Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

“We’d been using her on and off for about a year.”

“And nothing ever happened to her before this night,” I said. “Nothing...”

“Objection!” the DA snapped. “Counsel for the defense is attempting to establish...”

“Sustained,” the judge said wearily.

“Would you tell the court what Miss Kane looked like, please?”

Harley hesitated. “I... well, she was blonde.”

“Yes?”

“Blue eyes, I think. I don’t really remember.”

“Short or tall?”

“Medium, I suppose.”

“Glasses?”

“No. No glasses.”

“What was her address?”

“I don’t know. I drove by memory, I suppose. She showed me the first time, and then I just went there from memory every other time.”

“Did you call her ‘Sheila,’ Mr. Pearce?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And what did she call you?”

“Mr. Pearce.”

“Thank you, that will be all.”

The DA stared at me, and then he shrugged. I suppose he wondered what I was trying to do. It was so simple that it probably evaded him. I was simply trying to show that no lust had ever crossed Harley Pearce’s mind or heart. He couldn’t even describe the dead girl well. He did not know her address. They maintained a strictly adult to adolescent relationship. Sheila and Mr. Pearce.

The DA called his next witness, the bartender at the Flamingo , the bar Harley had stopped at to buy his cigarettes. The bartender said he always watched the door during the floorshow. He’d known of a lot of bars that had been held up during floorshows, when no one was paying attention to the bar or the cash register. So he always kept a close watch, and he’d have noticed anyone who came in that night. He had not seen Harley Pearce enter. The DA smiled and turned the man over to me.

“What time does the floorshow start at the Flamingo? ” I asked.

“Ten minutes to twelve, sir,” he said.

“Do you serve many drinks while the floorshow is on?”

“No, sir. Most everyone is at their tables, watching the show.”

“And are we to understand that you keep a constant watch on the door during that time? I mean, since you are not serving drinks.”

“Objection,” the DA said, rising.

“Overruled,” the judge answered. “Proceed.”

“Is that what you do during the show?” I repeated.

“Well... I guess I look at the show, too. On and off, I mean. But I watch the door mostly. A lot of robberies...”

“Watch the cigarette machine?”

“Well, no, sir.”

“Then it is likely that someone did enter, stop at the machine, and leave, all while you were taking one of your periodic looks at the show?”

“Well...”

“Did you see me standing at the bar that night?”

The bartender blinked his eyes. “You, sir?”

“Yes, me. Standing near the blonde in the mink stole. I was drinking a Tom Collins when the show started. Did you see me?”

“I... I don’t recall, sir. I mean...”

“I was there! Did you see me?”

“Objection!” the DA said. “Counsel for the defense is perjuring...”

“Did you see me?”

“Near... near the blonde, sir?”

“Yes, near the blonde. Did you or didn’t you?”

“Well, there was a blonde, and if you say you was standing near her... I mean, I don’t remember, but...”

“Then you did see me?”

“I... I don’t remember, sir.”

“I wasn’t there! But if you couldn’t remember whether I was or not, how can you remember whether or not Mr. Pearce came in for a package of cigarettes especially when — by your own admission — you could have been watching the floorshow at that time?”

“I...”

“That’s all,” I said.

I heard the murmurs in the courtroom, and I knew I’d done well. I’d punctured one part of the DA’s case, and the jury was now thinking if he was wrong there, why can’t he be wrong elsewhere, too? Why couldn’t Harley have loaned the girl his cigarette lighter? Why couldn’t his story be absolutely true? After all, the DA’s case was purely circumstantial.

I clinched it in the summing up. I painted Harley as an upstanding citizen, a man who — just as you and I — was a good husband and a good father. A man who hired a baby sitter, the same sitter he’d been hiring for the past year, went out to a quiet movie, had a few drinks with his wife, and then came home. He drove the sitter to her house, dropped her off, and then went back to his wife. Someone had attacked her after he’d gone. But not Harley. Not the man sitting there, I told them, not the man who could be your own brother or your own husband, not him.

The jury was out for half an hour. When they returned, they brought me a verdict of Not Guilty.

We celebrated that night. Harley and Marcia came over while his mother-in-law sat with their kids. We laughed and drank and Harley kept saying, “They were looking for a sucker, Dave. But you showed them. By Christ, you showed them you can’t fool with an innocent man.”

He told me I was the best goddamn lawyer in the whole goddamn world, and then he started a round of songs, and we all joined in, drinking all the while. The party was doing quite well when Beth walked in.

She’d had a date with one of the neighborhood boys. He dropped her off at the front door, and she came into the living room. She said hello to Marcia and Harley when we stopped singing, and then excused herself and started up the steps to her room.

“How old is she now, Dave?” Harley asked.

“Sixteen,” I said.

“A lovely girl,” he said, very softly.

I’d been watching Beth climb the steps, watching her proudly. She was still my little girl, but she was ripening into womanhood quickly. I watched her mount the steps with the sure, swift suppleness of a healthy young girl, and then I turned to look at Harley.

His eyes were on Beth, too. He watched her legs as she walked higher and higher up the staircase, and then his eyes traveled the length of her young body, slowly, methodically.

He did not take his eyes from her until she’d opened the door to her own room and stepped out of view. Then he said: “What’ll we sing next, folks?”

I looked at Harley, and then I looked at the empty staircase, and I suddenly felt very foolish inside, very foolish and very naive. Naive and tremendously stupid.

I felt exactly like what Harley would, undoubtedly, have called a “sucker.”

And there was, of course, nothing I could do.

I did not join in the next song.

He went into the cabin with one woman, and came out with another. Some guys might have liked the idea, but not Riley.

If you know any seashore resort town in mid-July, you know this one. You know the rows of wooden, salt-scarred bungalows hugging the main drag, with the boardwalk on the side flanking the ocean. You know the hot dog stands, and the shooting galleries, and the tanned women in shorts and halters and brief bathing suits, and the men with browned, hairy chests and spidery white legs.

You know the smell of the ocean mixed with the smell of popcorn, and you know the shriek of the gulls and the boom of the surf against the sand, and the creak of the dock that juts out onto the water. You know all that, and you also know the feeling of impermanency that underlies the whole setup; you know that once Winter comes, the concessionaires will fold their tents like the Arabs, and the bungalows and motels will be boarded up tight.

We pulled into the town at about six in the morning. We’d been driving all night, or at least, I had. Anne was asleep on the seat beside me, her red hair spilling onto the plastic of the seat cover. Yesterday had been a scorcher, and she was still wearing shorts and a halter, with her tanned legs pulled up under her. I’d have gone straight through the town because these summer dumps never appeal to me, but I was bushed down to my toes so I stopped at the first bungalow colony and asked for a room.