Personal injuries

CHAPTER 6

In his initial debriefings, Robbie had confirmed what the government had already detected, namely, that at any one time there were only a few judges in Common Law Claims with whom he could `talk.' This seemed peculiar to Sennett, since Tuohey had veto power over all assignments to his division. Robbie regarded it as characteristic of Brendan, who had an exquisite instinct for avoiding being exposed. Tuohey wanted Common Law Claims to be known for its cadre of highly capable and unhesitatingly honest judges. Their reputations would armor him with an aura of integrity, while the few exceptions could be passed off as the typical Party debris inevitable with an elected judiciary.

Of the dozen judges to whom Feaver had passed money over the years, most were gone now, retired or transferred to other divisions. If Petros ran perfectly, Robbie would try to secure evidence against them as part of the endgame. But to start, the focus would be on the four judges currently sitting in Common Law Claims with whom Feaver was still doing business. With them, there would be a chance to stage bribes, which, when recorded, would provide the government with the best opportunity to leverage those judges against Tuohey.

When the names of the four judges emerged from Bobbie, I'd been shocked about two, because I knew both men. Sherm Crowthers had been one of the best defense lawyers in this city when I entered practice, a ferocious, angry advocate who, if not always liked, was deeply admired both for his abilities and for the obstacles he'd surmounted as a black man. Hearing Sherm's name had sunk my heart.

Silvio Malatesta, the other judge I knew on Robbie's list, inspired simple disbelief. Malatesta was a donnish, bespectacled Magoo, who never seemed to leave the universe of his own head, through which various elevated legal notions were always tracing like shooting stars. It was amazing to me that he even experienced the material appetites that led to corruption.

As for the other two names, I probably would have guessed them on my own, if I ever had the gumption to speak such slanders aloud. Gillian Sullivan was a lush who'd been coming on the bench loaded in the afternoons for at least a decade and about whom we'd received constant complaints during my term as Bar President. Wandering through her alcoholic wilderness, Sullivan probably thought little about right or wrong. Barnett Skolnick, the last, was the brother of the late Knuckles Skolnick, a former intimate of the departed County Executive, Augustine Bolcarro. Barney was the kind of old-time Party flunky who in my mind was typecast for envelopes of cash.

The threshold problem Stan faced in mounting these prosecutions was that except in the case of Skolnick, who might be tempted to take money from Robbie directly, all the others dealt strictly through intermediaries-a clerk, a relative, a paramour. In the ideal, Sennett would tape several payoffs to these bagmen, confront them, make a deal, and get them to record the delivery of money to the judges. But these go-betweens had each been chosen because they'd demonstrated the loyalty of Gunga Din, and it was far from a sure thing that any of them could be turned. If not, Petros might yield nothing but the convictions of a number of small-timers.

To counter this, Sennett initially hoped to design the `contrived cases,' these imaginary plaintiff's lawsuits, so that the judges would be called upon to make a series of far-fetched rulings in Robbie's behalf. That way, even if the bagman didn't roll, Stan could still go forward against the judge by calling a bevy of expert witnesses to testify that no honest jurist could possibly have made these decisions. But Feaver adamantly insisted that approach would never succeed.

"You guys still don't get the play," Feaver told Sennett. "We got judges making ninety grand and lawyers making millions. Figure how you like, say it's a tip, or tribute, or insurance for next time, but I got cases I oughta win, and I wanna make sure the judge doesn't get confused. Maybe I get a little help when things can go either way. But if I walk in with some mangy dog and ask the judge to act like it's Lassie-which in ten years, I swear to God in heaven I have never done-if I do, the best I get is that the judge won't talk to me again. Worst case, Brendan gets hinky and sends somebody to knife me, and the only thing left to do in The Law Offices of James McManis is run the vacuum and kill the lights. This may be a little mindblowing to you guys, but everybody over there realizes you're out here. They do something ridiculous, they know damn well that one of you"-the word `assholes' was halfway to Robbie's lips when he managed to stifle it; he took a second to improve his posture and pulled on his shirt cuffs so that an inch of white emerged over his dan gling i.d. bracelet "the Judicial Commission, or the Bar Association, or you guys, one of you is gonna be humping them from behind."

Thus each complaint-a summary of the facts the plaintiff said entitled him to damages for his injury-had to be constructed so it fell in that borderland where victory for Robbie was reasonable, but not required. In the first suit filed, Robbie's firm supposedly represented Peter Petros. Peter had indisputedly become drunk as a lord at a Hands basketball game. In the course of an obscene tirade at the referees, he had fallen over the balcony railing. His survival was accountable only to his state of inebriate relaxation and the fact that he had hit the canopy of a hot dog cart, before bouncing to the concrete stadium floor. Petros sued the fictitious railing manufacturer, Standard Railing, claiming that because of the inherent danger of balcony seating, Standard was automatically liable for not building a product that prevented Peter's injuries. In behalf of Standard, The Law Offices of James McManis immediately filed a motion to dismiss, contending that even if everything Peter said was true, under the law he had no case. The legal arguments had been designed so that the decision on the motion was a toss-up.

On January 12, Evon went with the other paralegal, Suzy Kraizek, and filed the complaint at the Kindle County Courthouse, a normal procedure. It was the next step, getting the case to what Robbie referred to as a `good' judge, which represented the first deviation. To do that, Robbie left a phone message at the office of Sig Milacki. Milacki, Brendan's old partner from the Police Force, was now assigned as the police liaison to the sheriff's deputies who acted as courthouse security. Robbie simply asked for a case number on a new matter, Petros v. Standard Railing. What happened then had never been spelled out to Feaver, and he had no reason to ask. Over the years. though, it had become apparent that Milacki passed the message to Rollo Kosic, Chief Bailiff to the Presiding Judge, who somehow overrode the court's computerized system for random case assignments. When Evon returned to the courthouse on Monday to pick up a file copy of the Petros complaint, Judge Silvio Malatesta, one of Robbie's unholy foursome, had been assigned.

We met again in McManis's office, where the government personnel began preparing to ensnare Malatesta and, before him, his bagman, an ill-tempered docket clerk named Walter Wunsch. According to the well-ingrained custom that ruled these matters with the firmness of religious practice, Robbie would not deliver a payoff to Walter until the end of the case. But both Stan and McManis wanted to get a recording earlier. McManis thought Robbie should have experience wearing a wire in a less pressured situation than passing money; Stan was eager to develop live evidence, since UCORC had him on a standing thirty-day review, which meant they could fold the entire Project whenever they were unsatisfied with its progress. Robbie agreed that in the ordinary course he might pay a visit to Walter when he filed his response to McManis's motion to dismiss, just to make sure that Malatesta recognized the merits of plaintiff's position. With that, arrangements began for Robbie to go out wired for the first time as soon as the motion and response were filed, in about two weeks.

After the meeting, Robbie and I went up to my office. I left to speak to my secretary for a moment, and when I returned, I found Robbie in a reflective pose in front of the large old windows, taking in my view of the Center City skyline. The new steel-shelled structures, sleek as airliners, mingled with the buildings of the twenties, which were usually topped off by some impression of bygone architectural styles-Gothic spires, Italianate cupolas, or even one that had a glimmering helmet of cerulean tile, an al lusion to a Middle Eastern mosque. To the west, the river's waters were smoke-colored and mysterious under the wintry midwestern sky. The bleak season had started; these days it seemed like living under a pot lid.

I asked Robbie if the arrangements for the recording had sounded okay.

"I suppose," he answered. I thought it was the fear of detection that had made him subdued. But as it turned out, his concern was elsewhere. "I'm going over the bridge," he told me when he looked back my way.

Up until now, I had largely seen all of this in my own terms. My job was to keep Robbie out of prison and I was delighted with my apparent success. Despite that, Robbie faced many losses: His practice. And the money that came with it. Not to mention his reputation. But now he was going to make his first real break with everything he had. If all went well with the wire, he would betray Walter Wunsch in a fashion that every friend and acquaintance would deem unpardonable. The community he'd always belonged to would be left behind. The man who had said on the first day he came to see me that he was not a rat had undoubtedly stood at the window staring not so much at the city but at what he saw of himself.

Under the protocol for Petros specified by UCORC, Evon had to accompany Feaver to every professional engagement-depositions, meetings, court calls, even his wooing of prospective clients-in order to keep an eye on him. Robbie's day often started early, with courtroom appearances in distant counties. Therefore, after Evon's initial few days, the scenario called for Feaver to pick her up each morning. Coming into the office together would also help foster the impression of a romance.

An FBI deep-cover team had settled her in South River in a former auto Darts warehouse the size of a fortress. Her building, like many in South River, had been recently refurbished into an intriguing warren of condos and apartments, with few common corridors. The deep-cover team had chosen the apartment building because it was the biggest along Feaver's route to and from the office. Large was better, more anonymous. Living undercover, she was supposed to avoid making new acquaintances, since even the friendliest inquiries might trip you up. From the time Feaver dropped Evon off after 6 p.m., until the sleek white Mercedes appeared at the curb the next morning, she often felt as if she were dwelling in an isolation booth.

But there was rarely silence during the long stretches they spent in the car each day. When Feaver was not on the phone, which he could dial from a little panel above the temperature controls, he lectured her on any subject that crept into his head. By now she was in mind of a phrase of her father's-the man ran over at the mouth like he'd busted a pipe. Did he ever keep a thought to himself? Ostensibly, he was familiarizing her with the details of his practice, but he clearly felt he was entertaining. He was also quick to recognize that the car was the one place he could comfortably break cover. There had been no further problems in the office, but in the Mercedes Feaver was like a grade school bad boy who needed recess so he could behave himself in class. He was forever trying to pry details about her identity, or offering commentary about their meetings with Sennett and McManis. She'd face the window and watch the tri-cities whiz past, or close her eyes to savor the armchair luxury of the passenger seat.

The silver plate on the trunk lid identified the car as an S600-top of the line, Feaver told her several times. The creamy leather, with its pinpoint air holes, had the feel of the calfskin shoes she could never afford, and the dark walnut of the front cabin reminded her of a museum. Yet it was the quiet that impressed her most. In this thing, out side was really outside. The heavy door thudded shut with a cushioned sound reminiscent of a jewel box.

Feaver was enraptured with his Mercedes, which he had purchased only a few months before. He often spouted the staggering price, $133,000, unabashed that the car had cost more than some of the four-bedroom houses they passed in outlying developments. Secure within the elegant cabin and its fortress feel, Robbie was apt to become a random element. He zoomed around as if he were in a spaceship. On the way back from the Greenwood County Courthouse, he would pop in on his mother, who was at a nursing home along the way, or visit Sparky, a scalper who was holding tickets for a Hands game which Robbie was sending to a referring attorney. Feaver also loved to shop. He was a devotee of sales and fancy name brands and frequently made impulsive stops at the malls. Under the bright store lights he'd scrutinize the merchandise, then call his wife from the car to describe what he was bringing home, as if he were a big-game hunter.

In every venue Feaver entered with a sense of membership: he was known; there were friends of decades and tireless stories. For Robbie, all the world was in some measure a fraternity, a place for upbeat banter, tasteless jokes, and booming laughter. Arriving for a dep where he hoped to eviscerate the opposing party, he nonetheless greeted the other lawyer with cheerful enthusiasm. At the tony haberdasher where he acquired his expensive wardrobe, Robbie had his own salesman, Carlos, a Cuban refugee who welcomed him with the palms-up grip of a brother. The store was full of men like Robbie, with careful haircuts and a showboat air, guys who considered the fit of their garments in the mirror with an exacting look at odds with the carefree swagger with which they strolled down the avenue.

One day in the third week of January, apropos of nothing. Feaver cried out that they had to go see Harold, who turned out to be a client disastrously injured in a collision with a delivery truck. Evon could barely stand to look at the man. He was hunched to one side in a wheelchair; there were sores on his arms and face. Robbie, however, took Harold's hand and with barroom gusto told him he looked great. Feaver chatted away for nearly twenty minutes about highlights of the basketball season in the Mid-Ten. Afterwards, in the car, he told her he was determined to keep Harold alive. The defendants-the auto manufacturer, the state highway department, the trucking company-had dragged the case out nearly nine years in the clear hope Harold would die. If he did, a case presently worth $20 million, with comps-compensatory damages for lifetime care-might bring one-fifth of that, most of which would go to repay his medical insurer. There would be zilch for Harold's mother, a large-bellied, middle-aged woman in a shapeless dress, who had greeted them and who had cared for her son since his wife deserted him shortly after the accident.

"What about your fee?" Evon asked dryly. "That goes way down, too, doesn't it?"

"Hey," Feaver answered. "You ever meet Peter Neucriss, he'll tell you before he says hello about all the good he's doing for the world, sticking up for everybody who gets abused. Not me. The rules of this game are that we give people money to make up for their pain, and everybody who steps on the field knows how we're gonna keep score the judges, the jury, me, the client, the folks on the other side. It's money. How much do we get, how much do they keep. Whatever people say, let me give you a fast translation: You can dress it up and make it say Mommy, but this baby's really talkin do-re-mi." He nodded firmly. "That's the play."

As always, his smugness was exasperating. Of all the people to think he'd figured everything out.

"What is `the play' anyway?" she asked suddenly. "It's always the excuse. And I never get it. Are you saying, like `I made the play' in sports? Or `I have a part in a play'? Or `I played a trick on you'?"

"Right," he said.

"Come on."

He waved a hand past his nose at the difficulty she was inviting. They were in the suburbs, a land of recently built houses with peaked roofs and few exterior graces. From the highway, she saw two little boys across the distance, smacking at a tetherball in the cold.

"Well, shit," said Feaver, unable as always to endure his own silence. "It's just The Play. It's like life, you know? There's really no point, except getting your jollies, and even that doesn't add up to anything in the end. You think any of this makes sense when you stand back from it? You think God made an ordered universe? That's the laugh with the law. We like to pretend it makes life more reasonable. Hardly."

She groaned. Which made him more insistent.

"Tell me what sense there is that Lorraine is sick like she is. Any? Why her? Why now? Why that terrible motherfucker of a disease? It doesn't add. Or take a look at our cases: forty-eight-year-old lathe operator. Machine goes down and he turns the power off on the line to fix it. The foreman comes back, figures some joker is fucking with him like they do twice a day, and throws the switch. Hand is cut in half. Off-duty fireman's at somebody's house washing the storm windows. He's gone for two minutes to get more Windex and the three-year-old climbs up on a stool to look outside, and goes right through the open window, DOA at Mount Sinai. Or Harold, for Chrissake. One minute you're a cheerful salesman on the highway, the next minute you're a meatball in a wheelchair. It's The Play. Ball hits a stone on the infield, hops over your glove, and you lose the World Series. You go home and cry. It's really chaos and darkness out there, and when we pretend it's not, it's just The Play. We're all onstage. Saying our lines. Playing at whoever we're trying to be at the moment. A lawyer. A spouse. Even though we know in the back of our heads that life is a lot more random and messed-up than we can stand to say to ourselves. Okay?" His black eyes lit on her despite the highway traffic. Something-his intensity-was frightening. "Okay?" he asked again.

"No," she said.

"Why not?"

She crossed her arms, deliberating on whether he deserved an answer.

"I believe in God," she told him.

"Me too," he said. "But He made me and this is what I think."

An exasperated sound gargled up from her involuntarily. Didn't she know? Who told her to try to argue with a lawyer?

One of those mornings in January, Feaver and Evon were in the 600 only a few blocks from work when they became snarled in a honking line of stalled traffic. Far ahead, heavy plumes of what appeared at first to be smoke expanded in the frigid air, swirling above the yellow blinkers atop a cordon of striped barricades and emergency vehicles. Approaching by inches, they eventually saw a covey of city sewer workers in quilted vests and construction helmets leaning on the yellow rail they'd erected around an open manhole. They were engaged in no visible labor other than shouting down to a couple of their colleagues who had descended. A young woman in a hard hat waved a red flag, sending the traffic along through a tingle lane. When she stopped them abreast of her, Feaver lowered his window, admitting a sudden riffle of cold.

"How come the cutest girl's always holding the flag?" he asked her. She was African-American, with a broad face and wide eyes and lovely, peaked cheekbones that plumped with an enormous grin while she flagged him on.

"How do you know her?" Evon asked as the Mercedes spurted ahead in the traffic.

He looked puzzled. "I don't."

"And you just say that to her?" "Sure. Why not?"

"Because she might mind."

"Did it look like she minded?"

"But what's the point? Can I ask? What's the point of saying that?" Her tone was careful, hoping not to be incendiary. But she'd always wanted to ask his kind of man this question.

"She's cute," he answered. "You think it's easy to look cute in a construction helmet? I don't. You think it's an accident she looks cute? I mean, she got up in the morning. She tied that bandanna on her head, even though she'd be wearing a hard hat. She looked at her tush in her jeans. Who was she doing that for?" On the morning ride, he drove in without a topcoat, and he laid the long hand with which he'd been gesturing on his bright tie. "For me. A million guys like me. And so I say thanks. That's all."

"That's all?"

"Maybe I'll come through her intersection again someday. Maybe the light turns red. Maybe she's just getting off for lunch. I mean, I can imagine anything. But right now, it's thanks. That's all."

That was Feaver. He wasn't a mouth-breather, not the kind of jerk always hopping along on his erection as if it were a pogo stick. He had some style. But he was still on alert, a heat-seeking missile shot through the sky and waiting to lock on. He stood too close when he was speaking. His wife lay at home, dying by the inch each day, and he did not wear a wedding ring. Falling into his car each morning, Evon almost gasped at the sickly mix of sweet smells from his eau de cologne, hair spray, fancy shaving cream and body lotion. He was his own most deeply prized possession and he liked to advertise this, as if the sheer power of his vanity might overcome a woman.

When she'd met McManis the first time in Des Moines, he'd warned her.

`Our c.i.'-confidential informant, he meant, a polite term for snitch-`apparently has a big rep as a ladies' man. You're gonna have to act the part, and he's the type who might want to blend fact and fiction.' Jim had given her three rules. First, don't put up with anything that bothered her; they'd back her completely. Second, don't be offended, because she wasn't going to change him.

`And third,' McManis had said, hesitating long enough that she knew this was the important one, `don't fall for it.

No chance of that, she'd answered. So far, there hadn't been many problems. One time in his office, she'd gotten a sly, sidewise look as he asked, almost offhandedly, when it was Bonita was supposed to stumble upon them going at it on his leather sofa, a portion of the scenario that Evon was still hoping to skip. She'd stiff-armed him with a quick look and had heard no more about it.

But there wasn't a woman in the office who wouldn't have warned her. The female employees gathered for coffee breaks and lunches in a narrow interior area that was referred to as `the kitchen,' a place where a male never visited for a period longer than half a minute to retrieve coffee or the brown sack containing his lunch. Setting her cover, Evon had casually mentioned how kind Robbie had been, stopping for her each morning. Oretta, one of the file clerks, had hooted.

"Girl." she said. "you get in his taxi. sooner or later he'll be askin for the fare." Shrill, lascivious laughter from each woman reverberated off the steel cabinets. But later, as Bonita was filing, she made it a point to catch Evon in the corridor.

"You know, when I started in here, I was single, you know, we partied some." She did not use a name but glanced over her shoulder and tipped the teased-up tufts of jet hair toward Robbie's office. Bonita would not have gotten through the interview without catching Robbie's attention. She wore all her clothing a half-size too tight, her pleasing contours well displayed. "But pretty soon, I went back in to seein Hector. And you know, you've got a relationship or somethin, he'll flirt a little, but he won't push or nothin, if you really mean it. He wants you to like him. That's how he is. Like a little kid." Bonita slammed the long white file cabinet back into its recess in the wall. "And you'll like him," she said. Within the raccoonish circles of shadow, Bonita's dark eyes glimmered with the penetrating light of conviction. Then she moved off, leaving Evon with a momentary feeling akin to fright.