Searches & Seizures Read online

  But I am merely a bailbondsman. I spring you, something neutral in the freedom I sell. At least you won’t be cornholed, or beaten by the guards, or have to eat the civic slime. For the time being and the duration of due process you’re your own man still, and may it serve you better than it did before. For the time being. Yes, I am chained to the calendar. I live by it. What your watch is to you my calendar is to me. As it happens, I got calendars all over the place, tools of the trade. I get them from garages (French maids in satin uniforms, their bloomers like white carnations), funeral directors (Audubon prints, Niagara Falls), banks (kids with fishing poles, covered bridges in New England), the Hong Kong tailors (panoramas of the harbor), insurance companies (views of downtown Hartford); from trucking firms and liquor stores and laundries. I hang them all in my shop, a storefront across from Cincinnati police headquarters. What views I have! Not a window in the place—the Venetian blinds, always drawn, across the width of the shop—but everywhere I look nature in its green abundance and staggering formations. You’ve come a long way from Phoenicia. But I don’t look. All I see are the numbers like seven columns of sums, the red Sundays like a bankrupt’s homework and the glowing, feverish holidays, New Year’s, Washington’s birthday, clean March, April, June and August. May’s flush Memorial Day and July’s gaudy Fourth and all the burning rest. I note who’s to appear where, circle when they show and the case is closed, and make a thick arrow where I’m disappointed. My calendars are like maps and I am secretary to the year itself, up on all its appointments.

  The shop looks as if it had once been something else—the source of its own calendars, perhaps, like a liquor store or a real-estate office. It never was. It was always what it is now. Like the sixteen other bondsmen’s offices in the three blocks around police headquarters and the municipal and federal courts. Your bailbond architecture is storefront gypsy, nigger church. The city has a referendum coming up next year, a proposal for a bond issue that would provide a new civic courts complex on some cleared land near the stadium. If it passes I’ll have to move—a nomad still—and if I can’t buy out the small one-man grocery I got my eye on, what I put up will look just like this place, a replica like a little tourist attraction. I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing a bond in one of those chrome and naugahyde bank manager places with their big notched-leaf plants and their clear aquariums with cruising iridescent fish. I need wooden desk from the high school teacher’s office, a broken set of unmatched folding card-table chairs, squat black telephones, a pencil sharpener on the lintel of the window, green metal wastebaskets, dirty linoleum, walls that will take the nails to hold my calendars and a bare floor that can stand up to my small, heavy safe. I need a toilet and washstand in something that used to be a closet, the scaly ceiling and the cheap glass ashtrays, plugs for space heaters and a transom over the front door like the place where they put the old air-conditioning unit in a barbershop. And a place for my arsenal. (I’m armed. I have what the cops have: pistols, mace, a helmet, handcuffs, a rifle, a cosh, even a bulletproof vest.) And shelves, of course, for my library of statutes from those three quarters of the fifty states where bailbonding is still legal. Like a clinic for the poor, something crummy and vaguely volunteer in the air. And tough.

  And this is what I seem to look like. Mid-fifties, a hairline like a tattered flag, and something in my mug placid and vicious, some kinky catered lust perhaps, used two times a month, say on fourteen-year-old black chicks, my cock moon-pulled, tidal-torn, and you think here’s a guy that turns the tables on those girls, who produces not the fifty he’s promised but the fiver that will not even cover their expenses, and a boot in the blackbird’s ass if she whines, power and cynicism planted there on my municipal kisser and in my eyes that puts me beyond law or retribution or redress, the mien of the mean, the phiz of the respectably ferocious, like a hunter who drinks sour mash. I look professional, you see, a cross between a railroad conductor and a deputy sheriff. You’d expect to see yourself fun-housed in my sunglasses. This is the look of me, the reputation I propagate with my cliché of a face, my death’s pan, the features actually trained into the face. Because the truth is your hood looks up to the impassive: he loves the anesthetized look of the deputy, the sober cosmetics of the hanging judge. Give the public what it wants; the customer is always right. Yes, and business never better. No complaints. Let them scream law and order, yell crime in the streets like the tocsin of a leper. Our times—here’s to ’em. Here’s to the complicated trade routes of the drug traffic, to micro-dot tabs of LSD, to folks’ vengeant itchiness as the discrepancies bloom apace and injustices shake the earth like underground faults. Here’s to moonshots and the confusion of priorities. To TV in the ghetto and ads in the glossies and whatever engines that raise expectations like the hard-on, and drive men up one wall and down the other. To hard times and our golden age of blood!

  I’m in the corridor of municipal court by 8:30 each morning, a half-hour before the judge begins to process everybody who was arrested the day before. The old hallway smells of disinfectant, though I can no longer smell it, haven’t smelled it for years, or tasted anything for years either—the twin senses reamed out long ago by ammonia, C-N, all the dirt poisons (I do not taste the liquor I stand the lawyers to, or feel its warmth, though I go ah, smack my lips, applaud on my belly my pantomimed thirst) steaming in pails, the heavy, old-fashioned wringers colorless as the pails themselves, as the bleached gray mops and handles.

  I see my colleagues, the other bondsmen. They confer with lawyers, approach relatives, those sad-ass poor who huddle there each morning, the faces changed daily but somehow the same, the questions the same, the complaints, the whiny tales of wages docked, not appreciating their small holiday, their kids wild in the hallway and the guards tolerant. (Can they chip marble or leave marks on such tough city property?) There’s no smoking but the Phoenician smokes, not tasting it though his cough seems to betray its effects—I seem marked for lung cancer—like some novice at the beach who does not feel the sun which that night will sear him, turning him red as those useless days on my calendars.

  Though I’m here at 8:30, by detaching myself from any single lawyer or group of relatives, by drifting around the hallway from clutch to clutch, I manage somehow to seem to have arrived later than the rest, to make a series of entrances, the spurious authority of the regular on me, the old-timer. It’s only here that I smoke, where no one else may. (I fixed the guard. Years ago I started to give him a hundred bucks a year for the dispensation. I take it off my taxes, a business expense, the cigarettes too.) I move about the crowded corridor, size up the still invisible prisoners by the impression their families make on me, kibitzing one and all, determining in advance whose business to seek out, whose to renounce. I like to see family there because that means roots, strong community ties, and cuts down the risk that a guy will skip, though too much depth on the bench is no good. A good mix is what I like best—a brother or brother-in-law there with the wife, maybe a first cousin. A solitary parent is good, even a girl friend if she’s attractive, one or two kids if they’re well behaved. I also take in the lawyer, culling the shyster from the bespoke, the man who’s already on the case—or even better, the guy on retainer, who doesn’t come downtown often. He’s the fellow I nod at, making my bid like a dealer at auctions, though I’m more amiable with the others. I come on strongest with my fellow bondsmen, distracting them, though from time to time there’s real business to discuss, something so big we have to split the bond. But standing in no one place very long, getting a feel for what I want by floating around like a guy at a party casing possibility.

  Dan Tucker’s in the corridor, a gray and handsome man, taller than the half-dozen bondsmen who circle him, chatting him up, trying to find out what an important corporation counsel like himself is doing in the halls. He sees me and waves.

  Dan and I go way back. During the thirties Dan was an ambulance chaser, a divorce man, a writer of wills, a house closer. It was in this very bui
lding that it happened, that I took fire. In the thirties they stole bread, they took sweaters in winter and galoshes in the rainy season, pails of fuel. The shoplifters were men—hunters, practically. A gentle age, the Depression. So it was, I forget exactly, but a day in winter, some cold day following some colder one, and there they were: the bread and sweater thieves out in force, or at least their relatives, the bread thieves and sweater swipers and fuel filchers, all that lot of conditional takers, nickers of necessities without a mean bone in their body—if anything the opposite, tender-hearted as raw liver, or their relatives I mean, that sad boatload of the dependent. Old Dan Tucker was there, well dressed as now, dapper in his graduation suit but coming in as much to get warm, you understand, as to round up a client. Who could pay? There wasn’t a retainer between the sorry lot of them, let alone a fee, so Dan was in off the street to chat up a pal probably, though there weren’t even any other lawyers around (that’s how bad times were, so bad that trouble drew no troubleshooters, rotten luck no retinue) and, dapper as he was, a little sad himself, as though if times didn’t change soon he might be busted for grabbing a loaf or an overcoat himself one day, and not many bail-bondsmen there to speak of either, for it’s a trade which follows the ego. Freedom and fraud go hand in hand, I think, liberty and larceny, hope and heists, spirit and spoils. So no bailbondsmen there to speak of, maybe one or two old-timers from the roaring twenties, bewildered now that Prohibition was off and gangland killings were down at par value. And the Phoenician’s angry, plenty mad, and the madder he is the more he needs to make himself an oasis. He’ll have an oasis. Let there be an oasis in this desert of mood, this sandy blandness of meager evil.

  “Oyez, oyez,” he shouts, erupts. “Make a circle, oyez. The pregnant here and the orphaned there, small orphans closer to the radiators, hold those smaller orphans’ hands, you taller orphans, be gloves to them, that’s it, that’s right. Now the feverish on that side and the coughers on this. Let’s get some order here. Where are my old people, my widowed mothers and my gassed dads? All right, all right, perfect the circle. Now the rest of you form according to your mood, despair to anger like the do re mi. The innocent next, the falsely accused, all those cases of mistaken identity and people whose alibis will stand up in court. Oyez, oyez. Are you an orphan, boy?”

  “Sir, I’m not.”

  “Who’s inside for you then?”

  “It’s my brother, sir.”

  “Stand next to that tall orphan. Oyez, are you formed? Are you arranged, oyez?” They shuffle a bit. “Is your tenuous connection to guilt orchestrated proper? I’ll find you out later but I’ll take your word. Can I have your word? Can I?”

  They nod, excited.

  “Good. Oyez. In a few minutes the hearings begin. They’ll let your people in, but they won’t let them go. It’s jail for the poor man, crust and water for the down-and-outer. I’m Alexander Main the Bailbondsman and you need me, oyez. See that man? The tall bloke in the stripy suit? Recognize him? Know who he is? Tip of your tongue, right? You know him. A big shot, the biggest. You read his name in the papers before you stuff them inside your clothes to keep the draft off. He goes to the night clubs. His photo’s in the columns. He’s had his picture taken more times than you’ve had hot dinners. His brother’s inside now, the cops have him. They keep him apart from your people, the brave men who steal to feed and clothe you. He’s with them now but he won’t be with them long. The judge will set his bail and I’ll pay it. A guy lucky enough to have work and see how he takes advantage? And what work! You know what he does? What this man’s brother does? He’s high up in the Cincinnati Reds and he defrauds the railroads and the club too. Worked out some deal on the fares with certain railroads and pockets the dough for the tickets. It’s very complicated, very tricky. I don’t know, I think the infield and bullpen travel on a child’s ticket. A buck for the line and two for the lining of his pocket. You know what that adds up to in a season? Thousands, oyez, thousands. So what’s he doing here, then? Stripy suit? He’s asked me to go his brother’s bond. Fifteen thousand and he could pay it himself, so what does he need me with my Jew’s hard terms and my tricksy vigorish? Because the rich man’s money is tied up is why. Because the rich man’s money is tied up and earns more than the lousy ten percent it would cost him to undo the knots. So his brother—if they are brothers; they live together, they say they’re brothers—comes to me.

  “Do what the rich do, you suckers. Do what the rich men do, my brothers. You, lady, you got a ring there, your wedding band. Should your husband rot in jail while Stripy Suit’s pal goes free? Give me the ring, my brother. I’ll go his bond too. The band for the bond. What have you got? I’ll take real estate, furniture, canned goods. Who’s still got a car? Anybody got a car? Raise your hands you got a car.”

  “I have a car. It’s up on blocks. Its tires are flat. There’s no money for gas.”

  “I’ll take it. This day your husband will be with you in paradise. I’ll take it. Done, oyez. Who else? Anybody else? Pianos then, a fiddle. An heirloom, maybe, from the good old days. A pile carpet, stamp collections, a rare song your grandmother taught you. Suckers, brothers, his lordship here comes because his principal’s tied up. These are your husbands and sons and fathers who are tied up. If this rich bastard won’t touch what is only his principal—they are brothers, they must be, in this light suddenly I see the resemblance—surely you won’t touch yours which is flesh and blood. Here’s pen, here’s paper. Write down what you have, make a list of what’s left, what you’ll trade for your sweethearts.”

  And they did. These good family people did and I took their possessions. And old Dan Tucker just stood by lookin’. And never raised a protest against a single thing I said. Dan and I go back.

  The court is convened and we file in.

  Slim pickings today. Basket and Farb have wasted my time and Dan Tucker is there only to have a word with the clerk. I salvage what I can, sign up Farb’s shoplifter and a few punks—maybe two hundred fifty, two hundred seventy-five bucks’ worth of business—then go to my office, call the main switchboard at the University of Cincinnati and give the operator the extension.

  “Yes, please?” A secretary.

  I wink at my own. “Your opposite number, Mr. Crainpool,” I tell him, my hand over the mouthpiece. “Put the chancellor on, Miss.”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “It’s his bailbondsman, Miss.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss, it’s the chancellor of the University of Cincinnati’s bailbondsman here, Miss.”

  “The chancellor is in conference,” she tells me nervously.

  “Suits me.”

  “Just a minute, please. Is this important?”

  “Life and death,” I say, shrugging.

  “May I have your name, please?”

  “The Phoenician. You tell that schoolteacher the Phoenician bondsman wants a word with him.”

  In seconds he’s on the phone. Conference dismissed.

  “Yes?”

  “Doctor?”

  “Yes?”

  “I read about the troubles, Doctor, and I’m calling to see if there’s anything I can do.”

  “The troubles?”

  “I take the campus paper. I have it delivered special in a taxi-cab. There’s going to be sit-ins, break-ins, rumbles you could read on the Richter scale. The Black Students’ Organization will fire the frat houses and sear the sororities. Weathermen in the meteorology lab, safety pins in the computers, blood on the blackboards. Professors’ notes’ll be burned, they’ll rip the railings in the cafeteria and pour weed-killer on the AstroTurf. What, are you kidding me? Mass arrests are coming. The night school students are spoiling for a fight.”

  “The night school students?”

  “They want the professors to take naps. They ain’t fresh in the evening classes. They need shaves, they say, their suits ain’t pressed.”

  “Listen, who is this?”

  “Mene, mene, tekel
, upharsin. If you don’t read your student newspaper, try your Bible. It’s Alexander Main, the Phoenician bailbond salesman. Listen to me, Doctor, the University of Cincinnati is a streetcar college. You don’t know what passion is till you’ve smelled it on the breath of the lower classes. Your kid from the middle class, he’s fucking around, his heart ain’t in it. His heart’s in the jukebox, his deposit’s down on a youth fare to Europe. Think, where does the big-time trouble come from? S.F. State, City College. It’s your greaseballs and Chicanos, Chancellor. I got my ear to the ground. The University of Cincinnati is the biggest municipal university in the country. She’s coming in like an oil well, it’s going to blow. Already I smell smoke. State troopers are coming, the Guard. Fort Benning is keeping the engines warmed. Are you ready for all this, Doctor? Where you gonna be when the lights go out? I’m telling you straight, you heard it here first, I think they got their eye on upwards of twenty-five hundred kids. What’ll your forty-five-grand-a-year job be worth you got twenty-five hundred students in jail who can’t make bond?”

  “Where do you get this stuff? I never heard anything like this.”

  “No. Sure not. I sit at the blower. All alone by the telephone, waiting for a ring, a ting-a-ling. I thought by now you’d have made your arrangements. But no, every day I come back from lunch I ask my secretary, Mr. Crainpool, ‘The chancellor ring yet, Mr. Crainpool?’ Mr. Crainpool says no. I call the phone company. ‘Is this line in working order?’ They tell me hang up, they’ll call back. The Bells of St. Mary’s, Chancellor! Loud. Clear. Could wake the dead. I know in my heart it’s only the service department of Ohio Bell, but I think no, maybe this time it’s the chancellor of the University of Cincinnati calling to do a deal. I wave Mr. Crainpool aside. ‘I’ll get it, Mr. Crainpool,’ I say, ‘it could be the big one.’ I pick up the phone. ‘This six-seven-eight, five-oh-one-two?’ All hope founders, zing go the strings of my heart. ‘Everything’s A-OK,’ I tell him. ‘Check,’ he says. ‘Roger and out,’ I offer.