Stanley Elkin - Searches & Seizures

“Oohay?”

I whisper into his ear and remind him of the message Lou said he had for me. I offer a few Phoenician flourishes. Poslosky looks over at Morgan who by this time is almost cuddling his guard.

“Well, if he’s such a big shot—”

“Shh.”

“Well, why’s he so reluctant to leave?”

I take him aside. “Poslosky, you have an inquiring mind. I like that in a policeman. All we know for sure is that City Hall wants him the hell out of this place. My best guess is that he’s a plant from the Enquirer here to do an exposé on conditions.”

“The son of a bitch, I’ll exposé his head.”

“No, that would be playing into his hands. Look, I don’t know any more about it than you. I heard something was up and I’m just putting two and two together from the message Lou tried to pass me. I bet Lou tells us we’re to zip down with the guy in a paddy wagon to Judge Ehrlinger’s chambers, arrange a quick pro forma bond and get him the hell off our backs before his suit dries. They give it a twelve-minute investigation and charges are dropped this afternoon. If he’s held a minute longer than necessary I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“All right, we’ll see what Lou has to say.” Poslosky tells the guard to hold on to the prisoner and we step outside to speak to Lou.

Word-for-word, I swear to you. My people haven’t been in this business thousands of years for nothing! Morgan, the wagon, Ehrlinger — Ehrlinger, a hack, is special-duty magistrate this week — everything. Poslosky is electrified. He gets on Lou’s phone and arranges for a wagon and a couple of guards to be waiting when we come out with the prisoner. Inside five minutes we’re on our way. I sit up front with the driver. Poslosky himself helps me into the wagon and closes the door for me. He shakes my hand through the open window.

“Thanks, Phoenician.”

I lean out. “Lieutenant,” I tell him coolly, “I’m no goddamn do-gooder. If conditions in this jail are ever exposed, the Bail Commission will be letting everyone but the murderers out on their own recognizance. Those Commission bastards are cutting my throat as it is.”

“The revolving door,” Poslosky sighs.

“Too true. We’re goners, Poz, they’re wiping us out. Cops, bondsmen.”

“The fucking Supreme Court,” Poslosky says, “the fucking Miranda decision.”

“Yeah, Pus. Gee, kid, I could stick around here talking philosophy with you all day, but we better get that mother downtown before Ehrlinger wets himself.”

“Yeah. So long, Phoenician.”

At the courthouse Morgan walks between me and the cop to Ehrlinger’s chambers. I study him closely but can’t tell how much his anger is antagonism to me or appreciation of his situation. “You know,” I tell him amiably, “I’m pretty ashamed of what I did back there. What a temper. I want you to send me the cleaning bill for your suit. I’ll pay.”

“Shit, if the coffee stains don’t come out, you’ll buy me a new goddamn suit.”

He knows from nothing. “Sure,” I say, “I promise.”

A judge’s chambers, even Ehrlinger’s, give me a hard-on of the spirit. All that oak paneling — brown is your color of civilization — dark as bark, those long earthen fillets of wood like a room made out of cellos, the faint oily odor of care (I remember the smell), the deep brass fittings like metals in museums, the lovely heavy leathers adumbrating strap, blood sports — geez, it’s terrific. The desk big as a piano, and the deep, clean ashtrays on its wide top. And the souvenirs. These guys have been officers in wars, served on commissions. Their official surfaces trail a spoor of the public history: a President’s pen ammunitions a marble bore, Nuremberg memorabilia, a political cartoonist’s original caricature framed on the desk in love’s egotistic inversion, the flier’s short snorter aspicked in paperweight; toys, some pal industrialist’s miniature prototype — all respectability’s groovy junk. And cloudy, obscure prints on the walls, deft hunts and European capitals in old centuries, downtown London before the fire, Berlin’s Inns of Court. A fat globe of the world rises like an immense soft-boiled egg in an eggcup, girdled by a wide wooden orbit that catwalks its equatorial waist. Red calf spines of lawbooks glow behind glass. Only the flag distracts — an absurd bouquet drooping from a queer umbrella stand on three claw feet with metallic, undifferentiated toes. The judge’s black robe is snagged on a hatrack.

Ehrlinger is at his desk pretending to write an opinion when the clerk admits us. The man has been a district judge for years, will never rise higher, but he is absolutely incorruptible, so inflexible that he is never more dangerous than now when, sitting in his capacity as the week’s special-duty magistrate — who hears in camera special pleadings that violate the court calendar — he is asked to alter the conventions.

Like many humorless men, Ehrlinger loves to be entertained. I play the fool for him and he likes me for it.

“Yes?” He looks toward us annoyed and glances at Morgan’s papers that the clerk has just placed on his desk. “Can’t this wait? This man’s just been arrested. The police can hold him for twenty-four hours. Why couldn’t he have his bail hearing tomorrow with everyone else?”

“Influence,” I break in quickly. “You know these crooks, Your Honor. They have friends in low places.”

“Oh, it’s you, Phoenician, is it?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Well, let’s get on with it, then.”

“Wait just a moment, Your Honor. There’s something I’ve always wanted to do, sir.”

“What? What’s that?”

“No, no don’t pay any attention to me, sir. Just go on writing that precedent-making opinion.”

“Here, what’s all this about then?”

I rush to the hatrack where Ehrlinger’s robe is hanging. I lift its hem, draw it back and lean in under it, manipulating my right arm free of the robe and holding it up. Still bent down and hidden in the garment I pivot toward the judge. “Hold it.” I clench my exposed hand into a fist. “There! Got your picture, Your Honor!” I creep back out of the robe and stand up beaming.

“Oh, Phoenician,” Ehrlinger says. “Tarnation, sir, a man your age. All right, now, all right,” he says like Ted Mack on The Amateur Hour, “that will do. Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He turns back to the file and I wink at Morgan. Ehrlinger studies the file for a moment and looks back up. “Well,” he says, “according to this there have been no previous arrests. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.” Morgan says.

Ehrlinger grins. “Punched him, did you?”

“I’m afraid I did, sir.”

“Fetched him a good one?”

“I guess so, Your Honor.”

“Well, strictly speaking, you’re supposed to keep your hands to yourself, and since these students had a permit for their rally it was quite proper for the police to bind you over.”

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Still—” Ehrlinger says.

“When I heard him urging those kids to burn their draft cards—”

“Couldn’t control yourself.”

“No, sir.”

“Wait a minute.”

“Well, when I was your age I’d like to think I’d have done the same.”

“Hold on.”

“He was a pimply, long-haired freak. To tell you the truth, Your Honor, it was more like slugging a girl.”

“Well, you can’t say he didn’t have it coming.”

“I’m even kind of ashamed.”

“Jesus!”

“Broke his jaw, did you?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“Under the circumstances it would be hypocritical of me to congratulate you, Mr. Morgan, and the law’s the law. There were a lot of witnesses at that rally. I’m afraid you’ll have to appear.”