The Weight Read Online Free

happen.
    “What can you tell me?” he finally said, after he saw I wasn’t going to say anything.
    “I didn’t do it.”
    “Okay.” He smiled. “Now give me something I can use.”
    “I got nothing,” I told him.
    “Neither do they,” he said.
    That one blindsided me. “How do you know? I mean, I just got here.…”
    “They
already
talked to me about a plea. If they’d had prints, fluids, security-camera tape—anything—they’d never do that. But they’re way too eager to close this one. It’s like they put up a billboard: WE DON’T WANT A TRIAL !”
    “Do they ever?”
    “Maybe when they have a videotaped confession, couple of eyewitnesses,” he said, with a thin smile.
    “So I’ve got a shot?”
    “The victim picked you out of a lineup.”
    “I know.”
    “Huh!” he said, surprised. “You know her before or something? Please don’t tell me she’s an old girlfriend.”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “She put sexy pictures of herself up on Facebook or something, and the cops found your laptop?”
    “I don’t have a computer.”
    “How old are you, anyway?”
    “Thirty-three.”
    “You’ve got two priors.
Violence
priors, even if one was a misdemeanor. You know what that means?”
    “Yeah, I know. I lose at trial, I get maxed.”
    “And Strike Two on top of that.”
    “I know,” I said, thinking back. A few years ago, I got into something. If I hadn’t lucked out, I’d already have that second strike. I remembered how that snotty little ADA said “one-punch homicide” about two hundred times while I was taking that manslaughter-down-to-assault plea. He just liked the sound of his own voice—everyone had agreed to the deal before we ever walked into court.
    Sure, I was a lot older and smarter than after my first fall. But I didn’t have the skills to slide away from the situation while it was still just an argument, the way a
real
pro would have done. I hadn’t started the fight, and I sure didn’t set out to murder anyone. But I believed the Legal Aid when he said a jury would take one look at me and come back with a murder rap.
    Why wouldn’t I believe him? He looked scared just being alone in the room with me.
    A ninety-day county slap, that was sweet enough. But them letting me plead to
misdemeanor
assault, that was pure gold. Probably helped that the other guy had a lot of priors. And a knife.
    It was even fair, sort of. I
had
dropped that other guy. I didn’t set out to kill him, but he was just as dead.
    Only I knew it wouldn’t go that way again. Even with the DA already talking about a plea, I knew I was looking at felony time. All I cared about was keeping that as short as possible without giving anyone up.
    I already missed smoking—I’d had to trade my whole first commissary draw for a decent shank. Rikers is no place for a white man, especially one with no Nazi ink.
    “Could I see your right forearm?” the lawyer asked me.
    I pulled back my sleeve to the elbow. He motioned for me to turn my hand so he could see the underside. He couldn’t be looking for track marks—otherwise, he’d have wanted to look at both arms.
    “I
knew
it,” he said, nodding like he was agreeing with himself.
    “What?”
    “No tattoo. The victim said the man who raped her had one. Big one. Right forearm. She didn’t get a close look, but she remembered it had a lot of red in it.”
    “So I’m off the—?”
    “Experienced rapists always use them. Decal tattoos, I mean. It’s the kind of thing victims remember.”
    “Yeah. They’ve got an answer for everything,” I told him, remembering what the black cop had said about me wearing a rubber.
    “But you still want to roll the dice?”
    “What’s the difference?” I said. “I’m going anyway. I was carrying when they grabbed me.”
    “Operable?” he asked. Showing me he’d handled carrying-concealed cases before. But
telling
me something else: that the DA hadn’t exactly opened their files for him, like he thought they