Private Screening (5 page)

Parnell removed his glasses, cleaning them as he spoke. “What I detected was a concentration on so-called gay issues.”

“Such as?”

“AIDS disease, the relative lack of gays on the police force or in city government, violent crime against homosexual men. One of Mr. Halliburton's complaints was that Mr. Cole had lost interest in other facets of his beat, as it were.”

“Mr. Parnell, if I suggested that the gay population here in San Francisco is close to twenty percent, would you dispute that?”

Finishing his glasses, Parnell looked up. “No, sir.”

“Larger than our Japanese community?”

“I suppose so.”

“And yet two years ago a Japanese-American reporter on your newspaper ran a series of articles on the Japanese sent to internment camps during World War II. Did you fire him for lack of objectivity?”

“No, sir.” Parnell sat straighter. “We initiated that series of articles.”

“But not Mr. Cole's articles on the problems of gays?”

“That was his own initiative.”

Lord paused as if something had just occurred to him. “Has it ever struck you, Mr. Parnell, that some nonobjective reporter should have worried about the Japanese a little sooner?”

“Objection.” As three associates mimed rapt attention, John Danziger stood, white-haired and imposing. “Mr. Lord's so-called question is a spurious attempt to draw parallels that don't exist.”

Watching Parnell, Lord saw that his pensive look had reappeared. Before Judge McIlvaine could do so for him, Lord responded carelessly, “I'll withdraw the question,” then asked, “Mr. Halliburton had other complaints, did he not?”

“Yes, he did.” Parnell became more forceful. “Inattention, and irregular hours.”

“For how long?”

“The two or three months before his termination.”

Lord paused, phrasing his next question with care. “Based on your own experience, would you consider such behavior as typical of someone facing a crisis within his family?”

Parnell blinked. “Objection,” Danziger snapped.

“I'll rephrase it. Specifically, Mr. Parnell, would you consider such behavior typical of someone going through a crisis which had alienated him from his wife and threatened to deprive him of his only child?”

Parnell sat back, staring.

“The same objection.” Danziger's voice rose. “My client is
not
a psychiatrist.”

“Sustained.”

“You never tried to determine the basis for Mr. Cole's alleged erratic behavior?”

Parnell shook his head. “As a publisher, I don't consider that my province.”

The response was less stubborn than wounded. “And as a man?” Lord asked.

“Objection!” Danziger stepped forward. “I ask the court to forbid this subjective and thinly disguised harassment of my client.”

Lord had never raised his voice.

Addressing McIlvaine, Lord underscored this for the jury. “My effort was not to distress Mr. Danziger,” he said mildly. “But to move Mr. Parnell to reflect on whether there might be some reason he did not accord my client the understanding that he otherwise might be predisposed to give.”

Leaning over the bench, McIlvaine raised an eyebrow. “Then you should ask him that straight out.”

Moron, Lord thought. Smoothly, he answered, “Thank you, Your Honor.” He knew that no one on the jury with a memory could have missed the tacit thrust of his last questions; when he looked back, Parnell was cleaning his glasses again, and there was dampness on his forehead. “Tell me, Mr. Parnell, has your newspaper ever knowingly hired a homosexual?”

Parnell put away the glasses. “We don't ask the sexual preference of our employees.”

Lord moved closer. “Do you know if there are currently any homosexuals on your staff?”

“No, I don't.”

“So if there
are
any, they've not told you?”

“I suppose not.” Defiantly, Parnell added, “And I don't ask them, either.”

“And they don't bring gay friends or partners to social functions at the newspaper?”

For the first time, Parnell looked angry. “I don't see why anyone should publicize what are private sexual matters.”

“But don't you find it remarkable that in a city with a substantial and open gay community you don't know a single homosexual at
your
newspaper?”

“Remarkable? I don't know.”

“Isn't the only fair conclusion that no homosexuals are hired, or that they're afraid to acknowledge it once they are?”

“That's an assumption I can't make—at least not that my newspaper's the reason.”

“But the assumption you made on meeting Mr. Cole was that he was heterosexual.”

Parnell hesitated. “He mentioned a wife and child.…”

“And when Mr. Cole's wife asserted his homosexual orientation in her efforts to gain exclusive custody of their daughter, your impression changed?”

“Yes.”

“That was approximately June of last year.”

“Yes.”

“Before that Mr. Halliburton had promoted him several times.”

“Yes.”

“And you approved those promotions.”

“On Mr. Halliburton's recommendation.”

“When did you first notice Mr. Cole's ‘lack of objectivity' concerning gay issues?”

“I don't recall. I remember discussing it with Mr. Halliburton.”

“Before or after Mr. Cole's wife asserted that he was homosexual?”

“Afterwards, I believe.”

“And then you noticed his so-called bias.”

“Yes.”

“When you hadn't noticed it before.”

Once more Parnell removed his glasses, and wiped a smudge. “I suppose, Mr. Lord, that it simply hadn't crystallized.”

“And what crystallized it was that Mr. Halliburton now wished to fire him.”

Parnell nodded.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Parnell. We need an audible answer.”

“Yes.”

“And when you approved his dismissal, Mr. Cole asked to see you?”

“Yes.”

“To discuss the problems he'd been having, and ask to keep his job.”

“Yes.”

“But you refused.”

Putting on his glasses, Parnell looked away. “Yes.”

Lord waited until Parnell glanced back at him. Quietly, he asked, “Because to meet with a homosexual would not have been ‘comfortable' for you?”

Parnell's mouth opened slightly. “Objection,” Danziger interrupted. “Asked and answered—Mr. Parnell has already testified that any discomfort on his part was administrative.”

“Sustained.”

But Parnell was watching Lord. With the intimacy he knew to be his gift, Lord walked slowly to the right-hand side of the witness box, so that the jury saw both his face and Parnell's. “Examining your conscience, Mr. Parnell, and understanding that what's at stake here is the career of a man who's already paid a great deal for being homosexual, can you swear to the jury that Mr. Cole's sexual preference played no role in the way you authorized his firing?”

Lord felt the jury leaning forward. Patting his handkerchief, Parnell murmured, “Yes.”

Lord slowly extended one hand. “The jury, Mr. Parnell, is over there.”

Parnell stared at his pointed finger. “Asked and answered,” Danziger called out. “I object to these theatrics at my client's expense.”

His associates nodded. But Lord did not bother to respond. Instead, he watched Parnell with a quizzical smile, silently asking that he face the jury.

“Mr. Lord?”

Lord let the silence hang a moment longer. Still facing Parnell, he responded, “I'll withdraw it, Your Honor. I think Mr. Parnell will be asking it of himself.”

Parnell did not look at the jury, but at Lord.

“I think it's time for a recess,” McIlvaine said hastily. “You're excused for now, Mr. Parnell.” There was muffled sound from the press, and then Parnell left the courtroom.

As they filed out, several jurors looked quickly at Lord. But he walked back toward his client with the nonchalance of a professional.

Cole's smile was one of pained gratitude; that the formerly secret half of his life had made him see the underside of things was a reason Lord liked him. “Nice job,” Cole murmured.

Lord shrugged. “Parnell's a decent man, in his way—at some point he realized that he didn't want to hang you. I just helped him to remember why.”

“I doubt he enjoyed the reminder.”

Cole's tone was dry. Despite the contrast between his slight jockey's body and Parnell's paunchy awkwardness, the degree to which his client's spruceness mirrored his antagonist's—even Cole's mustache seemed dry-cleaned—had moved Lord to ponder the relationship between obsessive neatness and inner turmoil. He put a hand on Cole's shoulder. “I also doubt Parnell will want to put either of you through any more.”

“Settlement?”

“Possibly. And if we get your job and back pay then maybe you can win joint custody of your daughter.” To lighten things up, Lord added, “You might even pay me—which is why I'm buying you lunch.”

Cole flipped on his panama hat; it was the first careless gesture Lord had seen him make. “In that case,” Cole answered, “I'll let you.”

“Tony?” It was the bailiff. “Judge McIlvaine wants you in chambers.”

“Is Danziger there?”

When the bailiff nodded, Lord turned to Cole. “Sorry, Jack. Think you can bring back a sandwich?”

“Nothing wrong, is there?”

“Doubt it—Danziger probably wants a recess to reassemble Parnell.” Lord gave Cole some money, and went to the judge's door.

McIlvaine and Danziger looked up as if interrupted; Danziger's three acolytes had retreated to his limousine, the better, Lord assumed, to bill Parnell in comfort. “Come in, Tony,” the judge boomed.

Noting Danziger's proprietary elbows on McIlvaine's desk, Lord sat so that the older man could speak to him only by turning from the judge. McIlvaine leaned forward. “John's requested a recess till Monday morning. I'm listening to any objections.”

Lord feigned surprise. “On what grounds, John?”

Danziger had a heavy way of sitting which suggested that he ennobled a chair by settling his bottom into it, and to turn at all clearly annoyed him. “Mr. Parnell wishes to consider settlement.”

“No point in that—unless he throws in my client's back pay. In addition to his job, of course.”

Red mottling appeared on Danziger's face. Quickly, McIlvaine put in, “I'm sure John will convey your terms to Mr. Parnell,” and looked to Danziger for approval.

“As an attorney”—Danziger spoke the word as if describing a separate race—“it's my ethical obligation to report any and all demands to my client.”

“In that case,” Lord said agreeably, “take all the time you need.”

“Thank you,” Danziger said to the judge. He rose from the chair in stages, nodded in Lord's proximate direction, and left.

McIlvaine motioned Lord to stay. “I don't think John cares for you,” he said approvingly.

Lord looked grave. “You're a sensitive observer of human nature, Your Honor. I hope it's just that I'm kicking his ass.”

McIlvaine raised one eyebrow, and then screwed his mouth into a bark of laughter. Lord thought it remarkable that any one man could look pious, cynical, good-humored, and corrupt all at once, when in fact he was only the last. Each part of McIlvaine's politician's face seemed dedicated to a separate function: the raised eyebrows signaling worldliness; the eyes wide with an acolyte's sincerity; the nose a red beacon of sociability; and a rubbery mouth that could stretch to cover all the emotional territory in between. When the mouth finished laughing, its owner said, “It
can
make cases harder to settle.”

“Harder than losing?”

“No matter,” McIlvaine said amiably. “But I do have a modest suggestion which may smooth the way to settlement, particularly where your client's future plans seem to rest on securing back pay.”

Lord sensed that he would not like what was coming. “I can always use advice.”

“Fine. Now, you embarrassed Colby Parnell this morning.” McIlvaine raised a mollifying hand. “Perhaps unavoidably. But some gesture of respect between gentlemen …”

“A trial is mental combat, Your Honor. It's hard to strike too many grace notes.”

“There are other places.” McIlvaine cleared his throat. “Mrs. Parnell is hosting a party this evening.”

Something, Lord knew, made this incredible suggestion in McIlvaine's interest. “A party?”

“Yes. For Senator Kilcannon.”

All at once, Lord saw where this was heading. “A fund-raiser,” he said in his flattest tone.

McIlvaine nodded. “She's quite an admirer of his, as are many of my classmates from USF.…”

You crafty buffoon, Lord thought: you want that charlatan to make you a federal judge.

“In fact,
they
seem to feel that James Kilcannon's extraordinarily capable.…”

Life tenure and a pension. All you have to do is help your friends raise money.

“And I'm sure you'd enjoy meeting him.” The judge summoned a lascivious smile. “Not to mention his girlfriend, what's-her-name.”

“Stacy Tarrant.” The morning had turned ugly; only the remembered careless flip of Jack Cole's panama hat kept Lord from walking out. “Frankly, these affairs are a little much for me.”

“Much?”

“Expensive.” It was the truth, as far as it went: the money he had given Cole for lunch, borrowed from petty cash, left him five dollars pocket money for Christopher. “I've also promised my son I'd take him to the baseball game tonight. It's his first.”

“There'll be others.” McIlvaine rested both hands on his stomach. “How old are you, Tony?”

“Thirty-three.”