The Juror (2 page)

I mean here she is, Eddie thinks, surrounded by all these vipers in three-piece silk suits, by barracuda whose hearts run
on grease, who would tear her apart with their
teeth
if someone gave them the word—and she just blinks those big gray eyes at them and that’s it—that’s her whole defense, take
it or leave it.

But Wietzel frowns at her. “Ma’am, you’re saying you’ve heard
nothing
about this case?”

224 turns and lifts her eyes to him.

“Well, no. I have heard… something.”

“And would you share that with us?”

“Yesterday I told my son I was going to be on jury duty today. So I might not be able to pick him up. I mean when I usually
do. And he said, ‘Hey, Mom, maybe you’ll get on that big Mafia case.’ And I said, ‘What big Mafia case?’ And he said, ‘You
know, Louie Boffano—they’re gonna try him for
popping
these guys.’”

Rising swell of greasy laughter from the gallery.

Eddie checks on his boss. Louie Boffano’s back is to the gallery. All Eddie can see of him is a sliver of cheek. But that
sliver fattens out some, and Eddie figures that Louie’s flashing one of his famous devil-damn-me grins at the prospective
juror.

But she doesn’t seem to notice. She plows right on. She says:

“My son told me that
popping
was, when you pop somebody, that’s the same as killing them. And I said, ‘OK, I got that, but who’s Louie Boffano?’ And he
said I was really dumb not to know. I said, ‘OK, I’m really dumb. Who is he?’ He said, ‘Mom, come
on
—he’s the big Spaghetti-O.’”

Wietzel gets his gavel going pretty quick, but it sounds like a drummer’s rimshots after a comic has landed a stinger. The
laughter resounds. The lawyers, the media assholes, the gawkers—all that scum is in bliss. Wietzel himself is having a wrestling
match with his lips, trying to pin them down. And at the defendant’s table, Eddie’s boss is roaring. He’s got his head thrown
back so far you can see his face upside down. He wants us all to see what a good time he’s having. To see the sumptuous pleasure
Louie Boffano draws from being called the Big Spaghetti-O.

The only one not laughing is Juror 224 herself. Her gray gaze is still drifting around the room, and drinking up the scene,
and what plays on her face now, Eddie thinks, is not amusement, it’s pride. She’s simply proud of her kid’s cleverness. Sort
of the way Eddie himself felt that time last year when his daughter won Honorable Mention in Domestic Science at Mamaroneck
High.

Wietzel pounds down the uproar. “If we have any more of these outbursts,” he says, “I’m giving you all fair warning, I will
not hesitate to clear this court.”

Oh Wietzel, thinks Eddie. You’ll
never
clear this court. You crave an audience every bit as much as Louie Boffano does. I mean if we were having a
food fight
in here, if we were all
mooning
each other, still it would break your heart to clear the court. So stick your bullshit back up your ass where it belongs.

When at last the judge gets the gloomy pindrop silence he’s waiting for, he asks, “Do you think that what your son told you
will influence your verdict in this case?”

“No.”

“No prejudice for or against the defendant?”

“My son is twelve years old, Your Honor.”

Eddie glances at the prosecutor’s table. Michael Tallow, the DA for Westchester County, is whispering to one of his pawns.

Eddie sees him lift one shoulder just a notch.

Sort of a shrug.

It means he’ll take her. Christ.

Nine murder trials out of ten, a white single mother from Westchester, that’d spell
acquittal.
And an artist? That’d put it in caps. And that goofy South American handbag she’s carrying? Ah, Jesus, that’d put it in whimpering
yellow on a big white flag of surrender: PLEASE, YOUR HONOR, OH PLEASE LET THE POOR OPPRESSED MR. SPAGHETTI-O GO
FREE.

Nine cases out of ten, the DA wouldn’t go anywhere near the bleeding heart of a babe like this.

But this is a
mob
trial.

This is one time Tallow will be
looking
for weepers. For anybody old-fashioned enough to think a syndicate hit is still
murder
, and not just an unpleasantness among hoodlums. For anybody who might actually bemoan the passing of that gutter-rat Salvadore
Riggio and his spoiled grandson, anyone sucker enough to shed a tear when the guy’s widow takes the stand and the gnashing
of teeth begins.

Tallow’s assistant nods back at him—the slightest nod.

It’s done then: they’ll take 224.

Which pisses Eddie off. He likes this alien. Stupid, but there it is. He doesn’t see why
she
should have to swim in this slime. So what if there was once a little bad blood between Louie Boffano and Salvadore Riggio,
what the hell does that have to do with her? Why not let her go home to her kid and her art and her own little workaday worries?

Why should those great gray eyes be obliged to absorb this pollution?

Let her go.

And by God Wietzel seems to hear Eddie’s silent plea. For once in his life Wietzel does something fair and just and good.
He looks down upon 224 from his high altar and he says, “You may be excused, ma’am. If you like.”

A silly grin starts to go up on Eddie’s face.

The judge goes on, “I’ll try to keep this trial short, but I’m sure it will last several weeks at the least. And during deliberations,
you will be sequestered. This court is well aware that a trial of this nature can present unreasonable hardships for some
jurors. You’ve told us that you’re a single mother, that your economic situation is somewhat strained. That’s enough for me.
If you say it would present a grave hardship for you to serve on this jury—I’ll excuse you.”

Why, Wietzel! You know, Wietzel, I was looking forward to erasing your ugly bucket face someday—but now maybe I won’t. On
account of this little rag of mercy you’ve extended to my sweet 224.

But 224 isn’t getting up and going. She’s still sitting there. She has her eyes lowered, and clearly she’s thinking this over.
Thinking hard.

Oh Christ.
Get out of here now.

She looks up and asks the judge, “If I did serve, would I, um, would I be safe?”

Wietzel frowns. Seems surprised himself that she isn’t scurrying on her way, but he collects himself and says, “Of course.
You’ll be perfectly safe. In fact, let me say again that
no
juror has
ever
been harmed in a trial in Westchester County. That doesn’t mean that we won’t take precautions. For example, although I don’t
think it’s necessary to sequester you throughout the trial, I have instructed that all the jurors are to be driven to and
from this courthouse daily from some location known only to yourselves and your driver. Your anonymity will be
treasured
here. No one will know your name.
I
won’t even know your name. But I will always be available to you. And in the event that anyone
does
try to influence your verdict on this case, you have only to say a word to me, in private, in my chambers, and those persons
will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. So in this regard you can feel perfectly secure.”

Oh, bite me, Eddie thinks.

Wietzel, you son of a stinking turd,
bite me.

Juror 224 is thoughtfully pursing her lips, and her alien gray eyes are glimmering and she says, “Well, then, then I think
I could get someone to take care of my son. For when I’m sequestered.”

“And you
would
like to serve?”

“Um. Yes. I would. Yes.”

It dawns on Eddie that here we’ve got the dumbest woman ever to walk the face of the earth.

Says Wietzel, “I commend you for your good citizenship, and I ask that you return tomorrow for further examination by the
prosecution and by counsel for the defense. Thank you, you’re excused for now.”

Juror 224 rises. She seems exhausted. It hasn’t been easy for her, arriving at that noble bonehead resolution. She’s confused
and doesn’t know which way to go. The bailiff beckons her, and she follows him. She’s a small woman. Her walk is plain but
with a wisp of a wobble. A holdover maybe from when she was a kid trying to act like a starlet. Or maybe she’s just unsteady
from sitting around all day waiting to be called.

Whichever, that walk gets to Eddie.

He watches her go, watches the nice flip side of that wobble.

And then he sees Louie Boffano turn. Just for an instant, to glance at someone sitting way over on the other side of the spectators’
gallery.

Louie Boffano has his lower lip tucked under his teeth. It’s as thoughtful a look as you’ll ever get out of the guy. He wants
someone back there to see that look.

Then he looks away again. And no one knows that Louie has flashed a sign with that glance.

It’s OK by me if that’s the one you want. She’s yours.

Eddie swivels his head.

The man Louie was signaling to is all the way back near the corner of the gallery. Surrounded by trial freaks, a nobody. He
wears a bland turtleneck and moony tinted glasses and a furry fake blond mustache. He has no presence at all. He’s gazing
at nothing. At vapors. He looks to be lost in what you’d guess—if you didn’t know Vincent the way Eddie knows him—were the
most trivial and commonplace of thoughts.

Suddenly he gets up.

Eddie glares at his own fist in his lap and he thinks, OK then you brain-dead bitch, this is what you wanted? OK you got it.
Who’s going to help you now?

When he looks back, the space where Vincent was sitting is now empty.

Eddie silently counts to twenty. Then he rises and pushes his way down the row of spectators out to the aisle. He keeps his
head low, and he nods to the guard and pushes open the huge door, and he leaves the courtroom. He passes quickly through the
ugly jagged-edge Buck-Rogers lobby.

He goes to do what he’s paid to do.

A
NNIE
sits in the old Subaru and waits on her son Oliver, who’s studying the buckle of his seat belt. He’s always studying things.
He stares too long at even the simplest tasks before he gets down to work. Sometimes he’ll stare so long he forgets what he’s
supposed to be doing.

Dreamland. He drives her crazy.

“Oliver. Let’s go.”

He gets the belt snapped in.

She backs out of Mrs. Kolodny’s driveway and turns onto Ratner Avenue.

“Hey guess what,” she says. “You were a star today.”

“Bull. I was the
zero
kid today. You know where Jesse is on DragonRider?
Fifth
Dome—he did it last night. I can’t get into the Second Dome without some Troll-Slave clobbering my ass. Jesse and Larry say
I’m a retard ’cause I can’t find the Invisible Potion.”

“Maybe the Invisible Potion is in the Fallen Keep?”

“Wrong again,” says Oliver. “Larry says it’s in the Western Shire. The freakin Western Shire.”

“Maybe Nintendo’s not your forte and you should concentrate on something else.”

“It’s not Nintendo, Mom. It’s Sega.”

“Maybe you should take up some other specialty. Like school-work.”

“Yeah, right,” he says. “No
doubt
.”

“Or maybe Jesse’s trying to throw you off the track. Maybe there isn’t any Invisible Potion.”

“The kid’s a lying weasel all right.”

“You shouldn’t say that about your friends.”

“No doubt.”

They come to the lake and take a left on Old Willow Avenue. They pass the town library, which used to be a chapel. Autumn’s
starting to take hold. Jolts of rust and ruby in the sycamores along the lake.

Oliver pulls from his pocket a piece of Booger Bubblegum. He stares at the wrapper. Unwraps it. Studies the wad. Pops it in
his mouth.

“Anyway,” she tells him, “you
were
the star today. Star of the county court. They asked me if I’d ever heard of Louie Boffano and I told them my son had called
him the big Spaghetti-O and that got a big laugh.”

“Wow. You’re really on that case?”

“If they take me.”

They pass Cardi’s Funeral Home.

“And you’re going to do it? You’re gonna be a juror on
that
case? Are you nuts, Mom?”

Good question.

There was that moment, on the stand, when she was on the verge of asking the judge if she might be excused, considering she’s
got a son to raise and a boss who’s threatening to lynch her if she doesn’t get out of jury duty. Plus a show going on at
Inez’s gallery for her sculpture.

Then, when she said she’d do it, everyone must have figured her for a lunatic. That’s how she figures it herself. What other
conclusion can she draw?

“I don’t know,” she says. “Well, you know it wasn’t just the old godfather who got killed. They got his grandson too. Fourteen
years old. I guess I was thinking about you. I guess I thought it was my duty. I’m always telling
you
about being responsible and all. Right?”

“Sure.”

“You see what I’m saying?”

“Sure.”

“Well OK, you want the truth? Maybe I thought it’d be exciting. I think I’m getting a little worn out with the grind. I mean…
it really wasn’t such a bright idea, was it?”

“Mom, is this for real? You’re on the
Louie Boffano
trial? Wait’ll Jesse hears this.”

“No. Jesse’s not hearing nothing. Neither is anyone else. I mean I shouldn’t have told
you.
Listen, Oliver, it’s a
secret
that I’m a juror on this case. Nobody knows my name. Not even the judge. They call me by a number. I’m completely anonymous—you
know what that means?”

“Sure, it means they won’t put your picture in the
Weekly World News.
That won’t stop Louie Boffano. If he wants to find you—”

“Oh quit it. He wouldn’t dare. They’ve got a word for that, you know, it’s called tampering. You know what would happen to
him if he were caught tampering with a juror?”

“What?”

“He’d go to jail.”

“But he’s already
in
jail. Probably for the rest of his life. So what’s he got to lose?”