The Bomb Maker's Son (17 page)

Judge Gibson and I are among the few people who don’t react. I saw Marilee Reddick bump the microphone with her hand, so I knew it wasn’t a bomb. Old Judge Gibson is probably crazy-fearless in the same way I’m crazy-scared.

“Calm down, people,” he says. “False alarm. There will be no acts of terror in the courtroom of Carlton Gibson.” He rubs his bald head as if it’s a white-fringed crystal ball, foretelling a future of peace and harmony in his courtroom. Then he picks up his pen and points it at me. “So how do you respond to the US Attorney’s argument about the Payner case? Isn’t that
finito
for your motion, counsel?”

The nervous energy still buzzing in the air from the microphone mishap has a calming effect on me, maybe because for once I’m not the most frightened person in the room.

“Let’s start with the
Payner
decision. Setting a crook up on a fake date is hardly the same as dangling an innocent man from a three-story-high balcony. But let’s put the legalities aside for a moment, Your Honor, and talk about what really happened. You can only do justice when you focus on what really happened. During World War Two, the Italian partisans who captured Benito Mussolini hung him from meat hooks. That’s essentially what the FBI did to Jerry Holzner. There are two differences: first, Mussolini was an evil fascist dictator, whereas Jerry Holzner was an innocent citizen; second, Mussolini was a corpse when they hung him by his heels, whereas Jerry Holzner was very much alive, such that he could experience the torture that our government inflicted on him. We don’t allow such things in America, especially from people sworn to uphold the law. It’s nothing short of outrageous for the US Attorney to come into court today and ask you to sanction such horrifying behavior. The evidence
must
be excluded under due process of law.” I sit down. Like I always do after I finish an oral presentation, I feel unburdened, my stage fright washed away like a penitent’s sins.

But I’m not finished. Judge Gibson asks, “Mr. Stern, give me the name of a case that says that such a defense survives the Supreme Court’s decision in
Payner.
”

He’s looking for a legal basis for ruling in our favor. Keeping the map and fingerprint evidence out could mean freedom for Ian Holzner. I leaf through our legal brief, looking for some cases decided by a court in Philadelphia. While the judge waits for me, he uses his pen to tap out a rhythm on his legal pad. Five seconds later, he abruptly stands, points the pen toward the back of the room, and hollers, “You there! I will not countenance that! You’re disrupting these proceedings. Stand up!”

At first I think that he’s speaking to Lou Frantz. Then Moses Dworsky points his own thumb at his chest in the classic
Who, me?
gesture.

“Yes, you, sir. Stand up, I say!”

“I beg the Court’s pardon, but I do not believe I have done anything to cause offense,” Dworsky says.

“I know you,” the judge says. His face turns a bluish-red, almost as if someone is strangling him—true lividity is part of a classic Carlton Gibson explosion. “You’re the Elephant Man. Didn’t I tell you years ago never to set foot in my courtroom again? Didn’t I, sir?”

“My moniker was the
Eloquent Elephant
,” Dworsky says, in a soft, deferential voice that still projects throughout the room. “I shrink neither from that appellation nor from my physical appearance. With respect, Your Honor, you had no right to bar me from a public courtroom. The idea offends all concepts of a transparent system of justice.”

Although as Holzner’s lawyer I wish Dworsky had never uttered the words, as an officer of the court I know that he’s absolutely right about the law. Gibson’s attempt to bar him does offend justice.

“
Amigos
, this is Moses Dworsky,” the judge says. “A corrupt, radical lawyer who was disbarred for treason. Should’ve been imprisoned. Sir, what business do you have in my courtroom?”

Dworsky folds his hands in front of him deferentially. “I am now a private investigator, retained by attorney Parker Stern to assist him in the defense of Ian Holzner, wrongly accused by an unjust system. So my presence in the courtroom is not intended to annoy Your Honor, but rather to assist the defense team.”

Judge Gibson looks at me, his rheumy eyes now round as obsolete half-dollar coins. “That man works for you?”

“Your Honor, he works for me in the capacity of—”

The judge uses his fists to lift himself out of his chair. “The defendant’s motion to suppress evidence is denied. We’re adjourned.” He angrily tosses his pen on the desk, and when it rolls to the floor and his law clerk goes to retrieve it, he barks, “Leave it!” and exits the courtroom.

Lovely reaches over and clamps my forearm with her fingers. She doesn’t have to say it—we were winning, and Dworsky derailed it. What did he do to anger Gibson so?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Turning my back on a smirking Marilee Reddick, I sprint up the aisle in pursuit of Moses Dworsky, who’s already skulked out of the courtroom. I get outside just in time to see him disappear into the men’s room down the hall. As I wait, Lovely Diamond comes out of the courtroom.

“What a clusterfuck,” she says. “Where the hell is he?”

“Restroom.”

We wait another minute, then three, then five.

“Are you sure he’s in there?” she asks.

“I saw him go through the door. And there’s no other exit.”

“Go get him.”

“I’m not going to follow him into the bathroom.”

“If you don’t, I will, Parker.”

She’s in her battle stance—shoulders back, eyes shiny and hard as glazed ceramic. I start walking toward the restroom, but before I get there, Dworsky emerges. Lovely might as well be pointing a handgun at him, because when he sees her he raises his hands.

“Apologies,” he says. “I am a man in his seventies who still has his prostate gland, which creates certain complications better left unarticulated.”

“What did you do to upset the judge?” Lovely asks. “The timing was so bad it’s almost as if you intended to . . .” That her voice trails off only intensifies the power of the accusation.

Dworsky’s ears turn scarlet. The hair on the rims seems to prickle with electricity. “Miss Diamond, are you seriously implying that I sabotaged your hearing?”

“Did you?”

“Stern, are you going to stand by and let her make these unfounded and scurrilous accusations against me?”

While Lovely has been interrogating him, I’ve tried to determine whether I can read something in his expression or body language that would indicate that what happened was anything other than an unfortunate accident. I can’t. His righteous indignation, his red-tinged ears, tell me nothing. I’ve never been much for trying to assess a person’s truthfulness by observing his behavior. As a kid, I worked with too many good actors to believe that body language conveys anything about reality.

“Calm down, Lovely,” I say. “We can’t be sure that Gibson was going to rule in our favor.”

“He absolutely would have.”

“Where does this leave our relationship, Parker?” Dworsky says.

“Status quo,” I say. “Unless you want to end it.”

“Absolutely not. When I undertake a task, I finish it.” He pauses, and when Moses Dworsky pauses, you can almost see the less-used punctuation marks—a colon or a dash—floating over his head like a comic-book caption. He raises an index finger. “Apropos of doing the job, I have arranged for you to have a meeting with Charles Sedgwick at the California State Prison at Santa Bernardina, his locus of incarceration.”

“He refused to talk to me,” I say. “What’s changed?”

“He discovered that I was involved in the case. Believe it or not, Parker, I give you credibility. In my day I was really something. You are to meet him on Tuesday, November twenty-fifth, eight days hence. Is there anything else I can help you with? If not I must get back to the office.”

“We’ll see you back there,” I say.

He turns and walks toward the escalator, swinging his arms like a happy-go-lucky bridge troll.

Almost immediately, Lou Frantz exits the courtroom and approaches us. I bristle whenever the man gets close.

“You have no idea why the judge got mad at him, do you?” he says.

“He appeared in the courtroom after the judge told him not to,” Lovely says. “A gazillion years ago.”

“Not even close,” he says.

“Then why don’t you tell us, Lou,” I say.

“He was scratching his nose with his middle finger but then stopped scratching and left the finger against his nose. It kind of looked like he was flipping the judge the bird. Perhaps it was just an unfortunate coincidence, but I don’t know.”

“Right when the judge was going to rule?” Lovely asks.

“Come on, Lovely,” I say. “You don’t seriously think Dworsky intentionally sabotaged our argument by picking his nose?”

“Scratching,” Frantz says.

“It was unlucky timing,” I say. “And anyway, who would’ve thought the judge would notice?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Lovely says. “Judge Gibson’s irrational. All Moses had to do was catch his eye and give him the finger, and
kaboom.
I’m getting out of this hellhole. It reeks of injustice in here.” She turns and marches down the hall, like a retreating soldier trying to maintain her dignity until the next battle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Santa Bernardina State Penitentiary is a maximum-security prison in Northern California, an hour’s flight plus a forty-five-minute drive from Los Angeles. By the time I park the car and pass through the rigorous security check, I’m exhausted.

Charles Sedgwick is serving his life sentence for the Playa Delta murders even though he neither built nor planted the bomb but only carried out reconnaissance. During his trial, he refused to cooperate in his own defense, instead turning his back on the judge, chanting political slogans while court was in session, putting his feet on the table, and making obscene gestures at the judge and prosecution witnesses. Finally, the judge had enough of Sedgwick’s outbursts and bound and gagged him just as Judge Julius Hoffman did to Bobby Seale in the trial of the Chicago Eight.

When I enter the noncontact visiting room, Sedgwick is waiting for me behind the Plexiglas-and-light-hardwood partition. On the upper wall a sign reads,
KEEP HANDS IN PLAIN VIEW AT ALL TIMES
. Although there are a dozen booths, I’m the only visitor in the room. Most of the inmates are in prison gangs, and according to the associate warden, an unaffiliated old radical like Charles Sedgwick is a target of violence. So he’s housed in the PHU—the protective housing unit.

Sedgwick looks surprisingly fit for a man of sixty-six who’s spent half of his life in prison. The photos from the sixties show him with a beard, but now he’s clean-shaven, his face lined with the inevitable wrinkles. His gray hair is thick, and his cobalt-blue eyes have a manic intensity.

We simultaneously lift the intercom receivers. Before I can greet, him he says, “You’re an attorney. When I first got in here, this was hell. But I was able to survive by acting as a jailhouse lawyer. No formal legal education, but my graduate work in philosophy was enough. When the street gangs and White Power groups took over the prison in the eighties, they had their own people, and even if they didn’t, they weren’t going to have anything to do with someone like me, a gay man, unaffiliated, politically on the far left. Since then, it’s been worse than hell. You’d think they’d leave me alone at my age. But I hold on, keep a-keepin’ on, because a change is gonna come.”

If I’m not mistaken, he’s quoting Sam Cooke, a 1960s soul singer.

“You think I’m crazy,” he says. “And how can I blame you? Realize that I have no one to talk to most of the day, much less an intelligent man like yourself, so when I get this opportunity it’s like a chocoholic in a candy store. I just talk. What I want to say is that the revolution is coming. It’s closer than you think. It’s being fueled on the streets and in the prisons, and finally we’ll finish what we started back then.”

He seems stuck more deeply in the Vietnam War era than Ian Holzner or even Belinda Hayes. The good news is that he wants to talk. Harmon Cherry would say that if a witness wants to talk, jump to the punch line.

“Who built the bomb that exploded at the Playa Delta Veterans Administration? Who planted it?”

“I’ve read enough law to know that’s a compound question, counselor. But there’s one answer. Our collective accomplished both.”

“Your
collective
meaning the Holzner-O’Brien Gang?”

He laughs—no, snorts—so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Of course not. That’s what everyone believed, and back then wasn’t the right time to disabuse them of that notion. I studied Japanese political and business theory in college and learned to take the long view. Americans can’t do that, especially now. Our
true
collective took the long view. We ignited a fire back then, and now we’re fanning the long-burning flames.”

I’ve had it with these geriatric propagandists. But you should never get angry at a professional recalcitrant witness. “Maybe you could explain something to me,” I say. “You claim that you know what’s going on in this country. In your day, nonviolent movements and the rule of law accomplished social change—the civil-rights movement,
Roe v. Wade
, feminism, the mainstream peace protests. Today, the right wing calls mainstream democrats Marxists. A woman’s right to choose is in more jeopardy than it’s been in decades. The gap between rich and poor is greater than ever.”

“Exactly! The Playa Delta bombing, the activities of the Weather Underground, the actions of the SLA galvanized the reactionary forces in this country. The Christian right, the Tea Party, the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11—all the result of our military actions. The capitalist regime had to become more violent, society had to become more polarized to crumble. With our acts of rebellion, which you mistakenly call violence, we set that in motion.”

“Who’s we?”

“
We
are the radical abolitionists who met violence with violence before the Civil War.
We
are the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Delegates before the Russian revolution of nineteen-oh-five.
We
are Cuba’s Twenty-Sixth of July Movement in the early fifties.”