The Advocate's Devil (15 page)

Everything about Rendi was unpredictable, especially her opinions. She was a strident feminist—by her own lights and by her
own actions. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept second-class status, in employment or anything else. For her, rape was the ultimate
degradation, but she also believed that women had to take responsibility for their own actions, which was why the Campbell
case was such an enigma for her. Her own feelings about Jennifer Dowling’s role in the crime were upsetting to her.

Several months ago she and Emma had engaged in a shouting match over dinner about the “dressed for sex” defense.

“Of course no man has the right to rape a woman who is wearing a see-through dress with no underwear,” Rendi agreed with Emma.
“But,” she continued, emphasizing her point with her whole body, “only an idiot woman would wear such clothing in front of
a man with whom she did not want to have sex. Clothing, my dear, sends a powerful message. Wear it with extreme care.”

Emma went ballistic. “A woman has the right to wear anything she pleases, in front of anyone she pleases, without inviting
some animal to read that as an invitation to rape.”

“You are right, of course, my dear. When you live in a world full of animals, you must never make the mistake of assuming
they will not act like animals. A zookeeper never keeps the cage unlocked, even though he has a right not to be eaten by the
lion.”

Rendi was Abe’s crack investigator. Because she was chameleonlike, she could get inside any closed group. He had used her
to infiltrate the Newark Black Muslims in a futile effort to find out if they were responsible for the Monty Williams murder.
In another instance she had passed as Italian and sat around a North End coffee shop for days, listening to conversations
that had helped Abe discredit a government witness in a money-laundering case.

In addition to her role as Abe’s trusted investigator, Rendi also served as resident cynic and realist. She had seen it all
and trusted no one. She had strong personal values, such as fierce loyalty and honesty, but she was nihilistic about rules.
To her, the golden rule was “He who has the gold, rules.” Her version of the rule of reciprocity was “Do it unto others before
they do it unto you.” She was a complex person, this woman Rendi.

Besides being Abe’s episodic lover, Rendi was Emma’s best adult friend. Watching Rendi with her father, Emma often wondered
why the two of them, who seemed to get on so well, couldn’t “just get married, and stop this on-again, off-again romance.”
Abe wished he could tell Emma about their “problem,” but that was one secret he could never share with her.

Now Abe was asking Rendi to pretend she was part of a most bizarre culture. “You want me to become a basketball groupie?”
Rendi asked incredulously. “What in hell is that?”

Abe tried his best to explain, and Rendi agreed to come over to his house that evening to be prepped and dressed for her new
role. Rendi arrived with her box full of props. Abe handed her a pair of falsies, which she examined and then tossed in the
air. “I like my breasts just the way they are,” she insisted.

“It’s not
you
we’re sending to the sports bar, Rendi. It’s a
groupie
we’re sending, and you have to
look
like a groupie if you’re going to get inside that circle.”

“Why can’t I go with her, Daddy?” Emma asked, knowing the answer. “It wouldn’t really be
me.
I would just be pretending like Rendi. And
I
would
love
to have big breasts—at least for one night.” Emma reached for the discarded falsies on the floor and held them up to her
chest.

“I knew I shouldn’t even have told you about what Rendi is going to be doing,” Abe said. “I certainly shouldn’t have let you
help her with her costume.”

“Does that mean I can’t go?”

“Yes, that means you can’t go. Rendi is a trained investigator. She knows how to handle this kind of undercover role. It takes
a lot of experience. You’re not old enough to go to a bar of any kind, and certainly not a sports pickup bar like Champion’s.
I don’t want you becoming a jock groupie.”

“No chance of that, Daddy.”

As Abe and Emma were arguing with—really more like teasing—each other, Rendi donned her costume: black leather minisheath,
red belt, black spiked heels, fishnet stockings, and a shoulder-length blond fall.

“To die for,” Rendi said, stroking the blond hair.

“To
dye
for,” mocked Emma, spelling out the word.

The black-and-red heart-shaped tattoo that Emma had bought in the head shop adjoining her school was too much, even for Abe,
especially when he found out where Rendi was thinking of placing it.

Emma let loose with a wolf whistle that would have made a construction worker proud. Rendi laughed out loud, remembering her
little lecture to Emma about not dressing for sex unless you meant it. Now, here she was, dressing up as veritable man-bait.
Rendi explained, “It’s a costume, all right? It’s just a costume. I’ll be careful. I’m going to meet
women,
not
men
.”

Abe laughed nervously as he once again offered Rendi the falsies. “Alex O’Donnell tells me you’ve got to wear these things
to be a credible groupie. Athletes tend to evaluate women by their breast size. His exact words were ‘broads with bazooms.’”

“Do guys still talk that way?” Rendi asked.

“Apparently in locker rooms they still do—at least according to Alex, who sounds like he knows,” Abe replied.

“That’s sick,” Emma said.

“Don’t attack the messenger, Emma,” Abe responded defensively. “I’m just repeating what my expert on jocks tells me.”

“No wonder they call them jocks. They ought to call them—”

“A little respect, my dear,” Abe cut in quickly. “One of them is paying for your college education.”

“I’m not talking about Joe Campbell, Daddy. He seems different from the stereotype Alex was describing.”

“Maybe, but all stereotypes are wrong,” Abe said.

Rendi saw her opening. “Well, if that’s true, why are you making me wear these damn falsies?”

“Precisely because you have to look like a stereotype.”

So Rendi stuffed some tissues into her bra and became a miniskirted broad with big bazooms. On one level she didn’t really
care. It wasn’t her; it was just another one of her assignments, though not a particularly appealing one. Rendi hated basketball
and could never understand Abe’s and Emma’s fascination with it. Once Abe had persuaded her to accompany him to an important
playoff game, and she’d mortified him by reading a poetry book during the overtime. It was the last invitation she’d gotten
to a basketball game, which was just fine with her.

Now Abe had invited her to enter the tawdry world of sexual hero worship—or was it whoreship, she thought—that followed professional
athletes wherever they performed.

Her job was to find out everything she could about Joe Campbell’s sexual proclivities—and, in the process, to learn about
the life of groupies. Abe had told Campbell and Alex that he was sending his investigator into the groupie scene to get background
on groupies for the trial. He’d told Emma the same thing. He could not tell them the real purpose of the undercover operation,
nor what had stimulated his need to investigate what Justin suspected about Campbell’s sex life.

N
EWARK
—
F
RIDAY
, M
ARCH
31

“How did you know I’d be here?” Nancy Rosen asked as she looked up at Justin from the weight-lifting bench in the old broken-down
gym located in downtown Newark. Muscle Discipline attracted few women, especially white women, into its spidery depths. Justin
stood out like a sore thumb in his gray lawyer’s suit.

“Your reputation as a jock precedes you,” Justin replied. “I can’t get to talk to you any other way. Why the heck haven’t
you been returning my calls? We need an answer. Who killed Monty Williams?”

“I haven’t called back because I can’t tell you. It’s your turn to put your sorry, out-of-shape butt on the line. Get out
there and follow up some leads.”

“You should only know how much investigative work we’ve done,” Justin said, covering his mouth to avoid being overheard by
the muscular black man on the next bench. “Even some of
your
clients, such as those Black Muslims in Newark who threatened Williams. So far we’ve come up dry.”

“You’re looking in the wrong place. The Muslims are clean on this one. That much I can tell you. No more.”

“That’s good,” Justin acknowledged. “At least we won’t go down that blind alley again. Now all I’ve got to figure out is who
the rest of your clients are. Any more clues for today, Superwoman?”

Nancy continued to curl the barbell. “Only that it won’t be easy. I’m sorry, Justin. I just can’t tell you more. The Code
of Professional Responsibility makes no exception even for an innocent man on death row. I’ve got to play by the rules. I
actually found a case just like this one, down in Georgia—eighty years ago.”

“Just like this one?” Justin asked incredulously.

“Yeah. It involved a man named Leo Frank.”

“I’ve heard of that case. A Jewish businessman who was convicted of murdering a young girl who worked for him.”

“That’s the one. Well, it turns out that one of Frank’s other employees confessed to his own lawyer that
he,
not Frank, actually did it.”

“Did the lawyer blow the whistle on his client?”

“No, he didn’t. In fact, after the case was over, the lawyer wrote an article about his dilemma. That’s how I found out about
it.”

“What did he say?”

“That he would be disbarred if he disclosed what his client told him in confidence. I can’t break the rules, Justin.”

Justin quickly jumped on Nancy’s words. “That wasn’t the position you took in the Jimmy Hawkins case.”

Hawkins, a black preacher in Newark who had practiced civil disobedience, had been arrested for staging sit-ins at city council
meetings. The prosecutor had argued that rules and statutes had to be obeyed regardless of the moral consequences. Nancy had
made an impassioned and successful argument in defense of those who “break the rules to create a moral world, rather than
those who play by the rules to preserve an immoral system.” Nancy had proudly sent her press clippings to Justin after the
case was over.

“How do you want to be remembered?” Justin asked, peering down into Nancy’s eyes. “As a woman who played by the rules and
allowed an innocent black man to be executed? Or as a woman who broke a rule and saved an innocent life?”

Nancy rose from the bench on which she had been reclining and stood face-to-face with Justin. “That’s just not fair, and you
know it. When I argued that Jimmy Hawkins should not be punished for breaking the rules,
I
was playing by the rules. That’s a permissible closing argument in New Jersey. Now you’re asking
me
to break the rules—to put my bar certificate at risk. Would you do that, Justin? Would you?”

Without pausing for an instant, Justin responded, “You’re darned right I would—if an innocent human life were at stake.” He
knew he was not being entirely candid with Nancy. He knew he would do anything now to get Charlie off death row—to win the
case. He didn’t even care whether he was being fair to Nancy.

For now, Justin had made his point. It was a good exit line. It would leave Nancy thinking—and perhaps feeling enough guilt
to loosen her tongue.

B
OSTON
—
F
RIDAY
, M
ARCH
31

Rendi had been in the Westin Hotel many times for dinners, on assignment, even once for a romantic interlude with an old friend
from her childhood. But she had never been in the Champion Bar, a watering hole for professional athletes, fans, and groupies.
If she wanted to become part of the groupie scene, this was the place to begin.

The large room was filled with the mixed scent of smoke and perfume. Champion’s was a brassy sort of place, adorned with shiny
metal, glass, and oak. Several television sets were tuned to different sports events and programs. The sound was always low,
producing a rhythmic mumble of sports jargon. Nobody appeared to be watching the lighted tubes; they were there more for ambiance.
A dozen women or so, ranging in age from about twenty to thirty-five, were sitting at tables and at the bar. And half a dozen
men, all beefy, were standing around the bar.

Rendi sat down at the bar next to a short, voluptuous woman, who introduced herself as Patsy. She appeared to be in her middle
twenties. A cigarette hung from her lips as her eyes stared vacantly at the smoke.

“I just moved to Boston from Los Angeles,” Rendi said, hoping her inflection would make her sound like a Southern California
girl. “I used to follow the Lakers in a big way. Have you ever been to the Forum Club?” She had prepped herself by reading
a series of clips about groupies published by the
L.A.
Times
following Magic Johnson’s retirement.

“I wish!” Patsy replied in a perky voice. “I’ve only been in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. I hear the scene is great
out in L.A.”

“It’s a mixed bag,” Rendi offered. “Lots of guys, what with the Lakers, the Clippers, and the college kids. Lots of competition,
too, especially among the young girls who come to L.A. from the farm belt. The guys are always looking for new young blood.”

“Washed up at twenty-seven.” Patsy sighed. “And the athletes think
they
have it tough.”

“How’s the scene here?”

“It’s okay. Some of the Celts are goody-two-shoes. They always seem to have a Mormon or two on the bench to keep them holy.
Still, there are some real fun guys. Mostly I go for the out-of-town players. It’s a lot looser with the visiting team. No
wives or girlfriends to worry about.”

“Did you hear about ‘Riley’s rule,’ when he was coaching the Lakers?” Rendi asked.