Fighting Chance(24)

It was odd to think that in all these years, and all the years of knowing Krekor Demarkian, he had never been on the business end of a police investigation.

The cell they put him in at first was very small and very isolated. He was the only one in it, and instead of bars, it had a thick metal door with a little window three-quarters of the way up and a little swinging slot at about waist height. The little swinging slot was where they pushed in trays with food on them. After Tibor had been in the cell for he couldn’t tell how long, they pushed in a tray with a cheese sandwich and an apple and a carton of apple juice on it. He had no idea why it was apple juice rather than a hundred other things.

He had expected people to come and talk to him again, and to ask him questions, but they didn’t. He lay for what seemed like hours just where he was. They had taken his watch and his belt and his cell phone and his clothes. He wished someone would bring him a book, even though he was sure he wouldn’t be able to read.

He reminded himself that even though he had been in prison before, it had not been in America. It had not been a jail like this one. He had no idea what to expect.

He knew that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had the death penalty. He thought that if it came to that, he would be all right. He had never been one of those people who had doubts about his God or doubts about his fellow human beings. God would accept him for what he was, and for what he had done, and for what he hadn’t done. His fellow human beings would behave like human beings.

He ate the sandwich and the apple and drank the apple juice. He didn’t like the toilet stuck into the wall at the back of the cell. It felt insulting. He didn’t like the sandwich. There was no window except the one in the door looking out into the corridor. He had no idea what time it was or what was happening in the world outside this place.

He told himself over and over that it would work out the way it should if he would only do what he had promised himself to do.

He had drifted into an odd little daydream about his first week on Cavanaugh Street when the guard came to the door for what would turn out to be the very last time that day.

“You’re wanted downstairs,” he said, and Tibor stood up and cooperated as calmly as possible with that ridiculous ritual, where you had to put your hands through the slot so that you could be handcuffed before they opened the door to the cell.

When the door swung wide, it didn’t feel as if it were really open.

There were two guards in the corridor, not one.

They applied leg irons, as if he were a ravening beast who would jump out at them at any moment.

The guards gave instructions, which Tibor didn’t listen to. He followed along silently. That was what they seemed to want him to do. They went down the corridor the cell was on and then through a set of doors that had to be locked and unlocked and locked again in a bewildering sequence. It reminded Tibor of the tumbrel sequences on very expensive combination locks.

They went down some stairs and around some halls and down some stairs again. They came to a door that was completely blank and without any windows or slots in it at all.

One of the guards opened the door and stepped back. There was a largish conference room with a big square table and many chairs.

A man sitting in one of those chairs stood up. “Set him loose,” the man said. “And when you’ve done that, get out of here.”

“But,” one of the guards said.

“Don’t start,” the man said. “I know what the rules are. But right now, you’re going to set him loose and get out of here. I’ll buzz when you’re needed.”

“If you get a chance to buzz,” the other guard said.

The man said nothing. His face was a perfect blank. His suit was impeccable.

The guards got the work done faster than Tibor would have thought possible. In no time at all, his handcuffs and leg irons were gone, and the guards were gone, too, with the door closed behind them.

The man looked Tibor up, down, and around. Then he gestured to a chair and said, “Good afternoon, Father Kasparian. My name is George Edelson. I’m with the office of the mayor. Please sit down.”

Tibor took a chair and sat down. He didn’t like the sound of this at all.

George Edelson sat down. He had a briefcase he had left on the table. He didn’t touch it.

“I want to make this clear before we start, Father Kasparian. I am not only from the office of the mayor—I am also one of John Jackman’s personal aides. I’m breaking about five hundred regulations in order to have this meeting. I not only don’t like the situation I’m in at the moment, I positively hate it. That notwithstanding, if we were to have a meeting like the one we’re having now, this would be the place to have it. This is a secure room. One of only two in the building. I’m a lawyer. That means that when I leave this room, I’ll be able to claim attorney–client privilege and refuse to answer any questions about anything you have told me. I will be able to claim that even if you claim that I am not your lawyer, because the record will show that when I walked into this room I was your lawyer, and you had requested me to be.”