Antonelli - 03 - The Judgment Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘You lay a hand on me again, you son of a bitch, and I’ll have you in court for the rest of your natural life.’
    “He was a large, bulky man, with small fat hands. I would never have believed he could move as fast as he did. Before I knew what was happening, my face was flat against the cinder block wall and both my arms were pinned behind my back. I felt the cold metal around my wrists and then the clicking noise as he locked the handcuffs tight.
    ” ‘You’re not in court now, counselor,’ the deputy reminded me.
    He grabbed the same shoulder he had before and with one hard push sent me flying. He walked at a steady pace, and each time he caught up with me did it again until we reached a windowless metal door. I braced myself when he opened it, ready for the push that would send me tumbling inside. Instead, he turned me around, and unfastened the handcuffs.
    ” ‘Nothing personal,’ he said.
    “He had that kind of stupid grin that you imagine on the face of the schoolyard bully after he has just flattened some scrawny little kid with thick glasses and a stutter who can’t hit back. It was the first time I had ever actually seen that look. A coward from the cradle, I had learned to avoid that kind of trouble. I suppose it was the fear of being found out for what I really was that made me do what I did next. With both hands, I shoved him in the chest as hard as I could. He did not move, not so much as an inch. I might just as well have tried to move the wall. He stared at me, a blank look on his face, as if he did not quite comprehend what I was doing. Then, in an instant, the heel of his hand came up under my jaw and I was knocked backward into the cell, and the door slammed shut behind me. I was locked in a room, six feet by four, the only furnishing a wooden bench suspended from the wall on two metal chains. There was no window, no source of light, except a single dim light bulb that hung high overhead inside a wire mesh screen.
    “Without any means to measure it, time came to a stop. After I had been there for what I knew could only have been a few minutes, I felt as if I had been sitting there, staring into nothingness, for hours. I stood up and started to pace back and forth, three small steps each way, counting out loud. It gave me a strange sense of satisfaction, the sound of my voice tolling off the passage of time, tangible proof that I was not imprisoned in a permanent present. It was a way of protecting myself against the fear that had already begun to gnaw at the edge of my conscious mind, the incipient panic at being shut away in a small confined space, the sense of terror that had always accompanied the thought of being buried alive.
    “After a while I stopped counting and began to concentrate on the trial. I tried to think about what I was going to say in my opening statement after we finished selecting the jury. I sat down on the hard bench, and studied as carefully as I could the remembered faces of the jurors with whom I had already talked, and thought about which ones I should keep and which ones I should let go. There was a sound at the door. It swung open and a different guard motioned for me to follow him down another corridor. I asked him for the time. I had been in the cell for less than fifteen minutes.
    “I assumed he was taking me to eat, or perhaps to change into the clothing of an inmate. He stopped, opened a door, and I found myself squinting into a glaring light. I was on a kind of stage, standing next to four or five other men in front of a wall with odd markings on it. From somewhere in the darkness on the other side of the light, a voice told us to turn to the left. Then I knew. I was in a lineup.
    “As soon as I realized where I was and what they were doing, I became convinced they were looking for someone who had committed either murder or rape, and that their witness would mis-takenly pick me. I was certain of it, and I tried to look like someone else. I rolled my