Hard News

Herald
, reading the national news, when he sat upright in bed. “Oh, shit.”
    She was curling her eyelashes. “Huh?”
    But Nestor was standing up, walking to his dresser, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He pulled out a jumble of underwear and socks and knit shirts.
    “Hey, iron these for me?” He handed her the shirts.
    “Jacky what is it?”
    “Just get the iron out, okay?”
    She did and spread a thin towel on the desk for an ironing board. She ironed each shirt, then folded it precisely.
    “Whatsa matter?”
    “I’ve got to go away for a little while.”
    “Yeah, where you going? Can I come too?”
    “New York.”
    “Oh, Jacky, I’ve never been—”
    “Forget about it. This’s business.”
    She handed him the shirts then snorted. “What business? You got no business.”
    “I got a business. I just never told you about it.”
    “Yeah, so what do you do?”
    Nestor began to pack a suitcase. “I’ll be back in a week or two.” He hesitated then took out his wallet and handed her two hundred and ten dollars. “I’m not back then pay Seppie for the room for next couple weeks, okay?”
    “Sure, I’ll do that.”
    He looked at the dresser again then said to her, “Hey, check in the bathroom, see if I left my razor?”
    She did this and when she wasn’t looking Nestor reached way back into the bottom drawer of the dresser and took out a dark-blue Steyr GB 9mm pistol and two full clips of bullets. He slipped these into his bag. Then he said, “Hey, never mind, I found it. I packed it already.”
    She came up to him. “You gonna miss me?”
    He picked up the paper and tore out the story. He read it again. She came up and read over his shoulder. “What that about? Somebody getting some guy outta jail in New York?”
    He looked at her with irritation and put the scrap in his wallet.
    She said, “Who is that guy, Randy Boggs?”
    Nestor smiled in an unamused way and kissed her on the mouth. Then he said, “I’ll call you.” He picked up the bag and walked outside into the blast of humid heat, glancing at a tiny chameleon sitting motionless in a band of shade on the peeling banister.

    chapter 7    
     
    “ IF HE DIDN’T DO THIS CRIME HE DID
SOMETHING .”
    The man’s voice went high at the end of the sentence and threatened to break apart. He was in his late forties, so skinny that his worn cowhide belt made pleats in slacks that were supposed to be straight-cut.
    “And if he did
something
the jury says, ‘What the hell, let’s convict him of
this.’ “
    Rune nodded at the taut words.
    Randy Boggs’s lawyer sat at his desk, which was piled high—yellow sheets, court briefs, Redweld folders, letters, photographs of crime scenes, an empty yogurt carton crusty on the rim, a dozen cans of Diet Pepsi, a shoe box (she wondered if it contained a Mafia client’s fee). The office was near Broadway on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan, where the streets were grimy, dark, crowded. Inside, the building was a network of dirty, green corridors.
    The office of Frederick T. Megler, J.D., P.C., was at the end of a particularly dirty and particularly green corridor.
    He sat back in his old leather chair. His face was gray and mottled and would make occasional forays into exaggerated expressions (wonder, hatred, surprise) then snap back into its waiting state of innocent incredulity, punctuated with a breathy, nasal snort.
    “That’s what I have to deal with.” The bony fingers of his right hand made a circuit of the air as he explained the judicial system in New York to Rune. “The way it works …” He looked at Rune and his voice rose in volume for emphasis. “The way the system works is that the jury can
only
convict you for the crime for which you’ve been accused. They can’t convict you because you’re an asshole or because of the three guys you wasted last year or because of the old lady you’re
going
to mug tomorrow for her social security check. Just for the particular crime.”
    “Got it,” Rune said.
    Megler’s other set of bony fingers joined in. They pointed at her. “You get things like this true story. My client’s arrested for killing some poor son of a bitch. An ADA—assistant district attorney—bless her young, virginal soul, brings him up on four counts. Murder two, manslaughter one and two, criminally negligent homicide. Those last three counts are what they call lesser-included offenses. They’re easier to prove. If you can’t get a