Blunt Darts

FIFTH

– ¦ I got up at 6:30 on Thursday morning and did what I call my double-declining calisthenics. I start with fifty push-ups, one hundred arm rotations, and one hundred fast-flapping over-and-under motions. For the last, I stand, swing my arms horizontally forward with fists clenched until they pass each other. Then I swing them back hard, trying to touch them behind my back. Then I swing them forward again, and so forth.

After I finish, I repeat the series, halving the number of repetitions of each exercise. I then did a fast (for me) three miles along the river and wolfed down the "farmhand breakfast" (three eggs, four sausages, hash browns, toast, juice, coffee, parsley, oregano, and God knows what else) at a luncheonette on Cambridge Street.

I got back to the apartment and cleaned up. I checked the phone tape. Valerie had called again and said that the reason I couldn't reach her last night was because she and a girlfriend had gone to a drive-in and she was leaving for the beach and wouldn't be in until six and would I please call her then and she… at which point, mercifully, the tape's maximum run was reached. Feeling vaguely relieved, I reset the tape, dressed in a conservative dark suit as the concerned father of an accused delinquent might, and set off for Meade District Court.

As I turned into the court parking lot, I noticed it was almost three-quarters full at 8:30 A.M. I wanted to at least get a look at His Honor before I started after his son. Also, because of my understanding with Mrs. Kinnington, I thought I ought to do my observing before I did any poking around that would identify me for him.

The courthouse looked spanking new. It was red brick and from the exterior had some stylish peaks that implied cathedral ceilings inside. As I walked from the lot toward the door, I caught a glimpse of a court officer with a hand-held metal detector at the entrance, thoroughly going over an obvious lawyer type carrying an attache case.

I immediately spotted a terrible scuff on my right shoe, whipped out a handkerchief, and failed miserably to remove it. Nervously shaking my head, I walked quickly back to my car, where I opened the trunk, reached in for an imaginary rag, and slipped my wood-handled. 38 Smith amp; Wesson Chief's Special and clip-on holster from over my right hip. I fussed with my shoe and then tucked the pistol and holster completely under the plastic rug in the trunk before closing the lid and retracing my steps toward the courthouse door. Ever since the bombing at the superior court in Boston several years before, varying degrees of security had been imposed on entry to the commonwealth's courthouses, but virtually none included checking out well-dressed, distinguished-looking, mature men. Apparently Judge Kinnington's building, which he ran as presiding judge, was the exception.

I passed inspection and milled around with the crowd inside the lobby of the courthouse. As I bumped my way up and down the broad corridor, I realized there were two courtrooms on the main floor and at least one other (based on signs at the staircases) on the second floor. I drifted into the clerk's office and casually asked who was sitting in the First Session (Massachusetts legalese for courtroom number one, which is usually the courtroom to which all cases report and from which all cases are assigned to other courtrooms for hearing). A faded disco queen behind the desk said "Judge Kinnington, of course," and I thanked her and went back into the mob just as a short, elderly court officer began shrieking.

"First Session, First Session, court is coming in. All criminal business. Court is coming in." The doors of the First Session swung open, and an architectural vacuum cleaner sucked virtually all the inhabitants of the corridor inside. The only exceptions were a few lawyers who looked well-to-do and vaguely uncomfortable, which probably meant they were out here defending General Motors or Boston Edison on some minor but time-consuming civil matter.

I became part of the wedge cutting its way into the First Session. The courtroom was like a church, with one of the cathedral ceilings I'd spotted from the outside. The doors opened onto a wide center aisle, and the seating for the public was on high-backed benches, rather like Catholic pews without the kneelers. The center aisle ended at a gateway in a fence. The fence is the bar enclosure, so-called by lawyers because usually only members of the bar may sit within it. The fencing reminded me very much of a half-scale model of the balustrade on the stairway in the judge's house. Past the bar enclosure, which was sunken like a split-level living room, was the bench, raised like a pulpit.

I spotted two especially scuzzy-looking early-teenaged boys sitting near the aisle. I sat down next to them. I practiced a concerned glance in their direction. They returned a disgusted look, probably thinking that I was there on a morals charge.

"Courrrrrrrt!" bellowed the little court officer, and the congregation rose as the Honorable Willard J. Kinnington fairly scooted from a door to the right side of the bench and ascended. Possibly he moved so quickly because he was only barely medium height and didn't wish to advertise it. He had slightly graying, blondish-red hair and was wearing amber horn-rimmed glasses. He clutched a small loose-leaf book in his right hand; with his black robes this gave him the appearance of a new parish priest slightly late for his first mass. Once on the bench, however, he fixed the entire courtroom with a baleful eye. With the added height of the raised bench, he now looked as though he could jump center for the Celtics. He bowed his head as the court officer intoned the full salutation. The courtroom clock showed 9:00 A.M. on the nose.

"Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. All those having business before this, the Fourth District Court of Western Norfolk, now sitting in Meade, within in and for our county of Norfolk, the Honorable Willard J. Kinnington presiding, draw near, give your attention, and you shall be heard. God save the commonwealth of Massachusetts and this honorable court. Be seated."

I watched the judge as the court officer spoke; he didn't twitch during the entire soliloquy. In Massachusetts, there is a district-court system, which handles lesser matters, and a superior-court system, which handles graver matters. Each district court is in an important town and includes several smaller towns within its jurisdiction. The superior courts are countywide courts. Until court reorganization becomes a functioning reality, the major difference between the two systems is that whereas the district court is apparently less prestigious, the superior-court judges have to ride the circuit, rotating every month or so all over the state. The district-court judges sit almost exclusively in one district court. Accordingly, some district-court judges, appointed for life, have built up substantial little fiefdoms over which they exercise almost unbridled control. I'd been in a dozen district courts and every superior court in eastern Massachusetts during my time with Empire. Although the full "Hear ye, hear ye" salutation is occasionally heard in superior court, I'd never before heard it used in a district court.

When the court officer ended, the judge sat down briskly and spoke a name quickly. The clerk had materialized in the wooden kangaroo's pouch immediately in front of the judge. He turned to Kinnington and began giving short, nervous answers to whatever questions the judge was asking.

Meanwhile, I caught sight of the back of a huge court officer who was sliding down the left-hand side aisle toward the judge's bench. He looked to be my height, but he was enormously thick across the back and bottom. He clicked open a side gate and entered the bar enclosure and moved up next to the clerk, who literally cringed away from him. Seeing him standing with his back to me and looming over the clerk, I pushed him up to six feet five. The giant's head bobbed up and down a little, as though he were talking. The judge's expression clouded, then cleared, and he muttered something to the giant. The giant nodded and backed away as the clerk called the first case.

A couple in front of me popped up with their son and blocked my view of the bench momentarily. They said their lawyer would be late, the judge asked the clerk if the lawyer had called the clerk's office, and the clerk said no. At that point the judge stated that their son's case would not be heard until 3:00 P.M. The father began to say something, but the clerk had already begun calling the next case.

As the trio hesitatingly sat back down, I saw the giant court officer in the side aisle pull even with my row and roll his gaze toward me as he walked back toward the only public entrance. His was the beefy, now not-quite-as-stupid face I'd seen in the car that had swerved at me the day before. He had a fringe of wispy blond hair around, and combed in ridiculously long strands across, his balding head. I didn't follow him with my eyes to the back of the room, but no sound came from the central door, which had squeaked a bit when opened by a latecomer a moment before. So much for my concerned-parent cover. The next case was a Bonham police matter. The defendant's name was called, and the defendant and her attorney answered "Ready." No one, however, answered for the Bonham police, which, like most Massachusetts departments, prosecutes its own minor cases through a senior officer instead of tying up an assistant district attomey. A young, clean-cut guy within the bar enclosure (who turned out to be the Meade police prosecutor) stood up haltingly. He said, "Your Honor, I believe the Bonham police prosecutor is on the telephone arranging to bring in a witness." The judge glared down at him. "Case dismissed for lack of prosecution." I was stunned, but the young cop/prosecutor gamely tried a stall. "If Your Honor please. I can run back and-"

"Case dismissed!" boomed the judge, whose microphone was set, I suspect, a bit higher than anyone else's. The defendant and her lawyer got the hell out as fast as their feet would carry them.

And so it went. Of the twenty or so preliminary rulings I saw Kinnington make, at least six were similarly outrageous; yet he seemed to favor neither police nor defendants as a class. Each decision seemed exactly arbitrary, depending upon which party happened to appear to be giving the most affront to the judge's sense of how his time was to be used. I'm sure all six rulings were technically defensible. The point was that it was clear to everyone in the courtroom that the rulings were unfair and showed an incredible disregard for common sense.

I almost forgot. About six names (or three minutes) after the "case-dismissed" defendant, the central doors squeaked and a fiftyish, crew-cut guy in a brown double-knit blazer and baggy blue slacks hustled down the center aisle. I recognized him from the Bonham pistol range. He entered the bar enclosure and sat down hurriedly next to the young police prosecutor who'd stood up for him. The young one whispered to him. The old one turned to him with a look of disbelief on his face and half-rose from his chair. He sunk back down, faced front, and bowed his head. He then pounded the counsel table three times silently with his fist.

After the criminal cases had been called, the judge muttered something to the clerk, who turned to the judge and then turned back around with a surprised look on his face. "Court will recess for thirty minutes," he announced.

"All rise," shouted the elderly court officer as the judge scampered off the bench as quickly as he had ascended it and exited through the same door.

"Shit, man, we're gonna be here all fuckin' day," said the kid next to me to his friend as they got up and edged past me. About half the courtroom's population decided to do the same. I could feel the exodus clearing from the aisle, when a five-pound ham dropped on my shoulder. A gruff, egg-breathed voice said, "His Honor wants to see you in his chambers. Now."

I put on my most indifferent face and swiveled my head around. The giant's eyes were small and mean.

"I don't expect any special treatment, you know," I said mildly.

"Now."

I got up, and we walked abreast to a side door just forward of the right-hand seating area. I decided Giant was pushing six feet seven and maybe three hundred pounds. Giant used a key on the door. I moved before he could shove me through it. We entered a narrow corridor with PRIVATE stenciled on the painted walls. We made a sharp left and walked into a small outer office with a striking brunette secretary behind the reception desk. She gave me a quick look, as if she didn't want to be able to say later on that she recognized the body. Giant rapped a knuckle twice on the heavy-looking inner door and then pushed it open and motioned me in ahead of him. I walked in and glimpsed reddish hair behind the cloud of light blue cigar smoke hanging over a big desk. Then I was whirled around against the wall. I heard the door slam, and Giant said, "Assume the position."

I did so, with my hands outstretched on the wall, and Giant spread my legs a little wider. He looked one foot inside my right one and gave me a rough upper-body patdown.

When I was in army officer training, a military-police major always said to be sure to check a man's crotch for a weapon. When I was actually in the field, a military-police sergeant showed me how to bring the frisking hand up just right to ring the friskee's chimes without any abrupt motion being apparent to an onlooker. I looked down as Giant started his hand up the inside of my right calf, saw the telltale turning of his wrist, and shifted my weight to the left just in time to catch most of his goose on my inner right thigh. Nevertheless, I heard a gentle tinkle of bells.

Giant snickered and moved back from me as I straightened up.

"He's clean, Your Honor," he said-"and smart."

"Please be seated, Mr. Cuddy."

No surprise there. Giant had probably read my plates when I pulled out of the judge's driveway yesterday. One call to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, one call to the Boston police, and one call by them to the Copley Square rent-a-car would have produced the information. Still, I had a feeling that Mrs. Kinnington would be disappointed in me. I also didn't like being roughhoused, even a little, by Giant. But I liked the judge's style sufficiently less that I maintained my composure and dignity. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I sat.

"Why were you visiting my mother yesterday?"

"Does Baby Huey have to hear all this?" I asked. I heard Giant suck in his breath behind me, as though he'd been waiting thirty years for somebody to call him that.

"Officer Blakey will stay." Well, one question answered. I must have missed the nameplate on the blue pup tent with sleeves that Blakey wore.

The judge continued, "By the way, I am sorry about the search, but no security system, even ours, is foolproof. I'm sure you understand." He smiled and gestured to a box on his desk. "Would you care for a cigar?"

"No."

The smile evaporated and was replaced by the case-dismissed look. "Why were you visiting my mother?"

"If you must know, we had a date for racquetball."

The judge's eyes glanced up and then down. The ham applied itself to my shoulder again and, this time, started to squeeze. The initial pain was welcomely replaced by a spreading numbness.

"By the way," I said through reasonably unclenched teeth, "did you hear the one about the Long Island judge who couldn't stand lousy coffee?" I was referring to a judge in New York who some years earlier had had his bailiffs handcuff a guy selling coffee outside his courthouse and drag him in to explain why the coffee was, in the opinion of the judge, so rotten. I couldn't remember what had happened to that judge, but apparently Kinnington did, because he waved Blakey off. My happy blood sang on its way back to my shoulder.

"Mr. Cuddy, I do not wish to see you around my property or my family again. Ever. Do I make myself clear?"

"I've understood every word you've said, Judge," I said as I stood and, not having been knocked down, turned and walked to the door. Blakey backed up, keeping two paces away from me, and opened the door for me.

"See ya around the quad, Cuddly Bear," I said softly to Blakey as I exited past him.

"Remember," said Blakey, just as softly. In the court lobby I stopped at an enclosed pay phone. I called information, got the number I wanted, and dialed it.

"Sturney and Perkins, good morning."

"Good morning. This is John Francis calling from Judge Kinnington's court." I never like to tell a lie. "The judge and I were just speaking about a confidential matter that one of your people is handling, but frankly, the investigator's name has slipped my mind."

"Just a moment, please." There was a click, then dead space, then another click.

"That would be Ms. DeMarco, but I'm afraid she won't be in until two. Can I give her a message?"

"Gee," I said in my best Andy Hardy voice, "that's inconvenient for telephoning. The judge is in the next room. Hold on." I drummed my fingers through one verse of "Eleanor Rigby" so the no-doubt harried receptionist, when I got her back on, would not want to talk very long. I resumed. "Okay, I can be there at two-thirty. Just leave a message that I'll see her then."

"Fine. Thank you," said the receptionist crisply, and hung up.

I left the courthouse, retrieved my. 38 from the trunk, and got into the Mercury. It was only 10:10. The cat being out of the bag, I decided to rattle some more local cages before driving in to see Ms. DeMarco. I crisscrossed the downtown area of Meade until I spotted the police station. I parked (no meters) and went inside.