“What you didn’t know,” said Shelly, “was that the feds were searching around for dirty cops. So when they found you in these clandestine meetings with Miroballi, they followed you and nabbed you. They got in your face about Miroballi and drugs, and you gave them what they wanted.”
He nodded along with her narrative. “I was feeling pretty tough, y’know? I’ve got this cop who seems pretty worried about me. I thought I was the big man. Then, the next thing you know, I got federal agents breathing down my neck, and I’m shaking in my boots. What was I supposed to do? They caught me with drugs. And they were so damn sure that I was selling for Miroballi. So I let ’em believe it. Hell, if they were so sure about him, I figured maybe he was selling drugs. I was hoping maybe they’d come up with something against him without using me. I was just buying time.”
“A dangerous game,” she said.
“Dangerous, yeah. But what am I supposed to do? And I couldn’t exactly go back to Miroballi at that point and demand cash from him. They were watching. And I had told them that he was the one who contacted me.”
“They thought you were working for Miroballi,” Shelly summarized. “Turns out, you were blackmailing him.”
“Yeah.”
“And Miroballi didn’t know about Ronnie?”
Alex shook his head no. “He didn’t know there was a Ronnie. He thought I was his son.”
She accepted that. It made sense. Alex had done the same thing with Shelly, assuming Ronnie’s identity. “Ronnie knew nothing about this?”
He blew out a sigh. “Ronnie knew I had met you that first time. He thought that was the only time. He thought I just went because I was curious. And he had no idea I was talking to Miroballi. He had no idea I found out who his father was. You know him, Shelly-he would’ve kicked my ass. But after I was caught by the feds, I told Ronnie. My back was against the wall. So I told him everything. After that, he followed me around like a puppy. He was worried that Miroballi might come after me. Which is exactly what he did.” Alex pointed to his head. “That boy, he’s got a good brain on him. He was exactly right about that.”
She tried to digest all of this. She walked along the cell. “Let me ask you the sixty-four thousand dollar question.”
He raised his eyebrows. A kid his age probably didn’t even understand the reference.
“Why, Alex-why in God’s name didn’t you tell me all of this?” She waved her arm. “All of this misdirection and deception? I’m looking at Ronnie. I’m looking at Todavia. I’m thinking about Miroballi and drugs. I understand why you bluffed the F.B.I. But why me?”
“Because you would have used it,” he said easily.
“Because-” She stared at him. “What?”
“You would have had to tell everyone you were raped.”
She drew back. “You were trying to protect me?”
He raised his shoulders. His eyes suddenly filled. “All the time I’ve known you, Shelly, you only asked me for one thing. You asked me to keep one secret. After everything else I had done, I thought it was one thing I could do right.”
She put a hand on her forehead. “Alex, I think I would have made an exception where you were looking at a death sentence.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. It sounds ridiculous.” He looked out through the bars. “This whole thing was my fault, Shelly. I was the one who did all of this. I got caught up in drugs because of that stupid thing with Todavia’s car. I got greedy looking to blackmail you, and then Miroballi. I got caught by the F.B.I. I just kept screwing things up because I was doing the wrong thing. I thought I could get this one thing right. I felt like I owed you.” He looked at her.
“I guess.” She drew a circle on the floor with her shoe.
“Besides,” he added, “we had a pretty good defense, right? The F.B.I. thought Miroballi was making me sell drugs. You did, too. Why couldn’t we convince a jury of that? I thought we could.”
“Okay.”
“Any other questions, Ms. Trotter?”
She scratched her head. “I can barely process what you’ve already told me.”
“Then I have a question for you,” he said.
“Shoot.” She winced at the pun.
“You asked me the other day about me hurting my knee that night. How’d you know about that? I never told you.”
She looked at him.
“Ronnie told you, didn’t he? Must have been him.”
“It was.”
“All casual-like, I bet.” He laughed. “You see what he was doing.”
“Actually, no,” she conceded.
“He was trying to draw you to him. He wanted you to wonder how I had gotten so far away from the alley in such a short time, on a bad knee.”
“You’re saying he wanted me to think that he had helped you,” she said. “He wanted me to suspect him.”
Alex nodded. “He really wanted you to put him on the stand, so he could do exactly what he did-tell the whole world the truth. He wanted someone to put him on the stand, whatever it took. And you weren’t going to call him as a witness. He was doing whatever he could to get your attention.”
“He could have told me the truth.”
“I wouldn’t let him. He probably figured I’d sabotage it if he tried. He wanted to give you no choice but to call him.”
“I’m not sure I would have.” She sat down on the bed. “I struggled with it more than you could know.”
“Because he was your son. That’s why he didn’t want you to know that. He didn’t want you to feel loyal to him. He wanted you to accuse him.”
She recalled Ronnie’s reaction when she confronted him on that point, told him that she knew he was her son. His anger, his frustration.
“He finally figured out a way to get the prosecutor to call him,” Alex continued. “He came to visit me in that interview room and shouted all kinds of bad stuff to me. He was hoping that the government was watching.”
And they were. Dan Morphew had eaten it up. In one fell swoop, Ronnie Masters had gotten himself immunity for any role he played and, more important, had been given the forum he had badly craved to announce the secret to the entire world.
“He’s a smart one,” said Alex. “It must be the good genes.”
“No doubt.”
“That boy would do anything to protect me.”
Shelly thought through the last couple of weeks. “Ronnie went to see Eddie Todavia a few times,” she said. “Why?”
“Same reason.” Alex shook his head, smiling. “Trying to draw someone’s suspicion. Hoping someone, anyone, was watching. I’ll bet he was obvious about it. He was in broad daylight with Eddie, right?”
She recalled the photos Joel Lightner had taken. It was true. Ronnie was walking down the middle of the street with Todavia. She laughed. “He couldn’t have been more obvious.”
Alex tapped his temple. “Smart, I’m telling you.”
“What about this other guy he went to see, Alex? Robert El-something. What was-”
“Robert Eldridge. He went to see him?”
She looked at Alex.
“Robert Eldridge,” Alex explained, “is Dina’s ex-husband. That witness from way back? He was trying to find Dina to help tell the story all over again.”
“Or hoping that we’d follow him and make the connection ourselves.”
“You or anyone else,” Alex said. “If it had come down to it, I’m sure Ronnie would have just marched into the judge’s chambers and spilled the whole thing. But I don’t think he trusted the legal system. He always complained about the rules. If he just went to you, or to the prosecutor, he was afraid that he wouldn’t be allowed to testify. That someone would say that the rules of evidence prevented it or something. Better to make one of you call him, put him on the stand, and then tell a room full of reporters and the jury the truth. Then, nobody could stop him. Any excuse he could come up with, just to get into that courtroom.”