Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“Pilato!” shouted the Judge. “Put that chair down!”

Victor sat stonily, his eyes lifted in dumb horror to the chair above his head.

“Pilato,” the Judge shouted, “you can be sent to jail for this!” He banged sternly but helplessly on his desk. “Remember, this is a court of law!”

“Victor?” Mike asked, unmoved, unmoving. “Victor? Immediately, please.”

“No,” Victor screamed, cringing in his seat, his hands now held in feeble defense before his eyes. “I didn’t pay! I didn’t!”

“Pilato,” screamed the Judge, “this is not evidence!”

“You were lying?” Mike said inexorably, the chair still held, ax-like, above him.

“Mike, oh, Mike,” wailed Dolores.

“It was not my idea,” Victor babbled. “As God is my judge, I didn’t think it up. Alfred Lotti, he suggested it, and Johnny Nolan. I am under the influence of corrupt men. Mike, for the love of God, please don’t kill me, Mike, it would never have occurred to me myself, forgive me, forgive me …”

“Guiness!” the Judge called to the court policeman. “Are you going to stand there and let this go on? Why don’t you do something?”

“I can shoot him,” Guiness said. “Do you want me to shoot the plaintiff?”

“Shut up,” the Judge said.

Guiness shrugged and turned his head toward the witness stand, smiling a little.

“You were lying?” Mike asked, his voice low, patient.

“I was lying,” Victor cried.

Slowly, with magnificent calm, Mike put the chair down neatly in its place. With a wide smile he turned to the Judge. “There,” he said.

“Do you know any good reason,” the Judge shouted, “why I shouldn’t have you locked up?”

Victor was crying with relief on the witness stand, wiping the tears away with his sleeve.

“There is no possible excuse,” the Judge said, “for me to admit this confession as evidence. We are a court of law in the State of Illinois, in the United States. We are not conducting the Spanish Inquisition, Mr. Pilato.”

“Huh?” Mike asked, cocking his head.

“There are certain rules,” the Judge went on, quickly, his voice high, “which it is customary to observe. It is not the usual thing, Mr. Pilato,” he said harshly, “to arrive at evidence by bodily threatening to brain witnesses with a chair.”

“He wouldn’t tell the truth,” Mike said simply.

“At the very least, Mr. Pilato,” the Judge said, “you should get thirty days.”

“Oh, Mike,” wept Dolores.

“Mr. Fraschi,” the Judge said, “I promise you that you will be protected. That nobody will harm you.”

“I did it,” sobbed Victor, his hands shaking uncontrollably in a mixture of fear, repentance, religion, joy at delivery from death. “I did it. I will not tell a lie. I’m a weak man and influenced by loafers. I owe him three hundred dollars. Forgive me, Mike, forgive me …”

“He will not harm you,” the Judge said patiently. “I guarantee it. You can tell the truth without any danger. Do you owe Mr. Pilato three hundred dollars?”

“I owe Mr. Pilato three hundred dollars,” Victor said, swallowing four times in a row.

The young lawyer put three sheets of paper into his briefcase and snapped the lock.

The Judge sighed and wiped his brow with a handkerchief as he looked at Mike. “I don’t approve of the way you conducted this trial, Mr. Pilato,” he said. “It is only because you’re a working man who has many duties to attend to on his land that I don’t take you and put you away for a month to teach you more respect for the processes of law.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said faintly.

“Hereafter,” the Judge said, “kindly engage an attorney when you appear before me in this court.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said.

“Mr. Pilato,” the Judge said, “it is up to you to decide when and how he is to pay you.”

Mike turned and walked back to Victor. Victor shrank into his chair. “Tomorrow morning, Victor,” Mike said, waving his finger under Victor’s nose, “at eighty-thirty o’clock, I am coming into your store. The money will be there.”

“Yes,” said Victor.

“Is that all right?” Mike asked the Judge.

“Yes,” said the Judge.

Mike strode over to the young lawyer. “And you,” he said, standing with his hands on his hips in front of the young man with the pinstripe suit. “Mr. Lawyer. You knew he didn’t pay me. A boy with an education. You should be ashamed of yourself.” He turned to the Judge, smiled broadly, bowed. “Thank you,” he said. “Good morning.” Then, triumphantly, smiling broadly, rolling like a sea captain as he walked, he went through the little gate. Dolores was waiting with his hat. He took the hat, put Dolores’ arm through his, marched down the aisle, nodding, beaming to the spectators. Someone applauded and by the time he and Dolores got to the door all the spectators were applauding.

He waited until he got outside, in the bright morning sunshine down the steps of the courthouse, before he said anything to Dolores. He put his hat on carefully, turned to her, grinning. “Well,” he said, “did you observe what I did?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was never so ashamed in my whole life!”

“Dolores!” Mike was shocked. “I got the money. I won the case.”

“Acting like that in a court of law!” Dolores started bitterly toward the car. “What are you, a red Indian?”

Dolores got into the car and slammed the door and Mike limped slowly around and got into the other side. He started the car without a word and shaking his head from time to time, drove slowly toward home.

“ I come from Jersey City,” the man in the green sweater was saying, “all the way from Jersey City, and I might of just as well stood home. You look at Brooklyn and you look at Jersey City and if you didn’t look at the uniforms you’d never tell the difference.”

Just then the Giants scored four runs and two men a few rows below stood up with grins on their faces and called to a friend behind us, “Johnny, Johnny! Did you see that, Johnny? You still here, Johnny? We thought you mighta left. What a team, Brooklyn!” They shook their heads in sardonic admiration. “What a team! You still here, Johnny?”

Johnny, wherever he was, didn’t say anything. His two friends sat down, laughing.

The man in the green sweater took off his yellow straw hat and carefully wiped the sweatband with his handkerchief. “I been watching the Dodgers for twenty-three years,” he said, “and I never seen anything like this.” He put his hat on again, over his dark Greek face, the eyes deep and sad, never leaving the field where the Dodgers moved wearily in their green-trimmed uniforms. “Jersey City, Albany and Brooklyn, that would make a good league. One helluva league. I would give Brooklyn twenty-five games headstart and let them fight it out. They would have a hard fight stayin’ in the New York-Penn League. They would have to get three new pitchers. They’re worse than Jersey City, I swear, worse …”

“Ah, now, listen,” the man beside him said, “if that’s the case why isn’t Brooklyn in Jersey City and Jersey City in Brooklyn?”

“I don’t know,” the man in the green sweater said. “I honestly couldn’t tell ye.”

“They haven’t got such a bad team.”

“They ought to move them into the New York-Penn League. A major league team …” He laughed sadly. “Look at that!” A man named Wilson was striking out for Brooklyn. “Look at Wilson. Why, he’s pitiful. They walk two men to get at him in the International League. I bet Newark could spot them five runs and beat them every day. I’d give odds.”