The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  Everyone, Judge Kovitsky, the clerk, Patti Stullieri, even Kramer himself, looked toward the Krnkkas, expecting their lawyer to come forward or come in through the side door or materialize in some fashion. But there was no lawyer.

  Furious, Kovitsky turned toward Bruzzielli and said, “Who’s representing these people?”

  “I think Marvin Sunshine,” said Bruzzielli.

  “Well, where is he? I saw him back there a few minutes ago. What’s gotten into all these characters?”

  Bruzzielli gave him the Primordial Shrug and rolled his eyes, as if the whole thing pained him tremendously but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Kovitsky’s head was now down very low. His irises were floating like destroyers on a lake of white. But before he could launch into a blistering discourse on delinquent lawyers, a voice spoke up from the bar.

  “Your Honor! Your Honor! Hey, Judge!”

  It was Albert Krnkka. He was waving his right hand, trying to get Kovitsky’s attention. His arms were thin, but his wrists and his hands were huge. His mouth hung open in a half smile that was supposed to convince the judge that he was a reasonable man. In fact, he looked, every inch of him, like one of those wild tall rawboned men whose metabolisms operate at triple speed and who, more than any other people on earth, are prone to explosions.

  “Hey, Judge! Look.”

  Kovitsky stared, amazed by this performance. “Hey, Judge! Look. Two weeks ago she told us two to six, right?”

  When Albert Krnkka said “two to six,” he raised both hands up in the air and stuck out two fingers on each hand, like a v for victory or a peace sign, and flailed them in the air, as if he were beating a pair of invisible aerial drums in time to the phrase “two to six.”

  “Mr. Krnkka,” said Kovitsky, rather softly for him.

  “And now she’s coming in ’ere wit’ three to nine,” said Albert Krnkka. “We awready said, ‘Okay, two to six’ ”—once again he raised his hands and the pair of v’s and beat the air in time to “two to six”—“and she’s coming in ’ere wit’ three to nine. Two to six”—he beat the air—“two to six—”

  “MIS-TER KRI-NICK-A, IF YOU—”

  But Albert Krnkka was unbowed by Judge Kovitsky’s hammering voice.

  “Two to six”—blam, blam, blam—“you got it!”

  “MIS-TER KRI-NICK-A. If you want to petition the court, you must do so through your attorney.”

  “Hey, Judge, you ask her!” He stabbed his left forefinger toward Patti Stullieri. His arm seemed a mile long. “She’s the one. She offered two to six, Judge. Now she come in here wit’—”

  “Mister Krnkka—”

  “Two to six, Judge, two to six!” Realizing that his time at the bar was growing short, Albert Krnkka now compressed his message into its key phrase, all the while beating the air with his huge hands.

  “Two to six! You got it! Two to six! You got it!”

  “Mister Krnkka…SIDDOWN! Wait for your attorney.”

  Albert Krnkka and his wife began backing away from the bar, looking at Kovitsky the whole time, as if leaving a throne room. Albert kept mouthing the words “two to six” and waving his v fingers.

  Larry Kramer moved over to where Patti Stullieri was standing and said, “What did they do?”

  Patti Stullieri said, “The wife held a knife to a girl’s throat while the husband raped her.”

  “Jesus,” said Kramer, in spite of himself.

  Patti Stullieri smiled in a world-weary fashion. She was twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old. Kramer wondered if she was worth making a play for. She was not a looker, but her Hard Number pose turned him on somehow. Kramer wondered what she had been like in high school. He wondered if she had been one of those thin nervous skanks who were always irritable and difficult and lacking in femininity without being strong. On the other hand, she had the olive skin, the thick black hair, the big dark eyes, the Cleopatra lips that in Kramer’s mind added up to the Italian Dirty Girl look. In high school—Jesus, those Italian Dirty Girls!—Kramer had always found them gross, stupid beyond belief, anti-intellectual, unapproachable, and intensely desirable.

  The door to the courtroom swung open, and in walked an old man with a large, florid, rather lordly head. Debonair, that was the word. Or at least he was debonair by the standards of Gibraltar. He wore a navy-blue double-breasted pinstripe suit, a white shirt with a starched collar, and a dark red necktie. His black hair, which was thin and had the inky dullness of a dye job, was combed straight back and plastered down on his skull. He had an old-fashioned pencil mustache, creating a sharp black line on either side of the gully under his nose.

  Larry Kramer, who was standing near the clerk’s desk, looked up and stared. He knew the man. There was something charming—no, brave—about his style. At the same time, it made you shiver. This man had once been, as Kramer was now, an assistant district attorney. Bing! Bing! Bing! Thirty years had gone by, and here he was finishing out his career in private practice, representing these poor incompetents, including the 18-b’s, the ones who couldn’t afford lawyers. Bing! Bing! Bing! Not a very long time, thirty years!

  Larry Kramer wasn’t the only one who stopped and stared. The man’s entrance was an event. His chin was the shape of a melon. He held it cocked up at a self-satisfied angle, as if he were a boulevardier, as if the Grand Concourse could still be called a boulevard.

  “MIS-TER SONNENBERG!”

  The old lawyer looked toward Kovitsky. He seemed pleasantly surprised that his arrival should occasion such a hearty greeting.

  “We called your case five minutes ago!”

  “I apologize, Your Honor,” said Sonnenberg, sauntering up to the defendant’s desk. He swung his great chin upward in an elegant arc toward the judge. “I was held over in Part 62 by Judge Meldnick.”

  “Whaddaya doing with a case in Part 62 when you knew this court was putting you at the top of the calendar as a personal accommodation? Your client Mr. Lockwood has a job, as I recall.”

  “That’s correct, Your Honor, but I was assured—”

  “Your client is here.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s waiting for you.”

  “I’m aware of that, Your Honor, but I had no idea that Judge Meldnick—”

  “All right, Mr. Sonnenberg, are you ready to proceed now?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Kovitsky had the clerk, Bruzzielli, recall the case. The black youth, Lockwood, got up from the spectators’ section and came pimp-rolling up to the defendant’s desk, beside Sonnenberg. It soon became apparent that the purpose of this hearing was to allow Lockwood to plead guilty to the charge, which was armed robbery, in return for a light sentence, two to six years, offered by the District Attorney’s Office. But Lockwood wasn’t going for it. All that Sonnenberg could do was reiterate his client’s plea of not guilty.

  Kovitsky said, “Mr. Sonnenberg, would you approach the bench, please? And Mr. Torres?”

  Torres was the assistant district attorney on the case. He was short and quite fat, even though he was barely thirty years old. He had the sort of mustache that young lawyers and doctors wear to try to look older and graver.

  As Sonnenberg drew near, Kovitsky said, in an amiable, conversational tone, “You look just like David Niven today, Mr. Sonnenberg.”

  “Oh no, Judge,” said Sonnenberg, “David Niven I’m not. William Powell maybe, but not David Niven.”

  “William Powell? You’re dating yourself, Mr. Sonnenberg. You’re not that old, are you?” Kovitsky turned to Torres and said, “The next thing we know, Mr. Sonnenberg’s gonna be leaving us for the Sun Belt. He’s gonna be down there in a condominium, and all he’ll have to worry about is getting to the shopping mall in time for the Early Bird special at Denny’s. He won’t even have to think about getting up in the morning and making pleas in Part 60 in the Bronx.”

  “Listen, Judge, I swear—”

  “Mr. Sonnenberg, do you know Mr. Torres?”


  “Oh yes.”

  “Well, Mr. Torres understands about condominiums and Early Bird specials. He’s half a Yiddeleh himself.”

  “Yeah?” Sonnenberg didn’t know whether he was supposed to appear pleased or what.

  “Yeah, he’s half a Puerto Rican and half a Yiddeleh. Right, Mr. Torres?”

  Torres smiled and shrugged, trying to appear appropriately amused.

  “So he used his Yiddisheh kop and applied for a minority scholarship to law school,” said Kovitsky. “His Yiddisheh half applied for a minority scholarship for his Puerto Rican half! Is that One World or isn’t it? It’s using your fucking kop, anyway.”

  Kovitsky looked at Sonnenberg until he smiled, and then he looked at Torres until he smiled, and then Kovitsky beamed at both of them. Why had he turned so jolly all of a sudden? Kramer looked over at the defendant, Lockwood. He was standing at the defendant’s table and staring at this jolly threesome. What must be going through his mind? His fingertips rested on the table, and his chest seemed to have caved in. His eyes! His eyes were the eyes of the hunted in the night. He stared at the spectacle of his lawyer grinning and chuckling with the judge and the prosecutor. There he was, his white lawyer smiling and jabbering with the white judge and the fat white prick who was trying to put him away.

  Sonnenberg and Torres were both standing at the bench, looking up at Kovitsky. Now Kovitsky got down to work.

  “What have you offered him, Mr. Torres?”

  “Two to six, Judge.”

  “What’s your client say, Mr. Sonnenberg?”

  “He won’t take it, Judge. I talked to him last week, and I talked to him this morning. He wants to go to trial.”

  “Why?” asked Kovitsky. “Did you explain to him that he’ll be eligible for work release in a year? It’s not a bad deal.”

  “Well,” said Sonnenberg, “the problem is, as Mr. Torres knows, my client’s a Y.O. That one was for the same thing, armed robbery, and if he pleads guilty to this one, then he’s gotta serve time for that one, too.”

  “Ah,” said Kovitsky. “Well, what will he take?”

  “He’ll take one and a half to four and a half, with the sentence for the first one subsumed under this one.”

  “What about it, Mr. Torres?”

  The young assistant district attorney sucked in his breath and lowered his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t do it, Judge. We’re talking about armed robbery!”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Kovitsky, “but was he the one with the gun?”

  “No,” said Torres.

  Kovitsky lifted his eyes from the faces of Sonnenberg and Torres and looked out at Lockwood.

  “He doesn’t look like a bad kid,” said Kovitsky, for Torres’s benefit. “In fact, he looks like a baby. I see these kids in here every day. They’re easily led. They live in some kinda shithook neighborhood, and they end up doing stupid things. What’s he like, Mr. Sonnenberg?”

  “That’s about the size of it, Judge,” said Sonnenberg. “The kid’s a follower. He’s no brain surgeon, but he’s no hard case, either. Not in my opinion.”

  This personality profile was evidently supposed to wear Torres down into offering Lockwood a sentence of only one and a third to four years, with his Y.O. conviction in effect forgotten. Y.O. stood for “youthful offender.”

  “Look, Judge, it’s no use,” Torres said. “I can’t do it. Two to six is as low as I can go. My office—”

  “Why don’t you call Frank?” asked Kovitsky.

  “It’s no use, Judge. We’re talking about armed robbery! He may not’ve held a gun on the victim, but that was because he was going through his pockets with both hands! A sixty-nine-year-old man with a stroke. Walks like this.”

  Torres did a shuffle in front of the bench, gimping along like an old man with a stroke.

  Kovitsky smiled. “That’s the Yiddeleh coming out! Mr. Torres has some of Ted Lewis’s chromosomes and doesn’t even know it.”

  “Ted Lewis was Jewish?” asked Sonnenberg.

  “Why not?” said Kovitsky. “He was a comedian, wasn’t he? Okay, Mr. Torres, calm down.”

  Torres came back to the bench. “The victim, Mr. Borsalino, says he broke a rib. We’re not even charging him with that, because the old man never went to see a doctor about the rib. No, two to six is it.”

  Kovitsky thought that over. “Did you explain that to your client?”

  “Sure I did,” said Sonnenberg. He shrugged and made a face, as if to say his client wouldn’t listen to reason. “He’s willing to take his chances.”

  “Take his chances?” said Kovitsky. “But he signed a confession.”

  Sonnenberg made the face again and arched his eyebrows.

  Kovitsky said, “Let me talk to him.”

  Sonnenberg screwed up his lips and rolled his eyes, as if to say, “Good luck.”

  Kovitsky looked up again and stared at Lockwood and stuck his chin up in the air and said, “Son…come here.”

  The boy stood at the table, frozen, not altogether sure the judge was talking to him and not somebody else. So Kovitsky put on a smile, the smile of the benevolent leader, He Who Is Willing to Be Patient, and he beckoned with his right hand and said, “Come on up here, son. I want to talk to you.”

  The boy, Lockwood, started walking, slowly, warily, up to where Sonnenberg and Torres were standing and looked at Kovitsky. The look he gave him was completely empty. Kovitsky stared back. It was like looking at a small empty house at night with all the lights out.

  “Son,” said Kovitsky, “you don’t look like a bad sort to me. You look like a nice young man. Now, I want you to give yourself a chance. I’ll give you a chance, but first you’ve got to give yourself a chance.”

  The Kovitsky stared into Lockwood’s eyes as if what he was about to say were one of the most important things he was likely to hear in his lifetime.

  “Son,” he said, “whaddaya wanna get involved in all these fucking robberies for?”

  Lockwood’s lips moved, but he fought the impulse to say anything, perhaps for fear he might incriminate himself.

  “What does your mother say? You live with your mother?”

  Lockwood nodded yes.

  “What does your mother say? She ever hit you upside the head?”

  “Naw,” said Lockwood. His eyes appeared misty. Kovitsky took this as a sign that he was making progress.

  “Now, son,” he said, “do you have a job?”

  Lockwood nodded yes.

  “Whaddaya do?”

  “Security guard.”

  “Security guard,” said Kovitsky. He stared off at a blank spot on the wall, as if pondering the implication for society of that answer, and then decided to stick to the issue at hand.

  “See?” said Kovitsky. “You’ve got a job, you’ve got a home, you’re young, you’re a nice-looking, bright young man. You’ve got a lot going for you. You’ve got more than most people. But you’ve got one big problem to overcome. YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN THESE FUCKING ROBBERIES! Now, the district attorney has made you an offer of two to six years. If you take that offer and you behave yourself, this will all be behind you, in no time, and you’ll still be a young man with your whole life ahead of you. If you go to trial and you’re convicted, you could get eight to twenty-five. Now think about that. The district attorney has made you an offer.”

  Lockwood said nothing.

  “Why don’t you take it?” asked Kovitsky.

  “No reason.”

  “No reason?”

  Lockwood looked away. He wasn’t going to parry words. He was just going to hold tight.

  “Look, son,” said Kovitsky, “I’m trying to help you. This thing won’t go away. You can’t just close your eyes and hope it’s all gonna disappear. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Lockwood kept looking down or to the side, always a few inches away from eye contact with the judge. Kovitsky kept moving his head as if to intercept him, like a hockey goalie.

  “Look at me,
son. Do you understand?”

  Lockwood gave in and looked at him. It was the sort of look a firing squad might expect to see.

  “Now, son, think of it this way. It’s like having cancer. You know about cancer.”

  There wasn’t a glimmer of comprehension of cancer or anything else.

  “Cancer doesn’t just go away, either. You have to do something about it. If you catch it early, while it’s small, before it spreads through your whole body and takes over your whole life—and ruins your life—and ends your life—you understand?—ends your life—if you do something about it while it’s a small problem, if you have the small operation you need, then that’s it!” Kovitsky threw his hands up in the air and lifted his chin and smiled, as if he were the very personification of buoyancy. “Now, it’s the same way with the problem you have now. Right now it’s a small problem. If you plead guilty and receive a sentence of two to six years and you behave yourself, you’ll be eligible for a work-release program after one year and full parole after two years. And it’ll all be behind you. But if you go to trial and you’re found guilty, then your minimum sentence will be eight years. Eight and a third to twenty-five. Eight—you’re only nineteen now. Eight years, that’s almost half as long as you’ve been on this earth. You wanna spend your whole fucking youth in jail?”

  Lockwood averted his eyes. He didn’t say one thing or the other.

  “So how about it?” asked Kovitsky.

  Without looking up, Lockwood shook his head no.

  “All right, if you’re innocent, I don’t want you to plead guilty, no matter what anybody offers you. But you signed a confession! The district attorney has a videotape of you making that confession! Whaddaya gonna do about that?”

  “I ’unno,” said Lockwood.