I am in the navy suit Eleni helped me pick at the boutique on Newbury Street the week before. The suit is severe. The suit is doing the work I need it to do: introducing me to the grand jury as the self who has been the federal prosecutor’s witness for eight months and who doesn’t require any softening to be believed.
Lex is in the charcoal suit. He’s in the silk tie I gave him for his birthday two weeks ago, the dark green one I picked because I knew he wouldn’t choose anything green for himself.
My hands are in my lap.
I have not opened the small leather portfolio with my notes. I am not going to open it. The notes have done their work. The forty-three hours have done their work. The walk-in is the walk-in.
Lex pulls up to the John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse on Fan Pier at nine-fourteen AM.
The Marshals' vehicle pulls in front. The Konstantinos vehicle pulls behind. The escort wraps the building in the knotted architecture of three different organizations, all deciding, this morning, that nothing is going to happen to me on the way in.
Lex turns off the engine.
He looks at me.
I look back.
I say, "Lex."
He says, "Yes."
"I am ready."
"I know."
"Walk me to the corridor."
? ? ?
The corridor outside the grand jury room is on the third floor.
Marshals at the door. Sarah Klein is already inside with her aides. The court reporter inside. The grand jury inside, twenty-three federal jurors in folding chairs around a long table, therotating panel that has been hearing federal cases in this district for six weeks now.
Lex walks me to the corridor.
He stops at the line on the floor where security ends and the sealed proceeding begins. He’s been told he can come this far and no further. He’s been told the grand jury is closed. He’s been told the husband of the witness is not allowed in the room with the witness, federal rules of procedure section eighteen, and Lex Konstantinos has been making peace with this rule for six days.
He stops. I keep walking.
The Marshal opens the door.
I stop. I turn back. I look at him.
"Lex."
"Walk in for them," he says.
"Walk in for them."
I walk in.
? ? ?
For two hours and forty minutes, I tell them what I saw.
Sarah Klein leads me. Her voice is calm. The questions are clean. She walks me through the Tremont Street parking garage on the night of June fourth, the lighting on the third level, the exact position from which I observed what I observed. She has me name the men. I name them. Three of them are dead now, killed in the months since. One of them is Aleksei Karpov, who was unconscious on a federal medical floor seven days ago. The fifth is Reznikov Sr., who is in St. Petersburg and beyond the reach of this room and whose name I say into the federal record, nonetheless.
She has me name the dead.
