“Mr. Brisbane, do you under—?”
“Yes.”
“Good. By the way, your driver’s license is from Alabama. What are you doing out here?”
“That’s my business. I’d like to contact a lawyer now. I’m not answering any questions. Like I said, I do understand those rights you just read.”
He knew that what they wanted was his local address and the location of his car. What they had was nothing. But the fact that he had run would probably be enough for a local judge to find probable cause and give them a warrant to search his premises and car if they knew where those were. He couldn’t allow that, no matter what.
“We’ll talk about your lawyer in just a moment,” Delpy said. “But I want to give you the chance to clear this up, maybe even walk out of here without wasting your money on a lawyer.”
She opened the duffel bag and pulled out the camera and the bag of Starburst candy the kids liked so much.
“What is all of this?” she asked.
“Looks pretty evident to me.”
She held the camera up and looked at it as if she had never seen one before.
“What is this used for?”
“Takes pictures.”
“Of children?”
“I’d like a lawyer now.”
“What about this candy? What do you do with that? Do you give that to children?”
“I’d like to speak to a lawyer.”
“Fuck the lawyer,” Sweetzer said angrily. “We’ve got your ass, Brisbane. You were taking pictures of kids at the showers. Little naked kids with their mothers. You fucking disgust me.”
Gladden cleared his throat and looked at Delpy with dead eyes.
“I don’t know anything about that. But I do have a question. I have to ask, where is the crime? You know? I’m not saying I did it, but if I did, I didn’t know taking photos of children at the beach was against the law now.”
Gladden shook his head as if confused. Delpy shook her head as if disgusted.
“Detective Delpy, I can assure you that there are numerous legal precedents that have held that observation of acceptable public nudity—in this case, a mother cleaning up a young child at the beach—cannot be transcribed as prurient interest. You see, if the photographer who took such a picture committed a crime, then you’d have to prosecute the mother as well for providing the opportunity. But you probably know all of this. I’m sure one of you spent the last hour and a half consulting the city attorney.”
Sweetzer leaned close to him across the table. Gladden noted the smell of cigarettes and barbecued potato chips on his breath. He guessed Sweetzer had eaten the chips on purpose, just so his breath would be intolerable during the interrogation.
“Listen to me, asshole, we know exactly what you are and what you’re doing. I’ve worked rape, homicide. . . but you guys, you are the lowest form of life there is on the planet. You don’t want to talk to us? Fine, no sweat. What we’re going to do is take you down to Biscailuz tonight and put you in with the general population. I know some people in there, Brisbane. And I’m going to put out the word. Know what happens to pedophiles in there?”
Gladden turned his head slowly until he was staring calmly into Sweetzer’s eyes for the first time.
“Detective, I’m not sure but I think your breath alone might constitute cruel and unusual punishment. If by chance I am ever convicted of taking photographs at the beach, I might make it a point of appeal.”
Sweetzer swung his arm back.
“Ron!”
He froze, looked at Delpy and slowly lowered his arm.
Gladden had not even flinched at the threat. He would have welcomed the blow. He knew it would have helped him in court.
“Cute,” Sweetzer said. “What we’ve got here is a jailhouse lawyer thinks he knows all the angles. That’s nice. Well, you’re going to be filing some briefs tonight, if you know what I mean.”
“Can I call a lawyer now?” Gladden said in a bored voice.
He knew what they were doing. They had nothing and they were trying to scare him into making a mistake. But he wouldn’t accommodate them because he was too smart for them. And he suspected that deep down they knew he was.
“Look, I’m not going to Biscailuz and we all know it. What have you got? You’ve got my camera, which, I don’t know if you checked, has no pictures in it. And you’ve got some ticket taker or a lifeguard or somebody else who says I took some photos. But there is no evidence of that other than their word. And if you just had them looking through the mirror at me, then that identification is tainted as well. It wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination an unbiased lineup.”
He waited but they said nothing. He was in charge now.
“But the bottom line to this whole matter is that whoever you had behind that glass, she or he is a witness to something that wasn’t even a crime. How that equates to a night in the county jail, I don’t know. But maybe you can explain that to me, Detective Sweetzer, if it isn’t too much of a strain on your intelligence.”
Sweetzer stood up, knocking his chair back into the wall. Delpy reached an arm over, this time physically restraining him.
“Take it easy, Ron,” she ordered. “Sit down. Just sit down.”
Sweetzer did as instructed. Delpy then looked at Gladden.
“If you are going to continue this, I’ll have to make that call,” he said. “Where’s the phone, please?”
“You’ll get the phone. Right after you’re booked. But you can forget the cigarettes. The county jail is a smoke-free facility. We care about your health.”
“Booked on what charge? You can’t hold me.”
“Pollution of public waterways, vandalism of city property. Evading a police officer.”
Gladden’s eyebrows went up in a questioning look. Delpy smiled at him.
“You forget something,” she said. “The trash can you threw into Santa Monica Bay.” She nodded in victory and turned off the tape recorder.
In the holding cell of the police station Gladden was allowed to make his call. When he held the receiver to his ear he smelled the industrial-strength soap they had given him to wash the ink off his fingers. It served as a reminder to him that he had to get out before the prints went through the national computer. He dialed a number that he had committed to memory the first night he had made it to the coast. Krasner was on the network list.
At first the lawyer’s secretary was going to put him off but Gladden said to tell Mr. Krasner that the caller was referred by Mr. Pederson, the name suggested on the network bulletin board. Krasner came on the line quickly after that.
“Yes, this is Arthur Krasner, what can I do for you?”
“Mr. Krasner, my name is Harold Brisbane and I have a problem.”
Gladden then proceeded to tell Krasner in detail what had happened to him. He spoke low into the phone because he was not alone. There were two other men in the holding cell, waiting to be transferred to the county jail at Biscailuz Center. One was lying on the floor asleep, an addict on the nod. The other was sitting on the opposite side of the cell but he was watching Gladden and attempting to listen to him because there was nothing else to do. Gladden thought he might be a plant, a cop posing as a prisoner so he could eavesdrop on his call to the lawyer.