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Offer of Proof
A Novel
Chapter One
Say your life breaks down, or your luck goes bad, and you get arrested, busted, taken into custody for some damn thing here in Manhattan. You'll drop out of sight, just disappear. You'll be going through the system, from the precinct where they print you and take what they call your "pedigree" information -- which sounds like you were bred in captivity and are up for sale, but which actually just refers to your name, address, and date of birth -- then on to central booking, where they fax your prints to Albany to see if you have a criminal record, and, finally, to court.
When you do pop up in a jail behind the arraignment court after a day or two of waiting around in filthy grimy cells with tiled walls like old bathrooms, sharing a few square feet with a lot of other desperate-looking people, you might be pleased to find that your court-appointed attorney is me, Arch Gold, working the night shift. You won't ask yourself why a young man who could have worked at a big corporate firm, making in a month what he makes in a year as a public defender, does this dirty work. You won't ask yourself, doesn't he have anything better to do on a Saturday night? You'll just be very happy to see me, because my friendly face, and my apparent desire to help you, whatever your alleged sins, will make you feel better, will give you hope.
I grabbed the top file off the pile of cases the court clerk had just thrown into the wire basket bolted to defense counsel's table. When I first started as a public defender, I used to look through the files and select the ones that appealed to me, secretly hoping my shift might run out before I got to a particularly nasty case that I'd left at the bottom of the basket. Not anymore. After ten years of this work, I just take the cases in the order they appear. Picking and choosing isn't part of my job description.
I looked at the name on the first file -- "Kathy Dupont."
When you get arrested, your lawyer is given three pieces of paper with which to defend you in front of the judge at your arraignment: the criminal complaint, which purports to set forth exactly what laws you've broken and exactly how, all in stilted legalese; your rap sheet, based on your fingerprints, which lets everyone know if you've got a criminal record, no matter what name you happen to claim for yourself this time around; and, last, a joke -- the CJA sheet. This is a form filled out by a career pencil pusher from something called the Criminal Justice Agency, who interviews you, and to whom you're expected to give a home address, your supposed occupation or lack thereof, and your supposed contact person, so the court can decide if you have sufficient "community ties" to maybe risk releasing you or setting a bail you could make.
I checked out Kathy Dupont's rap sheet. Twenty-eight years old. Second arrest. She had an open case for assault, just like this new one. The complaint here said she'd stabbed a fellow by the name of James Johnson, on Fifty-second Street and Ninth Avenue, at 4:45 in the morning. The CJA sheet said she was a dancer. Probably not with the New York City Ballet.
Kathy Dupont's file was a little curious, since the contact person listed on the CJA sheet was the very same James Johnson whom the complaint said she'd stabbed in the ass. Sounded like a complex relationship.
I walked back to the pens, to the women's interview cage, and called out her name. Through the steel bars in the door at the back I could see into the women's pen. You've probably never been in jail even for a day or two, locked up behind a courtroom in a twenty-foot-square cell. Right now approximately twenty-five women were packed into the pen, some sitting on benches, some passed out on the floor or curled up in the fetal position, all waiting to see the judge. The women were mostly hookers, shoplifters, and crackheads. These were mixed in with the occasional woman arrested for assault, usually in self-defense against some man who wanted something he couldn't have. The threat of violence didn't hang in the air here, as it did in the men's pen.
"Kathy Dupont," I yelled out. One of the sleeping figures on the floor came to life. She was wearing a short skirt over a tight, low-cut black leotard, stockings, and purple knitted leggings. Her boots were next to her on the floor. She tiptoed around various sleeping bodies on her perfect little stocking feet and slid into the interview booth.
She was a knockout -- big, dark, hurt-looking eyes, high cheekbones, long brown hair, and a body that appeared to have everything just where it was supposed to be.
"Aren't you sweet."
She had a real Southern drawl. I passed her a cigarette through the bars. I don't smoke, but I've found that a cigarette often eases the difficult discussions that are inevitably central to my job. For some reason, people who get arrested tend to smoke way more than the general population. There were probably a million reasons why, none of them good. She put the cigarette between her lips and leaned forward, her big eyes checking me out as I lit it for her through the bars.
"You my lawyer, cutie?"
She leaned back and took a long drag.
"Yes, I'm your lawyer. My name's Arch Gold. Who's James Johnson?"
"An asshole that used to be my boyfriend."
Offer of Proof
A Novel. Copyright © by Robert Heilbrun. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
