Judge Christina Leventis sent the jury to begin their deliberations at 11:03 a.m., and she was so damn unhappy and agitated when she left the bench that she was already unzipping her robe before she reached her office, jerking out her arm from the sleeve while she was still striding across the courtroom, impatient, as if she were shedding a black polyester straitjacket.
As soon as the judge disappeared, Porter Bowman looked at his lawyer, Andy Hughes. “Judge Levin sure is pissed off,” Bowman observed.
“Leventis,” Andy corrected him. “It’s written right there, Porter, on the nameplate beside her microphone. See it? And as many times as you’ve been in here, you ought to know her name by now.”
“Well, whoever she is, I don’t think it’s fair she’s actin’ mad at me. If we lose, I wanna appeal. As much as we can. The Supreme Court if we have to. I ain’t guilty of nothin’.”
“I’m going to smoke a cigarette,” Andy said. “Stay here. Don’t leave this table. Don’t move. Think you can manage that?”
Andy walked down the tight interior stairway of the Patrick County Courthouse, past the security desk and metal detector and through the heavy double doors. The July air was scorched and listless, the building’s small yard baked. He turned a corner, heading for the alley across the street. He didn’t think it was professional to loiter at the front entrance, beside the pencil-necked Smoker’s Outpost ashtray where bailiffs, witnesses, clerks, and jittery defendants burned cigarettes and, more often than not, tossed the butts on the ground or underneath a giant holly bush.
Several of his public defender clients—the Reliables, the lawyers called them—hung around in the alley, occasionally sleeping there. Moonfaced Dancin’ Ben would cut a little jig, sort of a creaky soft-shoe, if you paid him a dollar. Pink Panther was as gentle as a baby lamb and could recite the books of the Bible in order until he became loaded, and then he pissed in public and panhandled at the grocery store, cursing and threatening shoppers who didn’t see fit to give him cash. General Gene really had served in the army, though he never left Fayetteville and never made it past E-3 private. They’d been to every rehab, every shelter, every program, every church and halfway home, and they weren’t fixable, weren’t ever going to stop drinking and raising Cain, and they lived on the court dockets, with almost daily charges of drunk in public, curse and abuse, disorderly conduct, indecent exposure, littering, and assault and battery.
Today, Dancin’ Ben was wearing a thrift-shop suit and a fat tie. He was seated in a lopsided metal folding chair, draining a forty-ounce Steel Reserve, eight percent alcohol, the big bottle only $2.50 and tax, strong fuel for cheap.
“You’re looking sharp, Dancin’ Man,” Andy noted. “Why the shave and nice suit?”
“I’m meetin’ ever mornin’ with Dr. Cole over at his medical office. My momma set it up with him; she’s a nurse at the clinic. He’s ahelpin’ me quit the drinkin’.”
“Seems to be a work in progress, huh, Ben?” There was no barb or malice in Andy’s tone. “It’s not even noon, and you’re already the man of Steel Reserve.”
“Rome wont builded in no day, Mr. Hughes. Just beer—I’m leavin’ the wine and vodka alone. Soon I’ll go cold turkey.” He peered at Andy. “Can you spare a cigarette?” He hesitated a beat. “And thanks, sir, for the good job you done me on that trespassin’ charge last month. I always ask Judge McGarry if he’ll ’point you as my lawyer—ain’t no better public defender.”
