Try Fear

by James Scott Bell

  “Well, I won’t kill baby seals.”

  “Do you think I would?” she said.

  “I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me,” I said.

  She put her chin in her hand and leaned on the table. “You fascinate me. What are you doing taking on misdemeanor deuces? You were with—who was it?”

  “Gunther, McDonough.”

  “Right. You’re a fortieth-floor guy. What’s this all about?”

  “The law is the law. Even for people like Carl Richess.”

  “But life’s so hard for a solo.”

  “Yes, but I have all the fruitcake I can eat.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “St. Monica’s is known for its fruitcake. Not that I’d recommend it.”

  “What is St. Monica’s?”

  “It’s where I’m living right now. It’s a Benedictine community. It’s a long story.”

  “You’re Catholic?” she said.

  “No, cynic.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That makes you a cynic, too.”

  Our drinks arrived. Kimberly lifted her glass. “Let’s drink to a healthy dose of cynicism, enough to keep us sane.” We clinked and drank.

  “So what was it like?” she said.

  “What was what like?”

  “Being on the other side. Being accused of murder. What was it like to be in jail?”

  “Not something you ever want to be in, Ms. Pincus.”

  “Call me Kimberly, Ty.”

  “You know they got viruses down there at the men’s jail they don’t even have names for yet. They put five people in a cell built for two. I got off easy, being a K-1, high risk. I had my own cell. The rest of the place, you know what it looks like? Remember in The Matrix? When Neo wakes up and sees that dark place housing all the human bodies? That’s what it’s like, only worse, because you’re not in suspended animation.”

  “And of course most people deserve to be there.”

  “They deserve to be housed like people, not dry goods.”

  “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

  I motioned with my thumb. “I can ask the waiter to bring over some milk of human kindness, if you want.”

  “I don’t want,” she said. “What good is kindness in a criminal courtroom?”

  She was starting to remind myself of me, whenever I get into a philosophical tangle with Father Bob or Pick McNitt.

  “Are you really as cutthroat as you pretend to be?” I said.

  “I can’t stand to lose. You beat me. I want to eat your heart.”

  “Say what?”

  “You know, the way the Mayans would eat the hearts of their enemies.”

  “I’m using mine right now, if that’s okay.”

  “Then how about something else?” she said. “You were one of the best trial lawyers in the city.”

  “Was?”

  “That was your rep. Now I think it must be justified. I can learn from you.”

  “You want trial lawyer lessons?”

  “Just between friends.”

  “I thought we were enemies. You know, eating my heart and all.”

  “I’m over that,” she said. “I think we’re going to be good friends.” She lingered over a sip of her drink. And smiled as she did.

  26

  “ALL RIGHT,” I said later, over fried mozzarella, “I’ll tell you the best piece of advice I ever got about being a trial lawyer. Be yourself.”

  “That’s it?” Kimberly said.

  “It’s more than you think. Or, actually, less. See, I saw you posing a lot in court.”

  She stiffened. For a second I thought she was going to take a bite out of her martini glass. But she came back to earth and said, “You think so?”

  “And the judge thought so, too. That’s probably why she was so hard on you. You’re pushy.”

  “Am I going to need another martini?”

  “No. But you can come off as arrogant.”

  “You’re just all compliments today, aren’t you?”

  “If you were to be yourself, you’d have any jury eating out of your hand. See, the greatest actor of all time was Spencer Tracy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know his work?”

  “Not really.”

  I did. Jacqueline and I used to watch old movies together. A lot. “Tracy was the best. Bogart said he was. Because you couldn’t see the wheels turning. And somebody asked Tracy what his secret was, and all he said was, be yourself and listen to the other actor. But lawyers want to get up in court and put on a show. If you really want to win, don’t make it about Kimberly Pincus. Make it about justice. Make it about the People. Make it about—why am I telling you all this? I’m giving away the store.”

  “I want to keep shopping,” she said. “I really want to keep shopping. What about dinner?”

  “Are you asking me out?” I said.

  “Boy, you really are good. How about it?”

  “Aren’t things moving a little fast?” I said. “I mean, I wouldn’t want you to think I was easy.”

  She laughed. Like she didn’t believe me.

  Personally, I didn’t know what to believe.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a red Bicycle deck of cards.

  “You said you were a gambler, remember?” She slipped the deck out.

  I had no idea where this was going. But I was both amused and interested.

  She gave the deck an overhand shuffle then plopped it on the table. “Cut a card,” she said.

  I ran my thumb halfway down the deck. I turned the cards over at that point, showing the jack of spades.

  “Not bad,” she said. “Now shuffle the cards and put them down.”

  I did a pretty smooth riffle-shuffle on the table. I pressed the cards together and pulled my hands back.

  Kimberly looked me in the eye as she reached for the cards. She cut and held a card up for me to see. Queen of diamonds.

  Then she looked at the card for the first time, as if she knew it would be a queen, king, or ace. Her smile was full of self-satisfaction. “The lesson is you shouldn’t gamble with me, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s study this a little further.”

  I picked up the cards and did a one-handed cut. Her eyes widened in appreciation.

  Here is what she didn’t know. I had a friend in law school who was a member of the Magic Castle, a private Hollywood nightclub housed in a Victorian mansion on Franklin. We would go and hang out there a lot, and I got interested in magic.

  He introduced me to the world champion magician. Johnny “Ace” Palmer was the first close-up magician to win the award. Nice guy, too. When he found out I was interested in learning some tricks, he told me to go get a book called The Royal Road to Card Magic, and concentrate on learning a few techniques.

  After I did, and spent a few weeks working on them, Johnny gave me a little coaching in the bar area of the Castle. That was the equivalent of Astaire helping a janitor learn a two-step. But I did learn.

  I had Kimberly shuffle the cards. I took the deck from her. “Well, let’s see what the top card is.”

  I turned the card over. Two of clubs. I turned it face down and placed it on the table. “That will be my card. That two of clubs. Remember that. Now let’s take a look at the next card.”

  I turned that card over, and it was the six of hearts. I turned it face down and placed it on the table in front of Kimberly. “That’s your card, the six of hearts. Put your finger on it.”

  She did.

  “Now, you saw me put the two of clubs in front of me, and the six of hearts in front of you, and you even have your finger on it. Let’s compare.”

  I picked my card up from the table and turned it over. Of course, it was the six of hearts.

  The look on her face was priceless. She turned over her card. Two of clubs.

  “How did you do that?” she said.

  “Very well,�
� I said.

  “No, come on.”

  “I’m afraid the magician’s code precludes me from sharing the secret. But the point is, I’m magic, and magic beats gambling every time.”

  “I think I like you,” she said.

  27

  ON FRIDAY, THE skies above L.A. were still dark. And bad things were happening.

  I should have read the signs.

  The night before, the cops were involved in a shoot-out in Northeast L.A., with the notorious Cypress Assassins gang.

  It was like something out of Tombstone.

  There was a drive-by, with some gangbangers in a car mowing down a forty-year-old veterano on Drew Street. He was holding a two-year-old girl’s hand at the time.

  The girl survived. He didn’t.

  Some bystanders who knew the guy saw this, and took out guns and fired at the car.

  Everybody is packing heat in this part of town, apparently.

  A twenty-two-year-old ’banger stumbled out of the car and returned fire with an AK-47. He killed two before getting back in the car and taking off.

  The cops arrived about three minutes later. One black-and-white after another. SWAT arrived, and ten blocks of city was cordoned off.

  They found the car, a white Nissan sedan, near Washington Irving Middle School. The driver again got out, this time with two others who were also armed, and the gun battle started.

  When it was all over, ten minutes later, three Assassins and one cop were dead.

  This sort of thing happens here and puts death in the air. It hangs there, like a mushroom cloud, and you think about diving for cover.

  It seemed to put Pick McNitt in one of his moods. Father Bob and I were at the Sip when Pick said, “You know what I hate more than anything in the world? People who use begs the question when they mean asks the question. That’s not what it means! It’s a logical fallacy. To beg the question means you have avoided the question. I hate that!”

  “You hate that more than anything in the world?” Father Bob said.

  “At this moment in time, yes. You can only hate in the present moment. And I’ll tell you something else I hate. When the morning shows say ‘Good morning.’ ”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes! Stupid! Three thousand people die in a tsunami in the Philippines, and Meredith Vieira goes to the reporter on the scene and says, ‘She’s covering the terrible tragedy there. Good morning, Ann.’ And the reporter goes, ‘Good morning, Meredith. Yes, bodies littered everywhere in the aftermath…’ Just get to the story! It’s not a good morning! I hate that.”

  “You are on a hate binge today,” Father Bob said.

  “If you don’t hate something you’re not alive.”

  “God hates, too.”

  Pick looked stunned.

  “ ‘Do not swear falsely, the Lord says. This I hate.’ Book of Zechariah.”

  I said, “That means he hates half the witnesses who testify in court.”

  “And all congressmen,” Pick said.

  “Not so fast,” Father Bob said. “He loves the sinner. It’s the sin he hates.”

  “Fantasy,” Pick said.

  “How do you even know what hate is?” Father Bob said. “You must have love to have hate. You must know what love is to know what hate is. You must have good to know evil.”

  “I do know all these things.”

  “But how?”

  “Because I sense ’em,” Pick said. “The way I can tell yellow from blue. I can’t prove to you yellow exists—we have to see it together. So love and justice are the same. We see ’em, and distinguish ’em from hate and injustice.”

  “What’s there to tell us our senses are correct?”

  “Experience,” said Pick. “We’ve all figured out a way to get along with each other.”

  “Tell that to the gangs,” I said. “They’re killing cops and each other.”

  “It’s the way of all flesh,” Pick said. “There is nothing to save us.”

  “Love saves,” Father Bob said.

  Pick flicked his hand, as if batting away a fly.

  Father Bob said, “ ‘The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one. Yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.’ ”

  Pick just looked at Father Bob, who seems to pull these things out of thin air. You can argue with philosophy, but poetry is another matter.

  Then Pick said, “ ‘I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to nature, art. I warmed both hands before the fire of life. It sinks, and I am ready to depart.’ ”

  I was afraid Pick was dangerously close to one of his episodes. Every now and then he went off like a cherry bomb. It would take days to put the pieces back together.

  So I said, “Let me contribute a thought.”

  They both looked at me. Incredulously, I might add.

  I said, “ ‘I do not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.’ ”

  They said nothing.

  Then Father Bob started laughing. Pick scowled but at least didn’t launch.

  Then my phone played “Potato Head Blues.” I answered.

  “Help.” The voice was barely a whisper.

  “Who is it?” I said.

  “Oh God, help.”

  “Kate?”

  “Carl’s dead. Oh, dear God, help me.”

  28

  CARL’S APARTMENT WAS on Havenhurst in West Hollywood. The building was Spanish revival style. A throwback to the 1920s, when movies couldn’t talk and the cops were as crooked as an English waiter’s teeth.

  The LAPD is a whole lot more professional now, so I was not surprised by the efficient police presence on the ground floor. I told a uniform I was the family lawyer and showed him my Bar card. He told me I could go in.

  Kate was sitting in a wingback chair in the foyer. Slumped. Eric was on his knees, his arm around her.

  “Oh Ty!” she said when she saw me. I went to her and took her hand.

  “They wanted to ask Mom questions,” Eric said, “but she said she wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Is there someone in charge here?” I asked.

  “A detective,” Eric said. “He’s in the apartment. 102.”

  Kate said, “I don’t know what to do, Ty.”

  “Give me a minute.” I walked down the hall and found 102, which was yellow-taped. Another uniformed officer met me there. I told him who I was. He went inside and a moment later a plainclothes came out to the hallway. He had dark curly hair and a Roman nose. About my height. Brown, intelligent eyes. Mid-fifties.

  He shook my hand. “My name’s Zebker. You’re the family lawyer?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How well do you know the mother?”

  “Not very. I was retained to help Carl in a DUI.”

  “Is she strong? Emotionally?”

  “Why?”

  “There are some details about the death that are not very pleasant. It might be better coming from you. I can give the generic. It’ll all come out in the news sooner or later.”

  “All right. What was it?”

  “A nine-millimeter in the mouth. Ugly.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Was there a note or anything?”

  “I have to reserve that information for now.”

  “Come on, Detective.”

  “We’ll follow procedure here. Right now my concern is for the mother. She’s pretty upset.”

  “There will be an autopsy, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let me talk to her. And I might talk to a few of the residents.”

  “Now hold on,” Zebker said. “We’re conducting an investigation.”

  “So am I.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I want to know what happened.”

  “You’ll find out when we tell you.”

  “Why don’t we just cooperate?”

  Zebker looked down the hall
way, where a few people were milling around. “I don’t want you plodding through my crime scene.”

  “Detective,” I said. “I don’t plod. I used to plod. I gave it up.”

  He didn’t smile.

  “And as you know,” I said, “you cannot prevent me from questioning anybody I want to question, unless you’re holding them as a material witness.”

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “It’s the law.”

  “Listen to me carefully. You try to question anybody before I do, I’m going to arrest you. That clear?”

  “Detective Zebker—”

  “That’s it. Now please go talk to the mother and take her home. I’ll be in touch about the autopsy.”

  “How about I take a look inside?”

  For a moment I thought Zebker was going to yellow-tape my mouth.

  I left before he could.

  29

  I HAD TO tell Kate. I was glad Eric was there, to hold her up.

  “There’s no other way to say this,” I said. “It looks like Carl killed himself.”

  A shudder ran down her body. Like electric ripples. Then she convulsed into tears.

  “Take her home,” I told Eric. “If you have a sedative, give it to her. I’ll come by later and tell you what I can find out.”

  “Why why why?” Kate said, through sobs.

  Good question. She deserved an answer.

  30

  AFTER ERIC TOOK Kate home, I hung around outside the apartment building.

  Zebker did not want me sniffing for witnesses. But what if I just sidled up to one? Any law against sidling?

  What would a judge say?

  The First Amendment certainly preserves the right of people to peaceably sidle.

  I watched the small crowd on the sidewalk. The people were a typical L.A. knot. Different kinds, shades, and attitudes. A short woman with black hair, wearing a blouse with jungle foliage print, was talking to a guy who looked Filipino. He wore glasses with black frames.

  “Was the meat a little gamey last night?” the woman said.

  The guy shrugged. “You do what you got to do.”

  “But it should have been fine.”

  “Did you cook it slow?” I said.

  They both looked at me.

  “Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing,” I said. “Slow cooking, that’s best for… what was it?”