Ehrengraf for the Defense

by Lawrence Block

  “Ah,” he said. “Mr. Mayhew.”

  “You are a man with no heart. I’m a poor housebound cripple, Mr. Ehrengraf—”

  “Indeed.”

  “—and you’ve taken my life away. Do you have any notion what I had to go through to make this phone call?”

  “I have a fair idea.”

  “Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through?”

  “A fair idea of that as well,” Ehrengraf said. “Here’s a pretty coincidence. Just as you called, I was reading this poem of Thomas Hood’s—do you know him?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “A sonnet called Silence. I’ll just read you the sestet:

  “But in green ruins, in the desolate walls,

  Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,

  Though the dun fox or wild hyena calls,

  And owls that flit continually between,

  Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan—

  There the true silence is, self-conscious and alone.

  “Don’t you think that’s marvelously evocative of what you’ve been going through, Mr. Mayhew?”

  “You’re a terrible man.”

  “Indeed. And you should never forget it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “It could all happen again. In fact, it could happen over and over.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “You have to leave my client strictly alone.”

  “I was having so much fun.”

  “Don’t whine, Mr. Mayhew. You can’t play your nasty little tricks on Mr. Crowe. But there’s a whole world of other victims out there just waiting for your attentions.”

  “You mean—”

  “I’m sure I’ve said nothing that wouldn’t have occurred to you in good time, sir. On the other hand, you never know what some other victim might do. He might even find his way to my office, and you know full well what the consequences of that would be. Indeed, you know that you can’t know. So perhaps what you ought to do is grow up, Mr. Mayhew, and wrap the tattered scraps of your life around your wretched body, and make the best of it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Think of Thomas Hood, sir. Think of the true silence.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Think of Ross, house of Ross, and the rankle-dankle fish with hands.”

  “I’m not—”

  “And think of Mr. Crowe while you’re at it. I suggest you call him, sir. Apologize to him. Assure him that his troubles are over.”

  “I don’t want to call him.”

  “Make the call,” Ehrengraf said, his voice smooth as steel. “Or your troubles, Mr. Mayhew, are just beginning.”

  * * *

  “The most remarkable thing,” Ethan Crowe said. “I had a call from that troll Mayhew. At first I didn’t believe it was he. I didn’t recognize his voice. He sounded so frightened, so unsure of himself.”

  “Indeed.”

  “He assured me I’d have no further trouble from him. No more limousines or taxis, no more flowers, none of his idiotic little pranks. He apologized profusely for all the trouble he’d caused me in the past and assured me it would never happen again. It’s hard to know whether to take the word of a madman, but I think he meant what he said.”

  “I’m certain he did.”

  They were once again in Martin Ehrengraf’s office, and as usual the lawyer’s desk was as cluttered as his person was immaculate. He was wearing the navy suit again, as it happened, but he had left the light-blue vest at home. His tie bore a half-inch diagonal stripe of royal blue flanked by two narrower stripes, one of gold and the other of a rather bright green, all on a navy field. Crowe was wearing a three-piece suit, expensive and beautifully tailored but in a rather morose shade of brown. Ehrengraf had decided charitably to regard the man as color blind and let it go at that.

  “What did you do, Ehrengraf?”

  The little lawyer looked off into the middle distance. “I suppose I can tell you,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “I took his life away from him.”

  “That’s what I thought you would do. Take his life, I mean. But he was certainly alive when I spoke to him.”

  “You misunderstand me. Mr. Crowe, your antagonist was a housebound cripple who had adjusted to his mean little life of isolation. He had an income sufficient to his meager needs. And I went around his house shutting things down.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I speak metaphorically, of course. Well, there’s no reason I can’t tell you what I did in plain English. First of all, I went to the post office. I filled out a change-of-address card, signed it in his name, and filed it. From that moment on, all his mail was efficiently forwarded to the General Delivery window in Greeley, Colorado, where it’s to be held until called for, which may take rather a long time.”

  “Good heavens.”

  “I notified the electric company that Mr. Mayhew had vacated the premises and ordered them to cut off service forthwith. I told the telephone company the same thing, so when he picked up the phone to complain about the lights being out I’m afraid he had a hard time getting a dial tone. I sent a notarized letter to the landlord—over Mr. Mayhew’s signature, of course—announcing that he was moving and demanding that his lease be canceled. I got in touch with his cleaning woman and informed her that her services would no longer be required. I could go on, Mr. Crowe, but I believe you get the idea. I took his life away and shut it down and he didn’t like it.”

  “Good grief.”

  “His only remaining contact with the world was what he saw through his windows, and that was nothing attractive. Nevertheless, I was going to have his windows painted black from the outside—I was in the process of making final arrangements. A chap was going to suspend a scaffold as if to wash the windows but he would have painted them instead. I saw it as a neat coup de grace, but Mayhew made that last touch unnecessary throwing in the sponge. That’s a mixed metaphor, from coup de grace to throwing in the sponge, but I hope you’ll pardon it.”

  “You did to him what he’d done to me. Hoist him on his own petard.”

  “Let’s say I hoisted him on a similar petard. He plagued you by introducing an infinity of unwanted elements into your life. But I reduced his life to the four rooms he lived in and even threatened his ability to retain those very rooms. That drove the lesson home to him in a way I doubt he’ll ever forget.”

  “Simple and brilliant,” Crowe said. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’d have saved yourself fifty thousand dollars.”

  Crowe gasped. ‘‘Fifty thousand—”

  “Dollars. My fee.”

  “But that’s an outrage. All you did was write some letters and make some phone calls.”

  “All I did, sir, was everything you asked me to do. I saved you from answering to a murder charge.”

  “I wouldn’t have murdered him.”

  “Nonsense,” Ehrengraf snapped. “You tried to murder him. You thought engaging me would have precisely that effect. Had I wrung the wretch’s neck you’d pay my fee without a whimper, but because I accomplished the desired result with style and grace instead of brute force you now resist paying me. It would be an immense act of folly, Mr. Crowe, if you were to do anything other than pay my fee in full at once.”

  ‘You don’t think the amount is out of line?”

  “I don’t keep my fees in a line, Mr. Crowe.” Ehrengraf’s hand went to the knot of his tie. It was the official necktie of the Caedmon Society of Oxford University. Ehrengraf had not attended Oxford and did not belong to the Caedmon Society any more than he belonged to the International Society for the Preservation of Wild Mustangs and Burros, but it was a tie he habitually wore on celebratory occasions. “I set my fees according to an intuitive process,” he went on, “and they are never negotiable. Fifty thousand dollars, sir. Not a penny more, no
t a penny less. Ah, Mr. Crowe, Mr. Crowe—do you know why Mayhew chose to torment you?”

  “I suppose he feels I’ve harmed him.”

  “And have you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Supposition is blunder’s handmaiden, Mr. Crowe. Mayhew made your life miserable because he hated you. I don’t know why he hated you. I don’t believe Mayhew himself knows why he hated you. I think he selected you at random. He needed someone to hate and you were convenient. Ah, Mr. Crowe—” Ehrengraf smiled with his lips “—consider how much damage was done to you by an insane cripple with no actual reason to do you harm. And then consider, sir, how much more harm could be done you by someone infinitely more ruthless and resourceful than Terence Reginald Mayhew, someone who is neither a lunatic nor a cripple, someone who is supplied with fifty thousand excellent reasons to wish you ill.”

  Crowe stared. “That’s a threat,” he said slowly.

  “I fear you’ve confused a threat and a caution, Mr. Crowe, though I warrant the distinction’s a thin one. Are you fond of poetry, sir?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s no criticism, sir. Some people have poetry in their souls and others do not. It’s predetermined, I suspect, like color blindness. I could recommend Thomas Hood, sir, or Christopher Smart, but would you read them? Or profit by them? Fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Crowe, and a check will do nicely.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And I won’t be intimidated.”

  “Indeed you won’t,” Ehrengraf agreed. “But do you recall our initial interview, Mr. Crowe? I submit that you would do well to act as if—as if you were afraid of me, as if you were intimidated.”

  Ethan Crowe sat quite still for several seconds. A variety of expressions played over his generally unexpressive face. At length he drew a checkbook from the breast pocket of his morosely brown jacket and uncapped a silver fountain pen.

  “Payable to?”

  “Martin H. Ehrengraf.”

  The pen scratched away. Then, idly, “What’s the H. stand for?”

  “Herod.”

  “The store in England?”

  “The king,” said Ehrengraf. “The king in the Bible.”

  The End

  The Ehrengraf Obligation

  “Play me songs with flatted thirds:

  Puppets dance from bloody strings.

  Music mourns dead birds.

  Breath is sweet in broken things.”

  —William Telliford

  William Telliford gave his head a tentative scratch, in part because it itched, in part out of puzzlement. It itched because he had been unable to wash his lank brown hair during the four days he’d thus far spent in jail. He was puzzled because this dapper man before him was proposing to get him out of jail.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “The court appointed an attorney for me. A younger man, I think he said his name was Trabner. You’re not associated with him or anything, are you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Your name is—”

  “Martin Ehrengraf.”

  “Well, I appreciate your coming to see me, Mr. Ehrengraf, but I’ve already got a lawyer, this Mr. Trabner, and—”

  “Are you satisfied with Mr. Trabner?”

  Telliford lowered his eyes, focusing his gaze upon the little lawyer’s shoes, a pair of highly polished black wing tips. “I suppose he’s all right,” he said slowly.

  “But?”

  “But he doesn’t believe I’m innocent. I mean he seems to take it for granted I’m guilty and the best thing I can do is plead guilty to manslaughter or something. He’s talking in terms of making some kind of deal with the district attorney, like it’s a foregone conclusion that I have to go to prison and the only question is how long.”

  “Then you’ve answered my question,” Ehrengraf said, a smile flickering on his thin lips. “You’re unsatisfied with your lawyer. The court has appointed him. It remains for you to disappoint him, as it were, and to engage me in his stead. You have the right to do this, you know.”

  “But I don’t have the money. Trabner was going to defend me for free, which is about as much as I can afford. I don’t know what kind of fees you charge for something like this but I’ll bet they’re substantial. That suit of yours didn’t come from the Salvation Army.”

  Ehrengraf beamed. His suit, charcoal gray flannel with a nipped-in waist, had been made for him by a most exclusive tailor. His shirt was pink, with a button-down collar. His vest was a Tattersall check, red and black on a cream background, and his tie showed half-inch stripes of red and charcoal gray. “My fees are on the high side,” he allowed. “To undertake your defense I would ordinarily set a fee of eighty thousand dollars.”

  “Eighty dollars would strain my budget,” William Telliford said. “Eighty thousand, well, it might take me ten years to earn that much.”

  “But I propose to defend free of charge, sir.”

  William Telliford stared, not least because he could not recall the last time anyone had thought to call him sir. He was, it must be said, a rather unprepossessing young man, much given to slouching and sprawling. His jeans needed patching at the knees. His plaid flannel shirt needed washing and ironing. His chukka boots needed soles and heels, and his socks needed replacement altogether.

  “But—”

  “But why?”

  Telliford nodded.

  “Because you are a poet,” said Martin Ehrengraf.

  “Poets,” said Ehrengraf, “are the unacknowledged legislators of the universe.”

  * * *

  “That’s beautiful,” Robin Littlefield said. She didn’t know just what to make of this little man but he was certainly impressive. “Could you say that again? I want to remember it.”

  “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the universe. But don’t credit me with the observation. Shelley said it first.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  The deeply set dark eyes narrowed perceptibly. “Percy Bysshe Shelley,” he said gently. “Born 1792, died 1822. The poet.”

  “Oh.”

  “So your young man is one of the world’s unacknowledged legislators. Or you might prefer the lines Arthur O’Shaughnessy wrote. ‘We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams.’ You know the poem?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I like the second stanza,” said Ehrengraf, and tilted his head to one side and quoted it:

  “With wonderful deathless ditties

  We build up the world’s greatest cities,

  And out of a fabulous story

  We fashion an empire’s glory:

  One man with a dream, at pleasure,

  Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

  And three with a new song’s measure

  Can trample an empire down.”

  “You have a wonderful way of speaking. But I, uh, I don’t really know much about poetry.”

  “You reserve your enthusiasm for Mr. Telliford’s poems, no doubt.”

  “Well, I like it when Bill reads them to me. I like the way they sound, but I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always know what he’s getting at.”

  Ehrengraf beamed, spread his hands. “But they do sound good, don’t they? Miss Littlefield, dare we require more of a poem than that it please our ears? I don’t read much modern poetry, Miss Littlefield. I prefer the bards of an earlier and more innocent age. Their verses are often simpler, but I don’t pretend to understand any number of favorite poems. Half the time I couldn’t tell you just what Blake’s getting at, Miss Littlefield, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying his work. That sonnet of your young man’s, that poem about riding a train across Kansas and looking at the moon. I’m sure you remember it.”

  “Sort of.”

  “He writes of the moon ‘stroking desperate tides in the liquid land.’ That’s a lovely line, Miss Littlefield, and who cares whether the poem itself is fully c
omprehensible? Who’d raise such a niggling point? William Telliford is a poet and I’m under an obligation to defend him. I’m certain he couldn’t have murdered that woman.”

  Robin gnawed a thumbnail. “The police are pretty sure he did it,” she said. “The fire axe was missing from the hallway of our building and the glass case where it was kept was smashed open. And Janice Penrose, he used to live with her before he met me, well, they say he was still going around her place sometimes when I was working at the diner. And they never found the fire axe, but Bill came home with his jeans and shirt covered with blood and couldn’t remember what happened. And he was seen in her neighborhood, and he’d been drinking, plus he smoked a lot of dope that afternoon and he was always taking pills. Ups and downs, like, plus some green capsules he stole from somebody’s medicine chest and we were never quite sure what they were, but they do weird things to your head.”

  “The artist is so often the subject of his own experiment,” Ehrengraf said sympathetically. “Think of De Quincey. Consider Coleridge, waking from an opium dream with all of ‘Kubla Khan’ fixed in his mind, just waiting for him to write it down. Of course he was interrupted by that dashed man from Porlock, but the lines he did manage to save are so wonderful. You know the poem, Miss Littlefield?”

  “I think we had to read it in school.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Or didn’t he write something about an albatross? Some guy shot an albatross, something like that.”

  “Something like that.”

  * * *

  “The thing is,” William Telliford said, “the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that I must have killed Jan. I mean, who else would kill her?”

  “You’re innocent,” Ehrengraf told him.

  “You really think so? I can’t remember what happened that day. I was doing some drugs and hitting the wine pretty good, and then I found this bottle of bourbon that I didn’t think we still had, and I started drinking that, and that’s about the last thing I remember. I must have gone right into blackout and the next thing I knew I was walking around covered with blood. And I’ve got a way of being violent when I’m drunk. When I lived with Jan I beat her up a few times, and I did the same with Robin. That’s one of the reasons her father hates me.”