A Question of Identity

Around the Earth, and above it, too, from South Africa and Franz Joseph Land to the satellite stations adrift through the black morning, two hundred million pairs of eyes focussed on the gaunt figure that moved so deliberately across the television screen.

In the glass-fronted TV booth, where the 80-year-old Edward R. Murrow had created something of a stir by his unexpected appearance a few moments earlier, newsmen stopped talking to let the viewers see and hear for themselves what was happening.

Jake halted in front of the witness stand, both hands cupped over the gold head of the cane that had been his trademark, in and out of court, for most of a half century. The shaggy mane of white hair, once as black as the coal in the West Virginia mining country of his birth, stood out like an incongruous halo above the bone ridges of his face. The jutting nose, the forward hunch of his body accentuated the impression he always gave of being about to leap on a nervous witness. The magnificent voice, which could thunder, rasp, weep and persuade in all the registers of eloquence, now phrased his first question with disconcerting softness:

"What is a man?"

The prospective juror, a Bronx appliance distributor with sagging jowls and perpetual tension lines around his mouth, started visibly.

"I--I beg your pardon?"

Again Jake Emspak gently phrased his question:

"What is a man?"

The distributor, who could wake up out of a sound sleep and address a sales meeting of unhappy dealers, opened his mouth and closed it again. Jake waited patiently, rocking a little on the point of his cane.

Finally, the distributor said:

"I can't answer that--right off...."

"Thank you," Jake said mildly.

He turned to Judge Hayward and nodded his acceptance of the juror.

Up in the TV booth, Murrow smiled to himself and listened to his colleagues chew over the familiar questions: Why had Jake Emspak, the "million dollar mouthpiece", taken a cheap case like this away from the Public Defender? Who would possibly pay him enough to defend a punk like Tony Corfino--a bungling hoodlum who had killed two bystanders in a miserable attempt to rob a bank?

The Judge noted acceptance of the juror, then brusquely recessed court until 10 A.M. Monday.

The timing was excellent. Jake smiled with satisfaction, and his smile was like the slash of a paring knife across the skin of a dried apple.

He walked with Tony Corfino and the bailiff as far as the prisoner's gate.

"Don't worry," Jake said.

Tony's eyes were wide and bewildered, like the eyes of a confused child--or of an old man not quite certain whether he is awake or dreaming.

"I ain't worried," Tony replied. As he walked, there was the crackling sound of a bone twisting in a stiff joint.

From under his shaggy brows, Jake studied him carefully, and was content with what he saw. Tony could have been very young, or very old. Undoubtedly he was both, with a lot of in-between, Jake thought suddenly. The tangle of black, curly hair was the hair of youth. The cameo-smooth skin had the waxed perfection of an expensive doll. But the mouth and lips were still puffy, sensuous. And the eyes--Jake Emspak, for all his knowing, couldn't be sure about the eyes. Silently, he addressed a memo to himself: Check on the eyes.

At the prisoners' gate, Tony faced him.

"I ain't worried," he repeated. "It's just--well, I don't see why you're takin' my case--I can't pay anythin'...."