The Enchanted Isle

13

Mr. Clawson was A guy around forty, in a blazer and gray slacks, tall and slim, but with square shoulders that looked pretty strong. He was the middle one of a firm, Digges, Clawson, and Llowndes, though I didn’t meet the others, and he had offices in the Fidelity Building, which is big but pretty old, right in the center of town on Charles Street. It was only a couple of blocks from Marconi’s, a nice place where we all four had lunch. And then we walked to the Fidelity Building, leaving the cars on the parking lot on West Saratoga Street, which was where the restaurant was. Mr. Clawson’s office was one of a suite, with a reception room in front and a girl at a switchboard desk. The ceiling was high, with a mahogany desk, broadloom rug, leather chairs, and bookshelves to the ceiling lined with law books all in maroon. He sat us down very friendly, and after a few minutes’ chat, with expressions of real surprise at the news of the wedding bells, he got down to brass tacks, and once more I had to tell it. But this time it took a lot longer because he kept questioning me about why Rick and I got in it. He kept talking about “coercion” and taking me over and over it, the effect it had on us, when Pal — or Matt Caskey, actually — kept tapping his gun. Then I saw he was heading me off from blaming the coat for it all, as I had when telling Steve and, of course, Mr. Wilmer too.

I owned up I was scared of the guns but insisted I wanted the coat to go and show my father; and that was the reason I had for telling those two guys yes. He seemed annoyed and studied me hard. Then pretty soon he said, “Mandy, the way you tell it, do you know who’ll get immunity?”

“Me, I hope.”

“Nobody. Do you know who, when the case comes to trial, is going to get acquitted? The way you tell it, I mean?”

“...I hadn’t thought.”

“Rick.”

“Did you say Rick?”

“Yes. He was forced, at gunpoint, to help out.” He let that soak in and went on, “Do you know who’s going to be convicted and sent to prison?”

“Well, I’m the only one left!”

“That’s right, you.”

It wasn’t so much what he said as the hard, cold way he said it, and spite of all I started to cry. Mother came with a Kleenex and wiped my eyes. When she stepped aside he went on, “As you tell it, you went in of your own free will to get yourself a mink coat to flaunt in front of your father. Rick went in from having to, from being forced at gunpoint after doing his best to back out. That adds up to coercion.”

“He stole the money, though!”

“He used it, as you tell it, as a shield from the bank guard’s shots, after having once dropped it and started out to the car.”

“I mean he stole it off me!”

“Mandy, quit being silly!”

That was Steve, cutting in to remind me we’d been over all that, when I started yelping at supper the money was half mine. He snapped, “How could he steal it off you when it wasn’t even yours?” I guess I saw the point, but it still seemed to me that if no one knew we were in it, then it was ours, like finders-keepers. Mr. Clawson waited, then went on, “I’ve said, I’ve repeated, Mandy, as you tell it. So if you want Rick to go free while you spend ten years in prison, you keep on telling it that way. But if you want immunity, if on thinking it over you prefer it to serving time...”

“I don’t think you like me very much.”

“I like you fine. You’re very easy to like, very pretty, very attractive. But I shouldn’t deceive you just to get one of your smiles. That might be pleasant for me, but for you, in the Maryland Penitentiary, it might not be pleasant at all.”

“It’s not a question of liking.”

Steve snapped it so sour that Mother had to make with the Kleenex again. Mr. Wilmer came over, touched my cheek, and whispered, “You’re not doing very good.”

“I know I’m not. I’m sorry.”

But him being there made me feel better. He asked, “Why don’t you listen just once? ’Stead of giving an imitation of a bullheaded calf?”

“OK.”

Mr. Clawson laughed, so his face lit up real nice, and that helped. I said, “I tell it like it was.”

“You mean you’ve been telling the truth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The whole truth might be more than you’ve told so far. As you tell it, and as I hear it, I can’t believe that that gun had no effect. I have to believe it did, and that the coat notwithstanding, it was the main thing driving you into this crime. Still the gun I’m talking about. That’s what I believe, after hearing you tell it. What about you, Mandy?”

“Well, of course I was scared of the gun, but...”

“Never mind the but for the moment. You were scared of the gun, first, last...”

“And during.”

“That’s it, now we’re coming!”

“I’d have been paralyzed!”

That was Mother, turning her eyes on him so he responded with a smile, which no man ever denied her. He said, “So! We’re getting somewhere at last, with no violation, not the slightest, of the truth. Next, of course, is the coat. Where is it, by the way?”

“I left it home.”

Which I had, as the day was warm and a light jacket, which I had in my lap, was all that I’d brought with me. He said, “Fine, but before we go into it, what’s to be told about it, there’s one angle of this case that overshadows everything, and we have to go into it before we talk about coat, father, or anything else. I’m referring to Rick, of course.”

“Oh, him!”

“You must join your case to his, do all in your power to help him.”

“That yellow-bellied rat? Who ran out on me that way? Who played me that rotten trick?”

“It’s precisely his yellow belly that’s the key to the whole thing, the one chance you have to get off. Because in spite of the luck you both played in, in spite of your pad as it’s called, this very nice room you were able to share, he was so scared he couldn’t, and you didn’t want him to. This couldn’t have been invented; it’s proof of the truth of your whole story any jury would have to believe: that both of you went along, took part in this dreadful crime from pure terror. And on top of that was Rick’s perception of something you didn’t see, his catching a sign that was passed that meant you both would be killed. All this, if you join your case with Rick’s, can get you off. It can get you immunity, can extricate you from this mess. Once that approach is made, other things, like the coat, the reception you got from your father, your reasons for leaving home, pale into insignificance. You were a couple of panicky kids who did something you shouldn’t have, but now, when at last you’ve thought it over, you’re stringing with law and order, helping us recover the money, helping us find Rick, helping us show him that he must get with it too!”

“Mandy, I think that’s it.”

So said Mr. Wilmer.

“Of course it is.”

So said Steve.

“But I hate him!”

So said I.

“Have you ever seen a prison?”

So said Mr. Clawson, and I started to cry again. But he was the one that time who took the Kleenex from Mother and wiped my tears with it. He went on, “I have, Mandy. I’ve had to go there once or twice in connection with legal matters. There’s no such hell beyond the grave. There couldn’t be, as no decent God would ever create what men have brought forth on this earth. It stinks. It hasn’t one ounce of compassion from end to end, from top to bottom. No mouthful of decent food is ever served in it, no love is felt, no jokes are cracked, no hope ever shines in. And they keep you there years and years, so long it makes no sense, but you stay there just the same. Are you sure you hate that boy this much? That you’d go to prison to wreak revenge on him?”

“OK, I’ll do what I can.”

“You have to do better than that!”

“I’ll fight for him, then.”

“That’s better.”

“But I won’t want to.”

“Mandy, will you wake up?”

“Mr. Clawson, I’ll really hit it a lick.”

“That’s what I want to hear. Kiss me.”

I kissed him, and Mother started to cry. I started to cry. Mother gave him the Kleenex, but he wiped his own face off. Then we were laughing and pressing each other’s hand.

Turned out, though, that beating some sense into my head was just the beginning of it. “Now,” he went on, “we take up the next thing: who makes the pitch?”

“Break it down,” said Mr. Wilmer, “so we know what you’re talking about.”

“Who faces the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, or the assistant in charge of this case, the bank, and the police and pins them down to a deal — immunity for Mandy in return for what she knows, the help she’ll be able to give in the recovery of the money.”

“I thought that was your job, Jim.”

“It would be my job, except that in this case it can’t be. Because when I declare myself as her counsel, I have to surrender her or be charged with harboring a fugitive from justice. I can surrender her, that’s true, clam her up under the Fifth Amendment, and to that extent freeze the game — stand pat and leave the next move up to them. The trouble is they will move, and so fast it’ll take your breath. The second they know who she is, they’ll get the rest one, two, three, like that — Rick’s identity, his whereabouts quite possibly, and anything else they need to get the money back and bring these kids to trial. Ethics bind me hand and foot. I can’t make this pitch in the way it has to be made if we’re to get anywhere, if we’re to get a deal.”

“Go on, Jim. What’s the rest?”

“Someone must go to them, through me, of course, with news of a friend of his, sex as yet undisclosed; who helped out on that crime; who knows the police are off on a wrong scent trying to find the Rossi brothers; who is willing to help, with information that may be of value, in recovering that money; but who won’t talk, won’t say one word, one word of any kind, unless granted immunity.”

“Meaning me?”

“Ben, meaning you as I would assume, but you’re not involved in this crime, you can’t take the Fifth Amendment, and as a material witness you can be made to talk.”

“Yeah? How?”

“You can be jailed until you do.”

“Now I have it.”

He studied Mr. Clawson, trying to make up his mind whether to put his head on the block. He swears now he would have, and I believe him, but it didn’t get that far. Suddenly Steve spoke up, “How about me, Mr. Clawson?”

“You? Mr. Baker, is that your name?”

“Yeah. And I’d go to jail for Mandy.”

“You could stay there and stay there and stay there.”

“If they have that much time.”

“He’ll do. This guy is elected.”

Mr. Wilmer went over and took Steve by the hand. He said, “Steve, my hat’s off to you.” Mother went over and kissed him. I kissed him.