by Peter Corris
'In about an hour.'
'Good. I should make a statement. Tell them all about MacMurray and his crooked plan. He's the man they want.'
'Who's going to believe you?'
'What? Why, everyone, it's the truth.'
'It sure doesn't sound like the truth. Sounds like a pack of lies to me.'
I was dashed; the new hope washed away suddenly and I felt, for the first time, like a man in deep, deep trouble.
'What should I do?'
'Anyone ever see you argue with your wife?'
'No, well, Maria perhaps. But nothing . . .'
'Anyone ever see you drunk?'
'Yes.'
'Anyone suspicious that you're not who you say you are?'
'MacMurray had an inkling of it.'
'My bet is he'll offer himself as chief witness against you, along with some of the locals who don't like you. You've got a strange accent, Mr Brown, especially when you're scared. Where are you from?'
'Australia.'
'Clean record there?'
Hardly that, I thought. Manslaughter and military desertion at the very least. 'Not quite.'
'Mm. I don't think you'd do too well in court.'
'But I'm innocent!'
'That's as may be. Have you got any money?'
'Fifty dollars.'
'Pity. But let's see, Coral's life was insured for ten thousand dollars, right?'
I nodded.
'If you didn't kill her, you'd collect. That so?'
'I suppose. But, my god, Kurtz, I don't want the money. I just want to get out of this bloody nightmare.'
Kurtz drew his legs up and folded his body forward so that his knees came close to his chin. He levered himself off the bed and stood with his head cocked to one side so it wouldn't touch the cobwebbed ceiling. He stuck out his hand and I shook a fistful of bones and knuckles. 'I'll see you in court for the arraignment, Mr Brown.'
'I thought you said we shouldn't go to court.'
'Have to for now. You say nothing. I'll plead you not guilty. Then you'll have to wait in the gaol for a spell but I'll try to see you're a bit more comfortable than you are here. What brand do you smoke?'
I looked at my nicotine-stained fingers. 'Camels.'
'No problem. Do you like to read?'
I shook my head. 'Well, newspapers, magazines, you know.'
Kurtz smiled. 'I do indeed. I'll see you get some. What sort of work have you done in your time, Nick?'
I shrugged. 'Liquor salesman, soldier, chauffeur, actor.'
'Good,' he said. 'No brains needed for any of them. Just do everything I say and try not to worry.'
7
I've been before the courts more times than I like to remember. It's worse in foreign countries, where you can't understand what's going on, and you don't know whether you're facing a firing squad or a ten dollar fine. You can usually tell by the degree of the beating you get and the amount of the bribe involved, but not always. As these things go, my arraignment in the San Diego district court wasn't too bad at first. True, they had me handcuffed and the police weren't gentle between the lockup and the court, but I heard one of them say something about 'that son of a bitch, Kurtz' so I guessed I was under his protection.
The courthouse was a whitewashed building with a lot of wood panelling inside. Sheriff Westwood and Eban and a few other county men were there, as well as a couple of officers from the city police. The prosecutor was a ferrety-looking individual in a bow-tie and a suit too tight for him. The judge was an old man whose robes had turned green over time. He was wrinkled like an ancient turtle, and he wore pebble glasses and used a silver trumpet.
'The state charges Nicholas Brown with murder in the first degree,' the prosecutor said in a clipped, no-bullshit-here tone.
The judge's voice was as clear and resonant as that of a man of thirty. 'What's Mr Brown's address?'
Since elocution seemed to be the order of the day, I spoke up, 'Care of the auto camp, Three Cedars.'
Kurtz gave me an angry look.
'Do you appear for Mr Brown, Mr Kurtz?' the judge said. His glasses flashed as he moved his head slightly to take in the whole length of Kurtz.
'I do, your Honour.'
'How do you plead, Mr Brown?'
Kurtz said sharply, 'Not guilty. I'd like to request that bail be set, your Honour.'
The prosecutor was on his feet. A couple of reporters had come into the court and were taking notes. The prosecutor moved slightly to his right so as to be almost speaking directly to them. 'The state opposes bail, Judge. This was a particularly cold-blooded killing of a defenceless woman. The community requires protection from violent killers.'
The judge took off his glasses, read something on the desk in front of him and looked up. 'I'm interested in your choice of words, Mr Lewis. I'd like to hear how you'd qualify "cold-blooded" and where you think you might find a non-violent killer. But I don't think your remarks are particularly relevant.'
Westwood was standing at the side of the courtroom, about twenty feet from me and good deal further from the judge. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him moving, adjusting the belt which held his belly in and his gun up. The judge saw him too – God knows what he needed the glasses for.
'Yes, sheriff? You got something to say?'
Westwood cleared his throat. 'Suspect was headin' north, Judge. Clear intention 'o leaving the jurisdiction.'
Lewis nodded gratefully at Westwood. 'The prosecution opposes bail on the grounds that the defendant would be likely to abscond.'
'Mr Kurtz?' the judge said.
Kurtz shrugged. I couldn't believe it – he shrugged! I dug him in the ribs. 'Say something,' I hissed.
'I'm handling it,' he whispered.
The judge smiled, baring a set of white dentures that made him look like a beaver about to attack a pine tree. 'I can see we're in for an interesting trial,' he said. He banged his gavel softly. 'The defendant is remanded to the city penal institution to await trial.'
'All rise,' the clerk said.
I'd been standing the whole time – I felt like falling down and weeping on the floor.
They took me to the gaol which seemed to have as its main function the incarceration of negroes and Mexicans. The guards were white but they didn't welcome me as one of their own kind. The court proceedings had been fairly amiable I'd thought, right up until Kurtz's shrug. I'd fully expected to be walking around free, and here I was, locked up with a few hundred niggers and spics. I had a cold shower, shaved with a blunt razor and was issued with prison denims. Then I was locked in a cell.
A plate of pork and beans and a mug of cold, thin coffee was shoved through a hatch some time later. I ate and drank and pissed into the tin jug provided for the purpose. The hatch opened again and I passed out the plate and cup.
'Pour out de piss, man.'
I saw a coal black hand holding a big enamel bucket. I poured the piss into it. After a few minutes the light went out. I wrapped myself in the thin blanket which was the only bedding, lay down on the hard bunk and went to sleep.
I slept well, but that's a knack I've had ever since my time in the trenches, when I scarcely slept at all. After an experience like that, when you were likely any minute to be blown apart or buried in stinking mud, sleeping in a bed under a roof doesn't present much of a problem, even if the room is a cell. They'd taken my watch along with my fifty bucks and a few other things, like my remaining cigarettes, when I'd booked in, so I didn't know the time when the hatch opened. All I could see was a thin, grey light up at the barred window. I guessed it was about 6 a.m. The cup of coffee that was passed in tasted as if it might have been brewed up from the piss I'd given them the night before. I sipped at it nevertheless, suffered for want of a smoke and wondered what the hell was happening. Kurtz had promised me better conditions.
When the hatch opened again I was desperate for human contact. 'Hey,' I said. 'What's going on here?'
The black hand passed in a bowl filled with
something grey and sloppy.
'Gimme d'cup, man.'
'What kind of a place is this?'
'Cup.'
I passed the cup out and he filled it with coffee. I was close to tears. 'Can't you tell me anything?'
'Eat yore grits.'
'Grits?'
I heard him expel a breath that was probably driven part by pity, part by exasperation at my stupidity. That was OK by me – I felt stupid.
'Don' know nothin' does you, man?'
'No.'
'You don' want d'grits, Ah'll give 'em to d' nex' man along. He a real hog.'
I pushed the bowl through the hatch. 'Where am I?'
'Ah'm sorry, boss. You on death row. Dey don' believe in nothin' soft 'round here.'
I sweated in that hellhole for a couple of hours before the door swung open and I was escorted along a cold corridor, up a few flights of steps and into the shower block again, where I was allowed a hot shower, soap, shaving cream and a sharp razor. Then I was taken to a large, clean room where men sat at tables playing cards and reading magazines. Jazz was playing on a radio in the corner of the room, and there was even a vase of flowers.
'What's this?' I asked.
'Remand,' one of the guards said. 'Goddamn playground.'
'Where was I before?'
He grinned. 'Little joke. Solitary.'
I sat in the room leafing through a magazine and wondering what was going to happen next. After a while a guard came across and told me Mr Kurtz was waiting to see me. I went into another room where there was a table and a couple of chairs. Kurtz was sitting down at the table with his feet sticking way out the other side. He waved to me.
'Mornin' Nick.'
'Morning, my arse. D' you know where I spent the night?'
'In solitary. Little joke I fixed up.'
'You fixed up. Fuck you. You're fired.'
Kurtz waved for me to sit down. Something in the sharpness of the movement made me do it without question. There was a packet of Camels on the table; I clawed it open and got one lit.
'That's better,' Kurtz said. 'Calm down. I'm handling things.'
'You're doing a great job so far.'
'I'm doing fine, and you're going to get out of this if you just shut up and leave everything to me. I've had a talk to MacMurray. He was going to testify against you .. .'
'That lying bastard! I'd like to . ..'
'Now that's what I mean. That's why I didn't push for bail. If you was to go around all fired up like that, you'd spoil everything.'
I smoked and sulked. I remembered how big and fit MacMurray was; I wasn't likely to give him any real trouble. Still, your lawyer's not supposed to keep you in gaol. 'I want out,' I said. 'I'll behave.'
'A few days and you will be out, and with no charges against you. Trust me.'
'I never trust anyone who says that.'
'Wise policy, but in this case you've got no choice. When I've gone they'll put you in with a couple of nice fellows who've done nothing worse than sell a few shares didn't belong to them. You'll get three squares a day, newspapers, radio time. You can play handball.'
'I don't know how.'
'Time you learned. All you have to do is sign this.' He produced a paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to me.
I read the legal language with disbelief. 'This says I owe you ten thousand dollars.'
'Right. You'll be good for it when the insurance company pays off on Coral.'
'Who gets the rest?'
'I'll tell you all about it when it's done. For now, it's better you don't know. So, you've got a choice. Sign this and be out of here by the end of the week, or don't sign it and go back downstairs.'
I signed.
8
I sat around in the remand section for the next few days, playing cards and reading magazines until my eyes ached, and smoking so much I couldn't tell the difference in taste between bread and meat. The company wasn't very stimulating – a couple of stockbrokers on the run, a bank manager who'd embezzled a fortune and lost it on the horses, a couple of abortionists, a bigamist. I reflected that I might have been guilty of that crime myself, but only briefly. We did some work, mailbag sewing and soap packaging mainly, but time hung heavy.
When the guard said Mr Kurtz wanted to see me in the warden's office, I felt relief flood over me. I finished wrapping the six tablets of soap inside the waxed paper so as not to look too anxious. The guard manhandled me along the way to the administration block, which surprised me. Wasn't I virtually a free man? Kurt was alone in the office. I walked across to the warden's desk, took a handful of cigarettes from the box and handed them to the guard. He looked as if he'd like to use his billy club on me, but Kurtz nodded to him and he stuffed the cigarettes in his blouse pocket and left the room.
'That was dumb,' Kurtz said.
Kurtz was wearing a badly-cut brown suit, a blue shirt with a curling collar, a red tie and lumpy shoes. I supposed he was going into court to defend a farmer when he'd finished here. I sat on the desk and lit one of the warden's Virginias with a gold lighter.
'Why? Haven't you fixed everything? Aren't I on my way out?'
'The murder charge is dropped.'
I left the desk and reached for Kurtz's hand. 'Thank you,' I said, 'from the bottom of my heart. When do I leave?'
'Don't you want to hear how it was done?'
'Sure.'
Kurtz waved me into a chair. He got up and fiddled with a machine on the desk. It was a wire recorder with two big spools and speakers the size of soccer balls. I smoked while he twiddled knobs. Eventually he said, 'Listen to this.' He sat down and stared out of the window. There was a crackle, a hum and then the voices.
KURTZ: I've got it all, Walt – the proposition you made to Brown; a witness who says you were at the auto camp that morning; your tyre tracks; fingerprints on a glass. I can build a case against you at least as good as the one against Brown.
MACMURRAY: You're bluffing.
KURTZ: Call it, then. I'll take what I've got to the sheriff and we'll see how the cards fall. 'Course, I don't want to do that.
MACMURRAY: What do you want?
KURTZ: A deal, naturally. That's the American way.
MACMURRAY: Don't talk to me about the American way, jewboy.
KURTZ: You just cut yourself a tougher deal, right there. I'll lay it out for you. You and Coral had picked Brown for a patsy. You got him insured, suckered him into driving around like a maniac and were all set to give him an accident. Brown was going to be barbecued in the Caddy, and Coral'd collect. How'm I doing?
MACMURRAY: You're guessing.
KURTZ: Guessing right. Maybe you had a meeting planned with Coral in Red Springs, maybe some other place, I don't know. But you went by the auto camp and saw the Cadillac was gone. Then Coral arrived and you discovered that Brown had been smarter than you'd thought. Coral called you a chump. You fought. You shot her. I can put you there, don't forget that. You killed a defenceless woman when a crime you planned went sour. That'll get you the gas, Walt.
MACMURRAY: She planned it, not me!
KURTZ: Don't flip your lid. There's a way out and it gets you some of the dough, too.
MACMURRAY: Yeah?
KURTZ: That the straight goods about the stiffs you can get from the construction site?
MACMURRAY: So happens it is.
KURTZ: Good. Here's the how of it. You write out a confession saying you killed Coral. You were jealous of Brown. Coral wouldn't leave him for you. Something like that.
MACMURRAY: Are you nuts?
KURTZ: No. Then you put the old plan into action, 'cept the stiff in the burnt wreck is you, not Brown. Get it?
MACMURRAY: Jesus.
KURTZ: If you had the nerve to kill Brown in cold blood, you can do this. You're not killing anybody.
MACMURRAY: I don't know . . .
KURTZ: I've got Brown's marker. He turns over the whole of the insurance payout to me. Your end is two thousand. I was gonnna make it th
ree, but you insulted me.
MACMURRAY: I don't know . . .
KURTZ: Decide, and do it fast.
MACMURRAY: Okay. Okay.
The wire hummed and I yelped, the forgotten cigarette had burned my fingers. I got it into the gorilla's hand ashtray and looked at Kurtz, who would have been smirking if the lines and bones of his face could've permitted it. 'That's outrageous,' I said.
'Now don't go getting all moral on me, Nick. It's a good deal.'
'It's all totally illegal. Did MacMurray know you had that thing going?'
Kurtz ambled across to the desk and switched off the recorder. 'Course not. That's just so you'd know I'm not crossing you.'
'What about the insurance company?'
'Now, that's one of the nicest parts of it. I had a few words to Henry Sexton, who's the claims assessor for American Western and a sort of cousin of mine. He's real happy. They avoid the ten thousand payout they would've had on you, for one thing.'
'That's great,' I said.
'Insurance companies have to pay out sometimes, they know that. This way, American Western gets rid of a rotten apple. Crooked salesman can do a lot of damage in that business.'
I began to feel a little better. I lit another of the warden's cigarettes and puffed.
Kurtz packed the wire recorder into its case. 'Worth talking to, insurance men,' he said. 'Do you know the actuarial facts on cigarette smoking?'
'No, and I don't care to. When do I get out of here?'
'MacMurray co-operated. He wrote the note. Want to see a copy?'
'No.'
'His Packard went off the road last night. Guy was burnt to a crisp. Terrible sight. Doc Parsons identified him, though.'
'That man should be disbarred.'
'Helped to save your hide, Nick.'
I shrugged. 'Can I leave now?'
Kurtz produced a wallet like a small briefcase, extracted a paper and put it on the desk. 'Power of attorney,' he said. 'Sign that and you don't have to be around when the money comes through. Thought that'd be how you'd like it.'
I took a pen from the warden's oak and silver pen set, dipped it in the inkwell and signed. 'You're stalling, Kurtz. What now?'
Kurtz blew on the paper, checked it with his little finger, folded it up and tucked it away. 'There's a problem with the sheriff.'
