Read Online No Show of Remorse by David J. Walker - Free Book Online Page B

should have backed off a little, but I was angry, too. “Someone’s leaning on me, Coletta, and I intend to lean back, hard, on whoever it is. If you’re there you’ll get—” I finally caught myself, and took a deep breath. “Right now, though, I’m here just to talk … about what really happened that night at Lonnie Bright’s place.”
    â€œYou don’t need to talk to me. What happened is just what the police reports—” He stopped, and there was another shift in his expression. He looked down at his hand on the arm of the wheelchair.
    â€œI’m listening,” I said.
    He looked up at me and seemed angry again. “If somebody’s following you around, threatening you, that’s between you and them. I don’t want to talk to you.”
    â€œBut I said I wanted to talk to you, and you said to come out.”
    â€œYeah, well, I changed my mind. I don’t like being pushed either,” he added, “so get outta here.”
    â€œDamn,” I said. “Why don’t you give me a—”
    â€œI don’t really care if they give you back your blood-sucker’s license, Foley. I just want you away from me.” He leaned forward; he’d lost the battle to control his temper. “And legs or no legs, I can still whip your tail.”
    I stood up … and walked away. Jimmy Coletta couldn’t whip my tail. With both legs and his dead brother back to help him, they couldn’t have whipped my tail. So what should I do? Tell him that?
    The gymnasium door fell closed behind me. There’d be other days. Besides, much of what I’d wanted from the man he’d told me.
    I’d learned that, whatever he’d been before, Jimmy Coletta was a good man now, even if he had a temper he couldn’t always keep under rein; and that he was worried—frightened, in fact—about my asking for my license back. He’d been relieved to think I might drop the idea, and then scared again to find out I wouldn’t. I couldn’t tell whether he knew who was putting the squeeze on me, but I was damn certain he wasn’t involved. Most important of all, though, I’d learned Jimmy Coletta was a man who’d stop short when he caught himself about to tell a lie.

CHAPTER
    12
    I LEFT THE COMMUNITY CENTER and drove up to Fifty-fifth Street, then east to the Dan Ryan. Rain poured down as though it were the sky’s last chance to prove it couldn’t be pushed around.
    I didn’t know the whole story about what happened the night Jimmy Coletta got shot, but what I did know was enough to hurt Jimmy if it came out. That’s exactly what he was afraid of. But why would Jimmy—or some others who’d be hurt as bad, or worse—why would they think I’d break open now, after all these years? I’d said right in the petition I filed that I still didn’t intend to reveal what my client Marlon Shades told me in confidence. Didn’t they know me well enough to—
    And then I understood.
    Whether they knew me and thought I wouldn’t tell wasn’t the point. They knew Jimmy Coletta. He was the one they were worried about. He couldn’t bring himself to lie to me even when he was angry. If the commission subpoenaed Jimmy and put him under oath he might not be able to get himself to lie, even if telling the truth meant dragging himself down, as well as the others.
    I’d filed my petition thinking I’d see whether the supreme court would give my license back even though I still wouldn’t tell what my client had told me. If I got the license, fine. If not, so be it. Now it seemed that if there was a hearing, even if I didn’t tell what I knew to be the facts behind the shooting at Lonnie Bright’s, Jimmy Coletta would.
    Did I still want to go forward with the petition? Chances are I wouldn’t get my license back. And if Jimmy brought himself and the others