Barb felt every eye in the parking lot on her as she walked up to the flatbed. She accepted a hand up from the prosecutor, doing her best impression of a helpless female. She stood as if unsure what was expected of her.
“Have a seat here,” said the judge, indicating the witness chair beside his table.
She sat, looking out at the crowd, wide-eyed, slumping just a little. She glanced at Julian who rolled his eyes at her act. She gave him a little shrug as if to say: whatever your plan, I’m not going to make it easy for you.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” said the judge.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“Speak up, please,” said Julian.
“Sorry,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
Julian let the silence build after her answer. That gave Barb the time to study him. She was struck again by how handsome and virile he was when he was in his element. And make no mistake, even this shabby simile of a court was his element. Something came alive in him when he was in the arena of a trial. Like a toreador facing down a massive animal many times his own size, he was only truly himself when the odds were stacked against him.
She remembered the first time she’d met him. There had been a disruptive employee in Simitri, a malicious narcissist who’d brought drama to everything she touched. The wrinkle was this employee was a cousin of Simon. That meant things had to get truly awful before Barb was able to convince the boys the employee needed to go. When they finally let her dismiss the troublemaker, the first thing the woman had done was file a $10 million suit for a slew of imaginary offenses, including wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, sexual-harassment, and everything but satanic practices. It was a garbage suit that never should have made it into court. Not only did Julian get it in front of a jury, he managed to convince all twelve to award the woman the full 10 million.
Afterwards, she’d sought him out and invited him to dinner. They discussed the trial, and he’d admitted he found his client a “despicable, lying mess of a human being,” but that hadn’t affected his performance one bit.
“I don’t do it for the client,” he’d said.
“Then why?”
“To win. The worse the case, the sweeter the victory.”
Sitting in the witness chair on the back of the flatbed truck, Barb was aware she was facing the most dangerous opponent possible. She put all thoughts of their friendship and the many nights of passion aside. She knew he was doing the same.
“Can you tell the court your full legal name?” he said.
“Evelyn Sharpe,” she said sweetly.
Julian glared at her. “Do you understand the oath you just took to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that violating that oath is a sin against God and against every precept of honor and character? If you break your oath, no one who knows and cares for you will ever see you the same way again.”
“Why would you say this to me?” she said, letting a little moisture come to her eyes.
“Enough, counsel,” said the judge. “Move on.”
“I’ll ask you again,” said Julian. “What is your full and correct legal name?”
“Evelyn Sharpe.”
Julian reached into the back pocket of his jeans and came out with his wallet. He opened it and extracted a folded sheet of notepaper. Holding it out, he approached the flatbed.
“Would you please read this note to the court?”
Barb looked at the judge, pretending confusion.
“Go ahead,” he said.
She stood and took the paper from Julian, returning to the witness chair. As she unfolded the note, a smell reached her nose, a faint touch of Black Orchid, her signature scent from many years before. The notepaper was hers, too, ecru with her initials embossed at the top. She scanned the note, remembering the morning she’d written it.
Julian,
Thank you for the most wonderful night.
Your Barbie.
She smiled at the remembered nickname only Julian could get away with calling her. She was simultaneously touched he’d kept this note all these years and hurt he would abuse their intimacy for such shabby purposes.
“Please read it for the court,” said Julian. “Out loud, Barb.”
He’d played the moment perfectly, waiting until she was caught up in the memory of their first night together. His voice shifted to a warm register as if they were alone together. It almost caught her. She almost answered him. In the end, it was the act she was putting on that saved her, the shy, helpless female role she knew the deeply sexist men holding the trial would find more than believable. Part of the portrayal was to be slow on the uptake, slightly befuddled by the big, old world. She was moving slow, and it gave her just enough time to pick up on the simple trap he’d set for her.
“Who’s ‘Barb?’” she said, frowning.
Julian gave her a fierce look of disapproval. That was fine. Let him disapprove as much as he wanted. It was time to shut down this little stunt before someone got wise. She looked at the note in her hand and read it in a halting voice, as if needing to sound out each word. When she was done, she let her face go slack.
“Who’s this Barbie?” she said. “And why is she thanking you for a night?” She opened her eyes wide. “Oh my God! You’re fucking her! You cheating bastard!” To top off the performance, she broke out in loud, ugly tears.
The militiamen responded, as she knew they would, with laughter. Julian gave her a look of profound disappointment, as if her lies were a personal affront. She was disappointed, as well, for a different reason. His willingness to sacrifice their personal history in pursuit of his professional goals was one thing. That he judged her for doing the same only showed he didn’t really know her. At some level, he’d assumed sentimentality would prevent her from responding to his assault in an equally calculated manner. After everything he’d seen her do over the years, he still thought her weak.
He tried to recover from his unsuccessful attempt to break her, but she responded to his questions by crossing her arms and saying, in the voice of a woman betrayed, “I’m not talking to you.”
Julian was done for. That was the only move he’d had, and it had come closer to working than he had any right to expect. In the end, however, his misjudgment of her had doomed it. He tried one last desperate Hail Mary.
“Did you or did you not obtain recordings of my client and manipulate them into a wholly fictional conversation with a federal agent in order to foil his plans for Dixon County?”
She gave him and the onlookers her best befuddled look. “Why would you say such a hateful and ridiculous thing to me?” she said. “It’s over between us. I’m done with your cheating ass!”
She tore the note to pieces, and along with it, the precious connection it represented.
“No further questions,” he said, deflated.
“All right,” said the judge to Julian and the prosecutor. “Do either of you have anything more?”
“I want to put it in the record this is a travesty of justice aided by a passel of lies under oath,” said Julian.
“There is no record,” said the judge. “And justice is whatever this court says it is. As far as any lies uttered here, I suggest the next time you appear in a courtroom, you avoid airing your private romantic messes.”
#
Jackery followed the questioning of the meek woman as if his life depended on it—which, of course, it did. He was as baffled by his lawyer’s questions as she seemed to be. What was this whole melodrama meant to achieve?
The judge excused her, and she climbed down off the flatbed with the assistance of men who rushed forward to help her. In the process, she glanced at Jackery. In that glance, she let her pose drop for a second, allowing him a glimpse of the mind behind the mask. The sight pierced him to his core. He saw in an instant that this nothing of a woman, this weak, slow-witted, emotional dishrag, inoffensive to the point of invisibility, this annoying waste of space was, in fact, his enemy. This was the tactical genius who’d bedeviled him and matched him move-for-move. This was the source of his downfall, the cold and ruthless intellect that had bested him and sealed his death warrant.
He stared, not believing his eyes. It couldn’t be, but it was. That was the final indignity. The straw that broke him, utterly and completely. When the militia bullet pierced his chest and shattered his heart, it would merely be killing the body of a man already dead inside.
In this state of spiritual defeat, Jackery barely followed the rest of the proceedings. The judge asked both Julian and the prosecutor if they had any more witnesses to call. Each said no. Julian requested to make a closing statement, and the judge said he’d allow it if it was brief.
”My client is not a good man,” he said. “He lies and cheats and uses people without any thought of the damage he causes. He was willing to stand by and let an innocent man die at your hands to speed the fulfillment of his latest scheme. He’s guilty of a great many things, but he is not guilty of this. He did not make that imaginary call. He did not betray your cause. Killing him will serve no purpose. If you believe in any kind of personal honor, you will not soil your hands by executing him for something he didn’t do. Instead, you will forget him and save yourselves by getting on your bikes or your trucks and riding out of here.”
“Any final words from you?” the judge said to the prosecutor.
“Let’s finish this and get moving.”
“All right then. After hearing all the evidence and carefully weighing it, I find the defendant guilty as charged of the crime of treason, and I sentence him to death by firing squad. This court is adjourned.”
Rough hands pulled Jackery from his chair and dragged him across the lot. As he passed through a gauntlet of militia men, they jeered and spat on him. He felt none of it, cocooned in numbness. At different points in his life he’d imagined his final moments. He’d envisioned a deathbed surrounded by trophies of a lifetime of conquest and achievement. At times, he’d pictured a weeping wife or even an heir to carry on his legacy. That he should now die in this squalid backwoods, surrounded by such crude and vulgar specimens of humanity, was a fate too bleak to have imagined.
When they reached the post, the men dragging him pulled his arms back around it, cuffing them together. The five men chosen as his executioners lined up in front of him, checking their rifles. He took in a breath and wondered how many more he would breathe before the curtain fell on his life and he dropped into nothingness.
As the men were lifting their rifles, a woman’s voice called out. Every head turned to find the meek witness rushing over toward the execution ground.
“Stop!” she said.
“What is it?” said the judge, who’d come over to supervise the carrying out of his sentence.
“Before you shoot, I need to pray with him.”
Jackery could feel the irritation this produced in the crowd. They’d been all set to see him dispatched and were not happy at the interruption.
“It’s the Christian thing to do,” added the woman.
“Well, be quick about it,” snapped the judge.
The woman came to stand in front of Jackery. He lifted his eyes, and to his surprise, found he recognized the face. He couldn’t remember where from—until his mind conjured a booth in the back of a Denny’s.
“You’re Barb? The annoying secretary who tried to sink my deal?”
“None other,” she said, speaking so only he could hear.
“What’s your angle here? Why do you care about this shithole?”
“I don’t particularly,” she admitted. “But you put me out of a job, and this is my new one.”
“Fuck me,” he said softly. “So, are you here to gloat?”
“Not at all.”
“Don’t tell me you’re seriously going to pray for me.”
“Of course not.”
“Then why?”
“To let you save your life.”