“Yes. That would be nice.”
“Hank?”
“Yes?”
“You’re not a coward.”
He did not answer.
“You’re very brave.”
Again, he did not answer. She reached into the darkness and touched his cheek. “I love you, liebchen,” she said. “I love you.” And then, almost in a whisper, she said, “You make me very proud,” and she turned and walked off quickly into the trees.
He put out his cigarette and stared out at the water.
What is a lawyer to do? he wondered.
I must blame them.
Who else killed? Can I blame a culture which robs parents of identity, pressuring them, compressing them, sealing them in vacuum cans on the rat treadmill so that fathers are no longer sure they’re males and mothers are no longer sure they’re females? Can I impose the neuroses of society at large upon three kids who killed? But goddamnit, they killed, they killed! What is a lawyer to do?
Suppose you went into that courtoom, he thought. Suppose you went in there, and picked your jurors, and then presented the case so that...
No.
I’d never get away with it. Abe Samalson would smell a rat and stop the trial at once. And then he’d drag me into his chambers and ask me who the hell I was representing in this case, the killers or the people?
Aren’t the killers part of the people?
They are the defendants, and I am the prosecuting attorney, and my job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did willfully and with malice aforethought stab to death a boy named Rafael Morrez.
Aposto’ll be acquitted. You know that. He’s a mental deficient. You haven’t a prayer in hell of convicting him.
That leaves Reardon and Di Pace. And my job is to...
Does it? What about that report on the knives? Aren’t you forgetting something, Mr. Bell?
The report meant nothing, a freak accident, something that had to do with the way the knife was held, or the rain perhaps.
Or perhaps something else? Perhaps something important?
Damnit, I’ve got to put the blame someplace! I can’t just exonerate...
Then put the blame, damnit! Stand up in that courtroom before the judge and the jury and the newspapermen...
Mike Barton’s newspaper would cut me to ribbons. He’d murder me.
...and the world and put the goddamn blame! For once in your life, do something, be something, take the chance, risk something, stop playing it safe!
And if I get killed? If they slaughter me? What then? Henry Bell goes down the drain. You remember Henry Bell, don’t you? That bright young lad — well, not really that young — who used to work in the D.A.’s office before he goofed on the Morrez case. Oh, there was a lot of public sentiment aroused on that one, don’t you remember? Open-and-shut case of first-degree murder, open and shut, three cold-blooded killers stabbing a blind boy to death, a blind boy, open and shut. And Bell muffed it. Stood up in court and presented his case as if he were...
...interested in justice?
I am interested in justice.
Then what about that report?
What about it? It means nothing.
Come on, Bell, you know what’s in that report. Will you try to suppress it?
There’s nothing to suppress. The defense won’t even bring it up, that’s how important it is. They won’t even mention the damn thing. They admit the stabbing. Their only hope is self-defense. That report isn’t important at all.
You know how important it is! You know because you’ve lived with fear, you’ve been kissed by that ugly bitch, she’s held you in her arms, she’s...
STOP IT!
Stop it.
Stop. Please.
I owe them nothing. I owe them nothing. I don’t even know them. They’re strangers to me. I don’t know them.
You know them, Bell. They’re not strangers. You know them very well.
I owe them nothing, he thought. I owe them nothing.
The night was quite still. He sat looking out over the water, and he thought over and over again, I owe them nothing. He was not sure at first that he heard footsteps coming through the trees. Suddenly alert, he listened. Yes, footsteps. Stealthy, uncertain, moving cautiously through the trees toward the rock where he sat.
“This way,” a boy’s voice whispered, and Hank felt a sudden chill race up his spine to raise the hairs at the back of his neck.
Another beating, he thought. Oh, my God, another beating.
He clenched his fists. He expected to be frightened, as frightened as he’d been when approaching that bench in City Hall Park, but instead there was no fear. He was surprised by his own reaction. Sitting with his fists clenched, he listened to the approaching footsteps, recognizing a rising determination inside him.
I will not be beaten again, he thought. Those bastards won’t do it to me again!
Like an animal crouched to spring, he waited.
The boy’s voice sounded in the darkness again. “Over here. This way. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” a voice said, and Hank’s brow furrowed in puzzlement because the second voice belonged to a girl.
“Here,” the boy said. “Let’s sit under this tree here.” There was silence. “Wait a minute. Let me put my jacket down.”
Lovers, Hank thought, and he was filled instantly with deep embarrassment. He unclenched his fists. There would be no battle; only a balcony scene. He smiled grimly. The thing to do now was to get away from here as swiftly and as quietly as...
“This is a nice spot,” the boy said. “Nice and cool. You get a breeze here from the river.”
“I love the river,” the girl answered. “I love to look at the lights. I always wonder where the boats are going.”
“Would you like a cigarette?” the boy asked.
“I’m not supposed to smoke.”
“I’ve seen you smoke,” the boy said.
“Yes. But I’m not supposed to.”
The boy laughed. In the darkness, Hank could barely make out the figures of the boy and the girl sitting on the ground. A match struck and then moved closer to the girl’s cigarette. Her back was to him. All he could see in the sudden illumination was the girl’s startling blond hair. And then the match died.
“I’m glad we got out of that place,” the boy said. “That was the draggiest party I’ve been to in years.”
“Death,” the girl agreed.
Lying flat on the rock, Hank tried to work out an escape route. He did not want to frighten the couple, nor did he wish to embarrass them. But at the same time, he did not want to be a captive audience to their adolescent patter. Unfortunately, the only way back to the street was past the couple who sat under the huge tree to the right of the path. Sighing, scarcely daring to breathe, Hank resigned himself to his fate.
“How old are you, anyway?” the boy said.
“Thirteen. Well, almost fourteen. I’ll be fourteen at the end of the month.”
“You’re still a kid,” the boy said.
“Not such a kid. How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“I know older boys.”
“You do?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I got to admit,” the boy said, “you look a lot older than thirteen.”
“Do I look older than fourteen?”