Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

Tim looked around at the empty entrance. “What line?”

“Over there.” The bouncer pointed to a red roll-up carpet-some night promoter’s brainchild-that stretched to the right of the rope. Tim exhaled hard and stepped over onto the carpet. He made for the rope, but the bouncer didn’t move.

“You want me to wait here?”

“Yes.”

“Even though there’s no one in line?”

“Yes.”

“Is this Candid Camera or something?”

“Man, you are clueless.” Something vibrated on the bouncer’s waist, and he took a long look at a row of colorful, belt-adhered pagers. He squeezed the banana yellow one and glanced at the backlit screen. “How’d you get your black eye?”

“Freak badminton accident.”

The guy’s head rolled to its usual back-tilted perch on his wide neck. “You gonna start trouble at my club?”

“If you keep me out here, I might.”

The guy’s laugh smelled like gum. “I like your style, pal.” He unclipped the rope and stepped aside, but not far enough that Tim didn’t have to lean to get past him.

Tim entered and spotted a stool at the bar. As he headed over, a guy in clay-colored jeans with endless pockets eyed him derisively. “Nice shirt, pops.”

Behind the bar a translucent rise of shelves glowed phosphorescent blue. Tim ordered a twelve-dollar vodka on the rocks from an attractive redheaded bartender wearing a rubber vest with a zipper teased down to reveal cleavage.

A couple of girls were grooving up on a light box out on the dance floor. The crowd swelled and ebbed around them, wafting Tim’s way the smell of designer cologne and clean sweat. A couple lay sideways in a booth, licking each other’s faces, e-ravenous for sensation. The surge of sex and exuberance charged the air, approaching-storm strong, and in the middle sat Tim, immobile and square, watching the proceedings like a chaperon at a mixer. He found his glass empty and gestured to the bartender for a fresh one.

A girl beside him leaned curve-backed, elbows propped on the bar, facing the noise. He accidentally caught her eye and nodded. She smiled and walked off. Two guys in rumpled shirts sidled up in her place, their faces ruddy and moist from the dance floor, and ordered shots of tequila.

“…my old boss Harry, you could smell the burnout on him. He was your classic dump truck, barely followed up any leads for his clients. When I started in the public defender’s office, he had a guy in custody for a murder two, said his alibi was this bartender he was hitting on all night, a hot girl with red hair somewhere off Traction. Didn’t know where. Harry stopped by a few places, found shit, they convicted his client the next week. Fifteen to life. A few months later we come in here-God knows why, Harry’s brother-in-law invested in the joint or something-and guess what?”

The guy pointed behind the bar at the redhead in the zippered vest. “There she is. And she remembers the client. Only problem is, our boy got shanked in the yard at Corcoran two days before.” He exhaled hard. “There’s only justice for the rich. If you have a house to put up for ten percent of bail, can get your ass out of custody and working on your own case, your alibi, you’re all set. If you’re broke and you can’t remember, if your PD can’t find the hot redhead bartender somewhere off Traction…well, then.” He threw back another shot. “I come in here now, when I’m close to burnout. It reinvigorates me, inspires me to cover every damn angle.” The bartender served another round of shots, and he slid a once-folded twenty toward her. “She’s my muse.”

His friend said, “It’s a stupid fucking job we do.”

This declaration was followed by a clink of glasses, thrown-back shots, sour-faced head shakes. The talker caught Tim watching and leaned over to offer a sweaty hand.

“Name’s Richard. Why don’t you join us for a shot?” His slur was just noticeable above the pumping music.

“No thanks.”

“No offense, but I don’t see any better options around for you.” Richard turned to his friend. “Oh, well, Nick, guess our friend here doesn’t want to join us. Guess he’s busy being his own man.”

“I’m not big on public defenders.” Alcohol had loosened Tim’s tongue-he remembered anew why he rarely drank.

“Don’t see why not. We get paid shit, we burn out young, and we represent mostly reprehensible pricks. That’s a pretty appealing package, no?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been on the other end of the equation you’re bitching about. Seen people walk free who shouldn’t have.”

“Lemme guess. You’re a cop. Shoot first and ask questions later.” Richard snapped off a drunken salute. “Well, Officer, I’ll tell you, for however many cases you’ve seen go down wrong, Nick and I here have got you beat. I got a kid today-”

“I’m not interested.”

“I got a kid today-”

“Take your hand off me, please.”

Richard stepped back while Nick got busy securing their next round. “When this kid was sixteen, he broke into his cousin’s house to steal a VCR.” He held up a finger. “One strike. Goes to a high school football game, talks some shit after, tells a teacher’s kid he’s gonna beat the crap out of him if he catches him talking to his girlfriend again. Strike two. Threat of immediate assault with intent to commit GBI. That’s grievous bodily injury-”

“I know what GBI is.”

“Now, the third strike, the third strike, my friend, can be any felony. This kid goes into Longs Drugs and steals a toilet-paper holder-a goddamn toilet-paper holder. That’s 666, petty theft with a prior. It’s a wobbler, but they file it as a felony. Guess what? Strike three. Twenty-five to life. No negotiation, no judicial discretion, nothing. It’s fascism.”

“His dad used to beat him. He didn’t really mean to shoot up his school.”

Richard sighed. “Not so simple. Not so specious. But you do have to look at the individual. Then the angles and distances between him and his surroundings become measurable. What those angles compose is what constitutes perspective. And perspective is exactly what you need to pass judgment on an individual’s actions.” Though his words were running together drunkenly, Richard was still articulate as hell. A practiced drinker.

“How about passing judgment on an individual?”

“Leave that to God. Or Allah, or karma, or the Great Pumpkin. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if someone is evil. It matters what they’ve done and how we deal with it.”

“But we have to carry out our judgment on individuals.”

“Of course. So what determines the strictness of punishment? Irredeemability? Lack of contrition? Unfitness to participate in society? No one so much as examined these factors for my client today. This kid is screwed. He’s gonna have to punk for some gangbanger for the rest of his life over a thirty-seven-cent fucking toilet-paper holder.” Richard’s voice wavered, either from rage or grief, and his face contorted once, sharply, presaging a sob that never came. Instead he grinned. “That’s the reason for our little party tonight, my friend.” He raised a shot glass. “Celebrating the system.”

His buddy put a hand on his shoulder and steered him down onto the barstool.

“It goes both ways,” Tim said.

Richard looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and drooping. “Yeah, yeah, it does.”

“I’ve seen guys walk through loopholes I’d never even dreamed of. Chain of custody. Speedy trial motions. Search and seizure. It’s not justice. It’s bullshit.”

“It is bullshit. But why can’t we have good procedure and justice? So the court spanks the cop for”-his hands fluttered, seeking a phrase-“illegal search and seizure or whatever, and next time around the cop does his job right, with respect for civil liberties. The trial goes clean. Guy gets convicted, receives a fair sentence. Then it’s right all the way around-we have our cake and eat it, too.”