Now all the boys were screaming, going crazy. The mayor was down. The mayor was down.

Ponessa went for the boy’s eyes, clawing and screaming. The boy was breathing hard as he pulled in Ponessa’s neck tighter, walking with his feet, finding purchase and pinning both the kid’s shoulders to the wet sand. With his free hand, he pummeled Ponessa good several times until the blood was flowing free from his nose. Ponessa was yelling that he couldn’t breathe and making gaspy little-girl noises.

The boy felt good and started to let up on Ponessa’s neck when a thick forearm reached around his own and pulled him up and off the sand and breaking surf. The crew-cut guard spun to face him and smacked the boy hard across the mouth. He pushed the boy hard with the flats of his hands, knocking him back time and again until the boy lost his balance and fell forward.

“Get the stick,” the guard said.

The waves were ice-cold and breaking hard off the concrete and rocks. Even if he knew where to find the stick, he didn’t want to get in the water.

The guard stepped up closer and looked down at him. He kicked the boy hard in the ribs, knocking all the breath from his lungs, and told him to get to his knees. “Start diving and don’t come up without no fucking stick.”

“I’ll drown,” the boy said.

The guard picked the boy up by the back of the neck and walked him out knee-deep into the freezing water.

26

Not making good on their promise, the Blackburn PD didn’t wait a week but instead sent me over to the courthouse the next morning. I had not shaved, showered, or changed my clothes. I was lucky. They gave me an orange jumpsuit to wear. Rita Fiore, who sat across from me in a client conference room, didn’t seem impressed.

“Orange is not your color,” she said.

“I thought it brought out my blue eyes.”

“Charging you with an indecent proposal is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rita said. “Jesus, you won’t even make one toward me. The judge will toss this out quick.”

“Did I forget to mention Callahan and Scali are buddies?”

“Which one is Scali again?”

“The one who sentenced Sheila Yates’s kid to hard time for poking fun at his vice principal.”

“Okay, you’re screwed.”

“Such a fancy legal term.”

“Seriously, you’re screwed,” Rita said. “But let me see what I can do. Even judges have limits to what kind of bail they can set.”

“He’ll go for the max.”

“Can’t you pay it?”

“I’ll have to sell my Sandy Koufax and Ernie Banks,” I said.

“And then what?”

“Maybe the Harmon Killebrew rookie card,” I said.

“Don’t run to Sotheby’s yet,” she said. “Let’s see what he says. All of this is just to scare you.”

“My hands won’t quit trembling.”

“I bet.”

“I don’t think they’ve thought any of this out.”

“Who’s this girl again?” she said. “Megan says you knew her.”

“I thought I did,” I said. “Maybe I still do.”

“You think she’s being coerced?”

“She came to me for help,” I said. “Her name is Beth Golnick. She’s been introducing me to some teens who’ve gone before Scali. As you know, some cops planted drugs on her. And then yesterday the cops played a tape for me where she accuses me of asking for sex.”

“Wonderful,” Rita said.

“I think she’s been threatened, or at least strongly coerced.”

“Well, I can’t cross-examine her today,” Rita said. “Today is only about getting you sprung and out of that ridiculous suit.”

“How would you rather see me?”

Rita appraised me, tapping her chin with her forefinger. “In nothing but a nice red ribbon.”

“I’ll borrow one of Susan’s.”

“Susan will never have to know.”

“But I’d know.”

Rita crossed her legs, sat up straighter, and grinned at me. Like Susan, she had a very wicked grin. We had known each other a very long time and in the small space it was a great comfort she’d come to help. I reached for her hand and squeezed.

“I sure know how to pick ’em,” she said.

The guard opened the door and let her out. I was led back to the court with the other prisoners. Rita found a spot in the courtroom. I got to sit on a long, hard bench waiting for Callahan. He did not seem to be in any hurry, looking down from on high, shuffling through the docket. He was a pig-faced Irishman with a high-pink complexion and white hair swept back from his forehead. He had a thick, bloated neck and looked to be wearing a size-XXL black robe. He held a big cup of coffee on the bench with him and took an audible slurp between his pronouncements. At the moment, he was talking to a skinny young woman who’d been busted for possession of heroin.

“Not my problem,” he said. “The court ordered you to rehab and you left early. How long has it been since your last appearance?”

The skinny woman mumbled something I could not hear.

“Two weeks?” Callahan said before slurping his coffee. “Well, Jiminy Cricket on a stick. What? Okay. Okay. Sorry, sweetheart. Off you go.”

Bond was set for ten thousand bucks. The woman cried very loudly. Callahan slurped some coffee and launched into a coughing fit. Four cases later, my name was called. Rita joined me at the lectern. Callahan had not glanced up once, reading the charges and then taking a long pause. The lectern had a microphone. Perhaps some “Volare”?

The bailiff told the courtroom I’d been charged with sexual misconduct with a minor. Perhaps not. I looked to Rita and Rita back to me. She spent the next four minutes telling the judge that I was actually a pretty swell guy.

Callahan stared down at me and smiled. The smile was quick, but it was there. He slurped his coffee a final time and set bail at a quarter million.

Under her breath, Rita accused Callahan of being intimate with his mother.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is ridiculous.”

“I know.”

“You want me to call Susan?”

“She knew what would happen.”

“And what’s she going to do?”

“It’s been taken care of.”

27

Hawk met me in the lobby of the city jail. Back in street clothes, I was in need of a hot shower and something edible. We did not speak while we walked from the jail and down the steps to the parking lot. It was a dark morning and snowing. Snowplows were out scraping clean the potholed streets of Blackburn.

Hawk hit the locks on his Jaguar and I slid into the passenger seat. The car smelled of new leather and civilization. He had his stereo on low. I recognized the guttural voice of Howlin’ Wolf from the original Chess sessions. He sang a song called “Smokestack Lightning.”

“They sure want to fuck you hard, babe.”

“Yep.”

“Coming at you from all sides,” he said. “The creeps and the law. Got to believe you hit a raw nerve.”

“Would you believe this all started because a kid said his vice principal liked to garden in the nude?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“The man didn’t have a sense of humor.”

“And what happened to the kid?”

“Cooling his heels in a juvie facility out on Fortune Island.”

“I was nine years old first time I was arrested,” Hawk said. “Stealing a bottle of whiskey for my uncle.”