The Gentlemen's Hour

On to money.

People will kill for the jack, sad but true. But what kind of money hassle could Schering have been involved in? A business deal gone south? A bad debt? Did he have a gambling jones he couldn’t keep up with? Even if he did, pop culture notwithstanding, bookies and loan sharks rarely kill their deadbeats—it’s a guarantee of never getting paid.

No, you usually kill someone so you can

get

your money.

But what kind of a payday could Schering offer? Wasn’t anything he had in the house, because Johnny never brought robbery up as a possibility. So if Schering didn’t have something, maybe he was in the way of something.

Whose payday could Schering have been cockblocking?

Boone drives to the dead man’s office.

No crime tape up. The cops haven’t sealed the scene, and why should they? Schering wasn’t killed here, plus they have a suspect they like and they’re fixated on him.

Good, Boone thinks.

For the time being, better.

Still, you can’t bust into the office in what they like to call “broad daylight,” so it will have to wait.

He occupies his mind with something else.

Dumb-ass Corey Blasingame.

Boone wonders if Alan has had the time to see him, and offer him the deal, and whether Corey will take it or not.

His phone goes off.

It’s Jill Thompson.

99

“Will I be in trouble?” she asks.

She sits in the passenger seat next to Boone in the Starbucks parking lot and chews on a strand of hair in her mouth. She looks young to Boone. Awfully young.

“For what?” he asks.

“Lying to the police.”

“You didn’t exactly lie,” Boone says. “I think it can be worked out.”

She chews the hair more vigorously, then breaks it down for him. She didn’t see Corey throw that punch. She heard the punch, she thinks, looked around, and saw the man on the sidewalk. Some guys were getting in their car and driving away. She cradled the injured man in her arms and called 911.

“I had blood all over me,” she says.

Later, when the cop was talking to her, he asked her if she saw Corey hit Kelly—the cop told her that was the man’s name—and she said yes. She thought that’s what happened, she said, and she just wanted to help Kelly.

“But you’ll tell the truth now?” Boone asks. “It might not be necessary, but if it is, you’ll tell the police what you told me just now?”

She lowers her head, but she nods.

“Thanks, Jill.”

She opens the door. “Do you want something? A latte or something? I can get you a free latte if you want.”

“I’m good.”

“Okay.”

He waits for her to get inside, then calls Pete and arranges for her and Alan to meet him at the jail.

100

One question a defense attorney will never ask his or her client:

“Did you do it?”

Most clients are going to answer “no,” but if the client answers “yes,” the attorney is in a bad jam. He can’t violate the attorney-client privilege, but, as an officer of the court, he can’t go into a trial and commit or suborn perjury.

In Alan Burke’s case, though, he already has an answer in the form of Corey Blasingame’s confession. Now he spends long moments pretending to peruse it as Corey shifts around anxiously in his seat.

Boone sits back and watches as Alan reads out loud,

“‘We were outside the bar waiting because we were pissed that they threw us out of there earlier. So I saw the guy coming out of the bar and decided to mess him up. I walked up to him and hit him with a Superman Punch. I saw his lights go out before he hit the ground. Other than that, I have nothing to say.’”

He looks up at Corey and raises an eyebrow.

“What?” Corey asks.

“What, ‘What’?” Alan answers back. “You want to say something about this?”

“No.”

“Jill Thompson didn’t really see you throw the punch,” Alan says. “Did you know that?”

“No.”

“But the cops told you she did, right?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“We don’t think the cabdriver saw you throw it, either,” Alan says. “But again, the cops told you that he did?”

“I guess.”

Alan nods.

Corey quickly says, “But Trev and Billy and Dean all saw me hit him.”

“That’s what they say.”

“They wouldn’t lie.”

“They wouldn’t?” Alan asks. “They’re about to close a deal that would put them in jail for eighteen months. That bargain is based on them testifying that you threw the punch that killed Kelly.”

“Okay . . .”

“Okay if they’re telling the truth,” Alan says. “Not so okay if they’re lying.”

Christ, kid, Boone thinks, he’s holding the door wide open. Walk through it, Corey. Take one single step on your own behalf.

Not happening.

Alan Burke didn’t get where he is in life by giving up easily. So now he asks, “Is it possible, Corey, is it just possible that in all the chaos . . . remember, you’d been drinking . . . someone else threw that punch and you just got confused when you talked to the police?”

Corey looks at the floor, looks at his shoes, the wall, his hands.

“Is that possible?” Alan asks.

No answer.

“Possible or probable?” Alan asks, almost as if he were cross-examining him on the stand, nudging him toward the edge of the cliff.

Corey won’t go.