“Bullshit,” Cole says, raising his voice for the first time. He glances furtively around the room, meeting the curious eyes of the men at neighboring tables. He lowers his voice, pushing the vase of flowers to the side. He leans forward, half his torso reaching across the table in Jay’s direction. “You’re wrong to hold this up as a crusade. There’s serious evidence against that kid.”
“Now, see, how would you know that?” Jay says. “Last I checked, grand jury testimony is sealed. Hell, I won’t even see it till discovery. So unless you’re prepared to admit to having an inside track to the district attorney’s office, the head of which you just so happen to be backing in the mayor’s race, I don’t see how you could know the details of what went on in that grand jury room.” Jay points to the newspaper, to his picture on the front page. “You know what else I find interesting? How quickly this story made it into print. The Chronicle goes to bed at what, eight, nine o’clock at the latest?” he says. “The district court is dark by five thirty. There would have been no way for Bartolomo to fact-check any of what he got straight from Reese Parker’s mouth the second she and I finished talking. And yet here it is, for the whole city to read.”
“So?”
“So I didn’t file those papers until this morning.”
Jay leans across the table too, getting within a few inches of Cole’s tanned face. “You know what I think? I think you’re all playing a game with this whole process–you, Wolcott, Parker, with help from Houston’s journalistic finest.”
“It’s not too late to withdraw the motion,” Cole says. Jay ignores him, pushing back from the table as he buttons his suit jacket. “Perhaps there’s something we can still work out, Mr. Porter. I’m certainly willing to concede that our civil matter has dragged on longer than it should have. If we were able to speed up a final resolution for your clients, maybe I could get you to reconsider.”
“I don’t think so,” Jay says. He stands to leave. “Call off your boy.”
“Mr. Porter, if I wanted to”–Cole searches for the right word–“neutralize you, I can promise you’d look a hell of a lot worse than you do now. You’re standing up right now on my say-so, and don’t forget it.” He reaches for a gold-plated lighter in his front pocket. He sets the blue flame against the end of a fresh cigarette, burning through half the tobacco with the first drag. “They have enough for a conviction, you know,” he says, as if he’s tossing Jay a lifeline.
“You talking about the phone number in the girl’s pager? He admits to dialing it unknowingly. Doesn’t mean anything,” Jay says, turning away.
“I’m talking about the eyewitness.”
Jay stops at this, that thick, rich carpet like quicksand. He feels himself sinking. Slowly, he turns toward Cole, trying to inch forward, if only to shorten the distance, to keep the man’s voice from drifting too far past this one table. “There was an eyewitness on the stand,” Cole says, admitting for the moment his insider knowledge of the grand jury testimony. “A local out there saw him struggling with the girl on the corner where she was last seen.”
“Saw Neal?”
“It’s all under seal,” Cole says. “But not for long.”
Jay cocks his head to the side, disbelief being his first anchor against the wild tide of panic rising in his chest. “God damn it,” he mutters as he walks out.