Part 63 (1/2)
”Likewise without her knowledge?”
”That's correct.”
”And what is the bearing of the tape on this hearing?”
”It gives Mrs. Ruskin's account of the incident involving Henry Lamb when she is talking candidly, of her own volition, with Mr. McCoy. It raises the question of whether or not she might have altered her honest account when she testified before the grand jury.”
”Judge, this is crazy! Now we're being told the defendant lives lives with a with a wire wire on! We already know that he's a rat, in the parlance of the street, so why should we believe-” on! We already know that he's a rat, in the parlance of the street, so why should we believe-”
”Calm down, Mr. Kramer. First, we're gonna listen to the tape. Then we'll evaluate it. Nothing's engraved in the record yet. Go ahead, Mr. Killian. Wait a minute, Mr. Killian. First I want to swear Mr. McCoy in.”
When Kovitsky's eyes met his, it was all Sherman could do to hold his gaze. To his surprise, he felt terribly guilty about what he was about to do. He was about to commit perjury.
Kovitsky had the clerk, Bruzzielli, put him under oath, then asked him if he had made the two tapes in the way and at the times Killian had said he had. Sherman said yes, forced himself to keep looking at Kovitsky, and wondered if the lie showed up somehow on his face.
The tape began: ”I knew it. I knew it at the time. We should have reported it immediately...”
Sherman could barely listen to it. I'm doing something illegal! Yes...but in the name of the truth...This is the subterranean path to the light...This is the actual conversation we had...Every word, every sound, is truth...For this to be suppressed...that would be the greater dishonesty...Wouldn't it?...Yes-but I'm doing something illegal! Around and around it went in his mind as the tape rolled on...And Sherman McCoy, he who had now vowed to be his animal self, discovered what many had discovered before him. In well-reared girls and boys, guilt and the instinct to obey the rules are reflexes, ineradicable ghosts in the machine.
Even before the Hasidic giant had lumbered down the stairs and Maria's whoops of laughter had ceased in this moldering chamber in the Bronx, the prosecutor, Kramer, was protesting furiously.
”Judge, you can't allow this-”
”I'll give you an opportunity to speak.”
”-cheap trick-”
”Mr. Kramer!”
”-influence-”
”MR. KRAMER!”
Kramer shut up.
”Now, Mr. Kramer,” said Kovitsky, ”I'm sure you know Mrs. Ruskin's voice. Do you agree that that was her voice?”
”Probably, but that's not the point. The point is-”
”Just a minute. a.s.suming that to be the case, did what you just heard on that tape differ from Mrs. Ruskin's testimony before the grand jury?”
”Judge...this is preposterous! It's hard to tell what's what's going on on that tape!” going on on that tape!”
”Does it differ differ, Mr. Kramer?”
”It varies.”
”Is 'varies' the same as 'differs'?”
”Judge, there's no way to tell the conditions under which this thing was made!”
”Prima facie, Mr. Kramer, does it differ?”
”Prima facie it differs. But you can't let this cheap trick”-he swung his hand contemptuously in the direction of McCoy-”influence your-” it differs. But you can't let this cheap trick”-he swung his hand contemptuously in the direction of McCoy-”influence your-”
”Mr. Kramer-”
”-judgment!” Kramer could see that Kovitsky's head was gradually lowering. The white was beginning to appear below his irises. The sea was beginning to foam. But Kramer couldn't restrain himself. ”The simple fact is, the grand jury has handed down a valid indictment! You have-this hearing has no jurisdiction over-”
”Mr. Kramer-”
”-the duly completed deliberations of a grand jury!”
”THANK YOU FOR YOUR ADVICE AND COUNSEL, MR. KRAMER!”
Kramer froze, his mouth still open.
”Let me remind you,” Kovitsky said, ”that I am the presiding judge for the grand jury, and I am not enchanted by the possibility that testimony by a key witness in this case might be tainted.”
Fuming, Kramer shook his head. ”Nothing that these two...individuals”-he flung his hand toward McCoy again-”say in their little love nest...” He shook his head again, too angry to find the words to finish the sentence.
”Sometimes that's when the truth comes out, Mr. Kramer.”
”The truth truth! Two spoiled rich people, one of them wired up like a rat-try telling that to the people in that courtroom, Judge!-”
As soon as the words popped out, Kramer knew he had made a mistake, but he couldn't hold back.
”-and to the thousands outside that room hanging on every word of this case! Try telling them-”
He stopped. Kovitsky's irises again surfed the turbulent sea. He expected him to explode once more, but instead he did something more unnerving. He smiled. The head was down, the beak was out, the irises hydroplaned over the ocean, and he smiled.
”Thank you, Mr. Kramer. I will.”
By the time Judge Kovitsky returned to the courtroom, the demonstrators were having a merry time for themselves, talking at the top of their voices, cackling, walking around, and pulling faces and otherwise showing the platoon of white-s.h.i.+rted court officers who was boss. They quieted down a bit when they saw Kovitsky, but as much out of curiosity as anything else. They were wound up.
Sherman and Killian headed for the defendant's desk, a table out in front of the judge's bench, and the falsetto singsong started up again.
”Sherrrr-maaannnn...”
Kramer was over by the clerk's table, talking to a tall white man in a cheap gabardine suit.
”That's the aforesaid Bernie Fitzgibbon, in whom you have no faith,” said Killian. He was grinning. Then he said, indicating Kramer, ”Keep your eye on that sucker's face.”
Sherman stared without comprehending.
Kovitsky still had not ascended to the bench. He stood about ten feet away, talking to his secretary, the redheaded man. The noise in the spectators' section grew louder. Kovitsky walked slowly up the steps to the bench without looking in their direction. He stood at the bench with his eyes down, as if he were looking at something on the floor.
All at once-KAPOW! The gavel- The gavel-it was like a cherry bomb.