Mark the Sparrow

by Clark Howard

  “The second reason,” Cloud’s voice rose slightly, “is even worse than the first. And it’s so damned obvious! They aren’t trying to put these Black Jacks in the gas chamber because they’ve got no reason to. These five guys are clean; except for a few traffic violations. So the law isn’t out to get them like it was out to get Whitman. The city police and the county sheriff—neither one gives a damn that the Black Jacks will get ten years each and be out on parole in four. With Whitman, though—he was an habitual criminal, a defiant habitual criminal. You should read some of the things in that manuscript of his. He’d tell the police to go fuck themselves and spit in their faces every time they arrested him. He was a complete rebel; he never confessed, never informed, never pled guilty to anything, never let the public defender handle his cases. He was strictly an outlaw, confirmed all the way; he was against all police officers and wasn’t about to be rehabilitated out of the idea. Since he was fifteen he’s been laughing at everybody in this county with a badge. Laughing at them. That’s why they put Weldon Whitman in the death house.”

  “It sounds like he’s some kind of criminal psychopath,” Laurel said. “Maybe the court was right; maybe he should be permanently removed from society.”

  “Maybe he should,” Cloud agreed. “I don’t deny that he’s probably criminally unstable. But he could be locked up permanently if all law wants to do is protect society. He sure as hell doesn’t have to be sent to the gas chamber, particularly for the same thing that those five punks from Long Beach are only going to serve a few years in prison for.”

  Laurel sighed heavily. “I still don’t see how your story fits what Hoskins asked for. I just don’t think it’s what he had in mind.”

  “Maybe not,” Cloud replied, “but that’s what he’s getting.”

  “Which,” she said pointedly, “is not the most desirable attitude for one to have toward one’s employer.”

  “Let’s not get into a discussion of my attitude,” Cloud said caustically.

  “Have it your way,” Laurel said, her voice growing distinctly cool. She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “Would you like more coffee before you go?”

  “Go? I wasn’t going anyplace. Or is that your subtle way of asking me to leave?”

  “You don’t appear to be in a very good mood tonight. I thought maybe you’d prefer to be alone. That way there’d be no occasion for you to have to listen to anything critical about yourself.”

  Cloud looked thoughtfully at her for a moment. He got up, got his coat from the hall closet and left the apartment without either of them saying goodnight.

  “Hoskins wants you.”

  Surprise, surprise, thought Cloud. He already knew that his story, as he had written it, had not appeared in the home edition that morning. Instead, on page five, had been a rewritten account covering only the basic facts of the Black Jacks trial. So Laurel had been right: the story hadn’t been what Hoskins had wanted.

  “You wanted to see me?” Cloud said pausing at the day editor’s open door.

  “Yes,” Hoskins said. “Come in. Close the door.”

  Hoskins’s voice, Cloud thought, seemed mellower, less threatening than usual. Maybe, it occurred to Cloud, he was about to be fired.

  “Sit down, sit down.” Hoskins waved his cigar at a chair and proceeded to rummage through the clutter on his desk. In a moment he found the original of Cloud’s story.

  “I suppose you know by now that we didn’t run this piece of yours as you wrote it,” Hoskins said. “And I suppose you’re wondering why.”

  Cloud shrugged. “I guess you didn’t run it because you didn’t like it.”

  “On the contrary, I did like it. Liked it very much.” Hoskins puffed several times on his cigar, then delicately balanced it on the edge of an ashtray. “It’s well written, well organized, and makes a good, hard point. Unfortunately, it doesn’t adequately cover the subject that was assigned to you. I wanted some in-depth coverage on the trial of the five Black Jack members—something interesting about the five punks themselves. I wanted the interest to spring not only from the fact that they are defendants in a rape trial, but also that they are members of an organized motorcycle gang. Instead”—Hoskins tossed the typed article back into the debris of his desk—“you give me a hearts-and-flowers thing about this guy Whitman, who’s not even news anymore.”

  “He could be news,” Cloud said. “He would be, too, if you’d printed the story the way I wrote it.” Now, he thought defiantly, go ahead and fire me.

  “If I had run that story the way you wrote it, son, we’d both be out of a job this morning. Did you ever hear of a little thing called editorial policy?”

  “What’s that got to do with it? I didn’t write an editorial, I wrote a news story.”

  “Like hell you did.” Hoskins retrieved the typed story and shoved it across the desk at him. “That’s no more a news story than Orphan Annie is a news story. There isn’t a single fact that you didn’t elaborate on with a personal comment or opinion of your own.” Hoskins picked up his cigar and slowly shook his head. “You wrote an editorial, my boy, pure and simple.”

  “All right, suppose I did,” Cloud countered. “You said it was good, didn’t you? You said it made a good, hard point. Why didn’t you use it on the editorial page?”

  “Because,” Hoskins said tonelessly, “you are not the publisher of this newspaper. And neither am I. As a consequence of which it is neither your function nor mine to make editorial policy. The editorial page on this newspaper comes from the office of the publisher. He’s the one who pays out salaries, and he’s the one who establishes editorial policy.”

  “What do you think the publisher’s editorial policy would be in this particular case?” Cloud asked.

  “I don’t even have to think,” Hoskins answered confidently. “I know what it would be. Because of past and present political affiliations, and because this paper strongly backed the distict attorney in the last election, the publisher would need just two short words to express his editorial policy to both of us: Hands Off.”

  “Are you saying that this newspaper would avoid exposing a scandal in one of our highest county offices just because it supported the successful candidate for that office?”

  “No,” Hoskins replied coolly, “I am not saying that and you goddamn well know it. If you came up with a story in which you had clearly established some sort of conspiracy or some pattern of incompetence within the district attorney’s office, then the story would be printed—editorial policy or not—because then it would be news. News, Cloud; not speculation, not conjecture, not supposition, assumption, theory, or even divine hypothesis—but news: factual, verifiable news.”

  Hoskins leaned far back in his chair. He sucked in on his cigar and exhaled a great burst of dirty gray smoke. For several long moments he studied Cloud. His eyes grew thoughtful as he recalled another eager young reporter from out of the long ago, another young writer filled with energy and enthusiasm, another young man seeking truth above all and placing his heart and soul at the altar of the press. Hoskins wondered briefly if this young man too would age eventually into a cantankerous old day editor. He sighed wistfully.

  “Well,” he said at last, “have I now made absolutely clear in your mind my position regarding editorial policy on this newspaper?”

  “You have.” Cloud stood up. “Is that all?”

  “For now,” Hoskins told him.

  Cloud started out of the office. At the door he paused and turned back.

  “What you said a few minutes ago, about Weldon Whitman not being news anymore; you’re wrong about that. Someday I’ll prove it to you.”

  He walked out of the office and across the big newsroom, winding his way around crowded desks, passing through the noise of two dozen typewriters, moving past the many faces of people who, like himself, were part of the putting together of a daily metropolitan newspaper. But as he walked he heard none of the noise and noticed none of the faces, because
his mind was enclosed within the vacuum of the single thought he had just spoken to Hoskins.

  Someday I’ll prove it to you.

  Chapter Eight

  A month later, Cloud was on his couch, hunched over the coffee table, pages of Room 22, Hotel Death spread all around him, when the telephone rang. Goddammit, he thought immediately. He wondered if it was the paper, calling him in on some emergency assignment. It rang again. It wouldn’t be Laurel; this was Monday, her counseling day. The phone rang a third time. Goddammit, he thought again, and snatched up the receiver.

  “Hello—”

  “Hello, is this Mr. Robert Cloud? Of the Ledger?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Yes, this is Robert Cloud—”

  “Mr. Cloud, you don’t know me. My name is Genevieve Neller. We have a mutual friend who asked me to call you: Weldon Whitman.”

  For a moment Cloud was too surprised to speak.

  “I don’t know if Weldon has mentioned me to you or not, Mr. Cloud,” she continued. “I’m director of the state law library up at Sacramento. I’ve been sending Weldon law books—”

  “Oh, yes,” Cloud said. “Yes, as a matter of fact, Weldon did tell me about you. He said you had been kind enough to do some legal research for him.”

  “It wasn’t much, really.”

  “It was to him, Miss Neller. I’m sorry; is it Miss or Mrs.?”

  “It’s Miss, but please call me Genevieve. When I told Weldon in my last letter that I was coming down here, he wrote back and said to be sure and give you a call—”

  “You’re in Los Angeles?”

  “Yes. There was a library-science convention here. It just ended today.” She paused. “When did you hear from Weldon last?”

  “Friday,” Cloud said. “He sent me some more pages of the book we’re—”

  “Yes, he told me he was writing a book. I really don’t see how he does it all: studying law, preparing an appeal, writing a book.”

  They fell silent for a moment.

  “When are you going back to Sacramento?” Cloud asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Genevieve Neller said. “I drove down; I’ll be starting back early in the morning.”

  “Are you free this evening?” Cloud had a sudden urge to meet this woman who, like himself, was trying to help Weldon Whitman stay alive.

  “Why, yes, I am,” she answered.

  Cloud glanced at his watch: seven-thirty. “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “No, I was just about to when I thought of calling you.”

  “Why don’t we have dinner?” Cloud suggested.

  “All right. But nothing fancy,” she said. “There’s a nice restaurant right here at the motel—the Warren, on Olympic Boulevard.”

  “I can be there in twenty minutes,” Cloud said.

  “Good. Why don’t we just meet there? That way we can be informal and relax.”

  “Fine with me,” Cloud said.

  “This is very nice, our being able to get together like this,” Genevieve Neller said.

  They were sitting in a small booth; the waitress had brought them coffee and they had ordered steaks and fries.

  “We’re really members of a pretty exclusive club, you and I,” said Cloud. “I don’t think Weldon has any friends at all besides us.”

  “I know,” she said enthusiastically. “That’s why I’m so glad we were able to meet.”

  Genevieve Neller was a slightly overweight woman in her early thirties. She had lustrous brownish hair above a face that, because of its plumpness, was an accentuated heartshape with a pert, pointed chin. Her smile was radiant but a little hesitant—perhaps, Cloud thought, due to shyness or self-consciousness because of her weight. Cloud liked her immediately.

  “Tell me about Weldon,” she said eagerly. “I have my own impressions from his letters, of course, but I’d like to know what he’s really like, in person.”

  Cloud smiled. “Why don’t you tell me first what your impressions are?”

  “All right.” She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, and put both hands around her coffee cup. “I think first of all that he’s an extremely intelligent man.”

  “He is that,” Cloud assured her.

  “I think he’s probably hardheaded and stubborn.”

  “Definitely.”

  “And,” she said very slowly, “I also get the distinct impression that he is a very frightened person.”

  “I think you’re right.” Cloud smiled. “He’d probably disown both of us if he could hear us right now.”

  “I’m sure he would,” Genevieve agreed. “He sounds in his letters as if he had a great deal of pride and self-confidence, and yet—I don’t quite know how to put it—but I seem to sense from some of the things he writes that all he’s really looking for is someone to give him a chance.”

  Cloud stared at her. There it was, he thought. There was the elusive attraction that had drawn him to Weldon Whitman. Suddenly Genevieve Neller’s words made it all so very clear, made it so obvious that it was hard to believe he had not understood it all along. The something about Weldon Whitman that had pulled Cloud to him like a magnet—and apparently Genevieve also—was that he did need a chance. And no one had been willing to give him one.

  No one except Robert Cloud. And now Genevieve Neller.

  “I’d like to ask you a question,” Genevieve said, “and I hope you’ll give me an honest answer. Do you think he’s guilty?”

  “Of some of the crimes, yes,” Cloud said. “But I don’t think he committed the sex crimes, the so-called Spotlight Bandit crimes. I don’t believe he’s a sex pervert. And I don’t believe he deserves to be sent to the gas chamber.”

  “I certainly don’t either,” she said emphatically. “I’ve researched the kidnapping-with-bodily-harm law all the way back to its inception, and the clear intent of it was to provide the death penalty in cases where a person was kidnapped for ransom, and was subsequently either killed or seriously injured in some way. The extortion of the ransom is technically a robbery; that’s how the phrase ‘kidnapping for the purpose of robbery’ came to be used. And that’s what has given prosecutors the loophole to file capital charges when ordinarily they wouldn’t be able to. If that section of the Criminal Code had used the proper phraseology—‘kidnapping for the purpose of ransom’—then the law couldn’t be applied as promiscuously as it js today.”

  They momentarily suspended their conversation as the waitress served their dinner and replenished their coffee.

  “These French fries are the last thing in the world I need,” Genevieve said when the waitress was gone. “I wish I had thought to ask for cottage cheese instead.”

  “Let me order you some—”

  “No, I’ll eat the fries. I mean, I like French fries; with my weight I just don’t need them.”

  As they began eating, Genevieve asked Cloud to tell her what Weldon Whitman looked like.

  “He’s an average-looking sort of guy, I guess,” said Cloud. “Tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed. His nose is kind of crooked; I think it’s been broken. But on the whole, he’s not bad looking.”

  “I’ve tried to visualize him a dozen times,” Genevieve said. “He’s told me a little about himself in his letters; personal things, you know. And every time he tells me something new, my picture of him changes. At first, I thought of him as being very handsome; I’m an incurable romantic—” She patted Cloud’s hand as she said that and gave him another of her brilliant smiles. “But then,” she quickly went on, “I changed that concept of him when he told me he’d always felt awkward with girls, which was one of the reasons he’d never married—”

  Cloud almost interrupted her at that point, to say that she was mistaken, that Weldon Whitman had been married at one time. But he quickly checked himself. He wondered why Weldon had lied to the woman. Perhaps it was simply Whitman’s way of protecting his ex-wife.

  “You know,” Genevieve continued, “it’s a very strange feeling for a woman to know that she’s li
terally the only woman in a man’s life. I mean, if you stop to think of it, Weldon has no contact at all with any other women on the face of the earth. Does he?”

  “No, I don’t suppose he does,” Cloud said, although he really was not sure at all. For all he knew, Whitman could be writing to a dozen women—or at least as many as his writing privileges permitted.

  “Do you realize,” she said speculatively, “that there may not be another woman in the entire world who can say that about herself?”

  “It’s a unique position, all right,” Cloud agreed. He saw that she had finished her dinner, but still appeared to be hungry. “Would you like something else?” he offered.

  “Heavens, no! Listen, I want to get your opinion on something.” She reached over and helped herself to several of his French fries. “I belong to several clubs in Sacramento, mostly ladies’ clubs: library groups, literary groups, that sort of thing. I was wondering what Weldon would think if I brought up his case as a topic for discussion at some of the various meetings?”

  “For what purpose?” Cloud asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” she said. She reached for more French fries. Cloud pushed the plate toward her. “Thank you. I think I have it in the back of my mind to see if I can’t enlist some additional help for him. Perhaps in the form of financial assistance, perhaps political or legal support; a lot of the ladies have very influential husbands. Do you think Weldon would mind?”

  Does a fish mind water? Cloud thought. “I don’t think he would mind at all,” he said.

  “I thought I might even try to form some kind of separate club, sort of a ‘Help Weldon Whitman’ sodality.”