The Monkey Handlers Read online

  “No,” said Michael Stone, “I don’t. That would be stupid.”

  “What!”

  “And, to coin a phrase, ‘counterproductive.’”

  Sara Rosen looked hard at Michael Stone. He was serious. “You want to explain that?” she asked.

  “Item one,” said Stone, “your self-interest. You produce those photographs and claim you took them inside Riegar, and you might just as well plead guilty at your arraignment tomorrow. You make the prosecution’s case for them. And I remind you that we’re not dealing with turning left from the right-hand lane here. You’re charged with Burglary Two, for which you could get real time. And giving you real time could be a smart thing to do politically around here right now. You may not know it, but in the state of New York, judges are elected like aldermen in Chicago.

  “Item two: your cause. The devices shown in those photographs are empty. For there to be any shock value to what’s in them requires your description of what they’re used for. But, as they stand, from the point of view of the press, they aren’t very sexy. On top of that, the appeal you make with the pictures is to the emotions. Aren’t you the one who said to me something like ‘everyone thinks our position is based on emotion and bleeding-heart-fuzzy-good-for-animals shit’?”

  Sara Rosen looked down at the table. Stone, she knew, was right.

  “One more thing,” Stone said, “you use those photographs, and I’ll withdraw as your counsel. I’ve got better things to do than waste my time.”

  Sara Rosen blew up. “Don’t give me ultimatums!”

  Stone realized he had gone too far. He should have quit while he was ahead. He waited a minute, then said, “Ultimata.”

  Sara stared at him, then started to smile. In unison, they both said, “The plural of ultimatum is ultimata.” The tension between them dissolved in laughter.

  “You feel up to making a report on your apartment to the police yet?”

  Sara Rosen shrugged. “Sure,” she said, “why not?” Then, gathering up the Polaroid photographs, she asked, “What should I do with these?”

  “Give them to me,” said Stone. “I’ll put them in the office safe.”

  * * *

  As Michael Stone escorted his client in through the front door of the Rhinekill police station, he gave her some last-minute counseling.

  “Remember, you’re here to report a burglary. A new burglary. You have nothing whatever to say about the one you’re charged with.”

  “I know that,” said Sara, annoyed.

  “Fine,” said Stone, “just don’t forget it. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to slip in a question that, if you answer it, will be an admission against interest.”

  Immediately inside the entrance to the station was a large two-story-high room. Only near the corners of the room was there any varnish left on the hardwood floor. To the right, a heavy banistered stairway led to the floor above. Directly across from them, against the rear wall and dominating the room, was a platform, almost a stage. Across the front of the stage and around the sides was the only clean thing in the room, a brightly polished brass rail. Behind the rail sat an immense desk and behind it an almost equally immense man, dressed in the uniform of a sergeant of the Rhinekill police department. He had been sitting behind the desk in the fetid atmosphere of the un-air-conditioned room for hours, and his uniform had a wrinkle for every minute of every hour. The sergeant’s face matched his uniform, wrinkle for wrinkle. He recognized Michael Stone as he and Sara Rosen approached the desk and gazed upward at him.

  “Yessir, counselor, how can I help you?”

  “Thank you, Sergeant”—Stone read the sign on the edge of the middle of the desk—“Caughlin. My client, Sara Rosen, would like to report the burglary of her apartment.”

  Sergeant Caughlin looked down at them benignly. “Seems every time I hear your client’s name, it’s in connection with a burglary, counselor.” As Stone started to respond, Caughlin held up his hand as if to fend him off. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Take a seat over there.” Caughlin gestured toward some ancient benches lining the wall to his right. “I’ll see if I can get someone down to take your complaint.” He picked up a telephone, pushed a few buttons, and spoke into it in a low voice, turning his head far around away from them as he did so, effectively keeping his conversation private.

  Michael Stone ushered his client over to a bench, where they sat down to what Stone was certain would be a long and boring wait. To his surprise, within minutes a stocky middle-aged man with a florid face and equally florid sport coat and clashing trousers came down the stairway and walked over to them. He held out his hand, first to Stone, then Sara, and introduced himself in a smooth voice that belied his rubelike appearance.

  “Walt Fisher,” he said, “detective division. Why don’t you folks follow me, and we’ll get you all fixed up.” With that, Fisher turned and led them across the room, up the stairway, and into a small room bearing the soiled sign INTERVIEW ROOM NO. 3. Inside the room was a wooden table in the middle of the floor. There were four chairs arranged around the table and another two, one each in the far corners. The rest of the room was bare except for a single light bulb, suspended high up toward the ceiling in the middle of what to Stone looked like the same kind of green enameled shades used to shield the lights on the outdoor platforms of the railroad station.

  Fisher annoyed Stone by adopting a familiar tone in addressing his client. “Now, then, Sara, tell me about it,” Fisher said, pencil poised above a notepad.

  Sara Rosen had seen a lot of movies and television. “My name is Sara Rosen … Sara without the h. I reside at 1337 Clifton Avenue, apartment 5-B. About noon today, when my lawyer here, Mr. Stone, drove me home from court, I went up to my apartment and found it had been broken into and trashed. Everything all over the place. Like it was searched. The place is a complete wreck. I want you to come with me and see it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Fisher. “Let’s see. You say you discovered this about noon. It’s now…” Fisher glanced at his watch and wrote the time down. “Five thirty-four. Seems to me that if someone had done this to my place, I’d have been down here on the double.”

  “You mean,” Sara burst out, “you’re not going over to take pictures and fingerprints and everything…!”

  “Ms. Rosen,” said Stone, “had spent the night in the county jail and had not had the opportunity to either eat or bathe. She was exhausted from being driven all over hell’s half acre last night. She has been with counsel and is here as soon as counsel thought it appropriate.” Stone looked hard at Fisher. There was something about him that looked familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

  Fisher put his index finger into his left ear and wiggled it around, trying to scratch an itch he couldn’t reach. “You have a list of what was taken?” he asked.

  Sara looked down at her hands. “The only thing missing is my … my dirty laundry and…” She thought of the douche nozzle but couldn’t bring herself to mention it. “And some personal items of no value.”

  “That’s it?” said Fisher. “That’s all that’s missing?”

  Fisher made a last note on his pad, then raised his eyes and said, “Okay, I’ll have some men over to photograph and dust the place first thing tomorrow morning. How’s eight o’clock?”

  “Ms. Rosen,” said Stone, “has a court appearance tomorrow morning. Plus, she’d like to get her apartment cleaned up. Could you send over some people now?”

  “Now?” Fisher looked at his watch and frowned. “I dunno…”

  “They’d be over there in a flash if there’d been a murder,” Stone said.

  “This ain’t no murder, here, counselor. You weren’t there. I wasn’t there. No one knows what really happened over there—”

  “Well, I wasn’t there, either!” Sara exploded. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, but—”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll grab a camera and a dusting kit and go over with you now, all right?” He got to his feet.
“I’ll meet you over there.”

  Stone and Sara Rosen rose to leave. “Oh,” Fisher said, as if it was an afterthought, “we’ll need your fingerprints, Ms. Rosen … to eliminate them from whatever we find.”

  Sara’s voice was scathing. “You already have my prints, remember?”

  “Right,” said Fisher. “I forgot.” He looked speculatively at Stone. “Anyone else’s prints we should have … for elimination purposes?”

  Stone could sense what was going through Fisher’s mind, and he didn’t like it. “When I looked at her apartment at my client’s request, I touched the front doorknobs, the open window shade, and the bathroom door. If you need my prints, just call my office and I’ll come right down.” He took Sara by the elbow and guided her out of the room, down the stairs, and out to his car, expressing his contempt for Fisher’s speculations by being careful not to glance back even once to see whether the detective was following.

  6

  On Stephanie Hannigan’s salary as an assistant public defender, a Honda Prelude was sheer extravagance. The payments, even on a five-year note, left little over for her other needs. Nevertheless, she never regretted buying the first new car she had ever owned. She rationalized that its front-wheel drive helped her get through winter snow to make court appearances when a postponement would mean extra days in jail for those too poor to make bail, but the truth was that she enjoyed the attention her little yellow coupe drew as she darted about the county. This morning, for the first time, Stephanie wished she had a nondescript car.

  This late in May, at shortly after 6 A.M., it was already bright daylight, and the Honda’s yellow paint glowed in the morning sun. Stephanie Hannigan was sure that the few people on the streets of downtown Rhinekill noticed her as she drove past and made mental notes to tell everyone they knew. Although she had the right to park in one of the spaces designated PUBLIC DEFENDER ONLY directly in front of the entrance to her office, Stephanie parked blocks away and walked to it. Not until she was inside, and her guess that no one else would be in the office that early had proven correct, did she relax somewhat Stephanie was not used to clandestine activities, even of the most innocent kind.

  The big electric clock on the wall of the main file room of the public defender’s office said 6:12 as Stephanie opened the drawer marked PRECEDENTS. She looked through them quickly, removing now one, then another copy of pretrial motions filed in past cases by her office, motions that had been successful in seeking suppression by the courts of alleged confessions, or of evidence seized by police in a manner contrary to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. That done, she selected motions that had been used to compel the district attorney to reveal and produce evidence that was exculpatory of the defendant and inconsistent with the theory of guilt. For good measure, she threw in some motions to dismiss the prosecution’s entire case for various reasons, then, tiptoeing although there was no need to do so, she moved to the copying machine and turned it on.

  The noise of the copying machine in the empty office seemed to Stephanie Hannigan loud enough to attract attention from outside the building. In addition, it masked her ability to hear anyone entering. Consequently, as she copied each page, Stephanie became ever more anxious. Nevertheless, she proceeded steadily until her task was finished and, with a sigh of relief, she could turn off the machine and return the material she had copied to its proper place in the files, slip the new copies into her briefcase, and make her way out of the building.

  It was, Stephanie noted to herself as she sank into the bucket seat of the Prelude, the second time in as many days that she had made off with precedent files from her employer’s office, and both times for the sake of a man she hardly knew: Michael Stone. Better not analyze that too closely, she thought, just go with the flow.

  Michael Stone was “always exercising down at the athletic center,” Stephanie had recalled from the remarks passed at city court the day before. That would be an ideal location, she had thought, to effect the covert transfer of the purloined precedent files, if only she knew when Stone would be there. That problem had been solved last night by a telephone call to her friend Naomi Fine. Naomi, the deputy county clerk, had custody of all the real estate–transaction recordings in the county. That was her job. Her hobby was the informal tracking of those few unmarried males in Rhinekill over the age of puberty and not yet senile who had what Naomi considered “prospects.”

  “He has prospects only because he’s a lawyer, and with them you can never tell … no offense. He doesn’t make much, but he’s going to inherit a nice house. You could do better.”

  “Naomi! I just want to know when he exercises at the athletic center.”

  “Sure. And I’ve got a date Saturday night with Clyde Beatty.”

  “That’s Warren Beatty.”

  “Whoever. He should be there tomorrow morning, six to eight. But don’t try to swim with him. You’ll drown, and he won’t notice. It’s been tried.”

  “Naomi!”

  * * *

  Stephanie Hannigan’s glasses fogged immediately when she entered the fifty-meter indoor pool area at the athletic center. She had to take them off to make her way to the grandstand, where she sat in the first row and surveyed the pool. It was divided into lanes by lines kept on the surface by buoyant plastic floats that resembled multicolored beads as they shimmered in the water. Men and women swam back and forth in the lanes.

  There was only one swimmer in the lane closest to Stephanie: a large male wearing a faded racing swimsuit, goggles, and a dark blue rubber cap. He was swimming an odd breaststroke, his legs just dragging behind him, supported by a float between his ankles. When the swimmer stopped to put aside the float, resembling a white dumbbell, he removed his goggles, and she recognized Michael Stone.

  Stephanie resisted the impulse to wave to attract Stone’s attention. Instead, she watched him, quietly. There was a battery-operated electric clock with a sweep second that had been set up on the deck at one end of Stone’s lane. It must have been, Stephanie estimated, almost three feet in diameter. Stone glanced at it, waited until the second hand was straight up, then launched himself into a powerful butterfly stroke.

  Stephanie wiped off her glasses and put them back on. Adjusted to the temperature now, the lenses stayed clear. As he passed directly beneath her, she could see the muscles in Stone’s back ripple like a little wave from the base of his neck and shoulders, down the broad planes of his back, through the narrows of his waist, to disappear into tight buttocks more revealed than concealed by his wet and nearly transparent skintight racing suit.

  Although she knew it was the long, loose muscles of his arms and legs, moving in what seemed an effortless rhythm, that propelled Michael Stone at speed through the water, it seemed to Stephanie that he really moved through that sensuous ripple like a marine mammal she had seen once at an aquarium in her childhood—the one all the other children called a dolphin but, she remembered her teacher saying, was really a porpoise. As Stone passed back and forth beneath her, Stephanie became mesmerized by the ripple, her concentration on it unbroken until he changed his stroke to freestyle, swimming powerfully past her ten more times as he warmed down for a final five hundred meters, then propelled himself out of the pool with an easy push of his arms against the deck. Only then, as he stood, water sheeting off his body, breathing as if he had just walked across a room, not put in ten thousand meters of hard swimming, did Stephanie call out to Michael Stone.

  “Mr. Stone!” Her voice reverberated throughout the cavernous pool enclosure. Stone gave no sign that he had heard her. Instead, he peeled off his cap; then, one by one, he removed plugs from each ear. Stephanie tried again, her voice lower this time, and accompanied by a vigorous wave.

  Stone glanced up at her, hesitated a moment, then recognition swept across his face and he smiled. Stephanie gestured toward the door. Stone looked puzzled. Frustrated, and not wanting to call out yet again and attract unwanted attention to the two of them, Stephanie held her a
rms out straight in front of her, fists gripping an imaginary steering wheel, which she proceeded to rotate right and left rapidly, then gestured again toward the door and the parking lot. Stone nodded, acknowledging her message, and, with a wave, entered the men’s locker room.

  As Michael Stone walked out into the athletic center’s parking lot, Stephanie Hannigan was sitting in her car, looking into her rearview mirror and putting the finishing touches onto her mouth with a dark pink lipstick. She squeezed her lips together, nodded approvingly at her reflection, put the lipstick back into her purse, then returned her attention to the building’s door.

  Stone, seeing no one waiting in the lot for him, concluded he had misinterpreted Stephanie’s signal, shrugged, and was about to enter his car when he heard a horn blow. He looked toward the sound and there was Stephanie, waving wildly from the window of a yellow Honda Prelude. He walked over to her, smiled, and said, “Your car or mine?”

  “Hop in,” said Stephanie.

  Stone settled into the right bucket seat of the yellow coupe and asked, “Where’re we going?”

  Stephanie produced her briefcase. It was awkward getting it open in the small confines of the front seat, but she managed it. “Nowhere,” she said. “I just didn’t want anyone seeing me give you this stuff.”

  “What…”

  “Precedents. Should be just about everything you’ll need to get your burglary client a fair shake.”

  “You sure we both don’t go to jail if I use this?”