Bronx Justice by Joseph Teller Page B

tightly behind him. A minute or two later, he appeared in the testing room, followed by Darren. Jaywalker’s instinctive reaction was to lean back, away from the glass, certain he could be seen. But Darren’s gaze paused only momentarily at the mirror, without any sign of recognition.
    â€œAll right, Darren,” said Sandusky. “Why don’t you have a seat right here.” His voice was loud and clear through the speaker. If Jaywalker had earlier felt he was abandoning his client, he now had the sense that he was spying on him. But it didn’t occur to him to look away or cover his ears. Instead, he watched and listened intently as Darren sat down. He took his eyes off him only long enough to glance at his watch. It was 9:44.
    â€œNow,” said Sandusky, “this is the machine we’ve all been talking about.” He patted the polygraph affectionately. It was about the size of a large phonograph or old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and had wires that led to various attachments. At one end of the machine was a roll of graph paper, with needles balanced on it.
    Sandusky flicked a switch on the side of the machine. The paper began to move slowly. The needles didn’t.
    â€œYou see what it’s doing?” he asked.
    â€œIt’s dr-dr-drawing straight lines,” said Darren.
    â€œRight. How come a straight line?”
    â€œIt’s not turned on?” Darren guessed.
    â€œNo, it’s turned on,” said Sandusky. “See, the paper’s moving. But how come the lines aren’t moving up and down?”
    â€œIt’s not attached to anything?”
    â€œExactly. This machine does one thing, and only one thing.” Here Sandusky paused for effect. “It moves paper. You do the rest.”
    Sandusky began making adjustments to the machine, continuing to speak as he did so. “Darren,” he said, “put your right hand out in front of you and wiggle your fingers.”
    Darren obeyed.
    â€œVery good. Now your left hand.”
    Darren obeyed again.
    â€œGood. You’ve just used part of your nervous system. We have two types of nerves,” Sandusky explained, “voluntary nerves and involuntary nerves. By moving your fingers, you just controlled certain nerves in your hands. Because you can control them, we call them voluntary. Now,” he continued, attaching a blood pressure cuff to Darren’s forearm and inflating it, “notice that our machine works after all.”
    Indeed, one of the needles had come to life and was dancing up and down on the paper.
    â€œOkay, Darren, I want you to make your heart stop pumping for thirty seconds.”
    Darren smiled uncertainly.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” Sandusky asked.
    â€œI c-c-can’t.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œYou can’t stop your heart.”
    â€œPrecisely,” Sandusky agreed. “That’s because your heart is run by involuntary nerves. You can’t control them. And that’s all that this test is about, involuntary nerves. Things that happen inside your body that you can’t control.”
    Jaywalker couldn’t help but smile. It was mesmerizing. This guy could have been a terrific car salesman, he decided, or an awesome preacher. Or both. He could sell used Chevys all week and salvation come Sunday.
    Even as he’d been talking, Sandusky had attached a second strap to Darren’s other wrist, and two to his torso—one around his chest, the other around his midsection. “By the way,” he assured Darren, “none of this is going to hurt at all.” He taped a final strap to the palm of one of Darren’s hands. Each attachment—and there were now five of them—was connected by a wire to one of the needles, which moved visibly up and down on the graph paper and recorded Darren’s blood pressure, pulse, upper and lower respiration, and galvanic skin response…the electrical conductivity of the skin,