Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller (4 page)

“You have to grow some more. When you’re thirteen, Billy… then we’ll see.”

I hated those last two words. It’s always kinder to say “no” than to say, “I’ll think about it” or “We’ll see.”

And I might
never
grow enough.

So this was it. Now. Today.

In the silence of the silver October morning I gobbled up a bowl of coconut granola with soy milk and blueberries. I fed my monkey a dish of fresh fruit. I whispered, “Don’t worry about me, Iphigenia, and don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”

That would have been difficult. The monkey lived in a bird cage with a special lock and I never let her out except when I was there to follow her around the house and grounds.

With everyone else still asleep, or just waking up, I biked off in the direction of Accabonac Harbor.

The eastern end of Long Island was a terminal moraine, the farthest point reached by a glacier that had bulldozed its way south during a million-year period of the Ice Age. The glacier picked up giant rocks and abandoned them at the end of its journey. Those rocks were called erratics, and Crab Rock was an erratic, a fifteen-foot-high boulder over a pebbled beach near the oyster beds of Louse Point. The angle of Crab Rock was about eighty degrees. A real climbing fiend would have laughed at it and said, “No way, man.” But it was all we had until you got to the cliffs at Montauk Point. And I had never climbed any natural rock, so to me it was a big deal.

It took me fifty minutes to bike out there while a wave of gold light flowed from east to west across the moraine. I ate a banana and drank a pint of water before I laid out my equipment on the sand below Crab Rock.

Then I realized that I’d forgotten my climbing helmet. I hadn’t even worn a biking helmet.

I’d been too excited. Careless. Dumb. Reckless.

Well, so what? A top-class rock jock never wore a helmet. And he never fell.

Three black kids from the high school came by in an old Ford pickup while I was still studying and analyzing the rock, which is what you’re supposed to do before you try to climb it. One of these kids unloaded a four-inch thick old crashpad. The two other peeled off for the oyster beds, and the crashpad owner, a beanpole with ears that stuck out straight from his head like two TV dishes, eyed me.

“I seen you at the gym?” he asked.

He meant the high school gym, because that’s where the climbing wall was. I had a special pass from Mr. Arcaro, the high school phys ed director, to use it.

“Must be,” I said. Don’t talk too much, I told myself.
Be cool.

The black beanpole spread out the crashpad. “Belay for me?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “Okay.”

“You know how?”

“Sure.”

Belaying meant that you hung on the rope attached to the climber’s harness, so that if the guy grabbed air you could take his weight and keep it from being too bad a drop. A harness is just like a leather diaper with leg loops. To set up for a belay you need to run the guy’s rope through a device called a plate, then clip it to your own harness, then hang on to it with both hands. I’d done it in the high school gym.

“I’m Duwayne,” he said, and he spelled it for me.

“I’m Billy.” I spelled it, too. “How come your name’s spelled that way?”

“‘Cause when I was born my mama didn’t know the right way to spell it. Same as Andruw Jones’s mama. Plays left field for Atlanta?”

“Andruw Jones’s mama plays left field for Atlanta?”

He frowned. “You dumb or somethin’?”

“No, just funnin’. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

And don’t you be a wise guy, I said again, to myself. The beanpole and I shook hands. I could see the sun shining through his ears. He wore an old Knicks sweatshirt and purple Lycra pants that had been patched in both of the knees and in the butt.

He took off, climbing the boulder, from one bolt to another: a mocha-colored scarecrow. I stood on the ground, craning my neck, my hands on his rope acting as a brake, praying that he wouldn’t fall, and that if he did fall I’d be able to handle the rope and his weight. He was so tall that the bolts weren’t far apart for him, but still it took him a few minutes to get to the top. And he didn’t fall or slip, so I didn’t have to do anything except pay out the rope, bolt by bolt.

He rappelled back down. Rappelling is hanging on to the rope, arching yourself backward and climbing down with your feet braced against the rock. Not hard at all, so long as you don’t slip.

“How’d I do?” Duwayne asked me.

“Outstanding.”

It was my turn. I did it, with Duwayne belaying. Then I rappelled down. Never mind the details: the truth is, it was pretty much like doing it in the gym. No harder, no scarier. I didn’t even ask Duwayne how I’d done, because I knew I’d done well.

“Awesome,” Duwayne said. “Spot for me?”

That was different. You spot for somebody if they’re face climbing, which is bouldering with no rope attached to you or the bolts. It’s just a raw hand and foot climb. The spotter stands on the crashpad under the climber, and if the climber peels or grabs air or wipes out — rock climbers never use the word
fall
— the spotter’s job is to grab the falling climber’s head and shoulders before they slam into the ground. You’re all that stands between his getting the chop or buying the farm.
Getting killed
are two other words that rock climbers don’t use.

“Sure,” I said.

Duwayne chalked his fingertips and palms, and then he put on a banged-up white helmet that had been hanging from the handlebar of his bike. When he buckled the strap under his chin, it made his face look even darker than before. When he grinned, his teeth lit him up like a lamp.

In face climbing you don’t use any bolts. You have to plan ahead, use the edges of your feet and sometimes your toes, and sometimes do what’s called smearing, which is hanging on with friction from the soles of your shoes. You get a finger grip on whatever holes and ledges there are in the rock. You haul your body up any way you can. You do face climbing in the gym on the artificial wall, where the routes are all marked and color-coded. You don’t go up too high, and there’s usually a couple of guys standing below to catch you if you peel.

Up Duwayne went, with a great deal more care than the first time when he had a rope whose low end I was belaying and whose high end he could tie to the bolts in the rock. No rope now, no bolts.

He made a few stops on the way, hanging on with fingers and toes until he got his strength back, and his nerve. He got to the top in about three minutes, hauled himself to his feet, and flashed his white teeth in a big grin.

“Way to go!” I yelled.

He vanished from my sight, walking down the back slope of the boulder, and in a half minute he was at my side.

“Awesome, Duwayne.”

“You ready, Billy?”

“Ready for what, Duwayne?”

“Going up, Billy. Ain’tcha going up, dude?”

Was I?

“Sure,” I said.

I got out my chalk bag and rubbed my hands together a long time.

“Spot for me, Duwayne?”

“Affirmative, Billy.”

I studied the rock. I had a good picture in my mind of how Duwayne had done it and it seemed sensible to copy him. Then it occurred to me that his arms and legs were almost twice as long as mine, so there was no way that I could use the same hand- and foot-holds. I had to find my own way.

I took a deep breath, dug my fingers into the wall and started up. Right away I felt the tip of a fingernail break. I rammed my toes into the rock. Breathe easy, I told myself. Focus. Keep calm.
Don’t freak.

I crawled toward the sky.
Keep going.

I looked down to see how far I’d climbed.
Big mistake.

I felt I might upchuck. I was six or seven feet off the ground, with maybe eight or nine feet more to climb. Doesn’t sound like a lot unless you’re there and losing strength in the muscles of your fingers. Too far. Too hard. I’ll jump. Duwayne will catch me. My calves felt hot, and they began to shake.

Duwayne must have noticed I was in trouble. He called up: “You cool?”

“I’m cool,” I said, breaking out in a hot sweat.

I could see a handhold just a little way up, so small it was pathetic. There was a foothold but it was in front of my nose. Did I have enough chalk on my fingertips? Too late to worry. I reached for the handhold. Another finger nail broke. I hauled up. The truth is, I was more scared to jump than I was scared to climb.

I got up to the top in about one more minute. When I got up there I wiped the sweat off my forehead and waved just like Duwayne had waved, and then I waited a minute till my knees stopped trembling, and then I trotted down the sloping rock path in the back. When I reached the bottom Duwayne leaned down and gave me a high five.

“How old you say you was, Billy?”

“Almost twelve.”

“You funning me again, like with Andruw Jones?”

“No, Duwayne, it’s true.”

“How long you been climbing rocks?”

“This is it. I just lost my cherry.”

“Man, you are real cool.”

That felt as good as when my dad called me tough.

The second time I climbed without looking down, because I’d learned that looking down was not cool. You have to learn: that’s the whole point of doing dangerous things, to learn to learn. Then Duwayne and I moved a few yards closer to the bay side and climbed a different route. We each face-climbed three more times. By then the tips of my fingers were too cut up and my arms were too sore to do it anymore.

Duwayne figured that out and said, “Let’s have a Coke in town, dude.”

We jumped on our bikes, taking Red Dirt Road through hackberry and dwarf pine. I was enjoying the idea of a cold Coke and maybe a slice of pizza with double anchovies. I was feeling great. This was a landmark day. We headed for Accabonac Road, the road that led south to Main Street. On Red Dirt Road we passed A-1 Self-Storage, and about fifty yards after it we saw a girl in jeans and a dirt-stained sweater stumbling through the scrub on the other side of the road. She was headed away from us, although we were catching up because we were pedaling fast. The girl looked as if she was drunk. She had red hair tied with a black ribbon, the hair twisted now to one side. I realized the girl was Amy Bedford.

She fell, face down in the scrub, clawed at the bushes a couple of times, and after that, she didn’t move.

We pedaled faster and when we reached her, we both braked hard. The tires growled and kicked up dust.

I saw now that it wasn’t dirt on Amy Bedford’s sweater. It was blood. Some of it was a bright red but a lot of it had dried the darker color of a sticky Cherry Coke. She’d fallen face down, eyes closed, head turned to one side. She must have cut her cheek when she fell, because blood streaked her sweater, her neck, her face. But then I saw that most of the blood was oozing out of the back part of her left arm, near the shoulder. It oozed like paint from a tube. I could see where her sweater was torn in a ragged cut.

“This girl…”

I had trouble speaking, and it came out like the croak of a frog.

“… Duwayne, this girl’s been stabbed.”

Duwayne’s eyes grew big. “Like, with a knife?”

I could see the pulse of an artery in Amy Bedford’s white neck. Blood slid between the freckles. Her lips moved, and for a moment I thought I heard her voice, whispering to herself just the way she did in class.

I felt dizzy, and I shut my eyes against the sun. When I opened them and the visible world readjusted into focus, I grabbed Duwayne’s arm.

“See that house at the end of the road, Duwayne? Gray with red shutters? You see it?”

“I see it.”

“Get on your bike, dude. Ring the bell. Bang on the door. Tell them to call nine-one-one for an ambulance.”

Duwayne gulped, and then he nodded. Jumping on his bike, he whirred off down the blacktop, all elbows, knees, and dark blur.

I took off my jacket and slid it under Amy’s head. She wasn’t bleeding heavily, but I peeled off my T-shirt and tied it as tight as I could above her shoulder to make a kind of tourniquet. Her eyes were still closed, her lips moving. I heard her say, “Princess…”

I put my hand on her forehead and it was hot. She opened her eyes, and she shifted her head a little. For a minute she stared at me without any expression.

Then she lifted the edges of her lips as much as she could, into a smile. Maybe not even that. Maybe just the end of the pain for a few seconds, and that made a change that I took for a smile. I watched it fade back to pain. I kept my hand on her forehead.

I heard the siren of an ambulance. I don’t know how much time had passed. All that time I never budged. I just bent there on my knees with my cut-up hand on Amy’s forehead, feeling the pulse beneath the skin. My knees were on pebbles and they hurt. But I wouldn’t have moved or gotten up or taken my hand away for anything in the world. I had to stay there.

Duwayne showed up, back-lit by the sun. The people from the house hadn’t come with him. Duwayne had told them he thought someone had stabbed a girl laying by the side of the road. The people in the house made the phone call to 911 but they didn’t want to get more involved.

The siren grew loud; then it wailed down, rumbled, coughed, and stopped, and two paramedics in white coats jumped out of an East Hampton Fire Department ambulance. “Step back, okay, son?”

“Sir, where are you taking her?”

“Southampton Hospital.”

“Can I come?”

“Are you a relative?”

“No.”

“No can do.”

They always have rules, and the rules are always against you.

I gave them Amy’s name. They asked if I knew where she lived, but I didn’t know. The ambulance took off, burning rubber. Its siren wailed, grew fainter, then faded into the silence of the morning. A few birds chirped.

It was like being in a movie. A girl had been stabbed. I had found her on a back road. I knew the girl. Who had done it to her? And why? And where did it all go from there?

Chapter 5