The Good Lawyer: A Novel (7 page)

As I walked into his courtroom—and it was
his
courtroom, make no mistake about it—he waved me into chambers.

Chambers in AP courtrooms were makeshift windowless rooms with a single desk, a chair for the judge, and a phone. Ernie’s, though, had guest accommodations: solid armed mahogany chairs with seats that formed to your butt. He also had a sofa, where it was not unusual to find five or six lawyers, mostly defense counsel, shooting the shit with Ernie on calendar breaks or before and after a day’s daily dread.

“So who’s the blonde?” Krenwinkle asked.

“What blonde?” I responded innocently.

“The gorgeous one who came in here early this morning asking for you. The Bridgman nearly ate his mustache as she walked out.”

“One did help me pick up some files I dropped in the lobby.”

“Aren’t you seeing some assistant D.A. in Manhattan, some rich girl from Virginia?” Krenwinkle seemed intent on pursuing new romantic courthouse gossip. Starting such a rumor would have made his day.

“She’s from Georgia. Is there anything you don’t know?”

“That blonde was a beauty. I just told her to look around for Al Pacino.”

“No wonder she couldn’t find me.”

Sounding more like a mobster than a judge, Krenwinkle asked: “So what’s with this guy Guevara? Did he do it?”

My eyes widened. I was annoyed at the question, and curious as hell at his reason for asking it. “Judge, if you’re worried about the press coverage—“

“Oh, I don’t give a shit about the press. If I did I’d be on the Court of Appeals by now, instead of playing bullshit referee in this asylum.” He huffed. “will those kids stick to their stories?”

“We’ll know when they testify. Judge, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s your interest in this case?”

He took a long breath. “My wife is helping raise bail for this schnook.”

I tried to seem only slightly surprised.

“And Judge Meyer in Supreme—his wife too.” Now I was thoroughly confused. “Judge Meyer’s wife and my wife are teachers at P.S. 92. They both think the charges against your boy are a load of crap. Evidently they’re not alone. They raised close to two thousand dollars already.”

Chapter 11

E
vidently someone cared a great deal about P.S. 92, for it looked like no other city school in the Bronx, and nothing like I imagined it would: no cracked and broken windows, no bubbled and bent gating, no garbage strewn hallways, no kids hanging out in the doorways or sitting on the sidewalk and—most shocking of all—no graffiti. So out of place and time was this two-story brick building in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx that I stepped inside then out again, to survey the neighborhood before I entered.

Across the street a no-name gas station abutted a no-name factory that employed illegal immigrants and others willing to accept less than minimum wage. On the south side a short strip of stores lined the block, half of which were either vacant or abandoned, except for the bodega. But the most unsettling view came from the vantage of the second floor windows, on my way to Mrs. Hirsch’s classroom.

Across a narrow street, and beyond the huge schoolyard below, loomed a sprawling junkyard encompassing an entire city block.

A rusted chain link fence ran around it, leaning at angles that belied any appearance of sturdiness, or threat of security. Truck bodies, bumpers, mountains of tires, metal and chrome body parts were piled so high and deep, I could not see beyond the hills of twisted steel to the streets that lay beyond.

When I arrived at the door to Mrs. Hirsch’s classroom she greeted me with a youthful smile and a petite but certain handshake.

“I’m sorry if I sounded on the phone like death had passed over me,” she said as she reached for a wooden cane with thin bamboo reeds wrapped around its handle. “I wasn’t feeling very well.” There was a touch of despair in her voice as if recalling a bout of seething physical pain. “My legs are getting worse. M.S. Had it since childhood. Thought I’d be a goner by now. This cane is like a best friend.” She regarded it pensively then gazed up at me and smiled. “That is, when Peter’s not around. He won’t let me use it, insists on my leaning on him—his shoulder, his arm.” She waved a hand, gesturing casually as she spoke. “Says there’s healing power in the human touch. I don’t know about that. But damn if I don’t feel better when he’s around.”

She eased back into a sunken leather chair beside her desk. Despite her sixty-plus years barely a wrinkle lined her pale skin. But it did not have to. Her age, and her history, was evident in her every movement. She reached down and lifted one metal-braced leg, then the other onto a wooden footstool.

“So what can I do for you, Mr. Mannino?” Mrs. Hirsch smiled. “Better, how can I help my friend, Peter?”

Ordinarily, a lady like Shula Hirsch does not unabashedly side with a Peter Guevara—accused child molester. She could not possibly know if he was guilty or innocent, yet she wanted to help, merely because she was fond of him. An older, hard-bitten warhorse of a trial lawyer would have understood this from her simple request to see me.

I vowed to myself then, that in the defense of Peter Guevara, I would not allow anything to surprise me again. There was, after all, no percentage in advertising how green I actually was when it came to handling the “big case”.

Mrs. Hirsch knew, though. It was in her smile and in that warm twinkle in her eyes. And she didn’t care.

“Only two of the three boys were in Special Ed classes,” she said. “One of the Hernandez brothers, Carlos, and the boy, Jose Chavez.”

“Can you tell me a little about them?”

“I can tell you a lot about them. Jose and Carlos that is. I’ve had little or no contact with Rafael. He’s in regular classes and I understand is a good student. As for Jose, he was in my classes for almost three years, on and off. On and off, that is, between suspensions. Even though I’m head of Special Education in this district, I also teach. School Administration tells me I don’t have to. But I want to. I used to teach three classes a day. Now it’s only one.” Her pride was overlaid with disappointment as she lifted herself inches off the chair, the legs in braces remaining on the stool. While she adjusted herself, I struggled to hide my astonishment at the exhibition of strength in this elder teacher’s arms.

“What God took from my legs,” she said, “he gave me in my arms.” She took a moment to catch her breath.

Over the next twenty minutes she told about Jose Chavez, summarizing the volumes of paper generated by teachers, paraprofessional school aides, psychologists, social workers, the principal and herself, documenting the litany of anti-social behavior of this deeply troubled ten-year old, whom School District 10’s Committee on the Handicapped classified “emotionally disturbed, placement recommended, not public school appropriate,” and this just six months before Guevara’s arrest.

Hirsch also described young Jose as a pathological liar. Despite student, teacher and paraprofessional witnesses to his assaultive conduct, abusive and obscene language and thievery, he would steadfastly deny all guilt. He had been suspended more than a dozen times.

Each time, his mother was asked to come in for a consultation. But only once did she do so. Glassy-eyed, visibly stoned, she unleashed complaint after complaint at Hirsch, the principal, the entire city school system and even the mayor for their inability to educate her child. Sandra Chavez was unmarried and on welfare, and Jose would often complain to Mrs. Hirsch of a number of “mean and nasty” boyfriends who would “come and go” and intermittently make his life miserable. He would stay out all hours of the night to avoid them, then be late for school, or sometimes, not show up at all. Mrs. Hirsch would have thought Jose was lying about this too, had it not been for the Bureau of Child Welfare reports, and the bruises.

Repeatedly the District Chief Administrator’s Office rejected Jose for Special Education classes and any other schooling alternatives short of full-time residential placement and daily structured therapeutic counseling. Each time Mrs. Hirsch ignored them, and kept Jose in school. She moved him at monthly intervals in and out of different classes so no one group would suffer more than another from his disruptive conduct. She had worked with kids like Jose before and had her success stories. But Jose, she said regretfully, was not one of them.

Prior to Guevara’s arrest he began to verbalize and act out, in startling bursts, a sexual proclivity both perverse and violent. Twice he openly fondled a girl’s breasts in class. When he pulled up a second girl’s skirt and rubbed his erect penis against her backside, he was expelled permanently.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, that a notice of claim was served on the Board of Education “this morning” naming Sandra Chavez, “as mother and lawful guardian of one, Jose Chavez”, demanding two million dollars in damages for the kidnapping and sodomy by their lawful employee under their direct supervision, one Pedro Guevara.

What I had suggested to A.D.A. Jimmy Ryan prior to Guevara’s arraignment had come to pass. Sandra Chavez was looking for her lotto payday, and in kind, may have provided one for Peter Guevara earmarked, “not guilty”.

A defense was born, and the central figure in my case was no longer the unblemished, law-abiding, hardworking Peter Guevara, but the drug-addicted, conniving, and money-grubbing Sandra Chavez.

A no-show at her son’s mandatory school counseling sessions, Sandra was
numero uno
when it came to slapping the city with a two-million-dollar lawsuit. She probably would have sold little Jose to Central American slave traders for the right price. And so I would argue to a jury, and not sound the least bit incredible.

Hirsch shifted uncomfortably in her chair. With the faint affection of a mother attempting to conceal her bitterness and disappointment, she reflected on young Carlos Hernandez. And it soon became clear to me that Carlos occupied a very special place in her heart.

“He is a strikingly handsome boy,” she began. “Beautiful even, with those large deep blue eyes, he could have been a child actor—if not for his behavior.” Her face dropped in sadness as if she believed that she alone could have made a difference in Carlos’ life, but had failed to do so.

“Carlos’ behavior?” I asked politely with eyebrows raised.

“Oh, yes…well, Carlos’ mother was quite supportive. On welfare too, with no husband, she worked off the books in the Korean fruit store around the corner. She practically ran the place for old Mrs. Ho.”

“Did Mrs. Hernandez come to school often?”

“Always. And when Carlos got in trouble, she’d race right in.”

“What about Carlos? What was his problem? Why the so-called bad behavior?”

“I had my suspicions. It seemed Carlos would get depressed first then act out. So one day I called Mrs. Hernandez in and grilled her but good.” The corners of Hirsch’s mouth turned down. She took a deep breath then spoke quickly. “Carlos’, it seems, was his father’s favorite toy. That is, until Mrs. Hernandez caught the creep having oral sex with his son, and kicked him out. She told him she’d have him thrown in jail if he came back.”

“How did Carlos deal with this?” I asked.

“Not well. The boy blamed himself, and worse his mother, for his father leaving. I think he’ll realize as he gets older why she had to kick him out, unless of course, he blocks the abuse out of his mind. I’ve seen that happen. Then he has a problem that never goes away. Once I overheard him describe his father to another boy. And do you know whom he described to a ‘T’? John F. Kennedy.” Hirsch chuckled.

I stared at her, faking a smile. A boy without a father did not exactly tickle my funny bone, and making another one up, was sadder still.

Hirsch stood up, joints crackling, and said wistfully but with a hint of anger, “If only we had the resources we should to properly counsel Carlos psychologically. But that’s, well…that’s a pipe dream, isn’t it.”

I called my office from the second floor teacher’s lounge. Looming in the distance, just a hundred yards away, was the junkyard.

As I waited for Brenda to pick up, I thought about Carlos Hernandez. Shula Hirsch had painted a vivid picture in my mind: bright wide-eyed little boy face, deep blue eyes. Eyes that are hard to forget. Fatherless. Lost. Little boy eyes.

“Nick? Nick are you there?” The receiver blared in my ear.

“Yes Brenda,” I said somewhat startled. “That new client of mine, Guevara—did he call?”

“Not since I’ve been here,”—she chuckled—“and I’ve been here all day.”

When I hung up the phone my eyes were transfixed on the gates to the junkyard—its chain links on each side that bowed out and down at the middle—its perimeter piping in tandem, winding round.

And as I stared out the window I saw an image form from the skeletal remains of rusted gate. It had the clarity and color of some horrific cartoon.

It was a wicked sinister smile.

Chapter 12

L
ittle Italy in the heart of the South Bronx, exists as a splendid anachronism along one long block of Arthur Avenue between 187th and 189th Streets. In the center, among a half dozen Italian restaurants, homemade ravioli retailers, butcher shops and Italian delis, is Mario’s. There is no more famous place to dine Italian in the borough.