John Dobbyn: Neon Dragon

The percussion of firecrackers, as deafening as machine-gun fire, filled the teeming streets of Chinatown and lay down a pall of gray smoke. Drums and rasping cymbals followed the gyrating oversized head and whipping tail of the lion, as the black-clad men beneath it manipulated their way through the mass of people to each restaurant and shop along Tyler Street. Shopkeepers ignited five-foot chains of firecrackers as the lion approached. A string from above each doorway dangled lettuce to feed and cash to appease the symbolic beast for the coming year. Mr. Chen was not alone. He was never alone. If his own grand children were not surrounding him, he was sought out by other children and adults of the Chinese community who had felt his warmth or received the favors of his wisdom or material goods. That was nearly everyone. Four of his grandchildren crowded into the tiny window. The slight figure of Mr. Chen could be seen behind them by people in the street waving greetings. According to witnesses, something caught his attention that caused him to lean over the children to look below. In an instant, he straightened and fell backward. He was rushed to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. This was a passing of great import. A thirty-eight-caliber bullet sent the entire Chinese community into a mourning that is reserved for the truly beloved. In the gentle frame of this man, who would scarcely be noticed by those of us who pass through Chinatown’s streets to its restaurants and shops, dwelt a major piece of the soul of the people to whom Chinatown is home.

I pulled it together quickly enough to ask Judge Bradley the next logical question.

“If Marty Muller handled the arraignment, why…?”

“Martin was available at the time. I’m asking you to take up the representation.”

The tone had a finality to it that discouraged my questioning his choice.

“What evidence…?”

“Apparently two witnesses have identified Anthony. I believe they’re obviously mistaken. That’s not a judge, that’s a father speaking. I know this is totally beyond anything my son could possibly even consider. The judge, on the other hand, knows that mistaken eyewitness testimony could lead to conviction.”

By now I was back in the game enough to wonder at the greatest irony of the situation.

“Judge, I’m honored, but why would you pick me? You didn’t seem overly impressed this morning.”

He looked directly at me for the first time.

“You were arguing law. I was dealing in justice. That wasn’t your fault. You had no say in the client or the issue. I’ve heard about how you represent criminal clients when you have a choice. My offer speaks for itself.”

The room took on a definite spin. Fears, qualms, concerns crowded into my stream of consciousness faster than I could factor them into a decision. I’d handled everything else, but never a murder case. I felt like a Little Leaguer being called up to pitch for the Red Sox in the World Series.

On the other hand, I’d been chosen on confidence by the boy’s knowledgeable father. On the third hand, if I blew this because I was too young, too inexperienced, whatever, it could be the end of that boy’s life outside of prison, and, as an afterthought, my life as a lawyer.

There were at least five more hands, but they were cut off when Judge Bradley stood up.

“I know it’s a difficult decision. You understand why I need an answer now. The investigation has to begin immediately, while the evidence is fresh.”

He looked at me with an expression I’m still analyzing. He had faced one of the most trying decisions of his life in selecting one person to save his son, and he had made it. There was that kind of mature manhood in his look, and he was calling on me to show the same. There was also the helplessness of a man who could only hire a defender and then sit on the sidelines while two combatants jousted for the rest of his son’s life.

“Will you do it?”

Like it or not, that question allowed only one answer.

Judge Bradley reassembled the court long enough for me to move to suspend the hearing. That brought a quizzical look from my esteemed opposing counsel, who had come back to the arena with a distinct taste of blood from the morning’s minivictories. Her visions of finally nailing my lacerated corpse to the courthouse door vanished when Judge Bradley granted my motion without so much as a glance in the direction of the plaintiff’s table. The last thing His Honor wanted was a full discussion in open court of the reasons for the adjournment. Plaintiff’s counsel may have been steamed, but it was the first motion I’d won since that interminable morning had begun. I was happy to delude myself with a false sense of being on a roll.

Since I was in the courthouse anyway, I thought I’d touch base with the prosecuting attorney. I managed to be buzzed through to the office of the District Attorney herself, Ms. Lamb, by name, if not by disposition.

I knew that there was no point in dealing with any of the assistants. There was not a snowball’s chance in Birmingham that Her Eminence would deign to share one vote-catching headline from this case with an underling. You didn’t have to be in the inner circle to know that from the day she rode into office on pledges of career commitment to the prosecution of the scourges of society, she had her antenna tuned for the case that could move her into the statehouse. This one smacked of the governorship.

I had met the First Lady of Prosecution at several bar functions. We had also had a brief meeting four years previously to work out the federal and state prosecutors’ interests in a drug case, so introductions were not necessary. If she was surprised by my announcement that I represented young Bradley, she hid it well.

“The hell you say!”

I smiled, rather pleasantly considering the inference.

“One of life’s little surprises, Angela. Has an indictment been returned?”

“You haven’t talked to him yet?”

She wore that half grin of someone who knew they’d made it to the NCAA Final Four, and who’d just heard that the next opponent would be the Perkins School for the Blind. I suppressed my Latino instincts and followed the cool demeanor of my Anglo half.

“I’ll see him this afternoon. What about the indictment?”

“Of course. I just got the presentment from the grand jury. Murder one.”

It sounded more like a verdict than a basis for negotiation.

I nodded.

“I know it’s early in the case. You have a better feel for it than I do at this point. Just for discussion, what do you think you might be looking for in negotiation before the press goes off the deep end?”

She sat back in her swivel chair and spun it around to look me dead-on in a gesture that went beyond confidence and spilled into arrogance. If there was ever anything cuddly or cute about Ms. Lamb in her playpen days, she had accomplished its complete eradication in twelve years as a lawyer. At five feet five inches, she was one hundred and twenty pounds of pure prosecutor.

She was adorned in a severely tailored suit, capped on one end by sensible shoes and on the other by darkish hair drawn in a bun tight enough to induce claustrophobia. The horn-rimmed glasses focused laser beams from the depths of two humorless pools of ambition.

“Sure we can deal. I don’t want to be unreasonable. I’ll settle for a plea to premeditated murder with a recommendation for life without parole.”

I smiled, still the soul of restraint. “Do I sense that we’re being a little inflexible here?”

“You haven’t begun to see inflexibility. I’m going to personally throw the key to his cell into Boston Harbor, and then…”

“Don’t tell me. You’re going to Disney World.”

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