But his dizziness, his loss of balance, is related to the fact that none of that matters. That the truth might not matter at all. Joey finds it disorienting, more than anything. Not exciting, like his attorneys did. Not ironic. Not depressing. Mostly, just…disorienting.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

A moment later, there is pandemonium at the defense table. Chaos in the courtroom behind him. Shouting, a babel, the judge’s gavel. The big irrepressible grins of his attorneys, the fist pumps of victory and vindication and pure joy, the chest heaves of relief.

Amid it all, the world seems to spin faster around Joey Richter. To become even more dizzying and disorienting. Not sure what will happen now. Sure that something will though. Sure that this result will bring other results—some chain of events he can’t yet foresee.

And Darwin Cope, exultant, exuberant, says with a wink to his fellow attorneys: “I love a cloudy day.”

Joey is so dizzy, he actually feels like vomiting. But he doesn’t.

He stares down, expressionless. He waits.

Cope turns to him. Puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s almost an afterthought, it seems to Joey—remembering to clue him in, to mention it to him as if in passing. “You’re free.”

Free to starve.

Free to sleep in the street. No money. No place to go. No one to turn to, no one to count on, no one to trust.

Free to do whatever it is that Karloff has in mind for him. For whatever reason he has harnessed all this legal firepower.

Joey is dragged through the courthouse corridor on the flowing contrail of judicial victory, carried along by the scrum of attorneys and reporters and guards. As if he is a quarterback being protected. But he’s not, he knows. He’s a lineman. Less than that—a water boy.

The scrum moves out through the exit doors into the blinding morning light.

He can see nothing momentarily. But then at the periphery, in the crowd of reporters and onlookers and bystanders, one stands out.

There is Will Shale.

Will, who’d been transferred out of Joey’s jail cell only days after he’d come in, gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Will, whose case had been dismissed or pleaded out. The guards who informed Joey hadn’t been clear on that.

Lean. Grinning. At the victory? Or at what is to come?

Joey steps toward his old cellmate. In the chaos and human crush at the courthouse doors, not knowing where else to step.

“Follow me,” says Will.

Joey follows wordlessly. Obediently, unquestioningly. Nowhere else to go.