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The monthly banquet of the Black Widowers had proceeded its usually noisy course and then, over the coffee, there had fallen an unaccustomed quiet

Geoffrey Avalon sipped at his coffee thoughtfully and said, "It&039;s the little things - the little things I know a couple who ht have been happily married forever He was a lay reader at an Episcopalian Church and she was an unreforave each other a cross look over that But he liked dinner at six and she liked it at seven, and that split them apart"

Emmanuel Rubin looked up owlishly fro behind thick lenses, and said, "What&039;s &039;big&039; and what&039;s &039;little,&039; Geoff? Every difference is a little difference if you&039;re not involved There&039;s nothing like a difference in the tie"

Mario Gonzalo looked coden Nash once wrote that some people like to sleep with theclosed and some with theopen and each other is whom they marry"

Since it was rather unusual that at any Black Widowers banquet three successive comments should be made without an explosive contradiction, it didn&039;t really surprise anyone when Thomas Trumbull furrowed his brows and said, "That&039;s a lot of horsehair When a e breaks up, the trivial reason is never the reason"

Avalon said mildly, "I know the couple, Tom It&039;s my brother and sister - in - law - or ex - sister - in - law"

"I&039; that they don&039;t say they&039;ve split over a triviality, or even that they don&039;t believe it," said Tru deeper If a couple are sexually corave difference in beliefs or attitudes, then they&039;ll stick together If any of these things fail, then the in to chafe at trivialities The trivialities then get blaer Halsted, who had been chasing the last of the apple pie about his plate, now cleansed his ht stickiness with a sip of black coffee and said, "How do you intend to prove your statement, Tom?"

"It doesn&039;t require proof," said Tru "It stands to reason"

"Only in your view," said Halsted, war pinkly, as it always did when he waswo &039;Isn&039;t it a riot?&039; in and out of season I swear she had no other flaw"

"You&039;d be perjuring yourself unconsciously," said Trumbull "Listen, Jim, call a vote"

Jaarette and looked amused His small eyes, nested in finely wrinkled skin, darted around the table and said, "You&039;ll lose, Tom"

"I don&039;t care if I win or lose," said Trumbull, "I just want to see how many jackasses there are at the table"

"The usual nuree with Tom raise their hands"

Trumbull&039;s arm shot up and was the only one to do so "I&039;ht "How about you, Henry? Are you voting?"

Henry, the unparalleled waiter at all the Black Widower banquets, smiled paternally, "Actually, I was not, Mr Trumbull, but it I had voted, I would have taken the liberty of disagreeing with you" He was passing about the table, distributing the brandy

"You, too, Brutus?" said Trumbull

Rubin finished his coffee and put the cup doith a clatter "What the devil, all differences are trivial Forms of life that are incredibly different superficially are all but identical on the biochemical level There seems a world of difference between the wor the atoms that make it up, both of them"

Trumbull said, "Don&039;t wax poetical, Manny, or, if you e and not here I suspect jackassery is universal but, just to "

Drake said, "Let&039;sthen It&039;s tiuest was Barry Levine, a small man, dark - haired, dark - eyed, slim, and nattily dressed He was not exactly handsoood substitute Gonzalo had already sketched his caricature, exaggerating the good cheer into inanity, and Henry had placed it on the wall to join the rest

Trus of ours to ask our guest, to begin with, to justify his existence I shall dispense with that since I will assume that your reason for existence at the moment is to back me up, if you can, in- that trivialities are trivial"

Levine shtly nasal voice, "Trivialities on the hu about earthwor about humans, if we omit Manny"

"In that case, I join the jackassery, since, in my occupation, I am concerned almost exclusively with trivia"

"And your occupation, please?"

"I&039; by arguing itnesses and with other lawyers in front of a judge and jury And that irowled, "You consider justice a triviality, do you?"

"I do not," said Levine, with equanimity, "but that is not e are directly concerned in the courtrooames We attempt to make favorable testimony admissible and unfavorable testi and cross - exa of favorable jurors, and then we et We try to play on the prejudices and tendencies of the judge as we know them to be at the start or as we discover them to be in the course of the trial We try to block the opposition attorney or, if that is not possible, tohis hand We do all this with the trivia and minutiae of precedence and rationale"

Trumbull&039;s tone did not soften "And where in all this litany of judicial recreation does justice come in?"

Levine said, "Centuries of experience with our Anglo - American syste run and on the whole, justice is served In the short run, and in a given specific case, however, it e the rules of the game to prevent injustice in a particular case reater level of injustice on the whole - though once in a while an overall change for the better can be carried through"

"In other words," interposed Rubin, "you despair of universal justice even as a goal of the legal profession?"

"As an attainable goal, yes," said Levine "In heaven, there may be perfect justice; on Earth, never"

Trued in a particular case, you are not the least interested in justice?"

Levine&039;s eyebrows shot upward "Where have I said that? Of course I am interested in justice The iets the best and ive him, not merely because he deserves it, but also because American jurisprudence demands it, and because he is deprived of it at your peril, for you uilty or innocent, for he is legally innocent in every case until he is proven guilty according to law, rigorously applied Whether the accused is morally or ethically innocent is a much more difficult question, and one hich I am not primarily concerned I aht, there will be ti of revulsion toward my client It is then my duty to advise him to obtain another lawyer

"Still, if I were to secure the acquittal of a man I considered a scoundrel, the pain would not be as intense as that of failing to secure the acquittal of a fully accused Since I can rarely feel certain whether a fully accused or is a scoundrel past redemption, it benefits both justice and my conscience to work for everyone as hard as I can, within the bounds of ethical legal behavior"

Gonzalo said, "Have you ever secured the acquittal of someone you considered a scoundrel?"

"On a few occasions The fault there lay alal collection of evidence, or their slovenly preparation of the case Nor would I waste pity on them They have the full machinery of the law on their side and the boundless public purse If we allow theal of evidence and the tightest of cases simply because we are anxious to see a scoundrel punished, then where will you and I find safety? We, too, h force of circumstance or of prejudice"

Gonzalo said, "And have you ever failed to secure the acquittal of sofully accused?" Here Levine&039;s face seemed to crumple The fierce joy hich he defended his profession was gone and his lower lip seemed to quiver for a ed in a case right nohich my client may well be convicted despite the fact that I consider hifully accused"

Drake chuckled and said, "I told you they&039;d get that out of you eventually, Barry!" He raised his voice to address the others generally "I told hi here was sub rosa And I also told hiht be able to help him"

Avalon stiffened and said in his most stately baritone, "Do you know any of the details of the case, Jim?"

"No, I don&039;t"

"Then how do you knoe can help?"

"I called it a possibility"

Avalon shook his head "I expect that from Mario&039;s enthusiasm, but not from you, Jim"

Drake raised his hand "Don&039;t lecture, Geoff It doesn&039;t become you"

Levine interposed "Don&039;t quarrel, gentlemen I&039;ll be pleased to accept any help you can offer, and if you can&039;t, I will be no worse off Naturally, I want to ih confidentiality may be the rule here, it is particularly important in this case I rely on that"

"You may," said Avalon stiffly

Truet down to it Would you give us the details of the case you&039;re speaking of, Mr Levine?"

"I will give you the relevant data My client is named Johnson, which is a na fictitious naht have heard of this case, but I rather think you haven&039;t, for it is not a local case and, if you don&039;t mind, I will not mention the city in which it occurred, for that is not relevant

"Johnson, my client, was in debt to a loan shark, whoh of a personal relationship to be able to undertake a personal plea for an extension of time

"He went to the hotel room that the loan shark used as his office - a sleazy room in a sleazy hotel that fit his sleazy business The shark knew Johnson well enough to be willing to see him, and even to affect a kind of spurious bonhorant the extension This meant that when Johnson went into default he would, at the very least, be beaten up; that his business would be vandalized; that his family, perhaps, would be victimized

"He was desperate - and I a you Johnson&039;s story as he told it to me - but the shark explained quite coolly that if Johnson were let off then others would expect the same leniency On the other hand, if Johnson were made an example of, it would nerve others to pay pro debts they could not repay It was particularly galling to Johnson, apparently, that the loan shark waxed virtuous over the necessity of protecting would - be debtors from themselves"

Rubin said dryly, "I dare say, Mr Levine, that if a loan shark were as articulate as you are, he could ood a case for his profession as you could for yours"

Levine said, after a momentary pause, "I would not be surprised In fact, before you bother to point it out, I iven the reputation of lawyers with the public, people hearing the defenses of both professions ht vote in favor of loan sharks as the more admirable of the two I can&039;t help that, but I still think that if you&039;re in trouble you had better try a lawyer before you try a loan shark

"To continue, Johnson was not at all i to extract blood fro the stone for failure to bleed He broke down into a rage, screa out threats he could not fulfill In brief, he threatened to kill the shark"

Tru us Johnson&039;s story, I assu the threat"

"Yes, he did," said Levine "I told him at the start, as I tell all my clients, that I could not efficiently help hi to a crime Even after such a confession, I would still be coht, at worst, for the least punishht be entitled and, at best, for acquittal on any of several conceivable grounds

"He believed me, I think, and did not hesitate to tell me of the threat; nor did he attempt to palliate or qualify it That i i h in h liars to feel confident of the truth when I hear it And, as it happens, there is evidence supporting this part of the story, though Johnson did not know that at the time and so did not tell the truth merely because he kneould be useless to lie"

Trumbull said, "What was the evidence?"

Levine said, "The hotel roo at the top of his voice A maid heard just about every word and so did a fellow in an adjoining roo to take a nap and who called down to the front desk to cou on What evidence is there that it was Johnson as shrieking?&039;

"Oh ample," said Levine "The desk clerk also knows Johnson, and Johnson had stopped at the desk and asked if the shark were in The desk clerk called him and sent Johnson up - and he saw Johnson come down later - and the news of the death threat arrived at the desk between those two periods of tiless It served, in fact, e and to deflate him He left almost immediately afterward I a"

Rubin stirred restlessly He said, "That&039;s nonsense Anyone is capable of killing, given a e or terror and a weapon at hand I presume that after Johnson left, the loan shark was found dead with his skull battered in; with a baseball bat, with blood and hair on it, lying on the bed; and you&039;re going to tell us that you&039;re sure Johnson didn&039;t do it"

Levine held up his glass for what he indicated with his fingers was to be a touch more brandy, smiled his thanks to Henry, and said, "I have read some of your murder mysteries, Mr Rubin, and I&039;ve enjoyed them I&039;m sure that in your mysteries such a situation could occur and you&039;d find ways of de the suspect to be innocent This, however, is not a Rubin mystery The loan shark was quite alive when Johnson left"

Rubin said, "According to Johnson, of course"

"And unimpeachable witnesses Themurdered in the next room, and the desk clerk sent up the securityh he is not an intellectual type, he is perfectly competent to serve as a witness He knocked and called out his identity, whereupon the door opened and revealed the loan shark, whom the security man knew, quite alive - and alone Johnson had already left, deflated and de - energized

"The man at the desk, Brancusi is his name, saw Johnson leave a few seconds after the security man had taken the elevator up They apparently passed each other in adjoining elevators Brancusi called out, but Johnson merely lifted his hand and hurried out He looked white and ill, Brancusi says That was about a quarter after three, according to Brancusi - and according to Johnson, as well

"As for the loan shark, he came down shortly after four and sat in the bar for an hour or more The bartender, who knew him, testified to that and can satisfactorily enumerate the drinks he had At about a quarter after five he left the bar and, presumably, went upstairs"

Avalon said, "Did he drink enough to have beco to the bartender He ithin his usual li drunk"

"Did he talk to anyone in particular?"

"Only to the bartender And according to the bartender, he left the bar alone"

Gonzalo said, "That doesn&039;t ht have o into the elevator alone?"

"Not as far as we know," said Levine "Brancusi didn&039;t happen to notice, and no one else has ad him, or has come forward to volunteer the information For that matter, he may have met someone in the elevator or in the corridor outside his room We don&039;t know, and have no evidence to shoasn&039;t alone when he went into his room shortly after a quarter after five

"Nevertheless, this two - hour period between a quarter after three and a quarter after five is highly significant The security guard who encountered the loan shark immediately after Johnson had left at a quarter after three, found the shark cou important Then, too, the barman insists that the loan shark&039;s conversation and attitude throughout his time in the bar was noruments"