Kevin stared, and drank, and stared, and said, “Uncle Jimmy? You think Uncle Jimmy was there? You think Jimmy did it?”
No answer from Phil.
“Oh, fuck you, Uncle Phil! Fuck you, that's nuts!”
“It was his money.”
“Or someone else's. You just said.”
“Or someone else's. But it came through Jimmy. Why? If he didn't know something?”
“Something like what?”
“If he didn't do it, he knew who did.”
“My dad did it. By accident. Uncle Jimmy was my dad's best friend!”
“Everyone says that.”
“You don't believe it?”
“That's not what I mean.” No? Then why did you say it like that, that icy edge?
Phil waved to the waitress, who nodded and went behind the bar to the tap, didn't even approach. Thanks a lot, honey. “I didn't meet any of those people—your father, Jimmy, any of them—until after Markie was arrested. I was new in private practice, but everything I'd done since the day I left law school was criminal defense. I didn't know whose friend was whose around here, but I knew Markie was lying. I could smell it.”
“And you didn't do anything?”
“He wouldn't let me. He told me exactly what he'd told the police, and his story never changed. ‘Jack shot at me, I shot back, I was scared, I never thought I'd hit him.' In the end I was goddamn grateful to be offered the plea on the gun charge, because Markie was ready to go to trial.”
“Because he thought you'd get him off. Because he trusted you.”
That was a punch in the gut. “Kevin—” Thank God, the waitress and the new beers. She gave them one each, grabbed up the empties, and left. Come on, honey, don't you want to sit and chat?
“Kev, for God's sake. He kept insisting he'd done it. What the hell defense did I have? Insanity? I'm not a magician.” Oh, but that's wrong. Ask anyone on the other side. They'll tell you: Constantine's a sorcerer, a conjuror, a spell-caster. Rabbits from hats, pickpockets from jail, gangsters from prison and flash! into the Witness Protection Program because, presto change-o, Phil Constantine can turn drug dealers into cooperators and accused murderers into innocent men.
But only since Markie. Only since he'd started to see Markie Keegan's eyes looking out of every new client's face.
The waitress made a circuit of the room, bringing fresh drinks to men who hadn't called for them. It was likely that outside the sun was moving across the sky but in here the light didn't change and the silence didn't change and nothing changed except the way Kevin looked at Phil.
Phil turned from that look, focused on the names and dates and loves dug into the table.
“The front booth,” Kevin said quietly. Phil looked up. “My dad carved his initials and my mom's in a heart in the front booth. Did you ever tell my mom my dad was lying?”
“She didn't believe it, he wouldn't admit it. I stopped saying it.”
“Did you tell Uncle Jimmy?”
Guinness, thought Phil, used to taste better than this. “In the beginning. When I still thought if I could find the truth I could get Markie off. I tried, Kev. I tried to find the truth.” Why had he said that? What would Kevin care, what he'd tried, what he'd failed at?
“What did you say to him? Uncle Jimmy, in the beginning?”
“I told him I was sure Markie was lying. I asked him if he knew what really happened. Because everyone told me he was Markie's friend. I asked if Markie had said anything to him. I asked . . .”
“What?”
“I asked if he knew who Markie was trying to protect. He said no. He asked me how light a sentence I thought I could get Markie. I said I didn't think Markie was guilty and I wanted the truth. Jimmy said, What if what Markie's saying is the truth? Or it's not but he keeps saying it? What will happen to him?
“I said if we could sell the self-defense story, maybe we could get a plea deal, no charges in the death, only the gun. There was no way out of the gun. I said with no priors, upstanding citizen, wife and child, probably I could play the violin a little and get the minimum, sixteen months. A possibility of probation, no jail time, if he gave up the gun dealer.”
“But he didn't.”
“Because he didn't know who it was. Because he hadn't bought the gun.”
“He told you that?”
“No, dammit, Kevin, he didn't tell me that! He swore to me he'd bought it from some guy in some bar in Tottenville. He didn't remember the name of the guy, or the bar, or the street the bar was on, or how to get to the street the bar was on. I took the train out to Tottenville one Saturday and spent the whole goddamn day wandering around. You been to Tottenville?” Tottenville, twenty years ago a mini-Appalachia holding down the southern end of Staten Island, where rusting cars were lawn ornaments and chickens shared the yards with scruffy dogs.
“We don't go down there much.”
“From Pleasant Hills. You think in 'seventy-nine anyone did? After everyone Markie knew threw their cash together so he could make bail, I made him drive me back there. To look for the bar. A complete bust. I asked him
