Death Sentence

14

Her eyes flashed angrily. She’d been waiting near the door; she stood up when Paul entered the courtroom. He was once again surprised by how diminutive she was: she hardly came up to his shoulder and he was not especially tall. She wore a light sweater with the sleeves pushed up casually above the elbows; a long plaid skirt that was mainly orange and yellow; she’d done something with her hair and it was softer and fuller around her face than it had been yesterday.

“I’m not late, am I?”

“Actually you’re early. No — it’s not on your account I’m breathing fire. Let’s go, shall we? I need a drink.”

He helped her into her coat and they went down the steps trying to avoid puddles and slushpiles left from last night’s snowfall. She said, “I was supposed to try an aggravated assault and attempted murder case this morning. The bastard didn’t show up.”

“Jumped bail?”

“That’s right. Eight hundred dollars bail. I fought it at the hearing — it was ridiculously low.”

“Do they skip bail often?”

“Not so often that I’m used to it.”

He held the car door for her and then went around to get in. “Where to?”

“Do you like German food?”

He didn’t, especially, but he said he did and she gave him directions; they put the car in a multistory garage in the Loop and walked to the Berghoff.

They ordered highballs and Paul lit her cigarette from a restaurant matchbook. When the drinks came they touched glasses. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Happy New Year.” She drank and shuddered theatrically. “Hoo boy.”

“A tough one?”

“Some of them bother you more than others,” she said. “This one was a fairly vicious little bastard. I hate to imagine what he’s up to now.”

In the restaurant light she had a softer prettiness than he’d remarked yesterday. Her cheeks were high and freckled; she had a short nose and wide grey eyes. Her bones were prominent and she was curiously rangy — that was what made her seem much taller than she was.

She blew smoke through her nostrils. “I feel awkward. It’s not a habit of mine, making dates with strangers. I did it on impulse, you know.”

He smiled to reassure her. “So did I.”

“Have you ever been to a psychiatrist?”

He was taken aback. “No.”

“Neither have I. I wonder what a shrink would say about my ‘motivations.’ I’ve never had a loved one mugged. I’ve never even been burgled. But when I passed the bar exams I went straight into the DA’s office and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve never been able to picture myself as anything except a prosecuting attorney. I never had the slightest urge to defend the downtrodden and support the underprivileged. It’s strange because I don’t think of myself as a redneck. I’m not politically right-wing at all. I don’t know. Right now I’m in one of those agonizing reappraisals about the people I have to deal with every day. I’ve started asking myself whether there’s any possibility of a society surviving without the things we think of as the old traditional civilized values. Personal dignity, respect for the law.”

She wanted a sympathetic ear; he didn’t interrupt.

“I’ve never believed crime was an illness that could be cured by treatment. Maybe one day we’ll be able to go into them surgically and program new personalities and send brand new good citizens out into the world. I’d rather not live to see that either. But in the meantime I keep hearing about rehabilitation and reform, and I don’t believe a word of it. The law isn’t supposed to rehabilitate people or reform them. You can’t force people to behave themselves. You can only try to force them not to misbehave. That’s what laws are for. The humanitarians have forced us into this illogic of reforms and rehabilitations, and all they’ve succeeded in doing is they’ve created an incredible increase in human suffering.”

“Crime isn’t a disease to be treated,” Paul suggested. “It’s an evil to be punished.”

“It’s more than that,” she said. “It’s not just an evil to be punished. It’s an evil to be prevented.”

“By deterrence?”

“By getting them off the streets and keeping them off the streets.” She lit another cigarette, inhaled, coughed, recovered and said, “Protections keep expanding for the rights of the accused. What about the rights of society to be free from criminal molestations?”

She went on, “The ‘we’re all guilty’ approach used to mean something to me. You know: ‘As long as one man anywhere is not free, I’m not free.’ It’s a great argument for doing away with prisons. But it’s no good. I haven’t committed atrocities. I’m not guilty of the crimes I have to try in that courthouse. I’ve never mugged anyone. There’s a difference between me and them — we’re not all the same. And if we haven’t got the confidence and courage to make these moral judgments and act on them, then we deserve every dismal thing that happens.

“These kids from the Legal Aid hang around our office talking high-minded idealism. They keep talking about the causes of crime. What causes? I’ve heard ten thousand. Families have broken down. Unemployment. The evaporation of religion. Violence on television. Welfare. Corruption in high places. Racism. Poverty. Abnormal genetic chromosomes. That marvelous word ‘alienation.’ Permissive parents. The laws are too lax, or the laws are too severe — take your choice. Rootlessness, the breakdown of a sense of community, over-population, underachievement, drugs, too much money, too little money. Moral decay and disrespect. Pornography. What’s the cause of crime? Every crime has its own causes. Every defendent I try has a marvelous excuse of some kind. But when the Nazis mobilize and arm themselves and invade your country, you don’t ask why — you defend yourself and leave the causes to the historians.”

“Yes,” he murmured. He didn’t dare say more.

“That’s what I’ve believed for years,” she said. “It’s what I still believe. But I’ve begun to wonder whether it matters a whole lot what I believe.”

“Why? Because you can’t do much about things?”

“No. I do as much as I can. I suppose you could say I do more than most people do.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

“It’s so accidental, isn’t it. I could just as easily be one of those Legal Aids in the outer office. My best friend in law school took a job with the Civil Liberties Union.”

“It’s like that line in the Western movies,” he said, echoing the words he’d said to Spalter. “You play the cards you’ve been dealt.”

“It depresses me to think maybe that’s all it is. A chance turn of the cards. An accident, no more significant than a bet on a horse.” She put her glass down; she hadn’t drunk much of the second one. “I feel as if I’ve lost something important. Should we get menus and order something?”

Later she said, “I’m sorry. I haven’t been much help to either of us, have I.”

“I didn’t know we were expected to give each other therapy.” He smiled. “You’re good company, you know.”

“Actually I’m horrid today. I hope you’ll forgive me — I don’t usually behave so badly.”

He shook his head, denying it. “Do you have children?”

“No. I’m not married any more. I was for a while, but as they say it didn’t work out. Maybe it was my fault. I’m not the homemaker sort.”

“I wasn’t trying to pry.”

She put her knife and fork on her plate. “Why do you and I keep apologizing to each other?”

“Nerves.” He tried to smile. “I don’t know about you. But I haven’t done much — dating.” Well there’d been one woman in Arizona, very briefly.

He wanted to change the subject. “What are your plans for the evening?”

Amusement narrowed her eyes. “It’s Christmas Eve,” she said, “and I thought you’d never ask.”