Free Bronx Justice by Joseph Teller

Kingston?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSince you were twelve years old, can you remember masturbating even one time?”
    Darren opened his eyes, turned to Sandusky and raisedhis hand, as though signaling for a time-out. “I remembered,” he said. “I think I did it once since then.”
    Sandusky stopped the machine, walked over and undid the straps. “How old were you at that time?” he asked. “Thirteen?”
    â€œI m-m-must have been.”
    â€œOkay,” said Sandusky. “Let’s take a break.”
    Sandusky and Jaywalker met in the conference room again. Sandusky smoked nervously. Jaywalker feared the worst.
    â€œDoesn’t look good?” he asked.
    â€œHe’s just so damn tight. I’m going to have to try to get him to believe in the test a little more.”
    Jaywalker resumed his observation post as Sandusky returned to the test room. “All right,” he told Darren, “we’ve been going quite a while. I want to check the machine.” He hooked it up to Darren again. Then he produced seven oversized playing cards. Jaywalker could see that each one had a different number printed on its face. Sandusky shuffled them and fanned them out in front of Darren, facedown. “Take one,” he said, “without letting me see the other side of it.”
    Darren did as he was told. When he lifted the card to look at it, Jaywalker could see the number thirteen on it. He wondered if he was the only one who’d associated the choice with bad luck.
    â€œLook at it,” said Sandusky, “remember it and put it back. Don’t tell me what it is.”
    Darren complied.
    â€œNow,” said Sandusky, turning on the machine, “I want you to listen carefully to my questions, but answer ‘No’ to each one. No ‘Yeses,’ just ‘Noes.’ Understand?”
    â€œYes,” said Darren.
    â€œDid you pick the number three?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you pick the number five?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you pick the number seven?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you pick the number eight?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you pick the number ten?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you pick the number thirteen?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you pick the number fifteen?”
    â€œNo.”
    Sandusky had marked the graph paper following each response. Now he shut off the machine and studied the paper. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “You picked thirteen.”
    Jaywalker exhaled. Still, he had the feeling that Sandusky had said it a bit tentatively and was more pleased than he should have been when Darren confirmed that he was right.
    â€œGreat,” said Sandusky, once again removing the straps. “Let’s take one more break. The machine’s working perfectly. When I come back in, we’ll do the actual test.”
    In the conference room, Sandusky underscored his uncertainty by asking Jaywalker if Darren had in fact picked number thirteen. But neither of them mentioned the problem that was by this time evident to both of them.
    A CTUAL T EST Q UESTIONS AND
S UBJECT’S R ESPONSES
P OLYGRAPH E XAMINATION OF
Darren Kingston,
A DMINISTERED BY Gene Sandusky ON
October 25, 1979.

    The test was over. Sandusky turned off the machine and removed the straps from Darren. He made one final mark on the graph paper before tearing it from the roll and heading to the conference room. Jaywalker met him there.
    â€œAll right,” said Sandusky, lighting another cigarette. “I was afraid of this. We’ve got a problem here.”
    Jaywalker waited for the worst, the news that Darren had flunked cold. In his mind, he was already rehearsing his Okay-it’s-time-to-plead-guilty speech. The problem was, he was still thinking black and white, winner take all. And he was wrong.
    â€œI want Dick to take a look at these charts,” said Sandusky, referring to his mentor and