Toomey recovered from his surprise, but slowly. ”I
thought I understood you to say that your client could not
raise that amount, Mr. Meister.”
“He could not, Your Honor. I was moved by a sudden im
pulse to post bail from my own resources.”
Toomey's expression blackened. “This court does not
take kindly to being bamboozled, Mr. Meister. I would feel entirely justified in rescinding that order and finding you in
contempt in the bargain.”
“My arguments and my offer are made in good faith,
Your Honor.” Meister dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “We all share the hope, Your Honor, that this matter will not
be tainted by any talk of your relationship with the father of the Bellafonte boy.”
Bloom, the prosecutor, coughed aloud, then closed his
file. The judge, Meister knew, had been signaled.
Toomey's skin flushed angrily. He drummed his fingers
on the bench. “See the bailiff on your way out, Mr. Meister. Take your client and go. We'll look forward to an early trial
date.”
“God's grace be upon you, Your Honor.” Meister smiled.
“I'll be seeing you again, Mr. Meister.”
“Always a pleasure, Your Honor.” Meister bowed deeply
toward the bench and again toward Bloom. He was entirely
pleased with himself. He had, after all, won the first battle.
And if
Toomey, as he expected, got himself assigned as trial judge, Meister had virtually assured that he would now lose
the war. Baker would have little chance. And that, he told
himself, was not a bad morning's work at all.
The courthouse was well behind them. Benjamin Meister had led Baker to the bailiff's office, where he counted off
and endorsed checks totaling two hundred thousand dollars. Then, release papers in hand, the two men found a side exit
and passed unnoticed through the section where divorce
cases were heard. They walked slowly, lost among the chain-smoking men and women who stood about the corri
dor avoiding each other's eyes and among the lawyers who
riffled through thick folders and whispered to nervous
clients.
A taxi, called by Meister, waited outside. The lawyer di
rected the cab driver to Greenwich Police Headquarters,
where his rented car was parked.
“He can drop me off at home,” Baker said. ”I want to get to the hospital.”
“I'll take you there, Jared.” Meister patted his knee. “We
have things to talk about.”
“You're damned right we have.”
Meister silenced him with a wave of his hand, a finger
pointed at the driver.
Baker stared glumly out the window as the cab passed fa
miliar streets and stores and drove onto a stretch of the New
England Turnpike that Baker had traveled a thousand times.
Everything looked different than it did three days ago. Three
days ago it was a road that led home. Now there was no
home.
”I have to find a place,” he said. It had not struck him be
fore. He could not stay in his house. Baker could not bear to
stay there.
“We'll work it out, Jared. Trust me.”
Meister worked his body into the seat of a Pinto that seemed
much too small and too modest for him. Everything else
about the man looked expensive. Baker noticed that the car
had New York plates.
”I want to know who you are,” Baker said as the engine
coughed into life, “and why are you doing this.”
“All in good time, Jared. You can trust your attorney.”
“You keep saying that. Bullshit.” Baker turned in his seat.
Meister feigned hurt feelings. “If I'm not your friend, Jared, who is? I thought I just did very well by you.”
“What you did was antagonize that judge, to say nothing
about the prosecutor. I know enough about law to realize that
most of it is what a judge says it is. But you went out of your way to openly sucker a man who might be hearing my case.”
Meister stiffened slightly. He had expected only blind gratitude from Baker. “What else is troubling you?” he
asked.
“For openers, what happened to the diminished capacity plea?”
Meister raised an eyebrow. “Where did you hear that
phrase? I don't recall using it.”
”I watch television ” Baker snapped. “And I'd also like to
know why you happen to be carrying two hundred thousand
dollars in your pocket.”
“I'm carrying half a million.” Meister smiled. “Isn't that the hospital up ahead?”
Meister steered his Pinto into the circular driveway lead
ing to the main entrance of Greenwich Hospital. He stopped near the twin electric doors, but Baker made no move to get
out. “Whose half-million?” Baker asked.
”I can't tell you that yet, Jared,” he said softly. ”I hope to
soon, but not now.”
“Then why?”
“To get you out, naturally,” Meister answered, “and at
any cost. Your benefactor has an interest in you, and I give you my word that it's not a sinister interest. As for the plea
of not guilty, if I'd said what the prosecutor expected, the judge would have had an excuse to bind you over for psy
chiatric examination. He could have denied bail on that
basis but not so easily otherwise. Still, we were lucky. Old
Judge Toomey was forced to think uncharacteristically quickly with all those reporters watching. I suckered him,
as you put it, into setting a very high amount, never dream
ing that you could come up with it. As for antagonizing
him, the man is out to hang you anyway, Jared. The more I irritate him, the more appealable errors he's likely to make.
For the moment, however, you are free and are about to
visit your daughter. I expect a modicum of appreciation for that, at least.”
“Thank you,” Baker said. But the look he gave Meister
said that he knew he was being massaged. “Why is he out to
hang me?”
”I told you. You maimed the son of a
judge. You can
hardly expect dispassion from one of his colleagues.”
“What about a change of venue?”
“Who's going to grant it? Toomey?”
“There are other judges. There has to be one who's im
partial.”
“Not for you, Baker. You're up against more than you
know,” Meister told him. “I'll pick you a decent jury, but the
sitting judge will restrict me every way he can.”
Baker shook his head. Appealable errors. Restricting
judges. Meister was talking like a lawyer who expected to
lose. Or, at least, that if he might win, it would be sometime
in the distant future. Baker could not believe that. He could
not believe that a jury would convict him for defending his
home against the man who had destroyed it. Meister sensed that disbelief.
“You've entered a new world, Jared,” he said. “You can't
go back to the old one, and nothing in your life will ever be
the same again. Does anything seem the same to you, Jared?
Anything at all?”
“No,” Baker admitted.
“Adapt, Jared. Adapt or you'll be swept away. And for God's sake, learn who your friends are.”
“The man with the money?”
“Go see your daughter, Jared.”
Tina opened one eye just a crack, then closed it. The man
was still there. He was there yesterday too. She thought then
that it was Father Lennon from St. Paul's because of the way
he was dressed. But this one wore no collar. Just a black suit
and black eyes with bags under them. And he never said
anything. Not yesterday either.
“My father's coming,” she whispered. Maybe that would
make him go away. Tina didn't like this man. She liked the
other one, though. She liked the one with the spinning toy who said she could call him Grandpa. He made everything seem not so bad. He made her feel not so afraid and helped her not miss Mom so much. Maybe not quite so much. But
still a terrible lot.
“No.” The man in the black suit shook his head. “Your fa
ther will not come.”
“He is,” Tina answered. ”I know he is.”
The man didn't answer.
Baker was waiting at the elevator when he noticed the lobby
gift shop. He patted his pockets, knowing they were empty.
Meister had not thought to bring him his wallet. Baker re
traced his steps to the area where the volunteer receptionist sat and he found the lawyer riffling through a pile of maga
zines. Meister loaned him twenty dollars.
It was more than enough for the large, stuffed koala
bear that he'd noticed among the menagerie that covered one wall of the shop. With the change he bought a jigsaw
puzzle, a tiny plant, and a Doonesbury paperback. Baker
tucked the paper bags under one arm and rubbed his eyes
with his free hand. He hoped that he looked more rested
than he felt.
There was a rest room near the elevator bank. Baker wet
his face with cold water, dried it, then straightened his hair
with his fingers. Not too bad, he thought, except for the
strips of singed and dirty tape wrapped around his knuckles.
Tina can do without seeing that.
Baker peeled away the bandage and dropped it into a
trash bin. Next he washed the hand, rubbing off the thin
lines of adhesive with his fingertips. The hand looked fine,
he thought. Very fine, considering how ugly it was three
days ago. There remained only a faded bruise across two
knuckles.
Baker stepped back into the corridor and found an eleva
tor waiting. He entered it and pressed the fourth-floor but
ton. As the doors slid closed, he saw Meister in the gift shop
examining an embroidered pillow.
“What are you doing here?” Tina was alert now. She raised
her upper body on both elbows.
”I have a son here.” The old man's voice was flat.
“No, you don't. This is my room.”
“He's above you.” The man lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Intensive Care. If you listen hard, even here you
can hear
him screaming.” His eyes met hers again. “How is it that you
don't scream?” he asked.
Tina looked toward the door. There was no sound out
there. Not even nurses walking past. She felt herself becom
ing frightened.
“Listen, would you please not stand there? I'm sorry that your son is hurt, but I think you should be with him and not
here. Anyway, I told you my father is coming.”
“It was an accident, you know. My son would never have
harmed that woman.” The man seemed to be talking to no
one in particular.
“What woman?” Tina's color began to rise. She was
afraid that she knew what woman.
“But what your father did”—these words were to her— “that was no accident.” The man in the black suit stepped
toward Tina's bed and lifted the sheet that covered her tented
leg. Tina braced her hands and jerked her body backward,
gasping at the bolt of pain that shot to her hip.
“You get out of here!” she cried out.
“Now!” Baker's voice hissed from the doorway.
“Daddy!” Tina called, but her father did not look at her.
His eyes bored into the older man from a face that seemed on fire, and the sight of them caused him to stagger back
ward. Baker's hands opened and the bags they carried fell.
“You!” the old man whispered, the word dripping with
hatred.
Baker saw his hand reach forward. For a heartbeat, it
seemed to have a life of its own. He knew that it was reach
ing for the old man's throat and that it was flexed to tear the throat away from the retreating body. Baker knew the man.
It was the devil he'd seen through the bars of his cell. He
willed the hand down. It was his own hand again when it
clamped down on Judge Bellafonte's arm and nearly lifted
the old man's body from the floor. Baker half-dragged him
toward the corridor.
Outrage at being handled replaced fear, and the judge
found his voice. “Get your butcher's hands off of me,” he
choked as he flailed at Baker, slapping him hard across the
face. Baker blinked back a tear from his smarting right eye, but he did not break his stride.
Heads appeared in doorways. The sounds of grunts and
scuffling feet reached the duty nurse, who rose from her sta
tion and padded toward them. “Judge Bellafonte!” she
called, horrified.
“Stop this animal,” the old man shouted, his feet splaying
now across the slippery floor.
Arms waving, the nurse fell in behind Baker as he danced
the judge toward the elevator bank. Baker stopped and
pressed a button. Once again, Bellafonte swung at his face.
Baker caught the hand and twisted it, spinning the judge so
that his chest was forced against the wall, then locked both the older man's wrists behind him.
Baker turned to the nurse. “You know this man?” The tone of his voice made her back away.
“It's ... Judge Bellafonte,” she stammered.
“It's the father of the punk who killed my wife and put
my daughter in the hospital,” Baker growled.
“You're Mr. Baker!” Her eyes widened with recognition
and with a rush of fear that surprised Baker.
“I'm Tina Baker's father,” he said, as if correcting her. ”I
want this man kept away from her. If I see him again in her
room or even on this floor, I'm going to . ..”
The elevator door opened. Baker pulled the judge from
the wall where he was pinioned and shoved him full into the
astonished face of Benjamin Meister.
Meister caught him, blinked, but recovered instantly. “Where was he?” he asked. “Tina's room?”
“Frightening her,” Baker answered. “She was backing
away from him when I walked in.”
“How is it you're not in jail?” the judge gasped at Baker.
Meister ignored him and turned to the nurse. “Was this man authorized to visit Tina Baker?” he asked.
”N-no.” She wrung her hands. “Only family. Except for
Mrs. Carey and clergy.”
“And Mr. Baker escorted this man from a room where he
was not supposed to be?”
”I guess . . . Yes.”
“Were any blows exchanged?” Meister saw the redness
on Baker's cheek.
“No . . . well. . . the judge slapped Mr. Baker.”
“The hell with this,” Baker snapped. He took the judge's
arm once more and forced him deeply into the elevator.
Baker pressed a button and stepped back into the corridor.
The judge raised both his hands in a clawing gesture and he found his voice. “I'll break you, you butcher,” he rasped.
“I'll break anyone who . ..”
The doors closed on his words and the churning whine of the elevator muffled them.
“The rest of that threat would have been interesting to
hear,” Meister said, reminding the nurse that a threat had
been made.
“Not to me,” Baker said, straightening his suit jacket. ”I
came to see my daughter.” He left the nurse and Meister
standing there.
“I'm sorry, Daddy.” She held out her arms as he entered the room. He shook his head and closed his eyes as if to say that
she should not be sorry and that it was nothing, but he found
he could not speak. Carefully, he set his gifts down on her bed and then leaned into her, holding her lightly while she squeezed him.
“That's not a hug.” She sniffed. Baker shuddered and
swallowed a sob. Then he crushed her body to his. There
was no need to speak for many minutes.
“That was stupid, Baker.” Meister glowered at him as he pulled back into traffic. “You're lucky you're not back in a
cell already.”
“He was scaring Tina.” Baker rubbed his eyes. “You'd have done the same thing.”
“I'd have done almost nothing the same,” Meister retorted.
“I'd have achieved a like result, but I'd have done it without
manhandling a judge an hour after posting bond on an assault
charge. And certainly not in front of a witness, God save us.”