Free Abel Baker Charley by John R. Maxim

main entrance of Greenwich Hospital. He stopped near the twin electric doors, but Baker made no move to get out. “Whose half-million?” Baker asked.
    ”I can't tell you that yet, Jared,” he said softly. ”I hope to soon, but not now.”
    “Then why?”
    “To get you out, naturally,” Meister answered, “and at any cost. Your benefactor has an interest in you, and I give you my word that it's not a sinister interest. As for the plea of not guilty, if I'd said what the prosecutor expected, the judge would have had an excuse to bind you over for psy chiatric examination. He could have denied bail on that basis but not so easily otherwise. Still, we were lucky. Old Judge Toomey was forced to think uncharacteristically quickly with all those reporters watching. I suckered him, as you put it, into setting a very high amount, never dream ing that you could come up with it. As for antagonizing him, the man is out to hang you anyway, Jared. The more I irritate him, the more appealable errors he's likely to make. For the moment, however, you are free and are about to visit your daughter. I expect a modicum of appreciation for that, at least.”
    “Thank you,” Baker said. But the look he gave Meister said that he knew he was being massaged. “Why is he out to hang me?”
    ”I told you. You maimed the son of a judge. You can hardly expect dispassion from one of his colleagues.”
    “What about a change of venue?”
    “Who's going to grant it? Toomey?”
    “There are other judges. There has to be one who's im partial.”
    “Not for you, Baker. You're up against more than you know,” Meister told him. “I'll pick you a decent jury, but the sitting judge will restrict me every way he can.”
    Baker shook his head. Appealable errors. Restricting judges. Meister was talking like a lawyer who expected to lose. Or, at least, that if he might win, it would be sometime in the distant future. Baker could not believe that. He could not believe that a jury would convict him for defending his home against the man who had destroyed it. Meister sensed that disbelief.
    “You've entered a new world, Jared,” he said. “You can't go back to the old one, and nothing in your life will ever be the same again. Does anything seem the same to you, Jared? Anything at all?”
    “No,” Baker admitted.
    “Adapt, Jared. Adapt or you'll be swept away. And for God's sake, learn who your friends are.”
    “The man with the money?”
    “Go see your daughter, Jared.”

    Tina opened one eye just a crack, then closed it. The man was still there. He was there yesterday too. She thought then that it was Father Lennon from St. Paul's because of the way he was dressed. But this one wore no collar. Just a black suit and black eyes with bags under them. And he never said anything. Not yesterday either.
    “My father's coming,” she whispered. Maybe that would make him go away. Tina didn't like this man. She liked the other one, though. She liked the one with the spinning toy who said she could call him Grandpa. He made everything seem not so bad. He made her feel not so afraid and helped her not miss Mom so much. Maybe not quite so much. But still a terrible lot.
    “No.” The man in the black suit shook his head. “Your fa ther will not come.”
    “He is,” Tina answered. ”I know he is.”
    The man didn't answer.

    Baker was waiting at the elevator when he noticed the lobby gift shop. He patted his pockets, knowing they were empty. Meister had not thought to bring him his wallet. Baker re traced his steps to the area where the volunteer receptionist sat and he found the lawyer riffling through a pile of maga zines. Meister loaned him twenty dollars.
    It was more than enough for the large, stuffed koala bear that he'd noticed among the menagerie that covered one wall of the shop. With the change he bought a jigsaw puzzle, a tiny plant, and a Doonesbury paperback. Baker tucked the paper bags under one arm and rubbed his eyes with his free