Personal injuries

CHAPTER 23

Theday after Robbie's televised payoff of Skolnick, Stan had met with Chief Judge Winchell and played the tape for her. He wanted her to know Petros was on the right track, that Feaver's accusations were proving out. Stan's hope, yet again, was that she'd be willing to authorize the installation of a bug in Judge Malatesta's chambers. The Chief Judge was careful not to give him any advice; she was the judge, not the prosecutor. But Sennett felt that if he could specify a limited time frame, a few days in which the government was watching for a particular event, she'd sign the warrant. Therefore, Sennett sought Robbie's help in devising a scenario for an emergency motion, one Malatesta would have to rule on quickly, which would give the government an event to earmark in applying for the bug.

There were still two contrived cases on Malatesta's docket. Given Walter's warnings, they had remained largely dormant, supposedly snoozing along through the interrogatory stage in discovery. One of the cases, Drydech v. Lancaster Heating, concerned a gas water heater that had supposedly exploded in the barn of Robbie's client, a farmer. Drydech, based on an out-of-state decision Robbie had read, was known as `The Fart Case' around McManis's office. The planned defense was that combustion resulted not from the water heater but from a buildup of high quantities of methane emitted by a barn full of cows.

To create the emergency, Robbie now proposed that he file a motion to advance the deposition of a company engineer who allegedly had warned of the potential for flash explosions if the heater was installed in an enclosed space occupied by livestock. The motion would require an immediate ruling because the engineer, supposedly, was seriously ill and slipping downhill.

As soon as the papers were typed, Robbie and Evon dashed to the courthouse to file them and visit with Walter. The predicate for the bug would be a conversation, much like the one in Peter Petros's case, in which Feaver told Wunsch that the outcome of the lawsuit would hinge on Malatesta's ruling. The government would then watch to see how Wunsch brought this news to the judge and how Silvio reacted.

When they arrived, Walter was already in the courtroom, getting ready for a hearing at 2 p.m. Once court started, Robbie would have a hard time holding any conversation with Wunsch, and they galloped across the corridor. As Evon flew through the swinging door behind Robbie, she nearly knocked over a burly guy twice her size. He was somebody she'd seen around here before, a cop or a deputy from the looks of him. While she apologized, he stared incredulously, not so much angry as unaccustomed, Evon figured, to taking that kind of wallop from a female.

Walter was walking back and forth on the yellowish birch tier beneath the judge, with his customary ill-humored expression, giving directions to the bailiff and court reporter regarding the session about to get under way. Evon hung back, allowing Robbie to approach Wunsch on his own, although the voices were clear through the infrared. Handing over the motion, Feaver declared, between his teeth, "This guy is my case, Wally."

Walter's rumpled face shrank with distaste, but he said nothing. When Robbie asked how soon the judge would decide, Wunsch recited the court's rule on emergency motions: McManis would have two days to reply, and the judge could then take up to two days to rule. That meant he'd consider the motion on Thursday or Friday.

"You gonna ask me to add one plus one next?" Walter asked Robbie, before shooing him away.

When Stan called midday Friday to ask if Robbie and I could join him at McManis's, I figured we were being summoned for another celebration. But there were no upbeat greetings from the UCAs. In the conference room, both Jim and Stan sat with long faces. The dead gray eye of the video monitor was exposed in the red oak cabinets. When I asked what was wrong, the two looked at one another. Robbie arrived then, and even before he was seated, Stan pushed the button on the VCR.

The screen sprang to life with a black-and-white image. The date and time, down to tenths of seconds, were displayed in a running count of white block letters in the upper right-hand corner. The footage, whatever it was, had been taken at 5:05 pm. yesterday and the perspective was strange. The camera was positioned somewhere near the ceiling in a phony smoke detector, Klecker told me later-and the lens was a fisheye, foreshortening the sides of the room much like the gold-framed parabolic mirror that hung in my parents' foyer. The halftones blurred to white in the weak light.

Eventually, I recognized a large desk, ponderous as an anvil, with Old Glory and the county flag on standards behind it. Two figures were at the edge of the picture. When they moved into the frame, they were, as anticipated, Malatesta and Wunsch. The judge held a sheaf of documents, which, it developed, were rulings on various cases. Silvio, in his Harry Caray glasses, looked over each one, then entered his name at the bottom. Hanging over his shoulder, Walter picked up the order as soon as it was signed. As he went along, Silvio made remarks to Walter and himself. A settlement conference was due on this one. The trial in Gwynn would last a lifetime. In response, Walter showed none of the dourness so much in evidence elsewhere. While the judge worked, he was a fountain of compliments about the wisdom of each decision.

"Figures," Robbie said. "What a toady."

Klecker had entered and Stan waved at him to cue the tape ahead. When the imagery began moving forward again, Malatesta was taking some time with the draft order in his hands.

"What's this, Walter?"

"Drydech. You looked at the papers last night, after defendant filed, Judge. Remember? This is the case where the defense is that the cows had gas. It's some discovery baloney. Same as usual. Defendant's got his wheels in the mud."

Malatesta touched the center of his frames to push them back up on his nose.

"Walter, how do you keep track of these cases? I can't remember half of them. It's a blessing to have you. Remind me again of the issue here."

Walter explained that Feaver wanted to depose, out of order, an engineer who supposedly was on death's doorstep. "It's a complete blank, Walter."

"Judge, you read it."

"Did I?" Absently, Silvio tugged up the sleeves of his cheap shirt, which swam on him, and reset the garters over his negligible biceps. "Get the papers, Walter. I just want to be sure I didn't do something temperamental at the end of the day."

Malatesta had finished the stack of remaining orders by the time Walter was back with Robbie's motion and McManis's response. The judge shook his head as he read.

"Walter, I must have paid no attention at all. This is quite a complicated issue. I'm not sure that the defendant doesn't have a point." McManis had argued that it was unfair for Robbie to take the engineer's deposition before staking out a position on various technical issues related to the testimony. If Feaver wanted to expedite this dep, he had to expedite expert discovery as well.

Hovering behind the judge, Walter was silent at first.

"Well, all right, Judge. But one thing. The plaintiff here, Feaver, he's going straight to the Appellate Court."

Malatesta rolled back in his large chair. "Is he?"

"Straight up there. That's the impression he gave me. Says he can't put on his case without this engineer. He'll stipulate to a verdict and go right up."

"I see." Malatesta covered his mouth and studied Bobbie's motion again.

"I don't know, Judge, you're the judge, but you know, that whole appeal thing doesn't happen if you rule for the plaintiff. Why not see what this engineer has to say? If it's nothing much, Feaver loses. If it's hot stuff, the Appellate Court'll never reverse you. They'd have no use for a defendant tryin to sweep bad testimony under the rug."

"Well." Malatesta swung his head back and forth. "I'm sitting here to render my best judgment, Walter, not to handicap the Appellate Court."

"Yeah, well, naturally, Judge, but you know, you got such a great record. Judge Tuohey talks about that all the time. How you're leading the league upstairs. Nobody down in the Superior Court is close, Judge."

Malatesta, a man little inclined to laughter, actually giggled, an oddly childish sound.

"True, true enough, Walter. I saw Brendan last week and he was praising my name to three or four other judges, how well regarded I am up there. It was a trifle embarrassing, actually. Still, I confess I'm proud of my record. There are some very fine jurists here in the Superior Court, Walter. It's an accomplishment to be the least often reversed."

"And, Judge, I don't know, but I got it in mind the Appellate Court threw a case back in the last few days-I thought it was just like this. `Let the plaintiff have his discovery.' Ain't that what they usually say?"

"Well, yes, normally, Walter. But there has to be some even-handedness." Malatesta continued to deliberate. He fishmouthed and tapped on one cheek. "I don't see the parties citing a case like that."

"Just came down, I thought. Brand-new opinion. Not even published. What's the name?" Walter walked around, pounding his fingertips on his forehead. "Why don't I remember this?" he asked himself. "But they reversed whoever it was. Almost exactly like this case."

"A reversal?" Malatesta asked again.

Walter nodded soberly. In a gingerly way, Malatesta threw up his hands so as not to loosen his sleeves.

"You've got good sense on these things, Walter. I acknowledge that. Well, all right. File the order, Walter. First instinct's always best in this business. I granted the motion last night; that was probably the right thing to do."

"Right." Walter almost bowed as he turned heel.

Stan stopped the tape. He lifted his chin as he faced us. He asked what we thought.

"You're kidding, right?" Robbie answered. He'd been unable to hide his amusement for some time. "For Godsake, Stan, Walter's leading the poor little son of a bitch around by the nose. He's getting him to sign orders blind. Isn't that what it looks like? He goes and splits the money I give him with Rollo Kosic and has a laugh about how Silvio is thinking so hard he can't tie his shoes. And then Brendan, just to keep it all moving, Brendan comes along and pats Silvio on the keester for his great record of never getting reversed."

Behind Stan, McManis flashed me a look. I took it Bobbie's dialogue with Sennett was a replay of what had already gone on between Stan and Jim.

"So you mean you've been cheated all along?" Sennett asked.

"Cheated? Christ, Stan, who am I to complain? I get what I want. Walter takes the money and keeps it? So what? For me it's the same thing."

Sennett bristled. "It's hardly the same thing. A devious minute clerk isn't a corrupt judge." He cast a hard look at Robbie. "Not for either of us," he added with a menacing flash of candor. He was right. Walter was a flunky, both in the court of public opinion and in that of a sentencing judge.

"What I'm thinking," Sennett said, "is that you got made."

Feaver stared, insulted. The cover for the Project, maintained by huge mutual effort, was a shared treasure. The person who was detected as a government operative would have let everyone down.

"Think about it," said Sennett. "There must be a way they found out the camera is there. Walter knows he's rare roast beef, so he's helping Malatesta wriggle away. If-" He stopped, brought up short by our reactions. McManis and Robbie and I seemed joined in a moment of awe and wonder such as the Scripture describes, not of celebration or joy, but of amazement and dread. The power and speed of Stan's thinking and the way it could divert him from even the most glaring realities was stunning.

"What?" he asked, in response to the staring. He folded his hands and sat forward stiffly. "It's possible. It's completely possible," he said. "Completely."