An Independent Woman

by Howard Fast

  When they arrived at the Hall of Justice, Inspector Meyer was waiting for them, smoking an old black pipe and apparently enjoying the sunlight. He greeted them with a friendly nod. “It’s taken some time to put it together and find some look-alikes. If Ms. Lavette will wait in my office, I’ll try to make her comfortable. It won’t be more than a few minutes.”

  “Who’s representing your guy?”

  “Lefkowitz. Do you know him? The perp didn’t ask for a public defender. This is one interesting crook. Lefkowitz doesn’t come cheap.”

  Barbara was about to say something, but a glance from Abner silenced her. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Abner said. “You know, Inspector, you could drop this and attend to the bad guys. Ms. Lavette makes no complaint. You’ve got him with a gun, and that should do it—that and the burglar tools. As for my client, you know the Lavette story as well as I do. They’re what they are.”

  “Crazy? Strange? What am I supposed to say, Mr. Berman? Anyway, I can’t put this back in the box. Burglar tools? All he had were his keys and a metal toothpick, and his gun, a Mauser, was put together out of plastic, one of those kid toys.”

  “That still comes within the law.”

  “With Lefkowitz defending him? Come on. Anyway, it’s too late. Some sneak inside whispered it to the Chronicle. If the TV crews knew you were here, they’d be all over the place. Let’s go inside.”

  Barbara’s heart sank. She could spell out exactly what her son, Samuel, would say; she could hear the words: not How you are going to explain this farce, Mother, but How am I going to explain it? You’re not a loose gun, you’re not Rambo—would he say Rambo? No, that was unfair. You’re not Albert Schweitzer in the African jungle. You’re a woman in your seventies in San Francisco. Do you know what my colleagues will think? That it’s genetic. I will tell them it’s Joan of Arc—reborn. I am chief surgeon in a normal hospital where they heal sick people—

  Oh, enough! she told herself. You don’t know what he will say or what anyone will say.

  Lefkowitz was sprawled in the single armchair in Meyer’s office, smoking a cigar. Meyer had tapped his pipe outside, and now he snapped, “You don’t smoke in my office, Mr. Lefkowitz!”

  “The place certainly smells of smoke. That’s why I took the liberty. Let me apologize. Can I hold it? It’s an eight-dollar cigar. I hate to crush it.” He was a small man, small and thin with a ferret face and a low melodious voice. He looked inquiringly at Abner.

  “Abner Berman. I think we met once or twice.”

  “This isn’t your style, Mr. Lefkowitz,” the inspector said.

  “No, indeed. My style, as you call it, is corporate thieves. This is pro bono. Your Mr. Jones intrigues me—college graduate, civil engineer, and now accused.” He turned to Barbara. “Ms. Lavette? The complainant? I’ve heard a good deal about you, Ms. Lavette, and I’m honored to meet you.”

  “She’s not a complainant,” Abner said. “She’s here for the lineup.”

  “Oh? She’s not a complainant?”

  “Nothing was stolen from her.”

  “Gracious,” Lefkowitz said softly. “She’s not a complainant, so why are we wasting time? I’m a busy man.”

  “Now, hold on, Mr. Berman. I thought we were over that nonsense. She agreed to come to the lineup,” the inspector said.

  “Yes, of course. She’s a citizen answering the request of the police.”

  “And what is she going to do?”

  “Oh, she’ll identify the man who was with her last night—if she can, of course.”

  “But she’s not a complainant?” Lefkowitz asked.

  “As I said.”

  “How interesting, how very interesting,” he said gently. “It makes me wonder. A hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewels are enough to make anyone wonder a bit. A generous woman!”

  “Too generous!” the inspector snapped.

  Lefkowitz was looking at the pictures on Meyer’s desk. “Your children? Beautiful children, if I may say so. The little girl with the blond hair—she must take after your wife.”

  The telephone on the inspector’s desk rang. He picked it up, muttered something, and then said, “They’re ready.”

  “Do you intend to go to the grand jury with this?”

  “I damn well do.”

  “But with what, Inspector? No complainant, a toy gun that isn’t even a water pistol, a metal toothpick—my word, I carry one myself.”

  Meyer scowled and let them out of the room. As they walked down the hall, the inspector asked Barbara, “Did he have a mask?”

  “Did she say he had a mask?” Abner said crossly. “She didn’t say so, so he didn’t have a mask. Did he have a mask when you picked him up?”

  Meyer gave no answer to that, and Abner said to Barbara, “All you have to do is identify him. That’s all. Don’t offer anything. Don’t say anything.”

  “Where are the jewels?” Lefkowitz wanted to know.

  “In our safe.”

  They went into a darkened room with a large plate-glass window. Through the window Barbara could see six men, all black, all tall, all slender. Yet there was no question in her mind as to who was the thief.

  “It’s a one-way glass,” Meyer assured her.

  The thief stood tall and easy, a slight smile on his lips. He had a long, lean face, high cheekbones, and close-cropped hair. She knew he couldn’t see her, but he appeared to be looking directly at her, a quizzical expression on his face.

  “The third man from the left,” Barbara said.

  Meyer picked up a phone and said, “Number three, step forward.” And then to Barbara, “You’re sure?”

  She nodded, and then they left the room. “You don’t need her anymore today?” Abner said to the inspector.

  “She’s not leaving town. She’s still the witness.”

  “She’s not leaving town,” Abner agreed.

  Once outside he said to Barbara, “Take your car home. Lock your door. Don’t answer the telephone. Don’t answer the door without looking through the peephole. No one goes in. Mr. Lefkowitz and I are going to have a cup of coffee and a short talk—and remember, you talk to no one—no phone, no door except me.”

  There was a newsstand on the corner, and Abner picked up a copy of a late edition. “Here you are, right on the front page. You know what—don’t go home. We’ll all go to my office, because my guess is that the TV chicken hawks are already at your house. How about that, Harry? I’ll send out for a nice lunch, and you and me, we’ll get to know each other, and Barbara can spend her time reading about herself.”

  THE LUNCH WAS VERY NICE INDEED, chicken salad, rolls, and a plate of varied pastry. Lefkowitz ate his salad, scorned the pastry, which Abner consumed, and prowled around Abner’s ornate office—the Persian rug, the leather sofa, the French Louis-something desk, the tapestry-covered chairs, the paneled walls, the television in the oak cabinet, and the great window that looked out over the Bay. It was one of those sparkling days, the fog blown away and sails all over the water, making the most of the breeze and the sunlight, and to complete the picture, a white cruise boat on its way to Alaska.

  “There’s where you and I should be, Abner, playing rummy and on our way to Alaska. You ever been to Alaska?”

  “I been to Alaska, Harry.” They were on a first-name basis now.

  Barbara was reading the paper and nibbling at her food. The headline read, “Lavette Heiress Claims She Gave a Hundred Thousand in Jewelry to a Thief.” And the story went on to say:

  In as bizarre a jewel theft as San Francisco has seen in years, Barbara Lavette, heiress and philanthropist, claims she gave away $100 thousand worth of jewelry to a charming and well-educated thief. Or was he a thief?

  Last night Inspector James Meyer and Inspector Woodrow Phelps, patrolling in the heavy fog, saw a man on the Embarcadero throw something into the water as their car approached. When they got out of their car and walked toward him, he stood still and surrendered without re
sistance….

  And the last paragraph of the story went on to say:

  Was this a blackmail payoff, or was it a theft, or was it a unique part of Ms. Lavette’s charitable career? We have not spoken to Ms. Lavette. Her telephone does not answer, and as far as this reporter can discover, she is nowhere to be found.

  Abner said to Barbara, “Please make yourself comfortable, Barbara. Alice will switch the calls to me, and there’s coffee and cold drinks in the cupboard. Mr. Lefkowitz and I will be in the boardroom. Turn on the TV, and see whether the chicken hawks have arrived at Green Street yet.”

  In the boardroom, sitting at a long table, Lefkowitz and Abner faced each other. “Can I smoke, Abner?”

  “Certainly.” He slid a large ashtray down the table, and Lefkowitz took out the cigar he had been smoking in the inspector’s office.

  “You’re not going to smoke that damn thing?”

  “Why not? These things cost me eight dollars each.”

  “You can afford it.”

  “Yes and no. What do you do in a year, Abner?”

  “Two hundred thousand, if things break right. Now I’m getting divorced.”

  “You have my sympathy.”

  “And is it the truth, that this is pro bono?”

  “That’s right. I’m hard but I’m not mean. I’ll fight a corporation to the death, but if I win a judgment, it’s not out of people, and the company can afford it. This black kid, Jones, is a phenomenon. He comes out of the worst street in Oakland, no father, one of five kids and a remarkable mother, puts himself through engineering school—fourteen hours a day, waiting tables and working in the school kitchen, comes out a qualified civil engineer. Then a private guard at the school insults him, calls him a stinking nigger, slaps him around, and Jones blows it and lays the guard out. The guard goes down, cracks his skull on the concrete, and becomes very dead. They arrest Jones—this is down in Southern Cal—and they charge him with murder one. I read it in the papers, so I decide to do my soul some good, providing I have one, and I get the charge reduced to manslaughter, and I get him off with two years. Are you Jewish, Berman?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Name sounds like it,” Lefkowitz said.

  “My grandfather was a German. Came out here in the eighteen-eighties on a freighter and jumped ship.”

  “A lot of good men did. Well, there’s an old Jewish legend, out of the Talmud, I suppose, called the legend of the Lamed Vav. It holds that in all the world, there must be thirty-six good and righteous men. The existence of the world depends on them, but no one of the Lamed Vav ever knows that he or she is one of them. That’s not letting the right hand know what the left hand does, or something of the sort. I don’t volunteer myself, but when I do a decent thing, which is not so often—ah, what the hell!”

  “And what is all this Talmudic hearsay leading up to, if I may ask, Harry?”

  “They don’t have to be Jewish. Maybe your Lavette lady—well, I hear she refuses to press charges, insists that she gave the jewels to Jones. I can understand that. I remember when she went to prison for contempt of Congress, some business about refusing to name names in a hospital they ran in Toulouse—so she knows a lot more than most people do, and I don’t find what she’s doing so strange. She has plenty of money, and I imagine the jewelry doesn’t mean much, as up against a man’s life. If she were a complainant, Jones would go down for fifteen years. This way, they got nothing. The talk about a grand jury is puffery. There’s nothing they can charge him with…” His low, gentle voice trailed away.

  “Has Jones said anything?” Abner asked.

  “Not a word. He called me, woke me up. I told him to keep his mouth shut. I’m going to demand his release, and I’ll get it if Barbara Lavette sticks to her story. On the other hand, you didn’t drag me in here to listen to Jewish Bubeh meises. That’s Yiddish for ‘stories.’”

  “No, I didn’t. You’re good, Harry. Do you ever raise your voice in court?”

  “Sometimes. Not often. Juries don’t like a man who bullies a witness.”

  “I agree with you: Jones will walk. You know what I want.”

  “The jewels,” Lefkowitz said.

  “That’s the deal—one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewels.”

  “Abner, I spoke to him. He’s ready to return the jewelry. But look at it another way. The whole town knows Barbara’s story. She can’t wear that stuff he took. On the other hand, I can sell them for Jones at top price. It gives him a life, a chance. He can start his own firm. Someday he’ll pay her back. This guy is something. Give him a chance. Let it stand.”

  “And how much of it is your fee?”

  “I don’t deserve that, Abner. I told you it was pro bono. That’s it. I don’t get a cent.”

  “Then I apologize,” Abner said, “and I think I believe you, but his repaying her is an article of faith. I don’t buy articles of faith, and a hundred grand is a lot of money. She’s given him fifteen years of life, and that’s a pretty damn good gift.”

  “Abner, listen to me. Tomorrow she’ll be all over the press and the TV. The liberals will call her a saint. The conservatives will damn her for aiding and abetting. Nobody will buy the story that she gave him the jewels. The presumption will be that she was robbed and that she refuses to send a man to jail. And more importantly, Inspector Meyer, who is totally pissed off by what she is doing, will press for a grand jury, and the whole question of perjury will come up. You don’t want to put her on the stand.”

  Abner thought about it for a few moments. There was a lot of truth in what Lefkowitz said. Lefkowitz smoked his cigar and studied Abner, and finally Abner said, “Let’s leave it up to her.”

  “Agreed.”

  They returned to Abner’s office. Barbara had turned on the television. An interview show was interrupted by an announcer who said, “This is a breaking story. Last night the police arrested an alleged thief who had in his possession jewelry to the value of one hundred thousand dollars. The police have ascertained to their satisfaction that the jewelry belonged to Barbara Lavette, daughter of Dan Lavette, and three years ago candidate for Congress on the Democratic ticket. Ms. Lavette denies that the jewelry was stolen, insisting that it was a gift to the alleged thief. We will follow up on this story on the six o’clock news. Stay tuned.”

  “Such is fame,” Barbara remarked. “Who was it said that fame is the accumulation of evil deeds?”

  “Don’t put yourself down, Ms. Lavette,” Lefkowitz said. “This is salvation, not perjury.”

  “I wonder. Have you gentlemen settled your difficulties?”

  “Just about,” Abner replied without enthusiasm. “We don’t think there’ll be any prosecution of Jones. Harry here wants him to keep the jewelry. I want him to return it to you. We’ve decided to let you make the choice.”

  “Can he keep it?” Barbara asked, taken somewhat aback.

  “You might have to say under oath that you gave it to him.”

  “I did.”

  “My position, Ms. Lavette,” Lefkowitz put in, “is that this would give him a new life.”

  “How much would you want as your fee?”

  “Nothing. This is pro bono.”

  “Then I don’t see how we can change anything. I gave him the jewelry. I don’t want it back.”

  “Barbara—,” Abner began.

  “No, Abner. I don’t want to discuss this, and I won’t change my mind. It’s a beautiful day outside. I want to walk home. I’m pleased that the man isn’t going to prison. It’s over.”

  DURING THE PAST SIX MONTHS, perhaps, half a dozen times, Philip Carter, minister of the First Unitarian Society on Franklin Street, had noticed a tall white-haired woman at the Sunday service. He knew all the members of the congregation, but there were always a few new faces, friends of members and often people who came of their own accord, some out of need and some out of simple curiosity; and when it was possible, he tried to say a few words to the newcomers. But this
particular woman usually arrived only minutes before the service began. She would take one of the rearmost seats, and she would leave as soon as the service concluded.

  He asked Reba Guthri about her. Reba was the assistant pastor, fiftyish, stout, encyclopedic in her knowledge of the congregation, and Carter’s barrier against total confusion.

  “Have you ever spoken to her, Reba?”

  “Once, yes. No desire to become a member; curious-spectator species. I thought you would recognize her.”

  “Should I?”

  “She’s rather notorious—no, no, that’s the wrong word. I don’t know what the right word is. She’s one of a kind. Her name’s Barbara Lavette. As a matter of fact, she was headlines last week, but of course you don’t read the interesting stuff. You recognize the name?”

  “Dan Lavette’s daughter?”

  “The same. I made a very gentle pitch to her.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Perhaps—someday.”

  “Interesting,” Carter said. “When we have time, you must tell me about her.”

  “We never have time,” Reba Guthri said, and turned to the small circle around her and their endless questions and needs.

  But Carter found his own answers. Two Sundays later the tall white-haired woman remained standing at one side of the entryway until most of the congregation had drifted away. Then she approached him and said, “Could I talk to you, Mr. Carter—somewhere private?”

  “Yes, certainly. Come into my office.” He led her into a rather plain book-lined room: a desk, some chairs, and a few portraits and paintings on the walls.

  “My name is Barbara Lavette.”

  He nodded and smiled slightly. She appeared to be ill at ease, and he wondered what he might do to relax her. “Won’t you sit down, please?”—pointing to a chair facing his desk. He was a tall, lean man, long faced, with iron gray hair and dark eyes.

  “I’ve been here half a dozen times,” Barbara said. “I’m not a Unitarian—well, in terms of religion, I don’t know exactly what I am. I was baptized at Grace Church, but I haven’t been there for years.” She shook her head and smiled. “I must admit that I came here first on a Sunday when it was raining cats and dogs, and I ducked inside and sat down in the last row. I liked what I heard, and I came back several times. I guess you noticed.”