The Little Death (2 page)

*
* * * *

I
interviewed the burglary suspects separately. They were bored but cooperative.
They knew the system as well as I did. They had nothing by way of defense so
the best I could do for them was try to plead them to something less serious
than burglary. I’d observed that repeat offenders were the easiest to deal
with, treating their lawyers with something akin to professional courtesy. All
they wanted was a deal. It was only the first timers who bothered to tell you
they were innocent. After the interviews ended, I walked back to the booking
office and poured myself a cup of Novack’s coffee. I flipped him a quarter and
asked to see Hugh Paris.

They
brought him in in handcuffs and a pair of jail blues so big that they fell from
his shoulders and nearly covered his bare feet. His eyes were focused but he
still looked disheveled. I thought, irrelevantly, of a picture of a saint I had
seen as a boy, as he was being led off to his martyrdom. There was a glint of
purity in Hugh Paris’s eyes completely at odds with everything that was
happening around him. The guard sat him down in the chair across from mine. I
took out a legal pad and set it down on the table between us. I introduced
myself as Henry Rios, from the public defender’s office.

“A
lawyer?” he asked, thickly.

“That’s
right,” I said. “How do you feel, Mr. Paris?”

He
gave me a puzzled look as if how he felt should be obvious, and asked, “Are the
handcuffs necessary?”

“The
sheriffs think so,” I said, studying him. “Do you think you’d be all right
without them?”

“I’m
not going to hurt you.’’

I
had decided he was down from whatever drug he had taken. I called in the deputy
and asked him to remove the handcuffs. He resisted but, in the end, the
handcuffs went. He stationed himself outside the door. I got up and closed it.

“Better?”
I asked.

Paris
smiled, revealing a set of even, white teeth. He rubbed his wrists and smoothed
his hair, buttoned the top buttons of the jail jumpsuit and pulled himself up
in the chair. He looked less dazed now, and he fixed me with a look of
appraisal.

“Thank
you,” he said. “I feel terrible. Why am I here?”

“You
were arrested,” I replied, and read him the charges.

“Mr.
Rios,” he said, “I don’t remember much about last night, but I do know that I
didn’t take any drugs.”

“None?”

“I
smoked a joint and then I went to this bar.”

“What’s
the last thing you remember?”

“I
was having a drink,” he said, “and then I heard this horrible, rasping noise.
It scared the hell out of me. And then I realized it was my own breathing. Then
I went outside, I think, because I remember the lights. And then I woke up here.
That’s it.’’

“The
police found a couple of sherms in your clothes,” I said, testing him.

“What’s
a sherm?” he asked.

“Cigarettes
dipped into PCP.”

“I
don’t smoke,” he replied, conversationally. It was possible he was telling the
truth.

“Were
you alone at the bar?”

“I
came with an ex-boyfriend,” he said, calmly, “but he left before any of this
happened.”

“You
smoke the joint with him?”

“Yes.”

“Did
you know anyone else at the bar?”

“Not
that I remember.” “How many drinks did you have?”

“Two
or three. Not more than three.”

“What’s
your friend’s name?”

“I
don’t want him involved.”

I
had been taking notes. I put down my pen and leaned back into the chair. “There
isn’t anyone in this room but you and me,” I began. “Anything you say to me is
privileged. The resisting and battery charges won’t stick and they have no
evidence you were under the influence of PCP because they didn’t bother to have
you examined by a doctor. That just leaves the possession charge. If you were
just holding it for someone, I might get the charge reduced or even dismissed.”

“You
don’t believe me,” he said.

“I
have to argue evidence,” I said, “and the evidence is, first, you were high on
something last night and, second, the police found PCP on you. It shouldn’t be
hard to see what inference can be drawn from those two facts.”

“I
know what PCP is,” he said, “but I’ve never used it and I’ve certainly never
carried it on me.”

“It
could’ve been in the joint you smoked with your friend,” I said. “Let me at
least talk to him.”

He
shook his head. “I have to take care of this my own way.”

“You
have money to hire your own lawyer?”

“Money
isn’t the problem,” he said, dismissing the thought with a shrug. He looked
away from me and seemed to withdraw into himself. I could hear the deputy
outside the door shouting at a trustee. Paris looked back at me without
expression. The silence went on for a second too long. “You’re gay,” he said.

Still
looking into his eyes, I said, “Yes, I am.”

“I
didn’t think so at first.”

“What
gave me away?”

“You
didn’t react at all when I mentioned my boyfriend. You didn’t even blink.
Straight men always give themselves away.”

I
shrugged. “There probably isn’t anything you could tell me about yourself or
your boyfriend that would surprise me. So why not level with me about last
night?”

“I
have,” he said, wearily. “Look, it was Paul’s joint and maybe it was laced with
PCP. He could’ve given me the cigarettes. I just don’t remember.”

“Then
let’s call him and clear it up.”

“I
can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m
hiding,” he said. “I shouldn’t have called Paul in the first place. I can’t
risk seeing him again.”

“Who
are you hiding from?”

“I’m
sorry,” he said. “I can’t tell you, although I’d like to.”

“Then
take my card,” I said, digging one out from my wallet, “and call me when you
want to talk.”

He
studied the card and said, “Thanks. I’d like to make a phone call.”

“I’ll
take care of that,” I said. I reached across the table to shake his hand. This
we did very formally. Then the deputy knocked and I called him in to take the
prisoner back to his cell.

*
* * * *

Outside
it was a bright and balmy morning. A fresh, warm wind lifted the tops of the
palm trees that lined the streets and sunlight glittered on the pavement. I put
on my sunglasses and headed toward California Avenue where I was meeting my
best friend, Aaron Gold, for breakfast. He had told me he had a business
proposition to make. A couple of kids cycled by with day packs strapped to
their shoulders. The Southern Pacific commuter, bound for San Francisco,
rumbled by at the end of the street. I felt a flash of restlessness as it
passed. Another summer passing. In two months I would be thirty-four.

“Henry,”
I heard Gold call. I looked up from where I’d stopped, in front of a pet store.
He approached rapidly, his intelligent, simian face balled into a squint
against the sunlight. He was tall, pale, a little thick around the waist, but
he still carried himself like the college jock he’d been.

“Morning,
Aaron.”

“What
were you thinking about?” he asked.

“Nothing
really. Getting older.”

He
made a derisive little noise. “You’re still a kid. Look at me, I’m pushing
forty. Am I worried?”

“You’re
in your prime,” I said, not altogether jokingly. In his tailored suit, Gold
looked sleek and prosperous from his polished shoes and manicured nails to the
fifty dollar haircut that tamed his curly, black hair.

“You
never went to my tailor,” he said, looking me over critically. “Come on, let’s
eat.” He took me by the elbow and led me across the street into the restaurant
where all the waitresses knew him by name. We found a table at the back,
ordered breakfast and drank our first cups of coffee in silence.

Thirteen
years earlier, Gold and I had been assigned as roommates in the law school
dormitory our first year there. We had not liked each other much at first. He
mistook my shyness for arrogance and I failed to see that his arrogance masked
his shyness. Things sorted themselves out and we became friends. He was one of
the first people I told I was gay. It would be an exaggeration to say he took
it well, but we remained friends on the levels that counted most, respect and
trust. Lately, he had even relaxed a little about my homosexuality — joking
that I needed to meet a nice Jewish boy and settle down.

He
was saying, “Did you run into anyone I know at the jail?”

“You
don’t go to county jail for SEC violations,” I replied.

“Trading
stock on insider information isn’t the only criminal activity my clients engage
in.”

“Doubtless,
but they wouldn’t stoop to the services of a public defender.”

“Actually,”
he said, “that brings me to the subject of this meeting, your future.”

“It’s
secure as long as there’s crime in the streets.”

“There’s
crime in the boardrooms, too, Henry. My firm is interested in hiring an
associate with a criminal law background. I’ve circulated your name. People are
impressed.”

“Why
would your firm dirty its hands in criminal practice?”

Gold
put his coffee cup down and said, “Corporations consist of people, some of whom
are remarkably venal. Others still are just plain stupid. Anyway, they’ve come
to us often enough needing a criminal defense lawyer to make it worth our while
to hire one. We’d start you as a third-year associate, at sixty thousand a
year.”

I
answered quickly, “Well, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m not interested.”

Gold
said, “Look, if it’s the money, I know you deserve more, but that’s just
starting pay.”

“You
know it’s not the money, Aaron,” I said, reflecting that the sum he named was
almost double my present wage.

He
sighed and said, “Henry, don’t tell me it’s the principle.” I said nothing. “You’re
wasting yourself in the public defender’s office. You knock yourself out for some
little creep and what you get in return is a shoebox of an office and less
money than a first-year associate at my firm makes.”

“So
I should exchange it for a bigger office and more money and the opportunity to
defend some rising young executive who gets busted for drunk driving?”

“Why
not? Aren’t the rich entitled to as decent a defense as the poor?”

“You
never hear much public outcry over the quality of legal representation of the
rich.”

“What
is it you want?” he asked, his voice rising. “The rosy warm glow that comes
from doing good? You’re not dealing with political prisoners, you’re dealing
with crooks and murderers.”

“It’s
true they don’t recruit criminals from country clubs, but if they’re outsiders,
so am I.”

“Because
you’re gay,” he said, flatly, dropping his voice. “If you’re gay.”

“That’s
settled.”

“I
won’t argue the point now,” he said, “but you let it run your life, closing
doors for you. If you really were gay and accepted it, you would make your
choices on other grounds than whether someone would object.”

“I
can think of plenty of reasons for not joining your firm,” I replied, “none of
them related to being gay.”

“They
aren’t why you’ll turn me down,” he said.

I
laid my fork aside and glanced out the window. It was luminous with summer light.
Gold and I had a variation of this conversation nearly every time we talked.
Since each of our positions was set in stone, the only thing our talking accomplished
was to get us angry at each other.

“Every
choice closes doors,” I said, “and at some point you are left in the little
room of yourself. I think most people who get to that room go crazy because
they’re surrounded with missed possibilities and no principle to explain or
justify why they made the choices they did. I don’t invite unhappiness, Aaron.
Avoiding conflict may not be the noblest principle, but it works for me.”