‘Bail is set at five hundred dollars.’
‘Your Honor, the defendant doesn’t have that much money. If the court will reduce bail to two hundred dollars, he can go back to work and keep supporting his family.’
‘Very well. Two hundred.’
‘Thank you, Your Honor.’
Jennifer got to know the supervisor of the complaint room, where copies of the arrest reports were sent.
‘You again, Parker! For God’s sake, don’t you ever sleep?’
‘Hi, Lieutenant. A client of mine was picked up on a vagrancy charge. May I see the arrest sheet? The name is Connery. Clarence Connery.’
‘Tell me something, honey. Why would you come down here at three A.M. to defend a vagrant?’
Jennifer grinned. ‘It keeps me off the streets.’
She became familiar with night court, held in Room 218 of the Centre Street courthouse. It was a smelly, overcrowded world, with its own arcane jargon. Jennifer was baffled by it at first.
‘Parker, your client is booked on bedpain.’
‘My client is booked on what?’
‘Bedpain. Burglary, with a Break, Enter, Dwelling, Person, Armed, Intent to kill, at Night. Get it?’
‘Got it.’
‘I’m here to represent Miss Luna Tarner.’
‘Jesus H. Christ!’
‘Would you tell me what the charges are?’
‘Hold on. I’ll find her ticket. Luna Tarner. That’s a hot one … here we are. Pross. Picked up by CWAC, down below.’
‘Quack?’
‘You’re new around here, huh? CWAC is the City-Wide Anti-Crime unit. A pross is a hooker, and down below is south of Forty-Second Street. Capish?’
‘Capish.’
Night court depressed Jennifer. It was filled with a human tide that ceaselessly surged in and out, washed up on the shores of justice.
There were more than a hundred and fifty cases heard each night. There were whores and transvestites, stinking, battered drunks and drug addicts. There were Puerto Ricans and Mexicans and Jews and Irish and Greeks and Italians, and they were accused of rape and theft and possession of guns or dope or assault or prostitution. And they all had one thing in common: They were poor. They were poor and defeated and lost. They were the dregs, the misfits whom the affluent society had passed by. A large proportion of them came from Central Harlem, and because there was no more room in the prison system, all but the most serious offenders were dismissed or fined. They returned home to St Nicholas Avenue and Morningside and Manhattan Avenues, where in three and one-half square miles there lived two hundred and thirty-three thousand blacks, eight thousand Puerto Ricans, and an estimated one million rats.
The majority of clients who came to Jennifer’s office were people who had been ground down by poverty, the system, themselves. They were people who had long since surrendered. Jennifer found that their fears fed her self-confidence. She did not feel superior to them. She certainly could not hold herself up as a shining example of success, and yet she knew there was one big difference between her and her clients: She would never give up.
Ken Bailey introduced Jennifer to Father Francis Joseph Ryan. Father Ryan was in his late fifties, a radiant, vital man with crisp gray-and-black hair that curled about his ears. He was always in serious need of a haircut. Jennifer liked him at once.
From time to time, when one of his parishioners would disappear, Father Ryan would come to Ken and enlist his services. Invariably, Ken would find the errant husband, wife, daughter or son. There would never be a charge.
‘It’s a down payment on heaven,’ Ken would explain.
One afternoon when Jennifer was alone Father Ryan dropped by the office.
‘Ken’s out, Father Ryan. He won’t be back today.’
‘It’s really you I wanted to see, Jennifer,’ Father Ryan said. He sat down in the uncomfortable old wooden chair in front of Jennifer’s desk. ‘I have a friend who has a bit of a problem.’
That was the way he always started out with Ken.
‘Yes, Father?’
‘She’s an elderly parishioner, and the poor dear’s having trouble getting her Social Security payments. She moved into my neighborhood a few months ago and some damned computer lost all her records, may it rust in hell.’
‘I see.’
‘I knew you would,’ Father Ryan said, getting to his feet. ‘I’m afraid there won’t be any money in it for you.’
Jennifer smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll try to straighten things out.’
She had thought it would be a simple matter, but it had taken her almost three days to get the computer reprogrammed.
One morning a month later, Father Ryan walked into Jennifer’s office and said, ‘I hate to bother you, my dear, but I have a friend who has a bit of a problem. I’m afraid he has no –’ He hesitated.
‘– Money,’ Jennifer guessed.
‘Ah! That’s it. Exactly. But the poor fellow needs help badly.’
‘All right. Tell me about him.’
‘His name is Abraham. Abraham Wilson. He’s the son of one of my parishioners. Abraham is serving a life sentence in Sing Sing for killing a liquor store owner during a holdup.’
‘If he was convicted and is serving his sentence, I don’t see how I can help. Father.’
Father Ryan looked at Jennifer and sighed. ‘That’s not his problem.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No. A few weeks ago Abraham killed another man – a fellow prisoner named Raymond Thorpe. They’re going to try him for murder, and go for the death penalty.’
Jennifer had read something about the case. ‘If I remember correctly, he beat the man to death.’
‘So they say.’
Jennifer picked up a pad and a pen. ‘Do you know if there were any witnesses?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘How many?’
‘Oh, a hundred or so. It happened in the prison yard, you see.’
‘Terrific. What is it you want me to do?’
Father Ryan said simply, ‘Help Abraham.’
Jennifer put down her pen. ‘Father, it’s going to take your Boss to help him.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘He’s going in with three strikes against him. He’s black, he’s a convicted murderer, and he killed another man in front of a hundred witnesses. Assuming he did it, there just aren’t any grounds for defense. If another prisoner was threatening him, there were guards he could have asked to help him. Instead, he took the law into his own hands. There isn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t convict him.’
‘He’s still a fellow human being. Would you just talk to him?’
Jennifer sighed. ‘I’ll talk to him if you want me to, but I won’t make any commitment.’
Father Ryan nodded. ‘I understand. It would probably mean a great deal of publicity.’
They