The Death of Friends (30 page)

“You used to be a radical lesbian lawyer,” I said. “What happened? Have you gone native up here, surrounded by all these career prosecutors?”

“Come on back.”

I followed her through the door to a corridor lined with cardboard boxes, file cabinets and discarded pieces of furniture, past a warren of small windowless offices, until we reached her office. It was a ten-by-twelve cubicle with metal walls, a dirty brown carpet and steel furniture finished in faux-wood grain, but it did have windows and a view of the roof of the building across the street. The city was, as usual, wreathed in smog.

“Nice view,” I said, going to the window. “That’s the roof of the old Hall of Justice, isn’t it?”

She came up beside me. She was wearing scent. Something herbal; rosemary or lavender. “Yeah, there was a jail on the top floor and the roof was the inmate’s recreation yard. Now it belongs to the pigeons.”

“The sky is filthy.”

“Like the scum around a toilet bowl,” she said, going to her desk. “Have a sit.”

I moved a stack of Supreme Court advance sheets from one of the two chairs in front of her desk and sat down. A boom box on a bookshelf was tuned to the same big-band station I listened to when I was working. Billie Holiday crooned a junkie version of “Lover Man” in a voice like velvet over barbed wire. On Serena’s desk was a half-eaten egg-salad sandwich, a crumpled bag of Fritos, piles of case files, a laptop and a framed photograph of Serena, her lover, Donna, a therapist, and their five-year-old son, Jesse.

“How’s business?”

“Close the door,” she said.

I tipped the chair back, reached behind and pulled the door shut. “So, what’s up? People stopped hating each other?”

“Nope, there’s still a big market in hate in this town, but the DA’s priorities have changed. Hate crimes are out, three strikes is in.”

“What does that mean to you?”

“When I started, I had four deputies and a secretary. Now it’s just me and a secretary I share with three other assistants. I may not survive the next budget.”

“The DA can’t get rid of you. There’d be a big ruckus.”

She tossed a stack of papers across the desk. “The latest hate-crime statistics,” she said. “Crimes against persons and crimes against property are both on the rise, especially against Jews, blacks and gays, with Latinos running a close fourth. Where’s the public outcry? The
Times
will bury this report on the inside pages of the Metro section. The broadcast media can’t be bothered.” She slouched in her chair. “We’re becoming habituated to hate. Maybe we’re even becoming addicted to it. There’s nothing like it for that adrenaline rush.”

“That’s a pretty grim prognosis.”

“What does it say about a society that needs hate laws in the first place?” she replied. “You didn’t drop by to hear this. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to talk to you about a case.”

She straightened up, all business. “What case?”

“It’s a little complicated,” I began, and launched into my spiel.

When I finished, I gave her a copy of the
L.A. Mode
piece. She flipped through it, frowning. “Yeah, I read this when it came out,” she said. “Anonymous sources, uncorroborated claims and no one bothered to talk to me. Not stellar journalism.”

“The attack on Alex was real enough,” I said. “Cedars verified he was treated in the emergency room last November. I’ve subpoenaed his records.”

“I’d like to see you get them in,” she said. “They’re not exactly relevant to an ADW six months after the fact.”

“No? What if a woman was raped and then found herself in a situation where she thought it was going to happen again and tried to protect herself? There isn’t a judge on the bench who would exclude evidence of the rape. It goes to the reasonableness of self-defense.”

“Okay, decent analogy,” she conceded. “But what does that have to do with me?”

“Doesn’t it bother you that the sheriff has a policy against taking hate-crime reports from victims of gay bashings? I think it would bother a jury.”

Her face hardened. “One, it’s not true …”

“Are you sure? I did a little research on the sheriff’s attitude toward gays. A couple of years back, he advised any gay or lesbian deputies to stay in the closet because he couldn’t guarantee their personal safety. What kind of message does that send to the troops?”

“Unlike most politicians, the sheriff learns from his mistakes,” she said. “Look, I’m not going to defend the entire department, but I’ve personally trained deputies in West Hollywood and they know it’s their asses if they fail to investigate incidents of gay bashing. There is no contrary policy.”

“Obviously at least one deputy didn’t get the message.”

“What are you going to do, Henry, put the sheriff’s department on trial to deflect attention from your client?”

“If I have to,” I said, “but this is not a case that needs to go to trial. My client was victimized, first by the guys who attacked him and then by the deputy who blew him off. Can you blame him if he goes in for a little self-help? He gets into a situation where he misreads the cues and overreacts. Is it right to throw him into jail for that?”

“He should’ve come to me six months ago.”

“Your mandate is to protect victims of hate crime. That doesn’t always mean prosecuting their assailants.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked after a moment’s thought.

“He pleads to misdemeanor assault and the gun charge. He agrees to the destruction of the gun, a fine and three years’ unsupervised probation.”

“Does he have a record?”

“I checked,” I replied. “He’s clean.”

“He’ll have to agree to counseling as a condition of probation.”

“I don’t have any problem with that.”

“All right,” she said. “When’s the arraignment?”

“Monday.”

“I’ll make a note on the file,” she said.

“Thanks.”

She shrugged. “I might as well do someone some good while I still can.”

A week later, I was standing at sidebar in a crowded master calendar court while a young assistant DA named Campion explained to an impatient judge the deal Serena and I had worked out on Alex Amerian’s case.

“Your Honor,” Campion was saying, “we’ve agreed to a disposition on People versus Amerian.”

“Am I supposed to guess?” the judge asked, rifling through a stack of files.

“The People will dismiss the charge of assault with a deadly weapon and the defendant will plead to simple assault and possession of a concealed firearm.”

“Sentencing recommendation?” she asked impatiently.

“A thousand-dollar fine and thirty-six months’ summary probation, with counseling,” the DA said.

“The gun bothers me,” the judge said. “Any prior record on this defendant?”

“No, Your Honor,” I said. “As for the gun, Mr. Amerian was the victim of a vicious attack a couple of months before this incident, so he decided to arm himself. Not the smartest decision in the world, but understandable.”

“Who attacked him?” she asked. “Is there a connection here?”

“It was a gay bashing, Your Honor,” I replied. “It has nothing to do with this case.”

“Is that right, Mr. Campion?”

“Yes, Your Honor. The defendant’s agreed to the destruction of the gun. We’re satisfied that this was a one-time thing with him. He’s not a threat to public safety.”

“You’d better be right,” she said caustically. “The court accepts the disposition. Let’s just take the plea.”

At counsel table, Alex asked, anxiously, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, she accepted the deal. No jail time.”

“In the case of People versus Amerian,” the judge said, “the defendant is present in court with his counsel, the People are also present. There has been a disposition. Mr. Campion.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” the DA said, “the People move to amend the complaint to allege as count three a violation of Penal Code 242. Upon the defendant’s plea to counts two and three, the People will dismiss count one in the interests of justice.”

The judge cast a reptilian gaze at me. “The defendant agrees?”

“Yes,” I said. “We agree.”

I waited until Alex had made arrangements to pay his fine, then went out into the corridor with him.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.

“Stay away from guns,” I replied.

He hugged me and brushed his lips against my cheek in what might have been a kiss. This time I recognized his cologne from magazine inserts. Obsession. I was aware that people were staring at us, and I could feel vibrations of hostility and disgust, but it was like holding Josh again and I kissed him back hard.

“I’m sorry,” I said, breaking away from him. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. Then he kissed me back.

“We don’t need to be seeing this,” a black woman shouted from a bench along the wall.

“Goodbye, Henry,” Alex said.

“Makes me want to puke,” the woman was complaining to her neighbor.

I had another case on calendar. I went back into the courtroom.

B
Y MID-MAY,
the city was drifting into summer, a season of muggy, overcast mornings followed by days of asphalt-melting heat and nights when the air was filled with grit and smelled of gasoline. From the parched hills, the houses of the rich looked down upon a burning plain, where the metallic flash of sunlight in the windshields of a million cars was like the frantic signaling of souls. I was working twelve-, fourteen-, sixteen-hour days. I justified the hours with a caseload that included three active death-penalty appeals, but there was a maniacal quality to my busyness I recognized from past experience as flight. When I was still drinking, it preceded a binge. Now that I no longer drank, I didn’t know where it would take me.

Late at night, when I couldn’t read another line of transcript or compose another sentence of argument, I got into my car and started driving. By two or three in the morning, Los Angeles had settled into a restless sleep beneath a red, starless sky. The labyrinth of freeways that arced above the city was as deserted as it ever got and I sped east to west, north to south, with the windows down and wind rushing through the car. Grief drove me, but this grief was a shape-shifter that often felt like other things. Like anger or fear or, surprisingly, like lust. I was as guiltily horny as a teenager, looking at other men with the same abashed eyes as when I was fifteen, tormented by the same fantasies. I felt like an animal slamming itself against its cage, as if my body was reacting in terror to Josh’s death, with a frantic desire to generate or, failing that, for living flesh.

One night I found myself parked on a back road of Griffith Park, watching other men slip out of their cars and disappear into the brush. This was a dangerous spot for a lawyer—it teemed with undercover cops—and public sex had never appealed to me. I knew I was acting self-destructively but, for once, knowing was not enough to stop me, and all those years of disciplined sobriety counted for nothing against the emptiness in my gut. On a hill in the distance was the graceful hulk of the Griffith Observatory and somewhere in the hills behind me the Hollywood sign. A car pulled up beside me, a top-of-the-line Land Rover with tinted windows and a sun roof. The window on the passenger’s side slid low enough to reveal a shiny pate and a set of intense, arrogant eyes. They took me in and rejected me, the dark window closing. A moment later, a different man, this one small and compact, got out of the driver’s side and headed down the trail. By then I had concluded my own internal debate and went down the path behind him.

The trail dipped into a valley between a shaggy wood of shrubs and low growing trees. The shadowy figures of men moved among them. I plunged into the wood and waited beneath a eucalyptus tree. The little man whom I’d followed had been swallowed by the darkness. I heard a rustle and then a young Asian smoking a cigarette appeared at my side. He flung the cigarette down and ground it into the dust. Behind me, I heard a deep, cajoling voice whisper to someone else, “Come on, my car’s parked on the road. We can party inside.” The young Asian took my hand, guiding it to his crotch. I touched him, then pulled my hand away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I made a mistake.”

He looked at me. “Married guy, right?”

“No, I thought I was into this. I’m not.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You better get home to the wife and kids.”

He zipped up and moved away.

I retraced my steps to my car. The little man had returned to the Land Rover with another man. I wondered if they were the two I’d overheard. They got into the backseat. A moment later, the second man jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He was a boy, nineteen or twenty, a dusty-haired blond in a tank top and jeans. Hard blue eyes. He saw me, grinned spitefully.

“Troll,” he said, jerking his thumb at the Land Rover.

“What?”

“The bald guy in the car. Scary.” He’d come close enough to get a good look at me. His eyes glazed over. “See you around.”

“Whatever,” I said, getting into my car.

The little man emerged from the backseat and looked in my direction. I could not make out his features clearly, but a dark handsomeness registered that made me think of Alex Amerian. He smiled, shrugged and lunged back down the trail. I started up my car and pulled into the road. I noticed the plates on the Land Rover:
PROUDJD
. Another distinguished member of the profession.

My late-night meandering sometimes found me in Alex Amerian’s neighborhood, slowly driving past his house. If the lights were on, I’d park across the street and think about getting out, but what would I say to him? I’m obsessed with you because the first time I saw you I thought you were my dead lover? Not much of a pickup line. But I was obsessed, to my embarrassment, and conspicuous enough that one of Alex’s neighbors, who pegged me as a cruiser, came out to my car one night and warned me off with, “Don’t you guys ever give it a rest? Get out of here before I call the cops.” I felt demeaned and out of control, but I couldn’t keep him out of my thoughts or my fantasies. I would awaken from an erotic dream not sure whether the image fading into my unconsciousness was Josh or Alex.