Try Fear

by James Scott Bell

  “Dinner is on me, by the way,” Kimberly said.

  “Are you trying to charm me?” I said.

  “Absolutely. How’m I doing?”

  “I believe you’re doing fine.”

  42

  KIMBERLY SAID, “I really was sorry to hear about your client.”

  “You never know what’s going on inside people, do you?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Which leads to my question,” I said. “What’s going on inside Kimberly Pincus?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It’s my only protection.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” she said, running a finger along the rim of her martini glass. “New Jersey, privilege, all the best schooling. Maybe that’s why I feel a need to prove myself.”

  “Need?”

  “My dad was a Chicago Bears fan. Remember Dick Butkus?”

  “Sure, I know about Butkus.”

  “My dad used to tell me a story about him, and why he was so great. He said that Dick Butkus used to dream about hitting a quarterback so hard his head would fly off. Butkus wanted to see a quarterback’s head rolling along the field. That’s what Butkus lived for.” She looked down into her drink, as if it held the memory. “That’s how my dad raised us, me and my two sisters. Three girls, but he made sure we always finished first or feel like we’d…”

  Her voice trailed off. Her eyes stayed down. “Anyway, I go to court, I feel a little like Butkus.” She raised her head and looked at me. “Strange?”

  “I think I understand completely,” I said.

  “I think you do. I think you’re exactly the same way when you walk in a courtroom.”

  “Nah, I’m as gentle as a kitten.”

  “Yeah, right.” She took a sip of her drink and said, “Why don’t we finish these and go to my place?”

  “Your place?”

  “I’ll whip something up for us to eat. If I didn’t go into law I was going to go to culinary school.”

  “Things are moving pretty fast here.”

  “This is L.A.,” she said. “If I wanted slow I’d be DA in South Dakota.”

  43

  KIMBERLY’S DOWNTOWN LOFT had a corner view, with the Disney Concert Hall on one side, and on the other the Music Center and Los Angeles Superior Court. Culture and clash, high art and high stakes, all within walking distance.

  The interior of the loft was as perfect as Kimberly seemed to be. Nothing out of place. I looked for one errant pillow, a mislaid magazine. What I found was immaculate interior design—cool urban and tastefully eclectic.

  Eye catching on the crème-colored walls were a series of framed black-and-white photographs of New York City.

  Kimberly handed me a glass of white wine as I perused the photos.

  “Looks like a 1950s theme,” I said.

  She nodded. “I love New York in that period. You know, Madison Avenue, Plaza Hotel, Ayn Rand.”

  “Ayn Rand? Atlas Shrugged?”

  “Read it?”

  “Got halfway through and decided life was too short.”

  “I’ll let you borrow my copy.”

  “Is it hardcover?”

  “Yes.”

  I shook my head. “It’d tip over my trailer.”

  “Trailer?”

  “Kind of a long story.”

  “We’ve got nothing but time,” she said, then went to the kitchen. And proceeded to cook up something Thai as we chatted about law and trial work and our recent pasts.

  I told her about Jacqueline and the sisters of St. Monica’s and my time away from the trajectory of the ambitious lawyer. She told me about Aaron, who she was going to marry only three years ago, a big-time litigator in San Diego. But he had cut it off, another woman it was, and she hadn’t been serious since. Work was work, easy to get lost in, but in some ways it made her who she was, and isn’t that like you, too, Ty? Isn’t that the rush that makes you feel alive, when you stand in front of a jury and hear them give you a guilty? And no, Kimberly, I like not guilty a whole lot better, let’s agree to disagree and this is about the best meal I’ve had in Los Angeles.

  After dinner we sipped a brandy and sat on the sofa and listened to Charlie Parker.

  Kimberly Pincus slipped her arm around my shoulder.

  I don’t remember who made the first move. Maybe it was a tie. But a soft, warm kiss followed. Naturally, she did it well.

  My body was a box of fireworks.

  If I’d been the Ty Buchanan of college days, or law school, or the first heady years of high-stakes litigation at Gunther, McDonough—had I been that Buchanan, this would have been no contest. That Buchanan would have taken hammer and tongs and gone at Kimberly Pincus with the abandon they call reckless.

  But I was not him. Not anymore. Not after Jacqueline. That’s just the way it was, not that I was some paragon of manly virtue. Old Buchanan was on the bench, yelling to get back in the game. Down, boy, down.

  “What’s wrong?” Kimberly whispered, her breath caressing my lips.

  “Too fast,” I said. “Even for L.A.”

  “Stay.” She kissed me again. Sparklers started going off.

  I pulled back. “If I was a jury, I’d give you the verdict.”

  She smiled.

  “I need more time to deliberate,” I said.

  She brushed her lips over mine.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I said. “About my past as a serial killer and game show host—”

  “We can talk about that over breakfast.”

  I stood. I was a roman candle. A spinner. A Tasmanian devil. “I don’t know any smooth way to do this.”

  Kimberly stood. “Do what?”

  “Slip out the door.”

  “Did you enjoy tonight?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “It doesn’t have to end.” She draped her arms around my neck.

  “Think of what we’ll have to look forward to.”

  She kissed me again. Fireworks again. The whole box at once. I was overwhelmed by colors and the oohing and ahhing of the crowd. Last time anything close to this happened, it was with a reporter too soon after Jacqueline’s death. And it didn’t end well for either of us.

  I came up for air and made my mouth say, “Good night, Kimberly.”

  “Let’s do this again soon,” she said.

  I managed to get to the elevator without passing out. As I got on, I thought about falling, as in somebody cutting the cable and down I’d go. And then I’d look up from the smashed wreckage, unable to move, and I’d see Kimberly Pincus way up on the top floor, holding a pair of heavy-duty cable cutters.

  And all the time, lying there, I’d think, Let’s take that ride again.

  44

  FATHER BOB WAS sitting outside his trailer, smoking a cigar, when I got back to St. Monica’s.

  “Out late?” he said.

  “Yes, Mother,” I said.

  “Cigar?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  He snipped an Arturo Fuente for me, then offered a light. I sat on the other canvas chair. We smoked in silence for a moment.

  “Ty, there’s been another e-mail,” Father Bob said.

  I paused with the Fuente halfway to my mouth.

  “It came in an hour ago. She had me look at it. We’re the only ones who know. I’d rather not have Sister Hildegarde, shall we say, upset.”

  “What’d this one say?”

  “It’s not so much what it said, but what it showed.” He tilted his head back and looked at the sky. “Why do people still not see the depravity of man?”

  “What was it?” I said, no longer interested in cigars or theology.

  “There was an attached drawing, showing a vile act on a nun. Along with some doggerel. ‘A young nun from Nantucket’ and so on. Foul.”

  “Same e-mail address?”

  “Yes. Oh, and the nun in the drawing, it looks like her. Like Sister Mary. Almost as if someone worke
d off her picture.”

  My thumb indented the cigar against my first two fingers. I threw it on the ground. “Where is she?”

  “She’s praying. For him.”

  “For the guy?”

  “That’s what we do,” he said.

  “That’s not what I do.” I took out my phone.

  Jonathan Blake Blumberg did not give his private number to just anyone. B-2, as he is known in the entrepreneurial business world, is a friend of mine. It happened when I helped him with a divorce problem. He took a liking to me, which is a good thing, because he’s very handy to have around. He produces prototypes and gadgets in a never-ending stream, some of which I get to play with.

  You can have your Steve Jobs or your Bill Gates. B-2 is like them, only cooler.

  “How you doing, Ty?” Even his voice sounded like it worked out.

  I told him what was going on with the e-mails. B-2 has a team of R&D geeks who were writing computer code in their playpens. He told me to forward the messages to him and he’d get somebody on it.

  After the call I left Father Bob and went to the chapel. Where I found Sister Mary kneeling behind a pew.

  I slipped into it.

  She looked up, crossed herself, and said, “Do you know?”

  “Father Bob told me. How you holding up?”

  “I can’t imagine why this is happening. It’s awful. It’s…”

  I wanted to pull her to me and hold her. But the veil was between us and I’d promised to act appropriately. I let my hate for the stalker take over. What I wanted to do to him should not be mentioned anywhere near a church.

  “Maybe down at the homeless shelter,” I said. “Somebody who took a liking to you.”

  “That could be any number of people.”

  “I’m getting B-2 on it, I want you to know. He can do more than the police. If this guy can be found, he’ll find him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “Keep your voice down, please,” she said. “He is someone who needs help, he—”

  “Now don’t start in with that Thomas Merton stuff, okay? I can’t—”

  “Stuff? It’s not stuff. It’s what makes us human.”

  “When it comes to humanity,” I said, “I’m more of a law-of-club-and-fang guy.”

  “What?”

  “From Call of the Wild. Jack London. If I was standing on a street corner in Louisville, or anywhere else, that’s what I’d see. Everybody out for himself, and ready to take away what’s yours. That’s my revelation.” And had been ever since I’d been beat up looking for Jacqueline’s killers.

  Sister Mary looked at her hands. I felt like a jerk.

  “Can you hold up?” I said.

  She nodded. “As long as it’s just e-mail, but…”

  I waited. She looked at me in the dim light of the chapel. Half her face was in shadow. “We both know it’s not going to end at e-mails, don’t we?”

  45

  PROBABLY NOT.

  Which was no doubt why I had trouble sleeping. Thinking of that scum out there, laughing. And then wondering about Merton and how Sister Mary could buy into it and why couldn’t I? Or did I even want to? And in all of that the memory of Thai food and wine and the smell of Kimberly’s hair.

  And what did Plato ever have to say about Thai food and soft kisses in the night? The old fart.

  I finally drifted off looking at a fingernail of moon outside the small window in my trailer bedroom.

  It felt like I got ten minutes’ worth. A little after three my phone jolted me awake.

  It was Kate Richess.

  “They’ve arrested Eric,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Arrested Eric? What for?”

  No answer. I could hear her labored breath.

  “Kate, what was he arrested for?”

  “For… killing his brother.”

  I didn’t say anything. My thoughts weren’t exactly jelling.

  “What can we do?” Kate said.

  “Where is he?”

  “Jail, downtown. He asked me to call you. I’m sorry I woke you. I just can’t sleep, I can’t do anything.…”

  “I’ll go see him tomorrow.”

  “Don’t let this happen, Ty. I can’t lose my other son.”

  I wish I could have waved a magic wand for her. But this wasn’t sounding good at all. Brother killing brother, that was the oldest crime on the books. Cain killed Abel. After that, Cain was a goner. Convicted and sentenced. The boy never had a chance.

  Lawyers hadn’t been invented yet.

  46

  IN THE EARLY afternoon I drove downtown with Sister Mary.

  The Twin Towers Correctional Facility is on Bauchet Street, across from the Men’s Central Jail. A newer and more secure housing than Central, it is usually reserved for the more troublesome inmates, like heavy gangbangers, or those with severe medical needs.

  They call the design of the place “panoptic,” which basically means they can always see you. You can’t always see them.

  Creepy.

  We entered the lobby and walked past the long row of cement benches, where the public waits to be called up for visitations. Sister Mary sat on one of the benches and took out a book.

  I went to the front window and gave them my attorney slip, which had Eric’s name and booking number on it, and my Bar card and driver’s license. I signed in, and the large deputy with arms like logs said, “Fourth floor.”

  I walked through the security scanner—they don’t allow any electronics or cell phones—bringing only my briefcase. Then I walked down the long corridor, alone but not alone.

  There are cameras everywhere and hidden glass through which you can be observed. Even though I didn’t see another human body, I knew I was being watched. The institutional yellow walls, sort of early vomit, felt even more constrictive than normal.

  There’s an antiseptic feeling to the place, no personality. You would think an inmate would prefer to be housed here, where you might only have one other cell mate, as opposed to four or five at Men’s Central. But the inmates actually like the camaraderie, if you can call it that, at Central. Here it’s like being housed in a Soviet prison.

  Or a refrigerator. The air conditioning is always amped up. They could store meat as well as inmates. And some of the deputy sheriffs, who run the place, don’t really care to know the difference.

  At the end of the corridor I came to the elevators, got in, and went up to the fourth floor. I turned right and went through the heavy metal doors and toward the attorney booth at the end. I walked by the bank of phones where the public talks to their inmates on the other side of the Plexiglas. You can see through the glass into the day room, where blue-clad inmates wander or sit, some looking at nothing, some playing cards. Some thinking, no doubt, about who they are going to hurt when they get out.

  Across from the phone bank I punched the intercom button and announced my presence. Then I went into the open attorney booth, which is about twice the size of a phone booth, and sat down on my side of the Plexiglas.

  There are no handsets in the attorney booth. A little microphone picks up everything on each side. On the inmates’ side there is a round bolt, the “doughnut,” in the middle of the table, to which they are shackled.

  On the shelf in front of me some goober had left an empty Skittles bag and Juicy Fruit wrapper. This could have come from a slob attorney or even a member of the public. They leave the door of the attorney room open, and sometimes a person ducks in for a look.

  The deputies don’t seem to care about that, and it shows.

  A minute or two later, Eric, dressed in jail blues, was brought in by a deputy.

  47

  ERIC’S EYES WERE bleary, like he’d been crying.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “Do I look okay?” he said. “What is going on?”

  “You tell me.”

  “They’re saying I killed my o
wn brother! Get me out of here!”

  “Keep your voice low. Just talk to me, and answer my questions directly. And don’t lie, okay?”

  “Why should I lie? Oh God…” He put his head down and into his cuffed hands.

  “Easy,” I said.

  “I can’t believe this is happening. Mom…” He looked up. “Where’s Mom?”

  “She’s at home, resting. I told her I’d come see her after this.”

  Down went his head again.

  “Eric, we need to talk about this. And I mentioned lying because almost all people in custody think they can do themselves some good if they cook the truth a little. You can’t. Are we clear on that?”

  He looked at me and nodded.

  “Did they ask you any questions?” I said.

  “They asked me about a fight I had with Carl.”

  “You had a fight with Carl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, a couple of nights before he shot himself.”

  “Can you be a little more precise, please? When exactly was this fight?”

  He thought a moment. “Okay, maybe it was the night before.”

  I closed my eyes. “Think before you answer, okay?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Having a fight the night before your brother is shot is a pretty significant detail, don’t you think?”

  “It’s just a coincidence. We had fights before. Brothers have fights.”

  “Did they ask you any other questions?”

  “I stopped them and said I wanted a lawyer. Then I called my mom.”

  “That was your first good move,” I said. “Tell me about this fight. Where’d it happen?”

  “In a bar.”

  “Did it get physical?”

  “Almost. Mostly it was just yelling.”

  “What bar was this?”

  “A place in West Hollywood.”

  “What’s the name of the place?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You said that a little too fast,” I said. “You start throwing out I can’t remembers like that, no jury is going to believe you. Or your lawyer, either.”