58 – Boston
Ben Shapiro had put off visiting Howie Mandelbaum at the Charles Street Jail to deliver the unpleasant news of his meeting with District Attorney Patrick McDonough. It was looking as if Mandelbaum was going to be the only person to face criminal charges in the courts of Massachusetts for the Coast Guard deaths. Shapiro hoped to get the charges dropped, even if it meant Mandelbaum would be shipped to the detention camp on Cape Cod. At least there he would be treated the same as the other detainees. How bad could that be, Shapiro thought. After all, in the long run they were certain to be found to be nothing but refugees from war, from persecution. This country takes such people in every day.
But that was not to be. Instead, Mandelbaum was going to be indicted under state law for murder or conspiracy to commit murder or some such criminal charge as if he were some gang-banger picked up on the streets. As a result, Shapiro had no choice but to treat the case like every other criminal case, build his facts, file some motions and either plead his client out if he could work a deal or roll the dice in front of a jury. In any event, the wheels of Massachusetts justice turned slowly and Mandelbaum was facing at least six months behind bars before anything was likely to happen with his case.
Even though Shapiro had visited scores of incarcerated clients, he was stunned by the change in Mandelbaum’s appearance from the last time he saw him. All hints of cockiness were gone. He did not walk, but shambled, as if his feet were held together by invisible chains. He looked at the floor, unwilling to make eye contact with anybody, with the guards on either side who brought him to the interview room, or even with Shapiro, when the two sat facing each other in the small wooden chairs with attached writing arms.
“Howie, what happened to you?” Shapiro asked softly. He’d left their last meeting with a sour feeling about this client. The lack of enthusiasm he felt when he arrived at the jail vanished instantly and his heart went out to the young man, who continued to stare at the floor as if his head were too heavy to lift high enough for him to look straight ahead.
“Are you all right, Howie? Speak to me. Do you remember me, Howie? I’m Ben Shapiro, your lawyer.”
The young man continued to look at the floor as he spoke softly, almost too softly for Shapiro to hear him.
“You’ve got to get me out of this place. Please, please get me out of this place. They’ll kill me if I stay here. Get me out. Can you please get me out?” He began quietly crying, so softly, gently that Shapiro was unsure whether he was crying at all. Shapiro reached out and placed his hand under the young man’s chin, then gently lifted his face until they were eye to eye with one another.
“What happened, Howie?” Shapiro asked gently.
“They raped me. Lots of them. Lots of times. And the guards just turned their backs.” His sobs were louder now, shaking his shoulders.
“Mr. Shapiro, please help me. They keep talking about Jew this and Jew that, about Jews killing Americans and about setting up camps, camps like the Nazis did. They talk about finishing the job this time. It’s hell, Mr. Shapiro. It’s Goddamn, fucking holy shit hell here.”
Mandelbaum wrapped his arms around his chest and rocked in his chair, sobbing louder now, all restraint gone. Shapiro reached out to touch the young man’s shoulder. Mandelbaum flinched back from that touch, then looked up at Shapiro, his eyes flat, dead, cold.
“There’s a bunch of them and the guards unlock their cells and unlock my cell and whenever they want they come into my cell, in the middle of the day and the middle of the night and they hold me down and they rape me. They stuff underwear in my mouth so I can’t scream and they hold my arms and, and, oh God, Mr. Shapiro, I’ve stopped fighting them because I can’t stop them and I just let them do it to me now because I can’t stop them.”
Mandelbaum’s head dropped slowly to the wooden arm of the chair, then he lifted his head and slammed it down on the wood surface, his forehead striking with a thud. He lifted his head again and slammed it down, harder, then lifted it again. Shapiro leaped forward and grabbed the young man’s head between his hands, using his strength to keep it from striking downward again. Mandelbaum’s forehead was red, the skin mangled. Blood was starting to ooze out in several spots.
Shapiro reached into his back pocket, removed a handkerchief and pressed it against the man’s forehead. He reached for the man’s right hand and brought it, lifeless by now, to the handkerchief.
“Stop that,” Shapiro shouted. “Here, hold that, now, hold that. Get control. We don’t have a whole lot of time.”
The shouting, or perhaps the stern tone of Shapiro’s voice, focused the young man’s attention. He looked up, still holding the now-bloody handkerchief to his forehead.
“I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to help me. I apologize,” he said. “I can’t take much more of this, though.” He sighed deeply. “OK. What’s happening with the case? How much longer do I have to stay here?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have very good news for you, Howie,” Shapiro said. “I met with the District Attorney and got absolutely nowhere with him. He’s going forward with criminal charges against you. We’re going to have to treat this like a criminal case. I’ll speak with witnesses for you and collect evidence and we’ll probably be going to trial. I don’t see much choice.”
“That’s OK, Mr. Shapiro. I don’t mind going to trial. I didn’t do anything, not a thing except push my way onto that boat and then jump in the water when somebody said jump. That’s good news. Great. We’ll have a trial. Let’s go. Can we do it before the end of the week. I’ll have to hold out for just a few more days, right?”
Shapiro saw hope brighten the young man’s face like a searchlight finding its target. The man’s back straightened in the chair and his head lifted.
Shapiro knew he’d be dashing this hope.
“It doesn’t work quite like that, Howie,” Shapiro said softly. “You haven’t even been formally indicted yet. The DA has to put your case before the grand jury. I can guarantee they’ll indict you. Grand juries always indict. When I was in the DA’s office I used to brag that I could get the grand jury to indict a grilled cheese sandwich.
“But that’s going to take a while. He’s got to get his witnesses lined up and this isn’t an ordinary case that goes in with one cop testifying. My guess is you won’t be indicted for another month or so. Then after that you’ll get arraigned before a judge and then the DA will have a while, several months at least, to get his case together. Nothing is happening right away, Howie.”
“No, don’t say that, Mr. Shapiro,” the young man’s eyes filled with tears once again. “How long is this going to take?”
“I can’t say exactly, Howie, but at least six months before trial, maybe twice as long if the DA gets a judge who’ll give him that much time. There’s nothing we can do about that. From what he told me when we got together, the DA isn’t much interested in a plea. Its not like you could give him any information that he needs for another case, he said, since the feds grabbed up everybody else from those ships.”
“This isn’t fair, Mr. Shapiro.” The man’s voice was taking on a tinge of hysteria as he thought about returning to his cell. “I had nothing to do with anything. It isn’t fair. How come they aren’t going after the ones who did it, instead of me. This isn’t right, you know.”
Shapiro looked up from his yellow legal pad, on which he’d been making notes.
“Howie, what do you mean about the ones who did it? Do you know who did it, who fired at the Coast Guard?”
“Yeah, sure I do. It was the soldiers, the IDF guys. The guys and that one girl. She was OK. We hung out together on the ship all the way over, sort of had a little thing going, you know.”
“Are you telling me there were Israeli soldiers on the ships, that the soldiers were the ones who fired at the Coast Guard?” Shapiro was interested now, seeing a possibility that did not exist before.
“Of course there were soldiers,” Mandelbaum said. “Everybody knew who they were. They pretty much organized things, set up the rotation for meals and work and cleanup assignments. They had their own space all the way at the front of the ship. They kept all their shit up there, you know, their army stuff. Nobody was allowed up there unless you were one of them.
“Well, pretty much nobody. There wasn’t a whole shitload of privacy on that ship, you know. And when this girl, Dvora her name was, well when Dvora and I needed a little privacy she took me up there when all the others were out organizing stuff. Man, they had some heavy duty shit there, you know, Uzis and grenades and these rocket things. They were ready for anything, man.
“I know who they all are, the soldiers. Once I started hanging with Dvora I spent a lot of time with the rest of them, too. Why, can this help me?”
“Maybe, Howie. Let’s give this some thought. It at least gives us something to bargain with.” Shapiro hesitated. “Howie, how would you feel about identifying these soldiers if it meant they would be charged with pretty heavy crimes, maybe even crimes they could be executed for? Would you do that, Howie. I suppose what I mean is, could you do that?”
For the first time in their meeting the young man looked Shapiro directly in the eyes.
“Mr. Shapiro, I’m going back to that stinking cell after you leave and before you are out the front door one of those guys is going to be pumping his cock in my asshole and laughing his head off. And that’s if I’m lucky. If I have to spend the next six months here, I’ll be dead by the time I go to trial.
“Are you going to play some morality game on me because I don’t want to let that happen? Give me a break. They chose to fire at those boats. Nobody made them do it. If anybody has to pay the price for that, let it be them, not me.”
“Well, I guess that’s pretty clear,” Shapiro said, rising to his feet. “Let me see what I can do.” He reached for the young man’s hand. Mandelbaum clung to Shapiro’s hand so long the lawyer thought he would have to pry his client’s fingers open. As Shapiro walked from the conference room, leaving Mandelbaum sitting in his chair, the young man stood, looked at Shapiro and spoke quietly.
“Mr. Shapiro, I’m not a bad person, you know. When you walk out the front door of this building, think about what they’ll be doing to me at that moment. I don’t deserve that, do I?”