A Long Line of Dead Men

He gave me a look, eyebrows raised, mouth on the verge of a smile. I'd seen it before; it was his patented expression of disappointed skepticism, flashed in court at a difficult witness, in the hallways at an uncooperative reporter. "In the first place," he said, "do you seriously think the quality of life in this city is going to be measurably different for the rest of us if Warren Madison or anybody else is on or off its streets?"

"Yes," I said, "but a cop has to believe that or it's hard to get to work in the morning."

"You're not a cop anymore."

"It's like being raised Catholic," I said. "You never get over it. And I do think it makes a difference, not so much in terms of the people Madison's likely to kill but in the message people get when they see him walking around."

"But they don't."

"How's that?"

"They don't see him walking around, not unless they're in maximum security at Green Haven. That's where Warren is, and where he's likely to be until you and I are both long past caring. Remember what Torres said when he sentenced the kid for stabbing that Mormon boy in the subway? 'Your parole officer hasn't been born yet.' You could say that about Warren. He killed those drug dealers, and he was convicted, and he'll be behind bars as long as he lives."

"You couldn't get him out from under those charges?"

"I never even tried. He had other counsel. And I wouldn't have wanted the case. Killing a drug dealer is murder for profit, and there are plenty of other lawyers who can represent you. Shoot a cop and you're making a political statement. That's when a guy named Gruliow can do you some good."

"Somehow no one remembers that Madison's serving time."

"Of course not. All they remember is Hard-Way Ray got him off. And the cops don't care whether he's locked up in Green Haven or out in Hollywood fucking Madonna. Their take on it is the same as yours, that I put the department on trial. I didn't, I put the system on trial, which is what I always do, in one sense or another. Whether it's civil-rights workers or draft resisters or Palestinians or, yes, Warren Madison, I put the system on trial. But not everybody sees it that way." He pointed at his plastic window. "Some of them take it personally."

I said, "I keep seeing that picture of you and Madison after the trial."

"Embracing."

"That's the one."

"You figured what? Bad taste? Theatrical gesture?"

"Just a memorable image," I said.

"Ever hear of a criminal lawyer named Earl Rogers? Very flamboyant and successful, represented Clarence Darrow when the great man was brought up on charges of jury tampering. In another case his client was charged with some particularly odious murder. I forget the details, but Rogers won an acquittal."

"And?"

"And when they read the verdict, the defendant rushed to shake hands with the man who got him off. Rogers wouldn't take his hand. 'Get away from me,' he cried out right there in the courtroom. 'You son of a bitch, you're as guilty as sin!' "

"Jesus."

"Now that's theatrical," he said with relish. "And bad taste, and ethically questionable at the very least. 'You're guilty as sin!' They're almost all of them guilty, for God's sake. If you don't want to defend the guilty, find another line of work. But if you do defend them, and if you're lucky enough to win, you can damn well shake their hands." He grinned. "Or give 'em a hug, which is more my style than a handshake. And I felt like hugging Warren, I didn't have to fake it. It's goddam exhilarating when they say 'Not guilty.' It's moving. You want to hug somebody. And I liked Warren."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Very charming man," he said, "unless he had reason to kill you."

13

"I'm hungry," he announced around six. He called up a Chinese restaurant. "Hi, this is Ray Gruliow," he said, and ordered several dishes, along with a couple of bottles of Tsing-tao, telling them not to forget the fortune cookies this time. "Because," he said, "my friend and I need to know what the future holds."

He hung up and said, "You're in the program, right?"

"The program?"

"Don't be coy, huh? You asked me in my own house if I was a fucking serial murderer. I ought to be able to ask you if you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous."

"I wasn't being coy. People outside of AA don't generally call it 'the program.' "

"I went to a few meetings a couple of years ago."

"Oh?"

"Right here in the neighborhood. The basement of St. Luke's, on Hudson, and a little storefront on Perry Street. I don't know if they still have meetings there."

"They do."

"Nobody told me, 'Gruliow, get your ass out of here, you don't belong.' And I heard things I identified with."

"But you didn't stay."

He shook his head. "It was more than I wanted to give up. I looked at the First Step and it said something about life being out of control. I forget how they phrased it."

" 'We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that it made our lives unmanageable.' "