by D. W. Buffa
Elizabeth had begun to laugh before he had finished; and when he had, she threw down her napkin and laughed some more.
“Christ, Michael,” she said with a derisive grin, “that isn’t what I said and you know it. Why don’t you try listening to someone once in a while?”
There was a slight flash of embarrassment, not on the face of Michael Wirthlin, but on that of his wife. That was when I knew what everyone else in that room must already have known: Michael Wirthlin and Elizabeth Hawking had once been lovers. It explained why they now hated each other so much.
Louis Griffin tried to smooth things over.
“I’m sure no one thinks that Stanley had anything to do with Mary Margaret’s death,” he said in a solemn, ingratiating tone. “It’s all a terrible tragedy, a tragedy twice compounded, really. First, the death of Mary Margaret, and now this.”
He shook his head sadly, and then, as if to signal that there were other things, also serious, that had to be considered, he slowly lifted his eyebrows.
“But Michael is right. We have to concern ourselves with our own responsibilities and with those things over which we have some measure of control. I don’t see that we have any choice but to release Mary Margaret’s last film as soon as possible. With a hundred million into it, we can’t really afford to wait to see how things come out at the trial.”
He paused, a pensive expression on his face, and looked at me.
“This is such an awkward situation to be in. Michael and I—everyone at the studio—have just been beside ourselves. It’s hard to know what to do, and we obviously haven’t done very well so far. We don’t mean for a minute that we don’t want you to do everything you can to defend Stanley. Good God, Stanley is the best friend I have, and if it weren’t for him, Blue Zephyr would not exist. And that is just the point, you see. Stanley Roth and Blue Zephyr are one and the same. We want to do everything possible to protect them both, Stanley and the studio.”
Griffin’s mouth closed tight and his eyes half shut into narrow slits. Wirthlin nodded his agreement, though I had the impression his mind was on other things.
“The studio will do everything possible to help,” continued Griffin, “anything at all. In exchange, I wonder if we might ask only that if there is anything damaging that might come out—about Mary Margaret, I mean—that you might let us know first? It could make a difference in what we do.”
Leaning forward, I traced a circle with a fork in the tablecloth.
“Tomorrow morning, Mr. Roth is going to be brought in front of a magistrate and after we enter a plea of not guilty I’m going to ask for bail,” I said, watching a moment longer the scratching movement of the shiny silver fork. I put it down and glanced around the table before my eyes came to rest on Louis Griffin. “But this is a capital case, and I’m not at all sure I’m going to be successful. If I’m not, then Stanley Roth is going to stay in jail, locked away, until the end of the trial. If that happens,” I asked, “who is going to run Blue Zephyr?”
“Louis and I will run it together,” replied Wirthlin immediately.
I thought for a moment Griffin was going to disagree, or perhaps at least distinguish the functions they would have in a way that, without injuring the other man’s sensibilities, would make it clear that his would be the ultimate authority. If he had intended to say something like this, he changed his mind.
“Stanley is the head of the studio, but we’ve always agreed on everything,” said Griffin diplomatically. “But I think you’re wrong—I certainly hope you’re wrong— about what’s going to happen tomorrow. I can’t imagine a judge doing that: keeping him in jail. Can you, Michael?”
Wirthlin’s head snapped up. “Do you know which judge it’s going to be?” he asked alertly.
“That won’t make any difference,” I replied.
Wirthlin gave me a strange look, as if there were things I did not know and he was not about to explain.
“It might,” he said.
Chapter Six
THERE WAS SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT Judge Rudolph Honigman. It was not so much the way he looked, though his looks were a bit unusual. His eyes, for one thing, were different colors, one gray, the other blue. His nose was rather too prominent in profile, and, seen from the front, pushed too far off-center to the right. But though some of his features were a little irregular, the overall impression was still that of a distinguished man in his sixties with dark gray hair and a fine high forehead, a scholarly man who took himself seriously. No, it was not the way he looked that seemed strange: it was the way he moved, walking briskly, his eyes on the floor just ahead of his feet, as if he had to force himself to enter his own courtroom. This was Stanley Roth’s first appearance. He was famous, his face as well known as any Hollywood actor. The courthouse was virtually under siege, surrounded by television trucks and satellite dishes, invaded by reporters not just from all over the country, but all over the globe, fighting among themselves for a place from which to watch the formal arraignment of Stanley Roth for murder. Struggling right along with them, some of the best known names in the motion picture industry squeezed their way onto the cramped wooden benches. It was the kind of scene seldom seen in a courtroom; and yet Rudolph Honigman never looked up, never once stole a glance at anyone there, as he hurried toward the bench.
He settled into the black leather chair as if he finally felt safe, and then carefully arranged the files and papers he had carried with him under his arm. When he finished, he paused, hesitating, as if he were uncertain what to do next. Finally, he looked up, but only to concentrate all his attention on the deputy district attorney who was at the counsel table to my right. He tried to smile but it dissolved into an ugly, awkward twitch. Instead of a seasoned trial court judge who had been on the bench for the better part of twenty years, the Honorable Rudolph G. Honigman seemed to be suffering from a potentially disabling case of judicial stage fright. He started to tell her to call the case, but before the first two words were out of his mouth, his voice broke and he had to try again. Dropping his eyes, he cleared his throat.
“Would you please call the case,” instructed the judge in a voice that sounded hollow and lost.
Caught off guard by Honigman’s peculiar behavior, the deputy district attorney stared at him, subjecting him to a scrutiny that he appeared not to appreciate at all.
“Call the case, please,” he insisted in a harsh, irritated tone that left no doubt there would be serious consequences if she hesitated even a moment longer.
“The People of the State of California v. Stanley Roth,” announced Annabelle Van Roten. She opened the file folder that lay on the table in front of her. “The charge is murder in the first degree.”
She was tall, thin, with wide shoulders she made a conscious effort to hold straight; when she forgot, or when she relaxed, they sloped forward in a way that made her appear to slouch. She was one of those people who, because much of their appeal is in the energy they have and how animated they can become, are more attractive in person than when seen in a still photograph. She had large, dark eyes that flashed for emphasis when she spoke, and a wide, rather sad mouth that could break into a warm, ingratiating smile or a cold hard scowl of withering contempt. With a kind of elegant precision, her hands were in constant motion, gesturing even when she had nothing left to say. A beauty mark at the side of her chin added a touch of sensuality to the anger that entered her eyes as she began to argue that Stanley Roth should not be released from custody. She seemed to thrive on the presence of the crowd.
“This was a terrible crime, Your Honor,” she said as she turned away from the bench and gazed slowly around the courtroom. “A young woman, a woman known all around the world, a woman who made a serious contribution not only to the motion picture industry, but to the community in which she lived, was brutally murdered in her own home.”
A smile of weary resignation on her lips, Annabelle Van Roten looked back to the bench where Rudolph Honigman waited without expression.
“Your Honor!” I objected, springing to my feet. “The deputy district attorney seems to think she’s in the middle of a trial, arguing her case to the jury. Perhaps she’s confused because of the size of the crowd. Nothing she’s said has anything to do with the question of bail, which is the only issue we are here to decide.”
Honigman did not look at me; he did not so much as pretend to pay attention to what I said. Impatiently, he waved his hand in the air, motioning for me to stop, while at the same time he nodded at Van Roten, telling her to continue. I sat down, mortified and astounded.
Nearly as astonished as I, Van Roten forgot what she had been about to say.
“Your Honor,” she began again, collecting herself, “the defendant in this case is, as we all know, one of the most famous and powerful men in Los Angeles. He is also one of the wealthiest. No amount of bail could stop him if he decided to avoid prosecution by fleeing the country.”
Now, finally, Rudolph Honigman turned to me; but only long enough to let me know with a half-glance that I could, if I wanted, try to make a case for my client’s release. I was standing at my place at the counsel table, still irritated at the way he had dismissed out of hand my attempt to object a moment earlier, waiting for a look, a civil smile, a few formal words of invitation to begin my argument: something to acknowledge the fact that I was there as an attorney entitled to at least the same attention he had given the other side, and all I got was this quick turn of his head, this blind glance of contempt.
It got worse. Honigman lowered his eyes, and kept them lowered, while I did what I could to make the case for releasing the defendant from jail. Not once did he look up; not once did he glance at Stanley Roth or anyone else in that hot, crowded courtroom. He kept his eyes, one gray, one blue, on the hard wooden surface of the bench below him, his lips pressed tight together, a strange twitch working silently at the corner of his mouth.
I was beside myself, angry at being treated this way, enraged by this blatant display of judicial bias. Placing both hands on the table, I bent forward, glaring at him, hoping by the sheer intensity of my stare to make him raise his head and look me straight in the eye. Not because I thought it would make any difference. No matter how many times you repeated it, the assertion that no one should be kept incarcerated for a crime for which he had not been tried, much less convicted, seldom carried great weight when balanced against the nightmare every judge feared: that someone who might already have killed once would, out on bail, kill again. The knowledge that all I could do was go through the motions made me angrier still. I fairly shouted the first few words.
“Stanley Roth is an innocent man falsely accused! He has never been convicted of a crime, charged with a crime, or even had it suggested that he might ever have committed a crime—any crime—not so much as a minor traffic infraction!”
I exclaimed, as much indignant at the brazen disinterest of the judge as at the charge brought against my client.
It was maddening, the way he sat there, impervious to what I said, his eyes still lowered, his mouth still occupied by that strange, insidious twitch. I pulled my hands up from the table and in frustration threw them up in the air. I was angrier than ever and I did not think twice about the next thing I said.
“It obviously doesn’t matter to the prosecution—and it apparently doesn’t matter to this court—but Stanley Roth, one of the most respected citizens in this community, ought to be as much entitled to the presumption of innocence as some felon convicted of more crimes than anyone can count!”
In any other courtroom I would have been stopped by the gavel, lectured on my deficiencies as a lawyer and perhaps cited for contempt; but not here, not in the courtroom of the stoic Judge Rudolph Honigman who still refused to lift an eye. Nothing I could say was worth his time; no insult was worth the favor of a reply.
“Ms. Van Roten,” I continued unabashed, “took it upon herself to describe Stanley Roth as famous, as powerful, as rich. She somehow failed to remember—or if she remembered, failed to report—that Mr. Roth is a member of virtually every major charitable organization in Los Angeles. She failed to remember—or she failed to report—that Stanley Roth has been a major source of financial support for the cultural and artistic life of Los Angeles for the past twenty years. Nor did Ms. Van Roten mention that Stanley Roth won’t be the only one hurt if he is forced to languish in the county jail waiting his chance to prove his innocence at trial. Thousands of people depend for their livelihood on the work he does as head of Blue Zephyr Pictures. No one can step in and take his place without enormous disruption and delay of a sort that might ultimately threaten the ability of the studio to function at all.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Louis Griffin was sitting in the first row, staring down at his hands.
“Louis Griffin, the second in command at Blue Zephyr, is here today, Your Honor, and I know he would agree with what I’ve just said.”
I paused, took a deep breath and slowly let it out. There was nothing more I could say, except to make a promise on the defendant’s behalf.
“Finally, Your Honor, I want to advise the court that Mr. Roth will agree to abide by any conditions the court might see fit to impose on his release.”
There was not even the pretense of deliberation. The Honorable Rudolph G. Honigman did not glance from lawyer to lawyer as if he had found the arguments made by counsel interesting and persuasive and therefore difficult to decide between. He did not look at Annabelle Van Roten, and he certainly did not look at me. He did not look at anyone. His eyes stayed focused on the bench below him as he began to gather up the files and papers he had brought with him.
“Bail will be set in the amount of two million dollars,” announced Rudolph Honigman as he rose from his chair. Pausing just long enough to announce the trial date, he rushed away from the bench as if he could not wait to get out of his own courtroom.
I don’t know that I have ever been so astonished, so lost for words. Annabelle Van Roten stared in disbelief. Her mouth hung open as if, just about to protest, she had been struck dumb. When her voice came back, it did so with redoubled force.
“I object, Your Honor!” she shouted in a voice that ricocheted off the walls.
It was too late. The door to Judge Honigman’s chambers had closed behind him. There was nothing she could do.
Whether it was an instinct, some sense of a thing dimly foretold, I suddenly turned round and in the crowded courtroom behind me saw Louis Griffin smiling to himself. He caught my look and tried to change his expression, to make it seem as if he had intended to smile at me all along. There was nothing I could put my finger on, nothing specific I could point to; just a feeling, a vague sense that something was going on, a kind of subtle intrigue about which I knew nothing.
I left the courthouse, ignoring the shouted demands of a swarm of reporters for answers to questions to which only a fool would have tried to respond and for which, in any event, I had no answers. What would all these intense reporters with their desperate eyes and frantic voices have thought—what would they have said?—if I had announced on the courthouse steps that I did not know a thing about the case, and that I was not sure what I thought about my client, Stanley Roth, whom I had with such postured indignation insisted was an innocent man falsely accused, the man charged with murder who had just been released from jail?
WE HAD AGREED TO MEET at his office around six. He had been arrested, kept overnight in jail, charged in open court. While that was still fresh in his memory, we were going to have the same conversation we had had before. This time, knowing what he faced, perhaps he would not try to hold anything back. At five o’clock
I showered, changed, and rode the elevator down to the lobby of the hotel. As I stepped out, Julie Evans walked in the front door.
“I thought you might like to have dinner,” she said as she came up to me, put her hand on my shoulder and kissed me gently on the side of my face.
The kiss took me a little by surprise. I did not know— I could not tell from her expression—whether it was simply the greeting she gave friends, or something more intimate.
“I’d love to,” I replied, doing my best to ignore the self-conscious glow I still felt on my face, “but I’m on my way to the studio. I have a meeting with Roth.”
She tilted her head and looked straight at me. “Stanley is tied up tonight.”
Before I could say anything, Julie took me by the arm. “Take me into the bar and buy me a drink.”
The hotel lounge was empty except for a small table in the corner where a young couple was engaged in a slow whispered conversation. Quiet laughter echoed soft and clear in the darkened stillness of the room. Julie sat at the bar and I stood next to her. The bartender took our order.
“Roth sent you here to tell me that he was too busy to see me? The day I get him out of jail?”
Her eyes flashed, and I wondered if she was mocking me as she barely suppressed a smile.
“Are you sure that’s what happened?”
Before I could ask what she meant, her expression changed. “No, Stanley didn’t send me. He told me to let you know he couldn’t make it tonight, but I decided to tell you in person instead of on the phone. I didn’t even tell him I was coming.”
She glanced up at the bartender while he set our drinks down in front of us.
“I hope you don’t mind,” added Julie as she lifted the glass to her lips.
“Mind that you’re here? Of course not. Mind that the great Stanley Roth is suddenly too busy to help with his own defense? You bet.”
