Abel Baker Charley (6 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

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“No.” Baker ran his fingers slowly over his bandaged hand. ”I heard something. I didn't see .. till after.”
“Sir, did you know the operator of the motorcycle?”
“No.”
“You didn't recognize him?”
”I hardly saw his face.”
The two detectives exchanged looks.
“Well, we'll pick him up soon, Mr. Baker. Your neighbors say he's busted down that street before. Also, Mr. Willis says
you marked him up pretty good, so we shouldn't have much
trouble finding him.”
Baker seemed not to understand. ”I what?”
“You recall striking him, Mr. Baker?”
Baker gestured with his throbbing hand. ”I think I hit him
once. After that I hit his helmet.” He stared into space as if
trying to remember. There was someone else there. Some
one was fighting while he was looking at Sarah. And he re
membered the one in the helmet lying in the street holding
his face and trying to get up. And he did get up. He kept
falling down, but he did reach his motorcycle and then he
was pushing it down the street. Who else hit him? Sam,
maybe.
“But Mr. Willis says you .. ” Detective Kinney stopped
himself when a doctor, an older man named Bruggerman, entered the waiting room. He nodded to the detectives and
extended a hand toward Jared Baker's shoulder. He seemed
annoyed that Baker was being questioned.
“
Tina's out of surgery, Jared,” he said. “You'll be able to
look in on her in about ten minutes.”
“How is she?” Baker had trouble focusing. He was al
most dozing from the effects of a Demerol injection.
“She came through fairly well. We'll have to do some
touching up later but, with any kind of luck, she ought to
have full use of her leg.” Tom Bruggerman turned to the de
tectives. “Mr. Baker is heavily sedated, as you can see. You
really ought to hold off any questions.”
Detective Kinney shrugged and snapped his notebook
shut. ”I guess we can make sense out of it later. We'll give
him a ride home after he sees his daughter.”
“No.” Baker waved his arm drunkenly. “I'm staying here.”
“Go home, Jared,” Bruggerman said firmly. “Tina won't
even know you for at least twelve hours. When she does,
you're going to want to be fresh. She'll need you very much, Jared, but not the way you are now.”
He could not bring himself to enter the bedroom he and
Sarah had shared. He was not even sure he could climb the
stairs. Someone knew that. Peggy Willis, maybe. Peggy
s
teered him to the couch in the living room and put a blan
ket over him. It didn't seem as though he slept, but the
dreams started coming. Except they couldn't have been
dreams. He'd be having them, but he could still open his
eyes and see his fireplace and the brown leather chair beside
it. He could count the seagulls in the watercolor above the
mantel and he could hear Sam Willis's voice in the kitchen.
Who else was out there? Oh, yeah. Jane Carey from next
door. Sarah's friend. Trying not to cry. But Baker started to
cry and then suddenly he stopped. He was dreaming again about the one on the motorcycle and that one was talking
about him. Baker knew that. The one on the motorcycle was
going to get Baker for what Baker did no matter what else hap
pened. What Baker did? What
I
did, you miserable bastard?
Macduff barked outside.
Baker heard the man's voice louder now. He was talking
about fire. Burning. He was talking about burning Baker's
house.
Macduff was snarling now.
Sam Willis was saying something. Yelling something.
Baker could hardly hear. Then how come he could hear
Willis whispering just before if now he could hardly hear
him yelling out loud. Yelling about what? Stop, Macduff.
Macduff screamed.
But that wasn't anger. That was pain. And now there was
an orange light that danced across his living room wall. For a moment, the sky behind the seagulls turned red. A bolt of
pain seared the back of Baker's eye, shocking him to his
feet. Another orange ball roared across his bay window and
blackened it before dissolving into tongues of flame. Off
balance, Baker fell backward across a coffee table and his
body crashed heavily to the floor on top of his bandaged
hand. Half-blinded by tears and pain and clutching his
screaming hand, he clamped his eyes shut and rolled to a sit
ting position. He wanted to leap up but could not. Yet he was
up. When his eyes opened again, he saw that his body was moving toward the door. He was with it, but he was not of
it. He followed it, like a passenger, through the door that he
couldn't remember opening and onto the lawn and toward
the man there whose face was scarred and torn and who held
a baseball bat in his hands. And there was fire. And crying
out. Willis and his wife were shouting. And Jane. And the
one with the bat was screaming except that half the bat was
split away and the bottom half looked like a dagger. The dagger floated in front of him and his bandaged hand was
holding it. Then the dagger was gone and the man who
killed Sarah was leaping and shrieking and flapping like a
scarecrow on the end of someone's arm. The hand on the
arm was bandaged.
Baker saw the fire. A part of the house was burning and
there was another pool of flame in the driveway. Macduff
was in that one. He was in it and he was frying, and his hind
legs were only now ceasing to kick. Oh, Macduff. Oh, God. Look what you did to Macduff, you bastard. Take a good look. Look close. Put your face right in there and look.
They found Baker at the hospital. In Tina's room. He was
stroking her hair while she slept. The detectives watched as
he paused to brush away a bit of charred gauze that had
fallen on her pillow. Tina twitched once and winced as her
leg stabbed at her from under the tent that covered it. But she
did not awaken.
Baker wished the detectives would go. They seemed
afraid, he thought, and that might frighten Tina. But Detec
tive Kinney asked about Tina and that was nice. The other
one didn't. What was his name? Gurdik. Gurdik stood off to
one side, just watching.
Detective Kinney wanted to ask questions, but they were hard to answer. The questions were about a dream he'd had
and the dream was fading. What's the use, Baker wondered,
in talking about a dream? He put his fingers to his lips to
hush them.
The detectives wanted to talk more, but not there. Could
they go to Detective Kinney's office and talk awhile about the man who threw the gasoline and how Mr.
Baker made
him stop? Yes, Baker nodded, but only until Tina wakes up. Would he mind wearing handcuffs just until they got there?
It was a rule. Baker nodded again. Detective Gurdik began
reading something from a white card, about remaining
silent. But why should I remain silent, Baker wondered,
after I said I'd talk to you in your office? Kinney told Gurdik to put away the card.
Baker thought he remembered other men in the corridor. He thought he remembered flash
ing cameras
and questions. But he
wasn't sure. He did remember that his hand had stopped
hurting.
3
There was another dream. Baker dreamt he was in jail and
the devil was standing outside the bars, watching him. There
was hatred on the devil's face and he wore a black suit. A
devil with white hair and eyes that burned. The devil hissed some words at him that Baker couldn't hear but that made
his eye hurt, and Baker felt himself moving closer to the
bars. That seemed to frighten the devil, but it didn't stop the
hating. The devil spat at him and then walked away.
“Mr. Baker?” The guard called his name for the third time, tapping now against the bars with his club.
The man in the cell did not look up. He was unshaven and
his shirt was torn. He sat on a cot, staring down at a news
paper spread at his feet. Baker saw himself there, much as he looked now except somebody had washed the black soot from his face. Maybe he'd done it himself. He didn't know.
The last two days were lost to him. Baker saw his house in
the paper. There was a scar of black and blistered paint that rose up from one bay window and mushroomed out beneath
the roof
l
ine. Even the house looked dead. Like Sarah.
Near the picture of his house was the face of the young
man who threw the gasoline. He barely recognized the face. It was a high school picture, more than four years old, and
the name under it was Andrew Bellafonte. Baker studied the
photograph more closely. It was there. The same mocking
cruelty and arrogance must always have been there. But not
anymore. The paper said he no longer had a face. It said that
Baker had done it. It said that Baker had impaled him. Im
paled him? And it said that Baker was insane.
“Mr. Baker.”
More on page 5, it said. Baker turned the pages and he
s
aw the devil looking back at him. The same devil. But this
one had a name: it was Lawrence Bellafonte and the devil
was a judge.
Baker heard the cell door opening and looked up. The
guard seemed reluctant to step closer.
“I'm sorry,” he said, ”I didn't know a lot of this.” Baker
waved his hands toward the open paper.
“You had a tough time,” the guard answered. ‘Tough
break, Mr. Baker. Anyway, your lawyer's here to see you.”
“What lawyer?”
“Name's Meister. You have to see him here in your cell.
I'm going to bring him in, okay?”
”I didn't call a lawyer.”
“Somebody did. Talk to him, Mr. Baker. You're going to
see a judge soon.”
Baker picked up the paper at his feet and held it up for the
guard to see. “This man.” Baker pointed. “Has he been
here?”
The guard made a face. “He came by. It's the kid's fa
ther.” The guard looked around him and leaned closer to
Baker. “Listen,” he said softly, “that kid was a shit and he
ran up a pretty good bill before he finally got his. The old man ain't much better. I'm not saying everything you did
was good, but you better start protecting yourself. See this
guy Meister. If you don't, the court's going to appoint some
one else anyway.”
Baker thanked him with a nod.
The lawyer was a fat man who seemed to be about fifty. It
was hard to tell. He wore a youngish gray poplin suit and his
shoes were by Gucci. His hair was light brown, probably
dyed, with a few wisps of gray at the sideburns. The eyes
were at once sharp and mirthful. It seemed to Baker that they
should have been baggy, but they were not. The lawyer car
ried a briefcase in one hand and a canvas garment bag in the
other.
“Benjamin Meister, attorney,” the man said. He jiggled the garment bag. ”I brought you some clothes for court.”
“Court?” Baker rose to his feet.
“Arraignment's in less than two hours. You don't want
to look like a wild man when the judge hears me ask for
bail.” Meister held out the bag until Baker took it. “There's
a comb in there and an electric razor. Wash up while we
talk.”
Baker saw that the clothing was his own. There was a
dark three-piece suit and a soft blue shirt. The suit had been
freshly pressed.
“Your neighbor across the street got them for me. What's
his name?”
“Sam Willis?”
“Yeah. Pal of yours?”
“We get along pretty well.”
“That's good. The guy's going to be a witness and he'd
better be our witness.”
Baker studied him. “Your name is Meister, you said?”
Baker seemed to place emphasis on the name.
The lawyer rolled his eyes upward. “You're going to
make some Meister the Shyster crack, right? Go ahead. Get
it out of your system. We got work to do.”
Baker had to smile. “No, it's just that I don't know you.”
“You have a friend,” Meister answered. “For now, he wants
to keep his name out of it. But your
fri
end has retained me and
has authorized me to post bail if they'll grant it.”
”I can pay for my own lawyer.”
“Don't argue with Santa Claus, Baker. In the first place,
I'm not one of your local hacks who does divorce cases and
real estate closings. My bill would cost you your house. In
the second place, you're in reasonably deep shit. The charge
is atrocious assault with intent to maim. Guess who you
maimed.”
”I read.” Baker gestured toward the newspaper. “It says his father is a judge.”
“Not just any judge, Baker. Andrew's father is Lawrence Bellafonte and he's a judge in the Stamford Superior Court.
Guess where I have to go asking for bail.”
“I'm appearing before the father?”
“No, they can't do that. But I have to tell you that Bella
fonte has clout with the others. The guy knows whose hand
has been in whose pockets because Bellafonte's hands have
been in most of them. The way to bet is you won't find a
friendly judge and the prosecutor will try to nail you with a
felony rap no matter what your plea is. Your plea, by the
way, is not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.”
”I wasn't insane.” Baker's face darkened.
“Then you'll do five years.”
“If I was insane, they'll still put me away.”
“Temporary, Baker, temporary. You acted under extraor
dinary stress while your judgment was diminished by pre
scribed medication. The guy, Bruggerman, pumped some
Demerol into you. When the jury hears all that, they have to
let you walk.”
Baker rinsed his hands in the small stainless steel basin
and watched the water run down the drain. There was some
thing about the drain. He couldn't remember. But whatever
it was, it was making him angry.
“They won't let me see my daughter,” he said.
“You'll see her. First we have to get a judge to set bail.
You want to call her?”
“Can I?” Baker brightened.
“Get dressed. There's a phone in the Attorneys' Room.”
She knew who it was. Even before the muted ring pushed
through the narcotic fog that kept her body heavy and warm,
Tina knew that her father was calling.
The phone stopped ringing and she heard a woman's
voice. It didn't sound like her mother. A nurse, maybe. No,
it couldn't be her mother. Her mother was sick too. She was
someplace else in the hospital.
”. . . keeping her sedated, Jared,” the voice said.
See? It is Daddy. I know why he isn't here. He's visiting
Mom first.
“No, Jared. No one's talked to her. I don't think she
knows.”
Oh, Tina thought. That's Mrs. Carey. I remember. She's
been sitting here since . . . since I don't know when.
“There's a priest coming over this morning from St.
Paul's, Jared. Father Lennon . . . Well, she's asking, Jared.
Someone has to say something
...
All right, Jared. We'll
wait until you can get here.”
Jane Carey held the phone against her breast and looked
down at Tina, who was watching her sleepily. Jane's eyes
were damp.
“It's your dad, honey. Do you think you can just say
hello?”
Tina smiled and nodded. Jane placed the receiver on
Tina's pillow against her ear. Then she turned her head away.
“Hi, Daddy. Where are you?”
“I'm with the police, babe. There are a lot of questions
about the accident. How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she answered. “But it's a kind of yummy tired. Have you seen Mom?”
Jane could not help but watch Tina's face as she asked the
question. Tina blinked. Her eyes narrowed and her lips
pursed into an expression of confused concentration.
Slowly, Tina's head began to move from side to side and
color rose toward her pale cheeks.
“No,” she whispered, and the first tear came.
“No no. Mom, oh, no,” she cried less softly. Jane Carey
shuddered and reached for Tina's hand. Tina's nails dug at her and her head turned away. The phone fell away from
Tina's cheek. Jane paused, unsure, then took the phone and put it to her ear. Baker was still talking as if to Tina.
“It's me, Jared.” There was a chill of anger in her voice.
That was stupid, she thought. A stupid and cruel way to blurt
out to a child that her mother was dead.
“Jane, what happened there?” Baker's voice was anxious.
“She's crushed, naturally. What did you think would hap
pen?”
“Jane, I don't know what you're talking about.”
Jane Carey dropped her voice even further and stepped as far away from the bed as the cord would permit. “Jared,” she
asked, “didn't you just tell her about Sarah?”
“All I said was that Sarah's pretty sick. That's all I said.
Then all of a sudden she wasn't listening to me. She was lis
tening to someone else.”
Jane clamped her eyes shut and placed her fingers
against her forehead. “Jared,” she said, shaking her head,
“then I don't know what happened.” Tina was sobbing now.
“Jared, I have to go to Tina. Please get here as soon as you
can.”
Jane hung up the phone and climbed into Tina's bed, holding her, kissing her, now in tears herself. Jared must
have said something, she thought. He must have told her
something. “Honey? Your . . . your dad told you?” she
asked.
“He said . . .” Tina's chest heaved against her. “He said she was only sick. The other man said it.”
Jane lifted her head to look into Tina's eyes. “What other
man, honey?”
”I don't know.” She sniffed. “Just some man who was talking while Daddy was talking. And why do they have
Daddy locked in jail?”
Jane Carey suddenly felt cold.
Baker held the telephone for several moments before laying
it down. He could still hear Tina's soft cry of “No!” as he
choked on the lie that Sarah was only sick. It must have been
his tone. There must have been something in his voice that
told her the truth about her mother.
“Meister,” he asked, not looking at the lawyer, “did you
hear me say anything about my wife just now?”
Ben Meister had been studying him. The mirthfulness of
his expression was gone and his eyes seemed to bore
through Baker. “That she was sick,” he answered. “You said
that she was sick.”
“That's all?”
“That's all, son.”
“Can you get me out of here?” Baker whispered.
”I think so,” he said. “Let's go see what kind of judge
they give us.”
The hour that followed was a blur to Baker. And throughout that hour, he wondered for the first time whether he was in
deed insane and whether it was temporary.
First, there were the reporters again. A swarm of them
waited on the sidewalk outside police headquarters, cameras
clicking and flashing, microphones thrust at his face, voices
calling questions. There were so many. Far too many for this
town.
Meister's big hand was on Baker's neck, bending his
head low and pushing his body toward a waiting car while the lawyer's free hand held a briefcase across Baker's face
and his own. Baker struggled to shake off the hand, but the
fat man held more tightly. He winced as a thumbnail bit into his neck, and he felt a sudden flash of rage and the coiling of his own body as well as the odd floating sensa
tion he'd felt twice before. He might have struck out at
Meister had not the wave of voices crashed upon him. So
many voices, shouting, calling, whispering. A trim black
woman caught his eye. In her hand she held a microphone with a network news emblem on it. Her lips moved as her
eyes met his, but her words had already started before
that, Baker was sure. He was hearing her before she
spoke.
The lawyer's hand clapped across his cheek and the black
woman was gone. But the rage was coming again. He
cocked an elbow to drive it hard against Ben Meister's stom
ach. Too late. The big man's weight was upon him and the
detective named Gurdik was holding a car door open and his
body was going there. Wait, Baker wanted to shout. He
wasn't there yet. For the briefest part of a second, Baker
thought his body would leave without him.
Now the car was moving. The voices and the shouts were
fading and storefronts were whipping by. The rage he had
felt was gone and the floating sensation was draining away.
His body and his mind were coming together. He felt, he
thought, like two images being brought together in the fo
cusing lens of a camera.
Meister's hand patted his knee.
“Forgive me, Jared.” His voice was low and he was
breathing hard. ”I didn't expect all that either.”
Baker didn't answer. He wanted to tell Meister not to shove him that way again and not to seize his neck like a
schoolchild being rushed to the principal's office, but he was
not angry enough even for that. Besides, he thought he un
derstood. Meister was protecting him. Meister was keeping
his face from the pages of newspapers and from evening
news broadcasts. He was almost thankful when he thought
of the television set in Tina's room.
There were more reporters at the courthouse. This time,
though, they were kept at bay. Even then, Ben Meister
shielded Baker with his own body as telephoto lenses were
snapped on distant cameras. Again, Baker noticed, Meister
seemed to be hiding his own face as well.
“Not a word,” the lawyer said. “When we get into the
courtroom, you're to say not a word. You're to show no emo
tion except sadness. Look beaten. Show utter surprise when
you hear the charges read. No anger, Jared.”
“Anger?” Baker answered uneasily.
“Do not let the judge see anger. Do not, moreover, be sur
prised at anything I might say, and for God's sake, don't
argue.”
Baker nodded.
The charges did surprise him. They were read from a folder
by a short, bald man who glanced once at Baker and then not
again. Nor did the judge, a bored and sullen septuagenarian
named Toomey.
And Baker felt anger rising in him again. It was a differ
ent anger from what he had felt toward the biker with his gasoline and different from what he had felt briefly toward
Benjamin Meister. This was his own anger. An odd thought. But it seemed a true thought. He was hearing words that de
scribed him as vicious, dangerous, bestial, senseless. He
heard his own actions spoken of as horrible, inhuman, cruel.
But he heard no mention of Sarah's name. Or of Tina's. He
heard only “the wife” and “the daughter” and “the accident”
and other words about carelessness and playing in streets.
My God, he fumed, they're saying it's Sarah's fault.
Sarah's lying dead and Tina's foot is crushed, and they're brushing those off as minor events in the sequence that led
to his arrest.
“I'm prepared to enter a plea, Your Honor.” Ben Meister's
voice boomed in Baker's ear. Baker turned his head and saw
the lawyer glowering at him. He struggled to relax his ex
pression.
“Let's have it.” The judge looked at the ceiling.
“Not guilty.”
The prosecutor, an owlish man named Bloom, waved his
manila folder. “Your Honor, we assume the defendant will be basing his defense on a claim of diminished capacity. In that case, the State asks that—”
“No diminished capacity,” Meister interrupted. “Not
guilty, period. He didn't do it.”
“He what?” The prosecutor seemed genuinely surprised.
“Well, does counsel happen to know who did? There are
three witnesses who—”
”A witness is not a witness until testimony is given. In any
case, that testimony will hardly support these charges. Until
the State is able to assemble anything resembling a case
against Mr. Baker, he's entitled to immediate release on bond.
Since Mr. Baker is an established resident of this community, since his surviving child is here, and since he has no criminal
record whatsoever, a cash bond should not be necessary.”
“That's ridiculous, Your Honor. The man's clearly dan
gerous.”
“Dangerous?” Meister shouted. “This man isn't the per
petrator. He was the victim. The man was attacked and he defended himself. The attacker, who has a long history of preferential treatment and quashed charges—”
“Be careful, counselor,” Judge Toomey said through his
teeth.
“I'm sorry, Your Honor. I realize that the horrid conduct
of Judge Bellafonte's son is not.. .”
Judge Toomey fumbled for his gavel. He missed and it clattered to the floor. Reddening, the judge's eyes swept the row of reporters who stood inside the courtroom door.
“I'll jail you, sir,” he seethed, “if you say another word on
that subject.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Meister shuddered innocently. The
judge glanced at the prosecutor, Bloom. Baker thought he
saw a look of helplessness.
“The State strongly advises against bail in this matter,
Your Honor.” There was an edge to the prosecutor's voice,
as if a warning were being given. Toomey dropped his
eyes.
“Perhaps a substantial bail,” the judge muttered. “I'm thinking two hundred thousand dollars' cash bond.”
“That's outrageous,” Meister blurted. “Even if Mr. Baker
could beg and borrow an amount like that, he'd be held in jail at least two weeks until he could raise it.”
The judge cocked his head toward the prosecutor and
raised one eyebrow. Baker watched for a reaction. Bloom's
face showed nothing. But the hand that held the manila
folder curled into a partial fist, leaving two fingers showing.
The judge looked away and sat back in his chair.
“Well,” he said, straightening, “the fact is that there's
been extreme violence committed here, according to the
charges. This court feels a greater obligation to protect the
community than to give any special consideration to Mr. Baker because of the loss he suffered. I'm going to set bail
because law and precedent provide for it. But I'm prepared
to revoke it at any time, given any hint of violent behavior.”
The judge slapped his palm against his desk. “Bail is set in
the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. The defendant
is remanded to custody until he can post that amount.”
The prosecutor smiled his thanks. Baker felt himself wilt.
He thought of Tina and the weeks that might pass before he would see her. He thought of Sarah's funeral. The rage was
building again. He could feel it pushing from inside his
head. Baker took a step forward.
”I can post it now, Your Honor.” Ben Meister stepped with him, one hand reaching to grip the back of Baker's
jacket. Baker stopped. He saw the judge's mouth move and
hang open. And he saw the prosecutor's face. Bloom's gaze was fixed upon the envelope Meister had drawn from his
pocket. Its contents were already in the lawyer's hand. He
counted off eight slips of paper. At least that many remained.
“Your Honor, I'm holding eight cashier's checks in the
amount of twenty-five thousand dollars each. My client is
prepared to make bail.”

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