had just been the last straw. She was glad her ex-husband took the three youngest to Mexico.
“I’m completely mixed up, messed up, right now,” she said. It was hard to believe her because of her beautiful calm voice.
She briefly told me what happened at the airport, taking more blame for it than Jesse had given her. “As far as the charges, I am guilty of them, except the marijuana, they planted that. But the way they describe it is sick. Like Joe did kiss us both, but from friendship. I don’t have any sex ring with young boys. What was sick and wrong was how the cop was beating Jesse, and how others stood there watching it. Any normal person would have done what I did. Although, thank God, the cop didn’t die.”
I asked her what she was going to do after the trial. She looked panicked, whispered what Jesse had told me in the office, that they had decided not to deal with it until the trial.
“But I can get it together. Get myself together then.” She said she spoke Spanish, thought about applying at hospitals for jobs, or as a court translator. She had worked for almost a year on a trial in New Mexico, had good references. I knew the case, and the judge and lawyer she had worked with. Famous case…an addict who shot a narc five times in the back and got off with manslaughter. We talked about that brilliant defense for a while, and I told her where to write about court translating.
Jesse came out with some guacamole and chips, a fresh drink for me, beers for them. She slid to the ground and he sat. She leaned back against his knees. He held her throat with one fine long-fingered hand, drank his beer with the other.
I will never forget it, the way he held her throat. The two of them were never flirtatious or coy, never made erotic or even demonstrative gestures, but their closeness was electric. He held her throat. It wasn’t a possessive gesture; they were fused.
“Of course, Maggie can get a dozen jobs. And she can find a house and her kids can all come home. Thing is they are better off without her. Sure they miss her and she misses them. She was a good mother. She raised them right, gave them character and values, a sense of who they are. They are confident and honest. They laugh a lot. Now they are with their Daddy who is very rich. He can send them to Andover and Harvard, where he went. Rest of the time they can sail and fish and scuba dive. If they come back to her, I’ll have to leave. And if I leave, she’ll drink. She won’t be able to stop and that will be a terrible thing.”
“What will you do if you leave?”
“Me? Die.”
The setting sun was in her brilliant blue eyes. Tears filled her eyes, caught in the lashes and didn’t fall, reflected the green palms so that it looked like she was wearing turquoise goggles.
“Don’t cry, Maggie,” he said. He tilted her head back and drank the tears.
“How could you tell she was crying?” I asked.
“He always knows,” she said. “At night, in the dark when I’m facing away from him, I can smile and he’ll say, ‘What’s so funny?’”
“She’s the same. She can be out cold. Snoring. And I’ll grin. Her eyes will pop open and she’ll be smiling back at me.”
We had dinner then. A fantastic meal. We talked about everything but the trial. I can’t remember how I got started on stories about my Russian grandmother, dozens of stories about her. I hadn’t laughed so hard in years. Taught them the word shonda. What a shonda!
Carlotta cleared the table. The candles were halfway down. She came back with coffee and flan. As we were finishing, she said, “Jon, may I call you counselor?”
“God, no,” Jesse said. “That sounds like junior high. He’ll ask me where my anger comes from. Let’s call him Barrister. Barrister, have you given some thought to this lady’s plight?”
“I have, my good man. Let me get my briefcase and I’ll show you just where we stand.”
I said yes to a cognac. They both were drinking whiskey and water now. I was excited. I wanted to be matter-of-fact, but I was too pleased. I went through the document and compared it to a three-page list of untrue, misleading, libelous or slanderous statements from the report. “Lewd,” “wanton behavior,” “lascivious manner,” “threatening,” “menacing,” “armed and dangerous.” Pages of statements which could prejudice a judge and jury against my client, which in fact had given me a distorted idea of her even after talking with Jesse.
I had a copy from the airport security saying that she and her clothing and bag had been thoroughly searched and no drugs or weapons had been found.
“The best part, though, is that you were right, Jesse. Both these guys have long lists of serious violations. Suspensions for improper use of force, beating suspects. Two separate investigations for killing unarmed suspects. Many, many complaints of brutality, excessive force, false arrest and manufacturing evidence. And this is only after a few days research! We do know that both these cops have had serious suspensions, were demoted, sent from beats in the city to South San Francisco. We will insist upon Internal Affairs investigations of the arresting officers, threaten to sue the San Francisco Police Department.
“So, let’s not just threaten them, let’s do it,” Jesse said.
I would get to learn that drink gave him courage but it made her more fragile. She shook her head. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
“Bad idea, Jesse,” I said. “But it is a good way to handle the case.”
The court date wasn’t until the end of June. Although my aides continued to get more evidence against the policemen, there wasn’t much we needed to discuss. If the case wasn’t dismissed, then we’d have to postpone the trial and, well, pray. But I still went over to the Telegraph apartment every Friday. It made my wife Cheryl furious and jealous. Except for handball games, this was the first time I ever went anywhere without her. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t come too. And I couldn’t explain, not even to myself. Once she even accused me of having an affair.
It was like an affair. It was unpredictable and exciting. Fridays I would wait all day until I could go over there. I was in love with all of them. Sometimes Jesse, Joe, and Carlotta’s son Ben and I would play poker or pool. Jesse taught me to be a good poker player, and a good pool player. It made me feel childishly cool to go with them into downtown pool halls and not be afraid. Joe’s mere presence made us all safe anywhere.
“He’s like having a pit bull, only cheaper to feed,” Jesse said.
“He’s good for other things,” Ben says. “He can open bottles with his teeth. He’s the best laugher there is.” That was true. He rarely spoke, but caught humor immediately.
Sometimes we walked with Ben in downtown Oakland while he took photographs. Carlotta got us to make frames with our hands, look at things as if through a lens. I told Ben it had changed my way of seeing.
What Joe liked to do was to sneak into photographs. When the contacts were printed, there he’d be sitting on a stoop with some winos or looking lost in a doorway, arguing with a Chinese butcher about a duck.
One Friday, Ben brought a Minolta, told me he’d sell it to me for fifty dollars. Sure. I was delighted. Later I noticed that he gave the money to Joe, which made me wonder.
“Play with it before you get any film. Just walk around at first, looking through it.
