But this
time I gave in. Adelson said he would drive, and since I retired I haven’t seen
some of these faces in a while. So to the Hollywood Freeway; for forty years my
stream of unconsciousness, the same stultifying route into the sun in the
morning and back home into the sun at night. The first years I lived on the
west side and the trickling stream was the 10, but of course into the sun
morning and night. Always west to east. (Maybe it would have been better to
live in Pasadena or somewhere else on the east end to have the sun behind, but
that never happened to me.)
I have
avoided going downtown, even to visit my sister and nephew in their high rise pieds-a-terre. As a passenger now, I had
time to peruse the side of the freeway, appalled at the detritus that has
accumulated since I last made the trip. When I first moved from NY to LA in the
mid 1960’s, I was amazed at the bright cleanliness of the streets and highways.
My streets had always been grey, dirty, cracked, made more so by the lead gray
light. But now the litter overwhelms any effort to clean up. Graffiti is the
best of it; the trash dumped from cars, from apartment windows, over chain link
fences, all testify to a city that has copped a plea and accepted defeat.
The worst
is the human detritus, the blue homeless tarps and shopping carts that litter
every shadowed space, under overpasses. Sunset itself is a shabby avenue of
tired facades, signs of surrender to age and loss. Shuttered shops, rehab
centers, bare lawns and peeling paint.
I recall my
first morning drive to the CCB after returning from our trip around the world.
A year had past. I felt so different, but everything seemed the same, as if I
had been on some Einstein time warp voyage. But there was a difference. On
Broadway, near Temple, a man slept in a cardboard crate, an absurd table lamp
near his head, as if he had turned out the light before retiring on the
sidewalk. I had never seen that before in LA, but had seen it in Calcutta.
Adelson
insisted on being early because he hoped to meet with someone he could cajole
into signing a letter to help a wrongfully convicted prisoner. The first to
arrive was Chris Chaney and we chatted for quite a while before the place began
to fill up. Chaney is one of the best people in any gathering, a decent, kind
man who takes troubled foster kids into his family. He also defends murderers
for a living.
Herb Barish
showed up, wearing the same three-piece suit he has worn for forty years. Herb
was one of the PD lunchroom group back in the dim Pleistocene epoch. His
cynicism challenged my own for bitterness honors. Once we argued over who was
sexier, Linda Carter or Bella Abzug. Like Chaney, Herb is still practicing,
although he never has accepted a capital case. Maybe that is why he hasn’t
changed in all this time.
The room
filled with faces that were familiar, though now lined and weathered. Paul
Horgan who was in my law school class after starting as UCLA’s fullback the
year before. Perlo and Cobb and Horn and Rucker who were already PD’s when I
came to the Hall of Justice to sit in Horton’s office. There was “Handsome
Harry,” who used to have a Cary Grant tan; now has a Danny DeVito stoop. Harry
reminded me that I had refused to vote for Humphrey in 1968 because he refused
to oppose the war. I admitted that was a mistake that I didn’t repeat last
year. Brad Brunon told Mike Crain about the case we tried together in which
Mandel, the schmuck, tried to help the DA by screwing our clients. (I last saw
Brad when he was on Spector and I was trying my last capital case across the
hall.)
The affair
is hosted by the fellows that some call the Irish Mafia, fitting because Jim
Cooney was the epitome of Irish wit; a craggy face, ragged white eyebrows, an
ever present cigar and whiskey wit that croaked out gems of wisdom that kept
you smiling. He was the stuff of legend and his cigar is kept aflame by his
acolytes. Most are the sons of the auld sod: Tynan, Horgan, Enright, Shannon,
Murphy, Rucker. John Yzurdiaga, (nicknamed “John Xyz”) is one of the hosts
although he is a Basque. (The Basques can challenge the Irish drink for drink
and for a love of freedom and tall tales.)
They told
the old war stories starring Cooney. Like: In a multi-defendant trial, Cooney
stopped a young defense lawyer from asking too many questions (starting with
one to a cop beginning with the forbidden “Why . . .?”and messing up the
case by grabbing the youngster by the tie and croaking a loud whisper: “Shut
the fuck up!”
Bob Savitt,
a retired DA, told about a case in which he opposed Cooney and after hearing
Cooney’s final argument that exposed the fatal flaw in the prosecution, Savitt
asked his second chair to take the verdict, which he knew would be not guilty.
Rick and
Louise Santweir and Mike and Chris Shannon were there. Louise reminded me about
an evening the six of us spent in San Francisco many years ago. “I’ll never
forget how sweet and wonderful Bea was that night,” Louise said. “It’s stayed
with me ever since.”
It was good
to recall times of laughter and camaraderie. Maybe it is a bit like old
warriors reliving their youthful adventures after surviving it all. I was
surprised to learn how many are still at it so many years after signing up for
Medicare. Sure, they kvetch about pains . . . and how it isn’t the way it
used to be . . . but travel and grandkids and hobbies can’t sub in for the
courtroom.
We were the best and brightest for a
long time. Some of us were like Willie stumbling around the outfield for the
Mets, so we pulled the plug. But others are still hanging in there. Still
pretty damn good.
