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Seventeen Thomassy

Widmer got me on the phone early. "George," he said, "Francine was very upset last night."

"I'm not surprised."

"What happened?"

"Did you ask her?"

"She wouldn't say anything."

"Then it's not my place to."

"Please?"

"There was a trespassing incident involving the man who raped her, Ned. Fortunately, the police were able to intervene. I've lodged a trespassing complaint."

"George, I want her out of that apartment. I don't care what it costs."

"She doesn't take instruction from me, Ned. You'd better talk to her yourself. Remember, there's that damn lease."

"I don't give a damn about the lease! Anyway, breaking leases should be child's play for you, George."

"Ned, there are leases and leases. I don't even know who owns that building. It might take good money."

"I don't care."

"One thing's sure, Ned. There won't be an escape clause on the grounds that the folks upstairs include a rapist and the super is a one-armed freak."

"What's this about the super?"

"He was with Koslak last night. He was the one who let him in the apartment."

"Jesus, George, there must be a way."

"Sure, let's run a sublease ad. Wanted: tenant for apartment under rapist. Ned, you can't even say 'Gentlemen Only' in an ad any more! Want to take the responsibility of a sublease to another young woman without telling her what she's getting into?"

"I don't care if the apartment sits empty. George, are you pursuing the original complaint?"

"You bet your life."

"When?"

"Right now. Today."

"Keep me posted, George. And one other thing."

"What?"

"Don't tell Francine I called."

Thank heaven for disbarred lawyers. Without someone like Fat Tar-bell, my investigative work would be a lot more time-consuming. If a disbarred lawyer doesn't want to spend the rest of his life clerking for paralegal wages, he's got to develop a specialty. Tarbell is a sucker fish on the body of the Westchester D.A.'s office.

I can tell Tarbell likes me. He follows the cases for which he supplies information, and keeps score. He knows what my score is, and it is through him that at least part of my reputation among lawyers in this county is built.

I doubt anybody'd go after Tarbell. Not any more. He knows too much.

I phoned him, asked about his Mrs. and his kid John — John's at Yale Law School and I can tell you he's one lawyer who's never going to get caught doing anything that'd get him disbarred. Then I got down to it.

"I'd like to talk Cunham into a criminal prosecution."

"Shame on you. Who do you want to get?"

"Somebody a client wants to get. How's Cunham fixed?"

"Up to his ass. He's shuffling troublemakers like you off on a kid named Lefkowitz. Know him?"

I didn't and asked Tarbell to fill me in.

"I'll tell you. He wears a key chain."

"Thanks a lot."

"How many guys you know today wear a key chain? He's Harvard summa, Columbia Law, listen, he's had the same girl friend since high school. He weekends in Amagansett where he breaks the law smoking grass with some other unmarried couples they share a rental with. Twenty-seven, an assistant D.A., he thinks he's riding shotgun for God. He's going to be Attorney General by the time he's forty."

"I'll bet."

"Well, there are two ways of dealing with a kid like Lefkowitz," Tarbell went on. "You can Stepin Fetchit, kiss young massa's ass, make him feel so big and so good he'll get his rocks off doing a favor for Big Shot Thomassy. However, George Thomassy no good as Stepin Fetchit. You better zap him. He's chicken shit if you come on strong. What's the complaint?"

"Rape," I said.

"Forget it. Not this year."

"Want to bet a case of wine?"

"I never gamble," said Tarbell. "You'd have to have Cunham's family jewels in your safe."

"You got anything useful?" I asked.

"Don't I always? Except this particular bit takes a very tough character to use."

I didn't say a thing.

"It'll cost you two hundred if you use it, four hundred if it works."

"Photograph?"

"Newspaper clip."

"I'll be over."

"Look, do me a favor," said Tarbell, "don't come to my place this time."

"You keeping an underage mistress?"

"Just meet me in the Gristede's parking lot in half an hour."

"I hope whoever's tapping your phone isn't listening."

"I pay real good to have it cleaned regulady."

"You think of everything."

"If I thought of everything, I wouldn't have lost my license. I'd be making a fortune like you guys."

I spotted Fat Tarbell in his Ford before he saw me. I walked over to the driver's window and said, "Don't move."

Tarbell laughed. "Come on, I saw you in the mirror. Here, put this in your wallet. I don't want you to lose it unless you lose your wallet."

"This is a Xerox."

"I've got the original if you ever need it. No extra charge."

"I wish there were easier ways."

"Fuck that. I'd be out of business."

As I watched him drive off, I thought if I ever got disbarred, what would I do to make a living?

When I phoned Lefkowitz I said I wanted to see him at 3:00 P.M. that day and I hoped it wouldn't be too inconvenient. He started to say something about a previous appointment, which I told him he could blame me for in canceling and I would be there at three sharp.

When I arrived I told the secretary not to bother I knew the way and went right past her, around the L, and into the office marked "Gerald R. Lefkowitz." He looked up from his newspaper, actually blushed folding it up like he had been caught masturbating, and I said, "Three o'clock on the button."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Thomassy," said the boy lawyer, holding out a flustered hand.

"Lefkowitz," I said, "I'm not much for sitting around offices. Why don't we take a walk. Okay?"

He glanced over at the armchair he had been planning to seat me in as if to apologize to it for it missing this opportunity to have George Thomassy's celebrated ass sitting in it for half an hour.

"I hope you walk with a brisk stride," I said.

"I hope so," said Lefkowitz. In two minutes we were outside, and I set the pace at Thomassy's not-quite-marathon walking speed.

"Exercising the body stimulates the mind," I said. "Don't you agree?

He agreed.

I was going to get him to agree to a lot more before the walk was over. First I filled him in on the facts. Then I said, "Lefkowitz, we're not going to have trouble over the sexual aspects because you're a member of a smart new generation with no hang-ups, so we can talk frankly, right?"

When he said "right" he was already short of breath. Good.

"You didn't by any chance row at Harvard?"

He shook his head.

"Pity," I said. "Great sport. Now. What happened to Miss Widmer, you'll recall that's the name of the complainant, was a crime of violence, that's what we have to keep foremost in our minds. I'd wanted to be sure to brief you thoroughly before I see Gary."

His speech was beginning to crack up into breathy stretches. "There are… certain kinds of cases… rape is one of them… that Mr. Cunham is not fond of putting before mixed company."

"I've heard he uses that expression about the Grand Jury. You tired? You want to sit down on that bench?"

Lefkowitz declined the chance to rest. Foolish.

"When you've added to your experience," I said, "you'll find that the majority of so-called sex crimes have nothing to do with sex. I don't mean your peeping tom or your run-of-the-mill exhibitionist. I'm talking about forcing sex on someone."

"Rape," said Lefkowitz.

"Right. Maybe it'll be easier to judge my conclusion — and I want you to be the judge, Lefkowitz — if you consider a case of male-to-male rape, say in prison."

"Happens every day."

"Right. But is it sexually motivated? Look, if a convict deprived of normal company builds up a head of steam, he can always use his hand. It's convenient — I almost said it's handy — doesn't bother anybody, relief is quick, and nobody gets hurt. However—" I stopped walking and looked straight at Lefkowitz. "Your heart okay? You're puffing a bit."

"Don't do much walking. Should do more."

"Continue?"

"Why not?"

"Okay. We were talking about a prisoner. If he wants some variety, there's always someone else's hand around for fair exchange. No big deal. Why then, I ask you, doesn't a day go by in any sizable jail without one or more single or gang rapes? I mean it's trouble compared to jacking off. They take the trouble because it's a method of control, of putting someone down, or keeping someone in line. Got it? If the guy who leads a gang rape lets everyone else have a piece afterwards, it's he who's the permission-giver. Rape is a function of power. The sex is incidental. The violence or threat of violence isn't. Which is back where we started. Rape is a crime of violence having relatively little to do with sex urges that can be satisfied in different and lots less complicated ways."

"That's a very interesting point of view, Mr. Thomassy."

I stopped, giving Lefkowitz a chance to puff while stationary.

"I am not in the habit," I told him, "of espousing interesting points of view. That's what law school teachers do. They're exercising their students' minds. I have to deal with the practical realities of crime in this county, and I wouldn't hold the view I have about rape if it wasn't — based on my experience — true. Follow?"

I had turned around and could see the relief in his face at the prospect of heading back toward his office.

"I would like to reflect on what you have said, Mr. Thomassy."

"I wish there were more time. But it's imperative that we get the Widmer case to the Grand Jury as soon as possible, and while you—" I gave him eyeball-to-eyeball for two seconds— "undoubtedly have the authority to do so yourself, I expect you will want to consult Gary since he has pronounced views on the matter. I could see him almost any time next week. Does that allow you enough time?"

Lefkowitz did not respond.

"I know what's troubling you," I said. "You don't like to have the boss say no. I want to assure you he won't."

"I don't mean to question your confidence, Mr. Thomassy, but on what basis do you think that Mr. Cunham would agree to put a difficult case on an unpopular subject before the jurors?"

"First, you will persuade him that we are talking about a crime of violence. Gary's very into violence, he uses it in all his speeches about how permissive Democrats in New York have reaped the whirlwind and how Cunham's Republican Westchester is a safe place to live because violence is not condoned, correct? Do you know a Mr. Morrell?"

"A who?"

"Charles Morrell?"

I could see his mind going like a pinball machine registering tilt.

"I used to see him in Amagansett," I said, "on my way out to East Hampton. Don't worry, he doesn't let me copy his customer list. The point is that smoking grass doesn't seem to harm people the way violence does, which is why you, and I, and Gary Cunham are concentrating on stopping violence, not victimless crimes that haven't been wiped off the statute books yet."

Mr. Gerald R. Lefkowitz, Amagansett weekend potsmoker, showed visible relief.

"Third, I know Gary will agree with your recommendation that the Widmer case go before the jury because of this."

I looked left and right as if I was about to slip Lefkowitz the Pentagon Papers. From my breast wallet I took the Xerox of the clipping from the Buffalo student newspaper. It was a mild little thing, really, Charles Cunham, identified as the son of Westchester's D.A., was lauded for his leadership role in two "controversial" student organizations, LEMAR and the Gay Activists Alliance. Lefkowitz looked at the clipping, at me, back at the clipping.

"Let me explain. I think it's fine that Gary's son is working for the legalization of marijuana, especially because of his background. It's not as if he's defying his father because he's working for legalization, right, of a harmless substance, right? I just think that Gary, and I really don't know him that well, I'm sure you've gotten to know him better working with him as closely as you do, I don't think he likes to advertise the fact that his son's sexual preference is what it is, perhaps he takes it as some kind of sign of personal failure on his part in raising the boy or setting an example. Who knows? Probably a very old-fashioned view. I know for a fact that one reporter in the Gannett chain is looking for a Gunham story. I don't know the background of that vendetta, whatever it is, but I don't think he ought to be prodded onto this one, don't you agree?"

I had to give Lefkowitz credit. He looked me straight in the eye when he said, "Mr. Thomassy, I believe you are trying to influence both my attitude toward this case and Mr. Gunham's attitude as well by an implicit threat."

"Did you think it was implicit? Mr. Lefkowitz, you're in the early part of what I am certain will be a marvelous career in the justice system. I can sum up by saying that above all, I don't believe in people getting hurt."

I slipped the clipping back in my wallet.

"I suppose you'll feel an obligation to alert Mr. Gunham to the fact that I don't believe in people getting hurt?"

"Goodbye, Mr. Thomassy." He held out his hand. I shook it.

"Goodbye, Mr. Lefkowitz. Please let my secretary know when I'm to see Mr. Gunham."

I watched young Lefkowitz trundle back to his office, a bit more knowledgeable about the facts of life than he had been before 3:00 P.M.