Reckless Disregard

by Robert Rotstein

  “It’s foundational, Your Honor,” Lovely says. “I’m just trying to save time.”

  “Don’t argue with my rulings, Ms. Diamond,” the judge says.

  Brenda slides a document over to me, a computer printout from a website called Following the Law, one of those supposedly anonymous forums where disgruntled attorneys can complain about judges with impunity. Seven people say that Judge Grass dislikes attractive female lawyers. Of course—she’s the girl who didn’t get invited to the prom and has exacted revenge ever since. Did Frantz’s team fail to discover this tidbit? Or, maybe they did find it. Lovely has dressed more conservatively since Grass became the judge—pants instead of skirts, neutral colors, less makeup. But while Brenda can make herself look plain, Lovely can’t. Not to mention Lovely’s porn past, which must disgust a repressed feminist like Grass. So Lovely Diamond and I are vying to see which of us the judge dislikes least.

  Lovely takes a tension-reducing deep breath. “Mr. Frederickson, where were you living in July of 1987?”

  He nods solemnly and proceeds to show that the judge should have allowed Lovely’s leading question. “Well, before I was living in Carthay Circle and went up to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, which was 1967, you know what I mean? I lived in the Haight until it got raunchy and then tried a commune in Mendocino, and after that came apart when some of the founders went capitalist and started selling weed commercially, I moved to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, where I lived throughout the seventies, but things were never the same up north after the Stones concert at Altamont, you know what I mean? I was there, and let me tell you, the Hell’s Angels were out of control. And after that I moved up to Humboldt County and then Seattle . . .” He spends the next few minutes describing his travels after leaving Seattle and won’t stop even though Lovely tries to interrupt him. Eventually, he testifies that from January of 1985 to July or August 1987, he was homeless in Venice Beach.

  Listening to the man’s ramblings, I realize that had my mother not seen the Celestial Light and instead continued to drink and abuse drugs into middle age, Boardwalk Freddy is the person she’d have become. Some would call it “drug burnout,” but that’s not Freddy’s problem. The fire still burns but erratically, as if fickle winds alternately fan the flame and threaten to extinguish it. I doubt that in her short tenure at the US Attorney’s office, Lovely faced a witness as uncontrollable as Boardwalk Freddy Frederickson. From the way Lou Frantz keeps looking in her direction and grimacing, there’s no way he saw this coming—which means that Lovely prepared Frederickson for trial on her own and will take the blame if he falters.

  “Let’s focus on my questions, Mr. Frederickson,” Lovely says. “Can you do that?” She’s trying to sound warm and ingratiating, but the frustration comes through.

  “Sure, I can focus, Blondie,” Freddy says. “I do tax returns.”

  Judge Grass employs an aggressive head turn and a sharp look to stifle the gallery’s laughter.

  “Mr. Frederickson, in the summer of 1987, did you know who Felicity McGrath was?” Lovely asks.

  “Sure did. She was a famous actress and also started hanging around the Tell Tale Bar in Venice.”

  “When was that?”

  “Maybe April, May of 1987. I saw her all the time, because that was my territory, panhandling, sleeping there. Warm sea breeze, fresh air. Sunny California.”

  “Can you tell us what Ms. McGrath was doing the times you saw her?” Lovely asks.

  I object to the question as calling for a narrative, but the judge overrules me.

  “Most of the time she was hanging out at the Tell Tale Bar drinking and picking up men,” Freddy says. “That was the rumor, because they wouldn’t let someone like me inside the bar, you know what I mean? A lot of the street people thought she was a hooker, but I knew who she was from the movies; I thought she was down there working on a film or something, scouting locations and what not. Celebrities didn’t hang out in that part of Venice in the eighties. Dangerous place, not like now. Felicity was pretty kind for an actress, like one time she bought me a burger and fries, just out of the blue, you know what I mean? And a few times she slipped me a five-dollar bill. Real sweet kid, so I don’t think she was hooking or anything, just lonely, or maybe liked to bang tough guys or something.” There’s no logic to when Freddy stops talking, the length and content of his answers apparently determined solely by faulty brain chemistry.

  Lovely narrows her eyes like a teacher’s pet trying to focus on a lecture while a jackhammer breaks up asphalt on the playground. “Tell us about the night of July 23, 1987,” she says.

  “Yeah, the night of July 23, 1987. I was leaning against the wall of the Pacific Avenue Hotel, in one of the alcoves, trusty shopping cart by my side. I couldn’t sleep, been drinking muscatel, which kept me awake, not like the Thunderbird did. It was a warm, beautiful night.

  “Were you drunk?”

  “Always. And I was probably on something illegal, too.”

  “If you were drunk or on drugs, how can you remember anything about that night?”

  “Felicity McGrath went missing that night. I was maybe the last person to see her. You don’t forget a thing like that, you know what I mean?”

  “What did you see, Mr. Frederickson?”

  “I saw Felicity arrive at the Tell Tale Bar about eight, eight-thirty. Weird, because she hadn’t been there for a while, not for weeks, so I was surprised to see her show up. She was dressed to kill . . . I mean, bad choice of words, but real sexy, real beautiful. She was making a big scene before she went inside, flirting with the bouncer, some of the guys on the street, acting like a flighty character in one of her movies or something, though this was real life. Oh, I do remember this—before she went into the bar that night, she kissed a woman, Eunice, who really was a whore, working the cheap hotels and bars. Well, Felicity goes inside and stays there for a few hours, and I forget about her and I’m trying to sleep but can’t because that bum’s vino is burning an acid hole through my intestinal linings, and then about eleven-thirty out of the Tell Tale comes Felicity with these two scary-looking toughs I never saw before. One tall and one short, both with dark curly hair.”

  “Was she resisting?”

  “Nah, she was laughing, giggling, touching them, real flirty. They were putting their arms around her, kissing her, feeling her up. She must’ve been drunk or high to let them do that in public.”

  “What happened next?”

  “They went to this car and drove away down Speedway Avenue. And that was it, the last I saw of her, you know what I mean? The last anybody saw of her. I told all of it to the cops back then.”

  “Do you recall what kind of car?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Do you know who William Bishop of Parapet Media Corporation is?”

  “Of course. Your client, William the Conqueror.”

  More laughter from the gallery, which Lovely ignores. “Did you know who William Bishop was in 1987?”

  “Sure did.”

  “How?”

  He launches into a long history of his work experience, how he was once a CPA who’d worked in the movie industry as a production cost accountant. He testifies that he was attached to three of Bishop’s movies, though he only saw him on the set a few times.

  “Now, on the night of July 27, 1987, did you ever see William Bishop at Venice Beach?” Lovely asks.

  “I don’t recall that, ma’am.”

  “And did you ever see Mr. Bishop—?” Lovely stops talking, because Lou Frantz is leaning over and almost imperceptibly shaking his head. Through gritted teeth, he whispers, “Sit down.”

  I get it. Frantz doesn’t like Freddy’s answer. He expected an outright no, not an I don’t recall. Frederickson not only rambles; he’s unreliable. Lovely has managed to fire the loose cannon that’s Boardwalk Freddy Frederickson without the weapon turning on her and her client, but Frantz doesn’t want to risk even one more volley. Lovely’s cheeks flush pin
k, but she smiles through the embarrassment and says, “Thank you, Mr. Frederickson. I have no further questions.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Stern,” the judge says.

  Lovely gathers up her notes and sits down. She expected a clean direct examination that would eviscerate our best argument, but her examination was anything but clean.

  The law is a vulturine profession, and I intend to feed off Lovely Diamond’s mistake in bringing this uncontrollable witness to court. For the moment, I’m once again the Parker Stern who existed before Harmon Cherry died, the arrogant gunslinger who would win unwinnable trials, the rising star who believed that pleading a legal case was the most elegant sport of all and that he was its next Michael Jordan.

  When I go to the lectern, Frederickson crosses his legs, clasps his top knee with his hands, and waits with an earnest expression. Because this is cross-examination, I, unlike Lovely, can ask leading questions. But I don’t start with one. I have nothing to lose with this witness, and that’s liberating.

  “Mr. Frederickson, how did Ms. Diamond find you?”

  “Oh, she didn’t find me, I found her,” he says. “This buddy of mine from AA, he works at a body shop over in Mar Vista, he’s telling me about this video game, the one that your client put out, and I tell him I know something about Felicity McGrath’s disappearance, and my buddy tells me about the lawsuit and says he thinks I’m a character in the game, so I say can I see the game, and he says sure, so I go over to his house and he goes on the Internet and shows me the game, and there I am in the first scene, so I called up Mr. Louis Frantz’s office, and they put me through to Ms. Diamond, and I tell her I want to sue just like William the Conqueror did, you know what I mean?”

  “Let me get this straight,” I say. “You called Mr. Frantz’s office because you want to sue Poniard?”

  “Yeah, like I told you, my buddy from the body shop—”

  “Mr. Frederickson, please stop,” I say. It’s a courtroom bark, just this side of civil, as nuanced as delivering a line in a stage play. It works—he stops talking.

  “Objection,” Lovely says. “The witness should get to finish his answer.”

  “Mr. Stern is controlling his witness,” the judge says. “Something that you should learn how to do, counsel.”

  Lovely glares at the judge, her gray eyes iceberg-cold.

  “And you, Mr. Stern,” the judge says. “If you use that tone of voice in my courtroom again, I’ll sanction you.”

  Frederickson, who’s been watching the interplay like a tennis spectator who doesn’t quite understand the game, says, “Should I finish my answer?”

  “No!” the judge and I say simultaneously.

  “Listen to my question, sir,” I say. “Can you do that?”

  He nods, for the moment compliant.

  “Why do you want to sue my client?” I ask.

  “I want to sue for libel because that video game makes me look like a bum!”

  Even the judge laughs at this answer, as does Frantz. Only Lovely doesn’t smile.

  “Did they agree to represent you?” I ask.

  “Didn’t say yes, didn’t say no.”

  “They wanted you to testify in this case first, am I right?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Stringing you along so you’ll testify the way they want, don’t you think, Mr. Frederickson?”

  Lovely objects, but before the judge can rule, I say, “Let’s move on to something else. You knew Detective Bud Kreiss very well back in 1987, didn’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “A fair man? Told you to get off the boardwalk but never made you leave?”

  “Yeah, he was a good guy. Especially for a cop.”

  “Do you think he was a liar?”

  “No, he was a straight-up guy.”

  “Was Detective Kreiss lying when he reported that you said you saw the two men from the Tell Tale Bar forcing Felicity McGrath into a Volkswagen Rabbit and then saw the two men leave with William Bishop?”

  He uncrosses his legs and straightens up in his chair. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking you, sir. I’m asking whether you think Bud Kreiss was lying when he said those things.”

  “Objection, hearsay. Calls for speculation,” Lovely says.

  “Sustained,” the judge says.

  “I should be allowed to cross-examine this witness on his opinion about Bud Kreiss’s veracity,” I say.

  “It’s speculation, counsel,” she says. “Move on, unless you’re finished with the witness.”

  I get as close to the witness as I can without letting go of the lectern. No matter what you see on TV, you can’t approach a witness without the judge’s permission, and there’s no way that Grass will let me get close to Frederickson. “Did you or did you not see the two men who were leaving the Tell Tale with Felicity McGrath force her into a car?”

  “I don’t remember, sir,” Frederickson says. He’s suddenly not the clown he’s been all afternoon. He’s uncrossed his legs and is sitting forward, his expression solemn, his thick lips pressed together, a church worshipper determined to catch every word of the sermon.

  “And did you or did you not see William Bishop drive up in a Blue Mercedes and leave with those selfsame men?”

  “I don’t recall that.”

  “Well, you told Detective Bud Kreiss that’s what you saw shortly after Felicity McGrath went missing, didn’t you?”

  “I . . . I don’t remember what I told Bud Kreiss.”

  “So you might have told him that you saw Bishop leave with the men who took Felicity?”

  “No, I . . . I don’t recall. I was a drunk, a heroin addict, back then, you know what I mean?”

  “Well, didn’t you tell Ms. Diamond during direct examination that you’d never forget that night because that’s the night Felicity McGrath was taken?”

  “Objection,” Diamond says. “The record speaks for itself.”

  “Sustained,” the judge says.

  “Oh, come on, Your Honor,” I say. “That’s not even a valid objection. And this is cross-examination and, as you said, a court trial.”

  “Don’t push me, Mr. Stern,” the judge says. “And hurry it up. Let’s move this case along.”

  I hack away at Frederickson for another ten minutes, trying to get him to concede that he might have told Kreiss that Bishop was at the scene. I explore the Sanctified Assembly angle, hoping that he rehabbed at one of the clinics that the Sanctified Assembly runs to “cleanse the cells of contaminants” that lead to alcohol and drug addiction, facilities that serve as recruitment centers to build the Assembly’s membership. Frederickson insists that he’s only been to Alcoholics Anonymous, even offers to show the court his chip. I ask him whether he knows Ted Gorecki, whether Gorecki strong-armed him, and though he refers to Gorecki as The Gorilla, he denies that anyone threatened him if he told the truth. As for his own disappearance in 1987, he claims that the publicity surrounding Felicity put the fear of God in him, set him out on his long road to recovery. With each question he hardens his position. He’s a lot tougher than he seems. You have to be tough to survive what he has. So I try another approach.

  “Mr. Frederickson, if you’d told Detective Kreiss that you saw William Bishop at the scene of Felicity’s kidnapping, would you have been lying?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Did you lie to an LAPD detective back in 1987?”

  “I wouldn’t . . . I don’t remember much. My memory, a tippler’s fog they call it, you know what I mean? I was maybe confusing it with those other times, when . . .” He catches himself, but too late.

  “What other times, Mr. Frederickson?”

  He glances sidelong at Lovely.

  “Ms. Diamond can’t help you, Mr. Frederickson,” I say. “What other times?”

  He sits back and clamps his jaw shut. Brenda scribbles something on a Post-It and hands it to me, and when I read it, I a
sk her question immediately.

  “You mentioned earlier that you thought Felicity McGrath might be down in Venice filming a movie. You saw William Bishop working on that movie with her, didn’t you?”

  He gapes at me as if I have clairvoyant powers rather than a smart administrative assistant with good instincts.

  “There were a couple of times when . . . early on where I thought Felicity and a guy who looked like William Bishop came down to Venice together.”

  I would’ve expected the media’s keypads to click in excited response, for the spectators to rumble in shock, but the courtroom falls silent, as though everyone must calibrate their brains to absorb this information. Not only has Boardwalk Freddy provided evidence that William Bishop and Felicity McGrath knew each other, but he’s placed them together. Which means that Bishop has lied all this time. Better yet, I’ve exposed the lie through his own witness.

  “What else did you see?”

  “Felicity and the Conqueror went into the Tell Tale, came out, looked around,” he says.

  Lovely pops up, a reflex, and because she has no grounds to object she tries to save face by saying, “Your Honor, I’d ask that the witness refer to my client as Mr. Bishop.”

  “Oh please, Ms. Diamond,” Judge Grass says, her lips turned down in judicial disdain.

  Lovely sits down. She’s only helped underscore the power of Freddy’s testimony. I don’t feel sorry for her, not one bit, and the absence of sympathy makes me exceedingly sad.

  “Go on, Mr. Frederickson,” I say. “You were telling us about Felicity and the Conqueror.”

  “Yeah, both times when I saw them together, Felicity was carrying what looked like—it was early 1987 and what did I know?—but it looked like she was carrying some kind of miniature movie camera, pointing it everywhere, like she and Bishop were working together on a picture or something. Like a home movie, not a movie movie that you’d see in theaters. But it wasn’t one of those old Bell and Howell cameras I had when I still lived with my family and I took silent movies of the wife and kids, and we . . .” he shrugs and holds his shoulders up for a while, as if the upward motion will squeeze the nostalgia out of his brain. “Anyway, Felicity’s camera was more modern, you know what I mean? She’d try to hide it, like that old show Candid Camera, but I saw her with it, saw her take it inside the bar. Bishop was in disguise—baseball cap, sweatshirt, jeans—but I knew it was him. Maybe that’s what I told Bud Kreiss, instead of what you said I told him. Maybe.” He lowers his head and lets it fall to his chest, and for a split second I fear he’s dropped dead, that my cross-examination killed him. But I’m not that good.