A fool for a client, p.4
A Fool for a Client, page 4
Trial by the press was part of the price one had to pay for having a free press. It would have been tempting to dismiss it as too high a price. But not for Justine. She never saw events out of context. Nevertheless the headline worried Justine, not because it boded ill for her trial, but because it reflected a lop-sided view of justice on the part of the public. They knew about Sean Murphy and what he had done. They knew that he had blood on his hands. Yet there had been no public outcry for his extradition. Some Irish Americans had even tried to portray him as a soldier for a righteous cause.
She passed another old newspaper. But this one she didn't even bother to look at. She seldom noticed things or people when she jogged. To the runners whom she overtook, it almost looked as if her face held a Thousand Yard Stare, the look that haunted the faces of so many shell shock victims, including her father. But there was no hint of recognition on their faces, no sign that they knew who she was. Neither would Justine have cared. She was too busy savouring the freedom of being out of doors.
* *
No Freedom for Richard Parker though as he sat at his untidy desk. A busy man's desk, he liked to call it. The shades were up, but the light of dawn that fell on his desk was too weak to read by. A desk lamp, shaded by smoked glass to the tone of the mid-day sky, threw a pool of light over his notes and the large volume of case-law that lay open before him.
The hours of immobility had taken their toll on Parker and he felt the soreness of bone and cramp of muscle that were the doubtful reward for his Herculean endeavours. At the back of his mind was a vague recollection of having started last night with the city lights as his backdrop and the headlights of cars drifting by in a display of kinetic tapestry.
Sleep had descended upon him some time after midnight, but he couldn't remember when he had emerged from it. He had simply resumed working as soon as he the willpower had seized him. It was a familiar pattern: first he found a ruling that appeared to offer promise, then he saw a cross-reference to another extract containing further information and his hand reached up to another shelf, to pull down another for further scrutiny. With his other hand, he frantically scribbled down his notes.
Suddenly he put his pen down and stretched his legs under the desk. He wished he didn't have to be there. He longed to sleep. But more than that, he longed to go out into the open, to inhale the fresh air. He would have turned green with envy if he had known that Justine was jogging in the dawn light of Central Park.
* *
Sean Murphy slammed the telephone receiver down angrily. The telephone was out of order and now he'd have to find another to deliver the warning. It was Birmingham all over again. They'd checked both phones only the day before. But the telephones had been vandalized since then by the kind of scum who damage other people's property for pleasure. In Derry and the Falls Road area of Belfast, the IRA disciplinary squads would catch the vandals, or other members of their families, and smash boards with spikes into their kneecaps. But thinking about that didn't help. He had to find another pay phone, and quickly. The bombs were meant to kill, but part of their strategy was to give the impression that while they sometimes attacked civilian property, they tried to spare civilian life and limb. So he raced from the street, trying to get to another phone on time.
* *
Justine was beginning to work up a slight sweat, but still running with ease. To look at her now, Parker would have been surprised to notice how harmless she seemed. Gone was the fiery tigress who had refused his help and stepped boldly alone into the arena to face an experienced prosecutor. Gone was the rock of granite who had confronted him with a surface of cold indifference when he tried to reach out to with friendship. Now she was alone, with no enemies in sight and no mental armour to shield her from the cut and thrust of the enemy, or from the burden of a needy friend.
But it was hard to define what was left.
As the ground rolled by beneath her feet, the eyes of men settled upon her. They licked their lips at the sight of her long legs and the curve of her tight round buttocks as she drifted past them. But they knew that it was just a daydream. Even stripped of the cold anger that shielded her in the courtroom Justine was too distant from the ordinary mortal to be available to them. As she sped on relentlessly, she became even more distant leaving her admirers trailing behind her. But her face was no longer forbidding. Now and again she even flashed a benevolent smile at some random stranger. Her whole manner seemed say: “I'm happy to be alive.”
* *
Not so happy was the man who was watching her through the telescopic sight of an M-16 automatic rifle.
He had a rough and rugged look about him, and although only in his late thirties, he looked old. His face was ravaged by hatred, the suppressed hatred that he felt not only towards Justine but also towards humanity in general. As far as he was concerned, the trial was just a middle-class formality.
He pressed the butt of the rifle into his shoulder and leaned into it, his left knee bent with the foot forward, the trailing leg straight with the foot pointing outward. The index finger of his right hand moved toward the trigger. In his mind he could already see the pretty young head exploding, the juices spilling out from the brain. For a few seconds he held Justine's head in the cross-hairs of the telescopic sight, relishing the feeling of power and the knowledge that he was striking a blow for the cause.
She would die now.
His finger moved and a single shot rang out.
* *
"OK Tommy, you've had your turn on the horse. Now let the other children play."
"Again," said Tommy in that sweet little voice of his, giving his mother a flash of that angelic smile.
"All right, one more time."
But it was not to be. For suddenly a voice boomed out of the public address system.
"Owing to a security alert, customers are requested to leave the shopping centre immediately."
A murmur of panic moved through the crowd and in seconds people were walking, or in some cases running, to the exits. Pauline Robson scooped Tommy off the horse and strode quickly towards the nearest exit, converging on it in time with countless others.
But inside the shops, the announcement went largely unheard and many people stayed where they were, blissfully unaware of the danger that faced them. Less than ten seconds later, the bomb in the bookshop exploded, blowing a hole in the right side of Srini Shankar's torso.
At the sound of the first blast, the restrained panic in the shopping centre erupted into full blown hysteria. People began stampeding towards the exits, pushing others to the ground and trampling all over them to get out.
Pauline had more respect for her neighbours than most, and tried to bring up her son that way, in spite of having to do it alone. But she had a responsibility to protect her son and when she saw the panic set among the hoards around her she knew that she had to get Tommy out of there. But to charge into the crush would only expose him to greater risk. So she held back while the more predatory of the survivalists barged their way past others and charged out into the murky daylight.
Only when the crowd thinned out did she carry Tommy, who was now whining and kicking, to one of the exits. It was as she reached the exit that the powerful background murmur of the crowd was shattered by the thunderclap of the second blast.
* *
Several joggers heard the thunderclap. Some of them, the seasoned veterans of New York City, even recognized it. It was a 0.22 in the hands of a savvy, street-wise sixteen-year-old. The man who had been aiming a rifle at Justine rifle fell to the ground. The bullet from a Saturday night special had lodged in his brain. The boy with the gun had originally targeted the girl who was jogging in the white shorts and shirt as his next victim. But when he spotted the man assembling the rifle his plan changed.
It was unlikely that the girl was carrying as much money as the “piece” would fetch on the black market. He didn't know how to dispose of that kind of heat, but Ozzie would. Ozzie always knew how to find a market for that sort of thing. He wouldn't use it himself. He preferred an Uzi with a short barrel and a automatic rapid fire for drive-by work. But he had contacts on the street and he could unload it for a tidy sum or some dynamite coke to sell to the pushers on their turf.
He moved quickly, disassembling the gun quickly and returning it to the case from which the man had produced it. He idly wondered who the gunman was. He wouldn't have touched him if he'd seemed like a professional hit man. But the kid knew that this was no pro. Oh he knew how to use a rifle all right, but that didn't make him a pro. No pro would stand out there in the open assembling a rifle and then aiming it, even at dawn.
Aside from the joggers, he would have known about the muggers and the cops staking out their decoys. Also it was obvious he wasn't an Italian-American. Since when does an Italian American have red hair? It was obviously some one who knew his guns better than he knew the city, in other words: a foreigner.
* *
Justine was blissfully unaware of how closely she had brushed with death. She was jogging in a secluded area of the park, hidden from public view by trees and shrubbery. Her pace was slackening now and she was sweating heavily, but still enjoying herself. It was only when she began to feel tired that she appreciated her strength and endurance.
Whenever she started jogging she felt as if she were charged with energy like a fresh battery. It was this urge to unwind and break into a sprint that used to get the better of her when she first started jogging a few years ago. Now she could keep it in check and pace herself better. She always ran the first few hundred yards at a somewhat faster pace than a normal everyday jogger, but she had been running for some time now and the pain was beginning to make itself felt.
Finally she slowed down to a halt, dropped to her knees and then sprawled out flat on her face across the soft grass. She rolled over onto her back, stretching her arms and legs like a frisky kitten, a combination of smile and yawn spreading from one end of her lips to the other.
* *
Murphy was walking back from the phone box towards his car. He had given the warning and used the coded message to confirm its authenticity. But the warning had barely got there in time to justify the propaganda claim that they had given prior warning. As he opened the car door he noticed that the clouds had blocked off the sun again, as if the curtain had closed on the first act of the drama.
Chapter 4
“Are you ready for the Levy Trial?”
Daniel Abrams looked up, unfazed by this sudden intrusion. Jerry Wilkins, the Manhattan DA, had just barged into his office without knocking, as he reviewed the office's case load. He was mildly annoyed. It was bad enough that he had to do the more mundane work while the DA made the public appearances. The least Jerry could do was let him do it without interruption. But Abrams knew that when Jerry got excited he couldn’t control himself, and he didn't make an issue of it. That was the way they worked around here. They saved the formality for the courtroom.
“She's got that smart-ass black kid from the Legal Aid office that the judge appointed as standby. But she still gets to proceed pro se.”
Jerry Wilkins, the DA, beamed a smile at him.
“You worry too much. It's just a case, like any other. And it's rock solid. Don't look so worried. She isn't going to walk away this time from this one!”
“Look I don't think you realize how serious this is.”
“The hell I don't,” said the DA, still smiling. “I've just got too many cases to worry about. And so have you.”
“Yeh, but this is political.”
“It's all political,” said the DA pulling up a chair.
“Yeh, but this is headline news coast to coast,” said Abrams.
“Maybe,” said Jerry, but this time it's a winner. Whatever jury she gets, she's sunk. Your people don't cover for their own the way some people do. You’re too busy trying to appease the Gentile establishment. If anything, they'll bend over backwards to convict, even if they have reasonable doubt.
“But this black kid could be trouble. He's young, he'd hot and he's ambitious.”
“Well that's three strikes against him,” said the DA, smiling facetiously.
“And he's Black,” said Abrams, determined to emphasize the fact. “We've got a black lawyer defending a Jew. The press'll love it.”
The DA shook his head.
“Let me tell you something about the legal process Danny boy.”
Daniel Abrams looked up at the DA, putting his pen down.
“OK let's hear the latest pearl of wisdom from the forensic foundation of omniscience.”
The DA, who tended more towards the streetwise than the academically inclined, let the remark pass over his head without comment.
“We know that there are advantages and disadvantages to conducting ones own defence. The main disadvantage is that the average citizen doesn't know the law, and even if he does he doesn't know courtroom technique. Even when a defendant uses skilful courtroom technique it often comes over as self-serving and tends to alienate the jury. He looks like he's just plain cunning and out to beat the system. On the other hand the defendant often comes over as the victim of the system, or as the hero who's taking on the establishment, especially a cute number like the one you've got in the firing line.”
“So what's the good news?”
“Well the way things stand now, it's still an amateur up against the professionals. But with a court-appointed standby, it looks like she's being properly defended. That means that her mistakes will hurt her, but she won't get the sympathy of the lone warrior swimming against the powerful tide.”
“You're mixing your metaphors,” said Abrams, shaking his head. “Anyway, it may sound all right in theory, but you weren't in court this morning.”
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying your assessment is wrong. Any which way she's going to look like the underdog going uphill against the odds! You know how the public roots for the underdog. Hell with her looks and this own-defence gimmick she'd be odds-on favourite if the cops had caught her standing over the victim with a smoking magnum!”
“Considering Murphy was poisoned that doesn't surprise me,” replied the DA through a childish smile. “Unless you mean a frothing magnum. But then again it was supposedly poisoned tequila.”
Abrams made a sweeping gesture of his hand, dismissing the DA's facetious remark.
“Look cut the wisecracks Jerry. You know what I'm getting at.”
“So what do you suggest I do?” asked the DA.
“Let me assign it to a woman, preferably a young, attractive one.”
“It won't work. The local press has latched on to the fact that she's Jewish.
“Well no one can accuse us of anti-Semitism! A third of the staff are circumcised.”
“They might accuse us of bending over backwards to prove that we're not philosemitic. This whole issue is just too sensitive. If we drop it we look bad. If we fight it we look bad. But at least if we fight it we don't have to take responsibility for the outcome. And we've got a Grand Jury indictment to justify bringing the case in the first place.”
“All right I'm not saying we have to drop it, but at least let's pull the rug out from under the anatomic bombshell by putting up a woman in the opposite corner.”
The DA was shaking his head. “You're thinking of how it'll look to the jury. If you want to step into my shoes you'd better learn to start thinking about how it looks to all those millions of people watching the seven O’clock news.”
“Why should they object to a lady lawyer?”
“They won't. But as long as the press is making an issue of the fact that it's a Justine Levy, it has to be one of your people waving the cape.”
“We've got Jewish women on the staff. What about Hannah Segal?”
Jerry Wilkins shook his head.
“Wet behind the ears. She's not ready for this kind of heavy-duty tsurus.”
“Well there's Debbie Winkler. She's got a good track record. She nailed two murderers and plea-bargained three weak cases to manslaughter in the first.”
“She's too deep into the Morton case to be pulled off now.”
“So give it to Judy Klein. It'll give her a change from sex crimes.”
The DA smiled a knowing smile, leaving Abrams puzzled.
“She's already getting a change. If you took the trouble to attend a few office conferences once in a while you'd be more up-to-date on the personnel situation.”
“She's quit? asked Abrams as if he'd just heard of the passing of an era.
The ADA was still trying to decipher the knowing look on his superior's face.
“You're forgetting Dan, we're an equal opportunity employer... pioneers of liberalism.” Abrams looked blank. “Maternity leave!” the DA exploded, exasperated by Abrams' momentary obtuseness.
