“Not all of them,” Willie admitted. “All you need is something on about a third of the faculty. But you were a special case, John.”
“Special how?”
“At any given moment we have between ten and twenty candidates who might be admissible to the Path. Special testing and certain public and private records bring them to our attention, mostly. One day we might approach them to work for us directly or for one of our subbranches.
“These are, or might one day be, our rank and file. But you, my friend, you we are grooming for a much higher purpose.”
“Grooming?”
“Yeah. Those in the upper echelon of the Path see you as material for a senior position. You’re a freethinker in a world weighed down by the chains of history. A man like you could be a leader.”
“Leading where?”
“To change the course of history,” Pepperdine announced. “The human world is on a path toward self-destruction. The leaders are filled with inner conflicts and greed. They pretend to be sophisticated and then tear at each other like rabid dogs. No matter the religion, political theory or lineage — the entire world teeters on the edge of annihilation.
“It is our intention, our destiny, to avert this eventuality. In order to do that we need people like you.”
John thought about being an element in the transformation of humanity.
“I’m just living my life, Willie. That has nothing to do with you, no matter what you think.”
Saying this John stood. He almost turned away but thought of a question.
“How did you know about Lorraine?”
“We bought the Arbuckle when you joined the university.”
“But you waited until now to let people know?”
“There was no rush. He was dead. And you weren’t ready to be tested back then.”
“What test?”
“The one you’re taking right now.”
25
I am not now nor have I ever been Cornelius Jones, your honor, he scribbled on the pad Carlinda had given him.
No.
No, your honor, that is not my name.
Maybe.
I was born John Woman and I will die the same.
After penning twenty-three possible responses to the query, Are you the Cornelius Jones named in the state of New York’s extradition request? John decided that he’d wait until the judge had spoken, answering the question when it was freshly worded. Maybe his lawyer would answer for him.
The rest of the night John worked on writing a letter to his mother. He could fit only four or five words to a line on the small sheets. He used his fingernails to bare enough graphite lead to keep on writing. At the end he was manipulating the stub with his fingertips.
He told his mother he loved her, forgave her, and that his father loved her too; she had to do whatever she did because she was an emotional being and what better kind of mother could a son hope for?
He wrote a lot more, careful not to name Filo Manetti in case the judge or Captain Anton made Marle search his cell for evidence. He told her not to worry about him, and that he finally felt free of troubles he’d brought upon himself.
“John Woman,” Marle Josephson said just as John signed your son at the end of his eleven-page epistle.
They passed down many corridors, through seven locked doors, up three flights of stairs and then out into an alley where the marshals’ van waited.
“Good luck, John,” Marle said as he threaded a chain through the prisoner’s handcuffs securing him to a stainless steel eye attached to the floor in the backseat of the van. “See you tonight.”
The two marshals did not speak. One was white, the other black; both were men. They brought John to a room so small that it could contain only the chair he was chained to.
This was a new restriction. He could not move from the chair and, even if he could, the room was not large enough to take a single step. Tremors ran between the wrists and elbows of both his arms. This jittering frightened him. It felt as if there was some creature trying to claw its way out of his body.
To distract himself from his anxiety John slowly reconstructed Cicero’s description of the death of Caesar. His Latin was still strong. Herman had been a good teacher.
His father cried at the recitation of the last moments of the great general and tyrant written by a man who both loved and hated the self-appointed dictator.
“It was a necessary tragedy,” Herman told his son, “like every life lived.”
An hour later the cell door opened and the black and white marshals returned. John was led into the adjoining courtroom.
The judge was a white man who seemed short even though he was sitting at the high bench. He had a bristly brown-and-white mustache and, of course, black robes. John was brought to a seat at a desk where Nina Forché waited. She was wearing a red jacket. The gallery was packed with sixty or so spectators. Theron James and Colin Luckfeld were there in the row just behind the defendant’s bench. Willie Pepperdine sat behind them. Arnold Ott stood at the back of the room, staring at John through the dark rectangles of his glasses.
John looked for Carlinda but didn’t see her.
“Please be seated,” said a man in a gray suit standing next to the judge’s high bench.
When Nina touched John’s arm he settled in the hard ash chair provided.
At the plaintiff’s bench, across the aisle from John and Nina, sat Colette and a man wearing a maroon suit.
“Professor John Woman,” the judge rumbled.
John was trying to catch Colette’s eye.
“Professor John Woman.”
“Are you speaking to me?” John asked after failing to catch the detective’s eye.
The judge said, “This is my courtroom, young man. I ask the questions.”
“It might be your courtroom but that’s not my name.”
“Please stand.”
John complied.
“What is your name?” the judge asked.
“Cornelius Jones, son of Herman Jones and Lucia Napoli-Jones.”
“The same Cornelius Jones that the state of New York is petitioning to extradite?”
“The very same.”
“Do you dispute New York’s request to extradite you?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
26
John was transferred into the custody of Lieutenant Colette Van Dyne and her partner, Sergeant Leo Abruzzi.
When Marshal Tomas Christo handed over the keys to John’s chains the prisoner said, “If you go back to the jail please tell Marle Josephson I’m sorry I didn’t make it back there and that I’m confident he’ll do well on his exam.”
“Why didn’t you fight extradition?” Colette asked John after the M80 airbus had taken off from Sky Harbor International Airport. He occupied seat 27a, Colette’s was 27b. The aisle seat was vacant.
“Where’s your partner?”
“Up toward the middle of the plane, in the exit row,” she said. “He’s kinda big and that’ll be more comfortable for him.”
“I thought you two were supposed to flank me,” John said. “Isn’t that protocol?”
“What do you know about protocol?”
“I read a great deal and my memory is pretty good.”
“I asked him to move because I thought I’d do better interrogating you alone.”
“Oh.”
“Why didn’t you fight the extradition?” she asked again. “You had every chance of beating it.”
“I was lying to myself.”
“What does that mean?”
“It was time for me to come home.”