My heartbeat had ratcheted up a few notches. I felt like I was doing a slow jog and preparing to kick it in for the final mile of the race. My watch said it was ten minutes to eleven.
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” I asked.
The comment surprised him. He wasn’t accustomed, I suppose, to that level of bluntness.
“I mean, seriously, Governor. Why this impassioned defense? Why am I even here? You know what the politics dictate. What do you need me for?”
He rested his head on the chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Interesting question.”
And the answer, I thought, was even more interesting. In the recesses of his soul, where political calculations hadn’t yet infiltrated, he was thinking about commuting Otis’s sentence. I was the guy who represented the opposite of politics, in some ways at least, and he wanted my opinion.
No—he wanted a
particular
opinion. He wanted me to come to the same conclusion as his political advisers. He wanted to be able to tell himself that he was doing the right thing tonight by letting Antwain Otis die.
“Tell me what you would do,” he said.
I wouldn’t want to be him, I knew that much. My principal objection, prior to tonight, had been the lack of due diligence on the governor’s part. He hadn’t been paying any attention to Antwain Otis, and that, itself, was criminal in my mind. I’d focused on that objection to the exclusion of actually formulating an opinion myself. Now, here it was, and I had to concede it wasn’t easy having to make this decision.
But I knew this much: Carlton Snow still had a chance to pass my internal test. I’d been unsure whether he was a clueless leader or one who simply preferred to remain clueless to the crimes going on around him, who buried his head in the sand.
Now, I realized, there was another possibility: He might be someone who never had anyone whispering the
right
things in his ear. He had political animals around him. Everyone had more or less the same viewpoint; they might disagree about the political angle but it was always the political angle that mattered. He didn’t have a voice of conscience. Maybe if he did—maybe there was something more to this guy.
“That minister who talked to us?” I said. “Remember what he said he preaches to the inmates? ‘Don’t look backward,’ he said. ‘Look forward. Make tomorrow a better day.’ ”
“Right, right.” He pointed at me.
“Do you think tomorrow’s a better day with Antwain Otis dead or alive?”
He watched me for a long time. I broke eye contact only to note that we were inside an hour before the execution.
“If I do what a majority of the people in this state want me to do,” he said, “I don’t touch that phone. Now, what’s wrong with doing what the majority wants?”
“Because the majority wants you to exercise your judgment, not follow their lead like some permanent town hall meeting. You’re supposed to make the tough call.”
“I see.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Even if that tough call is against their wishes.”
“That’s why it’s tough.”
“Even if it fucks me in the election.”
“Right again.”
“You can’t be a good governor unless you’re gov—”
“Oh, Governor, spare me that, okay? I mean, what the hell’s the
point
of being governor if you can’t be a good one? To do the right thing as much as you can, as often as you can?”
He watched me, tolerating me like he might a child. “You’d commute the sentence.”
“Yes,” I said, “I would. Keep him in prison forever but let him make the world a slightly better place.”
I exhaled. I’d tried to keep an open mind on this issue. I’d really been more concerned with the governor making the decision for the right reason than with any particular outcome. I’d surprised myself with the abrupt answer and with how strongly I held the sentiment, once iterated.
The governor opened his hands. “I just can’t do that, son. I just can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
He gave me a grim smile. “You’re right. I
won’t
do that.”
I felt the air go out of the room. There was nothing really left to say. I hadn’t given the governor what he’d wanted—validation, reassurance—but it wasn’t going to change his mind. It never was.
He looked at his watch. “I thought I wanted some company, but I’m not sure I do.”
Right. He didn’t want my disapproving eyes boring into him as the hour struck midnight and the venom seeped into the veins of Antwain Otis, strapped to a gurney.
I got up and straightened my suit coat, the F-Bird resting heavy in the inner pocket. I thanked him and walked to the door.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” he said.
I stopped on my way back and turned to him. Antwain Otis aside, he’d probably said enough tonight about Judge Ippolito to buy himself an arrest warrant tomorrow.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said.
92
I STOPPED AT THE HOTEL BAR IN THE LOBBY FOR
a drink. I wasn’t in a tremendous hurry to get back. Tucker and Moody would devour the contents of this F-Bird like it was their last meal, which in some sense of the word it was. They’d want to debrief me, and now that my job was all but completed, they might even want me to review the application for the arrest warrants, given that much of the information contained in it had been supplied by me. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t eager for a long night. I wanted to escape. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
The dirty martini was too dirty, too salty, but I drank it fast and then ordered a shot of whiskey, hot and bitter down my raw throat, which somehow felt more appropriate.
I walked from the Ritz toward the federal building. It wasn’t all that cold out tonight, but there must have been rain, a damp musky odor on the emptying city streets. The fresh air helped.
“I’m done,” I said into the cell phone to Lee Tucker.
“And? How did we do?”
“See you in ten minutes,” I said.
I passed a couple arm in arm, drunk and amorous. I passed a homeless guy sitting against the wall of a building and handed him a crumpled five from my pocket. He made some noise, but I couldn’t make out words. So much suffering in the world. So few people—including me—who did anything to help. That was what these guys were supposed to be doing, the governor and his crew. They were supposed to be helping the rest of us. Trying, at least. Giving us their honest best.
I gave Carlton Snow a chance tonight. I gave him a chance to show me that he could be the right kind of governor, that if pushed in the right direction he could take that path. He didn’t take it. Maybe his ultimate decision was right. Plenty of people would believe that Antwain Otis’s death sentence was just. Good people. Well-intentioned people. But deep down, Carlton Snow wanted to give Otis a reprieve, and he denied it anyway. No matter the correctness of his decision, he did it for the wrong reasons.
I walked along the bridge over the river that divided the commercial district from the near north side, which put me about three blocks south of the federal building. I didn’t walk on the concrete pedestrian walkway but on the bridge surface itself, a grid design, a checkerboard of steel. I remember walking on this bridge as a kid with my father. My dad said the grid design was to prevent skidding. I didn’t know if that was true, but I remembered getting on my hands and knees and poking my fingers through the diamond-shaped holes made by the grid and looking through the bridge down to the river itself.
I stopped on the bridge, hopped up on to the concrete walkway, and leaned over the railing, watching the misty fog that covered the river. I’d done the principal thing that brought me into this mess. I could always say that much. I found Ernesto’s killer. In the process I’d played a role I never thought I would play, a snitch, a rat for the government. I suppose it was fair to say that I had performed a valuable service, but it didn’t feel that way.
When I checked my watch, it was three minutes after midnight. It didn’t matter anymore. I pushed off the railing and headed over the river.
My cell phone buzzed. I couldn’t imagine being in the mood to talk to anyone, but I checked the phone. It was Madison Koehler. I had nothing to say to her but I answered, anyway.
“Hi, Madison.”
“What the hell did you do?”
I sighed. I’d eaten a lot of shit from her for the greater good, but I’d hit my limit.
“I don’t know, Madison, what did I do now?”
“You tell me,” she said. “Please explain to me why the governor just halted the execution.”
93
I WATCHED HIM FROM THREE BLOCKS AWAY, ONCE HE
turned the corner from the federal building, coming toward me. He was walking slowly. It was late, he had an enormous amount of work left ahead of him, and the temperatures were falling, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Moody was taking his time on his approach.
His gait seemed to slow even more as he got within earshot of me. He stopped at a distance of about ten feet. I wasn’t sure why. It set the appropriate tone, I thought. Pistols and ten paces at dawn, that kind of thing.
“Okay, I’m here. All alone, as you asked. Is there some reason we had to do the hand-off on the middle of the Lerner Street Bridge?”
His distance from me, combined with the poor lighting, made it hard to distinguish his features. His face appeared to be set in a clench, like he was ready for battle. His tone was appropriately hostile but also cautious. He’d listened to my earlier F-Bird from this morning, my conversation with Hector Almundo. He had some reason to question my motives. And I had another F-Bird in my pocket right now, which was recording everything until he turned it off. That, more than anything, would make him careful with his words.
“Well?” he asked. “Do I get the F-Bird or not?”
I reached into the inner pocket of my suit coat, pulled out my little friend, and showed it to him.
Then I threw it into the river.
I never heard it splash. It just vanished into the darkness. Moody followed the arc until it disappeared into the misty gray below. He probably wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t have been totally surprised, either. And he wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction of a visceral reaction. If he was angry, he figured, he’d have plenty of ways to take it out on me.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “Why?”
“I think you’re wrong about Snow,” I said. “He’s no saint. Maybe he’s even a criminal. Maybe. The people around him? Most definitely. But I see a guy who was in a little over his head. If someone would have just given him the right advice, he might have been able to do better.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“His people kept him in the dark, Chris. Maybe he didn’t want to know, but still—he didn’t know. Not exactly. That’s why they always kept Hector in the dark, too. Because they knew Hector would tell the governor.”
“Very touching, Jason. And what about the governor, all on his own, talking about shaking down those abortion groups? Way I heard it, that was all his idea.”
“Yeah, and look how that turned out, Chris. A whole lot of nothing, that’s what. They blew off what he said. That proves my point. His people are running that program, not him.”
He was quiet a moment. “Well, you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry your little head, Chris. With the nooses you have around his people, there’ll be plenty of flippers willing to sing. You’ll get the governor. You’ll probably put him away for a long time. It’s just not going to be because of me.”
I saw a faint shaking of the head from the prosecutor. From his perspective, what I was doing didn’t make much sense—for exactly the reason I had just articulated. They were going to get Carlton Snow anyway. It would probably only take one of the dominoes—Charlie, Madison, Hector, MacAleer—to fall before the rest of them did. So why, Moody wondered, would I toss the F-Bird into the river and risk the ire of the man who held my fate in his hands, when ultimately it wouldn’t help Snow all that much, anyway?
“This is all very noble of you, Mr. Kolarich. Maybe the governor can thank you while you’re serving time together. I could recommend to the court that you serve in the same camp.”
Maybe so. Maybe not. I nodded at him. “While it’s just us girls talking,” I said, “what did you think of that tape you heard this morning? Hector’s confession.”
I thought I saw a smile, or at least some change in his expression. “We already liked Hector for Connolly’s murder. You didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know.”
He enjoyed saying that, once again having the upper hand. I only knew what they let me know. They’d worked the case from other angles and gotten to Hector on their own.
“He copped to
three
murders,” I said. “Wozniak, which you already fucked up, so he walks on that one. And Connolly, for which you now have a confession. But what did you think about Ernesto Ramirez, Chris?”