Read Online Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving - Free Book Online

played backgammon and she said yes, her mom had taught her. I told her that if I had lost I would have had to pay Uncle Bernie close to a thousand dollars.
    “Where would you have got the money? Are you, like, rich?”
    “My parents are… I guess affluent is the word. But I work for my money, except when I get presents for holidays and birthdays and stuff. Do you have any money saved up?”
    “About three dollars,” she said. “In a jam jar under my bed.”
    I told her about the Yummy-in-the-Tummy Lemonade Company.
    “Next summer, if you want to, you can work for my company. I’ll give you a quarter—no, a third of the profit. I’ll supply the lemons and the sugar and the plastic cups and the Thermoses. I start as soon as school stops and I go right through Labor Day. It works out to four or five days a week, because I get tired if I do it every day, and then on rainy days, naturally, I stay home. Want to do it with me?”
    “Awesome. Except I don’t know if we’ll be here next summer.”
    I felt this gritty ache in my chest. The heart is the place for pain, too.
    “Why not?”
    “Carter says he can get a better job up island.”
    I could understand that he’d want a better job than that of a garbage man, but understanding it didn’t help what I felt.
    Amy said, “One of his amigos, a guy named Woody, is moving to Sayville.” Sayville was on Long Island, but halfway to New York. “Woody can get Carter a job at the marina there.”
    A nurse came into the room. I went, “ Sssst. “ Iphigenia, hunting under the radiator, froze.
    “How are we feeling, Amy?”
    The nurse took Amy’s temperature, and then she left.
    “Billy, that monkey is so smart,” Amy said.
    I asked her if she thought they would do anything to her brother Jimmy.
    “Who’s they?”
    “The cops. Because he stabbed you.”
    She didn’t make any sound, but tears leaked from her eyes again. I decided this was a subject I’d better drop. I handed Amy a Kleenex so she could wipe her face.
    We talked, and time flew by, and it began to grow gray outside and threaten rain. I knew I had to be back before six thirty because Aunt Grace would be coming to check up on us. I told Amy about my rock climbing, although I left out the part about getting so scared when I didn’t have the rope to hang onto. I told her about my mom and dad and how they traveled all around the country doing all they did for the environment and the murderers on Death Row who might be innocent. I told her how they met at an art opening in Greenwich Village, and how my mom, whenever she tells the story, breaks out into song: “… across a crowded room …”
    Amy told me that when Carter had met her mom, whose name was Ginette — Amy pronounced it Zhinette — Ginette was living out in Montauk in an RV and waitressing in a fishermen’s bar. Carter was cleaning boats at a Montauk yacht club.
    “Is she French?” I asked.
    Amy laughed, shaking her head so that red hair flew back and forth. “Not French.”
    She told me that Jimmy had been born asleep and they had a hard time waking him. When he was a year old if you touched him he’d scream. When he was three if you brushed against him he’d wheel on you, his eyes would go wild and he’d hit at you. Ginette took him to a clinic and they gave her medication for him.
    “But the pills are three dollars each,” Amy said. “Ginette yells, ‘This kid will send us to the poorhouse.’ Sometimes she doesn’t want to give Jimmy the pills. Carter’s like, ‘The kid needs the pills.’ He wouldn’t buy a new duffel coat last winter because if he did there might not be enough money for Jimmy’s pills.”
    Two years ago, she said, working out at the Montauk gym, Carter dropped a 35-pound weight on his foot. “Crushed all the bones.”
    Before he recuperated, the yacht club gave him severance pay and let him go. The best job he could find was garbage collector in Amagansett. He took the job but he couldn’t afford