Bullet Point Read online

  “Do you remember defending Sonny Racine?” Greer said.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I do.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Greer. And this is Wyatt, Sonny Racine’s son.”

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “Just who we are,” Greer said.

  “There was no son. I don’t remember a son.”

  “I–I wasn’t born till later,” Wyatt said.

  Mr. Wertz grabbed Wyatt’s wrist, his skin icy cold and papery. “Come here,” he said, “here where I can see you.” Wyatt moved around the front of the chair, closer to Greer, wrenched his hand free. “Only one good eye,” Mr. Wertz said. “Why no one around here can get that straight is beyond me.” He gazed at Wyatt. “You’re just a kid.”

  “I’m seventeen.”

  “Christ.” Mr. Wertz went silent. The man in the other bed started snoring. “Knock it off, you son of a bitch,” Mr. Wertz yelled, startling Wyatt. The man kept snoring. Mr. Wertz gestured out the window. “And where are all the birds?”

  “They’ll be back,” Wyatt said.

  Mr. Wertz grew calmer. “Sorry, kid,” he said.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” said Wyatt.

  Mr. Wertz gazed out the window. “By then, the period in question, I was on the sauce pretty good,” he said. “Somewhat reduced, if you know what I mean. Fired from North and Mulgrew, if you don’t. Working as a PD.”

  “What’s that?” Wyatt said.

  “Public defender,” said Mr. Wertz. He looked at Greer. “Doesn’t he know the lingo?” Greer didn’t answer. “I’ll tell you both something, since you’re two nice kids. Fresh faced. When they say the jails are full of innocent people, they’re blowing smoke. Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of the guys inside deserve it, hell, deserve much worse. Then there’s that teeny-weeny exception, irrelevant, if you’re interested in stats. Sonny Racine was in that category.”

  16

  “Are you saying he was innocent?” Greer said.

  “Wouldn’t go that far.” A tear rolled out of Morrie Wertz’s droopy eye, but he didn’t look sad, more annoyed, if anything. “No one’s innocent-not even a newborn babe, don’t fool yourselves. I’m talking about-” He made that gulping sound and went silent. His good eye got a faraway look; the bad one closed up even more. Oxygen hissed. Somewhere in Hillside Breeze a beep-beep-beep started up.

  Wyatt and Greer crouched in front of Wertz’s chair. “Maybe we should call somebody,” Wyatt said.

  Greer shook her head. “They’re like this,” she said.

  Wertz gulped again. His bad eye quivered open a bit. “Reasonable doubt-that’s all I’m talking about. Understand the concept of reasonable doubt?” He looked at Greer. “You do, but what about Mister Handsome over here?” He turned his head, glared at Wyatt. “How come my goddamn legs hurt so much if I can’t even use them?”

  “I don’t know,” Wyatt said.

  “You should be a doctor,” said Wertz. He nodded to himself. “Booze destroys brain cells, but are they still in there, dead and black, or do they get flushed out? Am I pissing brain cells? I ask myself these questions.”

  Greer rose, leaned against the wall. “What about reasonable doubt?”

  “That’s an easy one,” Wertz said. “Reasonable doubt means inventing some crackpot story and making sure there’s at least one crackpot citizen on the jury to swallow it.”

  “So what are you saying?” Greer said. “He wasn’t innocent, but you couldn’t come up with the crackpot story or a crackpot citizen?”

  “Finding crackpot citizens is a snap,” Wertz said. His good eye blinked a few times. “Who are we talking about?”

  “Christ,” said Greer, her voice sharpening; Wertz flinched. “Sonny Racine.”

  “You blame me for losing that one?” Wertz said.

  “Is that what happened?” Greer said.

  Wertz shook his head. “Sonny Racine lost it himself.”

  Wyatt didn’t understand any of this. “So he was guilty?” he said.

  “I thought so when I first looked at the file,” Wertz said. “But then he insisted on taking the stand, testifying. Which was how he lost the case-a crazy thing to do, against counsel’s strong advice, although counsel wasn’t at his strongest at the time. The DA was practically salivating, tore him apart on cross. Sonny Racine gave himself a life sentence. See what I’m saying?”

  “No,” Wyatt said.

  “Nurse! Nurse!” The man in the other bed suddenly cried out. Wyatt jumped up, his heart pounding. The man was still on his back, eyes still closed, looked as though he hadn’t moved.

  “Lid on it, you sack of shit,” said Wertz, not turning to look. The man began to snore again.

  “I jumped a mile,” said Greer.

  “That’s Mr. Coffee,” said Wertz. “Just ignore him.”

  “What did that mean,” Wyatt said, crouching down again, “Sonny Racine gave himself a life sentence?”

  The good eye was back on him. “You’re not completely stupid, are you?” Wertz said. “Course the girlfriend here’s smart as a whip, nothing could be more obvious. Two of you making big plans?”

  They didn’t answer.

  “And if you were, why tell me, right?” He made a gravelly sound in his throat that might have been laughter. “Okay, it’s simple. You tell a guilty guy, stay off the goddamn stand or you’re done, and he stays off. You tell an innocent guy the same thing, and he has a tough time buying it. He thinks, hey, I’m innocent, I’ll tell my story and this will all go away. Usually a ticket straight to the pen, but…oh well.”

  “Oh well?” Greer said.

  Wertz shrugged. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”

  “But you’ve admitted you didn’t handle it well,” Greer said.

  “I’m starting not to like you,” said Wertz, “despite how easy you are on the eyes. I never admitted any such thing. And you know what? I’ve had enough. So here’s your takeaway, children-Sonny Racine was covering up for someone.”

  “Who?” Wyatt said.

  “Don’t know,” said Wertz, his gaze fastening on Greer. “But if I had to guess, I’d say a girlfriend.”

  Girlfriend? Wyatt didn’t understand. There was no girlfriend, just his mom. And then he remembered that his mom had never married Sonny; a wedding was in their plans but the crime had come first. Things shifted in his mind, and suddenly came a scary question: his mom was the girlfriend?

  “What girlfriend?” Wyatt said.

  “Show’s over,” Wertz said. He turned to the window. A dark bird swooped by.

  “What does that mean?” Greer said as they drove away from Hillside Breeze. “Your mom was involved?”

  “No way,” Wyatt said. The idea was out of the question, impossible, unthinkable.

  “Then what’s he saying?”

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing. He’s kind of out of it, right?”

  Greer nodded. She took his hand. Hers was trembling a bit. “If I ever get like that, shoot me,” she said.

  “You? Get like that?” He glanced at her, couldn’t imagine her any different from the way she was right there in the passenger seat, her hand on his.

  Greer was quiet for the rest of the ride back to her place. As Wyatt pulled up in front, she said, “Doesn’t it make sense to pay him a visit? I’m talking about Sonny Racine.”

  No explanation necessary: Wyatt had been thinking the same thing. “Don’t want to,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t.”

  “But then we’ll never know what really happened. Don’t you want to find out? I do.”

  “Why?”

  “For your sake,” Greer said. “I care about you, in case you’ve missed that somehow.”

  Wyatt parked the car, shut it off, and turned to her. Her lips were slightly parted. “What’s it got to do with me?” he said.

  “It’s part of your past.”

  �
�I wasn’t even born.”

  “Yeah,” said Greer. “But.”

  The next day, when Wyatt got to school, Dub was waiting for him in the parking lot. He had a red welt on the side of his powerful neck. Catcher was a tough position: Wyatt could even see the imprint of stitches left by the ball.

  “That hurt,” Wyatt said.

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  Wyatt pointed to the welt.

  “It’s nothin’,” Dub said. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Headed for class,” Wyatt said.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it. What are you up to? How come you’re not back home?”

  “How come you’re not?”

  “For fuck sake, ’cause of baseball, you know that,” Dub said. “Answer the question.”

  “I’m staying here.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a good school.”

  “Since when do you give a shit about school?”

  Wyatt shrugged. In fact, and to his surprise, he was starting to get more interested in school, English especially. He’d even done the homework last night, reading all of Act Three, Greer sitting nearby, playing her acoustic guitar.

  “You’re throwing your life away, man,” Dub said.

  “How’s that?”

  Dub stared at him-more of a glare, really-and shook his head. “Talk to Aunt Hildy,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “I mean if your stupid-ass mind is really made up about staying here,” Dub said. “Apologize. Be nice. Maybe she’ll take you back.”

  “To her place?” Wyatt said. “Uh-uh.”

  “What do mean-uh-uh?”

  “I’m fine where I am.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Hey, easy.”

  Dub was getting flushed; the welt caused by the baseball disappeared in the general redness. “She went to this school,” he said. “Graduated two years ago.”

  “I know that,” Wyatt said. “So?”

  “So word is you’re not the first.”

  Now Wyatt felt himself reddening, too. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “No big secret,” Dub said, sticking out his chin, an aggressive habit he’d had since they were little boys. “She fucked half the football team.”

  Wyatt didn’t think, just threw the hardest punch he could, right smack on the stuck-out chin. He felt the jolt all the way back down his arm and into his shoulder. Dub’s head snapped to the side and he staggered backward, almost fell. Wyatt was just starting to feel a bit bad about what he’d done, pretty close to a sucker punch, when Dub yelled, “Son of a bitch,” and came roaring at him, both fists flying. Wyatt blocked one but not the other, which landed on his nose, exact same spot where Rusty had connected. Blood spurted out and Wyatt sank to his knees.

  “Maybe that’ll knock some sense into you,” Dub said. “Sure as hell need it.” He turned and walked away.

  Wyatt sat on the pavement, leaning against the Mustang. He felt his nose-crooked again. He took a deep breath, counted a silent one-two-three, and snapped his nose back into place. That hurt, but not as much as the first time.

  Wyatt found a sweatshirt in the trunk of the car, changed into it. When the bleeding stopped, he picked up his books and went into the school. The hall monitor wrote him up for tardiness, two demerit points, and glanced once or twice at his nose.

  Ms. Grenville passed quiz sheets down the rows.

  “Quiz?” said the funny kid in back. “Can’t just give a quiz with no warning.”

  “Warning’s a bit dramatic for a mere quiz, don’t you think?” said Ms. Grenville. “I made an announcement at the end of class yesterday, but perhaps not loudly enough.”

  “What does it count for?” the funny kid said.

  “The usual,” said Ms. Grenville. “Five percent of your final grade.”

  “Two and a half,” said the funny kid. “That’s my final offer.”

  Wyatt looked over the quiz. There were three questions.

  1. What is the title of the play within the play? When the King asks Hamlet for the title, what does Hamlet tell him?

  Ms. Grenville demanded whole sentences. Wyatt wrote:

  The title of the play within the play is The Murder of Gonzago. Hamlet tells the king it’s The Mouse-trap.

  2. At the end of Act Two, Hamlet says, “The spirit that I have seen may be the devil: and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.” What does he mean, and what does this have to do with the play within the play?

  Wyatt wrote:

  It means the ghost can’t be trusted, so Hamlet thinks up this plan to trap Claudius. The idea is about getting a-

  Wyatt couldn’t think of the word he wanted, stopped right there, went to the next question.

  3. What is the result of Hamlet’s plan? Do you consider it a success?

  Wyatt wrote:

  When the poison gets poured in the player king’s ear, Claudius, the real king, sort of loses it, so Hamlet knows to trust the ghost. Claudius is for sure the killer of Hamlet’s father. So it’s a success.

  Although maybe you couldn’t really say, not until the end of the whole thing, and Wyatt hadn’t read past Act Three. Wyatt was wondering whether to add something about that when Ms. Grenville said, “Time.”

  He passed in his sheet, realizing two things. First, he hadn’t gone back and erased the unfinished sentence on number two, where he’d been stuck on a word. Second, the word he’d been looking for: confession. He’d wanted to say: The idea is about getting a confession out of the king. But too late. Had he blown the quiz completely?

  When Wyatt got back to Greer’s, she threw her arms around him and said, “How was school?”

  “I’m going to go visit him,” Wyatt said.

  “Sonny Racine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good idea,” Greer said. “What changed your mind?”

  “I guess you were right.”

  She took a long look at him. “Hey! What happened to your nose?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Were you in a fight?”

  “No.”

  She stroked the side of his nose, very gently.

  17

  You could walk into a prison, no problem. A sign over glass double doors read PUBLIC ENTRANCE. Wyatt entered and approached a desk where a woman in an olive green uniform was gazing at a computer screen.

  “Uh,” he said. “The visitors’ room?”

  The woman looked up. “You have an appointment?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Name?”

  “Wyatt Lathem.”

  The woman tapped at the keyboard, nodded slightly. “Visiting?” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Wyatt. Like what else would he be doing here?

  “Visiting who?” she said.

  “Oh,” said Wyatt. “Sonny Racine.”

  The woman made a mouse click. “Hours start at three today,” she said. She handed Wyatt a clipboard. “Fill this out.”

  An unoccupied row of plastic seats, the kind all molded together, stood along one wall. Wyatt sat at one end, filled out the form-his name, his address (he used Greer’s), his arrest record (never), his relationship to the inmate. He thought for a long time, then wrote “family friend” and handed in the clipboard.

  “Have a seat,” said the woman at the desk. “We’ll call you.”

  Wyatt returned to his plastic seat and opened a magazine. A fragment of a potato chip fell out, the ruffled kind. Wyatt set the magazine aside.

  At 2:45 a woman came in. She wore a jogging suit but didn’t look like a jogger. She was short and heavy, had a baby in her arms; another kid, maybe Cammy’s age, trailed behind. The woman sat down with a grunt, not at the far end of the row, what Wyatt would have done in her place, but just three or four seats away. The baby was sleeping-a girl; she already wore earrings. The other kid, a boy, kept going, headed for a fountain in the corner. The woman called out to him in Spanish, obviou
sly telling him to come back, but he ignored her. When he got to the fountain, he found he was tall enough to push the lever that started the water flowing but too short to drink. He turned and said something to his mother. He had a very loud voice. The mother again told him to come back. The baby awoke and started fussing. The uniformed woman tapped her fingernail on the desk and said, “If you can’t keep it down, you’ll have to wait outside.”

  Wyatt didn’t get to see how that played out, because a man in an olive green uniform came through a door on the other side of the room, picked up the clipboard, and said, “Wyatt Lathem?”

  Wyatt rose and approached him. The man was short and muscular, had a neatly trimmed mustache and wore a badge that read SHIFT SUPERVISOR. “This way,” he said.

  Wyatt followed him through the door and down a short corridor to a glassed-in booth. The uniformed man inside said, “License.”

  Wyatt slid his license through the slot. The man took it, ran it through a scanner, checked a screen, tossed the license into a tray. “Wallet,” he said. “Keys, belt, anything metal.”

  “Get it all back when you leave,” said the shift supervisor.

  Wyatt nodded, but there was a problem already. The $200 was in his wallet, the plan being to give it back during the visit. How was he going to do that now? He had no idea, but he sensed that raising the issue wasn’t the way to go. In fact, he wanted to get out of the place already.

  Wyatt handed everything over. The man in the booth dropped it all in the tray.

  “This way,” said the shift supervisor, leading him to a metal detector. Wyatt walked through. Another green-uniformed man stood on the other side. “Arms up for the corrections officer, please,” said the supervisor. Wyatt raised his arms, got wanded.

  He followed the supervisor down the corridor. A pool of water was spreading across the cement floor. “Plugging the toilets never gets old, for some reason,” the supervisor said. They avoided the wet section, came to a heavy steel door. The supervisor punched keys on a keypad and the door swung open. They went inside.