“They should make
hospital cooks take the Hippocratic oath,” she said. “‘First, do no harm.’ That
part.”
I smiled, not too
convincingly to judge from her expression. Her face was the color of
exhaustion. She turned her attention to her meal, and ate with complete
concentration as if taking a test. When she lifted her head, she looked almost
relieved to be done with it.
“How are you
feeling?” she asked.
I smiled again,
this time genuinely. No matter how casually a doctor asked, this question
always sounded like an accusation to me.
“I’m tired,” I
replied.
She nodded
understanding^. “Go home.”
“If he’s all right.”
Her narrow,
studious face tensed a bit. “I didn’t say that.”
“No,” I agreed, “you
didn’t.”
“He’s alive, Henry,
but not all right.” She rubbed her eyes. “He was unconscious for a long time,
not breathing well. There’s brain damage. How did he get those barbituates in
jail?”
“They were
prescribed,” I answered. “To relieve anxiety. He must have stockpiled them.”
“If they’d found
him five minutes later, he’d be dead.”
“It seems that was
his plan.” In my head I heard him telling me that he wouldn’t be at the jail
when I returned to see him.
According to the
guards who’d brought him into the hospital, one of Jim’s cellmates had been
awakened by a gurgling noise. It was Jim, choking on his own vomit.
“You never said
what he was in for,” the doctor said.
“Murder,” I
replied.
“That little guy?”
“Yes,” I said. He
had also told me that he had wanted to kill himself, not Brian. Well, maybe he
killed part of himself when he killed Brian. He decided to finish the job.
Thanks to me.
She curled her
elegant fingers around a chipped coffee mug. “Well, he did manage to do a lot
of damage to himself, so I guess murder’s not impossible.”
“Will he live?”
“Parts of him.” She
wore a thin gold wedding band. She saw me notice it and said, “You were one of
the lawyers on that sodomy case a couple of years back.”
“I’m surprised you
remember.”
“I recognized your
name as soon as you told me. You’re his lawyer, or what?”
“His lawyer,” I
said, shaking the grounds at the bottom of my coffee cup.
“No parents?”
“He has parents,” I
said, setting the cup down. “They couldn’t be bothered.”
“That’s rough,” she
said, blinking the tiredness from her eyes. She studied me. “Was his situation
so bad?”
I nodded. “He got
backed into a corner. I helped put him there.”
“Working in
emergency,” she said, “I see a lot of suicide attempts. The ones who survive,
they didn’t mean to succeed.” She pushed her tray away. “The ones who don’t
make it - it’s not that they give up, Henry. They fight, but they fight to die.
That’s what Jim’s doing. You can murder someone, but you can’t make him kill
himself. You understand?”
I studied the
pattern of the grounds at the bottom of my cup. “Yes,” I said, lifting my tired
eyes to hers.
“Go home,” she
said. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”
*****
It was cold and
gray outside the hospital. The sun was like a circle of ice, lightening the sky
around it. The silvery towers of downtown shimmered through the morning mist. In
this weather the palm trees seemed wildly incongruous, like tattered banners of
summer.
I had read, years
ago, of the Japanese poet who commented upon suicide, “A silent death is an
endless word.” Should I read Jim’s attempt to kill himself as a reproach, as
release, as an admission of guilt? Of love? I could understand why he did it
but I didn’t approve. It was the drama that disturbed me. The most basic rule
of survival is to wait things out. It was a rule Jim was too young to have
learned. With almost twenty years on him, I knew that the great passions —
love, fear, hope, terror — merge with the clutter of the day-to-day, and become
part of it. A truer symbol of justice than the blindfolded goddess was a clock.
A clock was ticking
in the kitchen of Larry’s house as I let myself in. He was sitting at the table
with a cup of coffee in front of him. He looked up when I entered.
“I heard your car
when you left,” he said. ‘‘That was six hours ago.”
“You’ve been awake
since?”
“Off and on,” he
replied. “It’s Jim, isn’t it?”
“He tried to kill
himself,” I said, sitting down.
In a gray voice,
Larry asked, “Is he dead?”
“No. He’s in a
coma.”
“How did it happen?”
I explained.
Larry raised the
cup to his lips without drinking. The robe he wore fell away, revealing his
thin, hairless chest, the skin as mottled as an autumn apple. A few sparse
white hairs grew at the base of his neck. His face showed nothing of what he
felt but the white hairs trembled.
“How stupid,” he
muttered. “What a stupid thing to do.” “He was afraid,” I said.
“Well I know a few
things about fear,” Larry snapped. He shut his eyes for a moment. When he
opened them he said, “I’m sorry I said that.”
“Who better?”
“No,” he shook his
head. “It’s not the same at all. I’ve had my life, but to throw it all away at
eighteen...” He lifted his fingers from the table in a gesture of bewilderment.
“If you can’t
imagine the future,” I said, “it must not seem like you’re throwing much away.”
Larry nodded. “You’ll
have to do something about the trial.”
“I’ll ask for a
dismissal.”
“Then what?”
“I suppose he’ll
revert to the custody of his parents.”
Larry frowned. “The
perfect son at last.”
I went upstairs to
get some sleep. As I undressed I remembered the call I received the night
before. I called my office and reached my secretary. I asked whether anyone had
requested my number in the last day or so.
She went through
the telephone log. There had been someone, a man named King who had insisted on
getting my number in Los Angeles. The name meant nothing to me. I thanked her
and hung up.
I got into the
rumpled bed, naked between the cold sheets. Outside, a bird cawed. Inside,
there was silence. I closed my eyes and slept a long, black sleep.
*****
Three days later I
was back in court. The press was out in full force. Pisano, the D.A., told the
court he would not dismiss the charges against Jim Pears as long as Jim
remained alive. He put Lillian Fox on the witness stand. She demanded that the
prosecution proceed. I informed Judge Ryan that Jim had suffered permanent, catastrophic
brain damage and was unlikely ever to revive. I asked the judge to dismiss the
charges on her own motion, as the law permitted, in the interests of justice.
However, as she had just finished pointing out, those interests were complex.
“Your Honor,” I
said, “the medical evidence is that my client is, for all intents and purposes,
dead. I don’t see what more could be accomplished by hounding him to the grave.”
Pisano was on his
feet. “The medical evidence is not conclusive,” he said.
“It’s as conclusive
as it’s going to get,” I snapped. “Jim Pears isn’t going to get much deader,
short of driving a stake through his heart.”
“So dramatic,”
Pisano said, mockingly.
“You’re just trying
to squeeze another headline from this, aren’t you?”
The judge broke in.
“Gentlemen, some restraint.”
“Speaking of
restraints,” I said, angry now, “my client’s wrist is handcuffed to the railing
of his hospital bed. Do the police really think he’s going to rise up and go on
a crime spree? This entire hearing is ghoulish. Regardless of what Jim is
charged with, what he may or may not have done, we’ve reached a point where
simple decency demands that this matter be ended.’’
“Is that true about
the handcuffs?” the judge asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“It’s standard
operating procedure,” Pisano put in, in his best bureaucratic drone.
“Even so,” Judge
Ryan said to him, “it’s a little gratuitous, counsel, don’t you think?”
“Not at all,” he
replied.
“The motion, Judge,”
I said, “is pending.”
“Thank you, I’m
aware of that,” she replied, sharply. Then, looking down at some papers before
her, she said, “This matter is scheduled for trial in four weeks. I will
continue it until that date for a status hearing. In the meantime, the
defendant’s motion to dismiss is denied without prejudice to renew it at that
point. That’s all, gentlemen.” She rose swiftly and departed the bench.
I turned to Pisano.
“Think the streets are safer now?” I demanded.
He capped the pen
he had taken notes with. “This isn’t personal, Henry. It’s business. Learn that
and you’ll live a lot longer.”
“Calling it
business doesn’t make it right.”
He smiled faintly. “You
shouldn’t be a lawyer, Henry. You should be God.” He walked away to talk to
Lillian Fox who was hissing his name behind us.
“Henry?”
It was Sharon Hart,
looking like a giant bumblebee in a black suit and a yellow silk blouse.
“Hello, Sharon. I
didn’t see you come in,” I said, closing my briefcase.
“I slipped in
halfway through,” she said. “I’m in trial next door.”
“How’s it going?” I
asked without real interest.
She shrugged. “My
guy’s found Jesus.”
I smiled, in spite
of myself. “What?”
“He admits
everything but says that Jesus has forgiven him and the jury should, too.”
“Think they’ll buy
it?”
She grinned. “Not
Mrs. Kohn,” she said. “Juror number six. You were real good, just now.”
“Didn’t seem to
help.”
“Don’t blame
yourself, or Pat Ryan. Judges are elected, too, and if you’re black and a woman
someone’s always gunning for you. She’s got to be careful.”
“The fact that the
lynch mob has the franchise, instead of a rope and a tree, doesn’t make this
justice. She should understand that.”
“I’m sure she does,”
Sharon said, frowning. “Trust me, she’ll do the right thing. Anyway, it’s not
like Jim’s innocent.”
“At this point his
guilt or innocence is irrelevant,” I replied. “He’s removed himself from the
court’s jurisdiction.”
“Tough way to do
it,” she commented, sticking an unlit cigarette into the side of her mouth. The
bailiff cleared his throat censoriously. The cigarette went back into her
pocket.
“But effective,” I
replied.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve
got a couple of clients I’d like to tell to kill themselves.”
I shook my head.
“I’ve got to get
back to my trial,” she said, and looked at me steadily. “But there’s one thing
I’ve got to ask you. Do you think Jim killed Brian Fox?”
“Yes,” I replied,
without hesitation. “1 do.”
She looked
relieved. “Well, I guess this is goodbye,” she said, and stuck her hand out at
me.
I shook it. “Goodbye,
Sharon.”
“Good luck,” she
replied. I watched her leave the courtroom. I began to follow but remembered
the press outside. In no mood for further combat, I slipped out through the
back.