Glenn Beck - The Overton Window

The desk was stacked with dog-eared files and clerical debris, the bulletin board an untidy splash of sticky notes, memos, duty rosters, rap sheets, marked-up photographs, and one unfunny faxed cartoon. Overworked, short-staffed, and underpaid: that was the prevailing message in the cramped, stuffy space.

“Mr. Gardner, you have the right to remain silent,” the policeman said, his main attention on a printout of some sort in front of him, “and to refuse to answer questions. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during any questioning, now or in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you without cost. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Now.” The cop looked up at him for the first time. “Before I ask you if you’re willing to talk to me, I want you to understand something else. This isn’t a parking ticket we’re talking about here. Somebody’s going to jail tonight.

“You and your friends are going to get on a big bus with some armed guards and take a ride to central booking at the Manhattan Detention Complex-most people call it the Tombs. Over there they’ll get your mug shots, your DNA and your fingerprints, and then you’ll be formally charged and arraigned in the criminal court and bound over for trial. Though to be honest with you, since it’s Friday night and I hear they’ve got a full house, it might be Sunday or Monday before they get all of you sorted out and ready to appear before the judge.

“If you’re not granted bail-and by the nature of these offenses in the prevailing climate, and with Homeland Security getting involved, I seriously doubt you will be-then you’ll all get on another bus, and that one’ll have shackles on the seats and bars on the windows, because it’ll be headed to Rikers Island.

“What you’re going to be charged with”-he paused to flip a set of reading glasses down onto his nose-“is inciting a riot, resisting arrest, and aggravated assault on a police officer. That last one carries a minimum sentence of three and a half years in the state penitentiary. And someone among you, I don’t know who, is going to be charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon. If that sounds more serious than the others, that’s because it is.”

He took a sip of coffee and flipped his glasses back up. Noah got the distinct impression that this cop had performed the routine he was witnessing once or twice before.

“Now, unless somebody comes forward and enlightens me on the circumstances-and by that I mean someone like you-well, I’m just as happy to let the officers from the scene separate the innocent bystanders from the perpetrators.

“So we can talk here and now, or you can keep on thinking about it while you’re making some new friends with the general population down in the Tombs. And I don’t know what you may have heard, but trust me”-he motioned to their gloomy surroundings-“it’s not nearly this nice down there.”

The policeman leaned forward in his creaky chair and lowered his voice as though a passing colleague in the hall might overhear him going soft on a suspect.

“Listen, you look like a good guy to me. This isn’t something you need to be involved in. But my hands are tied here; we’ve got an eyewitness in the other room who says you hit a cop with a nightstick. I don’t want to believe that, but you need to stand up for yourself or I can’t help you.

“I’m sure you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we can figure this out, Noah, but you’ve got to talk to me right now.” He opened his drawer, removed a small voice recorder, checked its display, pressed its thumb switch, and placed it on the blotter between them. “Now that I’ve advised you of your rights, are you willing to answer questions?”

Before Noah could respond there were three quick raps on the door frame and the Gardner family attorney, Charlie Nelan, walked in without waiting to be asked. He picked up the recorder from the desk, flicked it off, and slipped it into his pocket. An objection from the cop was swallowed before it fully escaped, stifled by a gesture from the counselor that assured him he would get all the attention he could handle in due time.

Charlie turned to Noah. “Have you said anything?”

“No-”

“Nothing at all?”

“I haven’t said anything, just that I understand my rights.”

“Good boy.” Charlie Nelan was one of those old-school, silver-haired überprofessionals who swore by the power of image. No matter where you happened to see him, he always looked as though he’d just stepped out of the “Awesome Lawyers” issue of Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Fortunately, he was every bit as sharp as he looked.

Nelan touched Noah’s chin and turned his head to get a better view of the damage sustained in the arrest. Then he closed the door and turned back to the other man across the desk.

“Detective…”

“Halliday.”

“Detective Halliday, I want my client released, and his charges dropped, and I want that arrest report in the shredder.”

The policeman released a low snort, but his bravado wasn’t totally convincing.

“I put in a call to your captain on my way here,” Charlie said. “Right now this is between the four of us, and that is precisely where it will stay.”

“Now you listen to me,” Halliday said. “I don’t care what you want or who you called or how far you want anything to go-” His desk phone had begun to ring, and he did a double take when he read the caller ID.

“You should take that,” Charlie said. “We’ll be right across the hall in room G when you need us.”

Room G was another interview cube. When the door was closed Charlie sat Noah down, took a bottle of mineral water from his inside coat pocket, and handed it to him.

“How did you even know I was here?” Noah asked.

The look that came back said that young Mr. Gardner was worrying about something far beneath his concern, given the circumstances. Charlie was already punching more numbers on his cell, and as he put the phone to his ear he motioned to the water bottle, as though adequate hydration was the only substantive thing Noah could bring to the party at this stage.

From the sound of it, this new call was either to an assistant district attorney or the DA himself, but before he could pick up the gist of the conversation something grabbed Noah’s full attention through the thin window by the door frame.

Out in a common area, a dozen or so men were gathered together having coffee and a collegial chat with some uniformed police. He stood and stepped closer to the glass, trying hard to believe his eyes.

In this surreal gathering was every heckler, every troublemaker who had made himself apparent during the speeches at the bar. Every one of them was dressed similarly, the differences being confined to the inflammatory slogans on their clothing and their selection of cracker-chic accessories. When scattered among a larger group they’d been harder to spot as co-conspirators, but all together like this, with their guard down, their costumes were obvious and their mannerisms out of character. It looked like the after-party of a Larry the Cable Guy stunt-double audition at Central Casting.

One of them matched a picture in Noah’s memory to the very last detail. He was sure this time: the man was wearing a loud flannel shirt, a hunter’s vest, a do-rag torn from the corner of a Confederate battle flag, and a shoulder holster.

He heard the call end and the phone snap closed behind him.

“Okay,” Charlie sighed. “Let’s sit down and talk about this, Dillinger.”