No Lesser Plea (42 page)

“Good. I ask you again, Doctor. In your medical opinion, is the defendant, Mandeville Louis, competent and ready to stand trial?”

Stone essayed a superior smile. “That would depend.”

“Doctor, you just told me you could answer the question. Do so!”

“The issue in a Ganser syndrome case, you must understand, is not the definition of ‘competence’ but of ‘ready.’ ”

“Ready? That means right now, prepared, able to understand the charges made against him and aid in the preparation of his defense. So yes or no—which is it? Doctor.” Karp put as much heat and venom into this last thrust as he thought he could get away with— without being accused of harassing the witness.

Stone was taken aback. He was used to more deference.

“No, no. You are defining competency. I am well aware of what competency means. Mister Louis is a Ganser sufferer. That means the issue is not whether he is competent, but
when
he is competent. Mister Louis is competent to stand trial, except when he is actually standing trial.”

Yergin coughed. “Would you repeat that?”

“Certainly,” sad Stone with more confidence. “Mister Louis is a competent adult able to do anything that competent adults do, including understanding criminal charges and assisting a lawyer in his own defense. But once such a charge is made against Mister Louis, and he finds himself in a court of law about to be prosecuted for a crime, Mister Louis loses all semblance of competency.”

“And how do you know that this loss of competence will occur when Mister Louis is tried?”

“Because he has Ganser syndrome.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because of the manifestations of incompetence at trial, of course. It’s diagnostic. The principal effect of Ganser syndrome is that the sufferer becomes incompetent to stand trial, but only once the trial begins. Or, of course, if he were remanded for trial, it would be the same. The symptoms could evince themselves at any time. Naturally, we are still doing research on the etiology of this disease.”

“Naturally,” said Yergin dryly. He turned to Sussman.

“Look, Mister Sussman, answer me this. Is your client, in your opinion, presently competent to stand trial?”

“Your Honor,” Sussman said, “it appears that my client is presently aware of this proceeding. My impression is borne out by the psychiatrists’ reports, which state that he is presently competent. Our concern is for what will happen once a trial actually begins.”

“Then maybe we should go to trial and see what happens,” said Yergin. “I mean, if the man is competent right now, that’s all I need to hear. How does that sit with you, Mister Karp?”

It sat very badly. Yergin obviously wanted to move this case, and he was playing into Louis’s hands. Without a formal finding that Louis was malingering and not suffering from a purported Ganser syndrome, he could stage another bizarre episode at trial and go through another round in his game.

“Your Honor, I think it is essential that the court make a finding as to whether the defendant does indeed suffer from so-called Ganser syndrome. This is the first time the conclusions of the Bellevue Hospital psychiatric staff have been challenged in this case. I think the court will agree that if it can be shown that Mister Louis is not in fact a sufferer from a mental disease that makes him incompetent to stand trial, the disposition of this case in the future will be quite different from what it would be if we simply remanded him at this time.”

Yergin got the point. “Very well, Mister Karp. You may resume questioning.”

Karp turned once more to Stone. “Doctor, one last question. As the defendant sits here now, is it your opinion that he is competent?”

Stone said “Yes.” Karp sat down. The judge offered Stone to Sussman, who declined to cross-examine. The court broke for lunch, and at two Karp called Dr. Milton C. Werner to the stand.

Werner liked testifying in court. His expression was benign, his carriage confident as Karp went through the preliminaries of identification and qualifications, and established that Werner agreed with Stone completely about Louis suffering from Ganser syndrome. Then Karp began to dig the pit.

“Doctor Werner, is there anything that might possibly indicate that the defendant does
not
suffer from Ganser syndrome?”

“No, sir, this is a classic case. In fact, I have just had a paper accepted for the journal,
Forensic Psychiatry,
that uses this very case as a—how would you put it?—a diagnostic paratype of this disorder.”

“But surely, Doctor, some psychiatrists might disagree. Some psychiatrists might suspect on present evidence that Mister Louis is no more than a clever malingerer.”

“Well they might, but if they did I would be glad to tell them they were wrong.” Werner chuckled at his little joke.

“So you would expect unanimity on this diagnosis among competent experts in forensic psychiatry?”

Werner checked for an instant before answering. “Um, yes, among competent experts, yes.”

“And is this reflected in the medical records pertaining to the defendant, Mister Louis?”

“Yes.”

Karp walked over to his table and picked up a sheaf of folders. “I notice, Doctor, that each time Mister Louis was examined, in Nineteen-seventy, in Nineteen-seventy-three, and just recently, all the examining physicians concurred in the diagnosis. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

Karp handed him the file. “This is Mandeville Louis’s file as delivered by you, pursuant to the subpoena. Please look through it, and would you confirm for the court that it contains the reports of all the psychiatric examinations performed on Mister Louis during his several stays at Bellevue?”

Werner thumbed carefully through the file. “Yes, they’re all here.”

“There were three stays and two reports for each stay. Correct?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Now, Doctor, as one of the directors of Bellevue and as an official of the state of New York, are you conversant with the procedures under which competency is established under New York law?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And, so you are aware that it is a violation of New York State law to suppress or conceal the results of a psychiatric evaluation?”

“Yes, I am.” Werner was tense now. He had stopped his genial beaming after each question.

Karp handed Werner a sheaf of papers from one of his folders.

“Doctor Werner, would you tell the court what that document is?”

Werner paled when he read the first page of the document.

“Ah … it appears to be a psychiatric evaluation of Mandeville Louis.”

“Very good, Doctor Werner. It is a psychiatric evaluation of Mandeville Louis, written by Doctor Emmanuel Perlsteiner of the Bellevue staff. But it was not included in any of your original reports to the court, nor was it included in the subpoenaed material. Nor did you choose to include Doctor Perlsteiner’s other two reports on Mister Louis. Doctor, is it not a fact that you consciously suppressed these reports because they did not confirm your diagnosis, because they were adamant in their conclusion that Mister Louis was, and is, a blatant malingerer?”

“No, that’s not true, he … Doctor Perlsteiner is, well, he actually hasn’t kept abreast of modern developments in the field, and as an elderly man, he …”

Werner’s voice faded. Karp thought, Thank you, thank you. An invidious dig at your colleague’s credentials is precisely what I wanted. You’ve broken the White Wall, you asshole, and now
your
credentials are up for grabs, and so are Bellevue’s, not to mention the integrity of your system.

Karp lifted his folders toward the bench. “Your Honor, I would like to present as evidence these psychiatric evaluative reports on the defendant, written by Doctor Emmanuel Perlsteiner. Doctor Perlsteiner is quite certain that Mister Louis is completely sane.”

Yergin’s brow looked like corrugated cardboard. “Mister Karp, do you mean to tell me that we don’t have those reports?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Every year since his first evaluation, Mandeville Louis was examined by Doctor Stone, Doctor Perlsteiner, and Doctor Werner. But only the reports by Doctors Stone and Werner were sent to the court, for obvious reasons. This court never knew about the dissenting reports.”

From the stand, Werner tried his last shot, a desperate one.

“Your Honor, if I may. It seems to me that this Mister Karp is presuming to make judgments about the competency of psychiatric staff that lie outside his purview. I must strenuously object on behalf of the Bellevue staff.”

Yergin turned his massive head slowly toward Werner and regarded him as an alligator might a puppy. “I observe your objection, sir. I do not accept it. It is for this court to obtain the required psychiatric advice, and on the present evidence in this case, I believe that I no longer wish to obtain it from you or your staff at Bellevue Hospital. As for you, sir, I would suggest that as of now you concern yourself not with competency of medical advice, but with competency of legal advice, should the District Attorney’s Office wish to bring a charge of perjury against you.”

“Good for Yergin!” said Marlene from her bed. “What happened then? Yomm! Oh, gorgeous!”

Karp was sitting in Marlene’s room with a cardboard bucket of half-shell oysters picked up from a fish store on First Avenue. Marlene’s face was still partially bandaged, but she was off the dope and feeling more her old self. Every couple of sentences, Karp would season an oyster and slide it into her mouth. It was the sexiest thing either of them had done in months.

“Oh, it was quick work after that. He recessed and asked us for the names of two fresh shrinks. We got him two guys from Downstate Medical Center. After they had finished laughing themselves silly over Ganser syndrome, they told the judge Louis was as competent as he was, or words to that effect.”

“So he’s remanded for trial?”

“You bet. They’re selecting the jury now.”

“What do you think?”

“I think open and shut. Elvis and the physical evidence will bury him. On the other hand, I got a funny call this afternoon. From Sussman. He said, quote, ‘Mister Louis would like to see you about a deal.’ Unquote. He wouldn’t say what it was, wouldn’t say anything, in fact. Very uncharacteristic.”

“Ah, piss on him. He just knows he’s beat. By a better man. Oyster me again, big boy.”

To Karp’s surprise, when he arrived at the Tombs the next morning, Louis seemed positively glad to see him. His eyes glittered and he had an obsequious smile on his face. Sussman sat at the other end of the scarred table and merely nodded as Karp entered the interview room.

Karp examined Louis coldly. “OK, Louis, your lawyer said you wanted to see me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I did. Hey, sit down, sit down. Look, Karp, let’s cut out this jive, you know? I mean we understand each other, right? We’re the same kind, you and me. I mean, I could, you know, work with somebody like you, you dig?”

Louis brandished a fat wad of yellow legal paper, thickly covered with writing. “Look, I got it all worked out. It can’t miss. See, the deal is, we do franchises, but not just one thing, see. We franchise everything! It’s a kind of service—somebody got a product they want to franchise, they come to us, we set it up, turn it over to them. And, look, here’s the best part, we take a fee, plus, we get royalties on the franchises. Or maybe, we take over some of the spots. I, we, could work it out …”

“Louis, what are you talking about? I thought you wanted to deal.” Karp looked at Sussman, who merely shrugged and lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

“Yeah, yeah, this
is
the deal. It’s hot to trot, man. Man, I figure you to be, ah, Mister Outside, I’ll be Mister Inside. We’ll have us a big office with classy secretaries, you know, fine foxes. And, like, we’ll have a jet. A corporate jet. A corporate jet, man.”

Karp stood up. He addressed Sussman. “This won’t work, Lennie. It’s sneaky, but I think you’ve played your hand on this line.”

Sussman raised his palm. “Karp, cross my heart, this is all him. I have no idea what he’s up to.”

Louis was shuffling through his papers. “Hey, look at this, I got a drawing of the corporate jet. It’s got a what d’ya call it, a logo, on it. Hey, Karp, what do you think, sharp, right? Hey, Karp, where you going?”

“See you later, Louis,” said Karp, reaching for the door.

Louis got up and followed him. “Hey, Karp, let’s, you know, have lunch. We got to make plans.”

Karp turned and glared down at Louis. The man looked bad, that was a fact. His glasses were dirty, and there was a dried crust around his lips. His tan face was blotched and puffy and his hair looked greasy.

“Great, Louis. Let’s make it twenty-five years from next Thursday. I’ll call to confirm.”

Louis’s smile faded. “Twenty-five … ? Oh, shit, hey, that’s all past, man. I mean, this is a new start. Right. I mean, I’m sorry. I really mean it. I mean if I caused any trouble at all, I am truly, truly sorry. What’s past is past, though, ahh, you can’t let the past hang you up, right? I mean, I said I was sorry and I meant it. Right? That’s past.”

Louis kept talking in this vein, in an insistent monotone. Karp couldn’t take his eyes away from Louis’s face. He felt a cold chill start in his midsection and crawl up his back. He shuddered.

Then something beyond Karp’s understanding happened. He looked into Louis’s wild, yellow eyes and he
saw
him. He saw the patently insane creature now babbling before him (hey, Karp, whadya say, Karp, hey what a deal, right? Karp? Hey, whata, whata, deal, right, hey, I’m sorry, alright?); he saw the phony madman under that, and under that the real monster, the beast of blood, and under that, under that, down beneath the rules and the laws, and vengeance and evil, he saw, and felt, a creature, a being like himself, writhing in a white-hot, ice-cold loveless hell, enduring torments so unspeakable that to release it by death, any death, would be an act of profound mercy.

Without conscious volition, Karp observed his hand reach out and pat Louis gently on the shoulder. Then he spun on his heel and left the room. He was sticky with sweat and breathing hard as he walked down the filthy corridors. He walked out of the Tombs into a bright, early summer day. He thought, ridiculously, this is the first day of the rest of your life.