Sol Stein - Other people

"We're talking about you, Harry, not me. Keep to the subject. You said Miss Widmer tried to talk you out of it. What did she say?"

"Like I said, all dames try to talk you out of it. Christ, Mary even used to. She still does once in a while, and I'm her fucking husband!"

"What did Miss Widmer say to try to talk you out of it?"

"She said I could go to a prostitute or something like that."

I'd had enough. I got up to go.

"Wait a minute," he said. "What's all this talk about? How's it going to do me any good?"

"Well, Harry, you're the customer. You're entitled to hear it the way I hear it. Let me play it back to you. You met her on the stairs many times. She said hello to you first. You never said hello to her first. When she walked ahead of you, it was your impression that she walked provocatively. You couldn't help noticing that she never wore a brassiere. You found that provocative, too. Naturally. She looked very ladylike to you, yet very enticing. You had the impression that she wanted it. You had the impression she wanted it not just from you, which is why you brought along the janitor the second time. You thought you were doing something she wanted. You get the picture?"

Harry seemed very pleased.

"We'll have a chance to go over this again, Harry."

"You sure know how to put things, Mr. Brady," he said. "I'm glad you're my lawyer on this case."

That remark would cost the stupid idiot at least an additional thousand dollars, which I better hit him for before he goes to jail.

You sometimes forget that policemen are government workers, meaning no significant economic motivation, lots of useless paperwork, a life of time spent waiting for something to happen or someone to move a process along a little. To survive, a policeman like a doctor has to immunize himself against the waves of rage and rancor splashed at him by perpetrators and victims alike. A chief of police, who as a young man probably had a surfeit of vitality, is eventually as discouraged as a beat slogger. I pity them. You can't talk to a cop man to man. You're either a supplicant or a superior.

Which leads me to the duty sergeant at the precinct that was holding Koch.

"That psychiatrist needs a psychiatrist," he said.

"What's the problem?"

"He acts like we done something wrong to bring him here."

"Sergeant," I said, "this isn't one of my usual clients or your usual clients. He's a senior professional person and being in this place is like his suddenly finding himself on Mars. I want to talk to him in a private room."

So Koch and I were led to a cubicle on the second floor, where he tried to say six thousand things at once. Trying to calm him down reminded me of the time my car's engine wouldn't shut off when I took the key out and kept shuddering for minutes till it finally collapsed into silence. For the moment I was the psychiatrist and he was the patient. When he was finally quiet, I asked him what he was thinking.

"In Vienna," he said, "my passport was stamped with a red J." His voice fluttered. "Please, Mr. Thomassy, I have never been in a place like this. Get me out of here. I beseech you."

I didn't want to be beseeched by anybody. I told him the routine.

"Listen carefully, Dr. Koch. You had to be booked because an action of yours injured another person. The circumstances are what the judge will listen to, not a policeman. I will get you down to night court and ask for bail. But I need to know the facts. Just the facts, if you can."

"I realize you are being very helpful to me," he said. "I am just a stranger to you."

"You're less of a stranger than most of my clients when I first meet up with them. Please tell me what happened in your apartment."

So he recapped the thing. I asked him to wait in the room while I went out to talk to the detective.

"That's the first psychiatrist we've had in here," said the detective.

"Congratulations," I said. "Let's get him down to night court right now while he's calm."

"Look, mister, we've got seven guys in the lockup got here before he did. I can't spare anybody to go with you now."

"How long?"

"Morning."

"Can I use your phone?"

"Local?"

"Local."

"Sure."

You couldn't dial out. You got the policeman at the switchboard.

"Please get me the officer on duty in the commissioner's office. The number is—"

He knew the number and was already dialing. The detective stopped penciling the form in front of him. He was listening.

When I was connected, I said, "This is George Thomassy. I don't want to bother the commissioner this time of night. I'm up at the twenty-fourth precinct. I've got to get some red tape untangled before a distinguished citizen loses his cool and talks to the newspapers. Yes, I'll wait."

When he got back on he said, "What's the problem?"

"No problem. An intruder was caught in this citizen's apartment, threatened him with a gun, and got injured in the process. All we need to do is get the doctor—"

"A legit doctor?"

"A psychiatrist. Just want to get him down to a judge so we can get him home before he starts talking to the papers."

I looked at the detective. "He wants to talk to you," I said.

The detective took the phone. I could have guessed the conversation. The detective hung up, and without saying a word to me went into another room and came back out with a young cop. "This is Patrolman Mincioni. He'll ride you and the doctor down."

"No cuffs," I said.

"No cuffs."

It would have been easier with one of the Westchester judges. Judge Sprague was a new face for me.

"Your Honor," I said after he read the report the cop put in front of him, "there are several possibilities. If the doctor had had nothing to use in his defense, the intruder would have walked off with a file that is essential to a rape case being tried in Westchester. The people might have lost that case if the file was not available, or was available only to the defendant's counsel. Your Honor, I believe the intruder may have been employed by defense counsel through channels. If Dr. Koch had been brave enough to use the only defense weapon at hand, an ordinary practice dart, and missed, or merely nicked the intruder, the intruder, who was used to carrying a gun, wouldn't have missed Dr. Koch when he shot him and we'd have a corpse instead of a doctor, and a killer on the loose. Because this doctor — and this is not true of all doctors as you know. Your Honor — was not a passive citizen in the face of crime, and luckily disabled the intruder with the one and only dart thrown, the people can proceed with their case in Westchester. Dr. Koch probably deserves a medal instead of the fingerprinting, mugging, and humiliation of the station house, but right now I want to get him home and to bed after his harrowing experience as a good citizen. I don't have to tell you that Dr. Koch's roots in the community suggest that he be released on his own recognizance."

Well, here is this judge in front of a night court full of inner-city ethnics and he's got to let a white middle-class physician off. His face rigid, severe, mock contemplative. Then he said, "Two hundred fifty dollars bail."

I asked Dr. Koch if he had his checkbook with him. He didn't.

"Will it please the court to have the defendant paroled in the custody of counsel?"

"That will be acceptable," said Judge Sprague.

And in no more than ten minutes we were outside. The doctor shook hands with Patrolman Mincioni. Mincioni was respectful, as to a priest.

I drove Koch home. When we got there, he didn't move to get out of the car.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

For a moment he said nothing. Then, "I was thinking of what I will find up there. I don't like hotels, or I might stay in a hotel tonight. Oh well," he said, opening the car door, "we are here." He turned to me. "I don't know — truly — how I would have managed without your help. Please come up for a cup of coffee before you drive home."