million, one hundred and eighty-nine thousand, four hundred and twelve.”
Although Burke had read off the numbers deliberately enough for Jaywalker to copy them down, he hadn’t bothered. He knew his DNA, and as soon as he’d heard the twelve billion part, it had been enough for him.
There weren’t that many people on the planet.
By Friday Jaywalker had been told that he could keep enough cases to know that Samara’s would be among them. He broke the news to her through the wire mesh of the twelfth-floor counsel visit room.
“That’s terrific,” she said. “Have you come up with a plan to get me out?”
“Let me ask you a question first.”
“Okay.”
“Remember that stuff they say they found behind the toilet tank at your place?” He was careful to include the words “they say.” Omitting them would have told her that he was willing to accept the detectives’ version as true.
“Yes,” she said. “The knife, the blouse and…”
“The towel.”
“Right. What about them?”
“You told me you didn’t know anything about them, right?”
“Right.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “Why?”
“They’ve found Barry’s blood on them.”
Shrug time.
“Who could have put them there?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Whoever killed Barry and wanted to make it look like I did it?”
“From the time you got home after leaving Barry’s, until the police showed up and arrested you, was there anyone else in your place, besides you? Think carefully.”
She seemed to do just that for a moment. What Jaywalker had no way of knowing was whether she was genuinely trying to reach back three weeks earlier and remember. Or had it suddenly dawned on her what a terrible trap she’d put herself into? Half of him expected her to break down right then and there and confess. The other half, knowing Samara, knew better.
Liars tended to stick to their lies, however absurdly. Years ago, after he’d informed a client that a full set of his prints had been found on a demand note left behind at a bank robbery, the man had looked Jaywalker squarely in the eye and said, “Hey, what can I tell you? Somebody must be using my fingerprints.”
“No,” said Samara. “No one else was there.”
“So how could those things have gotten there?”
“I have no idea,” said Samara, this time without hesitation. “I guess the cops must’ve put them there.”
Somebody must be using my fingerprints.
“So, have you come up with a plan?” she pressed.
“Sort of,” said Jaywalker, amazed that she could recover quickly enough to change the subject without missing a beat.
She leaned forward.
“Not now,” he said, looking around. “Not here.” Although his words and glances were meant to convey that there were too many eyes and ears nearby, the truth was that Jaywalker’s sort of plan suddenly seemed foolish and unworkable. On top of that, Samara’s cavalier attitude, in the face of a truly damning piece of evidence, upset him more than he was willing to admit. If she wasn’t willing to level with him and trust him with the truth, how could he possibly become a co-conspirator in a scheme to get her bailed out on false pretenses?
“When?” she asked him.
“Monday,” he said. “We’re due in court for your arraignment. We’ll talk then.”
She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms in front of her breasts and pouted, but it was only a little pout. Monday was only three days away, after all, and even in the world that Samara Tannenbaum inhabited, where there was no past and no future, and everything was about imminent peril and instant gratification, three days was evidently something she could handle.
11
DID YOU SAY BAIL?
“Samara Tannenbaum,” read the clerk, “you have been indicted for the crime of murder, and other crimes. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” said Samara.
This was the moment when Jaywalker would normally ask the judge for bail. But they were in front of Carolyn Berman again. She was the one who’d frozen Samara’s bank account last month, then modified it only to the extent of allowing her to retain counsel at the rate of seventy-five dollars an hour. Besides, she was a woman, and experience had taught Jaywalker that, as a rule, women judges were tougher on women defendants than male judges were. It was a rule that took on even more meaning when the defendant happened to be not only a woman, but a young, pretty woman, and one of immense privilege.
So Jaywalker said nothing.
He liked saying nothing, another fact that set him apart from every other lawyer he knew. He especially liked saying nothing at a time like this, when the media were assembled in the audience behind him—the print reporters, the gossip columnists, the entertainment-show beauties and the sketch artists peering over their pads in their bifocals. Afterward, outside the courtroom, when they would follow him, train their floodlights on him and poke their microphones in his face, he would elaborate on saying nothing and tell them, “No comment.”
“Part 51,” said the clerk. “Judge Sobel.”
At last they’d caught a break of sorts. Matthew Sobel was a gentle person, a judge who wore his robe with modesty, and treated lawyers and defendants with respect. While he was no “Cut-’em-loose” Bruce Wright, or Murray “Why-are-you-bringing-me-this-piece-of-shit-case?” Mogel from the old days, you could count on getting a fair trial in front of him, and ending up with a reasonable sentence even if you lost. What’s more, he was open-minded on the issue of bail. And he was a man.
“Judge Sobel asks that you pick a Tuesday,” said Judge Berman.
“How’s tomorrow?” Jaywalker asked.
“Too soon.”
Again that old problem of papers having to make their way from one courtroom to another, in this case from the eleventh floor all the way up to the thirteenth.
“A week from tomorrow?”
“Fine,” said Judge Berman. “Next case.”
Afterward Jaywalker met with Samara. This time, however, they enjoyed the semiprivacy of a holding pen, a close cousin of a feeder pen. Since Samara was the only woman
