Rose-colored Glasses

by Downing, John

  “One day a troubleshooter came by the playground and Cooney was gone. Luray was off that day or he'd have been gone too. The troubleshooter wanted to know where Cooney was. I didn't lie. I told him Cooney had left. The result was, Cooney was docked a day's pay. Only justice. He cheated and was caught. His fault. When he found out I'd turned him in, he was pissed off. He started bad-mouthing me. When he came at me as though he was going to take a swing at me, I pulled out the knife.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “He shut his mouth.”

  “Was it absolutely necessary to pull a knife on him?”

  “I could have asked him pretty please not to say those nasty things about me. Instead, I took out the knife and waved it once under his nose and shut him up. Negotiate from strength, isn't that what they say? Cooney never said ‘Boo’ to me again, until last Wednesday.”

  He'll have plenty to say when he gets up on the witness stand, Langley thought. “Have you threatened anyone else with your knife?”

  “I've never cut anyone.”

  So he had threatened others. “You didn't by any chance ever threaten Laurel with the knife‌—‌in front of witnesses?”

  “Not in front of them. Not in back of them.”

  “Not even…”

  “Not even then.”

  “What did you do to her then?”

  “I told you. I threw her bareass out on the sidewalk.”

  “Did you hit her?”

  “Not so much as a slap.”

  “Why not?”

  Burden was longer than usual in answering. “I think I was afraid if I hit her, I'd kill her.”

  Would witnesses corroborate the fact that Burden hadn't hit Laurel? It might help. If he was going to kill her, wouldn't he‌—‌a man who would pull out a knife to settle a petty dispute‌—‌have done it then, instead of waiting four months?

  “Did you ever hit Laurel?” Langley asked.

  “No.”

  Would that check out? Would it really matter if it did? After all, prior to his catching Laurel “in the act,” Burden had had no reason to hit her.

  “What happened after you threw her out on the sidewalk?”

  “Someone called the cops. They came. They made me give her her clothes. She left and I never saw her again, until Wednesday in the park and she was dead.”

  “Didn't she return to pick up her stuff?”

  “All she had were her clothes and her jewelry and she took those with her.”

  “What about the… guy?”

  “He grabbed up his pants and went out the window before I could catch him. He left behind his shoes and his shirt. I held on to them. If he was stupid enough to come back for them…” He let the thought trail off.

  “What?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I'd have cut off his balls and handed them to him on a plate. Then I would have killed him.”

  “And you'd be sitting here for killing him instead of Laurel Rose.”

  “At least it would be for something I did.”

  “You're an Old Testament man,” Langley said.

  “Say what you mean.”

  “An eye for an eye.”

  “Two eyes for an eye,” Burden said, “and a broken jaw for a tooth.”

  Enough, Langley thought. He started to gather up his notes.

  “I want you to do something for me,” Burden said.

  The request, more accurately the fact of the request, that Burden would ask anything of him, caught Langley off guard.

  “What?”

  “My belongings are still in my room. I want you to check that the stuff is safe and bring me a few things.”

  It was a small thing to ask‌—‌and probably it had cost Burden to ask it‌—‌but Langley responded in a churlish way. “I'm your lawyer, Burden, not your gofer.”

  “Then hire a gofer and bill me for it.”

  “Can't you have one of your friends do it?” Langley asked.

  “I don't have any friends,” Burden said. There was no self-pity in his voice; no hint that he was even aware there was anything unusual in his condition. He might have said, “I don't have blue eyes.”

  “Tell me what it is you want,” Langley said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Langley had now spoken with Burden at enough length that he thought he should be getting some idea of what made the man tick. And yet he felt as if he knew him no better than the first moment he had met him. Burden's story became more preposterous with each retelling. More than once Langley had had to bite his tongue to stop himself from screaming: “Cut the shit!” Curiously, while he knew Burden was lying through his teeth, he still hadn't caught him in even one provable lie.

  At the same time there was a certain bald-faced honesty about the man. For example, the way he had remarked that he'd have left Laurel to die in the park. How simple it would have been to say, “I saw the woman being attacked and I ran to her rescue.” Who could have refuted him?

  So, too, with his remark about having no friends. He could have pretended that he didn't want to impose upon his friends. Or that he was embarrassed for them to see him in prison. Instead, he came right out and said, “I don't have any friends.” Langley couldn't think of another person he knew who would do that. Of course all the people he knew had friends. Maybe the way Burden behaved was simply the way a person with no friends behaved. Perhaps his candor was less the real thing than a reflection of a total lack of social graces. In that case his “honesty” had nothing commendable about it. Indeed, the more frank Burden was the less Langley liked him. He supposed that would be true of most people. People lied to each other all the time. Often they seemed to want to be lied to. Burden didn't play that game. Had he never been taught?

  ***

  Upon arriving at DeBrough's club, Langley was directed to the library. There he found DeBrough in conversation with three men. Two of them he recognized. One was a congressman representing the upper east side of Manhattan, the other a real estate developer. Although he didn't know the third man, Langley assumed he was equally prominent.

  Seeing Langley, DeBrough gave him a wave. Not a Come-forward-and-meet-my-friends wave. But a Stay-where-you-are-and-I'll-join-you-presently wave.

  “Presently” turned out to be more like ten minutes. When at last he joined Langley, DeBrough greeted him like a long-lost friend.

  “Thank you for coming, Owen,” he said, clasping Langley's hand.

  Langley was about to say “You're welcome,” when he remembered that it was he who had asked for this meeting.

  Taking Langley by the elbow, DeBrough steered him to the far side of the room. They sat in leather chairs by the window. Outside, a steady snow was falling.

  “Will you have something to drink, Owen?” DeBrough asked, summoning the waiter with an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

  Langley asked for a Scotch and soda. DeBrough ordered the same.

  “I gather my brother's still being difficult,” DeBrough said when the waiter had gone.

  How did he know that? Langley hadn’t told him. He must have gotten his information from his sources at the D.A.’s office.

  “I wanted to ask you some questions about him.”

  “The Trash Can Kid and all that?”

  “I already know that,” Langley said. “I want you to give me your impression of your brother.”

  “Notwithstanding the fact that I haven’t seen him in nineteen years?”

  “Well, tell me about what he was like nineteen years ago.”

  DeBrough rose and walked to the window. Snowflakes backlit by a street lamp danced silently against the window pane.

  “The glass keeps the snow out,” he said, “and the warmth in. You know it’s there, but you’re not really conscious of it unless you force yourself to stop and notice.” He tapped the pane with his knuckles. “My brother was like the glass: I looked rig
ht through him. For sixteen years I looked through him. We never played together or went to a movie together or did our homework together. Not even once. I was oblivious of him. And then one day he was gone. I don’t think I even missed him. Neither my mother nor I ever heard from him again. Not so much as a postcard. Until last week I didn’t know if he was still alive.”

  “How did your mother treat him?”

  DeBrough stiffened. “I hope your defense is not going to be that the reason he killed his wife is because Mother loved him less than she did me.”

  Allegedly killed his wife, Langley thought.

  “My mother took him in when no one else wanted him. You say you know the story. She fed him and clothed him and educated him.”

  Did she love him? “Did your mother treat him the same way she treated you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did your brother resent that?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that, Owen.”

  “I’m asking you your impression of him.”

  “And I’m telling you I paid him no more mind than I would one of those snowflakes out there.” He inclined his head toward the window.

  “Was it out of a sense of guilt that you hired me, Terry?”

  DeBrough resumed his seat. “I have no sense of guilt concerning my brother, Owen. As you surmised the other day, I hired you largely out of self-interest. I don’t want the family to be drawn into the case any more than is absolutely necessary. And the one thing I trust you will not do is present some half-baked defense that my brother is the way he is because my mother didn’t love him enough or because I wouldn’t let him play with my train set.”

  The waiter brought the drinks, which he placed on an end table between the two chairs.

  Langley said, “Do you remember anything traumatic that happened to your brother: physically, like a fall on his head; or emotionally, like some kind of shock or disappointment?”

  “Owen, if I knew of anything like that I’d have told you. It sounds like you’re considering the possibility of an insanity defense.”

  “That will be your brother’s decision.”

  “Is that why he’s refusing to co-operate? Is he hoping that if he acts strangely enough, they’ll put him away?”

  Hadn’t the same thought crossed Langley’s mind? “How would you feel if that were to happen, Terry?”

  “How do you think I would feel?”

  Langley said, “I think it might suit you.”

  “I suppose that’s why I hired you: to stand by and watch while my brother is carted away. Understand me, Owen: the last thing I want is to have my brother committed to an institution, unless that’s where he belongs. By the way, if you think it will do my political career any good to have a relative committed, you’re very naive.”

  A blood relative perhaps, Langley thought. But an adopted one? Especially one who hasn’t been seen in nineteen years.

  DeBrough said, “Do you think he’s insane, Owen?”

  “Do you?” Langley asked, and was stunned to hear DeBrough reply, “He may be.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  DeBrough started to reach for his drink, changed his mind. Turning his head, he stared out the window.

  “If there’s something,” Langley said, “I’d prefer to hear it from you rather than someone else. I especially wouldn’t want to have it sprung on me without warning in the middle of the trial.”

  “There were incidents,” DeBrough said, turning to look at him.

  “What kind of incidents, Terry? Don’t pussyfoot.”

  “Nothing was proven.”

  “But?”

  “But he was suspected of…”

  Langley waited.

  “… stealing things, of acts of vandalism, of… torturing animals.”

  Wonderful. “You say nothing was proven. Why then was he suspected of these things?”

  “Because no one else could have done them.”

  “But he was never caught in the act?”

  “No. But remember he was caught this time only because a witness happened to come along.”

  Wow! Whose side are you on? Langley thought. It occurred to him that perhaps that was precisely DeBrough’s purpose: to discourage Langley from even contemplating calling him as a defense witness.

  “Do you think your brother did these things, Terry?”

  “He had the same spiritual upbringing I had,” DeBrough replied, adroitly ducking the question. “My mother made sure of that.”

  But did it “take”? Langley wondered. “How is your mother?”

  “She’s failing. A bit weaker each day. She’s not expected to last more than another week or two.”

  “Terry, I’m sorry.” Langley reached for his drink. “By the way,” he said, “do you know a man named Charles Luray?”

  DeBrough’s brow wrinkled in concentration. “I’ve heard the name somewhere…”

  “He’s the witness against your brother.”

  “How would I know him, Owen?”

  “He went to college with us.”

  “Did he?” DeBrough picked up his drink, took a sip. “Did you know him, Owen?”

  “No.”

  DeBrough said, “I didn’t know him either.”

  ***

  Burden’s address was just around the corner from the Terminal Theater, a fleapit that specialized in triple features, films that ranged in age from a couple of years to a couple of decades and that had nothing in common other than the fact that they were cheap to book. Langley had dropped by there once or twice after a particularly hard day.

  If the neighborhood had ever been fashionable, which Langley doubted‌—‌the location was too close to the Atlantic/Flatbush Avenue business district‌—‌it wasn’t any longer. Most of the buildings, a mix of wooden houses and three- and four-storey brownstones, had been converted into rooming houses, boarding an assortment of people down on their luck: pensioners, persons on welfare and laborers like Burden.

  Burden’s was the third house up from the corner. A pile of debris stood by the fence just inside the gate. It had not been bagged properly and some of it, loose papers and items of clothing, had spilled over on the ground, forming a gooey mess in the melting snow. Langley climbed over it. Crossing to the entrance under the stoop, he rang the bell.

  A fat, red-faced woman in a flowered dress stepped into the small entryway and peered at him through the grill of the iron gate.

  Langley introduced himself. “I’m Terence Burden’s lawyer,” he said. “I’d like to see his room, if I may.”

  “There ain’t nothing to see,” the woman replied.

  He assumed she was referring to the fact that the police had been by. Probably they had taken away some of Burden’s things. But they could hardly have taken everything.

  He repeated his request and the woman repeated her answer, adding for good measure, “Now get lost.”

  Lawyers, Langley knew, have never been looked upon with great favor by the American people, ranking in popularity somewhere below dentists and just above morticians. He suspected this had less to do with the public thinking they were all a bunch of crooks than with the fear that lawyers strike in people’s hearts. You do not want to come up against a lawyer in his professional capacity; even those on the winning side don’t cherish the memory of the experience.

  “Lady,” he said, “if you don’t let me see Burden’s room, in ten minutes, five to drive to the courthouse and five to drive back, I’ll have a summons for you you’ll wish you never got. There’s an old saying, Mrs. Hurley. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Never inconvenience a lawyer.”

  He didn’t know if it was his (bullshit) threat or the fact that he used her name (bullies, he’d noticed, often shed their bluster when they lost their anonymity), but he got quick action. And a comment. As she handed him the key to Burden’s room, she said, “Your client’s a friggin’ freak.”

  At least that was w
hat he thought she said. He wasn’t about to ask her to repeat it.

  Burden lived on the fourth, and top, floor, in the rear of the house. The room measured maybe ten feet by six. In his apartment Langley had a closet almost as large. When he stepped inside and closed the door, he felt entombed. It wasn’t just the narrowness of the quarters. The walls had been painted a deep forest-green; the woodwork, walnut or mahogany, some shade of brown so dark it almost appeared black. The ceiling‌—‌ At first Langley thought it was white paint that had faded badly, very badly, turning gray. But no; the ceiling was gray. Outside the window, the sun shone brightly. But although there was neither a shade nor a curtain to keep it out, the sunlight didn’t enter the room. Or more probably it entered the room, only to be absorbed like ink spilled on a blotter. Was the decor a reflection of Burden’s state of mind following his betrayal by Laurel Rose? Or had he always had the same morbid taste? Had the apartment he and Laurel shared looked like this? Langley wondered.

  Furnishings consisted of a narrow bed that had been stripped to the bare mattress and a cheap unpainted dresser. A coat hook was attached to the inside of the door. And that was it. The dresser top, the floor and the walls were bare. The landlady hadn’t been fooling. Even before Langley looked inside the dresser and under the bed, he knew he would find nothing. He gave the room one more glance and then he got the hell out of there.

  “You the new tenant?”

  Langley turned. A black man stood in an open doorway at the far end of the hall.

  “Just looking,” Langley said. “The guy who lived here last must have been…” He left it open, inviting the other man to complete the thought.

  “He was a nasty sumbitch,” the man said. For a bonus, he added, “The bastid broke into my apartment and stole my radio.”