Reckless Disregard

by Robert Rotstein

  “Objection,” Frantz says. “Violates Mr. Bishop’s right of privacy. It’s offensive to ask a man about his religion.”

  “Sustained,” the judge says.

  “Are you aware, sir, that the penalty for perjury in the state of California is a felony punishable by a maximum of four years in the county jail?” I ask.

  Bishop keeps his body still, doesn’t even blink. Only his mouth moves. “Whatever it is, it’s not relevant to me, Mr. Stern, because I’ve told the truth.”

  “Last question, Mr. Bishop,” I say. “Where’s your wife?”

  “Pardon me, sir?” he says, twisting his shoulders as if trying to loosen a kink in his back muscles. For the first time this morning, he’s nonplussed.

  “I asked you, Mr. Bishop, where your wife is. Because if you have this wonderful marriage, wonderful family, if you’ve suffered such grave harm at the hands of my client, why isn’t your wife of forty years here to support you? I’d think she’d be in the first row right behind you. Where are your children and grandchildren?”

  It doesn’t bother me that the judge sustains Frantz’s shouted objection. All I care about is that the reporters are still pounding on their electronic devices.

  “Nothing further, Your Honor,” I say.

  When Bishop steps down, Frantz announces in a grandiose tone that the defense rests.

  “All right, Mr. Stern,” the judge says. “Be prepared to put on your case after the lunch break.”

  I turn and look out at the gallery. My key witness—my only witness—isn’t here in court. My imploring eyes fall on Ed Diamond, who’s still sitting in his chair. He knows what I’m asking, because he shakes his head and mouths the words, “No fucking way, Parky.”

  I labor in the empty juror’s room while Brenda runs to the courthouse cafeteria to bring us some lunch. As she did yesterday, she returns with an assortment of inedible fare—an overripe banana that’s more black than yellow, a cold roast beef sandwich with wilted lettuce on desiccated whole-wheat bread, a carton of low-fat blueberry yoghurt that’s a month past the expiration date, and an extra-large cup of bitter drip coffee. The anti-anxiety meds have destroyed my appetite, so I take only the coffee, but Brenda insists that I eat something, virtually force-feeding me some of the sandwich. She swallows a few spoonsful of yoghurt without enthusiasm. Neither of us dares touch the banana. We don’t talk about this morning’s testimony. Especially in this age of glitz and celebrity and meaningless sound bites, image can trump the truth, and that’s what happened when Bishop usurped control of the courtroom and through his kinetic personality single-handedly undid the damage that Boardwalk Freddy did to his case. So we go over our direct examination of Clifton Gold and hope that his wife Marina really will get him to court in the next few minutes.

  Outside in the courtroom, there are footsteps and the creaking of folding chairs and voices that multiply and rise and fall and comingle so that individual conversations are indiscernible. It’s the sound of a matinee audience returning after intermission, formal and awkward before the show started but now relaxed and confident. I open the door slightly and peer into the courtroom. He’s here—Clifton Stanley Gold, dressed in an elegant gray silk suit and white turtleneck. He’s supported on one side by an elegant black beech-wood cane, and on the other by his wife Marina, who in her vanilla silk blouse and black slacks would look very nice but for the vicious scowl on her collagen-enhanced lips. I go over and take Gold’s hand, a soft touch rather than a handshake, because he seems so brittle I worry that even the slightest squeeze will break his bones.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say.

  He bows slightly. “In the words of Aristotle, ‘At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.’ I have a duty to tell what I know.”

  “Thanks for bringing him,” I say to Marina.

  Her indelible scowl deepens. Without a word, she crosses her arms and, diva-like, turns her back on me.

  Brenda takes Gold to the assistant’s bench immediately behind us so that he doesn’t have to walk far to get to the witness stand. Ten minutes before we’re supposed to start, Bishop and Frantz come into the courtroom, smiling as if they’d just topped off nine holes of golf with a country-club lunch. Bishop doesn’t look our way, so I don’t know if he notices Gold, much less recognizes him. Lovely follows thirty seconds later, but she’s not smiling. Right behind her are a sheepish Brighton and a recalcitrant Ed Diamond. Ed and Brighton take the same seats on my side of the courtroom.

  At one twenty-nine, the courtroom doors open, and a tall man walks in. It takes me a moment to recognize him as Nate Ettinger. He’s again dressed like the professor he is, in a camel-hair coat, navy-blue slacks, powder-blue cotton shirt, and a red bow tie.

  I nudge Brenda. “What’s he doing here?”

  “No idea. But now you can call him as a witness. Didn’t you once say that you don’t have to subpoena a witness who shows up in court?”

  She’s right on the law but not on strategy. “It’s never going to happen. He’s so scared he’ll testify to anything just to please Bishop.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Fine, but I’m the one with the law degree.”

  She shrugs, but from the blasé pirouette that follows, I can tell that it was a dismissive, not a contrite, shrug.

  Millie the clerk walks in, followed by the judge, who nods at me as soon as she takes the bench.

  I go to lectern, but instead of addressing the judge, I look at Bishop. “The defense calls Clifton Stanley Gold.”

  Because the ceiling lights are reflecting off Bishop’s lenses, I don’t actually see his eyes widen, but I know they have because the black frames move visibly up and back and stay there until his jaw slackens. As Brenda helps Gold circumnavigate the boxes and tables and desks that pose hazardous obstacles on his way to the witness stand, Bishop whispers to Frantz, his mouth moving like a manic auctioneer’s.

  “I object to this witness,” Frantz said. “We received no notice at all that he was going to be called.”

  “Is this true, Mr. Stern?” the judge asks.

  “Yes, Your Honor, but we found him about the time plaintiff found Luther Frederickson, who wasn’t disclosed to us and yet who was allowed to testify.”

  She shakes her head. “Mr. Stern, I don’t think—”

  A lawyer should never interrupt the judge, but our case turns on this moment. “The timing doesn’t matter anyway,” I say. “This witness is being called to impeach Mr. Bishop’s testimony this morning, and under the rules I had no obligation to disclose him.”

  She takes a breath to speak but thinks better of it. She shuts her eyes for a moment. “Very well, counsel. But the testimony better be solely for impeachment.” She glances over at Frantz apologetically.

  Meanwhile, Gold has completed his arduous journey to the stand. He was a slight man in his prime, and with the shrinkage from age, his head barely clears the railing. I can see only his nose, his thick bifocals, the ugly growth on his brow, and his mottled bald skull with its dried-dandelion fringe. But when he swears to tell the truth, his voice fills the room.

  The gallery is silent at first. Most people don’t recognize Gold’s face or even his name—he hasn’t had an acting role in twelve years and isn’t wearing the light-brown toupee that covered his head in a mini-pompadour when he performed in sitcoms and on game shows. But there are whispers of recognition from the older spectators when I elicit testimony about his Tony Award in the early sixties for playing the lead role in a modern version of Timon of Athens, and a second Tony as a featured performer in a revival of South Pacific, and finally oohs of surprise when he mentions his TV roles and his stint on the Hollywood Squares. And then I spend time focusing on his career as an acting instructor. The list of well-known stars that he’s taught is massive; four of his students have won Oscars, sixteen have won Emmys, and another eight have won Tonys. After every third question, I look at Bishop, who obsessively stre
tches his neck and pulls his shoulders back and down, elongating his spine, as if he’s in the midst of a Pilates workout. His jaw is clenched, and his fists balled up in rage. I can’t let myself forget how dangerous this man is.

  “Do you know William Bishop?” I ask.

  “Once upon a time I did. Billy Bishop was one of my acting students.”

  “When was that?”

  “The late nineteen seventies.”

  “Who else was in his acting class?”

  He names twelve more people, three of whom went on to have successful acting careers. It’s a helpful response, because in one sentence he both bolsters his credentials and confirms that he has the keenest of memories. Then he pauses—for drama, I hope, but then I begin to worry, because he’s scanning the room as if confused—until his eyes fall on Bishop. “Also in that acting class was Paula McGrath. Better known as Felicity McGrath.”

  The spectators shuffle in their chairs, trying so hard not to react that at some point there’s a collective exhalation of air that sounds percussive. I haven’t taken my eyes off Bishop since I asked the question. He’s staring at Gold not with malevolence but with a kind of basset-eyed embarrassment, and now he looks exactly like hangdog Lou Frantz, who’s sitting in his chair fuming, ineffectual. Lovely Diamond is looking up at me with what I interpret as reluctant pride. Or maybe that’s how I want her to react, to have her think I’m the primal male who’s overcome her resistance by sheer force. And then I catch Bishop silently mouthing some words to Gold.

  “Your Honor, Mr. Bishop is trying to communicate with the witness during my direct examination,” I say. “I object to any attempt to intimidate Mr. Gold.”

  Frantz jumps out of his chair and shakes a finger at me, but before he can speak, Gold says, “Billy . . . Mr. Bishop . . . wasn’t threatening me, Mr. Stern.”

  “Then what was he doing?” I ask.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

  He looks at me with disappointment, but takes a labored breath that seems to make his whole body shudder. “He mouthed the words ‘Please, you don’t understand.’”

  “How do you know that’s what he said?”

  “My hearing has deteriorated over the past years. I can see facial expression and body movement, still hear emotional intonation in voices, but sometimes the words are unclear. I’ve learned to lip-read.”

  I question him in more detail about Bishop and McGrath, establishing that they often arrived at and left acting class together, that they performed on stage as partners, and that they played love scenes opposite each other. As was Gold’s wish, I don’t ask him to speculate about an actual romantic relationship. I pass the witness.

  Lou Frantz’s cross-examination can make a saint look like a serial killer, and he won’t hold back because of Gold’s advanced age. But this time, he makes not a scratch in Gold’s pristine testimony. His attempt to make Gold seem like a disgruntled has-been, bitter about Bishop’s failure to help him, backfires when Gold testifies that he turned down offers to act in three Parapet Media movies because he didn’t like the scripts. Frantz tests Gold’s memory with rapid-fire questions about the past, but the answers only confirm that Gold has an acute mind. When Frantz suggests that Gold has come to court and lied about Bishop because he wants the media attention, Gold bursts out in a phlegmy laugh and says, “I was a working actor seen by millions of people for five and a half decades, Mr. Frantz. You can still see me on the classic movie and TV cable stations once or twice a week. I’m eighty-seven years old. The last thing I need or want is more fame, not to mention that I wouldn’t perjure myself to get it.” With a lilt in his voice he says, “In fact, I wouldn’t perjure myself for any reason.”

  Frantz finally gives up, one of the few times I’ve seen it. He leans over and confers with Lovely. When she slides him a Post-It note, he nods and asks, “Mr. Gold, when was the first time you communicated with Mr. Parker Stern, Poniard’s attorney?” It’s an afterthought question, one that Lovely probably suggested only because I scored points asking something similar of Boardwalk Freddy Frederickson.

  Gold says, “Well, I e-mailed Mr. Stern through his website and then he came to my studio, and . . .” He pitches forward and gropes for his cane, which falls to the floor outside the witness box. An alert Brenda retrieves it for him. Leaning on the cane for support, he looks at me, stricken.

  “Did you understand my question, Mr. Gold?” Frantz says.

  Gold sits and waits, his eyes glued to mine. If I thought he looked old before, now he looks a hundred.

  My brain compresses and throbs, my past and my future two sides of a vise crushing the present beyond recognition. I wish I had that cane because I’m about to swoon. But I brought Gold here, exposed him to this question, and I’m not going to have a good man perjure himself for me. Even though we could get away with it. So I force myself to say in as firm a tone as I can muster, “Please answer Mr. Frantz’s question, Mr. Gold. Fully and accurately.”

  He nods in gratitude. “I first met Mr. Stern in nineteen eighty or nineteen eighty-one. His mother brought him to my acting studio. He was at the time a working child actor who went by the name Parky Gerald. He later became a big star.”

  As the years have gone by, I’ve tried to convince myself that the public has forgotten me, that my efforts to hide my past have been unnecessary acts of egotism. The reaction in the courtroom—the omigods, the isn’t he dead?s, the holy fucking craps—prove otherwise. Clifton Stanley Gold remains on the witness stand with eyes closed, as if not seeing me will shut out the noise and the guilt. Marina Shalamitski still scowls. Bishop and Frantz huddle together, undoubtedly trying to find significance for their case in what Gold just revealed. Lovely Diamond gapes at me with her beautiful mouth half-open, her eyes filling with tears.

  Brenda puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not sure what’s going on. You were the kid in The Boatman?”

  Without taking my eyes off of Lovely, who’s looking back and wiping away the tears, I nod.

  There’s a loud boom up front, and the room quiets down, all eyes searching for the bomb. Judge Grass, who doesn’t have a gavel on the bench—most judges don’t these days—slammed a thick volume of California Rules of Court on her desk as hard as she could, and she’s poised to do it again.

  “There will be silence in this courtroom, or I’ll call the bailiffs to clear it,” she says. She looks at me. “Let me get this straight, Mr. Stern. You were the child actor Parky Gerald? The kid who divorced his mother and disappeared?”

  “That would seem to be an accurate statement, Your Honor.” I still can’t bring myself to simply answer yes.

  “Heavens,” Judge Grass says, her sparrow’s face suddenly moony and girlish and wistful, emotions I thought genetically beyond her reach. “My sister Julia had such a crush on that kid, posters in her room, fan magazines. I was two years older, but even I thought he was . . . Julia passed four years ago, and I . . .” She gathers herself and says in her normal peremptory voice, “Any further questions of the witness, Mr. Frantz?”

  “Not at this time, Your Honor,” he says in a gruff, yet befuddled tone.

  “Mr. Gold, you’re excused,” the judge says. “We’ll take a ten-minute recess. When we come back I expect that everyone will have settled down. I won’t tolerate any further noise or outbursts. We have a trial to finish.” She leaves the bench and disappears into chambers before we can stand.

  Brenda waits for our opponents to exit the courtroom, says she has to follow up on something, and leaves as well. I sit at counsel table for a minute, two minutes, five, pretending to make notes and to thumb through court pleadings. Finally, I stand and turn toward the gallery. Not a single spectator has left the courtroom. The reporters, the regulars, the clerk, the bailiff, the cosplayers, Ed and Brighton Diamond—they’re all staring at me.

  Throughout the ten-minute break, which turns into twenty minutes, reporter Brandon Placek taunts me merci
lessly with questions about my childhood. Turns out he’s the right age to be a fan but wasn’t. It doesn’t stop him from searching the IMDb website and asking me about all my flops, about my “divorce” from my mother, about my whereabouts between my disappearance at fifteen and my starting law school. This is the real reason why I hid my identity all these years—I don’t want anyone to associate me with Quiana Gottschalk and the Church of the Sanctified Assembly. Ed Diamond, who’s sitting two rows in front of Placek, finally turns around and tells him to shut the fuck up.

  Brenda almost sprints in, her pumps clacking on the industrial linoleum.

  “Where have you been?” I ask.

  “Talking to . . . come into the jury room.”

  “We’re about to start.”

  “Come with me now!” She grabs my arm and pulls me up. Alone in the jury room is Professor Nate Ettinger, sitting in a plastic shell chair with aluminum handles. He stands when he sees me, tugs on the sleeves of his coat, tightens his bow tie, and snaps to attention.

  “I want to testify and tell the judge what I know,” he says.

  Brenda, who’s twirling a strand of black hair around her index finger, tries to suppress a grin.

  “Look, Mr. Ettinger, you shouldn’t testify just because my assistant pressured you to.”

  “Brenda didn’t pressure me to do anything. I approached her. That’s why I came down to court, to see if maybe I should . . . And then Clifton Stanley Gold gets up there, and as elderly and frail as he is, faces down Bishop. I . . . I couldn’t live with myself if I walked out of this courtroom still a coward. It’s time to stop hiding from that man. Too many years.” He makes an effort to meet my gaze, to appear steadfast, but his irises wobble with indecision. He could make a disastrous witness. I dislike his academic arrogance, his puffed show-biz credentials, his contrived professor’s wardrobe, and Judge Grass will probably dislike him for the same reasons. Lou Frantz smells fear like an alpha coyote, and he’ll destroy Ettinger if he detects even a trace of trepidation.