Authors: Steven Gore
A
re you going to be there?” John Porzolkiewski asked Gage in the visiting room at the San Francisco jail.
Gage shook his head. “There's no reason. But are you sure you don't want a lawyer?”
“You know what you told me when I first got arrested? You told me not to waste the money.”
“That was a different situation.”
“It was worse than different.” Porzolkiewski smiled. “You were the one who got me arrested, then told me to trust you to figure out what happened even though you didn't believe me when I said I didn't do it.”
Gage smiled back. “It makes you look like an idiot when you put it that way.”
“Thanks. That's a confidence builder an hour before court.” Porzolkiewski glanced at the new indictment lying on the table. “Isn't it ironic? I got charged with going after the same guy twice. Two different ways at two different times. I wonder if it's ever happened before.”
“That's all the more reason to let Skeeter Hall help you. It was his and his associates' research that helped us figure everything out and he'd like to do more.” Gage tilted his head toward the waiting room beyond the two sets of security doors. “He's sitting out there with one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the city.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I've got to do this alone.”
“Except it's pretty complicated. Legally. Medically. The DA could still bring in an expert to testify that Palmer wouldn't have died from the poisoned prescription if he hadn't already been weakened by you shooting him. That would make you guilty of the homicide.”
Porzolkiewski shook his head. “I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.” He then hunched forward and stared down at the metal table. “You know, I'm not so different from the people who killed my son.”
“You're a lot different.”
Porzolkiewski rotated his head and looked up at Gage. “It's just a matter of degree.” He dropped his head again. “I'd almost convinced myself I shot Palmer in self-defense. Right after it happened I wanted to believe he charged me after I wrestled the gun away. I imagined him bearing down on me and me turning my head and firing. But that's not true. He hit his head against the lamppost and was dazed. I could've just walked away.”
Porzolkiewski pursed his lips.
“Then I told myself the gun went off by accident. That my hand was shaking so much I squeezed the trigger. I even acted it out in my cell, imagining myself in front of a jury.”
“But the difference is that you never lied to anybody about what happened.”
Porzolkiewski straightened up.
“Yes, I did. I lied to myself, and not telling the truth was a way of lying to Palmer's wife. She had a right to know. Every time I think of her tied up . . . and Palmer. If I hadn't gone to see Palmer, they never would've killed him.”
“Don't even think it. There's no way you could've known what was really going on. In any case, not everything in the world is your responsibility.”
Porzolkiewski drew back and said, “Seems like a strange comment coming from you. What exactly did you owe me in this thing? Nothing. You owed me nothing.”
“I owed you the truth,” Gage said, “the same thing you owed me.”
Porzolkiewski laid his palm on his chest in an act of contrition. “I understand that now.”
He reached to his left for an oversized envelope, then pulled out a stack of papers and slid them toward Gage. On top was a letter from FourStar Media in Hollywood.
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” Porzolkiewski said. “That's what they want to pay me for my story.” He pointed at the papers. “There's a contract underneath. All it needs is my signature.”
Gage slid them back. “Why not? You're a hero to every parent who lost a child because of corporate greed. Your picture is everywhere on the Internet, and on every television station and in every newspaper in the world.”
Porzolkiewski shook his head and slid the papers back into the envelope.
“I think I'll pass. This wasn't about me.”
He propped his elbows on the table, then smiled and arched his eyebrows.
“I've been wondering about the condom. Did you happen to ask Brandon Meyer who his girlfriend was?”
“He claims there was no girlfriend. He said he found it on another judge's bathroom floor a couple of hours before he ran into you. Brandon had to pick it up, otherwise the judge would know he'd seen it.”
“Because the other judge was the one with the girlfriend?”
“That's his story.”
“Sounds a little lame to me. Did you believe him?”
“Is it important anymore?”
“I guess not.” Porzolkiewski paused, then exhaled like a man standing hands-on-hips gazing down toward a valley trailhead after climbing to a mountaintop. He peered at Gage. “I never thought to ask how you got involved in all this in the first place.”
“A call from Charlie.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn't have a chance to say anything.”
“You know what he wanted?”
Gage thought back to Charlie's last day, his last words, his desperate, pleading voice. For the first time Gage understood the burden he'd carried since those final moments.
“More than anything,” Gage said. “I think he wanted me to finish out his life.”
“The way he would've done it himself?”
Gage shrugged. “We'll never know, but this is how it had to be.”
I
understand there's a disposition in this matter,” Judge Louisa Havstad said, peering down at John Porzolkiewski, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit and standing next to the deputy district attorney. The judge fixed her eyes on the prosecutor.
“Ms. Kennedy, do the People have any objection to Mr. Porzolkiewski representing himself?”
Kennedy shook her head. “No, Your Honor. I met with him yesterday and then again a few minutes ago, and I'm satisfied he's making a knowing waiver of his right to counsel.”
Judge Havstad then surveyed the courtroom, the reporters packed into the front rows and the broadcast and cable video cameras in the jury box bearing down on Porzolkiewski. Her pale skin and tense stare, combined with the sense of expectation in the courtroom, gave the impression of someone fearing a dam was about to break.
“My concern is that the defendant's behavior in the early stages of his previous case was somewhat bizarre. I don't want to see this proceeding turn into a spectacle.”
“I don't believe that will happen,” Kennedy said.
Havstad turned her gaze toward the defendant.
“For the record, Mr. Porzolkiewski, is it your intention to proceed without counsel?”
Porzolkiewski nodded.
“You have to answer aloud so the stenographer can take it down.”
Porzolkiewski reddened. “Yes, Your Honor. I want to represent myself.”
“Have you read the
Faretta
case?”
“Yes, I have. The district attorney gave me a copy.”
“So you understand that if you act as your own lawyer, you can't turn around later and appeal your conviction by claiming incompetence of counsel?”
Tension-cracking laughter broke out and rattled among the spectators. Havstad slammed down her gavel, and then aimed it at the bailiff.
“If anyone makes another sound during the remainder of this proceeding I want them hauled out of here and brought back tomorrow in handcuffs. Understood?”
Havstad looked again at Porzolkiewski.
“Did you hear my question, Mr. Porzolkiewski?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And the answer?”
“Yes. I understood
Faretta
.”
“And is it your intention to plead guilty to count one of the indictment, assault with a deadly weapon?”
A murmur rolled through the courtroom. Havstad raised her gavel and glared at the audience.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Before you do that I need to advise you of certain of your rights and of the consequences of such a plea . . .”
G
age sat by the window in Spike's office watching television reporters opining about Brandon Meyer's appearance before the federal grand jury investigating corporate tax fraud and campaign money laundering through Pegasus. He switched the TV off when Spike opened the door.
Spike hung his sports jacket on the corner coatrack, then dropped into his chair.
“Tough guy that Porzolkiewski,” Spike said. “He didn't weasel. Didn't make any excuses. Just got up and told the story.”
“You're okay with assault with a deadly weapon as the disposition, instead of attempted murder?”
“I believed him,” Spike said. “He wanted to hurt Charlie, make him suffer, not kill him.”
“What do you think Havstad is going to do?”
“Hard to say. It's two, three, or four years on the assault plus a consecutive three, four, or ten for using the handgun.”
Gage rose and looked down through the window. News crews were gathered in semidarkness on the front steps, cameras were pointed at the bronze exit doors.
“I don't think she would've released him without bail,” Gage said, “if she intended to max him out.”
“Will he show up for sentencing next month?” Spike asked.
“He'll show.”
Spike smiled. “You want to put some cash on it?”
Gage glanced over his shoulder. He didn't smile back. “Don't talk to me about money.”
“I'm afraid you'll be talking about it for a helluva long time to come.”
Gage shook his head. “Not so long. I talked to Jack Burch a few minutes ago. TIMCO has agreed to settle with the families of the workers. And the parents of the kids who beat up Moki will each put a half million into a trust fund.”
“What about Tansy?”
“She didn't want anything for herself. She just wants to have confidence in the care Moki gets and to go back into nursing.” Gage paused, imagining Tansy's empty chair, anticipating the heartache of her absence. “It's going to be hard to walk past her desk and not see her there.”
“Who's going to clean up Anston's mess? The press is reporting there's about a billion dollars to be accounted for.”
“That's up to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission. And Jack rounded up some lawyers who've volunteered to reopen all the old TIMCO- and Moki-type cases.”
Gage felt a surge of both weariness and relief.
“I'm out of it.”
G
age brought Chinese take-out dinner to Faith and Socorro sitting at Viz's bedside at SF Medical, then drove back to his building. The sounds of urgent voices and ringing phones and churning printers faded as he climbed the stairs toward his third floor office. After the fire door closed behind him, only his soft footfalls accompanied him down the long dark hallway toward his doorâ
And a recurring thought. Joe Casey was wrong. Nothing could ever be returned to the way it had been. And whatever justice was, it surely wasn't that.
As Gage crossed the threshold, he saw his desk lamp cast a circle of light on a handwritten note lying against a slim square object wrapped in white cloth.
He walked over and picked it up.
Dear Graham,
These are the songs that brought joy to my little angel so long ago.
Thank you, you dear, dear man.
Tansy
Gage untied the ribbon. Lying before him was a CD. Ten-year-old fingerprint powder etched the last places Moki had touched before running up the hill for the last time to gaze at the horizon.
He sat down and slipped it into his computer, and then leaned back in his chair. The drive whirled and clicked as he stared out toward the invisible bay, its shoreline marked by glimmering city lights. There was a long pause, then the beat of drums, the rasp of sticks, the rattle of gourds and, finally, rising from the weeping earth, the harp, the violin, and the flute.
On top of the enchanted world,
far down you are flying
west, where the sun falls,
beautiful, sparkling, and forever,
you go with the wind.
Acknowledgments and Note to the Reader
A
s usual, friends gave generously of their time to help me figure out what I meant to say and get it on the page. They are: Denise Fleming, whose editorial knife is as precise as it is sharp; Carol Keslar, whose early insights went a long way; Dennis Barley, a great investigator and shrewd judge of the motivations of humans, both real and imaginary; Davie Sue Litov, who insists that it be on the page; Bruce Kaplan, the only writer I know who can start with the weather and get away with it; Seth Norman, meandering the meander; and Randy Schmidt, who helped with some of the weightier issues.
Thanks go to my cousin Bobbie Chinsky and Howard Somerville and my sister Diane Gore-Uecker and John Uecker, early adopters of Graham Gage and Harlan Donnally; Louisa Havstad, of such good character that I made her one; Glenn and Judy Pollock, who knew Gage back when and have the photographs to prove it; Trevor Patterson, a former investigator who was everything Charlie Palmer was not; Cassie Patterson, a proud great-grandmother.
Thanks also for their enthusiasm, support, and good times: Lincoln, Gayle, and Haley Litov, Pauline Kaplan, Erin Kaplan, Erik Woods, Scott Sugarman, Chris Cannon, Bob Waggener, Paul Wolf, and Carl and Kathy Polhemus.
As always, the editorial, production, and design staff at HarperCollins did a wonderful job of making my work presentable to the reader: Emily Krump, who not only took on Graham Gage, Harlan Donnally, and me all at once, but asked all the questions a writer needs to hear from an editor; my publicists, Andy Dodds and Katie Steinberg, who had all the right contacts, and Stefanie Rosenblum of Planned Television Arts, who took me coast to coast; and to the sales and marketing people who have done such a great job of getting the books in places readers can easily find them. Thanks again to copyeditor Eleanor Mikucki, whose attention to both story and detail much improved the manuscript.
My wife, Liz, as always, made the book good enough to risk showing to others.
Like the other novels, in both the Gage and Donnally series, this one benefited from help I received in the course of my investigative work. Among those helpers were: Karnati Rama Mohan Rao, a legendary, gravel-voiced, wild-haired criminal defense lawyer in Andhra Pradesh, India. P. A. Kamaleswari of Hyderabad, a fine lawyer and advocate for Indian women and villagers, for whom caste is, in word and in deed, no bar. Banker “X” in Lugano, Switzerland who explained the art and craft of offshore deniability. And Police Superintendent “Y” whose display of a wad of currency told me that money would once again defeat truth and justice in South Asia.
Readers interested in the irreconcilable perspectives inherent in the notion of representation reflected in Landon Meyer's speech might want to look at
The Concept of Representation
(University of California Press, 1972) and
Wittgenstein and Justice
(University of California Press, 1972) by Hanna Pitkin. They suggest an approach to accepting seemingly contradictory claims not only about representation, but about what counts as having done justice.
Readers interested in the two strains of conservatism Landon Meyer finds competing within him, and the issues involved in reconciling them, might want to look at the work of the great British conservative political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, collected in
Rationalism in Politics
(available in various editions). It contains the famous and beautifully written essay “On Being Conservative,” which is also available online.
The Yoeme (Yaqui) language quotes from the traditional Yaqui Deer Songs that begin and end the book are drawn and modified from “Maiso Yoleme/Deer Person,” Felipe Molina, Yoem Pueblo, August 21, 1984, in
Yaqui Deer Songs, Maso Bwikam: A Native American Poetry
, Larry Evers and Felipe S. Molina (University of Arizona Press, 1987, pp. 71 and 106). The phrase “the weeping earth” is from “The Elders Truth,” a sermon by Miki Maaso at Yoem Pueblo on December 22, 1987 (transcribed by Felipe S. Molina and Larry Evers,
Journal of the Southwest
, volume 35, number 3, Autumn 1993). I put together my own version of the song that ends the book.
The lines said by Alex Z beginning: “All sorrows can be borne if you tell a story about it” are paraphrased from Isak Dinesen, author of
Out of Africa
, quoted in Hannah Arendt's “Truth and Politics” in
Between Past and Future
(Penguin Classics, 1993). The concluding part of the line is: “At the end we'll be privileged to view and review itâthat's what's called judgment day.” A different version appears in Dinesen's
Last Tales
.
I hope I didn't offend any readers with Tansy's comments about Carlos Castaneda and his fictional Yaqui shaman, but like her, while growing up along South Sixth Avenue in Tucson, Arizona, I never saw an Indian flyâeven as we raced with dimes in our hands from the sandlot next to my house past Vic's Trading Post to the legendary Le Caves Bakery on the corner.