Bad Lawyer (15 page)

“It’s unbelievable, Sid. What they’re sayin’.” Benny pulled his chair up a little closer, examined the palm of his hand as if it held an explanation for his predicament. “Every so often I run short of capital, like any other businessman. But can I go to the fuckin’ bank, take out a loan? Will the bank manager sit me down in a chair, light up my cigar? Or do I gotta run to somebody else in the biz, somebody a little bigger than me?”

What Benny did was borrow from another, better-connected shylock at a mere ten percent per week, then put the money on the street at twenty percent. He didn’t do it often for fear that one of his clients would welsh on a big loan, and he was always careful to repay the principal as soon as he had the money. It was a matter of professional pride.

“Now, the joke,” he explained, “is that the feds say because I went to this guy for money, and this guy went to that guy for money, and that guy went to another guy for money, we’re all part of some kinda gang.” He dug a fleck of grit out of his right eye with his thumb, then looked up at me. “You call this a fuckin’ life? Huh? You call
this
a fuckin’ life?”

What I called it was, “Fifteen grand up front. As a retainer, Benny. So I can poke around without worrying you’re gonna panic and run to some other lawyer.”

A week later, an even larger fish rose to the bait, a fish named Manuel Bergman. Supremely confident, he strolled into my office, dropped his narrow butt onto a chair, tossed off his cashmere overcoat to reveal a cascade of gold chains that spilled over a white silk shirt.

Manuel was my favorite kind of client. Already bailed out, he’d been indicted (solely on the testimony of co-conspirators) for conspiring to distribute several tons of Colombian cocaine. He showed no fear, had already fired his attorney of record, and knew, having accumulated more than fourteen years in various institutions, his law. Manuel knew his law and what he wanted was delay.

“Snitches,” he told me toward the end of the conversation, “they can change their minds. If they have enough time to think about it.”

I told him I could give his snitches the better part of two years to reconsider, and I told him how I’d go about it, motion by motion.

Manuel must have liked my strategy, because he parted with twenty-five thousand dollars in banded fifties before he walked out the door some three hours later, leaving me to a crushing workload and a bank balance that for the first time in years I wasn’t ashamed to contemplate.

The media war between Phoebe Morris and Jay Harrison continued unabated, as it would continue right through Priscilla’s trial. Julie was in charge of feeding tidbits to our side of the battle, and she never failed to read the various columns over breakfast. I paid little heed, for the most part, especially after I had Bergman’s retainer in hand. With enough money to see the trial through, I was focusing more and more of my attention on Priscilla. I was confident that I could get her off on the murder charge, but the cocaine was still a huge problem.

There was, however, one item that caught my attention, this courtesy of Jay Harrison. Jay’s nugget emanated from an unnamed source in the Office of the Medical Examiner, said source declaring, “Mr. Sweet’s liver was cirrhotic throughout. Personally, I find it amazing that he lived long enough to be murdered.”

Though the implications were pretty obvious—Buscetta would now claim that Byron was too sick, as well as too drunk to mount an attack—Harrison spun them out for the length of his column. It was only at the very end that he conceded the obvious. Whatever the condition of Byron’s liver, he was alive when Priscilla Sweet pulled the trigger.

We were still at breakfast, still discussing the Harrison column, when I got a call from Carlo Buscetta. “The plea board has decided to make you the following offer.” His tone made it clear that he did not agree with that decision. “If your client pleads to man-one and third degree possession, she will receive concurrent seven-year sentences.”

“I’ll put the offer to my client this morning,” I said after a moment, “but if she asks me if we can win outright, I’m gonna tell her that not only can we win the legal argument, we can win the moral argument as well.”

The last part inspired Carlo to a burst of laughter. “Is that supposed to mean you actually believe your client is innocent? Get back to the real world,
Sid
ney. Priscilla Sweet isn’t a sixteen-year-old kid who made a mistake. She’s a thirty-five-year-old woman who’s been a criminal for all of her adult life. No matter what else might have happened to her.” He stopped abruptly, took a deep breath. “Ya know something,
Sid
ney, I liked you better when you were just another sleazy defense lawyer out for the money.”

Two hours later, I walked into the Rose Singer Jail on Rikers Island, Carlo’s latest deal in hand. The officer manning the reception desk, a stranger, began our relationship by ignoring the twenty tucked inside my briefcase. After a thorough shuffling of my papers, she called up to the PC unit, listened for a moment, then hung up the phone. “There’s been a disturbance,” she informed me. “Your client will be delayed.”

When I asked for something more specific, she glared at me over the top of her reading glasses. “If your client was dead, counselor, I wouldn’t be asking you to wait.”

By the time I actually got to my client, I’d pretty much calmed down. Still, I remember that Priscilla smiled as I came into the little room and that I, even as I returned her smile, checked her teeth to make sure they were all there.

I outlined Buscetta’s deal first, advising Priscilla to think about it for a couple of days. In light of the charges against her, I explained, it was the best offer she was going to get.

After a moment, she nodded and I changed the subject. “They told me you had some trouble,” I said. “I’ve been waiting for over an hour.”

She was sitting behind the table, her legs crossed, a finger curled in her dark hair. “Me? Uh-uh. One of the bugs went off on a CO, but it didn’t have anything to do with me.”

I put a pack of cigarettes on the table and watched her shake one out. “You’re telling me it took the staff all this time to gain control?”

Priscilla stared at me for a minute, her gaze frankly speculative, then shrugged her shoulders. “The bug got her ass kicked in a hurry. She was on her way to the exercise yard when she went off. Then the rest of us were locked down. As an object lesson, I guess.” She lit the cigarette, blew out a long stream of smoke. “Afterwards, the CO’s put us through the usual bullshit.”

“Which was?”

For once, her eyes flashed a little fire. “What they did first, counselor, was toss our cells. Then they had us strip down and bend over so they could look up our vaginas and rectums for contraband. The usual, like I said.”

When I flinched, Priscilla reached across the table to lay her fingertips on the back of my hand. “It’s all right, Sid. Doesn’t hurt a bit. And you can tell Buscetta to shove his deal. Tell him he can do it privately. He doesn’t have to have a CO watching to make sure he does it right.”

Before I could respond, a grossly overweight corrections officer rushed up to the viewing window and knocked on the Plexiglas. “Hey, hey, hey. No touching.”

Instinctively, I pulled away, the little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Priscilla leaned back, shifted her weight in the chair.

“Look, Priscilla, what happened the other day, I’m not saying I blame either one of us, but it’s not gonna happen again. Understand? Because I’m telling you, as plainly as I can, that there’s no emotional justification on my part. What I want to do here is win. That’s good for me and good for you. It doesn’t require complication.”

Instead of answering directly, Priscilla sat back in the chair. She drew up her shoulders and shook her head. “Sometimes,” she told me, “I can’t believe I’m still trying.” Her eyes were bright, almost feverish, as if she was making an effort beyond her capacity. “You know, even in your darkest moments, your heart beats, you breathe, your body does everything necessary to maintain itself. It won’t stop just because you want it to.” She let her fingers run beneath my shirt cuff, the gesture seeming to me curious rather than seductive, a search for information that could only be received through the fingertips. “I remember lying in bed, wishing that Byron had finished the job, that he’d actually killed me, while my body went about the business of healing. Like it didn’t belong to me, like I was a demented tenant who had to be protected from herself.”

T
O THIS DAY, I
think of the six weeks following Priscilla’s arraignment as a period of grace, a little gift to console me for the storm that followed. Without doubt, it was a time of small victories, a truth Buscetta acknowledged with his seven-year deal. It was also a time of high spirits and high energy. We worked until we were ready to drop. We laughed at each other’s jokes. We were drunk on the mere possibility of success.

The high point of that period, the white froth at the apex of the wave just before it began to curl down over my family, occurred on February 15, in the chambers of Judge Thomas Delaney. The session was to be purely off the record, with no court reporter present, a chance to air complaints, review progress. Under other circumstances, Delaney would have pushed for a plea bargain, but I think by this time he was looking forward to a trial.

After a few minutes of verbal sparring in which Buscetta accused me of withholding the state’s generous deal from my client, I renewed my demand for all paperwork pertaining to the search of Priscilla’s apartment and her arrest. “You ordered the state to produce this material, judge, but I can’t even get Mr. Buscetta to return my calls.”

Delaney gently pushed a wisp of silvery hair away from his forehead. “Mr. Buscetta?”

Carlo folded his arms across his chest. His dark eyebrows formed twin arches above his black eyes. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “This is a two-forty matter, your honor.” He was referring to Article 240 of the Criminal Procedure Law. “The prosecution is not obligated to produce this material until after direct examination of those witnesses the prosecution chooses to call.”

Delaney stared down at his desk for a moment. I could see his scalp redden beneath his feathery hair, a sure sign that I should keep my big mouth shut and let nature take its course.

“I read Mr. Kaplan’s motion, Mr. Buscetta, and the first question that occurs to me is how the responding officers knew the 911 call wasn’t a hoax?” Delaney’s voice was thin and strained. “I’ve never been much for warrantless searches. Perhaps that’s because I was appointed in an era when the legislature respected the Constitution of the State of New York.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, finally looked up to stare directly into Buscetta’s eyes. “Did I tell you that I’m considering retirement? That’s partly because I can’t make the adjustment to being shit upon by pissant prosecutors.”

I intoned a silent prayer to my ancestors, wishing with all my heart that Carlo’s resistance would stiffen into outright defiance. If Delaney ruled the original entry into Priscilla’s apartment unjustified, the cocaine and the gun would go out, along with Carlo Buscetta’s case against my client.

“Your honor, the statute is clear,” Buscetta began.

“Today is Friday, Mr. Buscetta.” Delaney’s voice hardened as he went on; his small nostrils pinched together until they virtually closed. “Let’s say by Monday morning, ten o’clock, in Mr. Kaplan’s office. Copies of the 911 tape, all written material requested in the motion, anything else relating to the search which might, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered relevant.”

Buscetta actually shuddered, producing a doglike wiggle that ran from the base of his spine up into his neck. “Your honor …”

“I’m not asking for any assurances,” Delaney said, waving Carlo into silence. “After all, the statute
is
clear.”

We celebrated, Julie, Caleb, and I, with a lunch at the Union Square Cafe, one of New York’s better and more expensive restaurants. I remember the general mood as amused. Carlo, as he’d exited Judge Delaney’s chambers, had almost bounced off Caleb who was standing in the hall. He’d stared at Caleb for a moment, his face reddening, then whipped around to stare at me.

“I can’t get the material to you by Monday morning,” he finally said.

“Sorry to hear that, Carlo.” I threw Caleb a wink. “Because if you don’t, I’m gonna snitch you out. See if I can have your sorry ass thrown into solitary.”

I told the story over lunch, went on at length without overestimating the extent of our victory, finally predicting that Carlo would provide the data on time.

“Delaney won’t back off,” I concluded. “He once told me that his great-grandfather learned the art of New York politics from Boss Tweed and that it boiled down to a pair of mandates: reward your friends, punish your enemies. Carlo’s been around for a long time. He’ll figure it out once he cools off.”

Rebecca Barthelme joined us for coffee, accompanied by Elizabeth Howe. It was my first meeting with the good doctor and I don’t know exactly what I was expecting (perhaps the anorexic, chain-smoking, shifty-eyed shrink who’d supervised my own therapy) but Elizabeth Howe, a fortyish black woman, radiated the kind of inner warmth usually associated with coffee and pie around the kitchen table. Her voice was honey-warm.

Julie did her best to maintain a neutral expression as she made the introductions, but, though she did manage to erase an incipient smile with the tip of her tongue, she failed to control the amusement in her, for once, sparkling green eyes.

“And this,” she said, extending her open palm in my direction, “is Sidney Kaplan, Defender of the Downtrodden, Champion of the Underdog.”

I celebrated the morning’s triumph by taking an afternoon snooze in my office, a matter of pure self-indulgence and a good measure of my personal contentment. I would get Priscilla off, then Benny Levine, then Manuel Bergman, then all the rest of them. I was Sidney Kaplan, Esq. I could not be beaten. I would count my clients, or the dollars they poured into my coffers, instead of sheep.