Эд Макбейн - Privileged Conversation

“Do you mean to say he’ll get off?” Fred asks the woman attorney, whose name is Grace Something, and who is now seated on Harry Daitch’s right, just across the table from David. All told, there are eight people at the party, including an investment broker from Manhattan who’s been invited as Grace’s dinner partner, and who is sitting alongside her on the same side of the table.

“I’m sure Grace meant major felonies,” Harry says, and pats her left hand where it rests alongside his.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Grace says, laughing. “I’m not sure it won’t apply to lesser crimes as well. Black kid steals a bike, that’s petit larceny, a class-A mis, the most he can get in jail is a year. Even if he gets the max, which he won’t, he’ll be out again stealing another bike four months later. But if he hires himself a smart lawyer...”

“Like you,” Harry says, and pats her hand again.

“Like me, thank you — white like me, anyway, so it won’t look like a slave uprising — the defense’ll play the ‘Underprivileged Black’ card, and then the ‘Black Rage’ card, and any person of color sitting on that jury’ll go, ‘Mmmm, mmmm , tell it, brother, amen,’” she says, doing a fair imitation of a call-and-response routine in a black Baptist church. David wonders all at once if Grace is a closet bigot, but the black maid who is now serving them at table seems to find the takeoff amusing. At least, she’s smiling. “And he’ll walk,” Grace says in conclusion and dismissal, and picks up her knife and fork.

“Did that case ever come to trial, by the way?” Fred asks.

“I have no idea,” David says.

“Ever hear anything more about it?”

“Well, I had to go identify him.”

“You mean they got him?” Margaret says.

“Well, yes.”

“I didn’t know that,” Helen says, surprised.

“I guess I forgot to tell you,” he says.

“When was this?”

“I don’t remember. Shortly after the Fourth of July weekend. When I got back to the city.”

“Well, what happened? ” Danielle asks.

As hostess, she is sitting at the opposite end of the table, facing her husband at this end. Helen, on her left in this not-quite-boy-girl-boy-girl seating arrangement, is leaning forward now, her head turned to the left, looking across the table, waiting for David’s response. In fact, all attention seems to have turned from the defense to the prosecution, so to speak, everyone suddenly curious about what happened when David went to identify the young bicycle thief, an event he somehow neglected to mention to Helen in the press of further developments, small wonder. She is still staring at him, waiting.

“The police called and asked if I’d come over after work,” he says. “So I did,” he says, and shrugs.

“How’d they know who you were?” Fred asks.

“I guess the girl told them.”

“ Was it the guy?” Danielle asks.

“Oh, yes.”

“So they got him,” Margaret says, almost to herself, nodding. “Good.”

“You didn’t tell me this,” Helen says, still looking surprised.

“I meant to,” he says.

“Annie keeps asking me every day did they catch him.”

“I’m sorry, I guess it just slipped my...”

“But it hasn’t come to trial yet,” Fred says.

“That’s the last I heard of it.”

Helen is still looking at him.

“Will you have to testify?” Margaret asks.

“I really...”

“If it comes to trial?”

“I don’t...”

“How old is he?” Grace asks.

“Sixteen, seventeen.”

“First offense?”

“I don’t know.”

“The case may even be dismissed,” she says. “You know what a class-A mis is?”

“No, what?” her dinner companion asks. This is the first time he’s opened his mouth all night long. He has flaxen hair and dark brown eyes and he is wearing a heavy gold chain over a purple Tommy Hilfiger sweater. David wonders if he’s gay.

“Writing graffiti is a class-A mis. Unauthorized use of a computer is a class-A mis. Hazing is a class-A mis. Are you beginning to catch the drift?”

“She means it’s a bullshit crime,” Harry says.

“Well, he also hit her,” David says, and thinks Shut up. End it. Let it die. “Kicked her. Knocked her down.”

“That’s assault,” Grace says.

“That’s a horse of another color,” Harry says.

“Which is why he’ll walk,” Grace says knowingly.

Coming out of the bathroom, Helen says, “I can’t believe Danielle can be so blind. ” She is slipping a nightgown over her head as she walks, the blue nylon cascading over her tanned body, blond hair surfacing as her head clears the laced bodice. She shakes her disheveled hair loose, a habit he loves, and then goes to the dresser. Sitting before the mirror, she begins brushing her hair. He does not know how she can brush and count and talk at the same time, but it is a feat she performs effortlessly every night. Fifty strokes before bedtime every night. Meanwhile talking a mile a minute.

“He invites her to every party, seats her on his right at every party, feels her up at every...”

“He was patting her hand,” David says.

“Why do men feel compelled to defend other men who they know are fucking around?” Helen asks incredulously. “He was patting her hand on the table. Under the table he was feeling her up.”

“How do you know what he was doing under the table?”

“I know when a man has his hand on a woman’s thigh. Or closer to home. Something comes over her face.”

“I didn’t see anything coming over her face.”

“Her eyes glazed over.”

“I didn’t notice that. I was sitting directly across from her, and I didn’t...”

“Right, defend him.”

“I just don’t think anything’s going on between Harry and Grace whatever her name is.”

“Humphrey. Which I feel is appropriate.”

David thinks about that for a moment.

“Oh,” he says.

“Oh,” Helen says, and winks at him in the mirror.

He is stretched out on the bed, his elbow bent, his head propped on his open hand, watching her. He loves to watch her perform simple female tasks. Putting on lipstick. Polishing her nails. Clasping a bra behind her back. Slipping on a high-heeled shoe. Brushing her hair.

“How does he know her, anyway?” he asks.

“Biblically,” Helen says.

“I mean...”

“They work in the same office.”

“And she’s up here for the summer?”

“No, she’s a houseguest. Every weekend,” Helen says, and raises her eyebrows. “Hmm?”

“Well...”

“Mmm,” Helen says.

“Do you think Danielle invites her?”

“I have no idea. Maybe Danielle has a boyfriend of her own. Maybe Danielle doesn’t care what Harry does under the table or behind the barn. Danielle is French, my dear.”

“Oh, come on , Hel. She’s been in America for twenty years. In fact, they’ve been married that long.”

“So have we,” Helen says. “I can’t believe you forgot to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“About going to identify that boy.”

“Well, it was a busy week. Everybody just back from the long weekend...”

“I’ll bet they were rattling their cages.”

“Anxiety levels were high, let’s put it that way.”

“Was this a lineup?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The precinct. They have a room.”

“Was the girl there, too? The one he hit?”

“Yes.”

“What was her name again?”