39
A
GAIN WE
were waiting. It was late afternoon; the jury had renewed their deliberations just over four hours ago. After the closings Judge Ferano had briefly addressed the jury, instructing them that they were not to give this new testimony any more or less weight than if it had been presented earlier in the trial, but that they were nevertheless to begin their deliberations anew, ignoring anything they had previously discussed.
I was spending the afternoon returning the many client phone messages that had piled up over the last couple of weeks. I was in midconversation with a chronic shoplifter when Myra appeared in the doorway of my office. When she caught my eye she drew a finger across her throat. I got off the phone quickly, grabbing my suit jacket. I didn't even need to ask: one look at Myra's face had told me that we had a verdict.
"Why'd you slit your throat?" I asked her on the walk over to the courthouse.
"I just meant for you to hang up," Myra said. "It wasn't anything
other than that."
"I took it to mean bad news."
"Just for you to end the conversation," Myra said. "It's not like
they tell us the verdict over the phone."
"It kind of freaked me out."
"I got it," Myra said. She was walking so fast it was an effort for me to keep up with her. I got the distinct impression she wished we weren't talking.
I had felt sure the jury would be out at least a couple days. That they'd reached a verdict in just a few hours had me worried.
"What does it mean that the jury came back so fast?" I couldn't resist asking.
"I'd say it's more good than bad," Myra said. "But you never
know."
"
THEY BACK
with a verdict?" Lorenzo asked once he'd been brought up to the court from the holding cell in the basement.
"That's right," Myra said.
"Thought you said they gonna be talking for a couple of days," Lorenzo said to Myra, a hint of accusation in his voice.
"I said that's what I thought would happen," Myra said with a shrug.
"Juries are unpredictable. Remember, if they convict, it's not the last word.
We'll appeal. If they acquit, that's the end of it."
There were three loud knocks on the door behind the judge's bench, indicting that Judge Ferano was about to enter the courtroom.
"All rise," the bailiff intoned. Looking over my shoulder as I stood, I realized there were at least half a dozen reporters present, Adam Berman among them, all bunched together in a row. The judge took his place slowly in the silent room, then peered out into the well of the court. The bailiff called the case, counsel stating our appearances for the record.
"I understand we have a verdict here," Judge Ferano said. "Let's
bring the jury in."
I studied the jurors as they took their seats, though I didn't know what I was looking for. They appeared tired, slightly withdrawn, not looking at anyone. The jury didn't look to me like a group of people who had just agreed upon anything, and I quickly gave up trying to read the verdict from their expressions. As for Myra, I noticed that she didn't even glance in their direction.
As I sat there with my hands gone clammy, my heart skipping around in my chest, I had to remind myself that it wasn't me who was on trial. I thought about what Myra had said the other night, about how being a lawyer allowed her to live vicariously through other people's troubles. There was a part of me that wanted to be judged and found not guilty—to be absolved, I suppose. Or perhaps there was just something in me that felt the need to stand accused. Whatever it was, it flooded through me now; I felt as though my life was on the line as starkly as Lorenzo's.
"On the first count of the indictment, murder in the second degree of Seth Lipton, how does the jury find?" the bailiff asked.
"Not guilty," the foreman said.
The bailiff, without missing a beat, began asking them about the second count—the attempted murder of Devin Wallace—but everyone in the courtroom was already reacting. We all knew that the rest of the verdict was contained in that first not-guilty. Lorenzo Tate was a free man.
40
A
FTER THE
verdict, we waited around for Lorenzo to be processed, then left the courthouse with him. Lorenzo had never had any visible supporters in court, no sign of friends or family. He'd remained a stranger to us.
"That it then?" Lorenzo said once we were outside. "I'm done?"
Myra smiled. "You're done," she agreed. "It's over."
"Damn, y'all," Lorenzo said. "Ain't like I even know what to say.
You did right by me."
"That's what we do," Myra said. She looked every bit as embarrassed as I felt. Lorenzo didn't seem like he was enjoying this either.
"So I just get on the subway and go back home," Lorenzo mused, looking baffled by the prospect, as if the idea of going back to his old, free life was unfathomable.
"Ain't no more to it than that."
"That's right, Lorenzo," Myra said. "You've got your life back.
Use it wisely."
"No doubt," Lorenzo said, not looking at us. "No doubt." After a moment he turned and headed for the subway entrance. I watched as he descended the stairs without looking back.
Myra and I headed over to the office in silence. Winter was threatening to emerge: the temperature was approaching freezing. As I braced myself against a stiff, chill wind, the feeling I'd had while waiting for the verdict vanished entirely. I'd felt a momentary elation when the verdict had been read, but it had quickly faded. Any illusion that I was being judged alongside Lorenzo, that we were connected in some fundamental way, had disappeared the second the case was over. The rush of it had been fierce, but it had also been fleeting. The endorphin flood, the quick elation, followed by the sudden empty crash—it was, I thought, much like a drug.
Myra was again walking quickly, cutting through the weave of pedestrian traffic, using the cigarette in her hand as a weapon to clear space in front of her.
"You okay?" I asked as we approached our building.
Myra nodded without looking at me. "Just tired," she said.
I stopped walking, and after a moment Myra noticed, stopped, and turned back toward me.
"We should celebrate," I said, trying to fight off the sudden gloom that had covered both of us.
"An acquittal in a murder trial doesn't come around every day. Let's go out to a
nice dinner."
"I don't know, Joel," Myra said.
"You don't know what?" I asked.
"We
work
together," Myra said.
"We just won a big case," I said. "A murder case. I'd like to take
you out for a fancy meal to celebrate. What's the problem?"
"Sorry," Myra said. "I'm sorry, Joel. I'd love to have dinner
tonight, okay?"
"Great," I said, though I wasn't sure if I still meant it.
I'D BEEN
able to get us a last-minute reservation at the River Café, one of Brooklyn's fanciest restaurants, best known for its wall of windows that looked out on the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Lower Manhattan. The food at the River Café was excellent, the atmosphere romantic and elegant, but Myra still didn't seem quite herself. She had changed out of her suit and into a black dress that clung to her angular body. It was the loveliest I'd ever seen her. I was still in my suit, this being the sort of restaurant where men dined in jacket and tie.
Despite the restaurant's best efforts, our conversation throughout dinner was strained and fitful. Even when we hadn't gotten along in the past, we'd never been at a loss for conversation. But Myra was quieter than I'd ever seen her, and nothing I said seemed to fully capture her attention. I ignored it for as long as I could, hoping that sooner or later she'd relax and things would go back to normal, but finally I gave up and asked her what was wrong.
"It doesn't have anything to do with you," Myra said, forcing a smile.
"I'm not sure that makes me feel better," I replied.
Neither of us said anything for a stretch. I finished the wine in my glass, refilled it. The bottle was nearly empty; Myra had been drinking methodically, although without any sign of pleasure.
"Shit," Myra said. "I'm just making it worse, aren't I? Okay. Here's the thing. If Devin knew all this time that Malik had shot him, no way would he wait this long to do anything about it. But he was sitting in that courtroom. I think it's what happened in court that got Malik
Taylor killed."
"You mean that Devin was the first person we convinced," I said.
"We know that Devin didn't see his shooter," Myra said. "There's
no reason to think he had any firsthand knowledge of what happened that night."
"And you think we convinced him?" I asked, tilting my head skeptically.
"You're blaming yourself—you're blaming
us
—for Malik Taylor's
getting killed?"
"I didn't say that—"
"That certainly seems to be where you're going."
"Well goddammit, he
is
dead, isn't he?" Myra snapped, finally meeting my eyes. Her own were brimming with tears.
"He was alive when we started our trial and now he's been gunned down on the
street. And I think we probably put the bullet out there. I think we're
accessories."
"Please," I said instinctively. I'd never seen Myra like this and had assumed she was immune from it.
"First of all, we don't even know that Devin shot Malik."
"Do you think Devin shot Malik?" Myra challenged.
"I think it's possible," I said. "But I don't have enough
information to know. I guess I'm just surprised to hear this from you. I mean, I
think of you as a true scorched-earth type. We did what we needed to do to
represent the best interests of our client, and that's the only thing that can
matter to us."
"I say that and mean it, sure, but I'm still human," Myra said. "I
can't just blindly follow some absolute and ignore the consequences."
I smiled. "That's what I'm trying to do. I find things go down
easier for me if I just try to mindlessly follow the rules. I've tried it the
other way, and, believe me, the percentages just aren't there."
Myra looked at me, curiosity replacing sorrow in her eyes. "This
really doesn't bother you, does it?"
I thought about it. "If I knew for a fact that we were really
responsible I'm sure it would. But I don't know that, and we had a
responsibility to our client."
"Our client was a drug dealer," Myra protested. "And Malik Taylor
was a citizen, a dad, trying to do right by the world."
"Well, fuck, Myra," I said. "We don't get to represent the people
trying to do right by the world."
Myra smiled at this, wiping at her eyes. "Pretty much never," she agreed.
In the silence that followed I thought about her theory of what had happened. I thought about how we'd more or less made up our version of events out of whole cloth, coming up with a story that we'd hoped would be vaguely plausible to those who heard it. Lorenzo Tate, the one person who unequivocally knew whether or not he'd shot two people on that April night, had offered us his own story, his own alibi witness, and we'd rejected it as insufficiently convincing, with no regard for whether or not it was actually true. Lester Bailey had come into court and offered his version of the truth, a version I was thoroughly convinced was a fabrication. Meanwhile our story, cobbled together out of stray facts, innuendo, and supposition, might well have been sufficiently convincing to cost Malik Taylor his life. Or it might have been enough that we'd insinuated the sexual encounter between Malik and Yolanda, that Devin Wallace had committed murder simply to maintain his reputation on the street.
If uncovering the truth of what had happened in the Gardens that night had ever been the goal, it had receded far from view. But that was little different from what had happened to Terrell Gibbons, a victim of his own words and of the story told by Kawame Jones. If there was a thread connecting the truth to the law it was far too thin for me to see. It wasn't the truth; it was simply competing stories. It was storytelling as a form of combat. As this understanding came to me I realized it was the very understanding that Myra had long lived with, but which, just now, had overwhelmed her. I put aside my desire to speak honestly about what we knew in favor of trying to provide whatever form of acceptable consolation I could.
"There's nothing we can do to change any of it now," I said. "We
did the job, that's all."
"You're right," Myra said, taking a sip of her wine. "I think I
just needed to say it out loud."
The waiter came over, asked if we were finished, then took our plates. We'd ordered a prix fixe meal, so we were getting their famous Brooklyn Bridge dessert, even though I was pretty sure that neither one of us was particularly in the mood.
"So, anyway," Myra said, a false brightness in her voice, as the waiter brought out the desserts, an impressive rendition of the iconic bridge made out of chocolate cake.
"I really didn't mean to talk about any of that. I was thinking about it before,
when I went home after work, and I realized you were right. We should be
celebrating tonight, no matter what. Winning an acquittal in a murder case—years
can go by where that doesn't happen. So I bought us a bottle of good champagne."
"Really?" I said, surprised by the gesture. "Where is it?"
"Where is it?" Myra repeated. "Where do you think it is? It's at my apartment."
"I see," I said after a moment, unable to keep a smile off my face.
"Do you?" Myra asked, and now she was smiling too.
"I think so, yes."
"Because I don't think I'm being particularly subtle."
"No," I said. "I don't suppose you are."
"I can be harder to get, if that's what you're looking for."
"What about the whole 'we work together' thing?"
"I guess I'm just going to have to get you fired," Myra said.
41
A
FTER DINNER
we walked out to Myra's car. In the parking lot I took her hand, partially just to see if she'd let me. She did.
We took Front Street over to Gold Street, cutting down through Dumbo to Fort Greene, the neighborhood feeling so quiet as to almost be abandoned. Myra had just coasted to a stop at an intersection when somebody drove right into the back of her car.
The car behind us hadn't been going fast, but the collision was still jarring. I tasted blood from biting my tongue.
"What the fuck," Myra said angrily. "How drunk does this asshole have to be to rearend me at a fucking stop sign?" Before I could say anything she'd jumped out of the car.
I stretched my arms and shoulders, which felt like I'd just been tackled, though I didn't think anything was seriously hurt. I heard Myra's raised voice from outside the car, though I couldn't make out the words. Before getting out myself I turned back to see what was happening.
To my surprise Myra was moving quickly back toward her car. But she wasn't alone. Someone else was climbing into the backseat as Myra opened her door. I looked back instinctively, seeing little more than a black man in a hoodie before my attention was hijacked by the gun in his hand, which was pointed directly at my face. In a flash of panic I realized we were being carjacked. I was too disoriented to have any reaction but raw fear.
"Just start driving," the man in the backseat said. "Drive like there ain't
nothing happening. I'll be telling you where to go."
The voice sounded familiar, but I wasn't able to place it. I didn't want to turn around to look because I figured that was an invitation to getting shot. Myra did as ordered, driving slowly, following instructions. When I looked at her I could see the muscles of her jaw working even in the darkened car. She didn't look at me.
We got onto Flatbush, driving within twenty feet of my apartment, then drove deeper into Brooklyn for another several miles in complete silence. My panic had receded enough that I was starting to be able to think. If this was just a carjacking, why wouldn't the thief have taken the car back in Dumbo, which was far more deserted than where we were now? And Myra's beat-up Volvo was hardly the best car around in that expensive neighborhood. Plus, there was no mistaking the direction we were heading: out toward the Gardens.
Whatever this was, it had to do with the case we'd just tried; I was sure of that. And it didn't seem like it was somebody's way of saying thank you for a job well done.
I was wrong about our destination, though: we kept going past the Gardens, farther into the no-man's-land between Midwood and Flatlands. Finally the man in the backseat told Myra to turn. We were on a faded industrial street, warehouses and small factories instead of apartments, the only illumination coming from the streetlights.
"Pull over here," the man in the back said. "Turn the car off but leave the keys
in there. Now get out the car. If you try and book on me I'll cap you in the
back."
The car lights came on as we opened the doors and got out. I caught a quick glimpse of the man behind me. It was Shawne Flynt.
"Shawne," I said instinctively.
Myra looked at me across the top of the car. "You know this guy?" she said.
"Both of you best just stop talking now," Shawne said, standing beside Myra, the gun steady in his hand and pointed in her direction.
"Now, Mr. Lawyer, why don't you just come over here and stand next to your lady
friend."
I was trying to figure out what I could possibly have done to Shawne Flynt that would make him want to do this. Of course, Shawne had always been operating from a playbook I hadn't understood.
"He was a client," I said to Myra, keeping my voice even. "He knew things about
me that I couldn't figure out how he knew."
"All right, you've said what you got to say," Shawne said, his own voice still calm.
"Now come on over here."
I did as he told me, moving slowly, scanning for a weakness. Shawne had to be close to half a foot taller than I was, something I'd never been more aware of. When I was in front of him Shawne stepped up and, with a quick flick of his wrist, swiped the side of my head with the gun. It was only a halfhearted blow, but enough that I staggered, Myra catching me, the taste of metal in the back of my throat.
"This is where it's at, Mr. Lawyer," Shawne said, nothing different in his voice.
"I tell you not to do something, you best not do it. You feeling me?"
I nodded, wincing back the pain. I tried to take comfort from the fact that Shawne hadn't hit me to really hurt me; if he was planning on killing us he'd have no reason not to have given me a full swing. I didn't know if that was true, but it was something to believe.
"You two just walk in front of me now. We going to go nice and slow toward that
place right across the way."
The building Shawne directed us to was boarded up in front with graffiti-tagged plywood. As we approached I saw that there was a crude door carved out from the wood, a padlock on a loop of chain sliding through a hole in the door. The window frames were boarded up. No light showed anywhere.
As we got to the front of the building I realized the padlock was actually unlocked and dangling.
"Right through there," Shawne said. "That's all you got to do. See how easy this
is?"
I didn't want to go inside the building. Any hope we had of being seen, of someone coming to our aid, depended on our being out on the street. But there was no way to make a break for it without being in plain sight for Shawne to shoot me in the back, and anyway, I couldn't attempt it without abandoning Myra. I tried to think of something—anything—that I could do.
Shawne noticed my hesitation and jammed the gun into my back. I swung the plywood door open and stepped through, Myra beside me. The darkness engulfed us; I could only vaguely see the outline of the building. Shawne still had the gun nudged into the small of my back.
"Just keep on walking. See them stairs going down?" Shawne said, prodding me. I could barely make them out, a handful of steps to the left of the building's entranceway.
"That's where you want to be going."
The stairs were just wide enough that Myra and I could walk side by side. There were about a half dozen steps down, ending in a metal door.
"It be open," Shawne said. "Just go right on through. We're all expected and
shit."
I pushed the door open. It was surprisingly heavy, and it screeched sharply against the floor as it gave. As the door opened I was surprised to see that the room beyond it was glaringly bright with light. There was also a strong odor wafting out. I recognized the smell even before I actually stepped into the room and saw that it was filled with row after row of marijuana plants.
The plants were elevated a couple of feet above the ground, fluorescent lightbulbs arrayed just a few feet above them. The walls were covered with aluminum foil, which reflected back the light and made the room even brighter. The room was large and open, I guessed at least two thousand square feet of space, almost all of which was taken up with pot plants. Space heaters burned in the corners.
"You know where you are?" a voice boomed from the far end of the room.
I glanced over at Myra, who looked rigid with fear, her sharp features screaming in the glaring light. The man who'd spoken was walking toward us, he too with a gun in his hand.
"My guess is we're where Lorenzo Tate used to grow his pot," I replied to Devin Wallace.
"My guess is you took it over while he was at Rikers."
"True that," Devin said, smiling as he approached. "You got to
nurse these bitches, you know. They got all sorts of needs. This shit's mad
complicated. With Strawberry in the pen, this fine chronic would've all just
withered up and died if my people hadn't stepped in."
"I'm sure you're a hero to pot plants everywhere," I said. "But
what do you want with us?"
Devin's smile was without a trace of amusement. "Guess you all
think you can say what the fuck you want so long as you do it inside of court.
You want to step up to me, looks like now's your chance."
"We weren't ever trying to step up to you," Myra said, her voice going soft, no trace of confrontation. I'd expected outrage and bluster from her; that she was playing it so low-key struck me as a bad sign. I took it to mean she didn't think Devin was bluffing.
"We were just doing our jobs."
"Bitch, the fuck did your job have to do with me?" Devin barked, his face contorted with rage.
"What reason you got for putting some bullshit about my business out there? Saying my bitch been stepping out on me with some no-account motherfucker she be with back in the day. You put that out there in front of my crew, ain't like I got no choice but to cap the motherfucker. Now I got the five-oh coming down to the Gardens, fucking with my shit. All that over something that ain't even true. But you all think you can skate because what? Because you fucking
lawyers
?"
"What makes you say it wasn't true?" Myra asked.
"You think I wouldn't know if Yo-Yo was stepping out on me in the Gardens? Shit, there ain't nothing that goes on in there that don't get back to me. That was just some shit you all made up, try and make it look like it was Malik
who come at me."
Devin was wrong about that. We hadn't made it up. Lorenzo Tate had told us about it. Had Lorenzo been mistaken, or was Devin? It wasn't a question I could try to answer now; no matter what the truth was it wasn't going to placate Devin Wallace. However the story had started, our adopting it as Lorenzo's defense had led us directly to where we were now. The story we'd told had been folded into a larger story, one in which it looked like we were the victims rather than the heroes.
"Yo, Devin, you got this?" Shawne said. "I don't want to be seein'
nothing I don't be needing to, you feel me?"
"You know what you do next?"
"Take their ride out to Malcolm's, get it chopped," Shawne said.
"Busted-up old thing ain't even gonna be worth shit."
"You drive slow and steady, and don't be taking no detours."
"You ain't gotta tell me that," Shawne said.
For the first time Devin's attention shifted from us. He turned to Shawne, taking a slow step in his direction.
"You telling me what's what now?" Devin said softly. They were looking at each other, distracted, but Shawne was still between us and the door.
"Ain't like that, D," Shawne said, taking a small step backward.
"I just saying I know what to do."
"What you best be telling me is how I ain't gonna be hearing some
shit on the street 'bout how you helped cap some white lawyers. You feel me?
This ain't some corner shit where the five-oh not gonna give a fuck what anybody
be broadcasting in the projects. I hear you been talking, I ain't even gonna
start with you. First it'll be your grandma over at that house on Putnam. Your
little girl Kinesha after that."
"Yo, D, why you got to be puttin' that out there? I ain't gonna
burn you."
"You do, won't be for long," Devin said. "You feel me?"
Shawne had taken another step back, so that he was framed in the doorway. His face was taut, his mouth pulled back in a grimace. He clearly wasn't in the habit of taking this sort of threat from anyone, but was restraining himself from giving it back to Devin.
"I feel you, D," he said.
"Then go," Devin said. Shawne turned and quickly went out the door he'd just led us through, leaving us alone with Devin.
Shawne had just abducted us and hit me in the head with a gun, but I instinctively felt sorry to see him go. His laconic, offhand threats were nothing compared to Devin's businesslike sadism.
"You see all this shit you stirred up with your nonsense?" Devin said, turning back toward us.
"We thought it was just as likely that Malik shot you as that it was Lorenzo," Myra said, still speaking quietly, but her voice was shaky, like she couldn't catch her breath.
"You going to try and sell me that shit, right in the here and
now? Like you really don't know?"
"We don't know what?"
"Course it was Strawberry who tried to cap me," Devin said matter-of-factly. His anger had disappeared; he seemed calm, which made him even more frightening.
"Even if he ain't never told you, you got to know that."
"We don't know that," I said.
Devin turned to me, a sneer on his face. "Didn't expect to see you even make it to the end of the trial," he said to me.
"Guess you didn't like that present I sent you?"
It took me a moment to understand what he was referring to.
"You ain't never tasted that shit?" Devin asked.
"I flushed it down the toilet," I replied, glancing over at Myra, who was looking over at me, puzzled.
"That there's a shame," Devin said, shaking his head. "Best dope
you ever would've had, too. Shit was so pure, one little toot would've sent you
all the way up to heaven."
I wasn't sure at first that I understood what Devin was saying. But as I looked into his eyes a chill came over me. Any lingering possibility in my mind that Devin was just toying with us was completely erased.
"Why did you want me to OD?"
"I couldn't find a way to reach your boy Strawberry at Rikers," Devin said.
"You were going to be my little message to him."
"How'd you know about me?"
"Shit, you think I ain't got me my own lawyer? And I mean a real
lawyer too. Didn't take him no time to check you out."
It wouldn't, I realized. The public record was there for anyone who knew how to look, had access to the right databases. Any competent lawyer doing basic due diligence on me could've put it together in half an hour. I just hadn't been looking in the right place, had let my assumptions get in the way of my understanding.
"What makes you so sure that it was Lorenzo who shot you?" Myra asked, going into her lawyer mode a little, like she was conducting an interview.
"Did you see him?"
"Naw, I ain't see him, but Yo-Yo did. And I knew he might be
coming at me; I just didn't think he'd have it in him to try and hit me right in
the Gardens."
"Why was he coming after you?" Myra asked.