A Matter of Conviction

by Ed McBain

  He had left the desk three times to go into the kitchen for water. He had been to the bathroom twice. He had sharpened four perfectly sharpened pencils and then sharpened them again not ten minutes later. Poring over the notes for his case, he fidgeted and squirmed in the chair.

  “Hank?” she said.

  “Mmm?” He turned to her, removing his reading glasses. His eyes were very pale, and she knew he was exhausted. He looked young and defenseless in that moment. A thin smile touched his mouth, and she felt quite maternal all at once, felt like going to him and holding his head against her breast.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.” He smiled again.

  “Nervous about the trial?”

  “Usual jitters,” he said. He sighed. “Maybe I ought to knock off now. I’ve got all weekend to go through this stuff.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Well, I’ve got a report from the lab I want to read,” he said. “And then …” he shrugged. “Karin—”

  “Yes?”

  “Murder is—It is murder, isn’t it?”

  “Darling?”

  “Never mind. It’s just … Never mind.” He put his glasses on again and then dug into his briefcase, pulling out a report in a blue folder. She watched him as he leafed through it. She saw his back stiffen, and then he sat erect in the chair, and then he bent over the report and read it again, tracing his finger down the page, reading it line by line, like a beginning reader in a backward group. He shook his head and shoved his chair back, and then he began pacing the room, and she watched him helplessly.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Let’s take a walk. Jennie won’t be back for a while, will she?”

  “She went to a party. The neighborhood boycott seems to be easing.”

  “Then let’s go. Please, Karin. I need some air. I have to think.”

  They walked out of the house and down toward the river. It was a mild night, dark clouds scudding over a thin crescent moon. They walked through the woods and then sat on the flat rock overlooking the railroad tracks and the water. They lighted cigarettes. In the glow of the match, she saw his face—troubled, vulnerable, youthful. Again she wanted to touch him.

  “What is it, Hank?” she said.

  “The trial begins Monday,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got an airtight case for Murder One. I spent a month knocking the case together, a month tracking down every possible lead. And today, today I … tonight, reading over my notes, my carefully prepared notes, my meticulously prepared case, tonight I’m puzzled. Tonight, I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  “Isn’t the case a good one?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. No, it isn’t. Damnit, it isn’t. It’s no damn good at all! Karin, I found out today that the victim was a gang member himself! I couldn’t believe it at first. How could a blind kid become involved with thugs, with hoodlums? But I had some members of the Horsemen brought in, right to the precinct, and I questioned them in the detective squad room, and they all admitted it. Rafael Morrez was a member of their gang. A highly valuable member, as it turned out. His blindness practically guaranteed immunity from the law.”

  “So?”

  “So where does it end, Karin? Where the hell are the boundaries? Not only was he a member of the Horsemen, but two of the boys who killed him had seen him on at least one previous occasion. Which means they might have recognized him on the night of the murder. And if they did, then they knew he was a blind boy when they killed him.”

  “Then on the one hand you have the cold-blooded murder of a known blind boy, and on the other a victim who is not entirely blameless himself.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t matter what Morrez was. I mean, what the hell, if a racketeer is killed, we still prosecute his murderer. It only matters in that … Karin, I’m just not sure what’s right or wrong any more. I’ve finally got a report from the police lab on those knives. The report—Karin, I’m supposed to convict those kids! I’m supposed to prove they’re guilty of murder. That’s what I’ve been working on. That’s the assumption I started with, and that’s what I’ve been building my case to prove. But when I talk to them, when I get the feel of them, when I know them, and their parents, and the whole damn gang structure, and the streets, those goddamn long, dark streets … Karin, Karin.”

  “Darling, please don’t.”

  “All of it has suddenly become something which defies my concept of right and wrong.”

  “Murder is wrong, isn’t it?” Karin said.

  “Yes, of course it’s wrong. But who committed this murder? Who’s responsible for this murder? Do you see what I’m driving at?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “The kids did the actual stabbing, yes. But is the final act the one to examine? Too many things led to this killing. If I blame these kids, I’ve also got to blame their parents, and the city, and the police—and where does it end? Where do I stop?” He paused. “Karin, I’m not a crusader.”

  “The law tells you where to stop, Hank. Your only concern is the law.”

  “As a lawyer, yes. But I’m also a person. And I can’t very well separate the part of me that’s a lawyer from the rest of me.”

  “Nor can you separate the killer in these boys from.…”

  “I know I can’t. But what made them kill? Damnit, Karin, that’s my point. They killed, but does the simple fact of murder make them killers?”

  “I think you’re involving yourself in semantics, Hank. If they killed, they are guilty of murder. That’s all you should concern yourself with.”

  “Do you believe that, Karin?”

  “I’m trying to help you, Hank.”

  “But do you believe what you just said?”

  “No,” she answered. Her voice was very low.

  “Neither do I.” He paused. “I’m not a crusader.”

  “Hank—”

  “I’m not a crusader, Karin. I never have been. I guess maybe we can thank Harlem for that. I guess maybe I’m a coward at heart.”

  “Hank, no. You’re a very brave person.”

  “Karin, I’ve been afraid. I’ve been afraid for so long, so long. I think that’s the legacy of the streets. Fear. Fear that’s always there, always ready to explode inside you, a keg of gunpowder with a lighted fuse, waiting to explode, waiting to—to destroy you. I … I …”

  “Hank, please don’t. Please, you mustn’t.”

  “I carried it with me during the war, always there, always inside me, waiting, waiting, fear, fear! Of what? Of life! Of day-by-day living. Fear that started when I was a kid, until all I could think of was getting out of Harlem, getting away from the place that bred the fear, and when I did get out it was too late, because the fear was something that was a part of me, like my liver or my heart. And then I met you.”

  She took his hand and she held it close to her face, and he could feel the wetness of her tears against his palm. He shook his head.

  “You begin—you begin to doubt, Karin. You’re faced with the overwhelming terror of the streets, and inch by inch it eats away at you until you wonder who you are, what you are. Are you a man? If you were a man, why’d you lose your girl to someone else while you were away? Why’d you allow your grandfather to die? Why are you afraid all the time? What the hell are you? What are you?”

  He pulled her to him suddenly, awkwardly. She could feel his body trembling in the darkness.

  “And then you. You, Karin—warmth, and light, and wonder. And suddenly the fear left me for a little while, until—until I began thinking you’d loved someone before me, you’d known someone before—”

  “Hank, I love you.”

  “Yes, yes, but …”

  “I love you, I love you!”

  “… I wondered why there had to be someone else, why, why? And I was afraid I’d lose you, the way he’d lost you, what’s the matter with me, Karin? Don’t I know you love me, didn’t I know you br
oke with him, you wanted me, me, but it got all mixed up with the fear inside me until … until …”

  He was crying now. She heard his tears, and she went weak with helpless terror. Her man was crying, and she did not know how to stop him, her man, her man, and there was no more pitiful sound in the universe than the sound of his tears in the darkness. She kissed his wet face, and she kissed his hands, and he said again, very softly, “I’m no crusader. Karin, it scares me. The enormity of it scares me. I know what I should do but I—I’ll go into that courtroom on Monday morning, and I’ll pick my jurors and I’ll try the case for first-degree murder because that’s the safe way, the easy way, because—”

  “No. Don’t say it.”

  “Because I’m—”

  “Don’t!” she said sharply. “Don’t!”

  They were silent for a long while. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. The clouds had covered the moon completely now. The flat rock was in complete darkness.

  “Shall we go back?” she asked.

  “I’d like to sit here for a while,” he said softly. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Jennie will be coming home.”

  “You go back. I’ll be all right.”

  “All right.” She rose and smoothed her skirt. She stared at him in the darkness, unable to see his face. “Shall I make some coffee?”

  “Yes. That would be nice.”

  “Hank?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not a coward.”

  He did not answer.

  “You’re very brave.”

  Again, he did not answer. She reached into the darkness and touched his cheek. “I love you, liebchen,” she said. “I love you.” And then, almost in a whisper, she said, “You make me very proud,” and she turned and walked off quickly into the trees.

  He put out his cigarette and stared out at the water.

  What is a lawyer to do? he wondered.

  I must blame them.

  Who else killed? Can I blame a culture which robs parents of identity, pressuring them, compressing them, sealing them in vacuum cans on the rat treadmill so that fathers are no longer sure they’re males and mothers are no longer sure they’re females? Can I impose the neuroses of society at large upon three kids who killed? But goddamnit, they killed, they killed! What is a lawyer to do?

  Suppose you went into that courtoom, he thought. Suppose you went in there, and picked your jurors, and then presented the case so that …

  No.

  I’d never get away with it. Abe Samalson would smell a rat and stop the trial at once. And then he’d drag me into his chambers and ask me who the hell I was representing in this case, the killers or the people?

  Aren’t the killers part of the people?

  They are the defendants, and I am the prosecuting attorney, and my job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did willfully and with malice aforethought stab to death a boy named Rafael Morrez.

  Aposto’ll be acquitted. You know that. He’s a mental deficient. You haven’t a prayer in hell of convicting him.

  That leaves Reardon and Di Pace. And my job is to …

  Does it? What about that report on the knives? Aren’t you forgetting something, Mr. Bell?

  The report meant nothing, a freak accident, something that had to do with the way the knife was held, or the rain perhaps.

  Or perhaps something else? Perhaps something important?

  Damnit, I’ve got to put the blame someplace! I can’t just exonerate …

  Then put the blame, damnit! Stand up in that courtroom before the judge and the jury and the newspapermen …

  Mike Barton’s newspaper would cut me to ribbons. He’d murder me.

  … and the world and put the goddamn blame! For once in your life, do something, be something, take the chance, risk something, stop playing it safe!

  And if I get killed? If they slaughter me? What then? Henry Bell goes down the drain. You remember Henry Bell, don’t you? That bright young lad—well, not really that young—who used to work in the D.A.’s office before he goofed on the Morrez case. Oh, there was a lot of public sentiment aroused on that one, don’t you remember? Open-and-shut case of first-degree murder, open and shut, three cold-blooded killers stabbing a blind boy to death, a blind boy, open and shut. And Bell muffed it. Stood up in court and presented his case as if he were …

  … interested in justice?

  I am interested in justice.

  Then what about that report?

  What about it? It means nothing.

  Come on, Bell, you know what’s in that report. Will you try to suppress it?

  There’s nothing to suppress. The defense won’t even bring it up, that’s how important it is. They won’t even mention the damn thing. They admit the stabbing. Their only hope is self-defense. That report isn’t important at all.

  You know how important it is! You know because you’ve lived with fear, you’ve been kissed by that ugly bitch, she’s held you in her arms, she’s …

  STOP IT!

  Stop it.

  Stop. Please.

  I owe them nothing. I owe them nothing. I don’t even know them. They’re strangers to me. I don’t know them.

  You know them, Bell. They’re not strangers. You know them very well.

  I owe them nothing, he thought. I owe them nothing.

  The night was quite still. He sat looking out over the water, and he thought over and over again, I owe them nothing. He was not sure at first that he heard footsteps coming through the trees. Suddenly alert, he listened. Yes, footsteps. Stealthy, uncertain, moving cautiously through the trees toward the rock where he sat.

  “This way,” a boy’s voice whispered, and Hank felt a sudden chill race up his spine to raise the hairs at the back of his neck.

  Another beating, he thought. Oh, my God, another beating.

  He clenched his fists. He expected to be frightened, as frightened as he’d been when approaching that bench in City Hall Park, but instead there was no fear. He was surprised by his own reaction. Sitting with his fists clenched, he listened to the approaching footsteps, recognizing a rising determination inside him.

  I will not be beaten again, he thought. Those bastards won’t do it to me again!

  Like an animal crouched to spring, he waited.

  The boy’s voice sounded in the darkness again. “Over here. This way. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” a voice said, and Hank’s brow furrowed in puzzlement because the second voice belonged to a girl.

  “Here,” the boy said. “Let’s sit under this tree here.” There was silence. “Wait a minute. Let me put my jacket down.”

  Lovers, Hank thought, and he was filled instantly with deep embarrassment. He unclenched his fists. There would be no battle; only a balcony scene. He smiled grimly. The thing to do now was to get away from here as swiftly and as quietly as …

  “This is a nice spot,” the boy said. “Nice and cool. You get a breeze here from the river.”

  “I love the river,” the girl answered. “I love to look at the lights. I always wonder where the boats are going.”

  “Would you like a cigarette?” the boy asked.

  “I’m not supposed to smoke.”

  “I’ve seen you smoke,” the boy said.

  “Yes. But I’m not supposed to.”

  The boy laughed. In the darkness, Hank could barely make out the figures of the boy and the girl sitting on the ground. A match struck and then moved closer to the girl’s cigarette. Her back was to him. All he could see in the sudden illumination was the girl’s startling blond hair. And then the match died.

  “I’m glad we got out of that place,” the boy said. “That was the draggiest party I’ve been to in years.”

  “Death,” the girl agreed.

  Lying flat on the rock, Hank tried to work out an escape route. He did not want to frighten the couple, nor did he wish to embarrass them. But at the same time,
he did not want to be a captive audience to their adolescent patter. Unfortunately, the only way back to the street was past the couple who sat under the huge tree to the right of the path. Sighing, scarcely daring to breathe, Hank resigned himself to his fate.

  “How old are you, anyway?” the boy said.

  “Thirteen. Well, almost fourteen. I’ll be fourteen at the end of the month.”

  “You’re still a kid,” the boy said.

  “Not such a kid. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “I know older boys.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, I got to admit,” the boy said, “you look a lot older than thirteen.”

  “Do I look older than fourteen?”

  “As a matter of fact, you do.”

  “How old would you say I looked?”

  The boy was silent for a while. Then he said, “I’d say you looked at least fifteen.”

  “That old?”

  “Easy.”

  “This is nice,” the girl said. “Sitting here, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Do you like the summer better, or the winter?”

  “Summer.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. You can’t get out in the winter. I mean, you know, you’re stuck inside all the time.”

  “Yeah.” The girl paused. “What’s your favorite color?”

  “Red. What’s yours?”

  “Yellow. Who’s your favorite singer?”

  “Vic Damone.” He paused. “Oh, no, don’t tell me!”

  “What?”

  “It isn’t the Pretzel, is it?”

  “Elvis? Oh, no. He needs a haircut.” The girl giggled. The boy laughed with her. “This is nice,” she said. “Talking like this. Do you find it hard to talk to people?”

  “Sometimes. I find it easy to talk to you, though.”

  “Well, I enjoy talking to you, too. It’s especially hard with older people, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Talking.”

  “Oh, yeah. Man, I hate to talk to old people. They give me the creeps.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean real old people. Like people who are ready to die or something.”

  “Neither did I. I meant regular old people. You know. Forty, forty-five, like that.”