The New Black Mask Quarterly (No 1)

George V. Higgins A Case of Chivas Regal

“Quotes make the story,” George V. Higgins has written, “so you damned right well better learn to listen” He first showed his ability to listen — and to write tough, convincing dialogue of the first order — in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972). Since then he has published ten novels (most recently Penance for Jerry Kennedy, 1985), proving his ability to write with verisimilitude about characters from the whole range of the legal system, from the politicians who make the law to the criminals who break it.

Asked to comment on “A Case of Chivas Regal” Higgins wrote: “The past decade or so has been a worrisome time for the courts of justice. Media have developed hypersensitivity to influence peddling, and the FBI, among other law enforcement agencies, has made a cottage industry out of capturing judges and court officers meddling with cases. Judges are therefore very watchful that no funny business occurs, and that vigilance, as Panda says, leaves little room for human weakness — but much for cleverness.”

George Higgins began practicing law in 1967. Now forty-five, he lives in Milton, Massachusetts.

Panda Feeney, fifty-three, was employed as a court officer. He escorted juries between the courtrooms and the rooms where they deliberated, and he made hotel and restaurant accommodations for them when they were sequestered. He fetched sandwiches and coffee for them when they were deliberating, and he delivered messages between them and the judges on their cases when they thought of silly questions during their deliberations. “But basically,” Panda would say, “my job is to take care of the judges and do what they want, all right? What the judges want.”

Panda did not like all of the judges that he served. Those he disliked made his back hurt, so he would disappear. He would stay somewhere around the second civil session, technically on duty but a little hard to find. It was not that he feared detection, loafing; he still remembered much of what he had learned wrestling, so he was indifferent to detection.

“My back,” Panda would say, rubbing it, when some assistant clerk of courts located him bent over morning papers and a cup of coffee in the vacant jury room and said: “Judge wants to see you.” Panda would nod painfully, writhing slowly in his chair. “Naturally, he wants to see me. Could’ve bet on it. Never fails: my back acts up, there’s some guy like him in here. What’s he want, huh? You know? Can you tell me that? This damp weather, Jesus, I can hardly move.”

Clerks would never know what it was that judges wanted, only that they wanted Panda and had not seen him around. Panda would nod, once, when they told him that, and grimace. “Okay,” he would say, “then can you do me a favor? Tell the judge: when I fought Casey — he has heard of Crusher Casey, even if he is a moron like he acts like he is — Crusher may’ve been an old guy, but he still had a body slam that ruined me for life. You can get the Judge’s coffee for me, can’t you? Do an old, lamed-up guy a favor? Tell him that for me.”

One judge that Panda especially disliked was Henry Neelon. Before Judge Neelon was relieved of trying cases so that he could spend all of his time as the administrator of the courts, he had had a run-in with Panda Feeney. Panda after a few drinks would sometimes recall the story. “Hanging Hank’d spent the morning sending guys to Walpole. Handed out about a hundred years and still he wasn’t satisfied. Gets back in his chambers and he’s still looking to make trouble. Sends Grayson, that pinhead, out to look for me.

“I give Grayson the routine,” Panda would say, chuckling. “Grayson’d believe anything you told him. He goes down and gives the word to Hanging Hank.

“Henry blows a gasket,” Panda would say, laughing now. “He does not believe what Grayson tells him I said about my back, all right? He is going to check it out.

“I am sitting there, in the jury room. I can hear old Henry coming, stomping up those iron stairs and swearing like a bastard. He is going to take my head off. ‘Lazy goddamned officers. Good-for-nothing shirkers.’

“So, I think quick,” Panda said. “I don’t have much choice. And when old Henry comes in, I am lying on the table. ‘Damn you, Feeney,’ he says, when he slams the door open, and then he sees me lying there like I am all set to be the guest of honor, my own wake. Except I do not look as good as I will look when old Dave Finnerty finally gets me and lays me out in the front room. I’ve been holding my breath, so my face is red. And I have got a look on me like we used to use when the guy that’s supposed to be the loser in the matches is pretending he is chewing on your leg, or pulling some other dirty trick that only bad guys do. Pain, you know what I mean? Pain. I am in agony — one look and you can see it. And Henry’s jaw drops down.

‘I dunno, Judge,’ I say. I have got big tears in my eyes. ‘I hate to even think about it, but the pain is awful. It doesn’t stop, I’m gonna have to. Even though I don’t want to, go on disability and just collect the pension. I may not have any choice.’

“Does he believe me?” Panda said. “At first, I guess he does. And then when he starts to suspect something, maybe I am jerking his chain, right? But he isn’t sure. And even to this day, I catch him looking at me, he still thinks I was giving him the business that day I was on the table. And if he ever gets a shot at me again, that guy is gonna take it. I can see it in his eyes.”

Panda Feeney liked Judge Boyster, so his back was always fine when Andrew Boyster drew his session. “Now you take someone like Drew Boyster,” Panda would tell other judges when he served them the first time. “He is my idea, a judge. Not the kind of guy, you know, where everything is hard and fast and there’s no allowances for human nature, you know? Drew Boyster is the kind of guy that I’d want judging me, if I was ever in that spot, which God forbid, I should be. If we had more like Andrew Boyster this would be a better world.”

Andrew Boyster always squirmed when Panda’s praise got back to him. “Ahh,” he’d say, looking embarrassed, “I wish Panda wouldn’t do that. Every new judge comes along, Panda gives indoctrination. And all it really means, I guess, is that I am too easy. I let Panda disappear, if I don’t really need him — I suppose he’s sleeping, but then, Panda needs his rest. Then too, I let Panda pick the hotels when the juries are sequestered, and the ones that Panda picks are always grateful for the business. He selects the restaurants when the juries sit through dinner, and he picks out the delis when they’re having sandwiches. He’s probably enriching pals, but then, should he pick those who hate him? And they probably show their appreciation in ways that might be worth some money. Nothing against the law, of course — I am not suggesting that. But I bet Panda has some trouble, paying for his dinners out.” He did not tell Neelon that.

Panda’s explanation differed. “You know why I like Drew Boyster?” He would squint when he said that, studying the novice judge for some sign of inattention. “He thinks I am smart, is why. He does not think I am stupid. Judge Boyster doesn’t come in here, like lots of these guys do — and, Christ, you come down to it, some of the broads we get are worse. He doesn’t just barge in here and start throwing weight around, acting like he owns the place and everybody in it. Drew Boyster... well, I had one case he was involved in, before he became a judge. And that was all I needed, right? To see what kind of guy he is. This guy, he may be a lawyer and he made a lot of money before he went on the bench, although from what I heard, I guess his first wife made a big fat dent in that. But he has always had some class. Drew Boyster has got class. I have been here fifteen years, fudge Boyster is the best I never ate a meal with him, or had a drink with him. It’s not like we are buddies, you know? Or anything like that. It’s just that, all the years I’ve been here, he’s the best I ever saw.”

He made that speech, with variations, to so many judges, that when Drew Boyster dropped dead at the age of fifty-nine, victim of a massive stroke that killed him instantly, Panda’s name was mentioned by everyone who saw Judge Neelon on the morning afterward. Henry Neelon was in charge of making the arrangements for the speakers who would say a few words at Boyster’s memorial, and as little as he liked the man, Henry Neelon saw the logic of including Panda Feeney.

“Look,” he said, “I realize this may be hard for you. I know how you felt about Drew — everybody did.”

Panda shook his head and looked down, as though he did not trust his voice to perform reliably.

“The thing of it is,” Judge Neelon said to Panda, “you’ve been to enough of these things so you know what they are like. They are deadly, Panda — they are boring and they’re dull. We get a couple lawyers who won recent cases in his court — we do not ask folks who lost. The Chief Justice declares on the record: ‘He was not a pederast.” If he has one kid who can talk, we let the kid stand up — and then we all watch carefully to see if he breaks down, or displays any evidence that he’s been using harmful drugs. For some reason, we don’t ask surviving spouses to address us — it’s probably because we’re all afraid of what our own might say, if they got full attention, and we weren’t there to reply. Then finally, one friend of his, if the dead guy had a friend, takes four or five long minutes to say nobody else knew him.

“You see what I mean, Panda?” Judge Neelon said pleadingly. “The last guy who gets up at those things is the only one who’s right — none of the other speakers is a friend of the departed, someone who just knew him and enjoyed his company. No one that just liked him, unless he’s another lawyer, ever gets a chance to speak. And we thought, since you did know Drew, and really did like him, maybe you would say a few words and do everyone a favor.”

Panda looked up and he shook his head once more. “I couldn’t do it, Your Honor,” he said, and cracked his voice. “I would not know what to say. I’m not used to making speeches, standing up in public like that.”

“Panda,” Neelon said, “it could be very short. You could say... that case you had, the one that impressed you so much, you never forgot it? You could talk about that case, how Drew showed so much class. Look, you know Drew Boyster’s history. You went back a ways with him. His family, they’re not, you know, extremely happy with him, even now that he is dead. His kids, from everything I hear, they sided with the wife. You’d really help us out a lot if you saw your way clear to do it. Good Lord, Panda, all these years, you have drummed it into us. Just tell everybody once more, what a great guy Drew was.”

“Your Honor,” Panda said, coughing deeply as he started, “I have got to tell you — I can’t talk about that case.”

“Of course you can,” Judge Neelon said. “It’s on the public record. If it’s the details that escape you, we can pull the files. We’ll take care of that for you. That part will be easy.”

“Judge,” Panda said, “it wasn’t that. It was not a case in court. Well, there was a case in court, that Judge Boyster was involved in. But the case I talked about... I can’t talk about that.”

“I don’t follow you,” the Judge said. He was starting to look grim.

“It was Chivas Regal,” Panda said with difficulty. “A case of Chivas Regal, all right? That was what I meant.”

“Scotch whiskey?” Neelon said. “A case of booze, you mean?”

Panda nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “That was what it was.”

“And this was back when Drew, when Drew was a lawyer?”

Panda nodded once again. “Yeah. Before he was a judge.”

“Panda,” Neelon said severely, “this is serious. Drew is dead now. It can’t hurt him, not where he is now. But you’re still escorting juries, and you still have access to them. If you influenced some verdict, back when Drew was practicing, and he gave you a case of scotch... well, I don’t have to tell you just how serious this is. What was it you did for Drew? Tamper with a jury, or do something dumb like that?”

Panda looked indignant. “Judge,” he said, “I resent that. In all the years I’ve been here, I have never told a jury how they should vote in a case.”

“Uh-huh,” Neelon said, “well, you are the first one, then. But you’ve raised the suspicion now, and I am forced to deal with that. If you don’t tell me the truth, and tell me the truth right now, I’ll have to investigate and see what you did for Drew. And until I am satisfied, you will be suspended. Without pay, I might add, until this is all cleared up. Now which will it be, Panda? This is your decision now. You can tell me what went on, or you can leave this building right now and wait to hear from the D.A.”

Panda looked more sorrowful than he had looked before. He had to clear his throat again. “This won’t go any further?”

“It won’t if there is nothing wrong,” Judge Neelon said grimly. “If I think there is something wrong, it will go further, Panda. No promises apart from that. You understand me, Panda? And I will be the judge of whether you will be reported.”

Panda sighed heavily. “All right,” he said, “you got me. But there is nothing wrong with this, with what I did for Drew.” Judge Neelon did not comment on that.

“Over twenny years ago, I got hurt in the ring.”

“I know that,” Neelon said. “Get on with you and Drew.”

“I’m coming to that,” Panda said. “Just give me a minute, will you? The doctors told me: ‘Panda,’ they said, ‘this is it for grappling. You get hit like that again, you’ll go out in a wheelchair. You are still a young man and your heart is pretty strong. You get crippled up for life, it is going to be a long one and you will have trouble working.’

“That scared the hell right out of me,” Panda told Judge Neelon. “In wrestling there’s no insurance. I did not have money. I was always undercard, a couple hundred bucks. And I didn’t have any trade, you know. Something I could do. But I am scared, so what I do, I take what comes along. I get into security. I become a guard.

“The first job that I had,” he said, “was in the Coast Apartments. This was before it was condo. This was 1963. And since I am new and all, I am put on nights. So I do not see who goes out — I just see who goes in.

“Now, Judge,” he said, “I don’t know just how I should put this to you. Because I don’t want to shock you, or do anything like that. But lots of the big law firms then, had pads in those tall buildings. And on the tour they had me on, I’d see those guys come in. See them come in with their girlfriends? Between six and nine at night. And they would not go out again, ’fore I was through at one.”

“Panda,” Neelon said, “Spare me. You mean: ‘With their nieces, they came in.’ Learned counsel for rich law firms do not get so vulgar as to entertain mere girlfriends in deductible apartments.”

“My mistake, Your Honor,” Panda said. “Excuse me. On the tour they had me on, I often saw the lawyers come in with their nieces right behind them. Now, this took me a while, before I got this figured out. I was fairly innocent, when I stopped wrestling. And when I first started in there, I did not know much. So one night, this big honcho lawyer comes in with his briefcase, and it is six o’clock or so and I am pretty stupid. And also with him, right behind him, there is this young lady. A very fine looking young lady, I might add. And she has got her handbag, but that’s all she’s carrying. So I assume they’re visiting someone — they do not live in the building, or else they would tell me. So I ask him: ‘Which apartment?’ Like I was supposed to do. Coast did not want people coming in there without they had destinations, and the people they were seeing wanted to see them.

“He gets all mad at me, the guy does,” Panda said to Neelon. “He tells me he belongs to this firm which keeps an apartment there. Their clients in from out of town stay overnight in it. And sometimes in the evening, if they have a lot of work, they come in with their secretaries and they work late hours themselves. And that is what he’s doing, and she is his secretary. Gleason, Boyster and Muldoon. That is all you need to know.’ And they go on upstairs.

“Well, Your Honor, nothing happened. That I got in trouble for. This guy and his secretary, they go up to work late hours and I don’t know who they are, except they work for a law firm that he says he belongs to. He don’t say that he is Gleason and he don’t claim he is Muldoon. I do not know he is Boyster and the lady had no name. All I knew her by was her looks, and like I told you, those were fine. She also had a nice smile and she always gave it to me.

“I say ‘always,’ Judge,” he said, “and when I say that, I mean this: ‘Wednesday nights she smiled at me.’ Every Wednesday night. The first night was a Wednesday and then they come back, the next one. And I naturally remember them and I don’t ask no questions. And then the Wednesday after that, and the one after that, until I see this is a habit, they got going here. This guy apparently can’t get his work done, any Wednesday that you name. Tuesdays he’s apparently all right, when they blow the quitting whistle. Thursdays he does not show up. I had Fridays off in those days, Fridays and Saturdays. He don’t come in any Sunday. He does not show up on Monday. And by now I’ve gotten so I know a lot of guys that have problems just like his, except their big nights are different, and their secretaries change, or else they have got whole flocks of nieces like you would not have imagined. So I am wising up a little, and I’m keeping my mouth shut. And also I am putting my name in around the city, because I am getting older and those late hours are killing me.

“Anyway, two years go by, and then things start to change. I notice that this guy has started coming in on Tuesdays. And pretty soon it’s Thursdays and I’m seeing him on Mondays, and when I come in on Sunday he’s been working all weekend. His secretary, too — she’s in there, and they’re bringing in groceries. And then this other guy gets sick, so I have to cover for him, and damned if the secretary there and her boss are not working Friday nights and Saturday nights too.”

“Thriving private practice,” the Judge said, nodding at him. “Envy of every practitioner. Those hours are just brutal.”

“They must be,” Panda said. “Well, anyway, the days go by, and one day I am sitting there, I open up the paper. And what do I see but his picture and his name is under it. This is Attorney Andrew Boyster, who’s been working those long hours. And he is in the paper because his wife’s suing him. She is suing him in the back and she’s suing his front, too. What she wants is a nice divorce, and every dime he’s got. And there’s another picture, which is of Andrew Boyster’s wife. And she does not look like the lady that I know.”

“She looked a little older, maybe?” Henry Neelon said.

“Well, I assumed she was,” Panda Feeney said. “I didn’t think too much about that, just how old she might’ve been. What caught my eye was, you know, she alleged adultery. And I thought I might have some idea, of just who she had in mind.”

“Well,” Feeney said, “the papers had their usual field day. And I have got a dirty mind, so of course I read it all. And I am sitting there one night, the two of them come in, and I am looking at their pictures. They give me the great big grin, and she asks me how I like it.

“I do not know what to say. I figure they are going to tell me, I should mind my own damned business. So I mumble something at them, and they start to laugh at me. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, if your name is Thomas Feeney,’ Andrew Boyster says to me. And since we’re never introduced, that kind of throws me, right? ‘How come me?’ I say to him, and that is when he tells me. I am getting a subpoena. I am going to testify.

“I say: ‘Why me? What do I know?’ He says his wife thinks that I know lots. Like who’s been coming in and going out the building I am guarding, and she wants to ask me that.

“Now, I figure,” Panda said, “I am in the glue for fair. So I ask him: ‘What do I say?’ And he says: ‘Tell the truth,’ And they go upstairs laughing, just as happy as can be. Which at least made me feel better, that the guy’s not mad at me. I just may not lose my job.”

“Did you testify?” the Judge said.

“Uh-huh,” Panda said.

“And did you tell the truth?” the Judge said, looking grim again.

“Absolutely,” Panda said. “Told the Gospel truth. Had on my best blue suit, you know, clean shirt and everything. And they ask me, his wife’s lawyers, did I work the Coast Apartments and how long did I work there. I told him those tilings, truthfully, and all the other junk he asked me before he comes to the point. And when he does that he decides he will be dramatic. Swings around and points to Boyster and says: ‘Do you know this man?’ And I say: ‘Yes, I do know him. That is Andrew Boyster,’ Then he shows me a picture, which is Boyster’s secretary that I guess is now his widow, and he wants to know: do I know her? And I say: ‘Yes, I do.’

“ ‘Now,’ he says, like this is this great big salute he’s planned, ‘how long have you known these people? Will you tell His Honor that?’ And I say: ‘Yessir. Yes, I will.’ And I turn and face the Judge there and I say: ‘I have known them for two weeks.’ ”

“Which of course was the strict truth,” Neelon said, laughing with him. “Did he ask you the next question?”

“You mean: ‘When did you first see them?’ ” Panda asked the Judge.

“Yeah,” Judge Neelon said, “that is exactly what I mean.”

“No,” Panda said, “he didn’t. I think he was flabbergasted. He just stood there and looked at me like his mouth wouldn’t work. And then when he got it working, all he could think of asking me was whether I was very sure that was my honest answer. And I said: ‘Absolutely, sir.’ And then I was excused. And then when Christmas came that year, I got a case of Chivas Regal, and it was from Andrew Boyster and that second wife of his who I still think’s a nice lady. And then when Drew got his judgeship, my name came up on the list faster than it ever would’ve otherwise, and that is how I got this job here. Because Drew thought I was smart. What I said, testifying, it did not make any difference to the way the case come out — at least that is what he told me. ‘But,’ he told me, ‘Panda, it was the one laugh that we had while all that crap was going on, and we just wanted you to know that we appreciated it.’ Which is why I thought Drew Boyster was a very classy guy — because of how he treated me.”

Judge Neelon studied Panda for about a half a minute. Then he nodded and said: “Okay. You are off the hook. You don’t have to speak when we have services for Drew. And I will not report you.”

“Thank you, Judge,” Panda said.

“There’s one thing, though, I’d like to know,” the Judge said thoughtfully. “At least, I think I’d like to know it, so I’ll tell you what it is. That day when you were on the table, up there in the jury room? The day I burst in on you and you described your back pain to me in such colorful detail?”

“I remember it, Judge,” Panda Feeney said.

“If I had asked you, that day, if you had that back pain then, what would you have told me? Do you want to tell me that?”

“To be candid, Judge,” Panda Feeney said, “since you’re giving me that option: No, I don’t think that I do.”

Neelon nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “And if I were to ask you: Have you ever lied to me? You’d tell me that you never have.”

Panda Feeney nodded. “Yes. And that would be the truth.”