'You have to make your decision based on the guilt of two men and the innocence of one, and you have to believe it. You have to go beyond a reasonable doubt; you have to go to where there is no doubt. You take everything you know to be true and then take all the time you need to move past the truth and past the doubt and come out with a decision we can all live with. A decision that many may question, but you know to be the right one. Because now, you are the only judges. In your hands will rest the evidence and the testimony. In your hands will rest the facts. In your hands will rest the fate of two men and the memory of a third. In your hands will rest the truth.
'I have confidence in those hands. I believe in those hands. And I believe those hands will find a verdict that will be filled with truth. And filled with justice. An honest truth and an honorable justice.'
Michael Sullivan then thanked a jury for the last time, walked back to his seat and put his legal pads into his black briefcase.
'Do you have anything to add, counselor?' Judge Weisman asked.
'No, your Honor,' Michael Sullivan said. 'There's nothing else. I've said it all.'
TWENTY
'Let me have a hot dog with mustard, sauerkraut and onions,' Michael told a chubby vendor in a leather flap cap, standing on the sidewalk outside the courthouse. 'And let me have a Coke, too.'
'No ketchup?' I asked.
'I'm on a diet,' he said without turning around.
It was a snowy, windy Monday afternoon and the jury had been in deliberation since the previous Thursday night. The courthouse rumor mill was working on overdrive, with most of the gossip predicting a verdict of guilty.
'You got a place to eat that?' I asked Michael, pointing to his hot dog.
'Behind you,' Michael said, lifting the bun toward a park bench over my shoulder.
'Okay if I join you?'
'What can they do?' Michael asked. 'Arrest us?'
'You did good in there, counselor,' I said to Michael, sitting on the bench, taking a bite out of a pretzel.
'How I did won't matter until they come back in and hand me a win,' Michael said.
'Will you settle for a loss?' I asked, smiling over at him.
'I can live with it,' Michael said, finishing his hot dog and snapping open his soda can.
'What happens to you now?' I asked. 'After this ends?'
'I walk away,' Michael said. 'Wait a few weeks and then hand in my notice. After the way I handled this case, there won't be a rush to keep me from the door.'
'You can switch to the other side,' I said. 'Work as a defense lawyer. More money in it, probably, and you'll never be short on clients. There are always going to be more bad guys than good. The work from John and Tommy's crew alone will get you a house with a pool.'
'Not for me,' Michael said. 'I've seen all the law I want to see. It's time for something else.'
'Like what?'
'I'll let you know when I know,' Michael said.
'You're too old to play for the Yankees,' I said. 'And you're too young to take up golf.'
'You're shooting holes all through my plans,' Michael said, smiling. 'I'm starting to panic.'
'You'll work things out,' I said, finishing the last of my soda. 'You always have.'
'It's time for quiet, Shakes,' Michael said, staring down at the ground. 'That I do know. Give things a rest. Find a spot where I can shut my eyes and not have to see the places I've been. Maybe I'll even get lucky and forget I was ever there.'
'It took pieces out of us, where we were,' I said. 'What we had to do to get out. Big pieces we didn't even know we had. Pieces we gotta learn to do without or find again. All that takes time. Lots of time.'
'I can wait,' Michael said.
'You always seemed to know how,' I said. 'The rest of us didn't have the patience.'
'I've got to get back in there,' Michael said, standing up and moving toward the courthouse building. 'The jury may be coming in.'
'Don't disappear on me, counselor,' I said, my eyes meeting his. 'I may need a good lawyer someday.'
'You can't afford a good lawyer,' Michael said. 'Not on your salary.'
'I may need a good friend,' I said.
'I'll find you when you do,' Michael said. 'Count on it.'
'I always have,' I said, watching Michael walk through the revolving doors of the courthouse to the elevators and up nine floors to face a jury's verdict.
TWENTY-ONE
The area outside Part forty-seven was crowded with the familiar faces of Hell's Kitchen. They stood against stained walls, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, or sat on long wooden benches, reading the Daily News and Post. Others jammed the phone banks, calling in their bets and checking in on either an angry parole officer or an impatient loan shark.
They were waiting for the verdict.
Walking past them, I shook a few hands and nodded to a few faces before finding an empty spot in a corner near the black double doors.
After fifteen minutes, the doors swung open. A court officer, tall and muscular, his gun buckle hanging at an angle, held the knob in one hand, his body halfway in the hall.
'They're coming in,' he said in a listless voice. 'In about five minutes. You wanna hear, better come in now.'
I stood to the side and watched as the crowd slowly trooped in. Then I moved away, and walked over to a bench and sat down. I leaned over, my head in my hands, eyes closed, sweating, shaking, praying that we could finish this the way we planned. I went over everything we did and tried to think of things we should have done. The plan had only one flaw. Its success or failure hinged on the whims of twelve strangers.
'You're not going in?' Carol asked, standing above me.
'I don't want to go in alone,' I said, taking my hands from my face.
'You're not alone,' she said.
'I don't want to lose, either,' I said.
'You're not going to lose.'
'It sounds like you've got all the answers,' I said, standing up and taking her by the arm.
'Maybe I do,' Carol said. 'Maybe I do.'
'Has the jury reached its verdict?' Judge Weisman asked, sitting impassively behind his bench.
'We have, your Honor,' answered the jury foreman, a stocky, bald man in a plaid shirt.
The bailiff took the folded piece of paper from the foreman and walked it over to Judge Weisman. The Judge opened the paper and looked down, his face betraying nothing.
I looked past the wall of heads and shoulders surrounding me and glanced over at John and Tommy, sitting up close to their table, their hands bunched in fists. Danny O'Connor sat next to them, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck, beneath the frayed collar of his shirt. Across from them, Michael sat and stared at the empty witness box. He was taking deep breaths, his fingers twirling a felt tip pen over his knuckles.
Judge Weisman nodded to the foreman, who stood in front of his seat.
'On the count of murder in the second degree, how do you find the defendant, John Reilly?' Judge Weisman asked.
The foreman bit his lips and looked around the courtroom with nervous eyes.
'Not guilty,' the foreman said.
'On the count of murder in the second degree, how do you find the defendant, Thomas Marcano?'
'Not guilty,' the foreman said.
The courtroom erupted in a thunder of applause, screams, shouts and whistles, few hearing the Judge's call to order and dismissal of charges against the defendants.
I stood up and hugged Carol.
'You did it, Shakes,' she whispered in my ear.
'We did it,' I said, holding her tight. 'We all did it.'
I looked over and saw Michael pick up his briefcase, shake hands with Danny O'Connor and walk into the crowd, where he was swallowed up by the mass of bodies. I saw John and Tommy smiling and laughing, reaching out for as many hands as they could, cries of not guilty filling the air around us. I saw Judge Weisman walk down from his place behind the bench.