For all the years George has spent on the periphery of crime, he has never been on the receiving end of any violence. Everything he knows is secondhand from contemplating victims across the clinical distances of courtrooms, where he has tried to assess their credibility and, in his years as a lawyer, shake their stories. At trial, the suffering of the vics is often minimized; it’s irrelevant to proving whether a crime occurred or who committed it. They rarely get to say much more about what they felt than ‘I was afraid I was going to die.’ And oddly, in this instant, George sees the wisdom of that. Language, rules, and reason can never capture this moment; they are definitional only by their absence, just as absolute zero is the complete absence of heat.
The boy’s free hand circles through the air again. At last, George realizes the kid wants him to lower the driver’s-side window, and he presses the button. But as the glass slides into the door, a faint outcry stirs inside him. It’s like slipping off his skin. He was already at the boy’s mercy, but with the last vestige of privacy gone, he knows he’s on the way to surrendering his soul.
“’Kay now, puto,” the boy says. “Give it up, man.” ‘Men’ it sounds like in the boy’s trace accent.
In his years as a State Defender, George cross-examined countless victims in armed-robbery cases. You always challenged the identification of the defendant the same way. By pointing out the obvious. ‘And you were watching that gun, weren’t you, Mrs. Jones? You never took your eyes off it, did you?’ And it’s true. He has not yet dared to raise his sight line. He has seen little more than the pistol, a small silver automatic, with a higher-caliber bore and black grips, and the hand that holds it, where the blue-black star of the Latin Nation is imprinted on the tan flesh just beneath the frayed gray sleeve of the boy’s sweatshirt.
But when the kid speaks, George looks up compliantly. He already knows the boy is one of the two they saw on the way into the garage whom Abel wanted to roust. This is the taller kid, with that patch hairdo that always reminds George of a shaved radish. Now it is hidden under the hood of his sweatshirt, which is drawn around his face, the better to prevent identification. He’s lanky and cannot be seventeen yet, with dark, bumpy skin and jittery eyes. Mexican or Central American. He has the high cheekbones and aquiline nose of native blood. Seeing the two boys from a distance over the last week, George marked them from their unchanged, ratty clothes as poor-really poor, lockedin poor, kids who rarely have the means to get beyond the barrio. It would be a miracle if this kid has ever had a conversation longer than a minute with an Anglo in a two-piece suit.
And realizing that he is largely incomprehensible to this boy, George considers what his chances will be if he puts the car in gear and tears away. Will the kid be too surprised to shoot? The idea comes, and he reacts to it. Some intermediate mental process has been evaporated by fear. George’s hand slides to the gearshift, and instantly the boy slams the gun down solidly on his forearm. The pain is intense, but George knows better than to cry out. It’s the boy who makes all the noise.
“ Fuck, puto! ” he cries. “Fuck, man, you gonna get yourself so pealed, man. What’s up with you? Fuck,” the kid says and in pure frustration slams the pistol backhand again on the same arm, which the judge has withdrawn toward his chest. This time a cry escapes George, and he lies against the seat with his eyes closed for a second, contending with the pain.
The boy is snapping his fingers.
“Give ’em here, puto. Right here, man.” He’s demanding the car key. George’s right arm is too numb to move. He turns in his seat and slides the key from the ignition with his left hand.
“Now give it up, man,” the boy repeats, circling the gun again. He wants George out of the car. They are not going to kill him here, George realizes. They are going to take him somewhere else, because they’re afraid the gunfire will attract the dog patrol before they can escape.
The boy again tells him to give it up. George continues to rub his arm, acting as if he’s too preoccupied with the pain to listen. He considers various speeches: ‘I’m a judge.’ ‘You don’t understand how much trouble you’ll get yourselves in.’ But they might well make it worse. The last thing he needs to do is add incentives. To this young man, George’s killing is almost certainly a gang initiation, ‘blood in,’ as they say. Corazon would have kicked the job down several levels, so that the judge’s murder, a capital offense, will never trace to him. For a second, George considers Marina and Abel, both justified in all of their suspicions. They will be entitled to a moment of pained laughter at his expense. But George is pleased to discover that he doesn’t mind. He knew he was taking his chances. Principle always comes with certain risks.
This instant of minute satisfaction ends when the boy punches the gun barrel into the judge’s temple to reacquire his attention. George recoils, and the kid grabs his shoulders and prods his neck with the muzzle. He can feel his pulse in the artery the cool steel is pressing against.
“Yo, vato,” somebody else says.
Afraid to remove his head from the pistol, George sweeps his eyes as far he can toward the passenger’s side of his sedan. The second kid he saw earlier is at the other door. He’s nearly a foot shorter than the boy holding the gun on George and younger. His arms are at his sides, but from the sheer drag on the right, George senses that he’s holding a firearm, too. The second boy rotates his chin.
At the far corner of the garage someone else has entered from the opposite stairwell. Without moving, George catches a glimpse of dark clothes. He was hoping to see the khaki of Marina’s security forces, but it’s only somebody like him, another late departure from the courthouse, probably a deputy P.A. or State Defender working on a trial. The footfalls are a woman’s, her high heels rapping smartly on the concrete. George listens before concluding disconsolately that the sound is moving away.
Scream, he tells himself. He has previewed this situation a thousand times through his career, looking up from a transcript or a police report and coldly assessing the victim’s options. If they are going to kill him but are reluctant to do it here, then screaming is the best choice. The boy with the automatic at George’s throat will be put to a decision. To run. Or shoot. Running would give him the best chance to get away. But George senses that he has exhausted the kid’s patience. He tried to escape once. Respect, the credo of the street, is likely to be the foremost issue. And there’s another problem. The judge is not really sure he can summon the voice for anything better than a meek croak.
George has always known you can be so frightened it hurts. His right forearm is throbbing, and his temple is tender, but there’s also pain throughout his body. His muscles have spasmed below his armpits for some reason. And he’s damp inside his shirt.
The boy has hunched down beside the Lexus while keeping the handgun against the base of the judge’s skull. An engine fires several rows over, and a car pulls away. As it rolls off, George feels a wave of despair. It was a mistake, he decides. He should have shouted.
“Give it up, man,” the kid says again.
George shakes his head.
“Yo, puto. Get your fuckin’ ass out here, man, or it’s comin’ right through this damn window.” The boy reaches in and takes hold of George’s necktie. He gives it a sharp jerk, smashing the judge’s cheek against the door frame, but he does not wait to see if George has changed his mind about cooperating. The kid does exactly as promised, using the tie as a leash and pulling George out the open driver’s window. Instinctively, George grabs for the seat belt hanging inside the door, but it pays out as the boy drags George’s entire upper body into the outer air. He is left gasping, with both hands at his collar. In whatever hissing voice he can muster, he has said ‘Okay’ a dozen times before the boy finally eases his grip.