Hardscrabble Road(8)

Chickie looked nonplused. “I suppose I favor it. I know I’m supposed to. I’m gay. But mostly, I don’t think about it.”

“There,” Tibor said. “You see? An ordinary citizen off the street, and what does he say? He says he doesn’t think about it. This is the way it is with most citizens off the street. They don’t think about it. This is my point, Krekor. This issue is not politics. It is not what people want to hear, or want resolved, or want to have discussed. This is two fanatics shouting at each other, and taking up all the air.”

Gregor slid back into the booth. “This is Father Tibor Kasparian. He’s a little worked up this morning.”

“About same-sex marriage?” Chickie said.

“About politics, I think,” Gregor told him.

“I am not worked up about politics,” Tibor said. “I am depressed about them, which is different. I do not like the way the world is going. I do not like the issues that are being brought forward for discussion. I do not like the Democrats, and I do not like the Republicans. I do not like Ralph Nader, either.”

“Maybe you ought to throw in Harry Browne and Ross Perot,” Chickie said.

Tibor took a piece of toast off the stack in the middle of the table and started to butter it.

Gregor waved to Linda Melajian. “Let’s get you a cup of coffee or something. You must be freezing. You had your coat open when you walked in here.”

“I only had to get from the door of the cab to the door of the restaurant,” Chickie said, as Linda materialized. “Coffee would be fine, though, thank you. I’m moving at warp speed this morning. I’ve got a contracts class to prep for and then an hour at the Justice Project this evening, and classes in between. Law school sounded like a great idea when I first had it, but it really can be a drain.”

“I’m surprised you find time to volunteer at the Justice Project.”

“I had to volunteer at something,” Chickie said. “I was going crazy. I’ve got nothing against rich people. I don’t even have anything against rich pricks as a matter of principle. It’s just that you wouldn’t believe how many people go to law school with the ambition to make the world safe for corporate polluters.”

“Ah,” Tibor said. “You’re a liberal. Or a Green.”

“That one would be mostly Green, I think,” Chickie said. “But what I am is a skeptical libertarian.”

Linda was back with the coffee. Chickie said thank you as she put it down in front of him and then shrugged off his coat. The black suit was a very good black suit, Gregor noticed. He couldn’t remember if Chickie had been well dressed when he’d met him at the church.

“Well,” Chickie said. “Thank you for seeing me this early in the morning. I’m sorry to be in such a rush. I know your schedule must be packed.”

“My schedule is clear,” Gregor said, “and it’s rarely packed. The Justice Project has something to do with the drug case that Drew Harrigan is involved in, right?”

“Right,” Chickie said, “but not on the side of Drew Harrigan. He’s got his own lawyers for that, and expensive ones, too. And he’s got the ACLU, which ought to embarrass him but doesn’t. Or at least it doesn’t seem to. Nobody’s seen him for a month.”

“He’s disappeared.”

“He’s in rehab,” Tibor said. “Tcha, Krekor, at least watch the television news.”

“I do watch the television news,” Gregor said. “I don’t pay attention to celebrity gossip. I mean, if the man’s in rehab, what business is it of mine?”

“That’s the important thing,” Tibor said. “Learning to mind your own business. Nobody can mind their own business anymore.”

Chickie looked amused. “We represent Sherman Markey,” he said. “Sherman did some handyman work around Harrigan’s apartment for a while. I’ve never been able to pin down what. At any rate, when Harrigan was caught carrying a ton of prescription drug medication, all obtained illegally, he fingered Sherman as the guy who got the drugs for him. You know, not a regular supplier, not a dealer, but the person he’d send out to the pharmacy or over to a new doctor’s office or something when he couldn’t go himself because he’d be too obvious. Most people know Harrigan on sight, or a lot of them do. So he needed a blind, and he said Sherman was it.”

“And you don’t think Mr. Markey was the one?”

Chickie shifted slightly in his seat. “Actually, as far as the Justice Project is concerned, that’s sort of beside the point. The reason we got involved in the beginning was because of the way the case unfolded. They picked up Harrigan. Harrigan fingered Sherman. They arrested Sherman. And then the whole thing sort of exploded. They got Sherman a public defender who was completely useless, but that’s par for the course. What wasn’t par was that Sherman didn’t do what he was supposed to and come right out and confess. He flat out refused. And one day he was being taken back to jail after being questioned for the umpteenth time, and there was a reporter from WB-17 standing out near the sergeant’s desk, and Sherman fell on her and started wailing that they were torturing him to get him to confess to something he didn’t do. And all hell broke loose.”