The Right to Remain Silent

by Charles Brandt

  “Yep. He’s got a double period. Mo Scharff is outside the room keeping an eye on him,” Govados said loudly.

  “Shh,” I whispered. “Take them quietly to the asshole’s office and sit them on the couch.”

  “Gotcha,” said Govados enthusiastically.

  8

  I took the stairs two at a time and aroused Mo Scharff, who was leaning against a hall bulletin board with his head down, looking at the floor.

  “Go in and get him,” I said. “We’re taking him down to the principal’s office. Govados has the victim and his parents downstairs.”

  “Maybe you ought to come in with me. You know, just in case.”

  “You go in. Tell him the principal wants to see him about his attendance.”

  “That won’t work. I’ll tell him Govados wants to see him.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Right.”

  He went into room 213 and slipped slightly on a pencil as he walked up to the teacher, who was still sitting on the desk. They talked. The teacher raised his eyebrows and waved lazily to Gandry, almost apologetically.

  Without waiting for Scharff, Gandry walked out the front door. When he got fully out the door he stopped and looked at me.

  “I’m looking for a chicken-lover. Where can I find one?” I said and smiled. His throat muscles started to tighten and a leer formed on his lips. He took a half step backward with his right foot as Scharff walked through the door.

  “You know where the office is. Govados wants to see you down there pronto,” ordered Scharff.

  Gandry looked from me to Scharff and then back to me.

  “Face the wall,” I commanded. Both Scharff and Gandry turned to face the wall, side by side. I reached Gandry’s left wrist, my thumb pressing hard enough to feel his pulse, and pulled it around behind him. “The other one,” I said. I took the cuffs out of what was left of the bulge in my pocket and cuffed his wrists behind his back. The last person I had done that to was John Figaro.

  “Ow,” said Gandry, “they’re tight. You gotta loosen them.”

  I patted him down and pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket; it was sticky, probably from semen.

  “You jerking off in class, boy?” I said and wrapped the bandanna in my own clean handkerchief and put it in my jacket pocket, starting the bulge again.

  By this time Scharff had caught on to the idea that he didn’t have to face the wall. He bent at the waist and examined the handcuffs on Gandry. “I used to be in the military police,” he said.

  “That’ll come in handy at this school. Lead the way to Darwin Hearn’s office. Be our point man.”

  We kept the kid between us and proceeded in single file. I figured that if the kid ran he’d have to trip over Scharff.

  We entered Hearn’s office through the secretary’s office. Scharff was the first one in, followed by Gandry. I got in the doorway just behind Gandry. The room was crowded. I can’t deny that, and Scharff and I did have the kid as our prisoner. Stevie Morris was sitting on his mother’s lap on the brown leather couch directly facing Gandry. Stevie looked up at Gandry’s face and then turned away and grabbed the back of his mother’s head.

  “Is this the bad boy?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Stevie muttered into his mother’s plump neck.

  I had Gandry’s arm and could feel the muscles in it tighten. I dug my thumb hard into his biceps and got no reaction. John Gandry was looking at a ghost. His victim was alive. His face then tensed into a contrived look of false relaxation. His lips quickly covered his braces the way a man with a scar on his cheek might try to cover it with his hand during a lineup.

  “Is there a room I can use?” I asked.

  “You may use my office. We’ll all leave,” Hearn said solemnly.

  “Thanks,” I said and pushed Gandry out of the way of the door and hard into a corner. His head hit the wall, and he said “ow” again.

  “Of course, I think a representative of the school should remain,” said Hearn.

  “Govados, stay in here with me,” I said.

  Hearn didn’t say any more. I asked the Morrises to take Stevie home.

  “Why don’t you punch him in the nose?” asked Stevie

  “Don’t worry, Stevie, I’ll do worse than that to him,” I said.

  As soon as they left I shoved Gandry on the couch and sat beside him. Gandry’s teeth and lips were still clenched tight, and the side of his face closest to me twitched around his eye while on the other side of his face his cheek and neck shimmered like moonlight on a lake.

  “I want a lawyer,” he said in a high-pitched voice through his clenched braces. His breathing was rapid and shallow through his nose. Defiant terror.

  “Kid, how come you’re wearing a yellow shirt?”

  “You didn’t give me my rights,” he shot out nervously. “You can’t spook me. You got the cuffs too tight.”

  “Mr. Govados,” I said, “I thought this was a high school.”

  “It is,” Govados said.

  “You hear that, kid. This is a high school. What did you think this was, a law school? Every punk kid I’ve talked to today sounds like Perry Mason. I hope they’re not teaching you this bullshit in your Sociology and Social Problems class. Because I have news for you. I’m not the FBI, Mr. Gandry. I don’t have to tell a kid like you anything about any rights. You just don’t understand, Mr. Gandry. I’m about to give you the break of your life.”

  I reached behind him with the key. He flinched. I undid the cuffs and put them in my pocket. Gandry rubbed his wrists.

  “You ain’t got no evidence, right? You’re letting me go.”

  “Far from right, Mr. Gandry I have one hundred times enough evidence. You’re not using your God-given brain. You’re an intelligent young man. If I didn’t have you tight, why do you think I caught you so quickly? I don’t even need that little boy’s testimony to send you to jail forever. I’m doing you a big favor right now. I’m going to let you tell your side of this, and that might save you a big chunk of your jail time because I think that little kid is not as innocent as his mother thinks he is. All little boys like that have something to hide from their mothers. You know what I mean?” I winked. “Have you ever been tied up?” I leaned into him. “Have you ever been tortured?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Come on. You know what I mean about some of that little chicken meat,” I said. “Those little ones know exactly what they’re doing. They might fool other cops, but they’ve never fooled me. Not once. He led you on, didn’t he? They all do. They take their pants down ’cause they want that money or toy or ice cream you’re going to give them, then the minute you do something they yell bloody murder for their mommies. You know what I mean? I know you do. You’re an intelligent young man. Now here’s your chance to help yourself. You’re only getting one chance. If you screw up your one and only chance, the cuffs go right back on and you get no more chances. I’ll have to take a more unpleasant approach with you. Listen to this question very, very carefully. Pay careful attention to what I say. Watch my lips when I speak. All you were trying to do was stick it between his legs. You had no intention of going up his ass. Am I right? All you were going to do was stick it between his legs and jerk off on him between his legs. Now I can’t tell you what to answer and Mr. Govados here can’t tell you what to answer, but you think before you say anything because this is your only break, your one and only chance. We’re witnesses to how you answer this question. The only thing you were going to do was stick it between his smooth legs, not in his mouth, not up his little ass. Now I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so you tell me.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Maybe you did try to stick it up his ass. Is that what you’re telling me? Don’t be stupid. Don’t tell me that.” I raised my voice. “Are you that stupid? God damn it, boy, don’
t tell me that. Up his ass?”

  His left eye began to twitch violently. “That’s all,” he said.

  “Which? Between his legs or up his ass?” I said the last three words with precision.

  “Be-between his legs,” he said.

  “Good. You’ve helped yourself here. You’re a smart boy. Now this chicken led you on. You know what I mean? Am I right or what?”

  “Yeah. He, he led me on. He wanted me to buy him something from the 7-Eleven.”

  “I knew it. I can spot one of those midget cockteasers a mile away. Here now I’ve helped you, right? I just let you give your side of it. But in your heart you know there’s a catch. I helped you for a selfish reason. Now I need your help. Can you write?”

  “Huh?”

  “Can you write words on paper? Can you spell?”

  “I could get by.”

  “Well look, boy, I need your help here, and you could help yourself, too, but you gotta be able to write.”

  “I could write some.”

  “Mr. Govados, may I have paper and pencil, or do you prefer pen, Mr. Gandry?”

  “I don’t care.” He laughed. “Man, this is something. You’re weird, man.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Govados handed him a yellow legal pad and pencil.

  “I ain’t givin’ no confession,” he said. “I ain’t signin’ nothin’.”

  “Look, I told you you had to do something for me. If you don’t write this out for me, I’m going to deny you ever told me your side of this about just going between his legs, because I’m going to have to spend all day tomorrow on my day off filling out long forms, and it’s going to be all your fault. Eight hours. All day. When I could be at the beach with my family. Form after form after form on my day off. Do you want me to put it in the forms that you tried to stick it in his ass? Is that what you want? ’Cause I’ll put that in if you make me fill those goddamn forms out. Now it could be all nice and simple if you would write out your side of this just like you told me. All I have to do then is fill out one form before I go off duty today, and attach your confession in your handwriting, and they give me a medal and I can go to the beach tomorrow. Then the official police version is your version. Your version. Your side of it in your own writing becomes the official police version. Not that kid’s. Not his mother’s. Get me? You’re a smart kid, you can see nobody likes to work more than they have to. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Which is it? The hard way for everybody or the easy way especially for you, kid? Look how short a time it took me to get you. Less than one school period and I had the whole thing put together and the kid right there in the principal’s office. You’re caught, John. This is your one and only chance to explain it your way before the lawyers take over. You can give your side of it later, but then it’ll look like you and your lawyer cooked it up. You give your side now and it’s nice and fresh. Let’s settle this between us. Here. You do for me. I do for you. Don’t make me come in tomorrow on my day off. This is just another case to me. This is how I earn my living. Be smart, kid. Get it over with the right way.”

  I pushed the pad and pencil toward him. He took them.

  “How do you spell railroad tracks?” he asked.

  “Mr. Govados will help you with the spelling. I’ll be in the other room. If you need me, call me.”

  I went into the secretary’s room and called DiGiacomo in detectives. Mondale had given his speech without getting himself killed, and the police department could get back to work. DiGiacomo agreed to meet me at the clerk of the court’s office to help with the paperwork and the processing in lockup. He loved it and kept saying the words “written confession” over and over again like they were some major event of the decade.

  I’d traveled a full day, been up half the night with the boys, and there wasn’t a tired muscle in my body. It was a thrill to be back in the race.

  Govados interrupted my reverie. With a big grin on his face he handed me the collected works of John Gandry, Dangerous Pervert. I read the confession. Here it is:

  I went down the railroad tracks but this guy sold me a lude for a quarter so I done it but it dint ack like a lude it made me feel kinda funny in the stomak so I got mad and want my money back so I go looking for this guy by the shak so he aint’ theire so I got screwed and tatood and ripped off ect, ect so I had me some herb. Whitch I traided it withe this other dood for some uppers 3 to be exsack which I took them and then I do’nt remember too muche cause they mess with my mind. They was bad to. So I got blackd out kinda but I do rembemer that little kid who kept pestering me but I only went to stick it in between his legs but my mind was not sharp, which was gone because the uppers was bad bad bad, so I ony rememeb trying to stick it between his legs lik he wants and he acks me to do which he wants.

  Yours trueley

  John Gandry

  P.S. I carrieyed him down to the tracks. That way he did not fall down and hurt himself.

  9

  So after we processed Gandry and left him in the police lockup to be “exsack” I went to the county side of the Public Building to bring my case to the attorney general’s office like DiGiacomo told me, “witch” is something new after an arrest, “witch” is called intake and so that means that the deputy attorney general assigned for that week is supposed to review the arrest just to make sure it’s a good enough case to prosecute. Yours truly, Lou Razzi in ecstasy.

  In my day a cop didn’t see a prosecutor until the day before the grand jury. Today the prosecutor is like any prosperous lawyer with a lot of business. He picks and chooses his cases. He “intakes” them and screens out the ones he wants and throws away the crumbs and scraps.

  I walked in through the glass door marked INTAKE. The cute little blond receptionist told me that the deputy attorney general would see me shortly, took all my paperwork into an inner office, and came out and asked me if I wanted my overtime slip signed, since it was twenty minutes past four. When I told her that I didn’t know cops got overtime for court work and didn’t have an overtime slip, she told me that she’d seen my picture in the paper and if I just felt like going out or something before going back to Brazil, to give her a call. She’d be working until 8:00 P.M. She put a plastic pen in her mouth and played with the blue cap between her lips. Subtle, but effective.

  I was feeling like a movie starlet when, after a few minutes, she told me that Ms. Gold had finished reading my reports and was ready to see me. I walked into the inner office, and then all at once I saw familiar red hair and unfriendly hazel eyes, and I stopped feeling very wanted. She looked mean, but her light-red hair was still fluffed out at the shoulders like it had been last night. She was wearing a blue suit, white blouse, and one of those female ties that look half tie and half ribbon, but all business.

  “Hello, Miss Gold,” I said.

  “Hello,” she said. “I had a feeling that I hadn’t seen the last of you. It’s not every day that I get sucked into a friendly conversation with a stranger so he can be insulting. Especially when he clearly doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about. You’ll note I said ‘the fuck he is talking about,’ not ‘the fuck he is indicating about.’ ”

  She stared at me; in her hands she held my paperwork.

  “This case sucks,” she said.

  I stared back.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be here for one day and then retire?”

  “Let’s start over. Hello, Miss Gold, I’m sorry for my attitude last night.”

  “You don’t really have any idea what you’ve done, do you?”

  “Not today.”

  “Well today,” she said, getting louder, “you violated John Gandry’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, his Fifth Amendment rights not to incriminate himself and to due process of law, and his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In short, yo
u gave John Gandry the same respect a Viking warlord would give to an Anglo-Saxon peasant. And you don’t seem to realize the terrible damage you have done to any potential this investigation ever had.”

  I tried an old favorite all-purpose line, the one I last used on Janasek and Figaro in that hotel room full of counterfeit money. It became my philosophy of life. It got me through prison: “What are you going to do, kill me? Everybody dies.”

  “Body and Soul. Remember, I read your trial transcript. Good movie, but you’re not John Garfield and this isn’t 1946 anymore. Haven’t you ever heard of Miranda?”

  “Willie Miranda, the shortstop, or Carmen Miranda, the singer?” I asked. “How about ‘Pigs’ Miranda, the bootlegger. Is he still making bathtub gin?”

  “Ernesto Miranda.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “You know, I really believe you haven’t.”

  “I really haven’t. Thanks for your belief in me. Can I use you for a reference when I leave the department?”

  “This isn’t one bit funny.”

  “Well, I admit it could be funnier,” I said soberly, pointing to my reports in her hands, “but then everything’s relative. You see, this arrest, while not really funny, is not as unfunny as my last arrest.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said hotly. “It’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy that you didn’t face reality this morning when you got that phone call from Mrs. Morris. The world has passed you by, Sergeant. You should not have tried to handle this alone. You’re an officer for a day so you can qualify for a pension, and from the looks of this investigation they’d better get you back to Brazil in a hurry. You know,” she said, changing her tone to that of a schoolteacher, quiet yet seething, “after reading your reports and talking to you, I can only conclude that you still possess the trait that every policeman sooner or later acquires. You’d think that after all these years it would have left your system. But, you are as full of self-pity as an alcoholic.”

  “I guess you know,” I said as quietly as she, “that a man would be knocked on his ass by now.”