When Jack Yocke went to see him in the hospital, Shannon grinned. “Nobody wants to try us all, but they think if they try just me all the other victims will go away. Won’t happen. Those people buried too many kids, buried too many husbands.”
“What about legalization of dope?” Jack Yocke asked toward the end of the interview. “There’s a lot of talk about that since Christmas. What do you think?”
“Personally I’m against it,” Shannon said. “There’s too many fools who’ll get addicted. Off the record, though, I think that’s what will have to be done. We’ve got to get the big money out of the business. If the money is gone the criminals will go. That’ll stop the recruitment of kids just out of diapers to a life of using and abusing, a life of crime and ignorance and squalor. A whole generation of black kids is going down the toilet. It’s an obscenity that’s got to stop.”
Remarkably, in spite of the hurricane-velocity winds building inside the beltway, life elsewhere in America returned quickly to normal. The soaps went back on television during the day and the sitcoms returned at night. Critics complained of the sexual innuendo that passed as humor this winter on the tube. A network executive said the critics didn’t know what was funny.
The ball fell in Times Square on New Year’s Eve and a great many people awoke the next morning with a hangover, but not as many as in past years, some pollster said in a headline story, because people these days were drinking less. Southern Cal won another Rose Bowl.
During the first week of January two former executives of a large Texas savings and loan pleaded guilty to twenty-eight counts of bank fraud and asked the court to put them on probation.
The wife of a well-known movie star sued her husband for divorce and claimed he was having an affair with his latest leading lady. The betrayed wife went from one syndicated morning talk show to the next telling her story and explaining to the sympathetic hosts the financial hardships that loomed as she tried to survive on half a million a month and keep the kids in school.
Iran had a little earthquake. Another ayatollah died while a blizzard stranded airline passengers in Denver, and Whitefish, Montana, reported record low temperatures.
The Democrats wanted to know when the administration was going to get serious about raising taxes and the Republicans wanted to know when the Democrats were going to get serious about cutting government spending.
Another congressman announced he was gay.
And the network that had rights to televise the Superbowl officially kicked off the hype with a show in which millionaire football players explained how their teams had overcome adversity this past year.
While all this was going on Senator Bob Cherry quietly resigned from the U.S. Senate. He told the Florida newspapers that he was tired and had done all he could for his country. Guessing who the governor would appoint to fill Cherry’s seat became the diversion of the hour in Florida.
A fine wet rain, almost a mist, fell almost continuously in Washington that first week of the new year. Then the wind picked up and blew the clouds eastward out to sea.
Thanos Liarakos glanced again at the street sign and once again consulted his map. He drove slowly for several more blocks, then found the street he wanted. The trees in this suburban tract development were small and sticklike in the anemic sunlight. They would grow larger of course, but it would take twenty or thirty years for these neighborhoods to look settled, permanent.
He found the building he wanted and drove another half block looking for a parking place, then walked back. The sprawling one-story brick structure was surrounded on three sides by a chain-link fence. Inside the sturdy wire were sandboxes and swings and child-powered merry-go-rounds. And children. Lots of them, squealing, running, laughing.
Liarakos went in the front door and down the empty hallway. He paused outside the door marked OFFICE, squared his shoulders, then went in.
“Miss Judith Lewis, please. Is she around?”
The owlish-looking young woman with a heavy sweater and shiny pink lips sitting behind the desk noted his suit and tie, grinned perfunctorily, and said, “She has playground duty. Might be in back.”
“And how …?”
“Down the corridor to the first left and straight on out. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.”
Judith Lewis was standing with her arms folded across her chest listening to a young boy tell a tale of woe, with much pointing and gesturing. She bent down and wiped his face and stroked his hair. As she did so the lower edge of her coat dragged in the dirt. That, Liarakos suspected, was not a detail that would bother Judith Lewis very much.
The child grinned finally and ran off to join his friends.
“Hello, Judith.”
She turned and saw him, then rose to her feet. “Hello,” she acknowledged without enthusiasm. She half turned away so she could watch the children. He approached and stood beside her, also watching the children.
“How was your holiday?” he asked.
“Fine.” Her voice was hard and flat. She checked her watch.
“Beautiful youngsters.”
“Recess is over in three minutes. Say what you came to say.”
“Okay. That Cuban general, Zaba, knows enough to convict Chano Aldana. And he’s talking, singing his heart out. I’ve been reading transcripts of his interrogations. If the prosecutors can get Zaba on the stand they can get a conviction.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I’m not going back to work for you, Mr. Liarakos. I thought I made that plain.”
“What you made plain, Ms. Lewis, is that you thought Chano Aldana was the devil incarnate and ought to be locked up so he can’t continue to murder and terrorize and sell poison to ruin the lives of children like these.”
“You were equally definite in your opinion, Mr. Liarakos, as I recall.” Her voice was acidic. “Like every wealthy, successful criminal, Aldana deserves the best legal defense money can buy, and that of course is you. And if you can hoodwink and bamboozle the jurors, it’s your sworn duty to do so. Then you go home to your beautiful wife and children and eat a gourmet dinner and rest your weary soul, your duty well and truly done. Isn’t that the spin you want on it? Oh, I haven’t forgotten our last conversation, Mr. Liarakos. I doubt that I ever will. It brought into very stark relief all the doubts I’ve had through the years of law school and practice.”
The bell rang. All the children charged for the door.
“If you’ll ex—” she began, but he interrupted:
“I came to ask you to come back to work.”
She stared at him as the schoolyard emptied and the last of the children disappeared inside.
“Listen, there’s more to the legal profession than the Chano Aldanas of the world. Someone has to be in a position to help all these people who need someone to speak for them. Someone has to represent Jane Roe and Karen Ann Quinlan and John T. Scopes and all the rest of the folks who can’t speak for themselves. That’s why you went to law school, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” She said it softly, almost inaudibly. She lifted the hem of her coat and brushed at the loose dirt that clung there.