Judge & Jury - James Patterson [21]
“Lie?” The witness chuckled. “Of course I lied. I lied all the time.”
“By all the time, you mean . . . once a month? Once a week? Every day, perhaps?”
“We always lied, Mr. Kaskel. That was what we did.”
“Why?”
“Why would we lie? To keep out of trouble. To avoid getting caught.”
“Ever lie to the cops, Mr. Machia?”
“Sure, I lied to the police.”
“To the FBI?”
“Yes.” The witness swallowed. “When I was first arrested, I lied to the FBI.”
“What about your wife, Mr. Machia? Or, say, your mother? Ever lie to them?”
Louis Machia nodded. “I guess in the course of my life I’ve lied to just about everyone.”
“So let’s face it, Mr. Machia, what you are is a habitual liar. Basically, you’ve lied to everyone you know. The people you work with, the police, the FBI, your wife. Even the woman who bore you. Let me ask you, Mr. Machia, is there anything you wouldn’t lie about?”
“Yes.” Louis Machia straightened up. “This.”
“This?” Kaskel mocked him sarcastically. “By this, I assume you mean your testimony?”
“Yes, sir,” the witness said.
“The government’s promised you a sweet deal, haven’t they? If you tell them what they want to hear.”
“If I admit to my crimes and tell the truth.” The witness shrugged. “They said they would take that into account.”
“By that, you mean reduce your sentence, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe even to ‘time served,’” the Eyebrow said, wide-eyed, “is that not correct?”
“It’s possible.” The witness nodded.
“So tell us,” Kaskel said, “why should this jury believe you now, when in practically every other instance of your life, you’ve admitted you habitually lied in order to save your own skin?”
“Because,” said the witness, smiling, “it makes no sense for me to lie now.”
“It makes no sense?” Kaskel scratched his chin again. “Why?”
“Because if they catch me in a lie I stay in prison. All I have to do to get my sentence reduced is tell the truth. How ’bout that, Mr. Kaskel?”
Chapter 20
THEY BROKE FOR LUNCH. Andie went out with O’Flynn and Marc, the crime writer, to Chinatown, a short walk from the courthouse in Foley Square.
For a while, as they picked at appetizers, they exchanged stories. Andie told them about Jarrod, about what it was like raising a kid in the city by herself. O’Flynn asked what it was like to work on The Sopranos, and Andie admitted she’d sort of stretched that a little bit: “I was an extra. I exaggerated to get off the trial.”
“Jeez.” O’Flynn stared at her glassily. “Y’just broke my heart.”
“John’s been rewinding through five years of reruns trying to pick you out in the Bada Bing.” Marc grinned, picking up a piece of bean curd with his chopsticks.
“So what about you?” Andie turned to Marc. “What kind of stuff do you write?”
Marc seemed like a cool guy to her. He had longish, curly blond hair, a bit like Matthew McConaughey, and always wore jeans with his navy blazer and open-necked shirt.
“Couple of okay mystery novels—one was nominated for an Edgar Award. I did some CSI and NYPD Blue scripts.”
“So, like, you’re famous,” said Andie.
“I know a few famous writers,” he said, grinning. “Am I making you nervous?”
“Yeah, I can hardly hold my chopsticks.” Andie smiled. “Look at them shake.”
“So I gotta ask you guys.” O’Flynn lowered his voice. “I know we’re not supposed to talk, but this Machia guy, what’d we make of him?”
“We make him to be one coldhearted sonovabitch,” Marc said. “But he does know how to get a laugh.”
“He is a sonovabitch,” Andie agreed, “but when he was talking about his friend, I don’t know, I felt a different side of him starting to come through.”
“I guess what I was really asking”—O’Flynn leaned in close—“is, do we believe him? In spite of all the shit he’s done.”
Andie looked at Marc. Machia was a murderer and a thug. He’d probably done a hundred horrible things he’d never owned up to. But that bit about telling the truth hit home, how he had nothing to gain from lying now.
The writer shrugged. “Yeah, I believe him.”
They both looked at Andie. “Yeah, I believe him, too.”
Chapter 21
WHEN THE JURY CAME BACK