Not I, Said the Vixen

by Bill S. Ballinger

  Barker poured a shot of liquor in a glass and held it up to the light while he considered Pauline’s question. “He won’t,” he said finally. “March is hooked.” Barker took his eyes from the glass and stared at the woman. “He’s hooked,” he repeated, “can’t you see that? He’s in love with that broad and he’s afraid he’s going to lose the case.” Raising the glass to his lips, Barker took a long drink. “No matter how smart a man is, he slips once. That’s all it takes.” Finishing his drink, he added with reflection, “I’m surprised though… March wasn’t cagey enough to protect himself some way… before he arranged to meet that bum.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I drove carefully across town, returning home. I was drunk, and I knew it. And I also knew that I couldn’t afford to be picked up this night by the police. That didn’t stop me, however, from stopping at a liquor store and buying another bottle of liquor.

  As I drove, a part of my mind was still clear enough to try to wrestle with the situation. I hadn’t told either Bert Taylor or Ivy about the phone call. And not about the appointment, certainly. I’d been sober enough to realize that Taylor would have attempted to dissuade me and he’d have been right. But all along, I’d been hoping for a miracle. When the contact man had called me back at eight—the jury was still out in deliberation—somehow, by then, I felt that perhaps a miracle had occurred.

  I’d kept the appointment—and walked into a trap, but it was a trap of my own choosing. The trap had not yet closed, and I could still evade it. By refusing to pay the bribe, however, I was placing Ivy in jeopardy. And she was still hoping… still depending on me!

  My mind racing with ideas, I sorted and discarded them, while I cautiously weaved through the traffic. I could have the contact man picked up at the scene of the payoff. It would still be my word against the word of the unknown man. Joe Willard would grab the opportunity to denounce me of a grandstand gesture to move for a retrial. And even if the crooked juror could be identified… it might take days of investigation and end up being unsuccessful; or one of the alternate jurors might be appointed as a replacement.

  Of course, I could mark the money in the payoff. The contact man could stick to his story of finding the wallet, and then reprisal from his confederate on the jury would be certain.

  The memory of Piersall’s face flashed to my mind. I remembered his open friendliness—and my own past suspicions of the man. Piersall was a logical partner in the payoff. Yet, again, Piersall had said nothing, done nothing on which to base an accusation.

  All these thoughts were a blurred combination of logic and alcohol as I groped my way from the garage to the house and opened the door to the living room. I had a stab of pain when I remembered my plans to bring Ivy here to live. The sound of her voice, the pleasure of her presence, the life and activity which would flower around her being there—all these I now held in my hand. By paying the bribe, I could insure her freedom and her return to me.

  I didn’t kid myself, either, about what prison could do to her. At best, with a twenty years to life sentence, Ivy would be eligible for parole in ten years. But after ten years, she would no longer be Ivy.

  I turned and climbed the stairs to the second story.

  In my bedroom, somehow I got undressed and put on a pair of pajama trousers. I opened the bottle of whisky and took a drink.

  I took another drink. To hell with the bugs! I thought. And to hell with men, too. Is it justice, I wondered, when the law demands a life… or part of a life… from an innocent woman? But, injustice or not, no man is above the law, and no man takes the law into his own hands; this is the basis, the fundamental premise of law. I had lived with the law all my life, and respected it. But now, the whisky told me, perhaps it was time to change.

  I asked myself if, perhaps, there isn’t another law… an eternal law which transcends the premise of manmade laws? Do not the laws of the Church teach that all human life is precious and sacred? Therefore, is it not a greater good to give life than to take it? In giving Ivy her life… through continuing her freedom… would not the good end justify the doubtful means?

  I continued to argue to myself that Ivy was innocent. Of her innocence I was sure… convinced. My beginning doubts, my periods of vacillation had been swept away. I loved Ivy, and only I could save her!

  In a part of my mind, however, my conscience stirred uneasily. Are you being plausible, it asked, without being genuine? Your logic sounds good, only because you want to listen to it. But is it sound? “It’s correct!” I reassured myself. I picked up the bottle again to help strengthen my convictions.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Pauline Morrisey circled the block for the fourth time. The car crawled in the heavy downtown Los Angeles traffic. Pauline was tense, and nervous with anticipation. Her emotions were transferred to her driving as she started too quickly and stopped too suddenly. Under her erratic handling, the car jerked convulsively—bringing stinging criticism from Jack Barker who was seated beside her. “Goddammit,” Barker warned her, “take it easy!” The reporter again checked the camera which he held ready in his lap, and then stared at the sidewalk searching for a glimpse of Cyrus March.

  “Do you really think he’ll show up?” Pauline asked anxiously.

  “Yes, he’ll really show up…” Barker mimicked. “But the way you yank this stinking car around, I won’t be able to get a shot if he does.” He lurched forward, at a sudden stop, and shouted, “Watch out!”

  “I’m sorry, lover,” Pauline replied humbly. “I’ll be real careful.” The car made a right turn at the corner of Broadway and began a nervous approach toward the Carleton Hotel again.

  Barker suddenly nodded ahead at the figure of March walking in the heavy stream of pedestrian traffic. As the attorney passed the entrance of the hotel and continued beyond it, the stranger—recognized by Barker from the night before—detached himself from in front of a display window and trailed after March. “Listen,” Barker spoke rapidly to Pauline, “If I get out of the car with this camera, March might see me. So creep up on him. When I tell you to stop, stop! I’ll catch March dropping the billfold and another of the guy picking it up. Then when I say get going—go!”

  “I understand.” Pauline assured him. She breathed heavily with excitement. Decreasing the speed of the car until it hardly moved, she slowly drew abreast of the two men. Behind her, an irritable motorist began to honk his horn.

  March paused to light a cigarette. Casually he turned around as he threw away the match and glanced behind him. He spotted the contact man a few paces in the rear. The stranger also paused and began searching through his pockets.

  The attorney started walking, moving out of the direct stream of the crowd toward the curb where the flow was thinner. When he sensed that the contact man was directly behind him once more, March placed his hand in his jacket pocket. Grasping his wallet, he slowly withdrew it, covering the billfold with his hand and lowered it to his side.

  March dropped the wallet to the sidewalk.

  Continuing on his way, the attorney heard the contact man mutter to himself, as if in discovery, as he stooped to pick up the wallet.

  The impatient honking behind Pauline increased to a steady blaring of automobile horns. She had stopped at Barker’s command, and in succession he had snapped five pictures through the lowered window of the car. The shots recorded March with his wallet in his hand, dropping the wallet, the contact man picking up the wallet, the contact man placing the wallet in his own pocket, and a final picture of the two men as March continued walking straight ahead, and the contact turned in the opposite direction.

  The blasting of the horns rose to a frenzy and Pauline squirmed anxiously. “Okay!” Barker ordered, his voice sharp. “Get going!” He patted the camera.

  Convulsively, Pauline stomped her foot on the accelerator and the car leaped forward in a rocketing spurt of speed. “Jesus!” shouted Barker. Pauline—completely confused—pawed desperately at the steering wheel. Instantl
y the car swerved from its lane, careened across the street to crash head-on in the approaching traffic.

  With an exploding report on contact, followed by the rasp of rending steel, and the shattering sprinkle of splintering glass, the white convertible was ground beneath a heavy truck.

  March heard the accident, but did not stop to look back as he hurried down the street. The fumes of alcohol in his head had deadened the sounds until they were little more than mere noises.

  The jury had been out for exactly twenty-four hours.

  Both Los Angeles papers carried only a short story concerning the accident. After all, only one car and a truck had collided, and although the car had been nearly completely demolished and the two passengers seriously injured and unconscious—they were still alive. There was even hope that they might live.

  The following morning, however, at ten o’clock both Los Angeles papers were on the street with extra editions and screeching headlines:

  JURY FINDS IVY NOT GUILTY!

  EPILOGUE

  Two months are sixty-two days. Each day a spike. Each spike a wound. And from each wound drains the strength and pride of a man nailed to the cross of his conscience. His mind, speaking with an inescapable voice, chooses its own time to pronounce its dictums. When the echoes of the terrible voice pursue him it is useless to hide in the desert places of his soul. His spirit is exposed for all to see; his pain cannot be concealed from the judging glances of his fellow men; and his friends can only watch with pity.

  A man’s conscience is his own peer.

  John Barker, and his paramour, Pauline Morrisey, had lived. Regaining consciousness for the first time, nearly seventy-two hours after the accident, the reporter had leveled his accusations of bribery at the attorney—too late to change the verdict returned by the jury favoring Ivy Lorents, but not too late to break Cyrus March. Barker’s story, dictated from his bed in the hospital, was complete with copies of the photographs and a verbatim transcript of the tape recording. Pauline Morrisey was Barker’s collaborating witness.

  Under the pressure of the publicity brought by the headline story, and the continuing accusations of the Register, two investigations were launched simultaneously—one by the California State Bar Association, and the other by the District Attorney’s office.

  The findings of the bar association, while definite and final, were held in abeyance until after March’s trial. If March were convicted on the bribery—or attempted bribery charges—he would then be disbarred from practicing law in the state of California.

  March, in both investigations, had pleaded innocent—a point of law for the further protection of Ivy Lorents. But, in addition, March refused to defend himself. Waiving a jury trial, he preferred to accept the findings of the judge, the Honorable Samuel Ward Ettinger, of the Superior Court. This time the prosecution was personally conducted by Howard Canfield.

  Shamed and humiliated, Cyrus March had listened to the testimony offered by Jack Barker and Pauline Morrisey. Although the tape recording could not be offered in evidence, the actual live conversation—as listened to by the reporter and Pauline—and to which they could testify, was equally as damaging. And although a bitter fight could be waged on the acceptability of the photographs as evidence, March made no attempt to do so. It was as if he accepted with resignation and relief the punishment which he was facing.

  Bert Taylor, who had secured the services of Sammy Manheim to represent March, had been turned down in his effort to get March to fight the charges. Taylor pointed out to his friend and partner, “The car the man was driving was a stolen car. Canfield still can’t prove it was Nite who came to see you.” The contact man, from rogue’s gallery photographs, had been tentatively identified by Barker as Nicholas ‘Nickles’ Nite. Nite, with a long record as a confidence man, had disappeared—warned, perhaps, by the early blast of the newspaper story. And Nite had not been found by the searching authorities by the time of the trial.

  “It doesn’t matter who came to see me. Someone did.” March, confronted by Taylor’s unshaken faith, had attempted to explain. “I’m sorry… yes, and ashamed. But it was Ivy’s freedom… the rest of her life… which was important, and I’d probably do it again. I could gamble with my freedom, but not hers.” March had searched, then, for words to comfort his friend. “Don’t feel too bad, Bert, there’s a difference. Ivy was innocent. I knew she was innocent… and I couldn’t face the probability of her going to prison… serving a sentence she didn’t deserve.” A grim ghost of a smile twisted March’s lips. “The difference is… I’m guilty of what I did. So in my case, there’ll be no miscarriage of justice.”

  Taylor was forced to leave the matter there, but other friends of March’s were not. Among them Steve Murray, a young attorney beginning a criminal practice, living on modest and often uncollected fees. He admired March’s many triumphs. “Mr. March,” the young attorney began with some embarrassment, “I hope you don’t think I’m presuming…”

  “A friend never presumes,” March told him.

  Murray tugged thoughtfully at his tie. “I happen to know… I can’t tell you how, naturally… but all of Canfield’s efforts to tie Nite back to some member of the jury haven’t worked out. He can’t find any point of contact… or acquaintance between Nite and any of the jurymen. Not the slightest…”

  March nodded. “That’s entirely probable,” he agreed. “Nite would’ve been extremely cautious in covering his tracks. Or, there’s another possibility, too. I think you know what it is.”

  Murray wrinkled his forehead in thought. “You mean that Nite was pulling a con job? He had no connection?”

  “Once a con man—always a con man,” March replied. “He might never have had any contact with the jury… and never intended to make a payoff.” March rubbed his temples wearily. “Possibly he played me for a sucker, figuring that he had me with my back to the wall…”

  “If you thought of that, why’d you take the chance?”

  March didn’t reply to the direct question. Instead, he said, “Payoff or not, whether Nite had a contact on the jury or not, the charge is still attempted bribery.”

  But the waste, Steve Murray thought. If Nite had no connection, then the jury found Ivy innocent, anyway. It was unnecessary—all wasted.

  March remained steadfast in his refusal to defend himself, There was, however, a reason behind his decision. Upon his return with Ivy from Las Vegas, following the original appearance of the newspaper story containing Barker’s charges, March and Taylor had met for a hurried, late-night meeting in their offices. “Congratulations, Cyrus,” Taylor had shaken March’s hand. “You know I wish you and Ivy the best.”

  “Thanks,” March smiled. “It was a lot faster than we’d planned. But with Barker’s charges, it was better to be married right away.”

  Taylor had understood. With March’s marriage to Ivy, each could refuse, legally, to testify against the other. After a moment, Taylor had asked, “What’re you going to do about these allegations?”

  “Nothing,” March told him, “nothing at all.”

  “You’re just going to sit back and take it?” Taylor had been surprised.

  “Something like that, I suppose.” March lit a cigarette, and continued, thoughtfully, “There’s Ivy to consider. The ‘not guilty’ verdict was in… before the charges were made against me. There’s nothing the state can do to change that verdict… she can’t be put in double jeopardy. Willard can’t try her twice—unless the state can prove that she was never in jeopardy during the first trial.”

  Taylor nodded, closely following March’s reasoning. “If Ivy knew about the bribe, if she knew in advance that the jury verdict might be fixed, then she was never in jeopardy. Is that right?”

  “Exactly. Actually, she didn’t know anything about the bribe… any more than you did. But it’s up to Canfield to try to prove that she did know. If I keep quiet, refuse to say a word, and decline to take the stand—the state can’t prove a single thing against Iv
y. The ‘not guilty’ verdict has to remain.”

  “So far, so good, but what about you?” asked Taylor. “If you’re convicted, you’ll be ruined, Cyrus.”

  “No,” March replied reassuringly, “I won’t be ruined. Ivy’s innocent… and she’s free. And I’ll still have her.” He stood up and started for the door. “It’s late and I’m going home. My wife’s waiting for me.” He stood for a moment listening in his mind, savoring the words he had just spoken.

  Taylor had been unable to reply.

  Now, March stood straight and alone before the judge’s bench. At his request, neither Ivy nor Taylor was present at the sentencing. The courtroom was still, the doors closed to the public and the curiosity seekers. Only the representatives of the press were present; they sat waiting, their attention focused on the judge.

  Judge Ettinger looked down at the waiting prisoner. “Mr. March,” he asked, “do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?”

  “No, Your Honor, not at this time. But I may have a request to make later, if the court will be pleased to listen.”

  “The court will listen,” the judge replied gravely. Ettinger was a young man to be seated on the judge’s bench. Only a few years older than March, his eyes were blue and shrewd, and set in a bull-dog face. He picked up a paper from his desk, although he did not start to read from it. “I would like to preface my passing sentence with a few remarks,” the judge continued. “It is a day of sadness when a man—respected and admired at the bar—stands before the court convicted as a felon. In particular, when he is a man who has done much to help others, who has pleaded the law in protection of his fellow men. You, Mr. March, knowing your own rights to the fullest, have made no attempt to defend, explain, or mitigate the charges against you. Consequently, you leave this court no alternative.”

  March, face impassive, bowed his head in agreement. With a sigh, Ettinger began to read from his paper. “It is the judgment of this court that the prisoner Cyrus March, found guilty of attempted bribery of a jury, be conducted to the nearest penitentiary of the state of California and therein be confined for a period not less than one year and not to exceed five years. And to this confinement he is sentenced accordingly…” The judge’s voice continued with his instructions, and when he had concluded, he again looked at March.