by Allen Drury
“Now,” Regard Stinnet said again, still softly, “tell me about it, Earle Holgren. Isn’t often I got a right smart, clever man like you in here. You got us all fooled and where you want us. Tell me how you did it.”
For several seconds he just lay there; then huskily but with great determination he whispered:
“Give me my rights.”
“Hell, man,” Regard said dryly. “You don’t want your rights now. It’s too late to give you your rights now. You know that. The boys messed up a bit, you know that. You got what you wanted as far as rights are concerned, out there at the cave by Pomeroy Station when they didn’t warn you. What you want with rights now? You’re a lot better off legally without ’em, you know it.”
“You’re assuming,” Earle Holgren whispered with painful slowness, “that I’m smart enough to know that. Maybe I’m just dumb.”
“Oh, no!” Regard said. “Oh, no, son of a bitch, you’re not dumb! I know your type and you’re not dumb. You’re just dumb in thinkin’ this society is goin’ to let you bastards get away with this kind of stuff forever, that’s where you’re dumb! Because, shit-face, it isn’t. It isn’t!”
“Better get me a lawyer,” Earle Holgren whispered, “before you say too much yourself, shit-face. Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“My name is Regard Stinnet,” Regard said, “and I’m the attorney general of this whole shootin’ shebang of South Carolina. Doesn’t that make you feel important, Mr. Earle Holgren? You want to feel important, don’t you? That’s why you bombed Pomeroy Station plant and tried to kill a Supreme Court Justice and did kill his daughter—”
For a split second Earle Holgren looked blankly surprised. But he was too smart to give Regard the response he had hoped to provoke.
“You’re assuming an awful lot, Mr. Stinnet,” he whispered politely. “Saying all those things about me, including I bombed Pomeroy Station. Were you there?”
“—tried to kill a Supreme Court Justice and did kill his daughter,” Regard repeated. “I’ll bet that makes you proud, killing a fifteen-year-old girl! Mighty brave stuff, Mr. Holgren!”
“I’m sorry,” Earle whispered, still politely, “if any innocent person got hurt. Who on earth would want to do such a horrible thing? What kind of people do you breed down here in the whole shootin’ shebang anyway, Mr. Stinnet?”
“Not as bad as what wanders in here,” Regard said grimly. “Not as bad as what wanders in here, that’s for sure! And not only that, but you know what else you did? Do you know?”
But again Earle Holgren only smiled patiently and responded in the same polite way.
“Why do you keep saying what I did, Mr. Stinnet? You haven’t proved I did anything, and I”—he could not entirely suppress an ironic little expression, more grimace than smile through his greatly swollen lips—“I haven’t said I did anything, either. So, what else did the bomber of Pomeroy Station do?”
“He got at two Justices of the Supreme Court,” Regard said, “which isn’t going to do him any good if his case ever gets up there. In fact, if I was him I’d be damned worried about that. He got at two of ’em.”
“Oh, were there two of them there?” Earle Holgren inquired with a mild interest. “I don’t remember reading about that.”
“I’ll bet you read everything else about it you could get your hands on!” Regard snapped.
“I like to read,” Earle Holgren said thoughtfully. “I learn a lot, reading.”
“Yes,” Regard said. “Well. You’ll be interested to know that not only did you miss Justice Pomeroy but kill his daughter Sarah, but you also hit little Janie, who’s the daughter of the new Justice, Justice Barbour, and it looks as though you may have paralyzed her and turned her into a vegetable for life. That’s what you did!”
“That is horrible,” Earle Holgren agreed gravely, “but again, I have to point out that this is all speculation on your part, Mr. Stinnet, and not very clever speculation at that. Don’t you think maybe it’s time now that I had a lawyer? Since apparently you aren’t going to have them beat me up again, to try to make me talk.”
“I didn’t have them beat you up in the first place,” Regard said angrily. “I wish to hell they either hadn’t done it at all, or finished the job.”
“Don’t you think,” Earle Holgren asked, returning to his air of almost disinterested politeness, “that maybe if you had them torture me enough, you could get me to confess? Wouldn’t that be real American justice, Mr. Stinnet? Wouldn’t you like them to try?”
“No, I wouldn’t like them to try!” Regard grated out. “I know your type. You fanatics are all alike. We don’t know enough in this country to make you break. Maybe where your friends are and where you get your orders from, they could do it, because they’re bloodthirsty monsters and they’ve had nothing but practice, but we can’t because—”
“I don’t have any friends and I don’t take orders from—” Earle Holgren interrupted angrily, words blurting out through bloated lips in a sudden surge of genuine anger that made Regard hopeful for a second. But right on schedule, it ended. Abruptly Earle Holgren stopped, went through an obvious internal struggle, won it and lay back with gingerly care upon his cot.
“Mr. Stinnet,” he said politely, “I really think I’d better have a lawyer now. Otherwise you may say something that will really prejudice your case against me, since you seem to think you might have one. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we? I don’t care about me, I can take care of myself, but I think for your own protection I’d better have a lawyer now. Don’t you think?”
For several seconds Regard Stinnet stared at him while he, looking like a battered teddy bear but perfectly self-possessed under the blood and bruises, stared impassively back.
“Who do you have in mind?” Regard finally asked in a perfectly matter-of-fact and unemotional voice. Two, he told himself, could play at that game, and from now on, he would. Earle Holgren looked thoughtful.
“There is one possibility—” he began slowly. Then he shrugged, just as Regard thought he might be getting somewhere. “But to choose him I’m afraid would only encourage your wildest fantasies in this matter, Mr. Stinnet. It would just be too pat. No. I don’t know of anyone. Why don’t you have the court appoint somebody?”
“Perhaps your parents will have someone in mind,” Regard suggested; and for just a second the shot went home. A fleeting look of protest?—anger?—pain?—went across Earle Holgren’s face. But it too was instantly gone.
“Perhaps,” he agreed indifferently. “Do they have to be told?”
“Do they have to be told?” Regard echoed. “My God, man, you’re a national case already, don’t you know that? It’s hardly four hours since you bombed that plant—”
“Please,” Earle Holgren said, lifting a polite, protesting hand.
“—since that plant was bombed,” Regard corrected himself.
“That’s better,” Earle Holgren said placidly.
“—and already it’s a national—no, probably already a worldwide-sensation. How about that,” Regard said heartily, “you, Earle Holgren, a worldwide sensation, and all because you bombed a plant down here in little old South Carolina! Imagine that!”
“I think you’re imagining it,” Earle Holgren said with perfect gentility. “Really, Mr. Stinnet, do get me a lawyer, now, before you say things you’ll be sorry for. Please?”
Regard gave him a long, quizzical look. A grim little smile touched his lips.
“All right, boy,” he said, “you’ve had your chance. If you think you can escape justice in today’s climate in this country, you’re goin’ to have another think comin’. But I’ll get you your lawyer. There’s one out there waitin’ right now, as a matter of fact. I don’t know anything about her—”
“‘Her’?” Earle Holgren echoed with a mildly intrigued interest. “What’s she look like?”
“She’s not a beauty,” Regard said accurately, “but she looks as though she might have brains.�
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“I think that’s the important thing, don’t you?” Earle Holgren inquired, and for the first time Regard laughed, quite genuinely.
“You know it is, Earle,” he said. “Do you ever! Shall I send her in?”
“You sure you want her to see me like this?” Earle Holgren asked dryly, and Regard turned quite cheerful.
“Hell, man! Best she see for herself right now. If we waited until we had you patched up it’d take a little time and you’d have an even bigger story to tell about police brutality. Plus the fact you’d probably make it a lot worse than it is.”
“It isn’t exactly comfortable,” Earle Holgren pointed out.
“I’m sure sorry,” Regard said. “I sure am sorry. But I guess we’ll just have to go with it, as is. Make yourself pretty, now.”
“What’s her name?” Earle asked.
“Deborah Donnelson,” Regard said. “Calls herself Debbie, I believe.”
“Deborah Donnelson,” Earle Holgren mused. “Sounds like a movie star. Where’s she come from?”
“The Lord sent her,” Regard said, “just when you need her most. Isn’t that providential? Every murderer should be so lucky.”
“Fuck off,” Earle Holgren said, sounding quite unamused. “Send her in.”
Regard Stinnet stalked out, slammed the iron door behind him, nodded to the court stenographer seated in the hall hidden from the prisoner. The stenographer got up and stepped into an adjoining doorway, out of sight: she would be back for the next visitor.
Earle started to smooth down his hair with two swollen paws, then stopped with a sardonic grin and messed it up again. He was helping the wrong team there, for a minute, trying to make himself look more presentable. The grungier the better, as he knew very well, not only for his own case but for his potential lawyer: women loved that sort of thing from teddy bears, the grungier the better. He rolled over on his side facing the wall, groaning with pain as he did so. He was faking the disinterest but he didn’t have to fake the groan. He really did hurt like hell.
“They beat you up,” she said, a worried, sympathetic voice behind him. He started to roll back and she said sharply, “Don’t move if it hurts you!”
“Of course I will,” he whispered with some impatience. “I have to see what you look like.”
“Well,” she said when he had accomplished the move to the accompaniment of more groans, each of which made her wince. “Here I am.”
He had an impression of dark eyes, dark complexion, a thin, pale, earnest face, big spectacles, dark hair rolled tight in a bun, a taut, intense expression. Jesus, he thought tiredly, one of those. But he was perceptive, and the overall impression, as that South Carolina yahoo had said, was brains. And brains were what he needed on his side. He had plenty but he couldn’t do it alone. Maybe she had the kind he needed. He was too smart to dismiss her without finding out.
“How did you happen to find me?” he asked. “Somebody send you?”
“Yes,” she said. “You know him. He called me and asked me to come.”
“You live down here?” he asked, surprised. She nodded.
“For the time being. My husband comes from here. I just got divorced.”
“You were married?”
She blushed, he guessed; some darker infusion seemed to darken her already dark skin. What was she, part black, Hindu, Jewish, Russian, middle European? He didn’t know: interesting, anyway. He lifted a paw, dismissing his own question. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound surprised. Lots of people get married.”
“True,” she said, stopped looking offended and smiled: really quite attractive if you liked women, which he really didn’t, all that much. Needed ’em sometimes, used ’em sometimes, but didn’t really like ’em, he guessed. Earle Holgren, he told himself with pride, never really liked or needed anybody.
Except of course, right now, he did need a good lawyer. And maybe, just maybe, this uptight type would be just the ticket. She’d be a novelty, anyway. Joan of Arc and Little David, taking on Goliath, the System.
“Where’d you go to school?” he asked, shifting his position and wincing, at which she winced sympathetically too, so that he laughed in a shaky, whispery way, which was all he could manage right now.
“Listen,” he said, “don’t mind me wincing once in a while. I hurt, lady. They really worked me over.”
“Yes,” she said; and added with a sudden blaze of anger, “And we’ll work them over, too.”
“You bet,” he agreed. “But first I want to know where you’re coming from. You go to Harvard?”
“I went to Vassar,” she said. “And then to Columbia Law School.”
“Your folks have a lot of dough?”
“Enough,” she said. “I don’t see them much. And yours?”
“Likewise and likewise,” he said. “They may come fluttering around now, though. Try to ignore them if they do. They’ll just get in the way of what we want to do.”
“What do we want to do?” she demanded, suddenly sharp and shrewd, taking him aback a little. But that’s good, he thought, that’s good: she’s a sharp lady. “Where are you coming from?”
“I want you to get me out of here,” he whispered with an attempt at a pixie grin that he knew probably looked awful from the outside though it felt cute inside. “It’s not so much where I come from as where I want to go. Which is out. O-u-t.”
“Are you guilty?” she asked, fixing him with a sudden intense gaze. “If I’m to represent you, I’ve got to know.”
“You aren’t representing me yet,” he pointed out, but amicably. “We can talk about that later.”
“I have to know!” she repeated. “I have to know!”
“Well,” he whispered comfortably, “maybe someday I’ll tell you, how about that. Meantime, I want to know what your reasons would be for taking me on. I couldn’t afford to pay you much money, you know. What would you get out of it?”
“The satisfaction of seeing justice done!” she said with a fierceness that surprised him.
“And that would be getting me out?” he inquired in a quizzical whisper.
“Yes!” she said with a humorless intensity. “Yes! I see you as a martyr to this whole corrupt system, a victim of our times, a sincere protester against greed and corruption and the awful danger to our society represented by the construction of poorly conceived, poorly built, dangerously operated atomic energy plants, a sincere and valiant fighter for the cause of human justice, human freedom, human—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he whispered, half smiling, holding up a hand, “whoa, whoa! You don’t have to stump-speech me. We aren’t in court yet.”
“But don’t you agree?” she demanded fiercely. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” he whispered, “I agree, I agree. But I’m not saying I’m the same guy you seem to have in mind. You seem to think I did the bombing, instead of being in here on a bum rap.”
“They think you did,” she said. “You ought to see the papers and hear the television and radio. They’ve got you condemned and in the chair already.”
“So much the worse for them,” he said with a sudden scowl that was startling after his apparent good nature up to now. “False arrest, defamation, trial-by-media—we’ve got ’em where we want ’em. Let the stupid bastards rave on. So much the better for me.”
“They caught you with the detonator,” she said. “They caught you coming out of the cave. They can’t find your wife and baby, they think you sent them off somewhere—”
“Oh, I did,” he said with a sudden attempt at a smile that she couldn’t quite analyze, it looked so distorted on his cracked and swollen lips. “I wanted ’em to have a good time, for a change. They were getting tired being cooped up with me in that little cabin.”
“Where are they?” she asked. He made a feeble attempt at a shrug but had to stop with a grimace of pain which she mirrored in her sympathetic look.
“They went off to the seashore someplace,” he said. “They’ll be
back when they’re ready. Meantime it’s best to have ’em out of this, I think. She wasn’t my wife, anyway.”
“‘Wasn’t’?” she echoed quickly and he smiled and shook his head, as much as he could with a patient and indulgent air.
“There you go,” he said, “there you go. So I got my tenses mixed up, couldn’t anybody? ‘Wasn’t.’ ‘Isn’t.’ Anyway, they aren’t here, so who cares, really?” His face darkened suddenly. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you want the truth.”
“You had a fight, then,” she said, frowning. “That’s too bad. She could be a good witness for you if she were friendly.”
“She isn’t friendly,” he said with a sudden little laugh she couldn’t fathom; except she knew it left her uneasy. “Don’t count on her. She won’t testify for me. We’ll just have to go on what we’ve got.”
“Which is what?” she asked, giving him a sudden penetrating look that he was beginning to think was characteristic.
“Well,” he whispered with a sudden wry grimace that she too was beginning to consider characteristic, “not my good looks, that’s for sure.”
“They’ll improve,” she predicted with a smile; and on a sudden impulse added, “Suppose you tell me what your defense will be. I get the feeling you know some law. You didn’t take law, did you?”
“Nope,” he said. “But I’ve absorbed some, here and there. Well, to begin with—”
After he had outlined his theory about circumstantial evidence and how it could be turned in his behalf, he stopped and looked at her with a satisfied expression. “Isn’t that a pretty good defense?”
She studied him for several moments before replying.
“I think you’re guilty,” she said quietly. “I think you’re guilty as hell.”
“I didn’t say so!” he whispered sharply. “They can’t prove it! What the hell makes you so sure?”
“Because,” she said, still quietly, “I agree so much with what you want to do and with the point you’re making. I could have done the same thing myself if I had the opportunity. I suppose that’s why.”
There was silence while he studied her in return. Then he laughed as much as he could and rolled again to the wall, groaning once more as he did so.
