THE FOURTH WATCH (27 page)

I then usually point to the guy closest to the
opening in the cell door and start. "What's your name? Where do you
live? How long have you lived there'?" I have a form that I fill
out and I go through it as rapidly as I can.

Invariably, someone has ignored me completely
during my preliminary remarks. His ignorance usually manifests
itself somewhere around the third or forth question to the first
client.

"Can I ax you a question Mr. Lawyer
man?"

"No, you may not," I say, and try to continue
with the person in front of me.

"Well I gonna ax my motherfuckin' question
anyway and you better ... "

At this point, I will use this
asshole to layout the rules for them all in a language they can
understand. I say something like: "Listen dickhead, shut the fuck
up. You need to understand something. I am the only
person...
only person...
in this entire courthouse that gives a rat's ass
whether you get out of here today or not, and in your particular
case I'm rapidly losing interest. If you don't shut up, I'm going
to get the court officer down here and I'm going to have him put
you into another cage all by your lonesome. Then when I get out
there and they call your name, I'm going to explain to His Honor
that you refused to cooperate with me and they'll ship you back
over to the jail and you can try all this again tomorrow with
another lawyer. Is anything about what I just told you
unclear?"

The guy will usually mumble a few obscenities
under his breath at this point and go off into a corner and wait
his turn. If not, I make good on my threat.

This day I had a remarkably well-behaved crop
of defendants. With minimal effort, I was able to get most of the
information I needed to effectively represent them at their bail
hearings. At the end of each interview, I let them tell me their
version of how they ended up in the can. I blurt out a cleaned up
version of what they tell me at the end of the bail hearing if it
seems relevant. Not surprisingly, their versions are often at odds
with those of the arresting officers.

Late in the morning, I got back to Agnes. She
was sitting up and looked more alert. She was crowded in among the
pack of vixens shipped in from Framingham now, and while I could
have played hard ass with the women to get them to be quiet long
enough for me to get Agnes' story out of her, it didn't seem like
the gentlemanly thing to do. I got one of the court officers to
move her to an interview room and we chatted there.

Agnes, as fate would have it, had been stung.
As a seasoned professional this was a bit embarrassing for her to
tell me. Most of these girls can spot a cop-playing-john
blindfolded at fifty yards. But Agnes was just about finished for
the night, and she had scored and used, and was on her way home
when this geek in what looked like his mother's car rolled up along
side her. She was tired and riding her spike just nice and wanted
to pass, but the geek said he'd go a hundred for a blow job. So she
hopped in the car and directed him around to the lot behind the
church and within two seconds of digging him out of his shorts, she
was looking out the window into a flashlight. I didn't need much in
the way of background material on Agnes; I could recite her life
story and her rap sheet, so we were done pretty quickly. I was
packing up to go when she said: "Mr. Mike, you got
troubles?"

"Troubles? No troubles, Agnes, why do you ask
that?"

She shrugged her shoulders, her big breasts
riding up and down. ''I dunno, just been hearin' your name is
all?"

"From whom?" I said. Agnes had my
attention.

She shrugged again, and it reminded me to have
the Court Officers put an old sports coat or smock on her before
she went out for arraignment.

"Agnes, if you have something to tell me, I'd
appreciate it if you would just tell me what it is."

''I tol' you. Just been hearin' your name is
all. Just hearin' it aroun' thasit."

"Have I got a problem with a former client, is
that what you're saying."

''I don' know nothin' bout dat, and I ain't
sayin' nothin' but what I say'd."

"Okay, Agnes," I said. "Thank you."

"For a lawyer, you ain't half bad, Mr. Mike.
Maybe someday I teach you how to use that thing you got in yo'
britches."

"A freebee Agnes? You flatter me!" I told
her.

"I ain't say'd
nothin'
'bout free."

18

BECAUSE THE WORCESTER DISTRICT
COURT
is always so busy, CPCS assigns at
least two lawyers as duty officers each day. The mornings are
insane. Battalions of alleged law-breakers are summonsed to, or
dragged before, the court for arraignment. But, as the day wears on
and the work gets done, the need for more than one lawyer is
diminished. Tuesday was such a day. At one o'clock, when the court
broke for lunch, Don Gallant, the other duty lawyer, and I flipped
a coin to determine which of us would stay to deal with the
afternoon stragglers and which would be set free. I won.

It was a beautiful fall day. The temperature
had dropped into the low 60's over the weekend and had stayed
there. The foliage was taking hold and the trees were turning olive
and gold as power drained from the autumn sun. The sky was azure
blue and cloudless. I wanted to go home and sit on my deck with
dark glasses on against the slanting sun, and watch leaves blow
from the trees and spiral down on the lake. Instead I went to my
office to check the mail and get ready for my meeting the next
morning with one Robert Baxter, my client that was going to trial
on Friday.

There was a check in the mail from Carolyn
Whorley for fifty thousand dollars. I stared at it in numb awe.
Carolyn had called my house phone on Sunday night and left a
message on answering machine number two. In truth I was sitting in
a chair not five feet from the answering machine as she spoke to
what she must have believed was an empty house. ''Hey, Mike Knight,
where are you? Just called to say Hi. I had a nice time on Friday.
I. .. " there was a pause, as if she wanted to say something else
about that, then thought better of if. ''I'm sending you some more
money, and I don't want to argue about it ... this is important to
me, Mike. If it's more than you need we can settle up sometime. I
just want it there with you .. I need to know that you won't stop
looking." She laughed, ''If its not enough, maybe I can find ...Oh
my God I can't believe what I almost said ... no it wasn't anything
really bad ... ugh!!!...Now I'm making it worse ...I really hate
that about answering machines, you know? You can't take back the
dopey stuff you say on them. Well, anyway, remember we said we were
going to have dinner before you left on your little excursion. Call
me, Okay? Sorry for being a goofball on your machine,
Bye."

I had almost picked up the phone ten times
during her brief conversation with my machine, but I couldn't. I
was struggling with my own emotions. I couldn't get her out of my
mind for more than a few minutes at a time, but I spent those other
few minutes thinking about Annie and how I missed her and about how
foolish I was to be allowing myself to be drawn in to something
that I might not be able to handle. Then I'd feel the brush of
Carolyn's lips against my own and her body melting into mine and my
heart would start to hammer, and then break. So I still hadn't
called her back. Now I sat looking at her neat hand feeling like a
heel. I needed some air and I didn't want to leave the check in the
office. I knew that I was going to get this money back to her. I'd
talk about it with her at dinner before I went off to Seattle. In
the mean time I wouldn't bring it up. I went down the stairs and
out the security door with the sign on that said "Do Not Use This
Exit Except in an Emergency. ALARM WILL SOUND!" Of course no alarm
did sound, because my cheap landlord stopped paying for the
security service a year ago. I went to my bank around the corner
and deposited Carolyn's check into my client fund account. Then I
went up to Main Street, got a coffee and a bagel and took them back
to the office with me.

The phone was ringing when I got back. It was
Jed Archer. I had dropped my passport in the mail to him on
Saturday morning; and he was calling to let me know that he had
received it and that he had forwarded it to the North American
something or other Counsel, the body that issues travel visas to
Taiwan. I gave him my flight information.

"Will I have it in time to go?" I asked him,
pulling the lid off my coffee.

"We have us some friends on the Counsel, Mr.
Knight. My guess is I'll have it all back tomorrow. You might want
to pick it up though. I don't want to stick it back in the mail,
what with time bein' so short and all."

"No, that's fine. I'll pick it up on Friday
afternoon. I have a trial in the morning but I expect it to be over
before lunch time."

"Well, if you have any trouble give us a call
and I'll see if I can't get someone to run it out to you." I had a
vision of Mrs. Edna galloping in for a visit.

''Thanks,'' I said, "but I'll be there. Listen,
I was wondering about a room in Taipei. Can you arrange that for
me? I wouldn't know how to begin to get something that makes sense,
especially considering that I'm only going to be there a
day."

"Of course. You don't want to be on the wrong
side of town. The show is at the Asia World Plaza. I'll see to it
that you have a room there. I'll have Ray arrange it when I call
him and tell him you're coming. Thought I'd do that on
Monday."

"Perfect."

"Anything else we can do for you?" He
asked.

"I don't think so. What about Waters and
Talbot?"

"When do you want to see them?"

"Would they be pissed off if I tried to get
together with them on Sunday? I could do it on Monday if I had to,
but things might be a little rushed."

I heard him chuckle on the other end of the
line. "Mr. Knight, these boys are gonna be pissed no matter when
they have to meet with you. Meetin' a lawyer is like seein' a
proctologist, know what I mean. They'll be getin' in on Friday, and
neither one of them lives in the area, so my guess is it won't
matter much. I'll find out where they're stayin' and have all that
for you when you pick up your passport. They'll be waitin' for your
call and be expectin' to meet up with you sometime
Sunday."

"That would be great. Thanks again."

''Don't mention it, and if you need anything
else just give me a holler."

I went through the rest of my mail and then
pulled out the Baxter file. It was a possession case - possession
of heroin and possession of a hypodermic needle. My client had a
four page record, most of which was drug-related. It was going to
be a Bench Trial. That is, a Jury Waived trial, where the Judge
makes the determination of guilt, as opposed to a Jury. If we tried
the case to a Jury, and I put my guy on the stand to testify, which
I would have to do because he was my only witness, the prosecution
would attempt to use his record to impeach his testimony. I would
file what is known as a Motion in Limine to exclude the use of my
client's record, on the grounds that it would be more prejudicial
to my client, than probative of the matter before the court. If the
Jury got one whiff of my guy's record, they would convict him in a
heartbeat. Their deliberations would be perfunctory, a show for the
Judge. My motion would most likely be denied. But in a bench trial,
the Judge would be less swayed by the defendant's record - having
seen it all a thousand times before.

My client was a mildly, leaning to medium
insane, looking for a forum to ramble on about various topics not
related, except in his mind, to the case at hand. Sadly, he may
also have been - just this one time - innocent. My theory was that
the Judge just might see that through the DA's smoke screen. Even
if he didn't, he'd know my guy was crazy within two seconds of him
opening his mouth. Without a jury as an audience, he'd probably
hand him a light sentence.

I read through the police report, the lab
report; my client's probation history and record and reviewed some
photos of the hypo gear that the cops had confiscated. I drafted my
motions and made some notes outlining what I expected my
cross-examination of the police might be. I laid it all out on my
desk for my meeting with the Baxter the next morning - only half
expecting him to show up - and then packed up to go home. It was
about 5:30 when the phone rang again.

"Law Office," I said, answering.

"The people will decide what constitutes law,"
Louis Smyth declared, "not putrid lawyers, cloned by corrupt law
schools, spawned in the rancid muck of a decaying legal system
crafted by the elite to hold down ... "

"Smyth old fellow!" I trumpeted, smiling and
cutting him off crisply. "How nice to hear your voice!"

"Quite right," he said. "Are you still coming
out on Saturday?"

"All systems are go, old chap."

"Splendid! What shall I prepare in your
honor?"

“Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves there,
Smitty, did you book me a room?"

"Yes, you're booked into the Marriott at the
airport. Its decadence is beyond offensive. Somewhere in this world
a family will be eating berries from a bush and huddling together
in a lean to hovel against the cold while in that massive tower,
rich pigs shit on gold plated toilets ... "