blindness—”

“You’re claiming that Mr. James was blind at the time of the fight?” Judge Lowell said.

“Not neurologically but neurotically, yes, at least...” Altuna hesitated. “At least, he was blind at the onset of Johnson’s attack.”

“It’s hard for the court to recognize that a blind man of your client’s age and profession could do such damage to a healthy young man armed with a truncheon.”

“It is on this question that our case hinges,” Altuna said. “When Lemuel Johnson attacked Sovereign James, Toni Loam screamed. We have aural witnesses to that event. Hearing a woman whom he had great affection for cry out in such a manner brought Mr. James, literally, to his senses. His sight returned at the moment of greatest need. My client was under physical attack by Johnson and shocked by the return of his vision. In his confusion he lashed out at an enemy. And even though he overreacted, we maintain that he was not in control of his actions and should therefore be seen as innocent in the eyes of the law.”

Judge Lowell laced her hands, bringing the middle knuckle of her right index finger to her lips. From this pose she considered the case.

“The district attorney’s office,” piped up the second of the two prosecutors, “is willing to save time and expense by allowing summary judgment on the facts given. Attempted murder in the first degree seems a plausible verdict.”

“Ms. Altuna?” the judge asked.

“No,” Lena said. “We believe that the evidential discovery will bear out our claim. It is too much to ask the court, or anyone, to believe my clients’ claims on just their testimony. No. We need a full trial to prove our case.”

“I agree,” said the judge. “Mr. Atwell?”

The second prosecutor, a white man, said, “Yes, Your Honor?”

“Any requests about bail?”

“Seeing that the defendant, Mr. James, failed to appear at the first trial date, we believe that he should be remanded. We’ll accept a hundred thousand dollars’ bail on Miss Loam.”

“Mr. James was detained by federal authorities on suspicion, nothing else,” Altuna said. “And he was arrested at LaGuardia Airport on the day before his trial date. The only call he was allowed, he made to me, asking that I tell the court about his situation.”

“He left the state,” Alva Sutter said.

“No one told him not to,” Altuna replied. “A man is innocent until proven guilty.”

That night in their hotel room Toni Loam and Sovereign James had sex again and again without condoms or any other form of birth control. They hadn’t talked about the trial or the low bail set by Judge Lowell. They hadn’t worried about conviction. Sex was the only thing they were interested in.

They fucked and then had room service, fucked and fell asleep. They woke up and rolled around with such abandon that they fell off the bed laughing and fucking.

It wasn’t until three thirty that morning that they woke up and started to talk.

“I don’t know, Sovy,” Toni said.

“You don’t know what?” He kissed her left shoulder and she shuddered.

“How did we get here?”

“This hotel?”

“Standin’ trial, and you got the government on you too. Lem is in the hospital and might not ever wake up. And here we are fuckin’ our brains out like we don’t have a care in the world.”

“Better that than worrying about things we can’t change. The government doesn’t know where I am right now, and we have a good chance of being found innocent.”

“But I’m not innocent,” Toni said. “I brought Lem up there. And ’cause you came in one or the other of you was gonna get killed. That’s on me.”

Sovereign could hear the pain in her voice, see it in her face and hand gestures.

“But what if you were Lem’s father?” he asked.

“What you mean?”

“Wouldn’t his father tell him that he had no business up in my house? Wouldn’t he tell him that it was a coward who’d attack a blind man with a club?”

“Maybe.”

“And me,” Sovereign continued. “I’m the one who beat him. I was blind and then blinded by rage, but still, I didn’t have to punish him like that.”

“But you did.”

“We all did something wrong, Toni. We all did. Not one of us is innocent. We should have known better. We will the next time.”

Sovereign looked over at the girl. She was asleep just that quickly.

The trial took four and a half weeks. Every morning the couple appeared at the nondescript building on Lafayette and listened to witnesses being questioned and cross-examined: doormen and Red Rover limousine drivers; doctors Seth Offeran and Thomas Katz; nurses, waitresses, and some people whom Sovereign had never met.

A woman who lived in his neighborhood testified that Sovereign had changed his direction seemingly to avoid a dog that wasn’t on a chain. And then there was the paramedic who brought James to the hospital after Johnson had attacked him the first time.

“They told me that he was blind,” Rosa Lopez said. She had copper skin and plum-colored freckles. “But when I was reaching back and forth over his head for the oxygen mask, he swayed as if he was watchin’ what I was doing.”

Both sides had experts who did their best to negate the others’ claims. Testimony was long and tedious, repetitious and, often, needlessly specific — at least, that was what Sovereign thought.

The ex — HR manager wondered how such bland discussion could end up in prison sentences. There were people dying in wars, suffering from famine, and here he sat with a roomful of professionals asking questions like was sight associated with a sound, did he move his head every time, and how long ago did you witness this behavior?

“Why does a old man like you always have his dick so hard?” Toni complained one afternoon when court had been let out early. They’d just finished with a room-service meal.

“Because I look at you and come alive,” Sovereign said.

“You been alive for fifty years.”

“I wish. But you know, I feel like I die every day in that fake courtroom. It’s like they bunged me up in a coffin and I’m lyin’ there waiting for the gravediggers to finish before they can lay me to rest.”

Toni grinned and shrugged off the one-piece ochre dress that Sovereign loved.

“You so funny,” she said. “Gimme that dick here.”

She reached out and tugged on him. He grunted and touched her cheek.

That was when the phone rang.

“You gonna answer it?” Toni asked.

“I’m kinda busy.”

“It might be about the trial.”

Toni held on to the erection while Sovereign answered.

“Hello,” he said, stifling a moan of satisfaction.

“Bro?”

“Eddie?” Sovereign stood up and away from the bed.

“Man, I cain’t leave you alone for a minute you ain’t wandered into some quicksand?”

“Where are you?”

“Downstairs.”

“Downstairs where?”

“Your hotel, baby. You know I always got the latest intelligence.”