Goldenboy by Michael Nava Page A

In the meantime, the
defendant’s motion to dismiss is denied without prejudice to renew it at that
point. That’s all, gentlemen.” She rose swiftly and departed the bench.
    I turned to Pisano.
“Think the streets are safer now?” I demanded.
    He capped the pen
he had taken notes with. “This isn’t personal, Henry. It’s business. Learn that
and you’ll live a lot longer.”
    “Calling it
business doesn’t make it right.”
    He smiled faintly. “You
shouldn’t be a lawyer, Henry. You should be God.” He walked away to talk to
Lillian Fox who was hissing his name behind us.
    “Henry?”
    It was Sharon Hart,
looking like a giant bumblebee in a black suit and a yellow silk blouse.
    “Hello, Sharon. I
didn’t see you come in,” I said, closing my briefcase.
    “I slipped in
halfway through,” she said. “I’m in trial next door.”
    “How’s it going?” I
asked without real interest.
    She shrugged. “My
guy’s found Jesus.”
    I smiled, in spite
of myself. “What?”
    “He admits
everything but says that Jesus has forgiven him and the jury should, too.”
    “Think they’ll buy
it?”
    She grinned. “Not
Mrs. Kohn,” she said. “Juror number six. You were real good, just now.”
    “Didn’t seem to
help.”
    “Don’t blame
yourself, or Pat Ryan. Judges are elected, too, and if you’re black and a woman
someone’s always gunning for you. She’s got to be careful.”
    “The fact that the
lynch mob has the franchise, instead of a rope and a tree, doesn’t make this
justice. She should understand that.”
    “I’m sure she does,”
Sharon said, frowning. “Trust me, she’ll do the right thing. Anyway, it’s not
like Jim’s innocent.”
    “At this point his
guilt or innocence is irrelevant,” I replied. “He’s removed himself from the
court’s jurisdiction.”
    “Tough way to do
it,” she commented, sticking an unlit cigarette into the side of her mouth. The
bailiff cleared his throat censoriously. The cigarette went back into her
pocket.
    “But effective,” I
replied.
    “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve
got a couple of clients I’d like to tell to kill themselves.”
    I shook my head.
    “I’ve got to get
back to my trial,” she said, and looked at me steadily. “But there’s one thing
I’ve got to ask you. Do you think Jim killed Brian Fox?”
    “Yes,” I replied,
without hesitation. “1 do.”
    She looked
relieved. “Well, I guess this is goodbye,” she said, and stuck her hand out at
me.
    I shook it. “Goodbye,
Sharon.”
    “Good luck,” she
replied. I watched her leave the courtroom. I began to follow but remembered
the press outside. In no mood for further combat, I slipped out through the
back.
     
    *****
     
    Larry drove me to
the airport and pulled up in front of the Air California terminal. We got out
and I took my things from the trunk.
    “You’re sure you don’t
want me to see you off inside?” he asked.
    “I’m sure,” I
replied. We looked at each other. “You wanted me to balance the accounts. I
didn’t do it, did I?”
    Larry looked worn
and frail. “I guess Jim showed us that people aren’t numbers.”
    “No,” I agreed. “I’ll
be back in a month.”
    “Until then.”
    We embraced and he
kissed my cheek. I stood at the curb and watched his Jaguar melt into the
frantic Friday afternoon traffic.
    On the plane I
thought about the loose ends: a drunken phone call from someone who claimed Jim
wasn’t the killer, Jim’s own insistence that he hadn’t done it, the fact that
Jim and Brian had been something akin to lovers, and Josh Mandel’s obvious lie
about where he had been the night of the murder. Grist for speculation but
hardly enough to take to the jury. Not even enough to change my own mind,
really. Jim Pears had killed Brian Fox. That much was inescapable. And yet...
    I looked out the
window. The sea was white with light, an enormous blankness beneath a gentle
autumn sky.

12
     
    On Monday, December first, I found
myself back in