The Monkey Handlers Read online

“You’re welcome. And not if you keep your mouth shut about where you got it, if the subject ever comes up.”

  Stone tried to cover his embarrassment by leafing through Stephanie’s offerings, then he turned to face her squarely. “This is good stuff. I really appreciate it. Thank you.”

  Stephanie looked away and stared at the dashboard. With a small voice, she said, “It’s okay.”

  Stone felt decidedly uncomfortable. He noticed Stephanie’s thigh straining against the cloth of her white linen suit and he guiltily shifted his glance upward to her face. Its troubled expression saddened him. He felt as if he’d just blown something important. He wanted it back.

  “Look,” he said clumsily, “I’ve got an indictment and pleading this morning at ten, then a press conference to monitor that I’m not at all happy about. It would be a late one, but could I buy you lunch? There’s a little place across the bridge overlooking the river I’ve been meaning to try out. How about it?”

  Stephanie faced him. “Okay. Thank you. But let’s make it dutch. Give me a call when your press conference is over.”

  “Deal. But I wish you’d reconsider the dutch thing. I’m not trying to compromise your independence. You’ve done me a hell of a favor, and I’m in the middle of making a mess of trying to say thank you.”

  Stephanie smiled. “Oh, you’re not doing such a bad job. I’ll think about it. Give me a call when you’re ready.”

  Stone got out of the car. “Thanks,” he said, “see you later.”

  Stephanie started the Prelude and drove away. Stone watched her go. He felt something in the pit of his stomach that he hadn’t felt for so long, he had thought it was a part of youth one grew out of and he’d never feel again. Distracted, he turned and walked back to his car.

  * * *

  “What’s going on out there?” Judge Louis Carlini of the Mohawk county court was leaning through the doorway of his clerk’s office and gesturing with his head toward the hallway outside.

  “It’s the television people, Your Honor. They’re setting up for a press conference in the hall after the plea to the Rosen indictment. The rest of them—there’s a lot—are in your courtroom to cover the plea. Then they all move out into the hall.”

  “Not my hall, they’re not. What, they think the Rosen indictment’s the only one we’ve got this morning? And the motions afterward? The court’s supposed to conduct its business with a circus going on outside in the hall? You tell them to go downstairs and make arrangements—no, send the bailiff. Tell them if nobody objects, they can use the downstairs lobby; otherwise, they’re out in the street. This is a court of justice, for Christ’s sake!”

  Some twenty minutes later, the bailiff in Judge Carlini’s courtroom intoned “All rise” and Judge Carlini, to his surprise, took the bench of a packed courtroom. There was not another seat to be had, he noted. Only trials of the most bizarre murders, usually with a twisted sexual angle, had drawn this much attendance in the past. Like the rest of the seats, the press section was filled.

  “Will the district attorney and”—Carlini looked down at some papers on his desk—“Mr. Stone approach the bench.”

  Stone and a graying man of forty rose and walked up as close to the front of Judge Carlini’s desk as they could get. To the judge’s left front, a small middle-aged man at a stenotype machine leaned forward to catch the conversation and record it. Judge Carlini leaned forward and said, in a voice cast to travel but the necessary few feet, “Mr. Holden, who’s handling this matter for your office?”

  “I’ll take it myself, Your Honor.”

  Michael Stone was taken aback; the district attorney rarely handled a trial himself unless it was a notorious murder. It was unheard of for him to handle an arraignment. He must be responding to all the press interest, Stone thought.

  “All right,” Carlini said, “I think most of the people in the room are here for the Rosen plea, so I’m going to take it out of order so we can clear these people out and handle the rest of today’s matters without all the potential for commotion. Any objection?”

  “No, Your Honor,” the two men said in unison.

  “All right, then,” Carlini said. As the two lawyers returned to their seats, the judge waved over the court clerk. “Call People v. Rosen.”

  “People v. Rosen,” the clerk called out dutifully.

  The district attorney rose. “Warren Holden for the People.”

  “For the defendant, Michael Stone.”

  “All right,” said the judge, “will the defendant please rise?”

  Sara stood up next to Stone. “Sara Rosen, you are accused in an indictment handed down by the grand jury of Mohawk County of one count of burglary in the second degree in that on or about—”

  “May it please the court,” Michael Stone said, “defendant waives further reading of the indictment and is ready to plead.”

  The request was so routine, Judge Carlini didn’t wait to hear whether there was any objection from the district attorney. “Without objection, motion to waive further reading granted. How does the defendant plead?”

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  “A plea of not guilty will be entered,” chanted the judge.

  “On the matter of bail,” offered the district attorney, “People recommend twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Michael Stone could barely conceal his anger as the audience gasped in response. “Your Honor, defendant has twice appeared to answer this first-offense charge. She has a local address and has been on her own recognizance as set by another judge of this same court. Request defendant be continued on her own recognizance.”

  “This is a felony charge, Your Honor,” said the district attorney. “There is substantial exposure to a prison term. To be fair to the people of this community—”

  “All right, all right,” said the judge, his mind making rapid political calculations and judgments. He didn’t want to offend his senior colleague, yet there was substantial political interest here, and he had his own future to consider. “The People want twenty-five thousand dollars’ bail, and the defendant wants no bail at all. In view of all the circumstances, court sets bail at one thousand dollars.” The district attorney looked miffed and the audience sighed in release of tension. Judge Carlini decided it had been a good call. Time to clear out his courtroom. “Court will take a ten-minute recess,” he said and, banging his gavel, rose to leave.

  “All rise,” responded the bailiff.

  As the judge left the courtroom, Sara looked at Stone and said, “What now? I don’t have a thousand dollars. I could get it from my grandparents but it’d take—”

  “You don’t need a thousand. A bail bond costs ten percent. I’ll lend you another hundred.”

  “A hundred, I can handle. Will they take a check?”

  “A bail bondsman? Not from his mother, from what they tell me. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll take a check.”

  A sheriff’s matron came up to Sara’s elbow to lead her away. “Do me a favor,” Stone said to her, “hold her back in the jury room a couple of minutes while I get bond posted, okay? We’re talking a hundred dollars here. Do me two favors. I’ll bet you know every courtroom personality in the building. There should be a bondsman hanging around looking to pick up some business, am I right?”

  The matron, who liked what she saw in Stone’s broad shoulders, said, with a nod to a sour-looking man sitting in an aisle seat in the last bench at the rear, “Right back there. Name’s Murphy. We’ll be in the jury room.”

  The door to the jury room was just across the hall from the courtroom door. As uniformed deputies blocked off the few steps between the two and Sara and the matron walked past, the press barraged Sara with questions. The matron kept her moving and the distance was so short, she didn’t have a chance to respond, much to Stone’s relief. Murphy in tow, Stone told the waiting crowd that his client would be released on bond in a few minutes. The deputies herded the crowd of reporters downstairs, where arrangements had
been made to hold the press conference in the main lobby. Two reporters eluded the deputies dragnet and attached themselves to Stone. One was Terry Caulfield of The Wall Street Journal. The other, a man of medium build, in his late thirties to early forties, with raven-black hair and eyebrows set off by skin so white it seemed never to have seen the sun, introduced himself to Stone in a lilting brogue as “Brian Sullivan, sir, Reuters. Would y’be mindin’ if I tagged along till we get to the conference?”

  “I would still like,” said Terry Caulfield, clearly annoyed by the entire turn of events, “to speak with your client privately, if that can be arranged.”

  “As would I,” Sullivan chimed in cheerfully, his dark brown eyes probing Stone’s blue. Stone held both hands up in a placating gesture as they reached the clerk’s office, answering neither directly. He handed Murphy a hundred-dollar bill and Murphy, with a swiftness born of years of doing the same thing, got from Stone the basic information on his client, executed the bond, pocketed his money, and left rapidly to get back upstairs to resume his seat in the hope of picking up some more business. Stone now could not put off dealing with the two reporters any longer.

  “Reuters and The Wall Street Journal,” Stone said. “I’m sure my client will be impressed. I’m impressed. I know the Journal’s interest, but Reuters? From the cut of your jacket, Mr. Sullivan, I’d say you were just over from Europe. That’s a lot of interest for a place like Rhinekill.”

  Sullivan smiled. “Dublin, sir. That’s where both the jacket and I came from, seven years ago. This piece of cloth is m’last link with home. Been working out of New York and, when the fuss started up here, they sent me to cover it. Riegar is very big in Europe, mind you, and this animal business strikes a sympathetic chord in doggie and pussycat lovers the world over. It’s universal, it is.”

  They approached the gathered press and sightseers in the lobby. Stone addressed them all: “Ladies and gentlemen, my client has made bail, and I’ll be bringing her down in a minute. I want you all to know that I have advised my client that for her to respond to press inquiries in her circumstances is not advisable from a legal point of view. She has agreed not to discuss her case, just her position on the controversy with Riegar over the experimental use of animals. Now, I know I cannot control what questions you ask my client. But I hope to control her responses. Meaning if you ask her a question I think gets into the facts and circumstances of her case, I am going to try to have her keep her word to me not to answer. Fair enough?”

  There was a general murmur as Stone, not waiting for an answer, and seeking to shake Caulfield, Sullivan, and any others trying to follow, sped up the stairs, two at a time. He was successful and was able to speak privately with Sara as he escorted her down, emphasizing the same things he had just told the assembled press. He stood right beside her and said, “My client will have a brief statement and will then respond to questions.”

  Sara stepped forward. The television lights blinded her to much of the crowd as she spoke.

  “First of all,” Sara said, “I want to make it clear that I am speaking only for myself. I don’t claim to represent any organization or movement, formal or informal, for animal protection or animal rights. Okay? I have a point of view. It’s shared by some and some disagree—”

  “Is it the group that agrees with your viewpoint,” said a young woman holding a microphone out toward Sara as a cameraman snapped on yet another light and filmed her reaction, “that is behind the anti-Riegar demonstrations?”

  “No,” Sara said, turning to face her questioner, “just about every point of view is represented down there.”

  “Are you their leader?” asked a man holding out a tape recorder.

  “No. As I said, I just represent myself here.”

  “Then why are we all here listening to you?”

  “Because, I suppose, I’m the first demonstrator to be charged with anything more than disturbing the peace.”

  “Just what were you charged with?” asked the woman television reporter.

  Michael Stone edged right up next to Sara and grasped her elbow. Sara glanced down at his hand and frowned her annoyance. “Burglary,” she said.

  “Why were you singled out for such a charge, especially if you’re not the leader?”

  Stone squeezed Sara’s elbow hard and said, “I’m Michael Stone, Ms. Rosen’s attorney. I have advised her not to discuss her case while it’s pending. There is, however, no legal reason why she may not discuss with you her views on the treatment of animals.” Stone made the statement, which was a repetition of his remarks to the press earlier, less for them than for the benefit of Sara, whom he wanted to warn discreetly and remind of their agreement back in Aunt May’s kitchen. Sara understood his meaning clearly.

  “I think it might be more efficient if you’d let me just state my views and then I’ll be happy to answer any questions not related to my case. Okay?” The response was silence, which Sara took as assent.

  “The people out in front of the Riegar plant are there because Riegar is a worldwide operation that experiments on animals for profit. All animal experimentation is, of course, for profit. The so-called pure research people are in it for the grant money. In the case of Riegar, it’s more obvious. They’re not in the drug business to allay suffering. If they wanted to do that, they’d stop experimenting on animals. They’re in it to make money for their shareholders.” The Washington Post stringer liked that one. He underlined the quote in his notes as Sara continued.

  “Now, some of the people demonstrating believe the rights of animals are being violated. I disagree.”

  Heads popped up from notebooks at that. “You disagree?”

  “Yes. If animals had any rights, these things wouldn’t be done to them. Our law doesn’t recognize any rights for animals. Even the laws governing cruelty to animals are completely silent on that subject.”

  “Are you saying that animals shouldn’t have any rights?” The “let me make my statement first” idea was eroding fast.

  “No. I’m just saying they don’t, in fact, have any that the law recognizes. Now, if you’ll just hold your questions, please, until I finish. Most of the demonstrators are upset by the cruelty that’s going on, not just at the Riegar plant but everywhere animal experimentation is carried out. It’s hideous, I agree. But the point I’m trying to make is that not only is it cruel, it is unnecessary. Actually, not only does it not benefit humans, it’s dangerous to human beings. Not just because it misleads researchers down false trails and delays the development of new medicines. If that’s all that happened, we’d be lucky. Thank God Fleming didn’t have any guinea pigs handy when he discovered penicillin; it’s a deadly poison to guinea pigs. And it’s a good thing they didn’t test out strychnine on guinea pigs—or monkeys, for that matter—they can eat it safely. Any of you want some? Chloroform is so poisonous to dogs, for years they wouldn’t use it as an anesthetic for humans. Give the Amanita phalloides mushroom to a rabbit and you’ve got a happy rabbit, but you take one bite and you’re dead. Test cyanide on an owl—no problem. On humans, we use it as a substitute for the electric chair. It’s insane!”

  Terry Caulfield spoke up. “Assuming everything you say is true, Ms. Rosen, isn’t it a fact that animal testing has been valuable in discovering, for example, that various food additives, like cyclamates, are carcinogens, leading to their being outlawed and thus saving countless lives?”

  “You’re with The Wall Street Journal, right?” Sara asked, then kept speaking without waiting for Caulfield’s answer. “How much do you think it was worth, in billions of dollars of sales, to the sugar industry to get an artificial sweetener thirty times stronger than sugar that cost five times less banned from the market?”

  “But the fact remains, doesn’t it,” Caulfield pressed, “that cyclamates have been proven to cause cancer in animals?”

  “Sure,” said Sara, “cancer and a lot of other diseases. You know why? They pumped so much of the stuff down animal throats
, it’s a wonder they didn’t suffocate under it. You want to know how much of that stuff you’d have to ingest to be exposed to the same amount? How’d you like to drink eight hundred cans of diet soda every day for the rest of your life? You’d drown in it!”

  Someone called out from the gloom at the rear of the group, “Was that eight or eight hundred cans?”

  “Eight hundred. A day. For the rest of your life. Look, it should be obvious all animals are not the same—they are very different in many ways—even rats and mice. It follows that people, humans, are also not the same as other animals. Herpes B virus is harmless to Old World macaque monkeys, but it kills seventy to eighty percent of humans exposed to it. Your paper, Ms. Caulfield, reported just last year that a monkey handler working for a lab in Michigan died of Herpes B when one of the monkeys bit him. His death was called an ‘occupational hazard’! The point is, not only is there nothing to be gained here, there’s a lot to lose—like your life.”

  “So why do it?”

  Michael Stone, who from his position at Sara Rosen’s side was equally blinded by the television lights, recognized the Irish accent of Brian Sullivan, the man from Reuters.

  “Well, for one thing,” said Sara, “the United States Government requires it. The Food and Drug Administration insists on the testing of any new drug on animals before it can be tested on humans, the only valid kind of test. So what happens? They test it on a being that reacts differently from a human, certify it safe for humans, and then, when it eventually proves harmful to humans, the cop-out is that it was safe for animals. Remember Thalidomide? Metaqualone killed three hundred sixty-six people; stilbestrol gave women cancer; isoproterenol killed thousands of asthmatics. Eraldin was another killer. Tuberkulin, a vaccine that cured tuberculosis in guinea pigs, caused it in humans. This didn’t happen yesterday; it’s been going on for years. Where have all you hotshot investigative reporters been?”

  Sara’s barb drew instant retort from the woman behind the television microphone. “Was it that passion for your cause that led you to break into the Riegar laboratories?”