worry about what the other guy’s carrying. That’s because none of mine got a past. Pure virgins, every single piece.
“See, that’s no lady you’re carrying, my friend; that’s a whore. And you know whores: if she’ll sell her pussy, she’ll sell you. Get it now?”
I wasn’t going to tell the lawyer about that. But there was something he’d need to know. I figured I might as well get it over with. “Only thing is, the serial numbers were—”
“Not good,” the lawyer said. “Even worse if they make a call to ATF.”
“You on the panel for the Federal Court, too?”
He gave me a look. I just looked back.
“I am on the CJA Panel,” he finally said. “But that’s not the point. Whatever you know about that gun, they know, too, by now. No matter how you play it, being caught with it wasn’t a good thing for you. But it’s not good enough for them, either.”
“How come?”
“Carrying, that’s a felony hit all by itself, sure. But it’d be a long way to turn it into another violence beef. You didn’t do anything with that gun,” he said, making it a question.
“I never even pulled it,” I said. “But it was ready to go.”
“Maybe someone had been threatening you?”
“That’s it, all right.”
He was quiet for a minute, making a thing out of reading some papers he had with him. He looked up, said: “That gun, it was a regular carry piece?”
“You mean, did I walk around with it, or just happen to have it that particular day?”
“Okay,” he said. Meaning, he wanted to see if I could guess what the right answer should be. If I was going to tell a story, it’d have to be a good one.
“Ever since I started getting those threats, I never left home without it,” I said. “I’ve been shot before; it’ll be on my records.”
He flashed me just enough of his teeth for me to see he took real good care of them. Then he started looking through a bunch of papers he had with him, like he had all the time in the world.
I guess he did. They pay these 18-B guys by the hour. And it wasn’t like I had anything better to do.
Finally, he made a little motion for me to put my face close. He wrote something on his yellow pad. I looked: NEVER VOUCHERED is what it said, in tiny letters.
I moved my lips real slow, so I could say what I wanted without making a sound: “The piece?”
“It’s not anywhere in all this,” he said, running his pen over what he’d shown me. He really worked at it, crosshatching the words into a black blob, but he made it seem like he didn’t realize what he was doing. “Of course, it doesn’t have to be. Like I said, I haven’t filed any motions—they gave me all this without me even asking. And now I think I see why.”
“It’s a card they’re holding back?”
“No. Listen.” He leaned toward me again; I did the same toward him. He spoke so soft I could barely hear him: “The rape, it wasn’t gunpoint; the guy put a—”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” I said. Just moving my lips like before, not making a sound. But he heard me. Heard me good.
“What’s your problem?” he said, backing off. “I’m just trying to—”
“Yeah, I know. But right now I could walk in and pass any polygraph they got. Sure, the operator’s going to tell me I failed, see if that gets me to confess. But they’ll see I’m not lying. That’s why I talked to the cops for so long after they picked me up. I figured, sooner or later, they’d ask me, since I was innocent and all, would I mind taking the test? I had the surprise all ready for them, but they never took the bait.”
“That wouldn’t be admissible—”
“I know. But it’s something, right? They started with the registered sex offenders. Stupid fucks: every joint’s got plenty of rape artists who pleaded to burglary, so there’s all kinds of sex fiends who wouldn’t even be on that list. I figure, if she stopped when they got to my picture, they probably didn’t show her any more pictures.”
He nodded.
“Then, when I went in the lineup, she was looking for the guy who matched the picture, see?”
“Right. And that’s exactly what we’ll be saying. But why don’t you—?”
“It’s not much, but it’s something. If you start telling me the details, that’ll mess up the test …