“Get your ass up from there,” Velázquez told the giant. “That’s my bed.”
Again Andre hesitated. Again he did as he was told.
“Come on, man,” Velázquez said to John. “Let’s have a seat.”
“They got me in here on murder,” the man identifying himself as Jose Velázquez said to John Woman/Cornelius Jones. “The cops say I killed this Cuban who didn’t pay his debt but I didn’t do it.”
The two were sitting side by side on one of three cots provided for the four men. Andre was grumbling to himself trying to come up with the courage to go against Jose. The white man was leaning against the cell wall looking at nothing in particular.
“They have me for a murder that happened when I was sixteen,” John said. “I did it.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be sayin’ that,” Jose suggested.
“I don’t care. I plan to confess.”
John’s savior frowned, creating creases radiating from his eyes. He said, “You shouldn’t be so serious, John. You got to remember that it’s just a game, bro. Just a game. You don’t wanna make them think you think they doin’ justice. If it was justice they’d be down here tryin’ to figure out how a kid ended up doin’ a man’s job and how that fat fuck got his ass up there to get killed. They don’t care. They want you like Andre does, on a dinner plate with your ass up in the air.”
“How do you know about my case?” John asked.
“They give us newspapers. You was in the headlines a whole week and then again when you let ’em extradite your ass.”
“That’s why you were going to fight Andre?”
“I wasn’t gonna fight him.”
“No?”
“Uh-uh.”
Jose gestured at the white man who had a receding brown-and-gray hairline. Propelling himself from the wall with his shoulder blades the lanky white man sauntered the few steps to the Puerto Rican’s cot.
“Frank Beam, meet history professor John Woman,” Jose said.
John stood and shook Beam’s hand.
“Frank here is what they call a living embodiment of death,” Jose continued. “He’s killed more people than Felix Trinidad have knocked out. Andre knows that Frank got my back. That’s why he backed down.”
Frank nodded and went back to his personal patch of cell wall.
“It ain’t what it seems,” Jose said to John. “Here we believe what they taught us in school even though we know it ain’t true. Don’t you give it up to them, bro. They ain’t worth it.”
28
Jose told John to take Andre’s cot. The big man complained then backed down when Frank Beam said, “Shut your fat yap.”
John considered Jose’s advice from many different angles. He knew that he was guilty. It was that last blow from the heavy wrench across the top of Chapman Lorraine’s skull. He didn’t have to kill him but he didn’t know how to stop.
The counsel Jose offered caused a resurgence of historical thinking: one had to try and maintain objectivity even though that was impossible — this impossibility was what made life meaningful. Maybe, on some basic human level, he was innocent because he couldn’t stop himself.
John dreamt about the desert. He was a coyote that died at twilight; his soul left at that shadowy time to wander the endless wasteland. Heart and body, blood and senses were canine but his mind was still that of a historian. The barren land, even in semidarkness, revealed striations in rock, bones jutting from the ground and out from the walls of great canyons. History was all that remained, measured by discrete moments rendered in stone — each one bearing the same weight, drained of passion, purpose and personality. The coyote, John Woman, with a rolling gait, moved along the edge of eternal dusk, never to see the sunrise and never to sleep.
“Cornelius Jones,” a man’s voice intoned.
John opened his eyes and sat up. Across from him Andre squatted on the floor staring wide-eyed at nothing. A large gash was open down his left cheek revealing the whitish muscle tissue of flesh under black skin.
“Yeah,” John called out.
“Come with me.”
He was taken to a conference room that could have been in any corporate office. There were three people sitting at the far end of the walnut conference table: two men and Nina Forché. The men wore business suits, one blue, the other gray. Nina had on a dress-suit in a palette of coral hues ranging from goldenrod to lush raspberry.
Nina stood when John entered.
“Take those restraints off him,” she said to his guard.
John’s keeper, a tall slender white man who gave the impression of great physical strength, looked at the black man in the blue suit.
“It’s okay, Hawkins,” Blue Suit said. “Mr. Jones has been granted bail.”
“Yes, Underwarden Reese,” Hawkins said.
When the restraints were removed John took a deep breath and realized that he was trembling.
“Mr. Jones,” Underwarden Reese said.
“I changed my name to Woman. I’d appreciate you using that.”
“You have been granted bail,” the prison official said. “This allows you freedom in New York City. You can travel in any of the boroughs but not beyond.”
“How much do I have to pay?”
“That’s already been taken care of, John,” Nina Forché said softly.
“Willie?”
“No.”
“Then by whom?”
“An unknown benefactor.”
“Oh... kay.”
“You will be expected to respond promptly if the court or any prison official calls,” Reese stated.
“I don’t have my phone.”
“I have one for you,” Nina said. “The number has been distributed among those who might need to call.”
“Okay.”
“There are some papers for you to sign.” Underwarden Reese indicated a chair for John to sit in.
In the backseat of a brand-new Tesla sedan John sat next to his lawyer. He wore a black suit that Forché had somehow gotten from NUSW faculty housing.
“How much?” he asked.
“One point three million. No bail bondsman would underwrite it so it had to be in cash.”
“Who would do that for me?”
“You’ll find out, I’m sure.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To the address that the court has been given for you,” she said.
“Also provided by my mysterious benefactor?”
“Yes. Now, John, we have to discuss your defense. You surprised me by admitting your identity in Phoenix. I thought we had an agreement.”
“I told you I understood what you were saying,” John replied, “not that I would go along.”
“What will be your plea?”
“Guilty.”
“What reason will you give for the killing?”
“I’ve given that a lot of thought,” he said. “The only reason I can give is juvenile depravity.”
“And what about the circumstances?”
“What is it that the Platinum Path wants — exactly?”
“Whatever it is you have to offer.”
“I don’t understand.” John was surprised that she engaged with the question.
“Path members, especially in the upper echelon, see the world differently. They are difficult to predict.”
“Have you ever killed anybody, Ms. Forché?”
“My training will not allow me to answer that question.”
“I have. I crushed a man’s skull under the weight of a heavy metal wrench.”
Forché gazed at her client but said nothing.
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” he told the lawyer. “It feels really good to be free if only for a few days.”