Try Darkness

by James Scott Bell

  “Were they all right?” Sister P said.

  “Oh, more than all right. A slam-dunk is a good thing, slamming the ball down through the basket. You have to be very big or be able to jump.”

  “Have hops?”

  “Now you’re catching on. Anyway, Pierpont Wicks was the last guy, and when he slammed it seemed like a bomb exploding. So they tried to intimidate us right off the court, but that night we played the game of our lives. Me especially.”

  “This is exciting.”

  “It was for me. I went into the zone.”

  “Where’s that?”

  I pointed to my head. “It starts here and your body follows. For a few minutes I felt like I could fly. You know, sort of float over the floor, and around people, without my feet making contact with the wood. And not only that, I could put the ball up with either hand. Little jump hooks, whatever, and I had complete confidence. I went through the middle once and it was like being in a forest, these guys were so big. Pierpont Wicks was one of them. I saw his eyes. It was Ahab looking at the face of Moby Dick.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “I should have passed the ball away as fast as I could, but I remember having this complete calm, and turned my back and threw up a three-foot no-looker.”

  “What is that?”

  “I wasn’t looking at the hoop. I was looking at the stands and I threw the ball up back over my head. Thing was, I knew exactly where I was, I knew the ball would go in. And it did. I was past the zone. I was in hyperspace. I was Star Trekking. I was boldly going where I had never gone before. I scored thirty-nine points that night, my all-time high.”

  “And you won the game?”

  “Uh, no. Unfortunately this wasn’t a Hollywood movie. But we only lost by five points, our little school, and it was more than anybody expected. But the thing that got me . . .”

  I stopped a second. I couldn’t believe this thing was getting caught in my throat. Sister Perpetua just waited, an understanding look on her face.

  “The thing that really got me,” I said, “was as we were leaving the floor for the locker room, Pierpont Wicks ran up to me. He went out of his way to find me. He puts out his hand. He says to me, ‘Man, you were on fire. Great game.’ You know what? I don’t think anything anybody’s ever said to me since meant as much as that.”

  I came back from the past and looked at Sister P. “That’s why I loved basketball. And I guess I’d like to feel that way again sometime. Something I do, where I feel like I’m flying, and I know where everything is, and I make the shot.”

  Sister P nodded. “You will, Mr. Buchanan. I’m quite sure of it.”

  115

  LATER, I FOUND Sister Mary kneeling and praying in the chapel. Below the big crucifix, candles were lit near her. The rest of the place was in darkness.

  She continued to pray. I sat and looked at Jesus on the cross, then cleared my throat.

  “I heard you,” Sister Mary said, without turning around.

  “Can we talk?”

  She stood up, crossed herself, turned, and came to me. She slipped into the pew.

  “Can what I’m about to say be confidential?” she asked.

  “Of course. I’m your lawyer. I hold whatever my clients say in complete confidence.”

  “You’re my lawyer?”

  “You need it, Sister. The way you play basketball is criminal.”

  “This isn’t funny. Not this time.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve been designated ‘rigid’ by Sister Hildegarde,” she said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It is a term of discipline. It goes on my record, so to speak. If I do not reform my ways it could mean a greater discipline. I could even be asked to leave the community.”

  “So what did you do to deserve this?”

  “Sister Hildegarde says it’s because I wanted to wear my rosary.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing for a nun to do?”

  “The community wants the sisters to present themselves a certain way. To move with the times, so to speak.”

  “You’re talking about the beads, right?”

  “Yes. At first it was optional. Now it’s mandatory that we not wear them. I said something about this to Sister Hildegarde a few weeks ago. And about the change in the community prayer book.”

  “What change was that?”

  “Oh, she wanted to take out some of the quote-unquote sexist language. I don’t think that’s a good reason to change the prayers of the church. So I reviewed the constitutions of the community, and the process for change, and it wasn’t followed. Sister Hildegarde acted alone. So I wrote her a letter. And in the letter I questioned the decision about selling the land. I said we should be taking care of our own, that this is what St. Benedict would have wanted. That’s why she called me into the office today.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “The first words out of her mouth were, ‘Who do you think you are?’”

  “She said that.”

  “She did.”

  “A little harsh.”

  “So I’m rigid. I’m on probation. I must accept it.”

  “Why?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Sister Mary said.

  “Let’s do something about it,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m your lawyer, remember? What can we do about Sister Hildegarde?”

  “Nothing. I’m telling you—”

  “I’ll talk to her, I’ll—”

  “You don’t really have any authority in our community, Mr. Buchanan.”

  “But I can persuade,” I said. “I’m a great persuader.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “I’ll tell her, ‘Look, you treat Sister Mary right or I’ll . . . go Protestant.’”

  “Ooh, that’ll really get her attention.”

  “You think?”

  She didn’t answer. She looked forward. “Sometimes . . .”

  “Sometimes what?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I need to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to work. And you, too.”

  She got up and left, not looking back at me or Jesus.

  116

  THAT WAS SATURDAY.

  Sundays were quiet at St. Monica’s. In a relative way, of course. It was the Lord’s day. Their day for deep prayer and mass and being about the business of knowing God.

  Which left me to be about my own business, which was finding out where Nydessa Jackson was and why she was so determined to pin her ID on Gilbert Calderón.

  “In fact,” he told me, “that’s when I got religious. Until I met her, I never believed in hell.”

  So be it.

  According to the witness list, Nydessa Perry lived in Hollywood, in an apartment building on Ivar. In the twenties this was a fashionable neighborhood. The buildings were high end then. After World War II most of them had become transient nests.

  It was in one of these buildings that Joe Gillis, the screenwriter in Sunset Boulevard, was avoiding the repo men. As I parked on the street I wondered how many of the people inside were avoiding the law in one way or another.

  The building was three stories, squat and white, with a little courtyard visible from the street. As I entered into the courtyard I almost stepped on a dead squirrel. I wondered why nobody had bothered to clean it up.

  Nydessa’s apartment was on the ground floor, facing the courtyard. I knocked and got a voice from behind the door.

  “Yeah?” A woman’s voice.

  “Candygram,” I said. I wanted it to work once.

  The door opened with a chain across it. A young black woman, thin in the face, said, “What did you say?”

  “I said candygram.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a gift people give, with candy. But this one comes with a condition.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a lawyer. I represent people like you.�
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  “Whattaya mean people like me?”

  “People with troubles.”

  “Ain’t got no trouble.”

  “You may.”

  She said nothing.

  “Can I come in for a moment?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Then tell me about Gilbert Calderón.”

  Pause. Then: “You’re his lawyer.”

  “You and Gilbert used to be together,” I said.

  “So?”

  “I’m just trying to find out what happened between you two.”

  “You can just get yourself outta here now. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the DA.”

  “And he’s told me all about you. All about your past.”

  “You lie.”

  “No, Ms. Perry, it’s the law. It’s called discovery. Prosecutor has to give me your info, including your little brushes with the law.”

  “I cleared my parole.”

  “You have a record. A pretty long one.”

  “So, that don’t mean I told a lie.”

  “Did I say anything about lying?”

  She slammed the door. As was her privilege. But it gave me enough information to know I was on the right track, that she’d make a lousy witness. At least I’d be able to cross-examine the effectiveness out of her.

  But something told me there might be more here for me. Nothing makes a lawyer’s day, or year, like finding some helpful bombshell in the prosecutor’s own bunker.

  So I went back across the street and got in my car. I moved it forward to a spot where I could see into the courtyard and view Nydessa Perry’s door. And waited.

  Listened to the radio, local news. Sports. Kobe Bryant was whining again. What else was new? Whining had replaced the work ethic in sports, and Bryant was making a play to be the best at that particular aspect. Words like big, stupid, overpaid, ungrateful, jerk floated across my mind like a big, stupid jerk going in for a slam.

  A little while later a guy came out of Nydessa’s door, wearing a dark blue hoody. He walked out the front and north on Ivar toward Franklin. I paused a moment, then got out and followed him.

  The day was hot and Hollywood steamy, the way it sometimes gets. The sun likes to park itself on the stars on the sidewalk. A burning Cary Grant, a sizzling Bette Davis, Henry Fonda on a hot plate. Kate Hepburn boils and there’s no wind for relief. The sea is forty-five minutes away, give or take.

  Hoody was strolling, taking his time, not exactly looking like he had any appointments. A hoody on a hot day. That didn’t make sense. I wasn’t able to catch his face.

  He crossed Selma, continued down to Sunset. The old Cinerama Dome building was across the street. On the other side of Ivar was Amoeba Music. I watched Hoody cross Sunset and go inside Amoeba.

  It’s a huge two-story behemoth, row upon row of CDs and DVDs and unhelpful help. Hoody strolled into the hip-hop section and started flipping through the CDs. I went a couple of aisles over, so I could look at him.

  He looked a lot like Gilbert Calderón.

  117

  THEN HE LOOKED at me.

  If he recognized me he didn’t show it.

  He looked away and walked down the aisle. I kept him in view with the old peripheral vision. My basketball coach in college was convinced that peripheral vision could be developed. He used to have us walk across campus trying to identify things without looking directly at them. He said Bill Bradley used to do that when he was growing into a basketball legend.

  He may have been right, because my side view was good.

  I spent about twenty minutes tracking Hoody. He went up the stairs once. I waited awhile, then followed. Watched him with the DVDs. Came back down before he did, waited. Picked him up again when he came back to the first floor.

  I was standing by a Velvet Revolver display as he walked by.

  And heard behind me the screech of the damned.

  “Get out of my face!”

  It was Nydessa Perry. She was running to Hoody but looking at me. She filled the room with obscenities, which blended perfectly with the song now playing.

  She kept the fire as she grabbed Hoody. “That’s the lawyer! He followed you!”

  Hoody turned and ran for the front. I started to follow but Nydessa grabbed my shirt and tore at my face with her nails.

  Like Muhammad Ali—not Pug Robinson—in his prime, I pulled my head back. That made her swipe superficial.

  She bared her teeth and came at me again. I grabbed her wrists and held them. She had skinny arms but with tensile strength. It was like holding a squid from a fifties sci-fi movie.

  A squid that screamed. Which finally got the attention of a security guard, a lardy college dropout type with sandy hair.

  “Let go now!” he said.

  “Take her from me,” I said.

  He looked lost.

  “She’s on the attack,” I said.

  Nydessa screamed I was lying, all in a language where “K” is the primary sound. She laced so many of them together in such a short time—with the term mother making several noted appearances—I thought I was in a speeded-up Mamet film.

  “Sir!” the guard said.

  I pushed Nydessa back a step and let go of her.

  “Now—” the guard started to say. Then Nydessa flew at me again. Her hands were talons.

  This time the guard had the presence of mind to intervene. She turned her claws on him. Got him flush on one of his pink cheeks.

  Three red stripes appeared on his face.

  Nydessa stopped, looked at her work, then ran for the exit. The guard was too stunned to do anything. Blood was running down his cheek now.

  “You guys have a first aid kit?” I said.

  “I think so,” he said. “What was that?”

  “I got a name and address if you want to press charges. You got a boatload of witnesses.”

  Several people were looking at us.

  I gave the guard my card and made sure he got to the bathroom.

  118

  MONDAY I WENT to see Mitch Roberts. He’d just come back from court and said he only had ten minutes to talk to me.

  I told him ten minutes would be enough. He showed me to his office, one of the corner pens with a window overlooking the backside of Van Nuys.

  “I want you to dismiss against Calderón,” I said.

  He smiled. “And I want to play quarterback for the Colts.”

  “Do you have an arm?”

  “Not like that.”

  “You don’t have a case, either.”

  “Please.” He put his coat over the back of his chair and loosened his tie. “You’ve now got seven minutes.”

  “You know the case is wack. You got shaky IDs all over, and one very bad druggie who hates my guy.”

  “She made a positive ID,” Roberts said. “No question.”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to have real trouble with this one,” I said.

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “I’m telling you, she’s one loose rivet.”

  “So you can cross-examine her.”

  Oh, I would cross-examine her. I decided not to let him in on the little incident in Amoeba Music. There are not a lot of surprises trial lawyers can spring anymore, but this was going to be one of mine. As long as Nydessa didn’t tell Roberts what happened.

  I thought she wouldn’t. I decided she wanted to have as little to do with the proceedings as possible. Because the guy who really did the shootings could very well be her boyfriend.

  Yes, Mitch Roberts would have a little surprise if he put her on the stand. I’d bring in a certain security guard to testify about her little friend in the hoody. I didn’t know if it was the shooter or not. But I didn’t have to know. All I had to do was put that picture in the mind of the jury. They’d take care of the rest through the magic of deliberations.

  “I got the vic’s husband looking right into the guy’s eyes,” Roberts said, “and making another positive ID.” />
  “You sure about that?”

  He said, “I got a call from Mr. Roshdieh. He says you invaded his store.”

  “That’s the word he used, ‘invaded’?”

  “He was upset that you would do that, that you would come in and harass him, show him photos. Did you do that, Mr. Buchanan?”

  “I did my job,” I said. “I’m a working lawyer, Mitch.”

  “Don’t call me Mitch.”

  “Mr. Roberts?”

  “That’ll do.”

  “You don’t seem to like me.”

  “I don’t. I think you’re arrogant.”

  “Just because I think I’m better than everybody else?”

  He shook his head in disgust.

  “Kidding, Mitch—I mean, Mr. Roberts. If we can’t have a little collegiality here—”

  “I’m not interested in collegiality or conviviality or yucking it up. I have a job to do.”

  “Which is to seek justice, right? That’s what the canon of ethics says, am I right?”

  Roberts took a fuzzy green tennis ball off his desk and bounced it once on the floor, caught it, and squeezed. “Your point?”

  “Don’t make this personal with me,” I said. “Don’t make me think prosecutors aren’t really interested in following exculpatory evidence to a dismissal. Just think about it, will you? You have a murder to prosecute, but your case is thin. That means the real guy may still be out there, right?”

  “We have the right guy.” Roberts bounced the ball again. “By the way, did you show Mr. Roshdieh a business card?”

  “Did I what?”

  “When you went to see him? Did you show him a business card?”

  “No.”

  “You mean you violated 1054.8?”

  I tried not to look lost. He was referring to the penal code, which, not being a career prosecutor, I hadn’t memorized.

  “Disclosure rules when you talk to one of my witnesses,” Roberts said. “You didn’t do that, sanctions may follow.”

  “He knew who I was pretty quick.”

  “Maybe we’ll let the state bar figure that out.”

  “You’re threatening me?”