Read Online Time's Witness by Michael Malone - Free Book Online Page B

human emotions, except a cupidinous curiosity. Whenever I thought I’d detected in those deep round eyes some mild stirring of anger or envy or hurt, it always slid behind the cloudof abstracted serenity now floating over his face. He took law cases because they “interested” him, variously outraging acquaintances both on the left and the right, who had decided he was one of them. A full pardon for George Hall wouldn’t have satisfied Isaac; what he wanted was a new trial. Stopping the execution was a necessary first step. I said, “‘Maybe’ what? Tell me.”
    The spaniel pouches under his sad beautiful eyes crinkled. “Tell me, tell me, tell me, ever since you were a skinny kid with ears out to here. What kind of food did they have at this fancy dance?”
    “Aww, shit.”
    “Did you meet anybody you liked?”
    “Isaac, you’ve been trying to find me the right girl since the day I met you.”
    “Don’t exaggerate. You were five years old then.”
    “Don’t you. I was nine.”
    I’d met Isaac the day he’d tapped me on the shoulder in the drugstore and hired me to run to the library for some book nobody’d checked out since 1948, that I had to beat the dust out of like an eraser. For the next decade I ran to the courthouse for his messages and to the corner for his newspapers. Isaac Rosethorn never ran anywhere, or did much walking either. His right leg dragged a little—from polio, he said. Sometimes it seemed to work almost fine, sometimes it limped along downright pitifully—depending on the jury. He’d lived then where he lived now, in the Piedmont Hotel, and if he ever went any farther, he drove a Studebaker that I know an antique auto show would love to get its hands on. He went to visit his sister-in-law every Saturday, and every Sunday he went to the cemetery to visit somebody called Edith Keene who’d died at twenty and had “Gone to a Better Place,” which first I thought maybe meant that she’d had the sense to get out of Hillston—since a better place was where my daddy had always wished he could go, out of Hillston, “this armpit.”
    Isaac said, “I hope you aren’t going to argue with me that your own efforts to find the right girl have been terribly successful.”
    I said no, I wasn’t going to argue with him.
    Outside the car, the drizzle had slowed, almost stopped. Behind us, Jordan West, checking the rain's pause with an upturned palm,pulled thick white candles from her canvas purse, lit them in the fire, and passed them around to all the vigilants, who moved out in a line from under the gate ledge to take one each. Then they began singing, clapping the beat. “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around.” The guard in the cubicle, licking glaze from his fingers, clearing a circle of steam from the window-pane with his forearm, stood up to watch them. “Walking down that freedom road.” Their voices sounded eerie, disembodied, in the outdoor night.
    Bubba Percy broke away from Molina and trotted up to my car, looking excited, his new Burberry trenchcoat flapping. When I rolled down the window, he stuck his head all the way inside. “That guy says Briggs Cadmean died! Tonight!” We nodded back at him. “And here I am all the fuck out here like an asshole!”
    “That's strong, but factual,” I said. “Just stop eavesdropping on police business, and you won’t get led so far astray.” Behind the waves of Percy's auburn pompadour, I saw a second prison guard opening the long gate. A man walked out with an umbrella, raised it, then lowered it, then Julian Lewis stepped out behind him, tucking his scarf inside the velvet collar of his coat. As soon as they saw him, Coop's little group grabbed up their signs and ran over, chanting, “ Free George Hall! Free George Hall! ”
    “Bubba,” I said, “on the other hand, eavesdropping just made your day. The lieutenant governor's about to give you an exclusive.” I turned his soft pink cheek