against him and came around ready to cut a deal. The DA's Office was willing to play; the case was low-profile, the public didn't have a big emotional investment in it, and Elaine and I might come off looking pretty dirty after a round of intensive cross-examination, so why not plea-bargain the thing and save the state time and money? They reduced the main charge to an attempted violation of Section 120.11 of the penal code, aggravated assault upon a police officer. They dropped all the collateral charges, and in return James Leo Motley stood up in front of God and everybody and agreed that he was guilty as charged.
The judge weighed his priors against the lack of convictions and came up with the Solomonic sentence of one- to-ten years in the state penitentiary, with credit for time served.
After sentence had been passed Motley asked the court if he could say something. The judge said he could, but not without reminding him he'd had the opportunity to make a statement prior to sentencing.
Maybe it was shrewdness that had led him to hold his tongue until afterward; if he'd made the same statement earlier the judge would almost certainly have given him a sentence closer to the maximum.
What he said was, 'That cop framed me, and I know it and he knows it, the pimping bastard. When I get out I got big plans for him and the two bitches.' Then he turned to his left, tilting his head to point his long jaw at me. 'That's you and all your women, Scudder. We got something to finish, you and me.'
Lots of crooks threaten you. They're all going to get even, same as they're all innocent, they were all framed. You'd think nobody guilty ever went to prison.
He sounded as though he meant it, but that's how they all sound.
And none of it ever comes to anything.
That had been something like a dozen years ago. It was another two or three years before I left the police force, for reasons that had nothing to do with Elaine Mardell or James Leo Motley. The precipitant, though perhaps not the cause, for my leaving was something that happened one night inWashingtonHeights . I was having a few quiet drinks at a tavern there when two men held up the place and shot the bartender dead on their way out. I ran out into the street after them and shot them both, killing one of them, but one shot went wide and fatally injured a six-year-old girl. I don't know that she had any business being there at that hour, but I suppose you could have said the same thing about me.
I didn't get any flak over the incident, as a matter of fact I got a departmental recognition, but from then on I had no heart for the job or my life. I quit the department, and around the same time I gave up trying to be a husband and father and moved into the city. I found a hotel room, and around the corner I found a saloon.
The next seven years are somewhat blurred in memory, although God knows they had their moments.
The booze worked for a long time. Somewhere along the line it stopped working, but I drank it anyway because I seemed to have no choice. Then I started hitting detox wards and hospitals and losing three or four days at a time in blackouts, and I had a seizure and, well, things happened.
What it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now…
'He's out there,' she said.
'It seems impossible. He'd have been out years ago. It bothered me at the time that the judge gave him as short a sentence as he did.'
'You didn't say anything.'
'I didn't want to worry you. But he got one-to-ten, so he could have been on the street in less than a year. I never figured that would happen, he didn't strike me as the type to charm a parole board or get released after serving a minimum sentence, but even so you'd figure him to be out in three or four years, say five at the most. That's longer than most people can manage to nurse a grudge. But if he served five years that would mean he's been breathing free air for seven years now. Why would he wait this long to go after Connie?'
'I don't know.'
'What do you want to do, Elaine?'
'I don't know that, either. I think what I want to do is throw some things in a suitcase and get a cab to
JFK. I think that's what I want to do.'
I could understand the impulse, but I told her it struck me as a little premature. 'Let me make a few calls in the morning,' I said. 'It's possible he did something and wound up back in the joint. It'd be silly to fly toBrazil if he's locked up in Green Haven.'
'Actually I was thinking more along the lines ofBarbados .'
'Or if he's dead,' I said. 'I thought at the time that he was a good candidate to come out of there in a body bag. He's the type to make enemies, and it doesn't take a lot for someone to stick a knife in you.'
'Then who sent me the clipping?'
'Let's not worry about that until we see if we can rule him out.'
'All right. Matt? You'll stay here tonight?'
'Sure.'
'I know I'm being silly but I'll feel better. You don't mind?'
'I don't mind.'
She made up the couch for me with a couple of sheets and a blanket and a pillow. She'd offered me half the bed but I said I'd be more comfortable on the couch, that I felt restless and didn't want to worry about disturbing her with my tossing and turning. 'You wouldn't disturb me,' she said. 'I'm going to take a Seconal, I take one about four times a year, and when I do nothing disturbs me that registers less than seven on the Richter scale. You want one? It's just the thing if you're wired. You'll be out cold before you even have time to relax.'
I passed on the pill and took the couch instead. She went to bed and I stripped to my shorts and got under the covers. I couldn't keep my eyes closed. I kept opening them and looking at the lights ofQueens across the river. A couple of times I thought with regret of the Seconal not taken, but it was never really an option. As a sober alcoholic, I couldn't take sleeping pills or tranquilizers or mood-elevators or any painkiller much stronger than
