old-fashioned leather carriage roof in cream. Standard gangster ride. He’s a bit relieved when the Cadillac finally disappears. No more than five minutes later, it’s there again, jumping in and out of lanes a quarter of a block behind him.
He turns down the radio so he can concentrate and moves into the right lane, traveling about twenty miles per hour. The Caddy slows up as well. After another couple of minutes, he hooks a right onto Washburn and shoots several blocks down the narrow streets in the neighborhood of three-flats. The DeVille is gone. But when he circles back onto Independence, the Cadillac zooms out of an alley and closes again to four or five car lengths.
A half mile farther on, the judge pulls his Lexus to the curb, and the Caddy comes to rest in a red zone a hundred feet behind. When George steals back into the traffic, the car does too. Finally, no more than three blocks from the courthouse, he stops short at a light, leaving the Cadillac without a choice about pulling up beside him.
The driver is a slick-looking young man, white or Hispanic, with black spiked hair. He’s wearing a leather vest. A portly black man in a coat and tie occupies the passenger’s seat. The young man flashes George a tidy smile and winks.
His heart gives a frightened spurt before he understands, then he flashes a quick okay sign, thumb and forefinger. But he’s burning. Unwilling to wait until he gets to chambers, he curbs the car again so he can dial the cell phone he’s borrowed from his wife.
“We had an agreement,” he tells Marina as soon as she answers her private line.
“What?”
“You made a deal with me, Marina. I was only going to be covered in the courthouse. I’ve just had two county cops riding my tail from home in a Caddy they forfeited from some dope king.”
Marina is quiet. “You weren’t supposed to pick them up.”
“In that car? It’s for undercover buys in the North End. In my neighborhood, they might as well have announced themselves with heralds. Really, Marina. What the hell are you up to?”
“Judge, I’m just trying to do the right thing. After those two characters showed up out in the corridor yesterday, I thought things were getting a little close for comfort. I called a pal of mine, Don Stanley, and asked them to keep an eye on you, back and forth. No details, Judge. I said we had an incident that made me a little hinky.” She’s clearly talked to Rusty, who let her know that George does not take kindly to her talking out of school. That would be particularly true about sharing information with the Kindle County cops. Rumors and gossip are traded faster than in a junior high at the police headquarters, McGrath Hall. If word gets out about #1, it would find its way quickly to a reporter.
“Marina, I’m the one who’s on the line here. And so I make the choices. When they find my body, I give you permission to hold a press conference right over the remains and say, ‘I told him so.’ ”
“Come on, Judge.”
“Marina, on my block there are nine families who’ve lived there for twenty years. We raised our kids together. We vacation together. We pick up one another’s newspapers and mail. None of us minds his own business. And there’s no way these lugs in a dope-mobile following me from home each morning-or back-aren’t going to be noticed. Tomorrow or the day after, one of my neighbors is certain to say something to Patrice.”
He struggles to rein in his temper, reminding himself that Marina’s intuition that #1 may have a bead on his house is more accurate than she knows. But the last thing he’ll do at this stage is mention that e-mail. He already has virtually no handle on her. And overnight he’s grown more settled that Zeke is the culprit. Nevertheless, he tries a more patient approach.
“Marina, I realize you don’t know Patrice all that well. So let me explain. She’s one of those people who go rock climbing and then come home and throw the dead bolt and set the burglar alarm. She designs houses. She thinks everybody is entitled to a safe private space. This would upset her at the best of times. And it’s not the best of times.”
“I understand, Your Honor. Only-” She stops.
“What?”
“You know, not to get in the middle, Judge, but maybe we can work out security arrangements that wouldn’t alarm Mrs. Mason. Might even make her more comfortable. Because I really think it’d be better for everyone, including the two of you, if she knew what was going on.”
His efforts at self-control prove futile.
“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” he says before clicking off the connection.
In chambers, the judge meets midmorning with John Banion to discuss his draft of an opinion in a preliminary injunction case the court took on an emergency appeal. It concerns a dispute between a theater chain and a movie distributor about box-office receipts and upcoming features.
“We need to toughen up the section on remedies,” George tells his clerk. Banion sits before the judge’s desk, nodding obediently. The contrast in character between George’s two clerks could hardly be more striking. With five minutes’ acquaintance, Cassie is likely to tell you the state of her dental work, the amount of her phone bill, and her pointed reflections on the many young men pursuing her. John speaks very little, in a somewhat precious hush, and remains perpetually aloof.
Educated in Pennsylvania, John Banion returned here a decade ago to care for, then bury, his elderly parents. He is a highly capable lawyer, and for several years after the judge first hired him, he feared that Banion would give notice and move on to a better-paid job in private practice. But in George’s lifetime that world has grown cruel to persons like John, able but uneasy with people and, thus, unlikely to charm clients. When George started out, those ‘back room lawyers’ were the foundation of large law firms. These days they are increasingly hired hands, who work crushing hours until they are replaced by younger versions of themselves. John is apparently content with his life here. He works from eight to five, earns enough, reads obsessively, and takes several trips each year to hike alone in wilderness areas.
Solitariness, however, is a motif. Since his parents’ passing, John has slid into an increasingly reclusive and eccentric middle-aged bachelorhood. He retains a smooth, innocent face, but his brownish hair is departing quickly, and John has rounded noticeably in the last couple of years. Along the way, he seems to have lost most use for other people. It is routine to see him by himself in the courthouse cafeteria at lunch, his nose stuck in a book- usually a heavy philosophical tome-or pecking away on his laptop, while dozens of folks he has known for years and could easily join chat at tables nearby. John never mentions any social engagements, and the common assumption seems to be that he’s gay. George, who does not regard himself as especially well attuned on that subject, still tends to doubt it. Aren’t there genuine bachelors, unable to accommodate themselves to intimacy with anyone, who sink into the embrace of their own peculiarities?
But his oddness makes John in some ways a hero to his boss. The judge has often speculated that if he could put a probe in Banion’s brain, he’d enter a world more colorful than some $200 million Hollywood epic. But John has found a bridge to the rest of the world in the law. He functions in the hermetic zone of the appellate court, as a valued professional. In George’s judgment, John Banion is about as good as a law clerk gets. Precise. Talented. Unobtrusive.
“John,” the judge says, as the clerk stands to have another go at the opinion, “Cassie tells me you don’t mind if she does the drafts in Warnovits. I want to be certain she’s not elbowing you out of the way.”
“Hardly, Judge.” He looks at the carpet and mutters, “If she wants to deal with all that stuff, let her. I’ve had enough of those boys.” From John this is what passes as outspokenness. Generally, he embodies the selflessness to which the law aspires in the ideal. After nine years working with John, George still cannot tell whether he favors the prosecution or the defense, corporate interests or the little guy. He undertakes his work with the apparent disinterest of a shoemaker. Nonetheless, the judge has a brief, paralyzing thought of the comments Harry Oakey, Cassie’s father and George’s friend, might pass if he ever learned about his daughter’s newest assignment, which will require her to study that videotape. Not the sort of education Harry had in mind when he sent his daughter to George’s chambers.
The judge asks Banion to give Cassie the bench memos John prepared before the oral argument and to tell her she can start work.
“Still two drafts? Affirming and reversing?” John avoids a direct look, reluctant to confront the judge about his indecision, but it dawns on George that he is starting to make a fool of himself in his own chambers.
“It’s a hard case, John. On the law. I seem to be stuck on the limitations issue. But whichever way I go, there will be a dissent. Koll wants the case reversed because the videotape couldn’t be used, and Purfoyle’s strictly
