Richard Patterson - Conviction

"No." Payton sounded tired now. "Sometimes about Mama and Daddy."

"What exactly?"

Payton seemed to slump, his air of laconic composure slipping away. "Daddy used to tie her naked to a door handle and whip her with a belt. Made us watch that. Then he'd fuck her in the booty till she couldn't cry no more. Watchin' made Rennell cry, too. Still cryin' about it when he's eighteen." Briefly, Payton shrugged. "Maybe now, for all I know. Don't sleep with him no more."

Terri sat back, quiet for a moment. Payton looked up at her. "No more questions, counselor? Spent enough time at the zoo?"

"Not yet," she answered with some effort. "I've been reading the police reports from when your mother stabbed your father. All they tell me is that she did, not what happened before."

Payton's eyes narrowed slightly. "That's 'cause I never told 'em," he said at length. "You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Our daddy made Mama suck Rennell's dick."

Startled, Terri shuddered: in one sentence, Payton had cast her worst imaginings of Rennell and Thuy Sen, and what psychology might underlie it—as well as the potental reason for Rennell's stubborn refusal to admit the act itself—in a horrific new light. "After all Daddy did," Payton added conversationally, "a nine-year-old's dick seems like a small thing to kill him over. But I guess Mama had her standards."

Terri gazed at him, face cradled in one hand, her stomach feeling raw and empty. Rubin slumped in his chair.

Softly, Terri asked, "What happened with Thuy Sen?"

Twitching to life, Rubin clamped a hand on Payton's wrist. "He can't answer that," the lawyer snapped at Terri.

Payton faced him. "You don't know the answer," he said. "Gonna die, man—no help for that at all. Might as well tell someone."

Rubin shook his head. "Whatever you tell Ms. Paget won't be confidential. You could be admitting to a capital crime."

"Yeah," Payton answered tersely. "I got that. The crime I'm gonna die for. I just learnt the word for that: re-dun-dant."

Without awaiting a response, Payton turned to Terri. "Happened just like they said—girl choked to death on come. Only thing they got wrong was 'bout Rennell." Payton paused, his smile tinged with an ironic melancholy. "He's scared of the dark—afternoon was the only time Rennell could sleep. Poor sucker slept right through that girl dyin'."

SIXTEEN

TAUT, TERRI STARED ACROSS THE TABLE AT PAYTON PRICE. "LET me get this right," she said softly. "You're telling me that Rennell wasn't involved in Thuy Sen's death."

Payton smiled. "I talk too fast for you to hear?"

"Then Flora Lewis couldn't have seen him."

The sardonic glint lingered in Payton's eyes. "It's like I say, all white people see alike. But that black cop Monk should have asked hisself how Eddie Fleet knew so much. Almost like Eddie was there."

Terri sat back. "Of course," she said. "Because he was."

* * *

They're high on crack, Payton and Eddie, sitting on Grandma's porch. Payton's keeping time in his head to some hip-hop music. When the girl comes by, Payton doesn't notice her. But then he can hardly see.

Eddie's staring at the street. "Wonder if she'd like to party."

After a time, Payton tracks his gaze to this slender Asian child passing their house with eyes glued to the sidewalk. The idea makes so little sense Payton says nothing at all. Still keeping time, he shuts his eyes.

"Who she gonna tell, man?" he hears Eddie mumble.

It seems like crack's turning Eddie's sex drive inside out. Before Payton can focus, Eddie's calling out to her. Then the porch starts creaking with Eddie's footsteps like it's Payton's own pulse beating.

* * *

Paul Rubin studied his client, eyes narrow. "The man Lewis saw with her," Terri said. "That was Eddie Fleet."

Payton looked away. "Eddie was wearin' a big hooded sweatshirt, like Rennell wore mostly. So that dried up old bitch thinks she saw Rennell goin' after some nine-year-old." His voice held a quiet bitterness. "What she know about that poor fool, 'ceptin' what she saw every time she be peekin' at us out the window—somebody big and black and scary enough to do every kind of de-prav-ity."

Terri felt an anger of her own. "Someone did," she said. "Just not Rennell."

Her tone doused the edge in Payton's voice. "Someone did," he echoed softly.

* * *

At least it's Eddie that forces the kid to her knees.

Her eyes are closed like those of some China doll, but she's makin' these scared little noises and her body's shakin'. "Come on," Eddie says, all excited sounding, "I'll watch her do you first."

Payton's still in the zone. After a while he unzips his pants and moves toward them. But when Eddie forces her down on him, Payton feels her tears on his skin.

Shuddering, he pulls away.

It's like some fucked-up dream. Payton sees the TV's still on. He pulls up his pants and begins to watch the colored images, like what's going on behind him isn't happening.

"Keep goin', bitch," Eddie's voice says, and then Payton hears a moaning coming from Eddie's throat, another sound like coughing. On the TV there's a car chase, highway patrol after some bank robber, and then the wail of police sirens starts drowning out Eddie's cries of pleasure.

* * *

Terri felt nauseous, her skin cold.

Payton's voice was dull. " 'Mother fuck,' I hear Eddie sayin'. He wasn't excited no more." His shoulders slumped, and he continued with an air of shame. "Dumping the body went just like Eddie said in court. 'Cept it was just us two. Or us three—guess seeing that dead girl on the floor made her real."

* * *

They're standing in the dark, stink of tallow up their noses, Fleet with the girl's body in his arms. Across the water, the shadows of the loading cranes are like giant insects in some horror flick.

Payton's come all the way down now, cold wind biting into his face. "You do it," he says to Eddie. "You got all the good out of her."

Eddie doesn't argue. Standing in the sand, Payton watches him step slowly into waist-deep water, staggering in the current, side to side like fucking King Kong. Payton starts wishing the tide would sweep them both away—Eddie doesn't know how to swim.

Instead he rights himself, then just lets her go. All Payton knows is he'll always remember the girl bobbing in the water, hair swirling as she disappears from sight.

Just like Eddie told them at the trial.

* * *

Later, Eddie drops him off.

Payton walks into Grandma's living room, half-expecting to see that girl lying on the carpet, face turned sideways with her mouth still open. But all that's there is Rennell, lying on the couch so sluggish in his baggy clothes he's looking more like a pile of laundry than a person. Except he looks glad to see Payton, like always.

"Hey, bro'," he says in that slow way of his, trying to sound cool. "What's up?"

"Nothin'," Payton answers and flips the TV back on as if things are still the same. Then he feels his hands start shaking.

* * *

"Rennell never had no clue." Payton paused, his voice plangent with self-disgust. "But then he never figured I'd fuck around with no little girl. Don't know why that happened—only time I did."

"But then they'd locked you up," Terri answered coolly. "Did Eddie 'fuck around' with little girls, too?"

Still Payton averted his eyes. "Far as I know, just that one time. But it's not the kind of thing he'd go braggin' about."

"What about Rennell?"

"Rennell?" A faint smile reappeared, directed at the table. "I don't think he had sex with a woman his whole damned life, young or old. 'Ceptin' Mama when he was nine."

Terri sat back. "Let's skip Mom and Dad. You're the one who helped Eddie Fleet put your own brother on death row."

Payton gazed up at her, impassive. "Things got all screwed up. I didn't know that old white lady would be lookin' out the window, and mix up Rennell with Eddie. The plan was for Eddie and me to shut up."