The Pardon Read online

  “Then why’d you hire me?”

  Neil smiled wryly. “Because you were the son of Harold Swyteck. And I could think of no better way to piss off the future law-and-order governor than to have his son come work for a long-haired leftover from a lost generation.”

  It was Jack’s turn to smile. “So you put up with me for the same reason I put up with you.”

  “I suspected that was why you were here,” he said, then turned serious. “You were tired of doing everything your old man said you should do. The Institute was as far off the beaten path as you could get.”

  Jack fell silent. He and Neil had never spoken about his father, and Neil’s unflattering perception of the relationship was more than a little disturbing.

  Neil leaned forward and folded his hands, the way he always did when he was speaking on the level. “Look, Jack. I read the papers. I watch TV. I know you’re catching hell about Goss, and I know the bad press can’t be doing the governor’s campaign any good. Maybe you feel guilty about that . . . maybe your old man is even pressuring you to leave us. I don’t know, and that’s none of my business. But this much is my business: You’ve got what it takes, Jack. You’re an incredibly talented lawyer. And deep down, I know you’re not like all those people out there who are perfectly content to put up with poverty and drugs and homelessness and all the other problems that turn children into criminals, so long as the criminal justice system allows them revenge. The Freedom Institute deprives them of that revenge—of their sense of ‘justice.’ But we are doing the right thing here. You’ve done the right thing.”

  Jack looked away, then sighed. He had never been as sure about right and wrong as Neil was, though there had indeed been times when he saw the higher purpose, when he actually believed that each acquittal reaffirmed the rights of all people. But it took more than vision to defend the likes of Eddy Goss day after day. It took passion—the kind of passion that started revolutions Jack had felt that passion only once in his life: the night his father had executed Raul Fernandez. But that was different. Fernandez had been innocent.

  “I m sorry, Neil. But the lofty goals just don’t drive me anymore. Maybe I wouldn’t be leaving if I’d defend d just one murderer who was sorry for what he’d done. Not innocent, mind you. Just sorry. Someone who saw a not-guilty verdict as a second chance at life, rather than another chance to kill. Instead, I got clients like Eddy Goss. I hate to disappoint you, but I just can’t stay here anymore. If I did, I’d be nothing but a hypocrite.”

  Neil nodded, not in agreement but in understanding. “I am disappointed,” he said, “but not in you.” He rose from the edge of the desk and shook Jack’s hand. “The door’s open, Jack. If ever you change your mind.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Got time for lunch today?”

  Jack checked his watch. Almost eleven-thirty. He had no official plans, but right now he figured he needed a stronger dose of good cheer than Neil could provide. “I’d like a rain check on that, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Neil said, giving him a mock salute as he turned and left.

  Ten minutes later, Jack’s thoughts were on Cindy as he walked toward his car, weighed down with three of the ten boxes he’d packed. He’d still had no return call from her. Which meant either she hadn’t gotten his messages or she was sending him a message of her own.

  He thought back to the last night they’d been together, how she’d told him she was going over to her best friend Gina’s to console her. The story might have been believable if it had been anyone but Gina—a woman to whom the adjective needy didn’t apply. Certainly Jack had never thought of her that way, and he knew her quite well. It was through her that he’d met Cindy. Fourteen months ago, a mutual friend had fixed him up on a blind date with Gina. It was their first and only. She’d kept Jack waiting in her living room nearly an hour while she got ready. Cindy was Gina’s roommate back then, and she kept Jack entertained while he waited. He and Cindy clicked. Boy, did they click. He spent the rest of the evening with Gina just trying to find out about Cindy, and Cindy was the only woman he’d dated ever since. At first, Gina had seemed upset by the turn of events. But as he and Cindy became more serious, Gina came to accept it.

  He checked the traffic at the curb, waited for the light to change, then started across the boulevard toward the Institute’s parking lot. He was still wrapped up in his thoughts and struggling under the weight of the boxes when he noticed a car rolling through the red light. He picked up his pace to get out of the way, but the car increased its speed. Suddenly, it swerved sharply in his direction. He dove from the street to the sidewalk to keep from getting run over. As he tumbled to the concrete, he caught a glimpse of the retreating car. The first letter on the license plate was a Z. In Florida, that meant it was a rental.

  His heart was in his throat. He couldn’t stop shaking. He looked to see if there were any witnesses, but he saw no one. The Freedom Institute wasn’t in a neighborhood where many people strolled the sidewalks. He remained on the ground for a moment, trying to sort out whether it was an accident, some street gang’s initiation rite, just another crazy driver—or something else. He didn’t want to be paranoid, but it was hard to dismiss the event as an accident. He picked himself up, then froze as he thought he heard a phone ringing. He listened carefully. It was his phone, a cheap but reliable car phone he’d installed at Neil Goderich’s insistence, just in case his twenty-year-old Mustang happened to leave him stranded in one of those questionable areas that were breeding grounds for Freedom Institute clientele.

  He looked around. He was still alone. The phone kept ringing. He walked to his car, disengaged the alarm with the button on his key chain, and opened the door. The phone must have rung twenty times. Finally, he picked up.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “Swyteck?”

  Jack exhaled. It was that voice—that raspy, disguised voice on his home telephone two nights ago.

  “Who is this?”

  There was no answer.

  “Who is this?”

  “You let the killer loose. You’re the one who let him go.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  There was a long pause, an audible sigh, and then the response: “Stop the killer, Swyteck. I dare you.”

  “What—” Jack started to say. But he was too late.

  The line clicked, and they were disconnected.

  Chapter 8

  •

  At 11:40 A.M. Harry Swyteck put on his seersucker jacket, exited the capitol building through the rear entrance, and headed to Albert’s Pharmacy at the busy intersection of Tenth Street and Monroe. The bright morning sun promised another insufferable afternoon, but the air wasn’t yet completely saturated with the summer humidity that would bring the inevitable three o’clock shower. It was the perfect time of day to hit the streets, press the flesh, and do some grass-roots campaigning.

  He reached the drugstore a few minutes before noon, masking his anxiety with campaign smiles and occasion handshakes along the way. Albert’s was a corner pharmacy that hadn’t changed in forty years, selling everything from hemorrhoidal ointment to three-alarm chili. Most important for the governor’s purposes, though, it was one of the few places in town that still offered the privacy of a good old-fashioned phone booth out front. Harry wondered if his attacker had that in mind when he selected it.

  “Mornin’, Governor,” came a friendly greeting. It was seventy-nine-year-old Mr. Albert, sweeping up in front of his store.

  “Morning,” Harry said, smiling. “Great day to be out, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Albert wiped the sweat from his brow. “I suppose,” he said as he retreated back inside. Harry felt that he, too, should be on his way. But he couldn’t go anywhere until his phone call came—and, above all, he couldn’t arouse suspicion by hanging around in front of a drugstore. So he stepped inside the booth and tucked the receiver under his chin, giving the appearance that he was deeply engaged in private conversation. He
casually rested his hand on the cradle, concealing from passersby that he was pressing the disconnect button. He checked the time on a bank marquee down the block. Exactly twelve o’clock. He was suddenly very nervous—not about taking the call, but about the possibility that it wouldn’t come at all. To his quick relief, the phone rang, and he immediately released the disconnect button.

  “I’m here,” he said into the phone.

  “So you are, my man.” There was still that thick sucking sound to the man’s speech. “Let’s make this quick.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not tracing the call.”

  The man seemed to scoff. “I’m not worried at all. You’re not about to call in the cops.”

  Harry bristled, annoyed that the caller had him figured for an easy mark. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I can read you like a book. I saw the way your eyes lit up when I told you I had information about Fernandez. You’ve been thinking about that one for a while, haven’t you?”

  The governor listened carefully as pedestrians and buzzed by outside the booth. It disturbed him that this stranger understood him so well—this stranger who spoke like a punk but had the insight of a shrink. Part of his disguise, he figured. “What’s your proposal?” he asked.

  “Simple. I’ll give you the evidence. The same evidence I showed your son two years ago, so you can see with your own eyes it was me who slit the bitch’s throat. All you gotta do is come up with the cash.”

  Harry’s mind was reeling. This was the man who had visited Jack the night of the Fernandez execution? Could he be on the level—could he really be the killer?

  “Wait a minute, you’re saying you killed that young girl?”

  “You need a hearing aid, old man? That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  The governor felt as if a deep chasm were opening up in front of him and he was plummeting downward with no end in sight. It took a few seconds to collect himself. “You said something about money?”

  “Ten thousand. Unmarked fifties.”

  “How do I get it to you?” he asked, though he could hardly believe he was actually negotiating. “And how do I get this evidence you claim you have?”

  “Just bring the money to Bayfront Park in Miami. Go to where the carriage rides start, by the big statue of Christopher Columbus. Get in the white carriage with the red velvet seats. The driver’s an old nigger named Calvin. Get the nine p.m. ride. When you get to the amphitheater, he’ll stop for a break and get himself an iced tea from the roach-coach señorita with the big tits. When he does, check under your seat on the right-hand side. The seat cushion flips up, and there’s storage space underneath. You’ll find a shoe box and a note. Leave the money, take the box, read the note—and do exactly as it says. Got it?”

  “What if the carriage driver doesn’t stop?”

  “He’ll stop, if you get the nine o’clock ride. You can set a fucking clock by him. He always stops.”

  “I can’t just go for a carriage ride with a sack full of money.”

  “You can—and you will.”

  The governor quickly sensed the nonnegotiability of the terms. “I’ll need a little time. When do you want it?”

  “Saturday night. And like I said: Take the nine o’clock ride. Gotta go, my man. I don’t think you’re tracing the call, but just in case you are, my seventy seconds is about up.”

  The governor heard a click on the other end of the line. Slowly he placed the receiver back in the cradle, then took a deep breath. He worried about getting in deeper, but he had to be certain that what this man was telling him was the truth. He didn’t know what he’d do once he confirmed it, how he’d be able to live with himself or explain it to Jack, but he had to be certain.

  Besides, it could be worse. Paying a single dime to this low-life would be too much, but the truth was that ten thousand dollars would not devastate his and Agnes’s finances. The man could easily have asked for much more.

  He wondered why the man hadn’t asked for more. He was taking quite a risk exposing himself like this. Why not go for the big payday? Unless he was playing a different game altogether, one Harry couldn’t even begin to fathom.

  Somehow the possibility of that filled him with an even deeper dread.

  Chapter 9

  •

  “To my good buddy, Jack,” said Crazy Mike Mannon, proprietor of Mike’s Bikes and Jack Swyteck’s best friend. He raised a bottle of Michelob. “May you come to your senses and never find another job as a lawyer.”

  Jack smiled, then tipped back his Amstel and took a long pull. After a day of phone calls to friends about potential job openings, he’d let Mike talk him into dinner on South Beach. A couple of beers and cheeseburgers at a sidewalk cafe sounded good.

  They enjoyed the ocean breezes and watched bronzed bodies on roller blades weave in and out of bright-red convertibles, classic Corvettes, and fat-tired jeeps blaring reggae and Cuban salsa. By eight o’clock the sun had gone down and everything trendy, sexy, and borderline illegal was parading down Ocean Drive beneath colorful neon hues.

  “Whoa,” said Mike as a deeply tanned blonde with a seriously plunging neckline sent a ripple of whiplash through the cafe.

  Jack smiled with amusement. Mike was one of those guys who was forever on the make—a frat boy stuck in a man’s body. Even so, he had an irrepressible spirit that most people found charming. He had a way of not taking life too seriously, of following his own desires and not worrying about what others thought or said. Jack envied him for that.

  “You know, Mike, there’s an orthopedic surgeon over at Jackson Memorial who would love to see your X rays. She’s doing a paper on swivel heads.”

  “Easy for you to be so pious, Mr. Monogamous. But some of us don’t go to bed every night with Cindy Paige.”

  “Yeah, well,” Jack said, looking away, “I’m beginning to wonder how much longer that’s going to last.”

  “Uh-oh. Trouble in Camelot. That’s okay, I’ll find a honey for you, too. How about that one?” Mike said, nodding at a leather-clad bodybuilder with spiked burgundy hair.

  “Perfect. She looks like the type who’d go for a guy without a job. And if she seems undecided, I’ll just mention that some maniac wants to turn me into roadkill.”

  Mike gave him an assessing look. “Any new theories about that car thing yesterday?”

  “Your guess is still as good as mine,” Jack said, shrugging. “I suppose it could be Goss having fun with me. This ‘killer on the loose’ stuff is his style. But I’m not sure he has the attention span. First the phone call three days ago. Now this. It’s a real campaign. Someone is obviously furious about the verdict.”

  Mike’s head swiveled to follow two halter-topped women who’d emerged from the ladies’ room. “Maybe you should call the cops.”

  Jack smiled. “The Miami Police Department would like nothing better than to hear Jack Swyteck is being hassled. They’d probably offer the guy the key to the city. I don’t think the cops are an option right now.”

  “Well, you watch your back,” Mike said with emphasis. He grinned. “You might even want to consider a new line of work—you know, greeting-card salesman or something.”

  Jack nodded. Maybe Mike had a point. Maybe he did need a clean break—even a move to another state. Away from Goss, and out of the shadow of his father, for whom the best was never enough, and Cindy who was always pushing him to open up. Hell, why couldn’t he open up? Everyone else in America was unloading their thoughts. You couldn’t turn on a talk show these days without watching someone turn his guts inside out in front of the camera.

  “Hey, Mike,” Jack asked, his mind drifting. “Do you get along with your family—you know, do you chew the fat regularly with your mom and dad?”

  Mannon had made eye contact with some woman in tight purple capri pants. “Huh,” he said, refocusing on Jack. “Oh, family . . . well, yeah, you know. My mom and I talk. It’s mostly her that does the ear-bending. Always wants to know when I�
��m going to get married and give her grandchildren.”

  “And your dad?”

  “We get along.” He smiled, but with a hint of sadness. “When I was a kid, we were real tight. Horsed around, went to the Hurricanes games. We took the boat down toward Elliot Key nearly every weekend. Came back with our limit every time, it seemed.” He paused. “After I got out of school, though, it was more formal—you know, brisk handshake and ‘how’s the business going, son?’ That sort of thing. But we’re always there for each other.”

  Jack thought of that picture he’d seen on his father’s bookshelf the night of the Fernandez execution. Deep-sea fishing. Just the two of them.

  “Waiter,” he called out. “Two more over here, p1ease.”

  Driving back from South Beach at 1:45 that Saturday morning, Cindy leaned over, turned off the A.C. in Gina’s car, and opened her window to let in some warmer air.

  “Why’d you do that?” Gina said petulantly.

  “Because it’s getting cold in here.”

  “I like the cold air. It keeps me awake—especially after I’ve had a few drinks. Besides, these pants I’m wearing are hot.”

  Cindy looked over at her girlfriend. Oh, they were hot all right, but not in a thermal sense. The clingy black spandex molded Gina’s body perfectly—a body that could get her anything from dinner at world-class restaurants to full service at self-service gas stations. She was gorgeous, and she worked at it, still striving at age twenty-four for “the fresh book” that had earned her a thousand dollars a week as a sixteen-year-old model.

  They’d first met six years ago in college, two eighteen-year-old opposites who were thrown together by the administrative fiat of dorm-room assignments. Cindy was the more serious student; Gina, the more serious partyer. For the better part of a semester they simply put up with each other. Then late one Saturday night Gina came back to their room in tears. It took until dawn, but Cindy finally convinced her that no college professor, no matter how good a lover, was worth a fifth of bourbon and a bottle of sleeping pills. Cindy was the only person who ever learned that a man had pushed Gina Terisi to the edge. A friendship grew out of that night’s conversation, and over the years Cindy had witnessed the slaughter of countless innocent men who came along later and paid for the sins of Gina’s first and only “true love.” Cindy knew that the predatory Gina wasn’t the real Gina; but it was hard convincing others who hadn’t seen her at her most vulnerable.