“She had a dirty diaper an hour ago and I just fed her,” she said.
“Okay. Hey, beautiful.”
Now safely in my arms, my bellicose beauty broke into a full-out cry, the tiny red face collapsing into utter revulsion. I bounced around the nursery, humming to her and bringing my face close to hers, but she wanted Mommy. I wasn’t good at this yet. I hadn’t developed a rapport with her, a rhythm. With the amount of time I’d spent at work these last ten days, I was hardly different from a guy off the street. I pulled out my bag of tricks I had developed to date. I changed my tone of voice. I closed my own eyes to see if she would mimic. I cited the preamble to the Constitution. I recited her a poem I’d memorized in junior high (“It was six men of Indostan to learning much inclined, who went to see the elephant though all of them were blind”). I held her up at my shoulder, in the crook of my arm, on my legs while seated. I tried a few songs I knew. “Catch” by the Cure. “The Riddle” by Five for Fighting. “Verdi Cries” by 10,000 Maniacs. All over the board, but all slow and soothing, at least when sung properly. If I was any kind of a vocalist, it might have worked, but I wasn’t, nor was my voice a source of calm to her. That, in the end, was the real problem. It wasn’t what I was saying or doing, but the fact that it was me, not Talia, saying and doing it.
And then it just happened; she ran out of steam. Her eyelids fluttered and she was asleep, her head resting in the crook of my arm. She looked like her mother, the almond shape of her eyes, the tiny nose and full lips. Asleep, at peace, she had Talia’s placid expression, too.
Time passed. Her tiny, warm body rose and fell, short breaths escaping from her mouth. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
We got two hours like that, sleeping together on the couch. I was startled awake by her stirring, a moment of panic as I realized I’d been responsible for holding her while I slept, never a good idea. My head had fallen forward during sleep, and now I had a crick in my neck as a reward.
Once Emily realized who was holding her, it was back to the horror movie. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I tried to sweet-talk her, which never worked on any other female in my life, so I don’t know why I thought it would now.
“I’ll take her.” Talia was at the landing, looking in on us in the family room. “You need sleep.” Her hair was all over the place and her right cheek showed a crease line from her pillow.
“You need it more,” I noted. I had no idea how she could have awakened on her own, at her level of sleep deprivation.
Emily wailed at the sound of her mother’s voice, but as soon as Talia had expertly scooped her from my lap, the cry shut off in an instant, like an alarm clock after hitting the snooze button.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I said.
Talia kissed Emily’s forehead and tucked her into the nape of her neck. “She just doesn’t know you yet, that’s all. She will.” She put her hand on my cheek. “She will, Jase.”
8
I left home that morning estimating that court would adjourn early on Friday, and that I’d be able to hit the road with Talia and Emily by no later than five to go to her parents. Evening rain was predicted, she’d told me, so the earlier the better.
Court actually adjourned even earlier than that. Chris Moody, re-directing Joey Espinoza, had wanted to run through the recorded conversations of Hector several times, stopping at various intervals to ask Joey, “Did it sound to you like the defendant was joking there? Did that sound like sarcasm?” That kind of thing. But I made the point that Joey had testified on cross-examination yesterday that they sometimes misunderstood each other’s sarcastic exchanges, so how could Joey really say if Hector was kidding or not? It became enough of a distraction that Chris Moody dropped it altogether, opting to make his pitch in closing argument.
When Chris Moody sat down, he looked awful. He’d had a rough night, I imagined. His star witness hadn’t done well, and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do to rehabilitate him. This case was far more important to him than it was to anyone else in the courtroom, save Hector. This, I assume, was going to be his crowning achievement before he went for the big bucks in a major law firm, not starting as a junior partner like me, but at the equity level, the really big bucks. But if this went the other way on him, it would be a pretty black mark. And at this point, I figured it was even money, at best, that Chris Moody would convict Hector Almundo.
After court recessed at two o’clock, we retreated to the law firm. Hector’s spirits were relatively high. Paul tried to dampen enthusiasm, but I could see it in his eyes, as well. The prosecution hadn’t proven Hector’s knowledge of, much less involvement in, this conspiracy. There was no concrete evidence that he had any idea what was taking place. Joey Espinoza simply was not credible, and the tapes reeked of staging-Espinoza forcing the conversation, discussing the topic when Hector was distracted or making it sound like a joke so Hector would agree, sarcastically. Though Paul didn’t want to raise expectations, he had to acknowledge the current state of affairs, because we were debating whether we should call any witnesses at all or just rest.
“I’ll be back Sunday,” I told him. “If you’re sure it’s okay I go.”
“It’s more than okay. It’s an order,” said Paul. “You did a great job, kid. Go have fun and we’ll talk Sunday afternoon.”
I looked at my watch. It was half past two. I still had time for one more errand before I hooked up with Talia and we drove downstate.
I drove to Liberty Park, where I knew I would find Ernesto Ramirez. I got out of my car and passed through a tall chain-link fence at a spot where someone had torn open a human-sized portion. Why rip into this fence when there was a gate just down the way? Because kids are stupid. It’s the kind of thing I did, too, when I was a kid.
I walked across the wide expanse, grass and concrete. A grown man, without a child in tow, feels funny these days walking among children in a park under any circumstances, and throw in that I was wearing a suit, and I had white skin, and I pretty much stuck out like oil on snow. I was headed for the basketball court, where I’d previously talked with Ernesto.
They’ll know, he’d said.
Ernesto was with two other Latino men who looked to be in their mid-twenties. One of them was wearing a ripped tank top, long shorts, and court shoes. The other was scrawnier and wore an oversized shirt and blue jeans. I’d seen enough of them in my time as a prosecutor, the posture and cocky chin. Gangbangers, or I wasn’t a south-side Irishman.
The scrawnier one saw me first and said something to Ernesto, who looked my way. When he saw me, he started to come toward me, presumably to separate the two of us from his friends. But I was so close I could almost touch him, and for this function I was performing, I literally had to make contact with him.
He managed to say, “The hell are you doing,” before I slapped the envelope against his chest.
“A subpoena,” I told him. “You’ve been served. You must appear in federal court next week to testify in the case of United States versus Hector Almundo.” It was all very formal and unnecessary. The subpoena inside would tell him all of that. But I wanted the drama. I didn’t have anything left.
Instinctively, Ernesto had accepted the envelope before I’d explained its contents. He stared at it and then looked up at me, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t-I won’t-”
“It’s your decision,” I said. “You can appear at that date and time, or federal marshals will come and escort you. And then you can explain to a federal judge why you’re different from everyone else who is subpoenaed.”
“No,” he repeated. He seemed to be in shock, only now catching up with what was happening.