Outward Bound, page 2
And then, the third time, was when he started collecting small-time debts for Marcella's creep—before the day she came home with the puffed mouth and the dark glasses. The cops must have given up on sweetness and understanding then and decided to try a little firmer persuasion, because that was when he got the work-over. So, naturally, he assumed he could expect more of the same this time. When it didn't happen, he decided the reason had to be they wanted something. The explanation came the next morning, in an interview room with a table and several tubular steel chairs, a recorder, and probably other monitoring devices, when Linc faced an interrogator named Breece from the DA's office.
"We didn't set all this up just to send somebody like you down. In fact, we're not especially interested in doing that. You could get off pretty light if you take a sensible line. We know you were working for a collector called Kyle Nass. In case you didn't know, Nass works for a man by the name of Carolton, who runs a line in casinos and loan hustlers. This angle that Carolton is playing has gotten a bunch of kids like you into trouble. That's what we're out to bust." Breece was a big, heavy-set man with a full head of ginger hair, ragged ginger mustache, and eyes droopy like a bloodhound's. He shrugged in a way that seemed to say the rest shouldn't need spelling out, but the script required it. "This isn't the first job you've worked for them. You can give us dates, times, places that we can fit with other details we've got on record. Cooperate, and you could come out of it clean enough to get a real life."
Linc didn't try to disguise his contempt. "What do you take me for . . . even supposing I knew what you were talking about?"
Breece looked away wearily. "They're slime, Linc. You don't owe people like that anything. You didn't buy that Line of theirs about juveniles being protected by special rights, did you? And if you do get nailed, they'll wheel in some big-time lawyer who'll take care of things? Yeah, right. Want me to give you the names of some of the kids they've flimflammed with that horseshit? I'll even let you talk to some of them if you like." Breece gestured impatiently. "Can't you see it's a scam? It's their way of keeping heat away from their own people—the ones they don't want to waste on the nickel-and-dime stuff."
The remark made Linc's cheeks burn. It was saying he was one of the unimportant ones, the expendables—not a professional. "I don't know any Kyle . . . whatever his name was," he insisted. "I just heard it around that this dude Colomada was in a hole for two grand and figured I could make a quick stack by standing in as the collector. Guys like that blab all over when they get under pressure. You hear it all the time."
Breece shook his head. "Not Colomada. He was planted, remember? One of ours. He didn't talk to anyone. You could only have gotten it from Kyle."
Linc shifted his eyes from side to side desperately, as if hoping an answer might appear on the walls. "It was somebody on the inside that I got talking to, who worked there on the accounts."
"Who? Give me a name," Breece challenged.
"I don't remember . . . He didn't tell me."
"Okay, then. You tell me, what kind of account was it? Casino overdraft? Private note? Some kind of loan that Colomada took out with one of the sharks?" Breece waited. Linc had no answer. "It won't wash, Linc. You're going to take the bullet to protect scum. And they're going to walk—which is exactly what they set you up for. You get put in the freezer for the next five years, and they won't even be around. Do you think they're gonna bring you a cake on visiting day?"
Linc stared fixedly at the table. Breece was just trying to put doubts in his head to get him confused. The thing to do was to tune out of all of it and not listen. Be a professional, he told himself, and he'd be looked after. The Man—whether or not it was this Carolton that Breece had mentioned, Linc didn't know—always took good care of his friends. Kyle had said so.
Chapter Five
SEVERAL days went by with Linc waiting to be told that a lawyer had appeared who would be handling his case, and in the meantime he had been bailed out. Instead, a woman visited him to announce she was his state-appointed defense and asked a list of insipid questions, making little attempt to disguise her distaste for him or the fact that what happened to him was not something that bothered her unduly Linc told himself these took time. Busy people couldn't be expected to drop everything and appear overnight just to put his mind at rest. He created mental pictures of events taking place behind the scenes phone calls being made and papers filed, harassed prosecutor's clerks fighting a tangle of complaints and legal points. His father came to see him but had nothing useful to say. A social worker went through the usual dumb questions about life at home and what Linc did out of school. But as time passed and nothing more happened, Linc found himself getting anxious. Breece seemed to know it and stopped by for another talk at just the right moment to farther undermine Linc's confidence.
"It's not looking good for you, Linc," Breece told him. "You were the mover who recruited the two jerks you were picked up with. Did you ever work with them before?" Linc didn't answer. "The one they call Clay already has a place in the book for carving up his brother's face with a carpet knife. Did you know about that? It happened over some dope money that went missing. The other one, Slam, has a mental age of twelve." Breece stared across the table, worrying at a tooth with his thumbnail while he gave Linc a few seconds to reflect. "A great pair to go down in flames for. You sure you don't want to change your line?"
Linc stared at his hands and said nothing.
"Well, I'd advise you to think hard about it," Breece said. "We might be going to trial against Nass and Carolton anyway, based on other evidence we have. But the case isn't as strong as it would be with your testimony added. In other words, you're in a position to make a decision that would please people who have a big say in how things might go for you from here. If there was ever a time to think about doing yourself a favor for once in your life, this is it. Do you get my drift, Linc?"
Linc would probably have held out doggedly come what might, refusing even to consider changing his story or compromising in any way, if it hadn't been for what happened a week after his arrest. He was taken by van to some offices adjoining the city court building, where he spent the next six hours sitting in waiting rooms in between seeing a series of people with the usual range of lines—nice guys trying to sound reasonable, through to table pounders shouting overt threats—all calculated to get him to change his mind. Linc wouldn't budge; through most of it he didn't even listen. Finally, late in the afternoon, Breece reappeared and received a summary of results from the last of the interviewers. In a muttered conversation outside the door, which Linc got the feeling he was meant to overhear, the interviewer told Breece, "Take him back. It's a waste of time. Nobody's going to get through to this one. He's gonna go down for max. Just dig a deep hole. You won't need a key."
A uniformed officer was detailed to take Linc down to the basement garage for transportation back to precinct headquarters, where he was still being detained. As they reached the second-floor landing, a sergeant in shirtsleeves appeared on the stairway above and called the officer back to query something on a clipboard he was holding. For a moment Linc was left alone by the stairwell, at the junction of two corridors of offices. Seconds later one of the nearby doors opened, and who should emerge but Kyle! With him was an almost bald, tight-faced man in a gray striped suit, carrying a black briefcase. Linc stared for a second, hardly able to believe his luck. He glanced up the stairs. The officer was still explaining something to the sergeant. Linc moved a pace forward into Kyle's path, causing him to slow. Linc gestured, expecting some sign of recognition. Kyle looked at him blankly.
Linc spoke hurriedly, in a low voice. "I've been trying to figure out some way of contacting you. Everywhere has to be bugged. I haven't told them anything. Is everything okay? When will I get to hear something?"
"Who in hell are you?" Kyle growled. Only then did Linc see the coldness in his eyes. For a moment he didn't comprehend but gestured again, making a quick shake with his head. "Linc—Linc Marani . . . . Who do you think?"
"Never heard of ya."
"But—"
The man with the briefcase shouldered his way between them, his face mean. "You've made a mistake, punk. My client doesn't know you. You understand? Beat it." He took Kyle's elbow and steered him away. They disappeared quickly out of sight down the stairs.
"Marani, what's going on?" the escorting officer barked as he descended the half flight of stairs to where Linc was standing. "Stay right there. You don't talk to anyone, understand?"
It took Linc until the next day to face up fully to the meaning of it. He had been used. He had been set up. There was no intention to bail him out or help with his case. There never had been. Everything Breece had been trying to tell him was true. Kids like Linc were being sold a line and then dumped, while the hoods who made real money stayed clean. He found himself shaking with the anger building up inside like pressure percolating in a boiler as he realized how totally he had allowed himself to be had.
The obvious thing now was to turn his story around. He asked to see Breece again, and when Breece arrived Linc told him he'd decided to level. Everything was the way Breece had said. They wanted dates, places, details, names. Okay, they could take it all down, and he would sign. He didn't think too much about how he was going to handle the situation when he got out. All that mattered for now was to deliver as much as was within his ability to even the score.
And then, that same afternoon, he was told he had a visitor. It turned out to be a kid called Sammy, who went to the same school. Linc was mystified, because they had hardly spoken to each other, let alone mixed. Sammy's folks ran a sandwich shop on a nearby block, and he worked hard and stayed out of trouble. He talked vaguely about being sorry about the situation and hoped Linc wouldn't get hit too hard, and all the time Linc found himself growing more and more puzzled. And then Sammy said:
"I got a message to give you that your parents and sister are all well." He paused and frowned, as if working to recall words exactly as memorized. "Nothing's happened to them, you'll be pleased to hear. It will be nice if everything stays that way."
Numbness overcame Linc while a part of his mind tried not to accept what was obviously meant. Then it hit him like a cannonball in the stomach. "Who told you that?" he whispered.
"This guy who drove up on the street . . . I never saw him before. But he was pretty insistent."
Breece came back later with forms, papers, a witness, and a stenographer. Linc could only tell him that the deal was off. He had nothing to say, and he'd take whatever came next. He wouldn't say why, and he wouldn't answer questions.
That was the first time that Linc had seen Breece lose his cool. He yelled and shouted, threw the papers in Linc's face, told him he was washing his hands of him and he hoped Linc rotted before he saw daylight again. Linc guessed he couldn't really blame him. In a way it was one of the rare times in his life when he'd felt bad for someone. But he'd make up for it one day, he vowed to himself as he was led away by guards to a van that would take him to a new location. They would pay.
Somehow, Kyle and Carolton would pay.
Chapter Six
PROCEEDINGS against Kyle, Carolton, and whomever else the prosecutor might have had mind to rope in with them were dropped. Insufficient evidence was cited as the main factor, although frustration at Linc's last-minute change of position probably had much to do with it too. The consequence was that Linc carried the full brunt of all the resentments and bad feeling in the air. His defense counsel remained as lackadaisical, bordering on openly hostile, she had been throughout—to the point that Linc protested to Breece that any hearing based on a defense like that would be a joke. Breece nodded his agreement and laughed derisively. As result, Linc ended up with a clear run of "Guilty as charged" on all counts. The sentence was detainment in a juvenile labor facility until age 18, at which time he would be transferred to the adult system. The term to be served there would be determined at that time.
Labor camp, Linc knew, was for the dregs, the no-hopes. It meant he had been written off as a lost cause. No remedial education, no rehab programs there. Just hot, aching, dawn-to-dusk grind, Marine boot-camp-style discipline, and rubber-hose educating or days in the cooler if he strayed an inch out of line. And afterward, when the review came up, they'd be pulling every trick in the book to keep him off the streets until he was being measured for a wooden suit.
But then, curiously, after pronouncing sentence, the judge informed the court he would be prepared to suspend it pending a decision on the availability of another option—and assuming Linc would be prepared to consider it. Linc was taken aback. They were giving him a choice? . . . It didn't take much thinking about, bearing in mind what he'd heard of the alternative. Sure, he told them. He'd be prepared to consider it.
Dr. Grober, Linc told himself as he was conducted into the interview office, was going to be a pushover. Two weeks had gone by since the court hearing. Linc had been moved to what was termed a transit facility, which consisted of five dormitory blocks and a communal building inside a wire fence, with desert outside and the scrub cleared back to a distance of three hundred feet. The inmates wore white shirts and gray pants, were kept busy for most of the day with things like clearing ditches and picking up trash from highways, but in between had access to a library with computers and books, and were permitted sports and workouts in the gym. So even if nothing came of the "alternative," agreeing to consider it put off starting at a labor camp by a few weeks.
On the day appointed for the interview, Linc was one of maybe half a dozen who were kept back from regular chores and assembled in a room in the main building, where they waited on uncomfortable chairs, avoided one another's eyes, and talked little. The procedure was sufficiently out of the ordinary to provoke anxious speculations, which long-formed habit caused them to keep to themselves. Eventually, Linc's turn came around, and he was called in to the room Grober was using.
Grober was perhaps in his late fifties or sixties, with white, crinkly hair and bushy eyebrows, a long, sharp nose, and mouth compressed into a downturn above a firm jaw. He wore black-framed spectacles, and his face was pink and florid, possibly due to the polka-dot bow tie he was wearing with a lightweight tan jacket. He actually rose from his chair when Linc was shown in. It was in a perfunctory kind of way that resulted from habit rather than anything given thought to, and he didn't go as far as to grace it with a smile. Nevertheless, that was when Linc decided that handling him was not going to be a problem.
Reformers came in two broad varieties, Linc had found. Mr. Strong-Clean-and-Honest offered himself as a role model. Usually opening with something like, "Well, a fine mess you've made of things so far, haven't you?" he played a stern, disapproving line—but with the suggestion you could straighten out provided you went with his rules. The fault was yours, but he could help you straighten yourself out. The right tactic in dealing with him was to accept the blame and then go for all the breaks you could get for as long as he went on believing his approach had produced a positive response.
Mr. Grieving-Understanding-and-Sympathetic, on the other hand, told you not to blame yourself because the fault was not yours but "society's," and with your help he could straighten things out. With him you played innocent and agreed you'd never had a chance—and then milked him for all the breaks for as long as he went on believing his approach had produced a positive response. All they differed on was the line they took as to whose fault it was—or went along with the appearance of taking, according to how they read the best chances of getting your cooperation.
Hence, Linc found himself unexpectedly flummoxed when Grober, after waving him into a chair, resuming his own, and allowing the guard to leave, stared at him in silence at some length with a curious frown on his face and said, finally, "You possess some interesting qualities, Mr. Marani. At least, based on what we know at this stage, we think so. It's true you don't seem to have put them to any especially useful ends, as of yet. But we're hoping that might be corrected. Would such a prospect be of interest to you, do you imagine: being useful? Needed by people?"
Linc didn't know what to make of it. He had never before encountered the suggestion he might be considered capable of being useful for anything. Being needed was an even stranger thought. He had always been told he was no good—even if in some cases, supposedly, it wasn't his fault.
