Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) (17 page)

“All right, Eddie. How you been?”

“Very fine, Tubby. Everything is just fine. Business is good.”

Tubby said hello to Guyoz, and got a nod and a throat-clearing in reply.

“Where’s the judge?” he asked Eddie.

“He’s on the bench, but he keeps slipping back to his office. There’s some unfair trade practices trial going on, and Mrs. Maselli here,” Eddie smiled at Mrs. Maselli, “just told me they are reading forty-seven depositions to the jury. Can you believe that? Forty-seven depositions.”

“You’re kidding me.” Tubby cracked open the side door to the courtroom and, sure enough, a lawyer at a podium was slowly reading questions from a transcript to another lawyer playing the role of the witness, who tonelessly read the answers from the same script to twelve jurors in various stages of catatonia. The judge had his face covered by his hands like he was weeping at a funeral. Boredom had driven off any spectators, but there were at least ten attorneys at the counsel table, staring off into space. One was surreptitiously reading a magazine folded on his knees.

Tubby shut the door. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

“Mrs. Maselli says for two days, and one more day to go.”

“How do you suppose they stay awake?”

“They don’t. Hey, did you ever hear this story? Did you ever know Vick Borzey? He was Judge Christmas’s clerk for maybe twenty years. I think he’s retired now. Anyway, the judge is on the bench, and Fred Boudreau, or one of the lawyers with him, is examining this witness. It’s a maritime case. It’s dragging on, and they’ve just had their lunch break. Everybody’s sleepy, and Vick, you know, nods out. Boudreau asks the witness a question, and the other side’s lawyer cries out ‘Objection.’ Vick, the clerk, jerks his head up and yells, ‘Overruled.’ Judge Christmas holds up his hand and gets everybody up to the bench. ‘Victor,’ he says, ‘that ain’t your job. I’m the one who gets to rule on the objections.’” Eddie let out a whinny.

“That’s funny,” Tubby said. “No, I never heard about that. Vick must have been dreaming he was the judge.”

“Don’t we all, Tubby?”

“Not me. I couldn’t stand the tedium.”

“Sugar!” The judge’s voice boomed from his office. The Bitch jumped up—spry for a lady of advanced years—and pranced past the lawyers with her habitual triumphant sneer, like she had just beaten everybody in the room in some contest.

“Yes, Judge,” she said when she disappeared inside. A moment later she stuck her head back out and asked whether everyone was present for the Sandy Shandell pretrial. Eddie said they were all here, and she told them to come on back into chambers.

Judge Maselli was no intellectual wiz, nor was he especially hardworking. His day began late and ended early. Real court was held at the restaurant at the Warwick Hotel down the street, where he ate breakfast and lunch and enjoyed the afternoon happy hour, often in the company of lawyers who had cases on his docket. He held conferences in his chambers as rarely as possible because his mother was there. He genuinely appreciated her ability to manage that aspect of his life, but preferred to be elsewhere while she did it. Still, local rules of court adopted by his fellow judges required assembling lawyers shortly before trial to hash out details and arguments and, most importantly, to try to compel a settlement that would avoid trial. Already it took three or more years to get a jury trial. Without settlements it would take twenty.

Maselli was scowling at the pretrial memoranda he was reading when the lawyers filed in and said, “Good morning, Your Honor.” They took seats in front of his massive desk like pupils at the feet of some great sage. The judge was in a foul mood because he had to be near the courtroom, if not physically in it, for at least four or five hours each day, trapped by impossible litigants presenting the thoroughly uninteresting testimony of accountants and engineers who were accused of cornering the market on some arcane piece of oil-field equipment the judge did not understand. The parties had rejected his settlement advice, and he was angry about that, especially with a defendant insurance company that had refused to pony up a million or two at his suggestion. There was only so much he could do to punish this defendant, since this was a jury trial, but he was getting in his jabs from the bench every chance he got.

Now here was—guess what—another recalcitrant insurance company creating another mess that was headed for trial in two weeks. The judge ignored those seated before him for a minute, then he raised his eyes.

“What can I do for you today, gentlemen?”

Protocol dictated that the plaintiff talk first, so Tubby began.

“You’ll remember this one right away, Judge. My client, Sandy Shandell, went to see Dr. Feingold for cosmetic skin treatments. The treatments were supposed to darken his skin color. This was for cosmetic purposes. There is no medical basis for performing treatments like these, still…”

“Your Honor,” Guyoz, the insurance company’s lawyer, interrupted, “that’s absolutely not true. It’s experimental, but Sandy Shandell signed all of the necessary disclosure and consent forms.”

Judge Maselli held up his hand and stopped Guyoz. “One at a time. Mr. Dubonnet can finish what he has to say. Then you’ll have your turn.”

“All right, Judge,” Tubby resumed. “In any case, the treatments—if that’s what they were—were a disaster, and Mr. Shandell is left with these grotesque splotches all over his body. He’s an entertainer…”

“He’s a transvestite stripper,” Guyoz interrupted.

Tubby spread his arms and put on a helpless look.

“Let him finish, Mr. Guyoz,” the judge snapped.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Guyoz said.

“It’s true he’s a dancer, but he’s a popular one. He makes an excellent income. Now, as a result of what the doctor did, he is often too inhibited to perform and needs reconstructive surgery. Even with that he’ll never be the same. We calculate his lost income to be in the neighborhood of two hundred fifty thousand dollars and change, his corrective surgery to be at least that much, and for pain, and obviously the tremendous embarrassment he has suffered, three million dollars.”

“Now, there’s your side.” The judge turned his head, making Tubby think of the turret of a tank. “You can have your say now, Mr. Guyoz.”

“Thank you, Judge. What we have here is an outrageously inflated claim. Mr. Dubonnet’s client is a sex show stripper…”

“Dancer,” interrupted Tubby.

“Dancer, whatever. He or she, whichever may be correct, works in various French Quarter establishments, where people go in for that kind of thing, and she makes tips or whatever people stick in her garters.”

“Wait a second…” Tubby began.

“At least that’s what she was doing the night I went there.”

The judge looked interested.

“Yes, Your Honor, I went to see how her supposed injuries were affecting her performance.”

“And?” Judge Maselli raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

“As far as I could tell, those freaks will pay as much to see a splotchy transvestite as one who looks normal.”

“Judge…” Tubby began, but he was cut off by Maselli’s raised palm.

“Mr. Guyoz. We are not going to let this matter, or this trial if we have to have one, degenerate into name-calling, insults, or the use of words like ‘freaks.’”

“Sorry, Your Honor.”

“Let me finish. Whether you approve of them or not, these clubs give a certain atmosphere to our city that we appreciate. I understand that you may not be aware of this. In Baton Rouge, where you practice law, they may not do things this way. But you do your cause no good when you use expressions like that. I probably shouldn’t say this, but you also do your cause no good when you acknowledge to me that the plaintiff has a splotchy appearance and when you distinguish that from a normal appearance. If you are conceding that he, or she, is no longer normal, is this case only about the measure of the plaintiff’s damages?”

“Judge, I do practice in Baton Rouge, but I also keep an office here which I will be frequenting until this trial is concluded. And I am not conceding anything. You should not take my remarks to mean that Shandell has been made any less normal by Dr. Feingold. I’d say she never was normal. What we do know is she wanted to undergo a new and experimental procedure to darken her skin, knowing full well, after being adequately informed, that it had a good chance of failure and that, plain and simple, it didn’t work as well as she wanted. She is not ruined, Judge, and these splotches probably make her even more attractive to the customers of these unique joints.”

“Mr. Dubonnet, I see you want to talk.”

“It’s not really about how her customers feel, Judge, it’s how she feels. This is a person with feelings like you or me. She is embarrassed and humiliated about the way she looks, and she can’t do a thing about it. She wanted to be attractive to her friends and loved ones, and now she’s not, or at least so she feels. The disfigurement of her complexion is obvious to anyone, Judge. Maybe she can perform for Mr. Guyoz’s ‘freaks,’ but she wanted more from life than that. She…”

“I see what your case will be, Mr. Dubonnet,” the judge said. “Okay, let’s see where we are. Mr. Guyoz, you heard Mr. Dubonnet suggest that his case is worth more than three million dollars. What do you say to that?”

“I think fifteen thousand dollars is more like it, Judge, and that’s just to get rid of it.”

“That’s a big gap. Eddie, do you have anything to add?”

Eddie Rodrigue had been sitting quietly, bobbing his head in apparent agreement to everything anybody said.

“It seems to me, Judge, that this is a real tough case from all points of view, but I don’t think the claims are big enough to touch my client, so like my daddy said I’m gonna ‘zip da lip.’”

“Your father was a wise man, Mr. Rodrigue.” Judge Maselli closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and said, “It seems to me that both sides here have a problem. You have a problem, Mr. Guyoz, because the disfigurement is apparent. You have a problem, Mr. Dubonnet, because we don’t know what value a jury might place on lost love in a case of this sort. Go out in the hall. If you work anything out, let me know. If you don’t, be here at eight-thirty Thursday-a-week for jury selection.”

“Thank you, Judge,” all three said in unison.

The talk in the hall did not amount to much. Guyoz said he still thought Shandell’s case stunk, and Tubby said he was going to be surprised how sweet it smelled to a jury.

“We’re going to get a jury of the kind of people who understand a guy like Sandy,” Tubby told him. “They’re going to understand how he’s been damaged, and let me tell you, if you don’t know it, that you’ve got another big problem. There is no way that Dr. Feingold can’t look rich and conceited. He is rich and conceited, and the man is no actor. The jury will have no pity on him. Plus he knows he botched this up, and he feels sorry for Sandy. That’s going to come through to the jury loud and clear.”

“So what are we talking about here, Dubonnet? Fifty thousand dollars? Seventy-five thousand?”

“A lot more, Guyoz. Think three hundred thousand as a settlement amount. I believe a jury will give me a lot more.”

“I’d send my son to Southern before I’d recommend paying that much to Sandy Shandell.”

“That stuff doesn’t work in Orleans Parish, man. You might as well get your checkbook ready. And you’re not doing Dr. Feingold any good. The jury is going to hurt you so bad you’ll probably cancel his insurance.”

“Like I told you before, you want to talk to Feingold and try to work something out, be my guest,” Guyoz said. “He’s got a twenty-five-thousand-dollar deductible to be concerned about. What I’m concerned about is the Goodhealth Insurance Company, and they’re not paying two hundred seventy-five thousand to a male stripper with adjustable boobs. You can tell that to Mr. Shandell, and he can stuff it wherever it feels good.”

Guyoz twisted his mustache menacingly. He stuck his briefcase under his arm and marched away.

“That man needs to learn to lighten up,” said Eddie.

“He’s a prick,” Tubby said. Tubby tried to maintain an attitude that any opponent who did not wish to settle with him was a prick, but he thought Guyoz probably really was a prick. And he had hair growing out of his ears. Fuck him.

Tubby made himself a quick salad at a little place near the courthouse that charged you by the ounce. He stared discontentedly at his nutritious plate and thought of finer things. He conjured up sautéed shrimp with roasted peppers and bright little roma tomatoes, and some pasta with a light buttery sauce, like he could be eating at Romairs if the world were just a little less imperfect and there were just a bit more time in the day. Surely, however, there was nothing better for the soul than lettuce, cucumbers, and sweet onions. Feeling pure of heart, Tubby hurried on his way.

Back at the office he scooped his messages from the clip on Cherrylynn’s desk. He flipped through a couple. There was one to call Clifford Banks. He went to sit at his desk. Cherrylynn had moved in one of the chairs from the conference room while Tubby’s leather chair was at the shop. He drummed his fingers on the armrest while he stared at the message. Then he made the call.

“This is Tubby Dubonnet. Is Mr. Banks in?”

“Just a second, sir, I’ll see.”

A few moments passed before Banks took the call.

“Hello, Tubby, how are you?”

“I’m peachy, what’s the deal?”

“If you would like to meet, let me suggest a spot Uptown. ‘’

“All right.”

“There is a K&B drugstore not far from your house where Napoleon and Claiborne Avenues intersect.” Tubby was sure he had never mentioned where he lived to Banks. There was no big secret, of course, since he was in the phone book.

“Yeah, I know where it is.”

“Go there this evening around eleven o’clock. Park away from the store and wait in your car.”

“Okay. Who do I look for?”

“Somebody will find you. It will only take a minute.”

“You can bet the place I’ll be waiting will be well lit.”

“As you wish. All they want is the money, Tubby. That’s all they ever wanted.”

And the son of a bitch hung up.