Cimarron Rose

'She didn't lack for boyfriends. She found some a whole lot better than me.'

'Did you punch out Virgil Morales at Shorty's?'

'Yeah, we got a bad history.'

'He called you a pimp?'

Bunny's right hand squeezed on his thigh. He ran his tongue over his lips. 'Yeah, that's what he did,' he said.

'How did Roseanne Hazlitt come to know Mr and Mrs Jack Vanzandt, Bunny?'

'I took her out to their house once. I intro-'

'Introduced her to whom?'

'Just what I said. I took her to their house.'

His words were binding in his throat now, the scar along his jaw turning as dark as blood against his tan.

'Did you have sexual intercourse with Mrs Vanzandt?' I asked.

'Relevance, your honor,' Marvin said.

'I'll allow it,' the judge said. 'The witness will answer the question.'

'I did it once. It was 'cause she was mad over something, I mean with her husband. She was like that,' Bunny said.

'Did Roseanne ever slap you before that night at Shorty's?'

'No, sir.'

'Roseanne said her baptism might wash off on you. Why was she so angry at you, Bunny? Why did she feel so betrayed?'

'Cause she didn't have no friends left. Except Lucas. He's the only one done right by her.'

'But she wanted you to take her to her baptism? Because you owed her in a big way, didn't you?'

'I guess that's what she thought.'

'Why did you owe her, Bunny? Why did she say her baptism might wash off on you?'

He kneaded his hands between his thighs, the balls of his feet tapping neurotically on the stand, his head pulled down on his chest. His long hair fell down around his throat like a girl's.

'Answer the question, please,' I said, but I had lowered my voice now, the way you do when you hope your own capacity for cruelty will be forgiven.

'I drove her to Dallas to meet Mr Vanzandt. He rented three rooms at the Four Seasons, like there wasn't nothing unusual about him being with a couple of young people. But we all knew why we was there. I took her down to his room the first night, for drinks out on the balcony and all, but I left by myself,' he said.

He rested his forehead on his fingers, staring numbly at the floor. Then he added, as though his own behavior had been explained to him by someone else, 'That's what I done, all right.'

Emma Vanzandt rose from her chair and walked down the aisle and out of the courtroom, her face like parchment about to wrinkle in a flame.

'How many times did you do this?' I asked.

'Whenever he wanted her. At least up until she thought she was pregnant and he told her to get it cut out of her, 'cause he wasn't gonna have no woods colt with his name on it…'

The only sound in the courtroom was the hum of the fans and the rain clicking on the windowsills. No one looked at Jack Vanzandt, except his son, who studied his father as though a strange and new creature whom he didn't recognize had just swum into his ken.

Fifteen minutes later a power failure darkened the building for three hours, and Temple and Lucas and I drove to a barbecue restaurant on a hill that overlooked the river outside of town. It had stopped raining, and the sky in the west was blue and you could see the shadows of clouds on the hillsides.

Lucas couldn't eat. I reached over and picked a piece of blooddried tissue paper off his cheek where he had cut himself shaving.

'There's nothing to it. Just be who you are,' I said.

'Be who I am?' he said.

Temple was watching my face.

'You heard me. Tell the truth, no matter what it is. When you go on that stand, you just be Lucas. Don't try to hide anything, don't try to manipulate the jury, don't back away from a question,' I said.

'What are you gonna ask me?'

'I don't know.'

He looked seasick.

'Do what Billy Bob tells you,' Temple said.

He pressed his napkin to his mouth, then got up from the table and walked quickly to the men's room.

'You're gonna take him apart, huh?' Temple said.

We waited in my office until the power went back on in the courthouse, then a bailiff phoned me and we went downstairs and across the street and met Marvin Pomroy coming down the courthouse walk.

'I need to talk to you,' he said to me.

'What's up?'

He looked at Temple and Lucas.

'I bet it's earth-shaking stuff, like prosecuting parking offenders in the most corrupt shithole in Texas,' Temple said, and went up the walk with Lucas.

Marvin looked at her back, his eyes involuntarily dropping to her hips.

'You think she'd work for me?' he asked.

'How about getting to it, Marvin?'

'Getting to it? You stoked up Garland Moon and aimed him at this Mexican drug agent, didn't you?'

The air smelled of wet leaves and sewer mains swollen with rainwater and pavement drying in the sunlight. A sheriff's deputy led five black inmates in jailhouse whites past us on a wrist chain.

'Look at me!' Marvin said.

'Take it easy, Marvin.'

'Felix Ringo's got a fuck pad at the Conquistador. He says a guy he swears is Garland Moon tried to get through the bathroom window. He says the guy was carrying one of these small chainsaws, the kind you cut up cordwood with.'

'That's bad news, isn't it?'

'Are you out of your mind? You bust up a psychopath with an ax handle, then screw down his dials and turn him loose on a policeman. You're supposed to be an officer of the court.'

'How do you know I sent him after Ringo?'

'Because you're still a vigilante. Because you still think this is the O.K. Corral.'

'Thanks for sharing, Marvin. I really appreciate it.'

'Sharing? Moon trashed Ringo's place down in San Antone. Get this. He defecated on the upholstery. What's all this tell you?'

'He's terminal and knows it.'

'Yeah, well, here's the surprise. Felix Ringo's getting a Mexican warrant on Moon for scoring some dope across the border. Moon might do time in a Mexican slam. The centipedes come free with the rice and beans.'

'For some reason, you don't look all broken up.'

'You're still not hearing me. When Moon gets word of this, and he will, who's he going to come after?'

'Well, you never know what's down at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box, Marvin.'

He shook his head and walked away, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of the seersucker coat he held in his right hand, a good man who would forever serve causes that were not his own.

Lucas took the oath just after one o'clock. He sat very still in the witness chair, his hands splayed on his thighs, his face damp in the humidity. His throat was already streaked with color, as though it had been rouged.

'When you were first arrested, you said you hardly knew Roseanne Hazlitt. You said you didn't even know her last name. That was a lie, wasn't it?' I said.

'Yes, sir.'

'Why would you lie like that?'

'Cause she told me she was pregnant. 'Cause y'all would think it was me hurt her if y'all knew it was my baby…' He took a breath. 'I lied 'cause I didn't have no guts.'

'How'd you feel about Roseanne?'

'She was a good person. She couldn't hep the things she done, I mean, with drinking and that kind of stuff.'

'Did she tell you who might have made her pregnant?'

'Objection, hearsay,' Marvin said.

'I'll allow it,' the judge said.

'Some older guy she was seeing in town. I didn't ask. It didn't make me feel too good.'

'You thought the baby could be yours, didn't you?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Why?'

'Sir?'

'Why did you think it could be yours?'

'Cause we was making love.'

'That's not what I'm asking you, Lucas. Did you use a condom?'

He rubbed his palms on his trousers and looked at the judge.

'Answer the question, please,' she said.

'No, sir, we didn't use none,' Lucas said.

'That sounds dumb to me. Why not?'

'Objection, your honor. He's badgering and cross-examining his own client,' Marvin Pomroy said.

'Approach,' the judge said. She took off her black-framed glasses and pushed aside the microphone. 'What are you doing, Mr Holland?' she said.