The Monkey Handlers Page 4

  “A simple ‘not guilty’ will suffice, Miss,” said the judge. “The court is mindful that you had a rough night. But please, you have counsel. Unless you are dissatisfied with his performance and want to dismiss him, let him do his job.”

  Sara Rosen bit her lower lip to contain herself. She was not impressed with the way her attorney had let her be dragged all over the place by the police, but she had no alternative in mind at the moment.

  “All right,” said the court, “this is set for preliminary hearing before the city court of the city of Rhinekill no later than two P.M. today. Defendant is released on her own recognizance until that time so that she can consult with counsel or obtain new counsel, whatever her preference.”

  “But…” protested Sibley.

  “I believe,” said Martin, ignoring him, “the clerk had already called another case, and the court wishes to thank both counsel for their patience. Proceed.”

  Stone pushed aside the swinging gate in the wooden bar that gave the legal profession its name and led Sara Rosen back down the center aisle of the spectator seats. A handful of people were scattered about the benches in ones and twos. Most were old. While their contemporaries were closeted at home watching ersatz courtroom drama on television, these people had opted for the real thing. It was far more interesting and, to the relief of some of their long-suffering married children with whom they lived, it got them out of the house. Stone and his client interested them. Stone was new to these precincts. They hadn’t seen him in action before. Whispering together, several of them decided to go over to city court at two.

  From the front row, the row where the press sat during trials in which there was public interest, a young woman in a business suit rose and followed Stone and Rosen down the aisle, turning left after them toward the exit. Once outside the courtroom, she approached them.

  “Ms. Rosen? I’m Terry Caulfield with The Wall Street Journal. We’re planning a feature on the impact of the animal-rights movement on affected industries—fur, agriculture, and so forth. This ruckus at Riegar interests us because there’s been no organized protests, until yours, directed at the pharmaceutical industry. Is this just a local problem your people have with something going on at this particular plant, or have you targeted the pharmaceutical industry as a whole?”

  Stone frowned. Someone else had followed them out the door. He was a tired-looking middle-aged man who was color-blind. He had to be, Stone thought, to have voluntarily purchased the sports coat and slacks combination he was wearing. Now he was pausing a bit too long for a drink at a fountain just a few paces away, where he could overhear the conversation.

  “Excuse me,” Stone said as Sara, with a look of eagerness on her face, opened her mouth to reply, “but I have not yet had the chance to confer with my client.” Noting the frown of annoyance with which Sara Rosen reacted to his interruption, he said, “I’m not saying that my client will or will not give you an interview. It’s just that I want to be the first one to interview her. Then I’ll advise her as to what I believe is in her best interests, and then she can decide what she wants to do. She can hold a press conference if she feels like it. Fair?”

  Before the reporter could answer, Sara Rosen responded with a resounding “No! I’m tired of you answering every time someone asks me a question. I can speak for myself.”

  “Speaking for others is what lawyers do, Ms. Rosen. Especially when those others have been accused of a crime and anything they say can and will be used against them.”

  “I’ve already been told that Miranda stuff!”

  “Then you were told about your right to counsel. I’m your counsel. Not, in the immortal words of Brendan Sullivan, a ‘potted plant’!” Stone turned to the tailored woman. “Do you have a card, Ms. Caulfield?”

  Caulfield nodded and produced one from her pocketbook. She scribbled on the back of it and said, “Here’s the number where I’m staying locally. When you’re ready, give me a call.”

  “Deal,” said Sara, and fell in behind Stone as he headed for the stairs. Ahead of them, the sports jacket, having consumed two gallons of water, moved rapidly down the stairs, perhaps in urgent search of a men’s room.

  Stone moved fast out the courthouse doors, down the broad steps, then headed right toward the public parking lot. Sara Rosen stayed with him as he came up to a metered space, some two-thirds of which was filled by a low convertible. The fabric top was white. The paint job was “Up yours, Officer” red, except for a stretch leading out from the windshield across the hood. That, like the similar space in front of the pilot’s canopy on a fighter plane, was a nonreflective flat black. There was no chromium trim; it, too, was black. The wheels were alloy, the tires big, wide, and of a soft rubber compound with a unidirectional tread.

  Sara Rosen studied the car as her lawyer unlocked the passenger-side door for her and opened it, disclosing individually articulated bucket seats and a stubby center-mounted gearshift.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Mustang GT,” Stone said as he let himself in. “It’s an ’eighty-five.”

  The way he said it, Sara could tell she was expected to appreciate the significance of the model year. She didn’t. “An ’eighty-five?” she said, inviting his explanation.

  “Best one made since the sixties. Five liter V-Eight. Overhead valves. All the new ones are fuel-injected. This one’s got the last of the big Holley four-barrel carbs on it. Low-tech, low price, and high power. Three hundred pounds feet of torque out of the box. But with a four-barrel, a good ol’ boy mechanic can do his stuff on the engine. Could and did.”

  Stone gestured toward the dash and doors. “No air conditioning. Manual window winders. Factory-installed SVO steering wheel. No excess weight.” He started the engine. It burbled from two exhaust pipes as big around as Sara’s wrist.

  “So how powerful is it now?” asked Sara.

  “That’s classified.” Stone grinned as he pulled out of the parking slot and headed toward Main Street. “The safety Nazi’s would have a fit if they knew.”

  Sara’s voice registered disapproval. “Polluting the environment is not a funny matter.”

  “Who’s polluting? I’m talking about the goddamn do-gooders want to make us all wear helmets in the shower in case we slip and fall. I’m serious. Next they’ll want a federal statute that all males over puberty have to wear a condom twenty-four hours a day in case of impure thoughts.”

  Sara giggled. “What about women?”

  “Don’t ask. They’ll think of something.”

  The confines of the small car were soon filled with the aroma of Sara’s body, and Stone became uncomfortable again. He rolled down his window, gestured toward rows of bushes along the street in full pink bloom, and said, “Smell that rose of Sharon. I love spring.”

  “I stink, don’t I?” replied Sara.

  “What!”

  “Rose of Sharon doesn’t have any odor.” She rolled down the window on her side. “Turn left up here and take me home. I’ll take a bath.”

  Stone turned. “Will you settle for a shower?”

  “No. I want a bath.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Time. We don’t have time for you to take a bath. The woman wasn’t born who can take a bath in under an hour.”

  “And the man hasn’t been born who understands that for a woman, a bath is to cleanse the spirit as much as the body. And that takes a good long soak in a nice hot tub. After where and how I spent last night”—she looked at him accusingly—“that’s what I need and that’s what I’m going to have.”

  Stone reacted to the note of accusation. “Look, who called whom at four o’clock this morning? Am I confused? I don’t recall thrusting myself upon you as your counsel. I don’t recall holding myself out to you as an ace criminal lawyer. I’d never heard of the stunt they pulled on you. And I had to ask advice to find out what was going on and how to get you out when I did. And I don’t lik
e owing favors in this town, ’cause they’re too ready to call ’em in in ways that are outta line. Where along here do you live?”

  “Second from the end of the street. On the right.”

  As Stone headed up the street of old brownstones, he continued sounding off. The more annoyed he got, Sara noted, the more quiet and controlled his voice sounded. She wished he would yell at her, though. His voice was taking on a hard edge that made her uneasy.

  “I’m here because you invoked the name of your brother. Him, I owe.” Stone saw that there was only one parking space open in the block and pulled into it. It was well down the street from the old apartment house Sara had indicated was hers.

  “Tell you what,” he said, “you hop out here, go up and wash any way you want. I’m going to pick up an evening paper and see how they’re playing this thing—what the press has been able to get out of the cops and Riegar. Every bit of information helps. I’ll be in front of your place, double-parked if I have to, in exactly thirty minutes. You want me to continue to represent you, be there. Then. Not five minutes later. You’re not there? I withdraw.”

  “What do you think you are, a husband?” Sara snapped, pulling the door latch and getting out of the car. She leaned into the open passenger window and said, “I don’t appreciate ultimatums!”

  “Ultimata,” replied Stone.

  “What?”

  “The plural of ultimatum is ultimata, not ultimatums.”

  “Impossible!” Sara Rosen shouted at him as she stalked off.

  “Thirty minutes!” Stone shouted back as he drove off.

  There were plenty of street-corner vending machines in the downtown area, but, Stone discovered, he didn’t have the necessary thirty-five-cent coin combination to get a paper. He headed for the only remaining old-fashioned newsstand, located around the corner from the courthouse. One could find any major eastern newspaper there and, if so inclined, get a bet down on any horse race, prizefight, football game, or other major sporting event anywhere in the country.

  The proprietor was an old buddy of Stone’s late uncle. His name was Ira Levin, and it was rumored he was connected. There were a lot of rumors about Levin. Stone’s favorite was that as a teenager, Ira Levin had been an apprentice of “Lepke” Buchalter, founder of “Murder, Incorporated” in Brooklyn. True or false, the rumor had served Levin well. Everyone went out of his way to be respectful to him, let alone not to bother him or, God forbid, do something really stupid like try to stick him up.

  Levin was short, stout, and irrepressibly cheerful as he handed Stone his paper. “Hello, counselor, how are ya? How’s everybody’s favorite candidate for the next opening on the supreme court?”

  Stone grinned. Everybody enjoyed Levin’s brand of bullshit.

  “Supreme court of the state of New York? I thought Judge Martin had that all sewed up.”

  “State of New York?” Levin responded, eyebrows up and palms waving. “That’s nothing! A waste of your talent. We’re talkin’ the whole United States of America here!”

  “I love you, too, Ira. Listen, could I come by later sometime and we could go in the back and talk? I’d like to get your take on something. Uncle Harry always said you knew more about what’s going on around here than the FBI and the CIA combined.”

  “Rumors, rumors! I’m just an old Jew tryin’ to make a living. What do I know? But sure, c’mon back later. It’s always a pleasure to talk to good people.”

  “Thanks, Ira.”

  “My pleasure, my pleasure. Here, take one of these cigars with you.”

  Stone backed away from the cigar as if it were a gun pointed at him. “Those things will kill you, Ira. I’ll see you later.”

  “Who’s gonna die?” Ira Levin called after him, “I’ve canceled my reservations!”

  Stone sat in his car to check out the newspaper. More ranting by Qaddafi. Then, on an inside page, he found the article:

  INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE SUSPECTED IN RIEGAR PLANT BURGLARY TRY

  By Alice Burns

  Staff Reporter

  Rhinekill, May 20th

  Security guards at the Rhinekill plant of Riegar Pharmaceuticals last night turned over to Rhinekill police officers Sara Rosen, 26, of 1337 Clifton Avenue, Rhinekill, whom security officers said they had apprehended inside the plant, armed with a camera. Ms. Rosen was said to have gained entrance to the plant by a ruse. “We think it’s pretty clear she was trying to photograph secret proprietary technology, probably for sale to our competitors,” said Georg Kramer, local Riegar chief. Ms. Rosen was taken to the Mohawk County Jail pending an appearance before city court this morning on a charge of second-degree burglary. No bail has yet been set.

  Stone folded the paper and checked his watch. Time to head back to Sara’s place and learn her decision. He slid the five-speed into first and eased out into traffic.

  3

  The street where Sara Rosen lived was one of unrelieved sameness. Both sides were taken up by identical eighty-year-old brownstone-faced apartment houses in sets of two, side by side, the sets separated by narrow alleys. The wrought-iron street lamps were equally old. They reached upward, then curved out over the street like a shepherd’s crook embellished with what once had been recognizable as stylized leaves but now were so many lumps under eighty coats of thick dark green paint. Every so often, a surviving plane tree rose from the sidewalk, still surrounded by a fencelike circular iron guard meant to protect the young saplings from chewing horses. The streets were dirty, the alleys dirtier, and the whole place gloomy. At least it was to Stone as he guided the muttering Mustang toward Sara Rosen’s dwelling.

  She was there, and Stone didn’t know whether he was relieved or not. Then he noticed something that alarmed him. Sara was sitting on the bottom step of the front stoop, elbows propped on her knees, face in her hands, in exactly the same clothing she was wearing when he had left her thirty minutes before. Two parking spaces were open in front of the stoop, and he glided in easily, shut off the engine, got out, and walked over to her. If she had noticed his arrival, she was pretending not to have.

  “I have never,” said Stone to the forlorn figure, “seen anyone so eager for a date with me in my entire life.”

  Sara Rosen raised her head and looked at him. She wasn’t laughing.

  “My apartment,” she said, “it’s been totally trashed.”

  Stone sighed in resignation. “Let’s take a look.”

  Sara got up wearily and started up the stairs. Stone fell in behind, scanning the area as he did: quiet, nothing unusual.

  Sara’s apartment was on the fifth and highest floor of the ancient walk-up. The hallways were dark and smelled old. The ceilings were of pattern-embossed galvanized tin, covered by many layers of dirty paint. It would be depressing to live there, Stone thought, even without having your place vandalized.

  The door to the apartment was closed, and Sara let them in with her key. The place was a shambles. Books were tossed out of orange-crate containers onto the floor. The cheap old sofa’s cushions were slashed and the stuffing partly ripped out. The bureau drawers were on the floor, too, at odd angles where they had been thrown after their contents had been emptied out. Clothing was strewn everywhere—jeans, a few dresses, cheap cotton panties, and a couple of expensive athletic bras. Sara Rosen didn’t have much, but what she did was out there for everyone to see. “I feel violated,” Sara said tonelessly.

  Stone picked his way through the mess, trying not to do any more damage, and looked into the bedroom. Same story. Mattress hurled off and ripped, more intimate clothing, bedclothes on the floor and over the radiator, shoes strewn about. There was no closet. A hanging hamper lay on its side, empty. It was easy to guess where the dresses had come from.

  The bedroom had one window. It was open, the bottom sash raised all the way up. Outside was the landing of a fire escape leading down into the alley.

  “That’s how he came in,” Sara said.

  “He?”

  “Look in there.”r />
  Sara nodded to an open door into a small bathroom off the bedroom. Stone crossed over to it, Sara close behind him. To the right was a frosted window with a paint-encrusted steam radiator beneath it. Opposite the door was a cracked porcelain sink with the brass showing through its worn fixtures. Left of the sink was an old-fashioned large-tank toilet with a wooden seat, and left of that a white enamel cast-iron bathtub sat against the left wall on ball-claw feet. A torn plastic shower curtain hung from a ring above the tub. Stone looked at the shower head. It looked as if it belonged on a watering can.

  “Pull the door back,” Sara said.

  A small wicker clothes hamper lay over on its side. On the back of the door, hanging from a hook, was a translucent yellow rubber bag. It had been slashed open. A white rubber hose dangled from the bottom of the bag. Whether it had been used as an enema or a douche could no longer be determined; the tubing had been sliced off below the clamp, and the nozzle was nowhere to be found.

  “The sick bastard,” Sara said. “Look.” She pointed to the empty hamper. “He even took my dirty underwear!” Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes. “It’s just so humiliating.”

  Embarrassed, Stone left the bathroom and made his way to the alcove, which housed an efficiency kitchen. The gas stove’s pilot light must have been loaded with soot, he surmised from the odor of gas. “You leave this open?” he asked, indicating the refrigerator door.

  “Yes. I wanted you to see everything the way I found it.”

  Stone studied the little kitchen. There were plastic food-preserving containers on the floor, their contents spilled out in a moist mess. A milk carton was open and lying in the sink, where it was clear the carton had been emptied out. The salt and pepper shakers had been emptied and discarded. Dishes, silverware, pots, and pans had all been swept from their proper place and ended on the floor with food from the refrigerator. A plastic kitty-litter box had been taken apart and the litter spilled out. Clumps of cat feces were in it.

  Something caught Stone’s eye. He reached down and picked up a large canned Polish ham from among canned vegetables, soups, and cat food. “Ham?” he asked quizzically.