by Alex Abella
"OK, we'll see who's right when the time comes. Meantime, get in touch with this lady, ask her when she'll be available to testify." He pushed over a paper with the name Graciela de Alba.
"The ethnologist? C'mon, Ramón, she's at least eighty years old and lives in Miami. If she's not dead already."
"She's seventy-seven. She's well, don't worry about that," he said with self-confidence. "Just ask her when is the most convenient time for her, but that we'll probably only be able to give her about forty-eight hours' notice."
"Is Reynolds going to let this through?"
"He has to. He doesn't want to be reversed on appeal. Which is exactly what will happen if I can't bring all the evidence regarding state of mind."
I leaned back in the chair, stared at the stamped tin ceiling. "It might work. You'll probably get murder one and beat the special circs. Shit, you may even get manslaughter and get out in ten or twelve."
I would have thought this possibility would have cheered him but some people are always seeking the absolute.
"No way, José. We're beating this. We're walking here."
"Oh, yeah, sure, and I'm Robert Redford. Wake up, guy, you'll be lucky to get manslaughter. We're talking six dead, including a little girl."
"I'm not responsible for the little girl."
"And the rest, Ramón? How can you ignore those bodies crying out for justice?"
"Maybe so but I didn't do it."
"Right. So it's back to blaming Pimienta, right?"
"No, not at all. I don't know who did it."
"C'mon, we've been through this before. Don't play games. If it wasn't you and it wasn't Pimienta, then who the hell did it?" I could hear myself screaming, hurling the words like so many bullets at him.
"Oggún did it, I didn't do it. Oggún is the one you want."
The day the courts reopened Los Angeles was socked in by the thick tule fog usually found in the Central Valley, making it impossible to see more than ten feet away from your nose. When I opened the shutters that morning, leaving a mumbling Lucinda under the covers, the dense layer of marine air was cotton candy shredded over the garden. A few red roses stood out spectrally in the mist.
Downtown, near the CCB, some romantic graffiti artist had spray-painted red letters on sidewalks, posts and traffic light boxes-"I loves to fuck womens because their pussy feels so good." Outside the CCB itself, the poet had changed his song to "I loves to fuck policewomens because their pussy feels so good." Wondering what paeans of praise he would write on knowing judges, district attorneys and deputy sheriffs, I surged with the crowd into the building.
Workers on scaffoldings were inserting earthquake-proof rods in the walls, their whining and drilling an aural backdrop throughout the day to the play of the courts.
At Reynolds' court the day's business was in full swing as I entered. I caught the judge in the middle of a lecture to a black prisoner for still selling cocaine at the ripe age of fifty-two.
"Mr. Helms, now, that's a young man's crime. You have too many white hairs on your head to be doing that kind of nonsense."
"Yessir, Judge."
"It's not the magnitude of this crime, sir, it's the ludicrousness of it. Now, what are you going to do if some young one comes along and wants to take over your corner? Why, you probably wouldn't have the strength to fight him off and Lord knows what you might have to resort to."
"Yessir, Judge."
"I'm mighty sore at this, sir, Mr. Helms, I'm mighty sore. I just cannot tell you how disappointed I am that a man with your age and experience is still doing this kind of foolishness. "
"Yessir, Judge."
Reynolds saw me enter and waved me over to sidebar.
"Good morning, Mr. Morell."
"Morning, Your Honor."
At sidebar: "Charlie, we won't be starting with your case until eleven this morning. We're hearing a lot of matters from the closed courts. You can go get yourself some coffee. Or maybe you'd want to stay and watch justice being done."
"No offense, Judge, but I'd rather go get some breakfast. The thought of justice is more than I can bear on an empty stomach."
Then I saw him. My father.
"Mr. Morell!" shouted the judge as I stepped out. I heard the stomping of boots running after me.
I trembled from the tom-tom drumming of my own racing heart. He glared at me for a second, then dashed into the hallway leading to the stairs and the men's room. I saw the door to the men's room flash open.
Fighting a current of history and emotion and reality struggling to carry me to the other shore, feeling that my steps were taking hours for each shoe to reach the tiled floor, I ran slowly, almost floating, to the men's room.
We were alone there. I saw his legs inside a stall. Behind me I heard faint steps and a distant voice that carried an urgent message.
"Charlie, Charlie!"
Slowly but ever so strongly I raised my leg and kicked the stall door open. The man inside had his back to me. He turned and again I saw my father's face, black circles under his eyes, the heart-shaped birthmark on his cheek, blue-gray eyes brimming with pain and meaning.
"Recado para tí," A message for you, he said, then waved and vanished slowly into a gray mist that left nothing in the stall except a large cordovan-brown roach on the toilet seat, waving its antennae. I stepped on the roach, then saw an explosion of light and a voice cried out, "Charlie, Charlie, what's with you?" and then darkness.
I came to briefly in the ambulance. The paramedic injected something in my arm and I felt myself impelled through the city streets, the siren of the ambulance a comforting harbinger of release. A dense soothing darkness grew rapidly around me so that, ever so briefly, I was cocooned, returned to the primal liquid of warmth, love and security.
The light hurt when I opened my eyes again. A nurse by the bed was taking my pulse. I was the only patient in the room, the other beds empty.
"Am I going to live?"
Nurse Pavlovich, as per her tag, with creamy skin, blue eyes and salt and pepper hair, answered just as facetiously, "Another fifty years or so, if you take care of yourself."
She dropped my hand, wrote on a chart that she placed at the foot of the bed and walked away.
"You had a nervous collapse, sir," said Dr. Patel later. Nut brown, with thick glasses and bad skin, he seemed ready to sell me some concoction at a Bombay bazaar. "You must try to relax, it is no good for the body to be subjected to so much stress. Have you perhaps had auditory illusions?"
"Better than that, Doc. I've seen ghosts. They wanted to know the time of day."
"That is very disturbing. Your physical exhaustion must have depleted your psychic energies as well. You would be well advised to take a vacation, some kind of break from your routine. Who knows what will happen otherwise? I cannot be held responsible for what may occur. No, Mr. Morell, I want no accountability of any sort. You must relax."
"Sure, Doc. All I've got is the biggest murder trial since the Nightstalker case. I suppose I can call in for a replacement· and spend a couple of weeks in Acapulco."
"Oh, no, longer. Yes. I would most definitely advise you to take a very long vacation. A sabbatical, perhaps?"
"You sure you don't work for Mrs. Schnitzer?"
"Excuse me?"
"Forget it. I can't do it."
"Then there is only one thing left to do."
"What's that?"
"Face up to your fears and make your work your vacation. Yes. Not everyone can do so, but if you personally do not succeed, I am afraid it could be drapes for you."
"Curtains, you mean."
"Yes, of course. You have a funny way with words, Mr. Morell." He chuckled.
Clay visited me that afternoon, looking bashful, as though not sure he should be there at all. I was certain he'd come to see if I was out of the game altogether rather than from any goodness of his heart, if he had one, but I was glad to see him all the same-hell, to see anybody besides the comedy team of Pavlovich and Patel.
"There are easier ways to get off the case," he said.
"Believe me, this is not something I thought of."
"You know, Reynolds really thinks you're an integral part of the defense team."
"I'm flattered."
"You should be. He stopped the trial until we get further word on your condition. Ramón put up a fuss but he overruled him."
"What do you mean? I thought it would be Phyllis who'd push me out."
"Not at all. She wants to preserve all semblance of fairmindedness and is bending over backwards." Pause. Smirk. "Ramón doesn't want that. He wants errors for appeal, in case he bites it."
"So Ramón wants to go on?"
"Yeah, he said you were obviously overworked. I joined, of course. Hey, what can I do, you know where I stand. I can't cut a deal until everybody is there."
"Ramón wanted to proceed without me?"
"Shit, he said maybe you should be taken off the case altogether. The judge nixed that."
"Tell them I'll be back on Monday. Chill out."
I tried reaching Lucinda several times that day without success, but she finally rushed in, breathless and worried, in the late afternoon. My landlord, Enzo, had already dropped by and shared a split of Monte Albano, which I mixed with the Demerol that Patel had prescribed so that by the time she arrived, I was feeling exceedingly fine and proceeded to prove it by pawing her all over.
She slapped my hands.
"Niño malo, bad boy, you know you're not supposed to do that here, wait till we get home."
"Mañana, domani, tomorrow, volare, oh, oh."
"You mean they will let you go tomorrow."
"Cantare, oh, oh."
"You're very happy for someone in your condition. Here I was, thinking you had a heart attack and you're singing and want to make love."
"I'm a free man, my girl, I'm free, free. Libre de todo pecado. Tomorrow I'm out of the Valdez case. Forever."
"How's that?"
"I'm sick, that's what, you know, enfermo. I can't go on anymore."
Lucinda looked worried for a minute, tilting her head at me questioningly, as though not certain of what her pretty ears were hearing.
"Are you sure?"
"Positivo. Look, there's the story."
The TV set, which just moments before had been showing the travails of love and greed in Santa Barbara, now slid into the even more fascinating real-life stories of corruption, lust and murder in the "Five O'Clock News." I saw myself being taken out of the CCB on a gurney and slid into the ambulance like a loaf of bread into the oven.
"Must have been a slow news day," I said.
The anchor, a pretty redhead with an upturned nose, gave a succinct account of my now world-renowned nervous collapse, which made my heart cheer even more. Then the other shoe finally dropped.
"Our reporter, Jim Ollin, has been following the Valdez and Pimienta case since the beginning. In an exclusive report, he has uncovered that this is not the first time controversy has dogged the steps of investigator Morell. Just a few years ago, when he was an attorney practicing in Florida, a major scandal developed when he also suffered a nervous breakdown during a trial. Jim?"
14
"Is this on the record?"
The question floats disembodied, ethereal, in the sunny confines Of Judge Reynolds' chambers, a wisp of smog that filtered through the double-paned windows and left its smelly presence in the room. I look at the grave, somber expressions of people who must perform an unwanted chore, withdrawn, weighing the consequences of their instant actions. Phyllis, in a blue Ungaro suit, sits gathered and erect. Clay, leaning back, in a gray suede chair, unbuttons his custom-made pinstripe jacket. The judge, at a black leather chair behind his teak desk, sips from his mug of decaffeinated Kenya Roasted and stares at me. They all stare at me. The question goes unanswered.
"Judge, are we on the record?"
The source of the question is finally clear. Janine, the reporter, straddling her machine, points her crooked nose at the judge.
"Right," says Reynolds, clearing his throat. "This is the case of the People versus Valdez and Pimienta. We are meeting in chambers, myself, Judge Reynolds, Prosecutor Phyllis Chin, Defense
Counsel Clay Smith and court-appointed investigator Charles Morell. Off the record. Janine, this will be sealed after delivery of the transcript. Back on the record. The purpose of this hearing is to determine the competency of investigator Morell following allegations of professional misconduct. In addition, it is to consider the request by Mr. Morell to be discharged from the case because of illness. Mr. Morell, suppose you tell us why you want to be taken off the case."
It is now my turn to cleave an opening of escape. I hesitate. Do I want to expose myself, tell them that I think my father is haunting me, that I'm paying for something they have no inkling of, couldn't possibly conceive? Then the moment is lost.
"Your Honor," interjects Phyllis, "I'd like the record to show that the prosecution is categorically opposed to this hearing. The purported misconduct on the part of Mr. Morell, were it to have happened, which is yet to be proven, lies outside the jurisdiction of this court and is irrelevant to the conduct of the case in chief. We're talking about events that happened in another state years ago that have no bearing on the handling of this trial or on Mr. Morell's performance since his appointment thereto. Moreover, since Mr. Morell is Mr. Valdez's investigator, it is clear that only Mr. Valdez can discharge Mr. Morell, unless there is gross negligence on the part of Mr. Morell, which has not been seen so far. Since the allegation of improprieties have thus far been unproven, and since
Mr. Valdez has not demonstrated any actual desire to discharge Mr. Morell, given we have not received any written motion to that effect, the District Attorney's office maintains that this hearing is moot, insofar as the competency issue is concerned. As regards Mr. Morell's request because of a medical condition, that is something only a qualified medical doctor can give an opinion on. I'd point out that we have no testimony before us from any such medical expert, so again we move that this hearing be closed for lack of good cause."
Reynolds suddenly ignites like a haystack when someone drops a hot poker. Clay wants to object but the judge waves him down. I sit and watch in agony.
"Objection, Your Honor, the prosecution-"
"Just a minute, Mr. Smith. Off the record. Phyllis, just what the hell are y'all trying to accomplish here? Do you want us to have a clean slate or not?"
Phyllis, unperturbed: "I'd like to go back on the record, Your Honor."
"No, we are not going back on the record just yet. I want you to tell me why you don't want the light of day to shine on these claims and why you wouldn't let Charlie here bow out for reasons of health."
"Your Honor, I will not answer any questions until we're back on the record."
Reynolds tries to stare her down but Phyllis simply returns his gaze. The judge quits. I think, how will Ramón ever defeat a woman like this?
"Fine, have it your way, then. Back on the record. Now, Ms. Chin, having heard your arguments, I'm still not certain why the District Attorney's office would want even the tiniest scintilla of misconduct to surface at this trial, which will be later grounds for reversal on appeal."
"Your Honor, I'm pleased that the court feels the People will win this case, even if I don't agree this particular issue would cause a reversal. The position of our office is that Mr. Morell has been a competent qualified investigator and that appointment of a new investigator would hamper our efforts to conclude this trial expeditiously. It is now two and a half years since the incident and witnesses may soon start to become a problem. I need not go into how recollection fades with time, I'm referring just to availability. As I said before, none of the interested parties, the prosecution, Mr. Valdez or the court, has officially moved to replace Mr. Morell so we believe this whole hearing is moot."
"Objection renewed, Your Honor."
Reynolds again waves at Clay, as though he'd heard e
nough of his protests.
"This is not a formal hearing, Mr. Smith. No need to keep pressing your objection. Now then, Ms. Chin, I have heard your arguments and to tell you the God's honest truth, they don't make a lick o' sense. I'm sure you're aware the magistrate, at his discretion, and with sufficient cause, may discharge any of the parties that have been appointed by the court for a particular case. Now, these here are serious allegations which resulted in Mr. Morell's suspension from the Florida bar. In addition, he has personal difficulties that must be addressed."
He turns to me in his most paternalistic plantation-owner pose. "I know how difficult it must be for you, Charlie. We're all here to help."
"Thank you, Judge," I mutter.
"You Honor," adds Clay, "I must put on the record as counsel for Mr. Pimienta that we are opposed to any further continuance of Mr. Morell's services on behalf of the codefendant."
"I heard you."
"We believe that his actions are prejudicial and that the semblance of misconduct on his part cannot but-"
"Off the record. Clay, will you shut up! You are here as a courtesy, you shouldn't give one rat's fuck whether Charlie is in or out. It can only make your boy look better, especially if District Attorney Pellegrini finally gives his OK on that deal you and Phyllis cut. So pipe down now, will you? Back on the record. Objection noted, Mr. Smith."
The judge turns his sorry countenance upon me again. "Well, Charlie, what did happen?"
I swallow hard, feeling the hair on my forearms standing on end.