I Will Fear No Evil (43 page)

“—whereas ‘id’ is not a scientific concept; it is merely the first syllable of
‘idiot!’
. . . as my esteemed colleague should know best” “—will be order in the courtroom.” “—let me cite the incontestable conclusions of that
great
scientist—” “garbage in, garbage out! Any graduate assistant can draw pretty graphs and make half-bright conclusions from irrelevant data.” “May I ask my esteemed colleague to repeat that slur outside the courtroom?” “—Bailiff is directed to keep order during—” (“Jake, with any luck we’ll get this so fouled up that
nobody
can play left field.”)

“—with those bright lights. Don’t shine them in
my
eyes, or KPOX will lack your services a few days.” “—inquire of the Court whether esteemed Counsel has any serious purpose in subjecting the Court and these spectators to the offensive sight of this grisly carcass?” (“—can’t stand it myself, Jake; did I
really
look that bad? I still think we should take a dive on this.” “Hush, dear, Mac knows what he is doing and so do I.”) “—respectfully suggest that the witness himself should be conclusively identified before his testimony can be used to identify another person.” “—State and County. This set of prints I am now projecting on the screen you have just seen me take from the cadaver marked exhibit MM. I will now compare them with prints supplied by Veterans Administration Archives and previously marked as exhibit JJ, using jump-stereo superposition—” “—personally take those photographs which you now hold and which have been tentatively marked as exhibit SS, numbers one through one hundred twenty-seven?”

“—will
not
be cleared. This will be a public hearing. But the Court will take time to sentence for contempt as needed, and Evelyn, you can start by putting that spectator,
that
one, the woman with the glasses and the fright wig, on ice for ten days. Get her name, give it to the Clerk, take her away. Any more morons who can’t keep quiet? You back there, eating a candy bar; stuff it into your pocket, this is not a lunchroom.”

“Is Counsel for the challenged party suggesting that this is
not
José Branca?” “Goodness, no, I’ll help identify him if you need me. I’m simply urging that you lay a proper foundation.” (“Jake, Joe looks ghastly. I
must
go see him as soon as this nonsense is over.” “Do you think that is wise?” “I don’t know, Jake. But I know that I
must.
”)

“Look around you, Mr. Branca. Tell the Court—tell the Judge, that is—whether or not your wife is in this room?” “Not here.” “Mr. Branca, look where I am pointing.” “Not here, I told you!” “Your Honor, we are faced with a reluctant witness. It becomes necessary to lead him.” “Very well. But Counsel is reminded that he cannot impeach his own witness.” “Thank you, Your Honor. Mr. Branca, I am pointing at this young woman, look at her closely. I have my hand on her shoulder—” “Keep your hands to yourself! Judge, if he puts a hand on me again, I’ll bite it!” “Order. Counsel, it is not necessary to touch the challenged party, and you will not do so again. Your witness-knows which young woman you mean.” “Very well, Your Honor—and if I have given offense to this young lady, I am sorry. Mr. Branca, I put it to you that this is your wife, Eunice Branca née Evans.”

“Not Eunice. She dead. Judge, do I gotta take this kark? That lyin’ fixer knows t’ score, he talk to me two, three hours. Sure, that’s Eunice’
body.
But she’s
dead
. Everybody knows what happen.”

“Sorry, Your Honor. Mr. Branca, please confine yourself to answering my questions. You say your wife is dead . . . but did you ever
see
your wife Eunice Branca dead?”

“Huh? No. This operation—”

“Just answer the question. You never at any time saw her dead. I put it to you that you were paid one million dollars to testify that this woman is not your wife Eunice Branca.” (“Jake, can they do this to Joe? Look at him.” “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t call him.”)

“Judge, this karky bastard’s
lyin’!
They got this club, see? Rare Blood. I got this funny blood, see? Eunice, too. Save lives. Sure, they offer money, thousand, million, I I don’ know, don’ care. You think I’m a pimp, maybe? For
Eunice?
I tell ’em shove it. I—”

“Your Honor, I pray your help in bringing this witness to order.”

“I think he’s making a responsive answer to your question. Go on, Mr. Branca. They offered you money. For what?”

“Oh. Eunice got a boss, see? Mr. Smith. Johann Smith. So rich he karks in gold pot. But poor old muck is dying, see? Only the medicares don’ let him die. Pitiful. But he’s got this same funny blood, see? Like me, like Eunice. I tell’em, sure, he can have Eunice’ body, she don’ need it no more—but
not
for money. So we rig a swindle—me and his fixer over there, Mr. Jake Salomon. He knows how I feel, he helps. ‘Eunice Evans Branca Memorial Fund for
Free
Rare Blood’—all paid to t’ Rare Blood Club. Ask Mr. Jake Salomon, he knows. I . . . don’ . . . touch . . . one . . . God damn’ frimpin’
dime!”
(“Jake—he won’t even look at me.” “Put your veil up, dear, and cry under it.”)

“Does Counsel for Petitioners have any more questions to ask this witness?”

“No, Your Honor. Counsel may inquire.”

“No cross-examination, Your Honor.”

“Does either counsel wish to question this witness at a later time? This is not a trial, and the Court intends to allow the widest latitude for inquiry even at the cost of permitting irrelevancies to creep into the record. Counsel?”

“Petitioners have no further use for this witness.”

“No questions now or later, Your Honor.”

“Very well. Court will reconvene at ten tomorrow morning. Bailiff is directed to provide this witness with transportation home or wherever he wishes to go, and to protect him from annoyance in so doing. Off the top, Evelyn, he’s been harried enough.”

“Judge? Can I say sump’n?”

“If you wish, Mr. Branca.”

“That karky fixer—not Mr. Salomon, other one. Gets dark every night. Some night he winds up in Bird’s Nest turf.”

“Order. Mr. Branca, you must not make threats in court.”

“Wasn’t no threat, Judge. Was
prophesying. I
wouldn’t hurt anybody. But Eunice had lots and lots and
lots
of friends.”

“Very well. You’re excused, Mr. Branca; you won’t have to come back. Clerk will take charge of exhibits. Bailiff will provide heel-and-toe guards. Recessed.”

“All rise!” “—greatest possible respect for the scholarly qualifications of my distinguished colleague, nevertheless the opinions he has expressed are the most arrant nonsense, as proved by that
great
scientist in his paper of 1976 from which I know quote: ‘The very concept of “personality” is but a shadow of a figment of a fantasy of a pre-scientific speculation.
All
life phenomena are fully explained by the laws of biochemistry as exemplified—’ ” “—even an existential phenomenology requires a teleological foundation and I so concede, but a close study of dialectical materialism proves to any but the hopelessly biased that—” “Who’s in charge here?” “An unborn child is not person; it is merely an inchoate protoplasmic structure with a potentiality to become
from its environment
—” “—mathematical laws of genetic inheritance account for every possible event misnamed—” “—in words familiar to the Court and to everyone: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ ”

“—
shocked
to discover that the learned judge presiding over this trial is in fact a fraternity brother of Johann S. B. Smith. This clandestine relationship may be verified in records open to the public and I ask that this Court today, and any later courts seeing this record, take judicial notice, and I demand that opposing Counsel stipulate the fact.”

“Stipulated.” (“Jake, how did they find out?” “We leaked it. Through Alec, last night. Time to get it into the record, rather than in an appeal.”)

“Aha! This damning fact having been stipulated, Petitioners are now forced to demand that the Judge presiding disqualify himself and declare this a mistrial.” (“Jake, seems to me they’ve got us on the hip. Much as I like Mac and Alec, I have to admit that this has the flavor of finding a strawberry mark on a missing heir.” “No, my dear. In the course of a long life a prominent man acquires direct linkage to every other prominent man. If it hadn’t turned out that you and Mac were in the same fraternity, it would have been some other link as close or closer. How many members of the Supreme Court do you know?” “Uh . . . I think it’s five.” “There’s your answer. At the top of the pyramid everybody knows everybody else.”) (And sleeps with them.) (Shut up, Eunice!)

“Counsel, I find this interesting. First let me set you straight on a point of law. Twice you have used the word ‘trial’ and now you speak of a ‘mistrial.’ This is, as you know, not a trial, it is not even an adversary situation: it is merely an inquiry for the purpose of determining the identity of the young woman there who calls herself ‘Miss Smith.’ She is charged with no crime, no civil suit against her is before this court; it is simply that her claimed identity has been challenged by petitioners who assert an interest. So this court is assisting in a friendly investigation—helping like a good neighbor in attempting to straighten out a mixup.
Not
a trial.”

“I stand corrected, Your Honor.”

“Please be careful in your use of technical language. If there is no trial, there can be no mistrial. Do you agree?”

“Perhaps I should use other language, Your Honor. Petitioners feel that, under these disclosed circumstances, you are not the judge who should preside over this, uh, friendly investigation.”

“That is possible. But the matter has reached me in the course of due process and it will continue to remain before me unless compelling reasons are shown why I should step aside. Again on the matter of language, you used the word ‘clandestine.’ The Court will not
at this moment
consider whether or not Counsel’s choice of this word implies contempt—”

“Your Honor, I assure you—”

“Order. I am speaking. Nor will
you
discuss that aspect at this time. We will now consider only the meaning of this word. ‘Clandestine’ means ‘hidden, secret, concealed’ with a flavor or connotation of surreptitious, or underhanded, or illicit. Tell me—this alleged relationship: Could it be verified in ‘Who’s Who’?”

“Oh, certainly, Your Honor! That’s where I found it.”

“I know that my own fraternity is noted there; I assume that if appropriate it would be listed in the case of Johann Sebastian Bach Smith. Since you tell me that you have checked it, the Court takes judicial notice for whatever it is worth and requires no further substantiation . . . other than to comment that we could hardly have been members of the same chapter at the same time since we differ by almost half a century in age. Did your investigations show that Johann Smith and I were jointly members of other organizations? For example Johann Smith was a founding member of the Gibraltar Club—and I am a member, and Miss Smith’s counsel, Mr. Salomon, is a member . . . and you are a member. In what other organizations do I share membership with Johann Smith? Now or in the past.”

“Uh . . . Petitioners have not investigated.”

“Oh, come now, I feel sure that you could turn up others. The Red Cross, for example. Probably the Chamber of Commerce at some time. I seem to recall that when I was a Scout Commissioner Johann Smith was one also. Possibly we’re both in other fraternal bodies. Almost certainly we have served as trustees, or such, for the same charitable or service groups, either simultaneously or successively. I note that you are a Shriner, so am I. Care to comment on the fact?”

“No comment, Your Honor.”

“But you and I almost certainly share several fraternal bonds. The Court takes notice of the wry fact that, since lawyers are not permitted to advertise, as a class they tend to join more organizations—fraternal, social, service, and religious—then do laymen as a class. Since you choose not to comment on the ones that you and I share in common, the Court will on its own motion investigate and place the results in the record. Now as to my alleged obligation to disqualify myself, do you wish to clarify your reasoning? Think it over while we take a recess, as your answer will go into the record. Ten minutes.”

“Order. Counsel for the Petitioners? You have had time to think.”

“Petitioners move that all remarks concerning fraternal associations and like matters be struck from the record.”

“Motion denied.
Nothing
will be struck from this record. Come now, Counselor, you must have had
some
theory. State it.”

“Your Honor, at the time I raised the point it seemed important. I now no longer think so.”

“But you must have had a theory or you would not have raised it. Please speak freely, I want to know.”

“Well . . . if Your Honor will indulge me, the disclosed fact seemed to admit of the possibility of prejudice on the part of the Court. No contempt is intended.”

“And the Court will assume that none exists. But your answer is less than complete. Prejudice in favor of whom? The Petitioners? Because of my fraternal relationship with their grandparent?”

“What? Oh, no, Your Honor—prejudice in favor of, uh, of Miss—the challenged party.”

“You are stipulating that she is
indeed
Johann Sebastian Bach Smith?” (“My God, Jake, Mac’s got him biting his own tail.” “Yes.
Who
has got
whom
on
whose
hip?”)

“No, no Your Honor, we are not stipulating
that
. That is the very matter we are challenging.”

“But Counsel cannot have it both ways. If this young woman is
not
Johann Sebastian Bach Smith—as Petitioners allege—then she is
not
of my college fraternity. Conversely, under your own theory, she is Johann Sebastian Bach Smith. Which way will you have it?”

“I’m afraid I have been guilty of faulty reasoning. I pray the court’s indulgence.”