Fighting Chance: A Gregor Demarkian Novel (Gregor Demarkian series Book 29) Read online

  She put the can back in her bag and punched in her access code on the pad at the side of the door. Martha’s watch read 8:35. It was early for the courthouse, but it was not exactly early. Court wouldn’t get into gear until ten o’clock, but that was because the court system was also run by asses.

  The security guard was already on duty, a uniformed policewoman with a gun on her hip and a strained expression. Martha saw her look of surprise and pretended she hadn’t.

  “Is Celia in already?” she asked.

  Martha had no idea if this was something the guard would know. Celia was her personal assistant, and came to work every morning by bus.

  The policewoman started to say something. Martha sailed right past her. She didn’t really care if Celia was in or not.

  She went down the back corridor that was painted such an awful shade of beige—vomit beige, she always thought of it. They brought the kids through that corridor when it was time for court. The idea was not to expose them to ridicule or publicity by bringing them up the sidewalk. Martha thought that was asinine.

  Martha passed the door to the corridor that went to the courtrooms themselves and opened the thicker one that went to the offices. There were security cameras in these corridors, too, but she had spray-painted them last night, and she was pretty sure that security hadn’t managed to “fix” them yet. She took the can out and did the one closest to her door, just to be safe. Then she went on through.

  Most of the offices were dark. One, her own, all the way at the end of the hall, was lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree.

  “Celia?” Martha said.

  Celia Markhall put her head out the door and made a little wave. “Good morning, Your Honor. I wasn’t expecting you for at least another hour. I’m afraid I’ve got things in a mess in here.”

  Celia Markhall was the fifth assistant Martha had had in the past nine years, and she wasn’t any better than the rest of them. She was blond in the only way people can be blond when they’ve reached the age of fifty-six, and she was much too peppy.

  Martha pushed past her into the outer office. There were paper files on the desks there, placed about in little stacks. She went past them without bothering to think about what they were for and into the inner office with its big mahogany desk and its antique wall clock. The antique wall clock was Martha’s own, brought from her home in Wayne.

  There was nothing at all on her desk except the felt blotter. The blotter was there because she thought desks ought to have blotters. She could not have said why.

  She put her briefcase and her bag on the desk and sat down. She looked at the dark screen of her computer. It sat on a little “workstation” shelf to her left. She suddenly felt enormously stupid about having come in this early at all.

  “Your Honor?” Celia said. She looked like she was hovering. She was like a hummingbird.

  “The first thing this morning is the Maldovanian case?”

  Celia looked immediately uncomfortable. “It’s actually the second thing,” she said. “The docket says eleven o’clock, but you know how that goes. The scheduler did try to give you the greatest possible leeway, but the first thing up is that She’bor Washington girl, and you know—”

  “Oh, Lord,” Martha said.

  “Yes, well, the scheduler tried to give you enough time.”

  “It’s not going to take time,” Martha said. “It’s going to take keeping my temper. We should all thank God on our knees that Cathy Laste is finally retired and off this court. God only knows what she thought she was doing. You can’t go easy on these kids. Half of them are sociopaths and half of them will end up that way if you don’t lock them up the first time. The Maldovanian kid is coming in at eleven, you said?”

  “From lockup, yes. The way they do that, he’ll probably be in early.”

  “I know the way they do that,” Martha said. “Is that priest going to come in?”

  “Father Tibor Kasparian, yes,” Celia said. “I think—”

  “I had a check run on his immigration status,” Martha said. “The kid’s illegal, there’s no reason why the priest shouldn’t be illegal. He isn’t, though. Came here years ago as a political refugee. Whatever that means. I notified Immigration about the kid, but you can bet your ass they won’t do a thing about it. They never do.”

  “Yes,” Celia said. “Of course, he is only fifteen, and—”

  “And he’s got friends in the city government,” Martha said. “I know. Our esteemed mayor. Our esteemed governor. And they’re not even on the same side. People don’t understand reality anymore. They don’t face up to it. You can’t just let these things go.”

  “Yes,” Celia said again.

  The woman looked stressed. Martha could tell. Martha wanted to throw something.

  “Listen,” she said. “Get me all the stuff about She’bor Washington. I want to get through that as fast as I can. Maybe if I get through that, I can bring the Maldovanian kid in early and Father Tibor Kasparian won’t even be at the courthouse yet. God, how I want to get through with that before he ever gets here.”

  “Yes,” Celia said again. “There is one other thing. The funeral service. For Stella Kolchak. It starts at eleven, and all the assistants will be off the floor. I think the best estimate for return is going to be about twelve thirty, because most of us will be going out to the cemetery. Of course, I won’t be going to the luncheon, you did say you need me here—”

  “I do need you here,” Martha said. “I can’t believe I’m still dealing with Stella Kolchak. The woman was such a twit. And about as useful an assistant as a cheese Danish. That’s Cathy Laste for you. Nothing done right.”

  “I do promise to be back as soon as I can,” Celia said. She looked like she was going to say something else, make some protest, but Martha knew she wouldn’t do it. She knew better by now.

  Martha swung her chair until it faced the computer station and started to boot up.

  3

  Petrak Maldovanian was not having the worst day of his life. Not even close. He wasn’t even having the worst day of his life in America, which had occurred exactly a week ago. He was only having a kind of day he had never had before, and it was setting him off balance.

  The day had actually started in a way he liked, with his American Government: Histories and Processes class at Philadelphia Community College. There were a lot of things wrong with Philadelphia Community College that people would tell you about if you gave them half a chance. It was situated in one of the worst parts of the city. That did not make the campus unsafe—the campus was well patrolled. It did make getting to the campus, or leaving it, something of an adventure. Petrak didn’t have a car, and he learned his first semester never to schedule a class or an appointment too late in the day. His American Government class started at eight in the morning and ended twenty minutes after nine.

  Petrak didn’t mind the forced early-morning scheduling, because he loved the entire idea of the Philadelphia Community College and everything that went with it. If anybody had asked him what he thought the most important difference was between Armenia and the United States, he would have said the Philadelphia Community College and said it without hesitation. All the other things were either trivial or ambiguous. The level of government corruption was a lot lower, but there was still government corruption. The money was much more abundant, but Petrak didn’t have access to much of the money.

  No, it was the Philadelphia Community College that was the shock—a place that offered a university education to anybody who walked through the door who had graduated from high school, and offered it at practically no money. In Armenia, you went to university if you passed the entrance exams, and practically nobody did.

  Just after coming to America, Petrak had seen a clip of a speech President Obama made somewhere or other, saying that the country should make it a goal for every student to go to college. That was long before Petrak had even started at PCC. He knew nothing about American politics. After that, though
, he’d always thought President Obama was okay.

  He mostly thought that his American Government class was okay, too, but this morning he hadn’t been able to attend to it. He hadn’t heard half the lecture. His mind was on his brother, Stefan, and what was going to happen to Stefan today. And he was worried that the trouble Stefan was having was entirely his fault.

  All right. Maybe not entirely his fault. Stefan had behaved like a jackass. Even so. Stefan was in the country illegally, and he was in the country illegally because Petrak had told him to come. This had seemed like a good idea at the time. Stefan was in Canada, and it took nothing at all to get across the Canadian border into the United States. Stefan didn’t even bother to tell their aunt and uncle that he was going until he had already gone.

  Of course, that had been Petrak’s idea, too. He was the older one. He was the one who was supposed to have the intelligence and the experience and the maturity to—

  Petrak recognized the patter of footsteps behind him, the particular shotgun click of the heels, the odd almost-limping sound of a slight shuffle. Dr. Loftus spent a fair amount of time chasing him in hallways.

  He stopped and turned around to wait for her. She was a small woman, barely five foot two, compact and neat looking. She was also indescribably old. Petrak was sure she was at least sixty.

  “Petrak,” she said as she reached him, breathing just a little too hard.

  “I’m sorry,” Petrak said, “I would stay to talk, but—”

  “But you have that court date for your brother,” Dr. Loftus said. “Yes, I remembered. I could tell you were having a hard time paying attention today. And I don’t blame you. I know you’re very conscientious, but you could have taken today off. I would have understood.”

  There were two kinds of professors at Philadelphia Community College: One kind was like Dr. Loftus, who always understood. The other kind behaved as if every student were an incipient criminal and had to be kept in line in any way possible. After his first semester, Petrak discovered RateMyProfessors.com, and after that, he’d never had to bother with the second kind again, except in mathematics, where there was no alternative.

  Dr. Loftus was still out of breath. She stood still for a moment to catch up with herself.

  Petrak didn’t want to be rude, but he did want to be going. “I’m supposed to meet the lawyer—”

  “Yes, yes,” Dr. Loftus said, “and I really won’t keep you. I only wanted to know, did you get in touch with Kasey Holbrook at Pennsylvania Justice? Because she really can be of help to you and to your brother. And it’s very important. This woman, this Martha Handling—it’s more than just that she’s harsh. Kasey is sure there’s something going on, something worse, and if you don’t fix the something worse, it gets even worse, and—”

  “Yes, Professor,” Petrak said, “I understand. But I am supposed to meet the lawyer, and I have to take the bus, so—”

  “The bus?” Dr. Loftus looked startled. “Oh, don’t be silly. I’ve got a car. I’ll run you down to the courthouse. This is my only class today anyway, and it’s not as if anybody ever comes to office hours. I’ve got my car right outside. I’ll get you there in no time.”

  “Thank you,” Petrak said awkwardly. He felt very, very awkward. He felt, suddenly, very panicked. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t stop feeling that letting Dr. Loftus drive him was exactly the wrong thing to do.

  This, Petrak was sure, made absolutely no sense.

  Dr. Loftus was fussing around with her tote bag. She came up with an enormous set of keys and jangled them triumphantly.

  “There we go,” she said. “Now, come on out with me, and I’ll get you there in no time flat. You don’t want to be late for Martha Handling. The way that woman works, you want to be early. She’d have no compunction at all at starting things before she said she would just so she wouldn’t have to listen to you. It’s the privatization, you understand. It’s like what we talked about in class.”

  Petrak did remember something about “privatization,” but it was vague, and things were moving very fast. Dr. Loftus was marching into the large open space that led to the front doors. She was moving fast, much faster than Petrak would have expected somebody that old to move.

  The alarm bells were going off in his head, and so was a little voice telling him he was being irrational.

  Dr. Loftus pushed open the door to the outside. Petrak raced after her. He got to the door to the outside just before it would have snicked closed.

  “Dr. Loftus,” he said.

  She was marching on resolutely. He was having trouble keeping up.

  “Dr. Loftus,” he tried a second time.

  She pressed her key ring, and the lights on a car a half block away blinked.

  “Listen,” she said. “This is important. Never say ‘illegal immigrant.’”

  They reached the car whose lights had been blinking. It was a new car, shiny and silver. Dr. Loftus unlocked it with the remote.

  “Of course,” she said, “I’m sure Martha Handling says ‘illegal immigrant.’ It’s the kind of person she is. She’s the kind of person who’s ruining this country and everything it ought to stand for.”

  “Please,” Petrak said.

  Most of the time these days, he could think in English, but he wasn’t thinking in English now. The little woman was just marching into the distance at warp speed, and he couldn’t stop her; he couldn’t even explain himself.

  She popped open the passenger-side door and told him to get in.

  He got in. He tried desperately to think of what to do next. He imagined Stefan sitting in that jail in the jumpsuit thing he’d had on for visiting hours yesterday. Petrak had no idea why, but he still felt absolutely certain that if Dr. Loftus came along, she would ruin everything.

  She locked the doors around them, and Petrak realized that the car was a Prius.

  4

  Mark Granby owed his job to two unshakable realities.

  The first was the fact that he was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done, and if “whatever it took” meant something illegal more often than not, he was willing to live with it. That was a decision he had made when he first left Drexel University at the height of the 2008 recession. Everybody you talked to gave the same stupid spiel about striving for excellence and commitment to purpose and blah blah blah crap crap crap. Mark had never understood what any of it meant, and he was pretty sure the recruiters didn’t understand it either. They gave the rap because they wanted to look good if anybody asked about your interview, but what they were really thinking was that this was Drexel, not Penn, and all the real talent was across town.

  Mark Granby was a realist. He knew he would never have been able to get into an Ivy League school, even a tenth-rate Ivy League school like Penn. He wasn’t some kind of supergenius, and he really didn’t come from money.

  “I don’t come from money. I come from New Jersey,” was what he’d said to the recruiter from Administrative Solutions of America when he went in to talk to him, and as soon as he’d said it, he realized he was going to get the job.

  The other reality was something Mark only guessed during his interview, but he’d confirmed it later. Administrative Solutions liked to pretend it was an enormous company, a corporate giant with operations spanning the globe, but it wasn’t really that big, and it wasn’t at all “well regarded.”

  As far as Mark could tell, nobody who knew what Administrative Solutions really did wanted to have any part of it. It had taken him only a couple of months on the job to stop telling people the truth about what he did. Then he asked his wife, Bethany, to do the same, and found out she’d been doing it all along.

  “I think it just sounds wrong,” she’d told him at the time. “I mean, private prisons. How can there be private prisons?”

  Mark hadn’t bothered to give her the spiel he learned in orientation: The prisons weren’t really private. They were Pennsylvania prisons. It was only the administration of the prisons
that was private. It was a private sector solution to a public sector problem. Administrative Solutions could run a prison much more cheaply than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could. For one thing, it didn’t have to pay public sector benefits to guards and administrators.

  Mark had thought it sounded like a pile of shit then, and he definitely thought it sounded like that now. His job was not to provide a “more cost-effective” administration of Pennsylvania’s prisons. His job was to keep bodies in the beds.

  “Think of them like hotels,” Carter Bandwood had said. “The principle is essentially the same. Every empty bed represents a net loss of revenue. Optimal return on investment requires operating at full capacity.”

  Mark had never been able to pin down Carter Bandwood’s exact position in the company. He could have been a lowish-level flunky just lucky enough to get a New York office. He could have been one of the owners of the whole shebang. It was hard to get accurate information about who ran Administrative Solutions, or who owned it.

  Mark did have one piece of accurate information this morning, though. He knew that Carter Bandwood was panicking.

  “She didn’t tell you why she’d suddenly changed her mind about our arrangement?” he asked. “She didn’t give you a clue?”

  “She didn’t even tell me she’d changed her mind about the arrangement,” Mark said. “She called this morning, from her car, for God’s sake, because she won’t call from a stable location—oh, no, that would make the calls all too clear—”

  “If she didn’t tell you that she wanted to change the arrangement, what did she tell you? What the hell is going on?”

  “She told me she had to consider the possibility that, in the event of a criminal investigation, she’d be likely to come out more cleanly if she were the one who walked the information in the door.”

  “She meant if she was the one who went to the police and told them about the arrangement.”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “Christ on a crutch. She doesn’t even care that she’d go to jail herself? She doesn’t even care?”