Fighting Chance(48)

“Maybe the walls have ears, but I don’t think the walls speak Armenian. Almost nobody speaks Armenian.”

“What is going to happen next?” Stefan said. “I have asked about another hearing, but they won’t say anything. They say my lawyer will tell me.”

“Aunt Sophie said she would talk to Mr. Donahue today,” Petrak said. “Maybe she will have the news when she gets here.”

“She is coming?”

“She always comes,” Petrak said. “She will come and think I am not here, because I will not be waiting for her in the lobby. Then she will be surprised to see me when she comes in. Or they will tell her at the desk. I don’t know.”

“It is good to see you, in any case,” Stefan said. “It is good to have a visitor without the yelling.”

“I could be yelling,” Petrak pointed out. “I’ve got every right to yell. It’s your own fault you are sitting where you are sitting. What were you thinking about? First cutting school and then shoplifting CDs and video games? And no attention to the security cameras at all. Tcha. If you have to turn yourself into a thief, do you have to turn yourself into a stupid thief?”

“I told you, I have not turned myself into a thief. It was an initiation.”

“An initiation into what? The worldwide stupid society?”

“I have told you before, it is a club for the best—”

“Stop,” Petrak said. “You have told me before. You have told Aunt Sophie. You have told Mr. Donahue. It is still completely senseless.”

Stefan looked away. “There are people here who say that the priest killed the judge because of me. That Father Kasparian killed her because he thought she was going to have me sent away to prison for a long time.”

“They are saying the same thing outside, but I do not think it is true. It does not sound like something somebody would do.”

“Maybe the priest is what they say he is,” Stefan said. “Maybe he is some kind of saint. They said that at home. That he was some kind of saint.”

“Even saints don’t have to be idiots,” Petrak said. “What sense would such a thing make? This judge is now gone, and that means some other judge won’t give you so much prison time? Even if that is true—tcha. It is a story for children.”

“You want to talk to me alone,” Stefan said. “This is what you want to talk to me about?”

Petrak shook his head. “In a way. In a way not. I need to know for certain. You did not leave the courtroom yesterday before they took you away officially?”

“I could not leave the courtroom,” Stefan said. “There were guards at both the doors. And guards outside. And I was wearing this.”

“And you will be on the security cameras?” Petrak asked. “There was something wrong with the security cameras. Some of them were not working. I didn’t understand it when I heard it on the news. So maybe you will not be on the security cameras.”

“Aunt Sophie was there,” Stefan said. “She never left the seat next to me.”

“Good,” Petrak said. “That will help.”

“You were not there,” Stefan said. “You left and then you were gone a long time.”

“I went to look for Mr. Donahue,” Petrak said. “He was gone a long time. And then everything got crazy.”

“I think the best news would be if everybody were missing for a long time,” Stefan said.

Petrak looked up at the clock on the wall. He didn’t have much time. “I found something,” he said. “I found it in one of the side corridors. I went to the toilets and looked there for Mr. Donahue, and when he wasn’t there I went on to the back, but it was confusing. There were hallways and they went everywhere.”

“If you are going to tell me you killed that woman, I am not going to listen to it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know it.”

“No, no,” Petrak said. “It’s not that. It’s that I found something. And I do not know what to do about it.”

“What did you find?”

“It was a cell phone,” Petrak said. “The corridors were confusing and I went through them and then I was outside, and then I came back in again, and it was there lying in a doorway and I just picked it up. It was lying there and I picked it up. And then all the crazy things started to happen and I forgot about it. But it was in my pocket. And so I looked at it last night and I saw what it was, and I don’t know what to do about it. But first I had to talk to you.”

“Why would you have to talk to me?”