He spoke rapidly, jerkily. “All right ⦠It's coming back ⦠. Barney Quill was the last man I saw before I blacked out ⦠. In fact his was the only face I saw in the whole damned place ⦠. My gun ⦠. I knew when I entered the barroom the clip of my lüger was loaded. When I got back to my trailer I saw it was empty. There's a thing that pops up ⦠.” He threw out his hands. “Don't you see? I figured I must have shot him, that's all. So I went and told the caretaker I had.” He paused and looked up at me like a child who'd just recited his Christmas poem. Had he done all right?
It was the only plausible explanation he could have made. “I see,” I said thoughtfully. “So that's the way it is?” But, old fire horse that I was, I yearned to be D.A. and be faced with such an answer. It would have been a pleasure to rip and dig at this man. “I see,” I repeated. So far, I felt, this was the biggest flaw, the highest hurdle, to a successful plea of insanity. It, too, would take some pondering.
I glanced at my watch and arose. After all I hadn't fished for two whole days. “That's enough for today,” I said. “Class is dismissed. I'll see you again tomorrow.”
“Are you taking my case?”
“I don't know yet. Among other things, Lieutenant, there's still the little matter of my fee.”
“I was afraid of that.”
I was at the sheriff's door. “Well, I'll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Just one more question,” the Lieutenant said.
“I am your slaveâbut only for one minute,” I said. “Shoot.”
“How are we doin'?”
“No more now, Lieutenant,” I said, smiling. “We've both had a busy day. I'll venture this: I think maybe we're finding a way to save somebody some face. You see, saving face is one of the most important and least spoken of âdefenses' known to criminal law.”
“What I said to the caretaker won't spoil things, will it?”
“I don't know. We can't have everything, chum. I'll add only this: if the jury really wants to find you insane, wants to let you go, all hell won't stop 'em. Now so long. I've got work to do.” I turned to leave.
“Good night, Mr. Biegler,” the Lieutenant said. “Hope you have good fishing.”
I wheeled around. “How in hell did you know that?”
Smiling: “Saw your rod case and gear in your carâfrom my cell window. I don't think you would have left them bake all day in the sun unless you were going fishing directly from here.”
This poor man was crazy; crazy like a fox. “Thanks,” I said, smiling sheepishly. The Lecture was over. My smart lieutenant had passed with flying colors. I also suspected that at times my nimble fox might have been several jumps ahead of me.
That night I slept poorly. A lawyer caught in the toils of a murder case is like a man newly fallen in love: his involvement is total. All he can think about, talk about, brood about, dream about, is his case, his lovely lousy goddam case. Whether fishing, shaving, even lying up with a dame, it is always there, the pulsing eternal insistent thump thump of his case. Alas, it is true: the lover in love and the lawyer in murder share equally one of the most exquisite, baffling, delightful, frustrating, exhilarating, fatiguing, intriguing experiences known to man. And it looked like I was rapidly falling in “love.”
Â
“Good morning, Mr. Clerk,” I said to Sulo. “Is there a Lieutenant Manion still registered here? Or has he checked out?” I had been using the same old gambit on Sulo for ten years and it never failed to convulse him. It didn't fail now. For Sulo was of the old school; old jokes to him were like old cheese: their very mustiness seemed to make him relish them all the more. In fact I had him in stitches; we two were bad enough to be on TV; Sulo was the perfect straight man.
“Dat's a good one, Polly,” Sulo gasped, when he had partly recovered. Still convulsed, he reached for his big brass key. “Ho, ho, ho ⦠. IâI go get your soldier man. He, he ⦠. You can use Sheriff's office you like. He be out road patrol.”
It was reassuring to learn that the relentless bloodhound of a sheriff was already abroad stamping out crime. It also gave me a chance to have a quiet chat with Sulo. “Sit down a minute, Sulo,” I said. “We haven't had a little visit for a long time.” I felt like an insurance solicitor coddling a hot prospect. “Tell me, how's your lumbago?”
“Sure, sure, sure,” Sulo said, gratefully sitting down under the portrait of the man coveted by the F.B.I.
“Say, Sulo,” I said, before he could launch on the saga of his lumbago, “I don't suppose you were on duty the night they brought Lieutenant Manion in? You're still always on days, aren't you?”
“Sure, you bet, Polly, always on days. Too old now dis night business.”
“Hm ⦠. Lieutenant Manion wants to hire me for his lawyer Sulo. But I don't know, I don't know.” I pondered the problem with my old friend. “Say, what kind of a woman is his wife?”
Sulo brightened visibly. “Oh, nice lady, nice nice lady.” He shook
his head appreciatively. “Good looker, tooâeven with dose black eyes.” Sulo winked and brought both arms out and down across his chest in an abrupt half-moon. “Good bumps, too. Boy, oh boy, like dat what-you-call, Maryland Monroe ⦠.”
“Why, Sulo, you old goat,” I reproved him. “And don't be carried away. Remember what happened to Barney Quill.”
I'd lost Sulo, he was off again, drunk with laughter, and while I waited for him to collect himself I reflected what a nice thoughtful democratic guy I was to be passing the time of day with my old former fellow officer. And busy as I was, too. The thought gave me a warm glow. It also occurred to me what a shabby trick it was for me to be sitting there trying to pump this affably innocent old jailer. How crafty and double-crossing could a man get? And all to save the skin of a man who, for simple honor and dignity and the plain virtues, probably wasn't fit to shine Sulo's shoes. But was I doing any of it for Lieutenant Manion? Wasn't it really all for Polly Biegler? In any case the very least I could do was to be frank with my old friend.
Sulo had recovered and was feeling the small of his back, a sure prelude to a blow-by-blow account of his lumbago. “Look, Sulo,” I said, heading him off, “I've got to ask you a question, one simple question. If you don't know the answer I wish you'd tell me. If you do know and don't want to tell me, that's all right, too. Is that fair enough?”
“Shoot, Polly,” Sulo said soberly.
“Do you know whether Barney Quill raped Laura Manion?”
Sulo surveyed me steadily with his faded blue eyes. He glanced away and back again. “You ask
me,
Polly?” he said, shrugging evasively. “How can I knowâI was home in bed. Vy don't you ask dat lady? She was dere.”
We sat silently. Sulo now clearly knew I was pumping him, but at least I had leveled with him. I unwrapped a cigar and chewed the end but did not light it. I had to level still more. “Don't tell me if you don't want to, Sulo,” I said. “I wouldn't want to hurt or involve you for the world. But I've got to decide whether I'm taking this caseâI've got to know today, this morning, in a few minutes. And if I take it I want to win it, it's damned important to me as well as to the Lieutenant. And if I can really know that Barney raped this woman I think maybe I can win it.” I paused. “That's the straight dope, Sulo.”
Sulo glanced furtively around the room. “I tink maybe he did rape her,” he said quietly. The way he said it made the word sound like “rap,” which, upon reflection, still did not make me quibble.
“How do you know?”
“Dat lie âtector test say she tell da trut',” Sulo said.
“Are you
sure,
I mean about the lie-detector results, Sulo?” I pressed. “I've got to be sure.”
“State police he tell Sheriff; Sheriff he tell me,” Sulo said simply. “Dat's true, Polly. I vould not tell you lie about it.”
“Thanks, Sulo,” I said, briefly taking his hand. “That's all I want to know. I feel better already, much better. I guess you can fetch down the Lieutenant now.”
“Sure, sure, sure,” Sulo said, opening and clanking shut his iron door and locking himself in. He paused on the other side and regarded me thoughtfully through the bars. He smiled faintly. “Tâank you, Polly,” he said dryly. “My lumbago, t'anks, she's to be much better, much much better.” He turned and shuffled away upstairs, chuckling to himself. Good old Sulo, good old lumbago.
Just as a lawyer needn't love his client to adequately represent him, so he doesn't necessarily have to believe in his moral or legal innocence. But sometimes it helps, and it was helping now, and I felt greatly relieved to have had my little chat with Sulo. So the lie-detector test showed she was telling the truth, had it? Was the prosecution going to sit on the results? If they were, how was I going to get them before the jury? Especially since the results of these tests were in any case inadmissible in court? Well, I'd have to face that headache later on ⦠.
Sulo had told me more than he realized, much more. This was, in fact, the first big break in the case. For now I not only had confirmation that the lady had been “rapped,” important as that was, but also that her entire story was substantially true. I knew from experience that during the polygraph test the thorough state police would have covered every detail of the case with her: the events before the rape, the rape itself, and the scene later at the trailer park gate where Barney had allegedly beaten her up. And that last part would absolve my man from any lingering suspicion that he had himself beaten her up in a fit of jealous rage. It further tended to buttress the truth of Lieutenant Manion's story of his movements after his wife had reached the trailer. Now I not only knew these things were true but I knew that the prosecution also knew them. While all this still did not afford Lieutenant Manion an open-and-shut
legal defense, I now knew what the People knew and, perhaps equally important, I further knew that they didn't know I knew. It was all a little complicated and I wasn't sure yet where it led. Perhaps I could lure the prosecution into trying to hide the results ⦠. I heard the clank and creak of the iron door.
“Good morning,
Mister
Biegler,” the familiar mocking voice said.
“Oh, it's you, Lieutenant. Good morning.”
“You seem buried in thought this morning.”
I sniffed the air like a beagle. “Merely incipient coma induced by partial asphyxia.” I arose and held my hand toward the sheriff's door. “Shall we retire to the lilac room and carry on? I'll rally shortly.”
“You first, Counselor, you first,” the Lieutenant replied gravely.
“Ah, thank you, Lieutenant.”
I had done it again to Sulo, and we left him strangling and wounded in his chair under the wanted felon. “He, he, he ⦔ I was touched. Good old Sulo; lumbago and all, he still appreciated his old D.A.
Â
“Lieutenant Manion,” I said, facing him, “I've decided to take your case.”
“Good, good. How much is your fee?”
“Three grand. Is that fair enough?”
“Fair enough. I rather thought it might be more.”
“Maybe I'd better raise it, then. I always want my clients to feel satisfied.”
“I'm real satisfiedâthree thousand is most fair and reasonable.”
“Good. When can you pay it?”
“It'll have to be later. Right now I'm broke.”
“What!”
“I'm broke. At this moment I couldn't pay you three dollars.”
“Can you raise it?”
“No.”
“How about your trailer?”
“Both it and my car are mortgaged to the hilt.”
“How about your relatives? Everybody has a rich uncle.”
“I don't have any uncles, rich or poor. Both my parents are dead. My only close relative is a married sister in Dubuque. She and her husband owe
me
money. They have four kids and a mortgage.”
“You seem to spring from well-mortgaged stock,” I said. “Look, Manion, why did you call me down here if you knew you couldn't pay me? Did you think perhaps I ran a veterans' legal aid bureau?”
“I needed a lawyer and I wanted the best.”
“You mean the second best, don't you? Or have you forgotten about that eminent authority on unwritten law, old Crocker?”
The Lieutenant shrugged and regarded me steadily. “Well,” he said slowly, “if you won't represent me I suppose I'll have to try someone else.”
I stared at him. Was it possible that this man sensed that by now I would almost have paid
him
to stay in the case? “You let me waste a whole goddam day on this case when you knew all along you couldn't pay me,” I said, trying hard to work up a pout.
“You didn't ask me,” he said.
The man had me there. He couldn't be expected to know that any half-decent attorney could scarcely discuss his fee before he knew whether he wanted to enter a case. At the same time, though, I could well have probed him a little about his general financial condition when I first met him the morning before. And probably should have. Why didn't I face it? Wasn't it the solemn truth that I had suspected all along he didn't have any money, as Maida had warned me, and had deliberately put off asking him until it was too late, until I was hopelessly enmeshed? As for Maida, how would I ever square all this with her and our depleted check book? The thought made me smile.
“Look, Manion,” I said. “How much can you pay me and when?”
“I can pay you a hundred and fifty dollars on account next week. It's pay day then.”
“You realize, of course, that if I accept that Iâthat I've enlisted for the duration?”
Coolly: “Yes. That's why I'm offering it.”
There was a kind of engaging frankness about this cool pirate. “When could you pay me the balance?”
“I don't know. If I'm acquitted I'll give you a promissory note and I can pay you so much a month.”
“Famous last words,” I said. “And suppose you're convicted?”
“Then I guess both of us lose. But isn't that just another of those calculated risksâlike pleading insanity?”
The needling bastard ⦠. I had to put in one more try, for Maida's sake. “Supposing I said I won't take your case till you pay me half my fee?”
Shrugging: “I'd just have to regretfully get someone else, I'm afraid.”
“You'd risk that?” I said. “You'd actually risk it?”
Smiling slightly: “I've got my legal defense now, haven't I? I was insane, wasn't I? How can I possibly lose?”
I was now getting the Lecture in reverse. I stared admiringly at the man, at this shrewd, gambling, dead-beat son-of-a-bitch. He had me helplessly coming his way and I was, morally certain that he now knew I just had to take on this case. The moment of decision was at hand; I would either go fishing or else go to work. I took a deep breath and held it, pain and all.
“Lieutenant Manion,” I said, extending my hand, “you've got yourself a lawyer. And I seem to have a client. Now let's get down to work. We've plenty of it.”
He took my hand. “It's a pleasure, Counselor. Where do we start? You'll have to tell me, you know. Remember, I've been ill and I'm just recovering my wits.”
“Your wits will do nicely. First let's go out and see Sulo. I want to discuss with him the possibility of our doing our talking outside in my car. The stink of this place is getting me down. Even for three grand on the line I don't think I can stand it much longer.” I held the door open for my client. We found Sulo nodding in his chair and I stood debating whether to awaken him.