“Oh, they’re gonna say, ‘Well, that makes it official. The jury has spoken. These two walking bigots cost us a case. Who needs a couple of parasites like them?’ Without us they wouldna had a case in the first place. But you know about how much they’re gonna take that into consideration.”
“I thought grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret.”
“The are… supposed to be. The only opinions they’re supposed to give are ‘indict’ and ‘not indict.’ But you watch TV and the radio and whoever puts this stuff on the internet—the grand jury, they’re not supposed to, but they’ll talk to the bastards. It sounds like they already have. If you ask me, we’re fucked.”
“Has anybody called you, anybody from the Department, like the zone captain or somebody?”
“Not yet, but they will… they will…”
“I don’t know about you,” said Nestor, “but I can’t just stand around waiting for the axe to fall. We’ve gotta do something.”
“Okay, tell me what. Tell me one thing we can do that won’t make it worse.”
Silence. “Give me a little time. I’ll think of something.” All he could think of at that very moment was Ghislaine. Ghislaine Ghislaine Ghislaine… He wasn’t even thinking of what she might conceivably do for him as a witness who might back him up by testifying that whatever he had said about that big side a beef in the crack house came in the heat of a life-or-death battle. No, he was thinking solely of her lovely pale fair face.
“I’m gonna find whoever made that cell phone video and get hold of the first half of it and show what really happened.”
“Yeah,” Hernandez was saying, “but you’ve already tried that.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll try again, Jorge. I’m gonna pull together an entire defense.”
“Bueee-no, muy bueee-no,” said Hernandez in a tone that identified Nestor as a hopelessly naive kid. “But you check with me… okay? You gotta be careful what you pull on when you do all this pulling together. You understand what I’m saying? Look at it this way. In a way we’re better off. The fucking case is over. We don’t have to sit there in some courtroom and be called every goddamned thing in the world—and then get thrown off the force. You see what I mean?”
“Yeah…” said Nestor in a flat tone, all the while thinking, ::::::Spoken like a true veteran bullshitter. Maybe that’s a consolation for you because you’re the one who actually said all that stuff. I don’t feel like jumping into your grave with you.:::::: For no reason that he could have possibly explained, he thought of Ghislaine again. He could see her lovely lissome legs crossed the way they were at Starbucks… the lithe, slim, somehow French look of the calf of the leg whose bent knee lay atop the knee of the other… but he did not think about the mysteries of her loamy loins… He didn’t think of her that way… Finally he said aloud, “To tell the truth, Jorge, I don’t see what you mean. It’s no consolation to me, not going through a trial. Me, I wish to hell there was going to be a trial. I’d like to lay the whole goddamn thing out on the table, and some way I’m gonna do that.”
“Don’t you see how little difference it’s gonna make to ‘lay the whole thing out on the table’?” said Hernandez. “It could just as easy make things worse.”
Nestor said, “Yeah, well, you could be right… but I can’t just sit here… because it’s worse than that. I feel like I’m strapped into the electric chair, wondering when they’re gonna throw the switch. I’ve gotta do something, Jorge!”
“Okaaaay, amigo, but—”
“I’ll let you know,” said Nestor. “Right now I gotta go.” Not even so much as a goodbye.
16
Humiliation One
Amélia sat slumped back, caved in, all but submerged in the pillowy billows of the only easy chair in their apartment… with her legs crossed, forcing her skirt… which was about this long to begin with… up so far that when Magdalena came in, she wondered, at first, if it were a skirt or a shirt… She was disappointed to find Amélia in such a dejected state… disappointed to the edge of resentful. ::::::What have you got to be acting so self-absorbed about?:::::: Magdalena was counting on Amélia’s ever-cheerful, ever-clearheaded self to listen to her problems. She assumed a pose of her own. She perched herself in shorts and a T-shirt on the seat of a