One Good Deed(113)
An hour later a stringy, beady-eyed, bald-as-a-billiard-ball gent in a dark blue worsted suit with a porkpie hat in hand walked up to the cell and peered through the bars. He had a battered leather briefcase in his other hand.
“Hey, Archer?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“I’m Jervis Donnelly. Hear you need a lawyer.”
“Okay. What do you charge?”
“For you, my best rate, a hundred bucks.”
“And what do I get for the C-note?”
“Got some ideas.”
“I’m listening.”
“Gonna plead you guilty and see if we can get you life in prison. That way you avoid the noose. A damn good deal, considering. I’m filling out the paperwork now. I’ll take fifty bucks now and the other fifty when the court approves your life sentence.”
“What’s your next idea?”
“You being funny?”
“You see me laughing, mister?”
“Come on, Archer. You know you did it. Just take your medicine. This way you get three squares and a roof over your head till you croak. And they’ll teach you how to make license plates. Most folks would love to have that deal.”
“Well, I guess I’m not like most folks, then. I came back from the war looking for something more than three squares and making damn license plates.”
Donnelly shrugged. “You don’t listen to my advice, what can I do?”
“You can get lost is what you can do. Go on, beat it.”
Donnelly’s beady eyes became beadier. “You need a lawyer, Archer. Nobody else will take your case. Me, I’m a nice guy. I got empathy.”
“But you won’t even put up a fight?”
“Hell, son, I’m not a magician. I can’t change the damn facts. And you’re a dirty ex-con on top of it. Plus, to me, you got a shifty look. They’ll give you the noose sure as I’m standing here, or this ain’t Poca City.”
“Then I’ll just represent myself.”
“I would not advise that,” said Donnelly gravely. “A man representing himself, particularly in a murder case, has not only a fool for a client, but a damn fool.”
“The only damn fool around here is the one I’m looking at.”
“Suit yourself, bumpkin,” groused Donnelly, and he stalked off.
When Archer was released, he noted that two plainclothes men were trailing him as he headed back to his hotel before he changed direction and walked over to Ernestine’s bungalow. He let himself into her house using the key she’d given him, went over to her shelf, and took out the law books she had there.
He walked back out and nodded to the pair of plainclothes dicks.
“Hey,” said one. “You stealing?”
Archer held up one of the books. “I’m entitled to them for my legal defense. You read the Constitution? Says it right in there. Sixth Amendment. It’s a good one.”
The two men looked at each other and shrugged. One said, “It’s your funeral, brother.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to see about that, friend.”
He returned to his hotel room and put the books down on the bed. He went over to the chest of drawers, opened one of them, and looked at the Dictaphone case inside. Fortunately, they hadn’t tossed his room and found it. Brooks probably thought he had all of the evidence he needed to hang Archer. He opened the case and looked at the papers he’d stashed in there. They were the ones he’d found in the crate at the trucking warehouse.
Both the tape and the papers told him a lot. He hoped he could put both to good use in his upcoming trial.
He stretched out on the bed and opened one of the books. He commenced reading and taking notes using some stationery and a pen from the drawer next to the Gideon Bible. When his eyes grew tired and he couldn’t read anymore, he started whistling a tune, a sad one he would perform after every battle when they were stacking, counting, and burying their dead. He’d fought for something he didn’t entirely understand but had nonetheless believed to be the right thing to do. That had been followed by a stint in Carderock for something he didn’t do. And now he was probably going to be hanged for something else he didn’t do.
He drank some more of his bottle, and then took the Dictaphone out of the drawer, plugged it in, and turned it on. This time he just let the tape run. He lay back on the bed with his bottle and stared at the ceiling, whistled his tune, and wondered what death by hanging felt like.
He stopped his whistling when he heard something brand-new coming from the recorder. He had never let it run long enough to hear this part because there had been a long gap of silence, which made him think there was nothing else on it.
Archer sat up and his feet hit the floor. He looked down at the Dictaphone and listened to the sounds coming from there. And then he aimed his gaze out the window and to the sky.
After fighting a world war, he had no longer been a God-fearing man, because he firmly believed a loving, righteous god should have just stopped mankind from committing that egregious sin.
No, Aloysius Archer was not a God-fearing man.
Until right now.
“Thank you, Mister Jesus.”
He pulled the shipping label out of the Bible, snatched up a piece of blank paper, and took about a half hour to carefully compose a letter. He ran down to the front desk, got an envelope, wrote the address down on it, and carried it over to the post office to mail it. The plainclothes men followed him every step of the way. After that, he went back to his room, lay on his bed, and prayed that what he’d written in that letter worked its magic.