Small Town

She was good-looking, too, and more age-appropriate and culture-appropriate than the girl he’d hit on. But he’d waited too long, and that was that.

Might as well throw her card away.

Then again, it wouldn’t hurt to hang on to it.

Maury Winters said, “Been a while, boychik. I feel like we’ve been in touch on account of I keep reading about you in the papers.”

“Have I been overdoing it, Maury?”

“No, it’s good, the publicity. The more you show up as an important figure in the arts, the more absurd it is that you should be accused of a crime. Listen, you remember Fabrizzio?”

“Vividly.”

“Yeah, she makes an impression. She also made an offer.”

“Oh?”

“And I report it to you because I have to, but I also have to advise you very strongly to turn it down. What she offers is for you to plead to second-degree manslaughter, with a sentencing recommendation of three to five years. You’d do the minimum and be out in under three.”

“I see.”

“Now the only interesting thing about this offer,” Winters said, “is that she made it, and believe me, she had a tough time getting the words out. The only reason she’d offer a plea to Man Two is her case is looking a little worse every day, and what she wants and what her boss wants is for it to go away. And the reason I’m even bothering you with it is because I’m going to turn it down, thanks but no thanks, and then she’ll ask me what I want, and I’ll say I want her to drop the charges altogether, and she’ll make another offer.”

“Which will be what?”

“My guess? Involuntary manslaughter, a year or two, whatever the code calls for, and the sentence suspended so you got no time to serve.”

“Really.”

“That’s my guess. And that’s where we have a decision to make.”

He thought for a moment. “I’d have to allocute,” he said.

“That’s exactly correct, but how do you even happen to know the word, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“TV.”

“Of course, how else? Now everybody can talk like a lawyer. Yes, you’d have to allocute. You’d have to stand up in front of God and everybody, which includes the judge and the media, and tell how you happened to kill Fairchild.”

“Which I didn’t do.”

“Which you have always maintained you didn’t do, but you’d have to say you did. Now I can’t advise you to lie, but someone in a similar position could say that his partner had been choking on something, had appeared unable to breathe, and consequently he’d taken hold of her and tried to assist her by shaking her, and it so happened he was holding her by the neck, and the shaking didn’t help, and the next thing he knew... well, you get the point.”

“Yes.”

“If she offers it and if we take it, which is a lot of ifs for one sentence, you do no time whatsoever. That’s the good news, but the bad news is you’re on record as saying you did it. Anybody on the inside’ll know it’s a formality, but the general public’s only going to know that you stood up in court and admitted you killed the woman. You’ve got a felony conviction on your record, and yes, you’re free to walk around, but so’s OJ, and there’s not a whole lot of people inviting him over for dinner, or trying to fix him up with their sisters. Other hand, when it comes to prison, there’s a world of difference between being inside and being out.”

“What would you advise, Maury?”

“At this stage,” he said, “I wouldn’t, because what’s to advise when there isn’t an offer on the table? This is just a heads-up, John, so you can start thinking about it. Meanwhile, remember that green rabbit those bozos came around looking for?”

“Blue.”

“Huh?”

“It said blue on the warrant.”

“I stand corrected. Let’s hope they find that Carpenter putz, and they search him head to toe, and when they look up his ass, lo and behold, there’s the rabbit. Then you won’t have to decide what to do about the offer Fabrizzio hasn’t made yet.”

Could he stand up in court and say he’d done it?

If he was innocent, could he proclaim himself guilty? If he was guilty, could he admit it, make it a matter of record?

And suppose he didn’t know? Suppose he couldn’t really say one way or the other?

twenty-two

He had been the hunter. Now he was the hunted.

It had changed so suddenly.

The Carpenter, they called him. At first it had been the Curry Hill Carpenter, when they had no idea who he was or what he’d done beyond the triple murder on East Twenty-eighth Street. He didn’t like the name much, but appreciated the reference to the neighborhood, because that name, Curry Hill, embodied the city’s resourcefulness in matters of nomenclature. Here was an area that didn’t really have a name, that had never been thought of as a discrete geographical entity. It was south of Murray Hill and north of Gramercy, east of Kips Bay and west of the Flatiron district, so how to refer to it if you were trying to sell or lease property there? Well, it was adjacent to Murray Hill, that section named for the Murray family, and Indo-Pak restaurants abounded, so why not Curry Hill?