"It works out for you, too, Jim. You're the guy who's running to become the next PA."
Bluff but quick-eyed and defensive up until now, Brand sat forward in true anger. His big hands were closed hard.
"I've been sucking hind tit for you for years, Tommy, because I owe you that. Because you're entitled to that. You've been better to me than my own brothers were. I've never put myself ahead of you. I love your ass and you know it."
He did know that. Brand loved him. And he loved Brand. He loved Brand the way warriors learned to love the men and women who stood beside them in the trenches, who watched their backs and were among the few who actually understood the fear and bloodshed and turmoil of war. You became like Siamese twins that way, joined at the heart or some other vital organ. Brand was loyal. And Brand was smart. But he hung on tight to Tommy for his own reasons. Because he needed a conscience.
"Look," said Brand. "Shit happens. It's the middle of the fucking night and you're fried and angry, and you get this half-ass idea, mostly because you know you could do it, and you get started and it takes on a life of its own. To tell you the truth, I was laughing out loud the whole three hours it took me. It seemed pretty comical at the time."
Tommy considered that. That was probably true, too. Not that it did any good.
"I'm not going to let that guy sit in the can for something he didn't do, Jim."
"You're crazy."
"No, I'm not. I'm going to call Judge Yee. We're going to file a motion in arrest of judgment this afternoon. Sabich will be out by tomorrow morning. I just need to figure out what to say. And what to do with you."
"With me?" Brand stiffened. "Me? I didn't do anything. I didn't testify falsely. I didn't offer any false evidence. I'm not the one who turned on the computer. Read the record, Tom. You won't find a word in the transcript where I did anything other than tell the court that the card was a fraud. And I brought evidence forward to prove that and prevent the court from being misled. What crime is that?"
Tommy considered Brand sadly. These days, crime made him sad. When he was younger, crime made him angry. Now he knew it was just an indelible part of life. The wheel turned, people seethed with impulse and held themselves back most of the time. And when they didn't, it was Tommy's job to see them punished, not so much because what they had done was incomprehensible-not when you were really honest about how people could be-but because the other folks, the ones trying to contain themselves every day, needed the warning and, more important, the vindication of knowing bad guys got what they deserved. The regular people had to see the point of the bit and bridle they put on themselves.
"You can't prosecute me," said Brand. "And if you ever did, Tom, you know exactly how it would end up. People will just blame you."
With Brand's last words, Tommy felt his heart wince and he made a pained sound.
But before answering, he sat thinking all of it through. Brand was quicker than he was, and he'd had many weeks to analyze the situation. So how would this actually unfold? Molto asked himself.
A special prosecutor would have to be appointed. The argument Brand had made a second ago, that he had done nothing to defraud the court, would cut no ice with the special. Tampering with the evidence in the middle of a trial was a crime of one kind or another.
Proving that, however, was a different matter. There were just the two of them in this room. Even if Tommy's account of the conversation was accepted, Brand hadn't really made a detailed admission yet.
But the most important point was what Brand had said last, the artful threat he'd posed. Because Brand was right. Once Tommy fired the bullet, it was sure to ricochet and go right through him. If a prosecutor ever got close to indicting Brand, Jim would bargain his way out by saying Tommy knew, that whatever Brand did, he'd done at Tommy's behest. If Molto turned on him, as Jim saw it, he'd repay the favor by turning on Tommy. If Brand lied well enough, Tommy could even end up convicted. And even if it didn't get quite that far, he'd be back in the same purgatory he was in twenty years ago. People would believe it, because he'd admitted messing around then. Life, Tommy thought not for the first time, was not particularly fair.
"Okay," Molto said after he'd weighed things out for several minutes more, "here's what's going to happen. I'm going to tell Judge Yee that we've discovered that the chain of evidence on the PC had been corrupted: The computer sat unwrapped in your office the night before it was turned on, and contrary to what we always understood, we've learned that the tape seals were not secure and that the computer could have been tampered with by anyone who was in the PA's office that night or early the following morning. We're not saying that happened. But since Sabich would never have pled if he knew we couldn't prove a proper chain of evidence, we're moving to void the conviction and to dismiss those charges as well.
"And you're going to resign from the office in the next thirty days. Because there will be a big stink when Rusty walks away again. And it was your fault that the computer was not properly secured. You're going to take the blame for Sabich skating. Because it is your fault, Jim."
"Which will fuck my candidacy," said Brand.
"Which will fuck your candidacy," said Molto.
"Am I supposed to say, Thank you?" said Brand.
"You could. I think you will when you get some time."
"It sucks," said Brand.
Tommy shrugged. "It's kind of a sucky world, Jimmy," he said. "At least sometimes." He stood up. "I'm going to call Sandy Stern."
Cornered and embittered, Brand was nibbling unconsciously on one of his thumbnails. "Isn't he dead yet?"
"Not from what I hear. They say he's actually rallying. It just goes to show you, Jimmy."
"What's that?"
"It's why we get up in the morning. Because there's never any telling." He looked at Brand, whom he'd once loved, and shook his head. "Never," he repeated.
CHAPTER 44
Anna, August 5-6, 2009
You won't believe this," Nat tells me first thing when I pick up my cell in my office. He repeats the words. Each time I think Nat and I have crashed the last wave, that it cannot get any crazier, that we are finally on the downslide toward a regular life, something else comes up. "I just got off the phone with Sandy. They're letting my father out. Can you believe this? They're dismissing the charges."
"Oh, Nat."
"Can you believe this? Apparently Molto found out from the evidence tech that the computer wasn't secured the night before I turned it on. So there's no chain of evidence, and without a good chain there's no provable offense."
"I don't understand."
"I don't either. Not really. Neither does Sandy. But Yee already entered the order. Sandy still hasn't reached my father, because guys in seg can't get unscheduled phone calls. How's that for catch-22? Stern is waiting for the warden to call him back." A second later, Nat's phone beeps with an incoming call, and he lets me go so he can talk to Marta.
I sit in my little office, looking at the picture of Nat on my desk, full of relief for him, with joy for his joy. And even then, there is a cold corner on my heart. Although I would never wish it this way, the ugly truth is that for me it has been easier to have Rusty gone, to have no more of those confused moments when we have been together, with the signals jammed on both sides by mutual will and each of us seemingly counting the seconds until we can get away. Since Barbara died, we have said next to nothing to one another and have barely even lifted our eyes in each other's direction. The only real exception came in that moment right after his guilty plea, when Rusty turned and saw with clear surprise that I was seated beside Nat in the courtroom. "Complex" is not word enough for that look. Longing. Disapproval. Incomprehension. Everything he has probably ever felt about me was contained there. Then he turned away and held his hands behind himself.