Judge Lennox said, “It seems to me that there is something unusual about the background here, and I am not going to limit Counsel’s cross-examination. The objection is overruled.”
“Have you?” Mason asked.
The witness tried to meet Mason’s eyes and failed. “No,” he said in a low voice.
“Have you,” Mason asked, “ever been convicted of a felony?”
The witness started to get up from the witness chair, then stopped and settled back down.
“Oh, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said, “this is so plainly a shot in the dark. This is an attempt to smear the reputation of a witness whose only fault has been that he has testified against Mr. Mason’s clients.”
“I think, myself, the question, under the circumstances, is rather brutal,” Judge Lennox said. “However, it is a perfectly permissible question. It’s one of the grounds of impeaching a witness, and obviously the question has been met with no forthright denial. Therefore I will have to overrule the objection, somewhat against my wishes.”
“Have you,” Mason asked, “ever been convicted of a felony?”
“Yes.”
“What was it? Where did you serve time?”
“I served time in San Quentin for armed robbery. Now you know the whole thing. Go ahead and ruin me. Rip me up the back if you want to.”
Mason studied the young man for a moment, then moved his chair around the end of the counsel table, sat down, and in a tone of genuine interest said, “I don’t think I want to, Mr. Hoxie. I think perhaps we may use this as a point of beginning rather than a point of ending. Did your employers know you had been convicted of a felony?”
“Why do you suppose I was holding down a second-rate job in a third-rate hotel?” Hoxie demanded angrily.
“You’re positive of your identifications of the witnesses?” Mason asked.
“Completely positive. I have a knack of never forgetting a face. Once I have seen a person and placed him I never forget him — which is why my services presumably are of some value to the hotel.”
“When were you convicted, Frank?”
“Ten years ago.”
“And you served how long?”
“Five years.”
“And then what?”
“Then I had four or five different jobs, and something was always happening. My record would come up and I’d be thrown out.”
“Then what?”
“Then I was picked up on suspicion. Not because of anything I had done but purely because of my record. I was put in a police show-up box and I knew it meant the loss of another job. I was pretty sore about the whole thing.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“A police sergeant came to me after one of these show-ups. He sympathized with me and told me he knew how I felt. He said that he had a friend who managed the Keymont Hotel. He said it was a place that had been in trouble with the police and the manager would therefore know just how I felt, and the trouble I was having. This police officer knew I had a great talent for remembering people and he knew the Keymont Hotel was looking for a night clerk because he’d been instrumental in sending the one who had just been employed there to prison.
“He told me he’d had to threaten to close the hotel for good, and this new manager had promised to do his best to keep the place within the law. The police officer advised me to go to this new manager, to tell him all about myself. He said that the only thing for me to do was to get a job where the employer knew all about my past history so I’d have a real chance to make good. He suggested that I go there and tell them frankly my entire history, and he warned me that if I didn’t want to try to go straight I wasn’t to apply for the job because the place had a bad reputation and the Vice Squad was watching it.”
“You did that?”
“Yes. It was the best advice I ever had.”
“And you’re well-treated in this job?”
“My hours are twice as long as they should be. I’m paid about half of what I should be getting. I’m treated courteously. I’m told to keep my mouth shut. It’s not the best hotel in the city. It’s a third-rate hotel and caters to third-rate business with all that it means. I keep my eyes open, my ears open, my mouth shut, and my nose clean, and I’m still there. Now, I take it that answers your question, Mr. Mason, and you’ve had your fun. Tomorrow regular residents of the hotel will know that the night clerk is an ex-convict.”
“For your information,” Mason told him, “I think that this is the only time in my courtroom experience I have ever asked a witness if he had ever been convicted of a felony. Personally I believe that when a man has paid his debt to society, the debt should be marked off the books. However...”
“Oh, Your Honor, I object to all this self-justification on the part of Counsel,” Hamilton Burger said. “He’s tipped over the apple cart and ruined this young man’s career, and now he’s trying to present an alibi in the unctuous manner...”
Judge Lennox pounded his gavel. “The district attorney,” he said, “will refrain from offensive personalities. Mr. Mason is within his legal rights and the Court thinks it sees the general purpose in the back of Mr. Mason’s interrogation. If you have any specific objections to make, make them when Counsel has finished asking his questions... Proceed, Mr. Mason.”
Mason said, “Thank you, Your Honor.”
He turned to the witness and said, “This police sergeant who befriended you has kept an eye on you?”
“Oh, yes. He’s the head of the Vice Squad.”
“He checks up on you?”
“Yes.”
“Frequently?”
“Sure. They keep an eye on the hotel. Things happen there. We can’t help it, but the management doesn’t take part in any of that stuff. We don’t ask to see the marriage license when a couple registers, but neither do the high-class hotels. We try to keep the bellboys from furnishing call girls, and we don’t rent rooms to known dope peddlers.
“That’s where my knowledge of faces comes in handy. The hotel was in bad and the D.A. was threatening to close the place up. The owners had to clean up or lose their investment.”
And the witness made a little bow to Hamilton Burger, who tried to look virtuously disdainful.
“And because of that the management is anxious to cater to the district attorney?” Mason asked.
“Objected to as calling for a conclusion of the witness,” Burger said.
“Sustained.”
“How about you yourself?” Mason asked. “Do you wish to cater to the district attorney?”
“I don’t want him as an enemy. Any time the authorities turn thumbs down on me, I’m out. But that hasn’t made me tell any lies. I’m telling exactly what happened.”
“Yet you were glad of a chance to be of assistance to the district attorney?”
“I’m sorry I was ever called as a witness.”
“But you welcomed a chance to be of service to the district attorney?”
“I felt it might come in handy sometime, if you want to put it that way.”
Mason turned to Hamilton Burger and said, “I think it is only fair at this time, Mr. District Attorney, to acquaint the Court with what I understand is the general background of your case.”
“I’ll handle my case in my own way,” Hamilton Burger said.
“However, as I understand it generally,” Mason said to the judge, “the police have in their possession a revolver which had been pawned in Seattle. The pawnbroker is here in court and he will presently identify the defendant Dixie Dayton as the person who pawned that weapon. And that weapon was, according to the evidence of the ballistics department, as will be presently brought out by Mr. Mott, the weapon which was used in the murder of one Robert Claremont, a murder which took place something over a year ago here in this city, and, as I understand it, it is the contention of the prosecution that it was because of an attempt to cover up that murder that Morris Alburg and Dixie Dayton planned the murder of George Fayette.”