Gods Go Begging (12 page)

“What is a ballet rose?” asked Eddy, recalling the phrase from Jesse’s outburst at the supreme being.

“It’s a phrase I learned a long time ago, in Vietnam. Well, I didn’t learn the exact same phrase, but its counterpart. A ballet rose means lewd acts with an underage girl. Some dance, huh? Some dance.”

Eddy shook his head sadly. He was a man who loved children and cats.

“It doesn’t look good, Eddy. I can see the prosecutor right now, demanding that Bernard Skelley stand up in front of the jury and unbutton his shirt. Unless things change, the jury is going to see that eagle tattoo and spend more time picking a foreman than deliberating. But I happened to notice in the discovery package that Bernard’s brother Richard and his family moved to San Francisco about six months ago. That means that the rapes happened here but most of the molestations happened over in Oakland. I think you’ve got to go over there for a couple of days.”

“Check out the old neighborhood?” asked Eddy.

“Yeah. Talk to the neighbors. People of color might have something to say about a family like this one. There’s bound to be a lot of juicy gossip in the streets and over the back fences. They lived near the Acorn project, didn’t they? In the midst of the enemy? It’s pretty unusual for a white family to live in Ghost Town. I’m sure they rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Talk to the little girl’s friends. Talk to her schoolteachers and the school nurse. They’ll have their suspicions. Who did Minnie confide in? Anything you can find.”

“Workplace, acquaintances and habits, and a complete family tree,” added Eddy without requiring a response.

“See if you can get into their old house. If they had to move in a hurry, they might have left their furniture and possessions with someone else. Get some pictures,” added Jesse. He turned to the laboratory analysis and forensics page. Bernard was a secretor: his blood type could be found in his semen and his spit. The lab tests looked bad, but they had only done A-B-O and P-G-M testing. Bernard had not been excluded by either method. Both tests had included him. He wondered why they hadn’t done DNA testing, then the image of the eagle reappeared in his mind’s eye. Perhaps it was best that they hadn’t. The defense would have to commission a DNA test to be done on the sly.

“When you get back here, start working Potrero Hill,” said Jesse, turning to Calvin’s case. “Maybe we can go over the ground together. I’ll need everything.” Jesse sighed, pleased with the fact that he would not have to tell Eddy how to do his job. Eddy was independent and inquisitive and would overlook nothing. “I need everybody’s life story on Biscuit Boy’s case, too, especially the victims‘. Get me the 911 tapes and your synopsis of the evidence to date. Did you look at the autopsy photos when you picked them up?”

Eddy Oasa nodded his head in the affirmative. “There is no justice in this life,” he muttered. The sight of the two women was still haunting him. It was the fervency of the embrace that had both enthralled and saddened him. In those color prints he had seen a double death grip that had spoken so much more eloquently about life … about their lives.

At that moment Calvin Thibault walked slowly, sleepily into the interview room. He was about to say hello when Jesse gestured with a hand to silence him, then signaled sternly for him to sit down. Confused. Calvin started to speak when he was shouted into silence and into a seat by an angry lawyer.

“Here are the rules for tonight, Mr. ‘I’hibaiilt,” said Jesse forcefully. “You will not say one single word tonight. Do you understand?”

Calvin was about to answer when Jesse lifted his hand once again. “No! Just nod your head if your answer is yes and shake it ifyour answer is no. Do you understand?”

Calvin nodded his head. There was fear and confusion in his young eyes. The residue of tears still clung to his cheeks.

“Eddy, play the tape for the Biscuit Boy.”

The investigator placed the cassette tape into the recorder, then pushed the play-button. The hard baritone voice of Inspector Normandie could be heard giving the date, time, and location and the identities of the parties present. Then the questions and answers began. After a few preliminary queries, Jesse sat up in his chair and told Calvin to pay close attention.

Jesse nodded toward his investigator, who reached over and turned of the cassette player. There was anger in Jesse’s eyes once again as he reached into his binder for a sheet of paper and handed it to the defendant.

“Is that your signature? Just nod. Did you bother to read it before you signed it? I didn’t think so. When is the last time you read a book? One year ago? Two years? Just hold up one finger for each year.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders, then held up all ten fingers.

“Do you think your illiterate soul is worth saving, Calvin?”

The boy shook his head, no.

“You are going to do what I say, Biscuit Boy. Your puny little life, for whatever it’s worth, belongs to me now. Your ass belongs to me. Do you understand? You ain’t in the world no more. From this day forward I am your family, your mother and father. I am your best friend. Look around you. You are in the armpit of the world, the asshole of the world.”

He was echoing the words of every drill sergeant from Fort Lewis to Parris Island.

“Here’s a book.” Jesse reached into his briefcase, then threw a paperback book at his client. It was
A Gathering of Old Men,
by Enest J. Gaines.

“Read it. Look carefully at the language. Read each word aloud. Feel each word on your tongue. Once a week you will copy one paragraph from that book and mail it to me. My address is inside the front cover. I also want a paragraph from you explaining why you picked that particular paragraph. When you’re done with that book, I’ll give you another one.

“From this moment until the jury files back into the courtroom with a verdict, you will not say one cuss word. Not one ‘shit,’ ‘fuck,’ or ‘damn.’ Do you understand me? Not one cuss word to Eddy or to me or to any of those fools down on the mainline. I will give you three dollars a day for your commissary. Every cuss word will be one dollar less. The sheriffs will tell me if you’ve got a foul mouth. Do you understand?”

Calvin nodded without lifting his eyes. He was staring downward at the book. Just turning its pages would require all of his strength. It would take all of his energy to fight off the lethargy of eighteen years in the projects and the seductive, soporific gravity of his bed. His universe had been the Potrero Hill dwellings. His was a world without clocks, without books, without schedules, without a reason to wake up or a good reason to go home at night. It was a world without the need for specificity.

In his world, adverbs and similes had been allowed to wither and die and drop from the vine. Past tenses were all but extinct. Like the larger world around his projects, metaphor and symbol had already perished along with literary allusion.

“You have to learn about words. Your fate will be decided by words, Calvin,” said Jesse pensively. He wondered how on earth an angry mute like himself had chosen a profession based on words.

“The prosecutor and I will reconstruct the murders of Persephone Flyer and Mai Adrong using only words and a few pieces of hard evidence. He will prosecute you with words and I will defend you with them. He and I will jump up and down in the courtroom objecting to the use of words and to the words given in response to questions. Your fate will be rendered in words. You’re not on the street anymore, Calvin. The courtroom is a war of words, and you have almost none at your own disposal. The days back on the street corner, when a vocabulary of two hundred words could get you by, are long gone.”

“Two hundred words are enough for a confession,” said Eddy.

“Yes,” groaned Jesse, “enough for that, confession. One final thing, Calvin. You and I and Eddy are gonna have a secret sign language, just between us. It’s like the signals that soldiers use in the field. It’s like a code. We will begin using this sign language at our next interview. Now, look at me and pay close attention. There are five signs that you will have to recognize and learn to follow. I’ll write them down for you. When I fold my arms like this it means you are talking too much, shut up. That’s the first sign. And”—Jesse smiled—“it’s my favorite.

“When I run my hand through my hair like this, it means that I want you to explain further, to elaborate. You will find out what that word means later. When I nib my nose with my left hand it means you are becoming too emotional, too angry. If I rub my nose with the right hand it means I want you to become emotional, I want you to cry.”

A startled look came over Calvin’s face. Despite the fact that he had just cried in his cell, he did not consider himself a crier. He did not cry. Calvin opened his mouth to protest, but Jesse quickly folded his arms.

“You’ll cry when I tell you to cry, Calvin. Piss on your damned pride! Otherwise we’ll both be crying when they sentence you. Do you know what a sentence of life without possibility of parole means, Biscuit Boy? I’ll tell you what it means. A long, long time from now in a prison that has yet to be built, a young prison guard will rap on your cell door to see if you’ve taken your medications. By then you’ll be on heart medicines and kidney dialysis and you’ll have an artificial liver. You won’t move, so he’ll unlock your cell door and discover that you’ve died of old age. Well, Calvin, that young prison guard’s grandfather hasn’t been born yet.”

Eddy winced at the story. He looked into Calvin’s eyes and knew that the boy had not really understood the story. Jesse had seen it, too.

“Now, there’s one final sign. When I stand up, it means you’re volunteering information. It means you’re not listening to the question. You need to listen to the question and answer just the question that was asked and nothing more. Five simple signs, do you think you can remember them?”

Calvin nodded.

“Good,” said Jesse with a tired voice. “You’re gonna get a lot of practice and I’m gonna jump on your ass every time you fuck up.”

Jesse leaned forward, toward his client. It was clear to him that the boy was months away from even the most basic understanding of the true danger of his situation. He would keep trying to find an example that would hit home.

“The courtroom is like an orphanage, Calvin, and the jurors are there to pore over all of the children and choose one to adopt… which witness to believe. Do you know who it is that people adopt?”

Calvin shook his head, no.

“They adopt a child that looks like themselves. People want a child who matches their own skin color and eye color. If they can’t have that, they take a child that they can mold in their own image. Everyone takes the infants and the toddlers and passes over the older children, who already have fixed tendencies and personalities. In the end, the most needy kids are always the least likely to be chosen.