The Pardon

“morbid emotions that ran at conflict with the established order of society?” Could he be that clever, that he had purposefully sent the governor to this old tour guide who in his own melodramatic way could make so painfully obvious the difference between the relatively easy capital cases and the unbearably difficult ones, between a man who boasts of his crime all the way to the electric chair and a man who proclaims his innocence to the end-between a crazed political assassin and someone like Raul Fernandez? Or maybe the message was less subtle, less philosophical. Maybe he was simply telling the governor that the very site of Florida’s most famous political assassination was about to be the site of its next political assassination- tonight.

Harry glanced nervously toward Calvin, who was smiling and chatting with the concessionaire, an attractive young Hispanic woman whose shapely appearance alone explained the regularity of Calvin’s nine o’clock stops. He pulled the carriage blanket over his lap, even though it was seventy-five degrees outside, so as to hide his movements. Then he touched the edge of the red velvet seat cushion beside him and got ready to lift it off. His heart began to race as he suddenly wondered whether a pistol-wielding madman would leap from the darkness or a bomb would explode when he lifted the carriage seat, writing the final chapter to Calvin’s history lesson. He took a deep breath and pulled up. The seat popped out, just as his blackmailer had said it would. No explosion. No rattlesnakes inside. He checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking. Again he sensed he was being watched. But he saw nothing. He looked down to see what was beneath the seat.

Inside the little cubbyhole was a brown shoe box, with a note on the side: “Leave the money. Take the box.” There was no signature. Only this warning: “I’m watching you.”

The governor didn’t dare turn his head to look around. He opened the briefcase in his shopping bag, emptied two stacks of crisp fifty-dollar bills under the seat, stuffed the shoe box into his bag, and put the seat cover back in place.

Calvin returned a few minutes later, and the ride back to Bayside Marketplace took only a few minutes more, though it seemed like an eternity. Harry thanked Calvin for the ride and quickly retraced his steps across the busy street to his car. As soon as he was behind the wheel, he set the shopping bag on the front seat beside him and took a deep breath, relieved that no one had stopped him. He turned on the ignition, but before he could pull into traffic he was startled by a short, high pitched ring. It stopped, and then started up again. It seemed to emanate from the box inside the shopping bag He took the shoe box from the bag and unfastened the tape on the lid. The shrill ringing continued. He flipped off the top and found a portable phone inside, resting on top of a sealed white envelope. He switched on the “talk” button and pressed the phone to his ear.

“It’s in the envelope,” came the familiar, thickly disguised voice.

The governor shuddered. Of course it would be him, but he was disturbed by the voice nonetheless. “What’s in the envelope?”

“You have to ask, Governor?” came the reply. “I have your money, and you’ve got the proof it was me, not Raul, who killed the girl. That was our deal, wasn’t it?”

The governor was silent.

“Was that our deal, Governor?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good,” said the caller in a calmer voice. “Now open the envelope. Just open it. Don’t take anything out.”

Harry tucked the phone under his chin and unsealed the envelope. “It’s open.”

“There’s two photographs inside, both of the girl Raul got the chair for. Take out the one on the left.”

The governor removed the snapshot from the envelope and froze. It was a photo of a teenage girl from her bare breasts up. She was lying on her back with her shoulders pinned behind her, as if her hands were bound tightly behind her back. A red bandanna gagged her mouth. The long blade of a knife pressed against her throat. Her blood-shot eyes stared up helplessly at her killer. The rest of her face was puffy and bruised from unmerciful beatings.

“You see it, my man?”

“Yes,” his voice trembled.

“That’s real fear in those eyes. You can’t fake that. Sometimes I wish I’d videotaped it. But no need, really. I play it over and over again in my mind. It’s like a movie. I call it ‘The Taming of Vanessa.’ Vanessa was her name, you know. It’s nice to know their name. Makes it all more real.”

The photograph shook in the governor’s hand as his whole body was overcome by fear and disgust.

“Take out the next picture,” said the caller.

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. It would have been difficult to look under any circumstances, but it was doubly painful now, realizing that Raul Fernandez was not responsible for this girl’s death. The enormity of the governor’s mistake was beginning to sink in, and all at once he was filled with self-loathing. “I’ve seen enough,” he said quietly.

“Look at the next one. Look what I did with the knife.”

“I said I’ve seen enough,” Harry said firmly as he shoved the photo back into the envelope. “You’ve got your money, you monster. Just take it. That was our deal. Take it, keep your mouth shut, and don’t ever call me again.”

The caller chuckled with amusement. “Harry, Harry-that’s not how the game is played. We’re just getting started, you and me. Next installment’s in a few days.”

“I m not paying you another cent.”

“Such conviction. I guess you still can’t feel that noose around your neck. Here, give this a listen.”

The governor pressed the phone closer to his ear, straining to hear every sound. There was a click, then static, then a clicking sound again-and then a voice he clearly recognized as his own: “You’ve got your money, you monster Just take it. That was our deal. Take it, keep your mouth shut, and don’t ever call me again.”

Another click, and the caller was back on the line. “It’s all on tape, my man. You, the esteemed Governor Harold Swyteck, bribing an admitted killer to keep his mouth shut to save your own political skin. Every word of it s on tape-and ready to go to the newspapers.”

“You wouldn’t-”

“I would. So consider your piddling ten grand as nothing more than a down payment. Because you’re gonna a take another ten thousand dollars to four-oh-nine East Adams Street, Miami, apartment two-seventeen. Be there at four A.M., August second. Not a minute before not a minute after. The door will be open. Leave it right on the kitchen table. Be good, my man.”

“You son of a-” the governor started to say, but the caller was gone. A wave of panic overcame him. He pitched the phone and the envelope into the box beside him, holding his head in his hands as a deep pit of nausea swelled in his stomach. “You idiot,” he groaned aloud, sinking in his car seat. But it wasn’t just his own stupidity that had him shaking. It was the whole night that sent a current of fear coursing through him. The “history lesson” in the park, the photographs of the young girl, the tape recording in the car-and, most of all, the dawning realization that in this confrontation with a cold-blooded killer, he was clearly overmatched.

Chapter 12

Jack Swyteck bent low to avoid the doorway arch as he carried the last stack of boxes into the house. Behind him, carelessly flicking ashes from a fat cigar and obviously enjoying his friend’s huffing and puffing, was Mike Mannon.

“I do believe you’re out of shape,” Mike needled.

“Excuse me, Mr. Schwarzenegger, but I didn’t notice you setting any weight-lifting records today. And get that stink-rod out of my house.”

Mike shrugged and blew a thick cloud of smoke at Jack. “Not my job to lift. You said you needed wheels because your ‘stang was in the shop. You didn’t say I had to play donkey.”

“Well, I guess that’s about it,” Jack said, surveying office haul. “God knows why I went back to get all this