The Juror (8 page)

“That name. Lao Tsu? He started some religion, didn’t he?”

“Taoism. Though really the man himself—he was perhaps mythical.”

“Are you a Taoist?”

He laughs. “I don’t know. Lao Tsu says when the foolish man hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud. And that, that sounds like
me. But I find him compelling too. Become a valley, he says, stop struggling against that… structure, fate, whatever… and
everything will flow to you.”

They come to a crossroads and she tells him, “Take a left here.” He glances over at her.

He asks no questions. He goes where she tells him. But he must know perfectly well that she’s taking him home.

At her studio she says, “I hate this light. Wait, just wait a minute, I’ll light a candle.”

He looks at the row of finished Grope Boxes on the far wall. He says, “But then I won’t be able to see… Oh, but I guess I
don’t need to.”

She digs in a drawer for matches and lights a beeswax candle. “OK.” She grabs the cord, snaps off the overhead. Lights another
candle and sets it in the window. There’s quite a wind outside, and the studio is drafty, and the candle flickers.

He’s standing by the boxes now. He looks back at her and asks, “Which?”

She lights the third candle. “Doesn’t matter. Any one.”

“They’re like the ones in the gallery? I just reach under and… ?”

“Cop a feel. Yep.”

He chooses
The Dream of Giving Notice
.

Simply by watching his wrist as it disappears, by noting the frowns of intent concentration that alternate with quick revelatory
smiles, she knows what his hand has got hold of. The tin birdcage first. Then he reaches through the hole in the bottom till
he’s got his hand inside the cage, and he finds the computer keyboard. He makes that awkward twist of the wrist so he can
put his fingers on the keys.

All the keys are fitted with sandpaper caps.

Watch him.

He slides his arm farther up and he touches the bars of the cage. And then the tiny open door. Then the broken padlock. He
stretches farther, stretches to get his fingers out the door of that cage. He can feel the breeze coming off the little fan,
but he can’t squeeze his whole hand through the door.

By now he has sunk to one knee. His eyes, which had been focused on nothing, come to focus on her, and he says, “It’s wonderful.
And listen, listen to me, it’s not a dream. You
can
give notice. You
can
escape that hell. You can do nothing but make art from now on.”

She blushes.

But he’s also blushing. He says, “This is… this is a little embarrassing.”

“What?”

“Well, I mean reaching under this skirt and feeling”—he starts laughing—“your private stuff.”

Annie’s face is laced up into a tipsy grin. She wants to unlace it, but she can’t. Look at him, it’s so much fun to look at
him. Dizzily she moves over to the big rocker with its fat sweet cushions. She sits. She sprawls a little. She starts to laugh.
She tells him, “Feel that one.”

“Which one?”

“That one!” She points to “
Cardinal O’Connor Asserts: God Is Male.
”

“I’ve already felt it,” he says.

“No,
that
one.”

“I’ve felt it,” he says again.

“No, no. I just finished it. I mean—”

“I felt it yesterday.”

He grins. But her own smile has started to fade, because she’s bewildered. “Yesterday? I didn’t know you yesterday.”

“But I was here,” he says.

Joke? Of some kind? Maybe some kind of joke or pun that she can’t quite fathom. She’s wrestling with it. But he’s not grinning
anymore, he’s coming her way, and the atmosphere has changed, his face is different, cold, wrong. The world starts to curdle
at the edges and she’s thinking, in her panic,
Oliver
. Till she remembers he’s not home tonight, by now Jesse’s mother’s got him. So all right, Oliver’s safe, but this stranger
is still between her and the door and she’s got to get out of here but where can she run? But it doesn’t matter where. She’s
got to get out of this chair and she better grab something for a weapon, and she starts to rise—

“Stay there, Annie.”

He yanks the cord for the overhead light. It snaps on. Stings her eyes. He takes a stool and moves it in front of her. He
perches on it.

“Listen to me now.” He speaks gently. “You’re in danger. And your son is in danger.”

“Oliver? What? Where’s my son—”

“He’s at Jesse’s house, right?”

“Please,” she says.

Zach Lyde’s voice is so soft it’s nearly a whisper. “He’s an extraordinary child, isn’t he? You know, when you were playing
that video game last night? You remember? DragonRider? And the spider came at you and you started to panic, and Oliver said,
‘Just
chill
, Momba.’ You remember that?”

Her mouth is open and her eyes are filling with tears. When she tries to speak her voice seizes up. “How—” She tries again.
“How do you know—”

“When I heard you two laughing I swore I’d do everything I could to get him through this. Annie. Do you hear what I’m saying?
This is a dangerous time for him. He could stray, he could become confused, make some childish error. We could lose him.”
He snaps his fingers. “That quick.”

She watches the afterimage of that snap.

He tells her, “He needs to overcome that hesitation of his. The dreaminess is fine but he also needs to learn how to
act
. I think he will, though. Give him time, I think he’ll be a success. I think he’ll be happy, and creative, and good-looking,
I think someday you’ll have grandkids running all over the place. And your friend Juliet, she’ll be safe too. You’ve got a
cousin in Titusville, Florida, right? She’ll be fine. Everyone you care about, they’ll all be safe as churches. Do you understand
me? Nod your head. Now. Do as I say.”

She nods.

“And you—all you have to do is wait. All right? Wait, wait some more, be very patient and wait some more, and then at some
point you’ll be asked to say two words. Two, precisely. Do you know what they are?”

She can only stare.

He says, “Yes? No? What? Have you guessed these words?”

She shakes her head, slowly.

He narrows his eyes. He leans in close to her and tells her softly, casually, “
Not guilty
.”

T
HE TEACHER
remembers what he heard Annie telling Juliet today: “I’m not shy, I’m
private
.”

She keeps her own counsel. She keeps her struggles to herself.

“I don’t babble to men,” she said.

A woman so private that she even keeps her art in the dark—in these discreet black boxes. She wants you to feel nosy and awkward
when you grope around in one of her crates. She wants you to know you’re intruding.

She’d just as soon not give you
anything
.

And yet this is the woman he’s calling on to carry the argument in the jury room. To cajole, persuade, fulminate and never
let up on the pressure for an instant till all the other jurors give in.

He walks over to the studio’s casement window. Looks out on the windy night. No rush. Take it easy. Give her a little time
now.

But he’s thinking, This is the one I’ve chosen? I’ve got to be out of my mind.

Out of my mind to pick on Annie Laird, he thinks, and he smiles.

A
NNIE
can’t understand why there’s no light in here. Where’s the light? The studio is dismal, dim, gray. She hears her own strained
breathing. She looks around and sees that the overhead light is on. But the light is so weak. There are also candles. Three
candles. One of them is guttering, the flame leaping and thudding. Where did these candles come from? Why the hell did she
ever light candles, and why don’t they give off any light so she can see?

“Annie.” That soft voice, dry as a katydid, lulling. Now he’s somewhere behind her. “Annie, are you listening?”

She shuts her eyes.

“You have to listen to me.”

She can’t answer, her voice isn’t there. She draws another breath, and finally she’s able to whisper, “I’m listening.”

“Because, Annie, there
is
another choice for you. If you like you can wait till I leave, then call the police. Or even the FBI. They’ll have an agent
here inside of an hour. They’re dedicated honest people and I assure you they’ll do everything they can to defend you. You
and your child.”

He pauses a moment. He’s in no hurry.

“But, Annie, do you know what they’ll have to do to you?”

He waits, until she shakes her head.

“First they’ll put you and Oliver in a safe house. Then as soon as the trial’s over you’ll both go into Witness Protection.
You know what that is, don’t you? That’s where they give you a new life. Somewhere far off. New names. Maybe even new faces—plastic
surgery. Also a nice job in your chosen career. Which is… data processing, right?

“But forget about your art.

“Because I promise you, if you ever show your sculptures at any gallery anywhere, I don’t care what name you use or what kind
of work you’re doing, we’ll know it’s you. And we’ll come and we’ll find you. No, on second thought, go ahead and put your
work in the Whitney Biennial. Have an opening at MOMA. Because we’re going to find you anyway. Anywhere. End of the earth,
we’ll find you.”

He reaches into his breast pocket and takes out a small notebook and passes it to her.

“Open this.”

She looks at it. She doesn’t move.

“Please don’t make me repeat everything,” he says. “We have to work together. There’s no other way.”

She opens the notebook, which has been made into a little scrap-book. Glued to the first page is a newspaper clipping. A mug
shot—some wan droopy-eyed man—and under it the caption:

The article itself has been snipped away.

She doesn’t know the face. She doesn’t know why she should be looking at it. He tells her to turn the page, and she does,
and finds another clipping—an obit. It says that the deceased, Harold Brown, was the owner of a video rental outlet in Lincoln,
Nebraska. That he “apparently took his own life.” There’s also a color Polaroid of someone in a coffin.

“It’s the same man,” he says. “Our ‘alleged Mafia capo.’ Of course he went into Witness Protection. Of course it didn’t protect.
Are you wondering how his enemies found him? Any guesses? My theory is, someone must have bugged his sister’s telephone. Someone
must have shown a great deal of patience and perseverance. Now turn the page.”

But her fingers are shaking, and she can’t get this page separated from the next. Till he reaches from behind her and turns
it for her.

“Well, this one now,” he says, “the thing about this one is that he shouldn’t have been working with machinery in the first
place. He was a street mule. What did he know about machines? Why did Witness Protection make him a machinist?” His voice
is close to her now. “And why did they think they could leave him unguarded for even an instant?”

He turns the page.

“Study this one.”

A grainy photograph of the front steps of some federal-looking building. A woman is descending those steps alone.

“Linda Benelli. She ought not to have testified. It’s my fault, because I think I could have dissuaded her but I didn’t try.
I didn’t realize how angry my colleagues would be, and I let it go. But now look what happened. Turn the page.”

Again he has to help her.

She’s confronted by the photograph of a smiling elderly couple. A Christmas-card kind of photo, and it’s been reprinted in
this newspaper article under the heading:

“Her parents,” he says.

After the first rush of dizziness, of swirling, there’s a slight clearing in Annie’s head. “Wait,” she says. “Wait a minute,
how do I—”

“How do you know these pictures are real? I guess you don’t know,” he says. “You can’t.”

He takes the book from her lap.

He says, “You’re right, this is foolish, isn’t it? This is like a child’s game of show and tell. It doesn’t prove a thing.”

He slips the book back into his breast pocket. “I want to persuade you, Annie. That’s all. If I could have brought you someone’s
head
, someone’s head in a box, I’d have done it. All I want is to persuade you. Because if I don’t? If I can’t convince you that
we mean what we say, if you decide to go to the police—then Louie Boffano goes down and I go down with him, and someone close
to you will be hurt beyond repair and to what purpose? For nothing. For the sake of stupid vengeance, so much pointless suffering.
Then if they execute me it’ll be too good for me. So please, Annie, please.
Believe me
.”

When she looks up he’s squatting on his haunches in front of her. His face is huge, it’s the only thing in her vision.

“Will you believe me?” he says. “Will you help me?”

She hears her breath getting ragged, breaking up. “I
can’t
. I wouldn’t be, I’ll just, I’ll cry. I’m a crybaby. I won’t be able to stop crying, they’ll take me off the jury, they’ll—”

“You think if the judge sees you crying he’ll excuse you from the jury?”

“He, he’ll
have
to.”

He shakes his head. “But if he did excuse you, then we’d suspect some kind of betrayal on your part—”

“Oh, God,
no
, I wouldn’t say a word, never, I swear—”

“Annie, I know you wouldn’t
mean
any harm but still, there would be that smidgen of doubt in our minds. And in turn? I know that some tragedy would befall
someone you care for—”

“No, please! I, please, I only meant—”

He gives her a small dismissive wave. He rises and crosses to the bench in the middle of the studio, and sits.

“That’s not a way out. I wish it were. But there’s only one way out. We
need you
.”

“But I
can’t
. If he’s guilty I can’t. Please! You don’t know me, I can’t lie. People always know. If I said I thought he didn’t do it,
but I really thought he did? They’d know I was lying. And he
did
kill them, didn’t he? He killed that old man, and that boy, he killed both of them! Didn’t he?”