"She must've dropped it. But she had a Sig.38 on her."
Megan said, "If the court believes you took Karen Sisco hostage, you're in here for the rest of your life. I asked Karen if she felt like a hostage. You know what she said?"
He was afraid to ask.
"Karen said, 'No, I was his zoo-zoo.'»
"My treat." Foley grinning now. "She said that?"
"Not until you were in the trunk with her."
"Yeah, I got in to keep from getting shot."
"The car drives off…But Karen won't say she was being abducted."
"I never threatened her. She tell you she had the Sig Sauer?"
"She said she was waiting for a chance to use it."
"Maybe at first, before we started talking."
"You're both in the trunk, quite close together…"
"In the dark. I must've smelled awful from the muck. We started talking about movies, ones like the fix we were in, and I mentioned Three Days of the Condor with Faye Dunaway and Robert Redford. He's hiding out in her apartment and he asks her if she'll do something for him. It's the morning after they'd got it on, even though they only met that afternoon. He asks if she'll drive him someplace and Faye Dunaway says-"
" 'Have I ever denied you anything?' " Megan said.
"You saw it."
Megan said, "When the car stopped she did shoot at you." "I believe that was nerves."
Megan said, "We don't want the court to think anything personal was stirring between you and Karen." She looked at her legal pad. "They'll ask who was driving the car."
"Buddy, a friend of mine. He was visiting."
"At night?"
"No, he was dropping something off." "Get your story straight."
"I'd ask him," Foley said, "but he's out of the country. Took his sister to Lourdes hoping for a miracle." "She's an invalid?"
"An alcoholic. Her liver's iffy, so she has to pace herself. Two bottles of sherry have to last all day."
Megan was staring at him and Foley began to nod his head.
"I remember now, Buddy was working part-time for a law firm. They must've sent him here to serve court papers, one of the inmates bringing suit against the prison system."
Megan made a note in her legal pad. "That's why Karen was here, serving process. Tell me how she got away from you."
"We stopped, I let her drive off. It was her car."
"Later on she followed you to Detroit. Why didn't you give yourself up when the police arrived?"
"Get sent back for my thirty years. I don't know how to explain what happened in Detroit that would help you."
"Karen doesn't either. From what I understand"-Megan looking at her notes again-"you took part in a home invasion for the purpose of armed robbery and left three homicide victims."
"Two," Foley said. "White Boy Bob tripped going up that staircase and shot himself in the head."
"If she's subpoenaed, later on in Detroit, Karen will tell the
truth."
"About what?"
"Why you were there."
"What does she say I was doing?"
"Holding a gun in each hand as the police arrive. They're ready to shoot to kill and Karen put a bullet in your thigh. She kept you alive."
"So I can limp around here the next thirty years."
"It still hurts?"
"Aches."
"I spoke to Kym Worthy, the prosecutor in Detroit, I asked if she wanted to wait for you that long. Kym said thirty years sounds like enough. She sees no need to bring you up, so she'll pass."
"I see what you're doing," Foley said. "With Detroit out of it you appeal and get the sentence reduced as much as you can."
"We'll save that for last and do the escape-abduction hearing next. Karen's their witness, but her testimony will have them wondering why they called her. We don't want to indicate you and Zoo-Zoo had anything going, so she won't mention the time you were alone together. She did shoot you, you're a fugitive felon, not to save your life."
"I couldn't believe it," Foley said.
"So I don't want you to talk to each other in the courtroom, if the opportunity presents itself. All right?" Foley nodded. "I have your word?" "I won't talk to her."
"We'll do this one, then the sentence appeal," Megan said, "and see what's next in your life."
Foley didn't see Karen until she was called as a prosecution witness and took the stand. They were in federal court for the escape examination. Karen glanced at him. He smiled and she looked away.
Megan asked if she was placed in the trunk of her car as a hostage.
Karen said the guards were firing at everyone outside the fence. "For all they knew I was providing the getaway." She said, "I have no doubt that Mr. Foley's action was protective."
"But he was escaping from prison," the prosecutor said.
"Forced to go first," Karen said, "a shank jabbing him in the back. I saw he was bleeding from several wounds."
Then Megan asked how she got away.
"Once we reached the turnpike they let me have my car. I asked Mr. Foley if he intended to surrender. He said yes, but wanted to clean himself up before they threw him in the hole. He was saturated with blood as well as muck from the tunnel."
Karen looked at him again, Foley staring at her. She turned her head before he could see what was in her eyes.
More questions from Megan and Karen said that subsequently she arrested Foley in Detroit. "He'd learned a former Lompoc inmate, one he knew, was planning an armed robbery. Mr. Foley saw a chance to stop him."
Rather than call the police, Megan said, and give himself up?
"Jack Foley," Karen said, "also knew that the intended victim of the robbery, a well-known investor, did a year in Lompoc for insider trading. I saw Foley's intention as redemptive. To show, if you will, he's basically a good guy."
He saw her eyes for a moment with a look he remembered.
The state prosecutor asked Karen, "Weren't there homicide victims at the scene in Detroit? You were there. Don't you see this 'basically good guy' as the shooter? Since he's the only one who came out alive?"
Megan stepped in.
"Detroit's bodies," she said, "Detroit's case. We'll see if they want to talk to my client, already doing thirty years for bank robbery."
Foley watched the judge finally look at the prosecutor and say, "I don't see it. Your own witness Ms. Sisco testified that all this happened under extreme duress. I see no criminal intent, therefore no escape, no kidnapping. Case dismissed."
THREE
THEY WERE TAKING THEIR WALK THE DAY AFTER FOLEY'S robbery conviction was reversed on appeal, Cundo saying, "I don't believe it. She got you off on the escape then got you down from thirty years to a few months? Come on-"
They were passing the chapel-"Where the muck rats found me meditating," Foley said, both of them looking at the chapel, a dismal shade of red, no life to the look of buildings that made a prison. They came to the gun tower on their left. "Where most of the firing came from," Foley said-Foley almost a head taller than Cundo, Mutt and Jeff coming along in their tailored prison blues to the exercise yard.
" 'Cause you save this chick's life, Karen Sisco, they cut you a deal because you put her in the fucking trunk?"
"Thirty years reduced to thirty months," Foley said. "That's two and a half years less time served. And no parole. That could've been the deal breaker and Megan got it for me."
"Man, me and you be out almost the same time, but you ahead of me. You always lucky like this?"
"When I have a rich little Cuban paying my way."
Foley was grateful but didn't feel good about it.
"I'm gonna pay you back, but it might take a while."
"Or you do five grand a bank six times in a row and not get busted. Forget about it, we friends."