Dead Man's Thoughts

by Carolyn Wheat

  The case was put aside to be called again. Dennehy’s lawyer was in another courtroom and would be there later. I told Vinci and Paculo to sit down and wait. As they turned to go back to the audience, I noticed a dark-haired woman at the railing. Paculo’s mother. She asked me if I could talk to her about her son’s case.

  I nodded to Mario to handle the calendar and turned to walk out with Mrs. Paculo. Then the pen doors opened, and Nathan’s defrocked cop was led out.

  I hadn’t heard his name. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had. For some reason, I didn’t have any of Nathan’s files. As traffic cop I was supposed to cover everyone’s cases, which meant I needed all the files. Without them, I was at a disadvantage. Everyone in the courtroom knew more about the cases than I did. It was unusual, since conscientious Nathan never made mistakes like that.

  The D.A. was talking. “Your Honor, this is a narcotics case. There has been a voted and filed indictment.” He gave me the number. I wrote it down. I cooled down at Nathan; that had been nice and simple.

  It didn’t stay that way. The client kept plucking my sleeve the way he had when Nathan arraigned him. His face was pasty, and his mouth worked nervously. I whispered impatiently that I’d see him in the pen; the Paculo family was still waiting for me in the front row. The defendant shook his head. Stammering, he babbled something about administrative segregation and having to be protected from his enemies. I asked the judge if we could approach.

  “Is it necessary, Counselor?” Judge Whalen tapped his fingers on the bench. His querulous voice went on, “You have your indictment number. This case has been transferred to the Supreme Court. This court no longer has jurisdiction.” I assured him it was necessary, but it wasn’t until I got up to the bench and confirmed my suspicions that I knew how necessary. For it was only then, looking at the court papers, that I realized the defrocked cop was Charlie Blackwell. I remembered what Nathan had said about the suicide watch being a murder watch, and I shivered slightly, knowing how close I’d come to putting Charlie back in custody without the special instructions that would segregate him from the mainstream of the prison population, where his enemies lay in wait. I watched carefully as Judge Whalen wrote the instructions in his crabbed hand and then stepped down to reassure Charlie, satisfied that I’d done what Nathan would have wanted.

  It struck me suddenly as very odd that Nathan had neglected to get this particular file to me. I had almost missed getting Charlie protected, and I knew how important it was. What if I’d been out of the room when the case was called? Charlie might have lost his suicide watch through sheer inadvertence. It wasn’t like Nathan to let that happen.

  I turned toward the Paculo family, having done what I could for Charlie, but I wasn’t let off so easily. Blackwell wanted to see me inside. Throwing Mrs. Paculo an apologetic glance over my shoulder, I followed Blackwell and Vinnie, the court officer, into the pens.

  Blackwell’s first question was predictable. “Where’s Mr. Wasserstein?” He spoke in a low, guttural whisper, so low I had to lean my head against the bars to hear him, giving me the full impact of his foul breath. His teeth were yellow; he was probably afraid they were poisoning his toothbrush.

  Falling into Blackwell’s conspiratorial head, I lowered my voice. What the hell, even a paranoid can have real enemies. “He has an appointment today with the Special Prosecutor about your case. He’ll be there at twelve thirty.” At least that was what Nathan had told me on the phone the night before. Blackwell nodded. “Good. I seen him yesterday, at Atlantic Avenue. I told him everything. Everything.” His gray eyes stared at me like a cat’s, steady and unblinking. “Charlie Blackwell told it all. Charlie Blackwell tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” He was still whispering, as though his muttered remarks were too hot to be heard by the other prisoners.

  “Charlie Blackwell ain’t afraid,” he went on. “Charlie Blackwell don’t fear no man. Charlie Blackwell ain’t got nothin’ to fear but fear itself.”

  I had no time for a fireside chat. The Paculos were waiting. “Mr. Blackwell,” I asked politely but wearily, “is there anything else you want me to do for you?”

  He began to stammer again. I’d been wrong to press him; anything he had to say he’d say in his own time. He finally said, “Tell Wasserstein for me. Tell him to get me out of Atlantic Avenue. It ain’t safe for Charlie Blackwell over there. It ain’t safe on the Rock neither. Charlie Blackwell should be in protective custody. Like before.”

  I was about to suggest that these were hardly the sentiments of a man who had nothing to fear but fear itself when a look of sheer panic came over the man’s pasty face. It was as if he’d heard his own words for the first time.

  “Not like before,” he babbled, “not like last time. Tell him. Tell him it’s gotta be better than last time. Someplace where nobody can get to me. Not nobody nohow. Tell him!”

  I assured him I’d tell Nathan as soon as possible, and turned to go. He still wasn’t finished. Sighing in exasperation, I turned back. “One more thing, honey. Make sure you check my yellow card.” I nodded and fled.

  When I stepped back into the courtroom, the judge had taken a break. It looked like a Twilight Zone episode. There were open files on the tables, people’s coats in the pews, an open pen on the counsel table, but the human beings had all disappeared. I walked over to the clerk’s desk and looked through the pile of yellow commit cards. Blackwell’s had suicide watch/admin, seg. ctd. in the right place. Everything was okay.

  I walked out to the hall to see Mrs. Paculo and nearly knocked Judge Di Anci down with the door. “Seen my D.A.?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied curtly. As long as Digna was in jail, I had no desire to be polite to Di Anci. I didn’t even bother to tell him the courtroom was on a break; let him find out for himself. As he reached for the door, he said, “By the way, Ms. Jameson, they want you in Jury One. Return on a warrant.”

  Just what I needed. A case upstairs. But I owed it to the Paculos to see them first. They were waiting in a corner, impatient for news.

  They didn’t like it much when it came. Paulie Paculo was facing Rob One. Two-to-six minimum. No possibility of probation.

  Mrs. Paculo was a stark contrast to her sister. Where Gloria Vinci had struck her son for disgracing the family, Theresa Paculo wanted the world to know her boy was innocent. It was all the fault of that white-trash Irishman Dennehy, and the sooner he was behind bars for good, the better. She wanted her son’s case dismissed today, and if it wasn’t maybe they would hire a real lawyer for the next court date.

  I was still seething as I climbed the stairs to the eighth floor to get to Jury One. What a woman, I thought; her precious son’s a passenger in a car stolen at gunpoint, and if I can’t make it all go away in one day, I’m not a real lawyer.

  Jury One was on a break too. Like a dummy, I’d left my Dick Francis novel downstairs, so there was nothing to do but sit and wait. When the bridgeman came in, I told him I’d had a message about a warrant. At first he looked puzzled, then said, “Oh, yeah, we got a guy returned on a warrant in the back. We don’t know whose case it is, just that it belongs to Legal Aid.”

  Oh, great. Dragged out of AP4 to come up here, and it’s not even my case. The trouble with judges is that they think Legal Aid lawyers are fungible. “Fungible” is my favorite law school word. It means interchangeable goods, like nuts and bolts, where one shipment is just as good as another. Unlike say, Picassos. We’re nuts and bolts, not Picassos.

  When I got back to AP4, court was already in session.

  I stood up on more cases. The red light on the phone blinked. I picked it up, talking softly so as not to disturb the court. “AP4,” I said.

  “Who is this?” It was my office-mate, Bill Pomerantz.

  “Hi, Bill. It’s me, Cass. What’s up?”

  “You’ve been elected chairman—or should I say chairperson—of the Cozzoli committee. Got a pen and paper handy?”

  “That sounds like
one of those orange Monopoly cards. You know, congratulations, you have been named chairman of the public works program. Pay each player fifty dollars.”

  He laughed, then read off a list of sandwich orders. It was an established tradition; whoever was in Criminal Court picked up hero sandwiches from Cozzoli’s on the way back to the office.

  “See you soon.” I hung up just before the court officer ordered me to. Judge Whalen was glaring at me over his rimless spectacles. “If you’ve quite finished, Miss Jameson,” he said in his dry, thin voice, “maybe this court can conduct business. With your permission, of course?” I mentally stuck my tongue out at him.

  The court officers were rushing to call as many cases as possible before lunch, but still people were coming up to me to beg me to get their cases called. “Please, miss, I have to get to work.” “I have to pick up my child at school.” “I got a clinic appointment.” And my personal favorite, “I can’t be sittin’ here all day. I got things to do on the street.”

  On the way out of the building, I ran into an elated Sylvia Mintz. “My guy copped a plea,” she said happily. “Thank God! I’m free at last. Wanna go to A & S later?”

  “Can’t,” I told her. “I’ve got things to do on the street.”

  SIX

  “Hey, C.J., my favorite lawyer.” Flaherty stood as I entered the lunchroom. He greeted me with a kiss so theatrical that it proclaimed to the world the platonic nature of our friendship. He was a huge, red-bearded Irishman with a wife and three kids, and he was my best friend at Legal Aid.

  “You mean Hi Cozzoli, my favorite lunch,” I answered, taking out his turkey and bacon with extra bacon, extra mayo, and extra pickles. That’s Flaherty. Extra everything.

  I put the food down, sat in a chair and listened to the usual lunchtime conversation. I’d interrupted a story Flaherty was telling.

  “I just thought she ought to see a rat,” he was explaining. “She was standing there in her fucking designer jeans and I thought to myself, ‘There’s a little white girl who never saw a rat.’ You know what I mean?” Jackie Bohan nodded solemnly, missing the gleam in Flaherty’s eye. Jackie’s heavily political. She’s only working at Legal Aid temporarily. Till the revolution.

  “So I point the rat out to her,” Flaherty went on. “It’s down the end of the subway tunnel. Big mother too, all black and hairy. She doesn’t see it. She does not see the fucker. Right in front of her, and she can’t see it. Freaked me out, man.” He shook his head.

  Jackie nodded. “The obliviousness of the bourgeoisie,” she agreed. “The refusal to see what they don’t want to see.”

  “I may wink a jury on the Perez case,” Sylvia said. “What do you think, Pat?”

  Flaherty turned his attention to Sylvia. Deke Fischer glowered. He’s our other supervisor, and it bugs the hell out of him when people turn to Flaherty for advice. Or to Nathan, who’s practiced law for nearly twenty years.

  “Who’s the judge?” Flaherty asked.

  “O’Malley. We already agreed the guy shouldn’t have to do more than two-to-four. But the D.A.’s won’t come down. They insist on a plea to assault one.”

  “Sounds good,” Flaherty said. “What’s your client think about it?”

  “Whatever I tell him to,” Sylvia answered. “That’s the problem. I think it’s the right thing to do, but he doesn’t understand enough to know what his options are. He may have delusions that he can win this case.”

  “What’d your guy do, Sylvia?” I asked.

  “Stabbed his best friend,” Sylvia replied matter-of-factly. “Trouble is, he’s convinced it was self-defense. Because the dead guy insulted him. And if he didn’t avenge the insult, he wouldn’t be a man. Everybody on the street would know he could be pushed around.”

  “You know,” Bill Pomerantz mused, “that’s the exact same thing a cop said to me the other day. I asked him why he beat my guy with a nightstick, and he said he had to get respect on the street or he was as good as dead. I was surprised as hell that he talked to me at all, but when he said that! Jesus!”

  “Yeah,” Flaherty agreed. “It’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys out there.”

  “Meanwhile,” Sylvia said pointedly.

  “Waive the jury,” Flaherty advised. “O’Malley’s a mensch. He won’t burn you. If he has to give your guy more time, he’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good deal,” Deke added. Sylvia ignored him. Bill gave him a look of mingled scorn and dislike.

  Office life is funny. It’s like one of those English villages in mystery stories. Everyone knows everyone else’s business without really being close. I couldn’t stand Deke, but I knew all about his rocky marriage. I wasn’t a friend of Mario’s, but I’d heard stories about his flaky girlfriend. The one exception was Bill. I shared an office with the man, but I knew less about him than anyone. No personal phone calls. No gossip, except for the persistent rumor, never confirmed, that he was gay.

  Flaherty was a different story. Not just an office friend, but a real friend. He finished a story about a robbery at McDonald’s. His guy had said to the girl behind the counter, “I deserve a break today, honey. Give me all your cash.”

  As we all laughed, Mario intoned in a deep announcer’s voice, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City.”

  I disagreed. “There are eight million clients,” I corrected him. “There are three stories.”

  “Yeah,” Flaherty agreed. “Story Number One: ‘I found it in the street.’”

  “Story Number Two,” Mario chimed in, “‘He lyin’.’”

  Before anyone came up with Story Number Three, one of the secretaries called out, “Is Nathan in there with you all?”

  “No, Lily,” I called back. “He’s at the Special Prosecutor’s office.”

  “No, he ain’t,” she shouted. “This is the Special Prosecutor’s office on the phone, and they wantin’ to know where he at.”

  I got up and went to the phone. I told the woman at the other end that Nathan had expected to be there at twelve thirty and as far as I knew he was on his way. It was quarter to two. I hung up the phone with a strong sense of foreboding.

  On impulse, I picked up the phone and dialed Nathan’s number. I didn’t expect an answer, so the busy signal surprised the hell out of me. Nathan was home! What was going on?

  I put the receiver back on the hook and looked at the clock again. Twelve to two. My prisoners wouldn’t be produced in AP4 till two thirty. I could get to Nathan’s in five minutes.

  It had seemed like a good idea in the office, but as I approached Nathan’s building, I began to feel silly. Nathan was a grown man. If he was sick, he could take care of himself. On the other hand, if he was sick, he’d call the office or call Parma’s office, neither of which he’d done.

  I didn’t have a key, so I waited until someone else opened the door and followed him into Nathan’s apartment complex. I walked quickly past the desk where visitors were supposed to sign in, trying to look as though I belonged there.

  The ambivalence I’d been feeling grew stronger. I felt like a fool as I walked down the dim, impersonal corridor toward Nathan’s door. What the hell was I doing here? There had to be a rational explanation for Nathan’s absence from work. Hung up on the trains. Forgot the appointment. Was sitting in Parma’s office right now, better late than never. The busy signal was only because I’d dialed the wrong number. Yet, as I stood before Nathan’s door, I knew deep inside that none of those things were true. Something was wrong.

  I knocked and waited. No answer. I knocked again. I was about to leave, when I decided to try the door. To my surprise, it opened. That fact alone primed my paranoia. I pushed the door open and gingerly stepped in.

  The place looked as though a huge, powerful child had thrown the tantrum of his life. Books had been ripped open, the pages torn and scattered, and the bindings flung across the room to land in dejected heaps. The photograph of Nathan on the horse had been thrown at the wall n
ear my feet, the glass cracked and the antique frame twisted with the force of the throw. Records had been smashed, the shiny black shards littering the floor. Playing cards had been ripped and tossed like confetti; the pottery chalice had been crashed beneath an angry shoe. Food had been opened and dumped. There were rice grains everywhere. Brown dried puddles where Coke had been poured over everything like gasoline at an arson site.

  And the paintings—Nathan’s beloved paintings. Slashed with a vengeance I couldn’t begin to comprehend. Who could hate Nathan this much? The cool, detached NON-WORD painting was detached no longer. It was stuck over a lamp, the sharp lamp top sticking out through it like a spear.

  My first thought was of burglary, yet I could see otherwise. A burglar would have stolen the paintings, not destroyed them. And the stereo, too, why not take that instead of throwing the turntable against the wall, leaving a twisted wreck? But then nothing made sense in that unholy mess. The viciousness of the attack paralyzed me; I just stood there noting the damage like an appraiser, trying not to focus on the important question.

  Where was Nathan?

  I wanted with all my heart to believe he was at the police station filling but forms. But the sheer violence, the stupendous anger of the vandalism told me differently. Whoever had done this had not left Nathan to go to the police.

  Slowly, reluctantly, I stepped into the hallway, passed the kitchen, and turned toward the bedroom. My hands were cold and shaking, and my stomach was jumping. I stopped and took a deep breath before looking into the bedroom.

  The deep breath probably kept me from fainting. There on the bed, where we had made love three nights earlier, lay Nathan’s naked body.

  I knew he was dead right away. There was a heaviness to him, the flaccid look of a thing out of which all life had drained. The muscles had no life to give them tautness. He was spread-eagled, face down, tied hand and foot to the bed frame.