around the prosecutor as he issued sound bite after sound bite. Jack watched with interest, wondering if he’d ever in his life seen a more pompous ass. Finally, nearly two minutes into his endlessly self-serving “I knew I would be vindicated” speech, the prosecutor was interrupted by a seasoned reporter who simply couldn’t hold her question any longer.
“Mr. Torres, is it true that your name used to be Jorge Buston?”
The prosecutor did a double take. “What?”
Another reporter chimed in. “Jorge Buston. The same Jorge Buston who worked in Havana in the early 1960s as a block warden for the Comite para la Defensa de la Revolucion?”
“I…I…” The prosecutor kept stammering, and the questions kept coming.
“Sir,” another journalist said pointedly, “isn’t it true that you earned a commendation from the Communist Party for ratting out so-called enemies of the revolution in your neighborhood?”
Torres’s mouth hung open, and the feeding frenzy had begun.
“Mr. Torres-or should I say Mr. Buston-aren’t some of those political dissidents that you fingered still sitting in prison?”
“What was behind your fall from Castro’s good graces in 1964?”
“Is that why you changed your name and became so vocal against Castro when you came to Miami? Because you were driven out of the party?”
The U.S. attorney was speechless, and all color had drained from his cheeks. He looked utterly confused, until finally he glanced across the hallway and picked out his adversary in the crowd. Jack was silent, moving not a muscle-except to offer a hint of a smile that confirmed the fact that old Dr. Blanco had indeed been a wealth of information, and that Jack, too, had placed a few choice calls to the media before the rendering of the verdict. Jack wanted to say it to the prosecutor’s face, but he didn’t have to. He was certain that, by now, Torres had fully realized what was going on, that he could hear Jack throwing his snide remark right back at him, even if no words were actually spoken.
Live with it, Jorge. You’re just gonna have to.
Jack turned and headed for the elevator, hoping that perhaps, somewhere, a forever-young woman named Ana Maria was smiling.
55
Jack slept until nine-thirty the next morning.
The previous night, Theo had brought over a broad selection of wheat beers that he was debating whether to stock at Sparky’s, figuring that a lost trial was the perfect occasion for Jack to sample all fourteen brands. It didn’t seem all that funny now, but at about two A.M. it had busted Jack’s gut to watch a lug like Theo turn into Truman Capote as he read aloud from the artsy-fartsy sales literature for each of the different German brews.
“Ayinger BrauWeisse,” he’d said. Then he took a little sip, smacking his lips at hummingbird speed. “Fruity, yet herbaceous.”
Jack slowly lifted his head from the pillow. The great thing about wheat beer was that it never gave you a hangover. Another one of Theo’s lies. It seemed to take forever, but finally Jack managed to sit upright on the edge of the bed. Then a friggin’ trumpet blasted in his ear, but it was only his telephone. He snatched it up before it could ring a second time. It was Theo, jovial as ever, showing absolutely no signs of overindulgence. The man was the devil.
“Hey, Jack. Have you seen this morning’s paper?”
“Only if it was printed on the inside of my eyelids.”
“Here, let me read it to you.”
Jack groaned. It was another of Theo’s quirks. Perhaps it was because he’d never been read to as a child, or maybe he was a closet television newscaster, but for some reason Theo enjoyed reading aloud, with feeling-and with incredible volume. Far more volume than Jack’s beer-soaked brain could handle. He held the phone about a foot away from his ear and listened.
Theo cleared his throat, mumbled through the introductory sentences, then skipped to the good part. “Says here, quote, ‘Reportedly, Ms. Hart’s conviction has been no small source of anxiety for her alleged lover, U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant Damont Johnson. Sources tell the Tribune that Lieutenant Johnson’s biggest fear is that Ms. Hart, now convicted of murder, will break her silence and reveal the truth about her husband’s shooting, which may well implicate Johnson. These same sources confirm that Lieutenant Johnson is in a race to beat her to the punch. In a telephone interview late last night, however, U.S. attorney Hector Torres would neither confirm nor deny that he is having any discussions with Lieutenant Johnson, and he declined to comment on whether the government is willing to cut a deal in exchange for the lieutenant’s tell-all testimony.’ ”
Jack’s head was pounding, but it wasn’t the wheat beer. “Does it say who the source is?”
“No. One of those anonymous jobs. You want me to visit Johnson, try to find out?”
“No. Stay out of it.”
“I don’t really get the point of this, anyway,” said Theo. “Lindsey’s already convicted. Why would the prosecutor want to deal for Johnson’s testimony now?”
“We’ve still got a sentencing hearing. Torres wants a needle in her arm, and I’m trying to keep her alive.”
“So Johnson is going to flip again and say it wasn’t the kid who done it after all?”
“I don’t know. This is just an article in a newspaper, with anonymous sources to boot. Who knows what’s really going on? Could be true, or it could be someone with his own agenda who lied to an overeager reporter for his own purposes.”
“Or this he could be a she.”
“Yeah. Or that.”
“Whatchya gonna do?”
Jack massaged his temples, trying to stop the throbbing. “Go straight to my only source. I’ll talk to Lindsey.”
Lindsey’s pallor was as lifeless as the cold beige walls of the detention center. She looked the way Jack felt, and she hadn’t been the one drinking all night. Her elbows were on the table, her head was in the palms of her hands. The newspaper article was spread out in front of her. They were alone, behind a locked door in a windowless room that was reserved for attorney-client communications.
“Who’s the source for the article?” asked Lindsey.
“Don’t know,” said Jack.
“Who do you think it is?”
“No idea. I was listening to Cuban radio on the way over here. They think it’s Castro.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not kidding.”
She got up from her chair and stepped away from the table. She began to pace slowly, just a few steps in each direction, as the room was small. “You think it could be true? You think Johnson is dealing with the U.S. attorney?”
“I phoned Hector Torres on the way over here. He wouldn’t take my call.”
“Then it must be true,” she said, her voice quickening. “They’re talking.”
“I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.”
“You don’t know Damont. Deep down, he’s a survivor.”
“Survivor or not, he has a long way to go to earn the trust of a federal prosecutor.”
“Torres is a slimeball. He won’t care how slippery Johnson seems, as long as he wiggles in his direction.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Jack. “If Johnson is going to be of any use at all to the prosecution, he has to say that you shot your husband. Problem is, he’s already testified under oath that he was in your house that morning and that your son confessed to the crime. Those are hardly reconcilable.”
She stopped pacing and looked Jack in the eye. “They’re completely reconcilable.”
Jack was taken aback by her glare. “How do you mean?”
