A Century of Great Suspense Stories

Legal fiction has become one of the most popular forms of entertainment these days. Lawyer-writers are everywhere, it seems. Certainly one of the most formidable is Steve Martini, whose bestsellers Compelling Evidence (1992) and Undue Influence (1994) launched a long run on various lists across the country. Martini is a solid constructor of complicated tales and his particular approach to his material has been much imitated, but in vain. He works in his own way, and writes fiction like no one else. His most recent work is TheJury.

The Climb

By the time he was twelve, Harvey had taken on the primal good looks of a predator — tall and handsome with chiseled features — so that by high school the girls were waiting for him. When it came to the fairer sex, Harvey always went for brains. A good body and a beautiful face were consolations if they could be found. But a good mind allowed Harvey to copy a girl’s assignments, and look over her shoulder on exams with no complaint. Like a sailor in every port, Harvey had a girl in every class.

He followed the pattern through college and into law school, where it became more difficult. Now the exams were not simple true-false or multiple choice questions. Now they required the originality of an essay, something in Harvey’s own words and sufficiently different from others so that he would not be caught.

But Harvey didn’t panic. Harvey never panicked. He relied on old talents and an innate genius for deception that seemed to come so naturally, from somewhere deep down inside.

Harvey struck up a relationship with the dean’s secretary. She was Harvey’s age, but without the prospects of a law school education. The girl became quite fond of him, and Harvey of her. After all, she possessed the combination to the dean’s safe. The safe possessed the questions to every exam, along with the model answers prepared by the professors. With no need to study, Harvey loaded up on units. Why waste time? In less than three years he graduated with honors, said good-bye to the secretary, and was on his way.

Now Harvey had to hurdle the bar examination. This was no mean feat for someone who had never studied in school or earned an honest grade. He had considered the problem for a long time, long before he ever left law school. What good was a law degree if he couldn’t use it to make money? Only 50 percent of the applicants who took the bar usually passed it on the first shot. Harvey had no intention of wasting time by taking the exam more than once. Besides, bar review courses were long and tedious. They cost money and offered no guarantees of a passing score. Harvey wanted a sure thing.

To this end he hired a private investigator, a slime-bucket named Jersey Joe Janis. Jersey Joe had skinny legs, a beer belly, and triple jowls. It was a physique that amused Harvey, something on the order of Ichabod Crane, only with a spotted tie and a tidy gut that hung over his belt.

Jersey Joe’s specialty was following married men to sleazy motels and taking pictures for anxious wives. His services cost Harvey only a small part of the price for a bar review course, and it guaranteed him a lock on the exam.

Janis posed as a gas company employee, uniform and all. He visited a small printing plant in the center of town and told the owner that the gas company had reports of a dangerous leak. The printer and his employees would have to vacate the building, but just for a few minutes. The leak was probably down the street. But still, to be safe...

It took Jersey Joe just ten minutes to collect a complete set of the bar exam questions, along with the model answers to each one. Harvey had discovered the state bar’s soft underbelly. They used the same printer every year, a relative of one of their executives. After all, isn’t that how everybody got ahead?

Harvey maxed the bar exam on his first shot. He set up practice in the city center, and specialized in a field for which he seemed to have a natural aptitude — the criminal law. Harvey never really understood why, but for some strange reason he seemed to empathize with, and gravitate toward, those accused of crimes. He grasped perfectly their perverse motivations and skewed logic, even as he scoffed at the slipshod practices that got them caught. Of course, that was why they hired Harvey.

Jersey Joe had stood him well, and so Harvey found other areas in which to employ the man’s talents. To be specific, in the offices of the county district attorney.

The law provided Harvey with what it called formal “discovery.” This required the state to disclose all of the documents and evidence they intended to use against Harvey’s clients in any criminal case. But Harvey wanted more. He wanted an edge, something that his competitors in the criminal bar didn’t get. He wanted access to the prosecutor’s theory of the case, privileged information that was the product of the other side’s work. He wanted copies of their notes and confidential correspondence, and the names of their witnesses before their recollection of events became locked in stone, while Harvey could still reach them, so to speak.

Jersey Joe played janitor at night. He planted listening devices in the offices of the deputy prosecutors and used good-looking young men to seduce secretaries in the D.A.’s office. With husky voices on overheated couches and steaming shag carpets, they plumbed the depths for office secrets, and compromised the D.A.’s staff to obtain confidential information.

Within a short time, Harvey knew what prosecutors were thinking before they did. He quickly developed an uncanny record of courtroom victories, outflanking the state on points of evidence, and slamming its witnesses with earlier inconsistent statements.

Prosecutors who could not beat him started dealing with him, giving up cases, rolling over like trained dogs on a stage. Harvey became a principal player in the criminal courts, and soon branched out. He began taking high-dollar civil cases. Other lawyers took heed of him. Some took his measure, but didn’t like the odds. Using Jersey Joe, and unknown to his adversaries, Harvey was plucking their files and tapping their phones.

Aware of Harvey’s talents but mostly of his amazing intuition at trials, judges began to cut him more slack in the courtroom, as if he needed a further edge. Harvey learned that in the practice of law, a reputation for winning goes a long way. That and a little bluster, which he had in abundance, drove most of his opponents to their knees early. Harvey became known as a man who did his homework. What others didn’t know is that it was being done by Jersey Joe.

Harvey joined the silk-sock set. Invited to become a partner in a major downtown law firm, he found a whole new set of clients, upper-crust, waiting for him in the tony skyscraper on K Street. Suddenly he was surrounded by powerful lobbyists and corporate high-rollers. Harvey had made it to Gucci Gulch.

For seven years Harvey led a charmed life, vacationing in the best resorts, running with the chic crowd. He counted among his friends the powerful and wealthy, an elite cadre of celebrities and a growing number of influential politicians. He was courted on television talk shows, where he boosted Harvey-authored books touting his legal prowess, never revealing that the words between the covers were ghostwritten by others.

Harvey was appointed to corporate boards, and joined the best clubs. The law school from which he graduated magnum cum cheatum named Harvey as an honorary regent. He received an offer, an appointment to the bench, a tribute that he magnanimously declined. After all, what good would Jersey Joe be there?

In any gathering, Harvey’s repute as a top-gun lawyer preceded him, until one evening he climbed the highest peak.

After shaking loose with some coin come election time, Harvey met the top couple, and one night found himself sawing wood in the Lincoln Bedroom — a friend of the family.

Now he numbered among his patrons the most powerful man in the land. Harvey was appointed to high commissions and became an advisor to the mighty. Such was his celebrity that he was asked to add his name to the list of partners in an even more powerful law firm, where retired cabinet members hung their spurs of state to turn a profit in the practice of law. He had arrived, and on the door it read:

The Crime

The world came crashing down because of a missing tag from a Chinese laundry.

It was early on a Sunday afternoon when Harvey received the call. There was an urgent problem. It was the White House. It seemed the President needed Harvey’s help.

They met beyond the black iron fence with its spear-tipped points, over the manicured lawn long dead beneath a blanket of snow. In that great white house they stood toe to toe, Harvey and the great man. He was ushered to the inner sanctum and offered a seat on a couch before a crackling fire in that grand elliptical room.

“Some coffee or tea?”

Harvey politely declined.

“Perhaps something stronger?” asked the President.

Harvey shook his head. He wanted to cut to the chase.

The presidential problems were no mystery to any who followed the national scene. The man’s troubles had begun not with a single act but a series of events. Any one of these taken alone might be almost laughable, but together they eroded presidential credibility in the way that glacial grinding carves canyons.

By the time Harvey was called, there were those in Congress who were talking of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the language of impeachment.

All things considered, the man was in deep trouble. Still there were compensating advantages. The President was the repository of power in the mightiest nation on earth. Not a bad friend to have, thought Harvey. No doubt he would have been in jail, except for the fact that he deftly controlled all the levers of power.

He had an attorney general who provided cover by the hour. Whenever scandal got too close, and there was fear he might be nailed, a friendly government lawyer popped up, and some other goat would be unveiled.

To Harvey, if the ability to thwart the law wasn’t enough, the President had personal strengths to boot. He was the very soul of affability. He possessed the hail bluster of a fellow well met, a disarming smile and the wily mind of one who had weathered many a political storm. Harvey had always been struck by the man’s uncanny ability to wiggle away from scandal, usually over the bodies of others, and always with moves befitting a belly dancer.

Harvey admired him greatly! In fact they looked a lot alike, same size and build, brothers under the skin. An affinity that had been planted in their very first meeting, a crowded reception at which the President seemed to notice only Harvey. It was as if there were no one else in the room.

Harvey assumed it must have been his natural magnetism.

The President was tall and handsome, with the generous motions of practiced greatness about him. He possessed the fluid animation of a pope, except that when he committed sin, he offered absolution to others.

No matter the accusation, his poll numbers kept rising. Public sympathy for the man flowed like a babbling spring.

Standing in that great house, Harvey incisively appraised the man’s situation.

Invented by his spin doctors, these evasions had become the mottoes of his administration, like E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust. What was even more mystifying to Harvey was that the public bought it. As he listened to the chief of state, excuses flowed like silken mercury from the man’s tongue. Harvey realized why it was that the people ate from his hands like pigeons in a park.

The President’s face could assume the full flush of humor as if even the most serious charge was a matter of mere amusement. When things heated up and necessity required, he could work up a healthy head of righteous indignation, a variation on the theme:

“How about a cigar?” The President opened a humidor and offered one to Harvey.

“Cuban made and rolled. I get ’em from Guantánamo. Under the fence, as they say.”

“Wouldn’t mind,” said Harvey as he reached into the box and took one.

“Take a few. They’re small.”

Harvey helped himself. The President already had one; he lit up and blew. This was the man who had only recently stood on the stump and eviscerated the tobacco industry. He looked at Harvey as if he could read minds.

“Cigars don’t count,” he said.

They laughed to one another, the way great men do. Just a couple of power people.

Two smoke rings settled like halos over the President’s head before they slowly dissipated. This might have been a premonition of things to come, had Harvey been paying attention.

They settled down to business. The President puffed and blew.

“With all of my current problems, I don’t need any more. By the way, do we have attorney-client privilege?” He said it as if it were an afterthought, before cleansing his soul.

Harvey assured him that they did.

“Fine. That’s fine. I just wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to use government lawyers. I didn’t know who to trust. It’s a serious matter, national security and all.”

Harvey’s eyebrows arched as he lit up.

“It will require a great deal of discretion. Total secrecy,” said the President.

“I understand,” said Harvey.

After a long pause and some serious puffs of dense blue smoke, evidence of considerable distress, the President spoke.

“I suspect that one of my cabinet members is selling state secrets. Which one, I can’t be sure. I need somebody on the outside who can be my eyes and ears. Someone I can trust to get to the bottom of this thing quickly. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the FBI is a mess.”

“I know.” If the agency were up to snuff, the man talking to Harvey probably would have been in jail.

“Why me?” asked Harvey.

“You seem to have a knack at trials to get the evidence you need to win your case. That’s the kind of thing I need now. You know. Someone who can fill in all the blanks with the right information.”

Harvey couldn’t be sure, but he thought for a second that the President had actually winked at him. Perhaps it was some mythic secret sign used by the powerful, like the Masonic handshake or rapper talk. Then again, maybe it was just a nervous twitch. Still, Harvey didn’t want to be thought of as a hick. He did the natural thing. He winked back, and then quickly rubbed his eye, as if he had an itch.

Immediately the President smiled. It was a sign. Harvey had been initiated into the fold.

“Then you’ll help me.”

As a lawyer Harvey’d spent a lifetime building up his name. How could he refuse without diminishing his fame?

“I’m glad to find a man who understands duty.” The President rose from his chair and put his left hand firmly on Harvey’s shoulder. Then, with his right, he pumped Harvey’s hand three or four times with enthusiasm, like he was trying to bring up water out on the prairie.

“Together you and I, we’ll find this spy. And if you are successful,” said the President, “you can write your own ticket.”

That word seemed to bring the great man back down to earth, to the crisis at hand. It was what had caused the predicament in the first place — a missing Chinese laundry ticket.

It all started on a summer day, the kind of day that made the capital famous, hot and humid. It began in the commercial laundry of Too Fu Waun.

A thousand-dollar suit, pinstripes and worsted wool, had somehow become separated from its laundry ticket. The man doing the pressing saw one on the floor and assumed the obvious, pinning it on the coat’s lapel.

The suit in turn was shipped to its owner in accordance with the ticket, and received by a sergeant-at-arms at the Capitol, where it was promptly hung on a hook in the senate cloakroom. At the end of the day it was collected without question by one Senator Smooch. He took it home and hung it in his closet. It wasn’t until two weeks later when he tried it on that he discovered the suit didn’t fit. The pants were too tight and the arms too long. What troubled him most was what he found in the suit coat pocket; a signed check, made out for two million dollars, drawn against a bank in Hong Kong. It was stapled to a note:

Senator Smooch tried on the coat again, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make it fit.

The President indeed had a Teflon coating, for Smooch as it turned out was a friend. The call he placed was to the White House. After getting agreement from the President not to veto the senator’s heartfelt bill for a deepwater port in Smooch’s home state — Nebraska — the senator turned the pants, the coat, the lapel pin, and the check over to the White House.

Now the President and his people were going to get to the bottom of it. Harvey was assured that he would get full cooperation.

“I don’t understand one thing,” said Harvey. “How did the pin get there?”

“Presidential pins are given out as favors to friends and supporters. But those particular pins,” said the President, “they were only given to members of my cabinet.”

“Ahh.” Suddenly Harvey understood.

“Too Fu Waun is an agent for a foreign government,” said the President.

“How do you know that?”

“Trust me,” said the chief, and winked at him again.

This time Harvey got it. It was national security. Details were being parceled out on a need-to-know basis. The President figured Harvey didn’t need to know. In fact he said he didn’t know himself. It was better that way. Then, if he was called before a federal grand jury, said the President, he couldn’t be expected to remember what he never knew. To Harvey it all seemed very confusing. Still, he really didn’t care.

“We know that the suit belongs to one of my cabinet members. The problem is, we don’t know which one. You can see my problem,” said the President. “I can’t exactly go around the table and ask which one of them’s been committing treason.”

“It would be a start,” said Harvey.

“They’d lie to me.”

“All of them?”

The President ignored the question and played his trump card. “If the press finds out, they’ll have a field day.”

“There you’ve got a point,” said Harvey.

“What I need is for you to use your skills, your discretion, to find out who that suit belongs to.” He pointed to a chair in the corner behind Harvey. There on a hanger covered in dark plastic hung the dreaded garment.

He shook Harvey’s hand one final time, and led him to the door.

“This should be no problem for a top-notch lawyer like you. Like a walk in the park,” said the President. “All in a day’s work.”

The man was very smooth, thought Harvey. He used your own pride like a crowbar for leverage.

The Slime

In this case Jersey was up and running so fast that even Harvey was surprised. Within hours he had a plan, and was ready to go. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for Harvey to show up. But then this was no surprise. Jersey had a deceitful mind, the kind that always seemed to work overtime.

The plan was ingenious in its simplicity, artfully thought out and filled with duplicity. In short, it was a gem.

Jersey pretended to be a photographer doing a layout for Gentlemen’s Quarterly. It was a piece on “The People of Power,” something politicians couldn’t resist. Dropping the names of a few movie stars who were also going to be in the piece as bait (Jersey found this opened doors), he began to work his way through the cabinet, visiting their homes and offices with cameras slung about his neck.

Of course he came armed with the ultimate “power suit.” Every major world leader was wearing it. Hadn’t they heard? The ripped sleeve was the latest thing from Italy.

Even if it didn’t fit he wanted to see if the colors worked on them. As soon as it became a stretch to get on the coat, Jersey would move out, claiming he’d left his film behind, or needed better light. He would call another day, and bring his crew next time.

Two weeks went by and Harvey didn’t hear a word from Jersey Joe. He was getting a little nervous, so he called. There was no answer from the man, so he left a message on his tape. Jersey had never failed him. Why would he start now?

Days went by and no call came back. Now he was getting worried. Harvey continued to pursue him for days, leaving messages and trying all of Jersey’s haunts. He was becoming increasingly anxious. After all, the President was expecting results. It wouldn’t do to keep him waiting.

Harvey had learned never to question Jersey Joe’s tactics. The man was a master of deceit, well trained in the various forms of low ethics. Besides, he had a good point. It could indeed be a member of the fairer sex. After all, espionage was one of those crimes more in keeping with the female mind, not something manly and aboveboard — like embezzlement.

Even though he trusted Jersey, something prompted Harvey to poke around a little on his own. In later years he would often wonder what caused him to go to the laundry of Too Fu Waun. Maybe it was a sudden flash of mental telepathy. Harvey himself wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was just that little nagging voice inside that told him something was wrong, not ethically wrong, but some detail out of place.

Waun’s laundry was a dark place, and real steamy. It reminded Harvey of his last date at a drive-in as a teenager. As with the face of the girl he’d taken out, he could make out only faint images of the person on the other side of the counter. It was that hazy.

Harvey introduced himself and said he was checking on a missing piece of laundry. Then he described the pinstriped suit to a tee. He did everything but produce a picture.

“I get boss,” said the man across the counter. He was obviously not the owner.

A moment later the steam evaporated as someone turned off a noisy piece of equipment in the back of the shop. Harvey was surprised. The man who approached did not appear to be Asian. Harvey wanted to see the man Waun himself. This guy was tall, a big man, and light-skinned like Harvey. He propped himself against the other side of the counter, looked over at Harvey, and smiled.

“Hi. I’m Harry Tool. Maybe I can help you.”

Harvey looked him up and down, and refused to play the fool. “I’m looking for a missing suit. I’d like to talk to Mr. Waun.”

The man smiled. “There is no Mr. Waun.”

“If he’s out, I can come back,” said Harvey.

The guy looked at him. Now he was getting a little mean around the eyes. “I told you, there’s no Mr. Waun.”

“Right,” said Harvey. “That’s why his name is all over your window. And the plastic clothing covers.” He picked one up off the counter, as if to make his point.

“I told you there’s no Mr. Waun. Now if you got clothes to clean, fine. If not, there’s the door.”

Harvey’d spent a lifetime in court. He knew when someone was lying.

“Listen. All I’m looking for is a little information. Get rid of your help here and I can make it worth your while.” Harvey nodded toward the Asian standing behind Tool.

Tool looked at his helper, but made no move to dismiss him.

Harvey lifted his wallet from his inside coat pocket and slid three twenty-dollar bills across the counter as a show of good faith.

Tool seemed mystified, but he still didn’t dismiss the Asian. “I don’t know what you want. What do you think I can tell you?”

“I simply want a couple of minutes with Mr. Waun.”

Tool took the three bills and just like that slid them into his shirt pocket. All of this was done brazenly, right in front of the Asian help.

“Now what do you want to know?”

Harvey didn’t want to talk in front of the help. After all, blood was thicker than water. Tool might sell out his boss. Harvey wasn’t so sure about the Asian.

Tool didn’t give him a choice. “You got two minutes of my time.”

“You’re telling me you’re Mr. Waun?”

“No. But for sixty bucks I’ll pretend.”

“I paid you good money to see Mr. Waun.”

“And I told you there is no Mr. Waun.”

“Then what’s his name doing...?”

“It’s a sales gimmick. Don’t you get it?” said the man. “Too Fu Waun.”

Harvey still didn’t understand.

“Two for one,” said the man. “You get two suits cleaned and pressed for the price of one.”

Harvey forced a smile, but there was a sinking feeling in his stomach, like there was something sick deep down inside. For a second he thought Tool might be lying. But “two for one”? That was too lame to be made up. He swallowed hard, and tried to look cool. Then he did the only thing he could think of. He described the pinstriped suit one more time in hopes that Tool would remember it.

“We get a lot of pinstriped suits,” said Tool. “You’d have to be more specific.”

Suddenly there was a glow of recognition, not from the man Tool, but instead from his assistant:

Harvey’s eyes got wide and his throat got dry. An electric charge flashed through him like the confusion of a deer when the lights hit him, in that instant before the bumper arrives.

Without another word, he left the shop of Too Fu Waun and in a panic started running down the street toward his car. Harvey had to get away. He had to find Jersey Joe.

Before he could get to his car, two men stepped out of a side alley. One of them flashed credentials in a wallet.

“FBI. You’re under arrest. You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you...”

While the one man read Harvey his rights, the other cuffed Harvey’s hands behind his back. Instantly a dark car pulled up at the curb, and the two men pushed him roughly into the backseat.

Harvey’s brain struggled to take it all in. He sat in the back of the car in a daze, and stared out the window at the crowd that was assembling to gawk at the caged criminal the FBI had just arrested.

It was like an out-of-body experience, as if he were floating somewhere in space over the dark unmarked car. Harvey couldn’t believe that this was happening to him.

In Harvey’s case, justice was swift and the trial very quick. Because it involved espionage and national security, it was closed to the public and the press.

In deference to his high office, the President was allowed to testify on a special closed-circuit television hookup. He was a very busy man. The fate of the nation was in his hands.

His cross-examination was televised from Camp David and lasted only twenty-five minutes. On the big screen, as Harvey watched, the President explained that he had a pressing engagement.

To Harvey it seemed that he emitted an almost sinister smile as he said the word pressing. He was meeting with the Premier of China and some Asian business leaders for an important round of golf. And afterward they were going to discuss a number of important foreign-trade issues.

Harvey knew what kind of “trading” was going on. He had everything but the evidence.

The government’s case against Harvey was straightforward and clear. The FBI claimed they caught him in the act, exiting the forbidden Chinese laundry where the infamous suit with the check in the pocket had been laundered. According to the government, he was trying to cover his tracks. Harvey, they said, was the leader of an infamous spy ring.

The President filled in the last missing piece of this puzzle: the notorious lapel pin bearing the Presidential Seal. Yes, he did recall it. It was truly a collector’s item. You see, there were only four of them in this style that had ever been made, at the President’s own personal expense, of course.

They’d been given only to generous campaign contributors, people who had slept in the Lincoln Bedroom. The other three were all accounted for. The only one that was missing was the pin given to Harvey.

Of course this was a lie. Harvey knew the truth, but how could he prove it? The President had carefully laid the trap and covered all the tracks. It was the reason he’d seized on Harvey in that very first reception. It wasn’t because of Harvey’s generosity, or the fact that they were spirits of a kind. It was because of Harvey’s size and build. The President realized that his suit, the one his valet had stupidly delivered to the laundry with the check still in the pocket, and which had mistakenly been returned to the senate cloakroom, would fit Harvey perfectly.

The President had found his pigeon — and just like the public, he had Harvey eating out of his hands. Now Harvey would pay the price.

The final insult came when the defense put on its case. Harvey called Jersey Joe to the stand. It was his only chance. After all, Jersey was the one person who knew the truth — that Harvey had been framed by the President.

Jersey took the stand, put his hand on the Bible, and swore he’d tell the truth.

“Have you ever seen this suit before?” The lawyer held it up in a clear plastic bag.

“Nope.” Just like that. Without hesitation.

Harvey’s lawyer was flabbergasted. Harvey was stunned.

“You do know this man?” The lawyer pointed to Harvey sitting at the counsel table.

Jersey squinted from the stand, lifted his glasses to look closely at Harvey.

“He looks like somebody who might have invited me to his office once a long time ago, but I can’t be sure.”

Jersey hesitated for a moment.

“No. On second thought, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. In fact I’m sure of it.”

Harvey’s head fell into his hands at the table. He was lost.

It wouldn’t be until months later, long after Harvey was sentenced, that he finally discovered what happened. Jersey Joe had been named Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

It was a new twist on an old story — “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Only in this case it was Harvey who’d been caught in his BVD’s.