False Allegations

by Andrew Vachss

  "Doesn't matter to me."

  "Please," he said quietly. "Indulge me. It's one of my pleasures to give people exactly what they want."

  "An armchair, then."

  The woman spun sharply and left the room. He remained standing, hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing. The woman came back in, carrying a butterscotch leather armchair in her hands as easily as if it was a portable typewriter. She held it level, using only her wrists, walking it over next to the fan–backed chair. She moved back and forth, still holding the chair aloft, until she was satisfied. Then she put it down gently.

  "Please…," he said.

  I took a seat just as he did. We were facing each other. I was looking over his shoulder at the bright windows. His face was in a shadow just past the light. I couldn't see the woman—she was somewhere in the room, somewhere behind my back.

  Maybe two minutes passed. I kept my eyes on the lenses of his glasses, breathing shallow. If he thought waiting was going to make me nervous, he didn't know as much about me as he thought he did.

  "You probably think I went to a great deal of trouble," he said, finally.

  "Depends on what you wanted," I answered. "If it was just to impress a small–timer like me, you wasted your money."

  A flickering just to my left. The white wall. Only now it was a painting. No, a photograph…a giant photograph of a child's kite, dark blue against a pale–blue sky, a long tail dangling, strips of different–colored ribbons tied on. The kite seemed to float on the wall, moving in a breeze I couldn't feel. A hologram? It was hypnotic, pulling me into it. I turned my eyes back to the man, focusing on the lenses of the pink glasses.

  "What I wanted," he said, like he hadn't noticed me looking away, "was to prove to you that I am a fellow professional. A serious person, with serious business."

  "What business is that?" I asked him, getting to it.

  "I'm an investigator," he answered. "Like you. In fact, we investigate the same things."

  "I'm not a PI," I said. "I may have looked into a few things for some people over the years. But that's not what I do. That's not me. You've got me confused—"

  "No, Mr. Burke. I don't have you confused with anyone else. Confusion is not a problem for me. Not in any area. I had thought—what with all the trouble I went to—that perhaps we could dispense with the need for all the tiresome fencing about and just talk business. As professionals."

  "Professionals get paid," I reminded him.

  "Yes. And if you accept my offer to…participate in what I'm working on now, you will be paid, I assure you. You and I will have no financial problems, Mr. Burke—there is money in this for you. And more, perhaps."

  "More?"

  "Perhaps. What I need from you now is a quality you have already demonstrated amply. Some patience, that's all. I went to all this…trouble, as I continually refer to it, to set the stage. Not out of any sense of theatricality, but to make a point. I have an offer for you, but it will take some time to explain. If you'll grant me that time, you will be rewarded."

  "How much time?"

  "Say, an hour," he said, glancing at the wafer–thin watch with a moon–phase chronograph face he wore on his left wrist. "Perhaps ninety minutes. Right now. All you need do is listen…although you are free to interrupt, ask me any questions you wish."

  "And the reward?"

  "The reward is down the road, Mr. Burke. And like all rewards, it is not guaranteed. But professionals don't talk about rewards, do they? Professionals talk about compensation. Payment. Will you agree to, say, a thousand dollars. For listening. One hour. That's a better rate than any lawyer gets."

  "I'm not a lawyer."

  "I am. Do we have a deal?"

  "Yeah," I said, tapping one of the tiny buttons on the cell phone in my pocket to auto–dial the phone in the Rover. The audio had been disconnected—the little phone didn't make a sound—but Clarence would get the ring at his end.

  I heard the tap of the woman's spike heels, felt her come up behind me on my right side. Smelled her thick orchid perfume, felt a heavy breast against the back of my shoulder. A small, chubby hand extended into my vision. Her manicure was perfect, the nails cut short and blunt, burst–orange lacquer matching her eyes. Her hand was holding what looked like fresh–minted bills. I took the bills, slipped them into my inside pocket. Her breast stayed against the back of my shoulder for an extra couple of seconds, then she moved back to her post, somewhere behind me.

  "Would you like to smoke?" he asked, tilting his head to look at the woman.

  "Smoke?" I asked, a puzzled look on my face.

  "Oh. Excuse me. I thought you…"

  I looked at him blankly. The faintest tremor rippled across his face. He was a man who relied on information. Needed it to be right—because he was going to use it.

  He cleared his throat. "Very well. As I said, I am a lawyer. Law school was a great disappointment. A simple–minded exercise—not exactly an intellectual challenge. You know what excites law students—those budding little sociopaths? The great apocryphal stories: Like the man who paid his lawyer a fortune to create an unbreakable will…and was later hired by the same man's widow to break it. And the professors—those pitiful little failures with their practiced little affectations. The older ones bombard you with pomposities, the younger ones act oh–so cynical, so blasé. You know: 'A trial isn't a search for truth, it's a contest to determine a winner.' Well, it was then I decided: my career would be precisely that—a search for the truth."

  I shifted position in the armchair just enough to show him I was listening, counting time in my head.

  "But it was all a lie," he said, the titanium wire clear in his voice. "Ninety per cent of all cases are over as soon as the jury is picked. Juries today are over–amped on their own power. They're treated as celebrities—the garbage press waits with bated breath for their 'revelations,' as though the morons actually have something of value to contribute to our collective store of knowledge. Ah, the sacred 'impartial' jury…with each member trying to outpace the others in getting their story to the media first. It's all media now. Haven't you ever seen them walk out of the courtroom holding up their index fingers, doing their stupid 'We're Number One!' routine because they just awarded some mugger ten million dollars…some poor soul who was shot by the police trying to escape? It's disgusting."

  I shrugged my shoulders. Me, I was never in front of a jury. Like most people who live in my part of the city, I had the opportunity plenty of times…but that was one chance I never took.

  "Do you understand the concept of jury nullification? Where the jury just decides to ignore the evidence and substitute its own will?"

  "What's to understand?"

  "What's to understand, Mr. Burke, is how the concept has become so perverted. Classically, jury nullification applied when the law was the problem, not the facts. So a father shoots and kills two men who had raped his daughter. The jury hears all about how he had no right to defend his daughter after the attack took place, but it decides to disregard the law in favor of justice, and they find him not guilty, yes? Today, jurors nullify the facts. If they don't like the way the police investigated the case, if they don't like the way the prosecutor presented it, if they don't like the way one of the witnesses spoke on the stand…whatever…they simply refuse to convict.

  "It's a disgrace. A foul, disgusting perversion," he spewed venomously. "It makes me sick to my stomach. Did you know there are actually 'Jury Clubs?' And that they lobby for what they're calling 'Juror's Rights' now? It's as though some demonic trickster had rewritten the Bible: '…and a pack of imbeciles shall lead us.'"

  "That wouldn't be a major change," I said. "What with Congress and all."

  "It's not a source of humor to me, Mr. Burke," he said quietly. "With Congress, there is at least some sense of reviewability, do you understand? But once a guilty man is set free by jury nullification, that's the end. The injustice is permanent."

  "Yeah, okay. So, then you�
�?"

  "First I tried matrimonial law," Kite said, brushing aside my interruption like I hadn't spoken. "I thought that would be a way to make a difference. So many divorces. So many children cast adrift. But the practice of matrimonial law requires you to be morally malleable when it comes to those same children. Everyone in the courthouse whines about the 'best interests of the child,' but if you ever put a child's interests ahead of your client's, that would be malpractice. Some people are perfectly willing to destroy their children's lives to gain a financial advantage in a divorce. Or to play out some personal, neurotic script. And when you're their lawyer, it's your job to help them do it. That's no problem for most lawyers. When I was in school, there was a lot of rhetoric about 'ethics.' I remember the stupid ethics exam I took. An idiot could have passed it…but I saw some students cheating on it anyway."

  "There's other kinds of law," I said, playing the role like I gave a damn about this guy's moral dilemmas. A red stone set in a heavy silver ring sparkled on his right hand—I hadn't noticed it before. I'd never seen a ruby sparkle like that, pulling at my eyes…

  "Of course," he said, interrupting my thoughts. "Have you ever watched one of those odious talk shows? That steady parade of damaged people: children molested by their fathers, rape victims, psychotic females who think they're in love with serial killers. You know what they have in common? Look closely at those shows—you'll always see their lawyers hovering near the camera. They sell their clients to obtain publicity…for themselves. Because the average dolt who suddenly needs to hire a lawyer only remembers he saw the lawyer on TV, or read his name in a newspaper. It doesn't matter if the lawyer lost every case. Actually, it doesn't matter if the lawyer ever tried the case. There are whore lawyers in this town whose names are household words simply because they 'cooperate' with the press. They do some chest–beating public display like the performing seals they are, then they go into court and plead their clients guilty. And the public laps it up."

  I shrugged my shoulders again. Some wet–brain who wanted a divorce might hire a lawyer he saw on a talk show, but in my part of the world, we knew the kind of operator we needed when they dropped the indictment. Some wars are better fought by mercenaries.

  "I switched to entertainment law," he continued. "That was about as intellectually stimulating as Saturday morning cartoons. So I invented a software screen for movie contract boilerplate. It picks out certain language, references the user to the case law in the field, alerts them to the mousetraps. I sell it privately. It saves lawyers a ton of hours."

  "Which they still bill for, right?"

  "I'm sure," he said dismissively. "The law is such a common, low–class profession. You've had some…experience with it yourself. Don't you agree?"

  "I haven't had much experience with any high–class professions."

  "Well said," he smiled thinly. "And, sometimes, if there is no path to follow, you create your own. That's what I did. My own search for truth. I started out as a debunker."

  "Like the UFO stuff?"

  "No. When it comes to alien activity, the real challenge is to prove that it actually exists, not that it doesn't. No, my interest is in a particular phenomenon. It's still in development. Provisionally, I am calling it the Fabrication for Secondary Gain Syndrome."

  "Lying is a syndrome now?"

  "Not lying, Mr. Burke. Lying without apparent motive. Oh there is a motive, that's true. But a motive only a specialist could detect. For example: a man who sets fires. Not for the insurance money, not because he's a pyromaniac…but so be can put them out and be a hero. Or a woman who writes threatening letters to herself…so she can stand up to the 'stalker,' understand?"

  "Sure. I just don't see where you come in. You can't make a living at it, right?"

  "If you mean financially, perhaps not. At least I didn't necessarily believe so at the time. I don't need money—the software brings in more than I could ever spend. And I have new versions in development all the time." He leaned forward in his chair, eyes behind the glasses right on me, dropping the lofty superior tone for tight–voiced intensity. "But eventually I found my way down a new path. To a branch of the syndrome with profound implications not just for individuals, but for our entire society."

  He paused, waiting for me to respond. I stayed flat as a dead man's heartbeat. I recognized him now.

  "Do you believe that self–righteous bilge that 'kids never lie about child sexual abuse?' Surely you understand that children are no different than anyone else—they can lie quite convincingly if there's something in it for them."

  I played it in my head: kids lying when there was something in it for them. That was true—who knew it better than me? Remembering all the lies I told just to live to see another day of pain. I kept my face on audience–mode, not saying anything.

  "Allegations of child sexual abuse," Kite intoned. "The nuclear weapon in divorce cases, the staple of talk shows, the darling of the tabloids. Absolutely pandemic. And when those allegations are false, a greater threat to the fabric of our culture than AIDS, cancer, and cocaine combined!"

  I hit the button sequence on the cell phone in my pocket, still waiting.

  Kite took a breath. "Do you have any…reaction to what I just said, Mr. Burke?"

  "I heard it before," I said. "That backlash stuff has been around for years."

  "It's worse than that now," he said, still leaning forward. In America today, what's going on is nothing less than the Salem witch hunts! Am I right or wrong?"

  "You're wrong."

  He snapped back in his chair, tapping his fingers on his knees. "How so?" he asked, the superior tone back in place, a law professor dealing with a not–too–bright student.

  "In Salem," I said softly, "there were no witches. And child sexual abuse isn't the nuclear weapon in divorce cases—lying is."

  He went quiet, watching me. I felt the hologram shift form somewhere to my left, but I kept my eyes straight on him. A minute passed. "Yes," he said finally, the superior tone vanishing. "That's right. And that's the problem. That's why I asked you to come here." He stood up suddenly, turned his back to me, looking out the window. "Now we can talk. Would you like a cup of coffee or something?"

  "A glass of water."

  "Certainly," he said, still looking out the window. "Heather!"

  I heard the tap of her heels as she walked out of the room.

  She was back in a couple of minutes, holding a brass tray in one hand. On the tray, a glass tumbler, a bowl, and a pitcher, all in the same shade of pale blue. The bowl was full of ice cubes, the pitcher held what looked like water. She bent so sharply at the waist that she had to look up at me from under her eyelashes, showing me a flash of orange and some remarkable cleavage. "Ice?" she asked.

  "Please."

  She plucked three cubes from the bowl with her fingers, orange fingernails catching the light from the window. Then she carefully poured from the pitcher until the glass was full.

  "Thank you," I said.

  She took the full glass off the tray, held it to her mouth, tilted it back and drained it dry. "It's very good water," she said in that husky voice. "Good for you." Then she filled the glass again and handed it to me.

  I took a sip just as Kite got to his feet, pulling a thin silver tube from his jacket pocket. He nodded at Heather. I heard the clack of a slide projector and a giant color photograph appeared on the flat black wall over the computer display. An infant, maybe a year old? Facing away from the camera, wearing a diaper. On the baby's back, two heavy lines parallel to his spine. And radiating from the spine, heavy dark marks—as though a giant had placed his thumbs on the baby's chest, wrapped his hands around the little body and squeezed.

  The silver tube was a laser pointer. The hair–thin red line pointed out the marks, tracing their path down the baby's back. "What do you see, Mr. Burke?" Kite asked.

  I told him.

  He made a sound like a contemptuous snort. "What you are in fact seeing, Mr. Burke, is the re
sult of an Oriental practice known as 'cupping.' It is called cheut sah, or, occasionally, cao gio. The practitioner, usually an elder, takes a coin—often coated with Tiger Balm—and scratches specific patterns in the skin. Notice how dramatic and symmetrical the marks are?" he said, using the laser pointer to emphasize his crisp words. "This is a time–honored treatment for infant illness. The opposite of child abuse. What you see is a centuries–old cultural practice, but the amateur—some caseworker, for example—would certainly conclude otherwise."

  Kite walked back to his chair like a defense attorney who had just scored a major hit on cross–examination, basking in the glow of Heather's admiration. I used the opportunity to glance at the white wall. Now the image was a bird, a raptor of some kind, hovering high above a seascape, hunting with its eyes.

  Suddenly, he looked up to face me. "A child, say a boy, four years old. He says a man down the street, a neighbor who has lived in the community for years, told him he had a puppy in his house and would show it to him. The man took him into his basement and fondled him," Kite said suddenly, looking at me. "Medical examination is negative. A therapist says the boy is suffering from some form of depression. He's blunted, mopes around, doesn't like to play with his friends anymore. Mother says he has nightmares, wakes up screaming. The man says he's talked to the boy a few times, but he never took him into his house. And never laid a hand on him. They ask you to talk to the boy, find out what really happened. What's your move?"

  "That's all the information I've got?" I asked him, my voice as flat as his.

  "That's all."

  "You want me to go through the whole routine? Winning the kid's confidence, making him feel safe, taking my time…all that?"

  "No. In fact, let's make it you get to ask him one question. One question only. What would that be?"

  I took a minute, pretending I was thinking about it. Finally, I tilted my head back so I was looking at the ceiling. A pure, uniform off–white, as seamless as a sociopath's story. "What did the basement look like?" I said.