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no videotape.”
    “Did you talk with them about Scarborough before he was killed?”
    “We might have.”
    “Did you or didn’t you?” I ask.
    “Sure. Why shouldn’t we? No law against talking.”
    “What did you talk about? What did you say?” Harry now bores in.
    “We…we talked about the fact he was an agitator, causin’ problems, stirrin’ up trouble.”
    “Scarborough?”
    “Yeah. We got enough problems,” he says. “Mexicans crossin’ the border by the millions. Politicians sayin’ we can’t get ’em out. Illegals marchin’ in the streets, carryin’ Mexican flags, tellin’ us they own the country. Then this guy comes outta nowhere, with this book, trying to get the blacks all riled up so he can start the Civil War over again. Only this time he wants to put us in chains.”
    “And who is ‘us’?” says Harry.
    “The white people,” says Arnsberg.
    “And this is what you talked about with your friends?” I ask.
    “Yeah. He was a troublemaker. You asked me, so I told ya. If you wanna know the truth, as far as I’m concerned, he got what he deserved.”
    One thing is certain. Come trial, Arnsberg is not likely to be his own best witness.
    “So you talked about this with your friends when? How long before Scarborough was killed?” I ask.
    “I can’t remember exactly.”
    “How many times did you talk with other people about Scarborough?”
    “I don’t know. I can’t remember. Maybe a couple,” he says.
    “Twice?” says Harry.
    “I don’t know. Do you always know how many times you talked to somebody about something?”
    Harry wants a list of names, the people Arnsberg may have talked to in the days leading up to the murder, the places where they met, whether it was on the phone or in person, and how many witnesses were present.
    “So we talked about him. Doesn’t make me a killer.”
    “Ah, yes,” says Harry, “but there’s the rub. You don’t get to decide who the killer is. The jury does that. And I can guarantee you that they will be positively riveted by any information concerning things you might have said about Mr. Scarborough to others, especially in the period right before he was killed. They’re funny about that. Juries, I mean.”
    The kid doesn’t seem to like Harry’s sense of humor. I suppose it too much resembles lectures he’s gotten at school and in other places of authority.
    He turns to me. “The guy was stirring up crowds everywhere he went. You saw the news,” says Arnsberg. “Way he was going, sooner or later somebody was gonna nail him.”
    “There again you have a problem,” says Harry. “He wasn’t, as you say, ‘nailed’ somewhere else. This particular hammering took place in the hotel where you happened to work, and according to the cops all the evidence points to you being the last person in that room with him.”
    This from his own lawyer. The look on the kid’s face is a mix of anger and fear. “I thought you were here to help me,” he says.
    “We’re tryin’, son. But you have to give us the tools,” says Harry.
    “You got a cigarette?” Arnsberg looks at me.
    “I don’t smoke.”
    “Me neither,” Harry lies.
    People v. Arnsberg is the kind of case that is made up of hard circumstance, assorted pieces of physical evidence, and the fact that the defendant fits the expected profile of the killer like a fat man in stretch pants. Whether he did it or not, he can be seen to possess the kind of insane motive that is easy to peddle to an inner-city jury—blind hatred based on race. In fact, the evidence came at them so fast that the cops fell over themselves in a blind rush to arrest the defendant.
    To listen to the media, Arnsberg didn’t kill a person of color. He did something worse. He killed their self-appointed messenger, in this case a lawyer, author, and celebrity, all the ingredients to whip up a hot story, except for sex, and they’re relying on innuendo for that one. The media mavens are now calling the case