Personal injuries

CHAPTER 29

My plan to save Petros-and Robbie – required him to withdraw at once from practice. He would never again see clients, go to court, or sign documents. There was no other alternative. Even if we could somehow wangle Robbie's law degree, BAD, Bar Admissions and Discipline, would never license someone whom they'd inevitably discover had been illegally masquerading as a lawyer for the last twenty years.

Accounting to Dinnerstein for Robbie's changed status would require a pretty fancy story, but whatever we cooked up, Mort was virtually certain to keep the news about Bobbie secret so that opponents did not attempt to take advantage of him while he was scrambling to hire another courtroom lawyer to replace Feaver. In the meantime, Bobbie could still pass money to Crowthers, through Judith McQueevey, and to Gillian Sullivan, who was about to resume the bench and was still owed for her favorable ruling in the case transferred to Skolnick. More important, Robbie could remain a player in whatever endgame Stan aimed at Kosic and Tuohey. That in turn would give me the leverage I needed to bargain. Robbie was all but certain to end up in the penitentiary; my goal now was to minimize his time.

Most of my negotiations with Stan were conducted during our resumed morning trots in Warz Park. Neither winter darkness nor anything short of a blizzard deterred Stan from running, but I had taken a few months off until the weather eased. Now I met him there several times to talk things through. Although UCORC threatened for a week not to allow the Project to go on, they were in too deep, with too much money expended and too much crime uncovered, simply to throw everything aside. Ultimately, Stan and I agreed that the government would no longer promise Robbie probation. Instead, they would advise the sentencing judge of all relevant matters-Robbie's extraordinary cooperation and the full range of his misfeasance, including his unlicensed law practice-and let the judge impose whatever sentence the court found appropriate. My best guess, when the whole story came out, assuming there were some significant convictions, was that Robbie would do about two years inside. The restitution order relating to Feaver's unlawful practice might be staggering, but most judges would let the financial issues fall out in the inevitable morass of civil law suits for fraud that the insurance companies would file. Even with all that resolved between us, Stan needed D.C. to sign off.

"We accept," he finally advised me one morning in the middle of May. "But there's one more condition you're not going to like." Somehow, Sennett finished six miles every morning looking a picture of order. He had perfect equipment-neopropylene shorts and a sleeveless jersey, footgear the size of snowshoes, and a water bottle in a holster at the small of his back. His wiry Mediterranean hair was unmussed and his sweat always seemed to evaporate. His cheeks were already razored clean. Now he gave me his elevated look, chin ascendant, attempting to appear impregnable in the face of my expected complaints.

He had many excuses for what he proposed. Every prosecution, he said, even Skolnick and Crowthers, was in danger. The government could probably beat back the inevitable defense motions blaming them for Robbie's fraud, but the chances had grown significantly that a jury might just flush the cases out of disgust with Feaver. The future of Petros, therefore, rested more than ever on justifying the government's deal with this devil by demonstrating the widest ranging success in uncovering corruption. Yet they'd already lost Malatesta, and Feaver was done going to court on the contrived cases, since that wouldn't square with his pose with Dinnerstein. Instead, Sennett had a plan for a new matter, a fictitious motion to reopen one of our old cases, a motion in which Robbie's role, in essence, would be not as a lawyer but as a defendant under attack.

"It'll have to be heard by the Special Motions judge." Stan watched to see how long it would take before I got it, then he confirmed the worst. "We want him to try to fix Magda."

He was right. I didn't like it. We stood in the park fighting for quite a while. He had no predication, I pointed out, no reason to think Magda would corrupt herself. But he claimed that D.C. had decided the long-concealed personal relationship between the judge and a lawyer appearing regularly before her met the threshold. He said this actually had been UCORC's idea.

To me the whole business sounded like trial by ordeal, the medieval ritual where the hands and legs of a suspected witch were bound before she was thrown into a pond to see if she could float. Stan took my criticisms the way he usually did-without patience.

"George," he answered, "how many times, how many hundreds of times have you had a guilty client walk away? Not an acquittal, but some guy we just never found out about. How many scared-shitless executives have you had in your office, a guy who's caught a subpoena and is terrified about what might come out if he's asked the wrong question, or a fellow who's in the middle of a divorce and gets a spastic colon every time he thinks about all the naughty secrets his angry ex might spill? You've had a thousand of them, George. And they stroll. Most of them. Because we never know. It's not that we can't catch them all. The truth is we hardly catch anybody. And so it goes, George. I can't get ulcers over what I don't know about. But when I do know, George, then I've got a responsibility. It's not my job to be a sweet guy or say it's just an accident we found out. It's my job to protect the folks who live in this district. I'm not supposed to hope Magda won't do something worse in the future. It's my job to catch her, if she deserves to be caught."

His intelligence kept his self-image as spotless as stainless steel, but I gave him a hard look that rang up No Sale.

"I told you, you wouldn't like it," he replied as he turned to jog back to his car.

Robbie, bless him, said no.

"She's not a crook. I'll give them crooks. But I'm not going to try to sucker an honest person just because she's dumb enough to like me."

I loved him for it, I admit. It wasn't brass or the flatulent bluff of a coward. He was ready to do the extra time, years, frankly, it would cost him to defy Sennett. I admired his fortitude and his loyalty, uncertain whether, in his circumstances, I'd have the same resolve. And then I did what I had to as his lawyer. I explained why he had to go along.

If Robbie was anything other than a remote-control automaton, the government would have no choice about pulling the plug on the Project. They were taking a risk as it was, because a defense lawyer already had a howitzer load to lob at them, portraying the U.S. Attorney as the naive handmaiden of the worst kind of double-dealing snitch. Allowing Robbie to veto their selection of targets would just go to prove that point and pave the way for disaster in front of a jury.

"But Stan would give up a vital organ for Brendan," Robbie said.

He would, but to the people in the Department fortress in D.C. Brendan barely mattered at all. They cared about Congress, the President, the media, the national bar organizations. And when UCORC shut Petros down, Sennett would vent his wrath. The cases he'd be left with-on Skolnick, on Crowthers, on Walter-were preserved on magnetic media and could be proved now without even putting Robbie on the stand. And if the government decided to call him as a witness, they'd prefer he be dressed in a pair of prison overalls, a visual aid demonstrating to a jury that they hadn't let him get away. Stan, therefore, would arrest Robbie right now and use his deception about his law license as compelling evidence that he couldn't be trusted on bail. In the end, Stan had the same leverage he'd had from the start: Lorraine.

When I spoke his wife's name, Robert Feaver did what many other strong persons have done as they've received grim news from me. Positioned in that maroon chair he always sat in, he turned again to my window. Then as the sad facts took root, he raised his hand to his forehead. The resolve not to give in fixed in his face and then passed through him. He wrenched his circled eyes shut and succeeded, except for a few seconds, in his effort not to cry.

The other commitment I'd made to Stan was that I would `explain' Robbie's new situation to Dinnerstein. Evon would remain in their law office as an observer who could testify that Robbie had forsaken further action as an attorney. But Mort had to understand where the lines were drawn, since any failure to comply could end up endangering his right to practice as well. Stan was not about to trust Robbie to deliver the message.

To effect our plan, Robbie presented Mort with a somewhat desperate invention: In the wake of a particularly anguished scene with Lorraine, in which she'd assailed him with the thousand ways he had betrayed his commitments to her over the years, Robbie had supposedly raced to the offices of Bar Admissions and Discipline-BAD-and, in the most dramatic gesture to his wife imaginable, surrendered his license to practice law. Now she would know she was his absolute priority. He had purportedly thought only afterwards to check with me, as an ethical adviser, on the implications of this emotional act. As Robbie's counsel, I'd agreed to help him explain them to Mort.

Feaver amp; Dinnerstein had existed for fourteen years now. After law school, Mort's uncle had found him a cozy spot in the County Law Department. The original idea, Robbie had told me, was for each of them to get a year or two of experience in other offices, then join forces. Once Robbie had hired on with Neucriss, that plan had been put on hold until Robbie had begun to establish himself in the P.I. trade. Only after Feaver had been out on his own for a year did he persuade Mort to come in with him.

At the moment, Mort was undoubtedly ruing that decision. In my job, I dispensed a lot of bad news. Oncologists who routinely deliver fatal diagnoses were the only professionals I knew of who had it harder. It was my responsibility many times every year to tell people-many of them kindly, okay human beings who'd made a single mistake or who suffered from character failings that did not prevent them from being loving parents or friends-it was my duty to tell these individuals that they were going to be scourged by their community, captured, and caged. Even worse, I often helped them explain these unimaginable facts to their spouses and children, most of whom inevitably felt, with some reason, that they were the true victims of the penal system. Listening, Mort had that kind of frantic expression. He sat across from me, a hand over his mouth, his small eyes zipping back and forth behind the heavy lenses, as he tried to come to terms with my long list of restrictions.

"I still don't believe it," said Mort. "It can't be true. I still can't believe you did this," he said to Robbie, who was sitting beside him. Mort tried smiling. "It's April Fool's six weeks late. Right? You're trying to get me. George," he said, "don't let him do this to me."

Although I'd had a large role, within the security of the attorney-client relationship, in concocting the latest fantasy, I had my usual reluctance about advancing any fabrication myself. I felt safe, however, in telling Mort that he could call BAD and ask them to check the Roll of Attorneys. Robbie's name wouldn't be there. As that affirmation sank home, Mort grabbed his forehead with both hands.

"This is impossible," said Mort. "Can't you reverse this? What if he just goes over to BAD and tells them he changed his mind."

I said, stoically, I was certain that wouldn't work. Bobbie added that he didn't want to change his mind. He wanted to be with Rainey, no matter how long or short her time.

"Be with her," said Mort. "I want you to be with her. We could have worked that out. You know that. You didn't have to commit suicide as a lawyer. Look what you've done to me."

Mort sat in his chair making noises and hugging himself. He ran his hands again through the frizz of hair that was haloed by the strove light emerging from the window. Then, without a backward glance at his partner, he bolted to the door as quickly as his awkward gait allowed.

"Morty!" Robbie called and took off in pursuit.

At my desk, I felt awful for Mort, and even worse when I thought how enraged he'd be when he discovered the whole truth. He was going to be buried for years in litigation with former clients and vengeful ex-opponents. God knows what he'd say about me.

I didn't sit still long, however. I requested the men's room key from the receptionist, Danny, and moved urgently in that direction. Male-pattern baldness, hair in all the wrong places, the swells of fat that took permanent residence over the hipbones-a friend of mine had suggested that the changes of male middle age were the Darwinian mechanism to ensure that younger women were not persuaded by our attempts at romance. Under this theory, the prostate enlarged just to be certain that we couldn't sit still long enough to try. I circled out the side exit, heading down the dim service channel between my space and my neighbor's. The heavy door to the main corridor had been propped open and, from the darkness, I saw Robbie arrive by the elevator where Dinnerstein was already waiting.

I expected remonstrations or, on the other hand, efforts at rapprochement. Instead, Dinnerstein gave Feaver a faint smile. After a second, Robbie reached in his pocket for change and flipped a quarter in the air; Dinnerstein immediately did the same thing. I'd seen them play this game a few times before, as they awaited the elevator in the lobby. It had been ongoing since childhood, one of the few forms of physical competition where Mort stood an even chance. The contest combined juggling and gambling. They flipped coins simultaneously, each calling his coin in the air while the other caught it. There were complex rules about how to win, doubled bets in some circumstances, and a provision that missing a catch forfeited all winnings. After almost forty years, they sent the coins back and forth at astonishing speed, catching and releasing in a single motion, while the quarters sparkled in the air. They played happily for a moment before the elevator dinged at their rear. Feaver sprinted ahead to hold it as Mort limped in.

I continued staring into the empty corridor, adding it up. I knew nobody reconciles that quickly. Even so, I was disconcerted enough that it took me a second to accept that I'd been taken in again-and this time not only by Feaver. Figuring out why came faster. Mort knew. Mort had known all along that Robbie had no license. Suddenly, it was not really imaginable that Robbie Feaver, Mort's soul mate since the age of six and his law school roommate, hadn't shared his plight. In fact, it explained why Mort had been slow to come practice with Robbie. They'd waited until it was certain that Robbie could actually get away with it. Then they'd proceeded with an obvious contingency plan. In the event of discovery, to protect Mort's license, both of them would deny Dinnerstein ever knew.

I was beyond being shocked by Robbie. But Mort-I'd completely bought his routine in my office. Mort knew, I thought again, and with that realized he almost certainly knew much more. About his uncle. And Kosic. About the judges. Robbie had been shielding him from the start, just as Sennett, a stiff-necked cynic, had always insisted and even as I had frequently feared.

All of this provoked the predictable responses, chagrin and frustration, and several random curse words. Given what Robbie had already done to himself, I shuddered to imagine the kind of time inside he would catch if Stan could ever prove this. But Robbie knew that and was doing it anyway. As I rushed the last few steps to my destination, I was afflicted by a feeling I didn't expect-envy. I envied Mort, envied him everything he got from Feaver. The dedication. The fellowship. And, especially, the truth.