Brain Storm (44 page)

“Well, Judge,” said Frank Donahue, “if nothing else, we have the case of United States versus Hamlet well in hand.”

“ ‘How now? A rat?’ ” chuckled Judge Stang, and turned around just far enough to trim the ash on his cigar in the stone ashtray on his desk, then swiveled back to his view. “I take one look at this statute, gentlemen, and I see trials. Lots of trials, each one lasting forever, while we try to find out just what kind of hatred our defendant specialized in. It’s hard enough trying to find out what the accused
did.
Now you want to add to that another four days of trial to find out what he was thinking about when he did it?”

“Judge,” said Donahue impatiently, “we move to—”

“After careful consideration,” interrupted Judge Stang, “this court has determined that a hearing on these matters is not necessary. The court has before it written motions and supporting memoranda from both the government and the defendant, James Whitlow.”

The judge swiveled and faced the attorneys.

“The court rules that all of the motions in limine filed by the defendant are hereby granted. The court further rules that all of the motions in limine filed by the government seeking to suppress evidence of the defendant’s mental disease or defect are hereby denied.”

“The government will seek an immediate, expedited interlocutory appeal of this proceeding and the court’s orders,” said Donahue firmly.

“I’m not finished, Mr. Donahue,” said the judge. “In addition, for the reasons set forth in the defendant’s proposed order and memorandum
in support, drafted by Mr. Watson, here, the court hereby grants the defendant’s motion to dismiss the government’s charges under the hate crime motivation sentencing provisions.”

“The court will be reversed on appeal,” said Donahue confidently.

“Pah,” said the judge, more smoke billowing aloft. “Why, I hadn’t thought of that, Mr. Donahue. Now you’ve got me thinking. If that happens and this case comes back to my courtroom, I might have to sit on it until after the election.”

Donahue turned to Harper and said, “C’mon.”

The judge drawled on. “Of course, the election has nothing to do with this case, because you heard me ask the United States Attorney about his motives in filing it, and he said nothing about any election.”

Harper and Donahue left. Myrna and Watson stood in front of Judge Stang’s desk, breathing faster, flush with the spoils of victory.

“Fine work on the motions,” said Judge Stang. “In your coming colloquy with the Platonic Guardians upstairs in the Eighth Circuit, you will probably win on most of your motions in limine because the government is overreaching in its efforts to put speech, beliefs, and associations before the jury. Besides, most evidentiary rulings are within the sound discretion of the trial court,” he said, exhaling smoke in a sigh. “That’s me.”

“Yes, Judge,” said Watson.

“But the court may have overreached itself in dismissing the hate crime business. That’s going to be your real battle. You will be closely questioned on Wisconsin versus Mitchell.”

“I know, Judge.”

“The statute in Wisconsin versus Mitchell is different from this federal statute for the reasons set forth in your papers. Make sure you are ready to tell them why.”

“I will, Judge.”

“Ms. Schweich, if we come back for trial on this, you will behave yourself in my courtroom. No antics.”

“I will do my utmost,” said Myrna.

The judge snorted. “And if your utmost isn’t good enough, and you act like an asshole, then I will call you an asshole in front of your client, the jury, the press, your mother, and so on.”

“I understand, Judge.”

The judge swung slowly back around to his window and sighed. “That’s Mark Twain’s river,” he said.

“It’s very beautiful today,” said Myrna.

“I’m old and tired,” said Judge Stang. “Human vices and the voices of lawyers trouble my sleep. I am not at peace. Soon, I will be dead. Frank Donahue will be senator. And you will all still be back here talking. I’ll be slumbering in eternal bliss and you’ll be giving tongue to base human urges. Fools! I cry, Make me merry. But they do not oblige.”

“We’ll make plenty merry after a ruling like that, Judge,” said Myrna. “May we be dismissed if the court has no further business with us?”

“
Ida!
Show the lawyers out and bring my tea.”

M
yrna climbed into the backseat of Watson’s Honda and briskly disrobed, making like Joan of Arc after battle, using the clothes hooks as racks for her litigator’s panoply of armor: worsted wool breastplate, burgundy scarf gorget, chain mail of silk blouse, gray skirt of tasses.

Watson tried to drive, but the adrenaline of conquest was singing in his veins and giving him the shakes. He had expected to go down in flames nobly defending Whitlow’s constitutional rights, and this expectation had become an antidote to his fear of failure. No shame in losing a loser of a case for a loser of a client. Nothing wrong with a novice practitioner training on the legal equivalent of a cadaver. A young lawyer could have done himself proud by winning just one of his sixteen pretrial motions. Even a symbolic win on a “mere technicality,” as the newspapers love to say, would have been ample reward. But to win all sixteen motions? Including a motion to dismiss the hate crime charges? Speechless delirium. He had at least temporarily altered the destiny of a murderer, upset the plans of the federal government, frustrated a U.S. Attorney and candidate for the U.S. Senate, and probably enraged half of the community—all by arranging letters and words on the aquamarine
screen of his monitor, then printing them out and filing them in court.

“Looks like you and Frank Donahue will go at it,” she said.

“Frank Donahue? I figured Harper would argue it.”

“No way, Harper is Mr. Hollywood. Helpless without a script. Donahue will handle this one himself. He’ll want to make sure the Eighth Circuit understands how important this case is to the office of the U.S. Attorney and to the office of the Senate.”

Watson held off imagining what it would be like to square off against Frank Donahue in the U.S. Court of Appeals and savored the victory in hand. In law school, drafting legal memoranda had won him good grades and prizes. In federal district court, prize memos conferred tactical advantages on guys like James Whitlow, a bigot on taxpayer-funded life support. For the time being, Watson’s memos had thwarted the will of the People of the United States of America, who wanted Whitlow injected with something that would do the job quickly and not altogether painlessly.

From the backseat, Myrna gave a short seminar on client relations and the criminal law, while changing back into black grunge mufti and her Elvis Costello T-shirt.

At pivotal junctures in any case, she advised, the client needs to be informed. When the news is bad, the lawyer should never mention the subject of fees outstanding. But when bearing glad tidings of great joy, such as the pretrial motions massacre they’d just wrought on the government lawyers, the communication to the client should always include a reminder of the fees required to render such excellent services. In Myrna’s considered opinion, it was time to advise their client that Dr. Green’s fees were soaring. They had just won an important tactical battle in what could be a long war—a campaign that could very possibly include two appeals: one before trial, one after. He should seize the day and secure another bundle of fragrant, green bills.

“Again?” asked Watson. “Ask them for more money? Already?”

“Better now than after we win or lose an appeal or a trial, dude,” she said. “After that we may not hear from them again. Then what? Do we send them a statement of fees for services rendered? Attention: Order of the Eagles, care of Santa’s Workshop, North Pole. We don’t even have their address. Just between you and me I don’t want to know their address. We kicked the government’s well-funded ass with nothing but
our canvas-topped tennis shoes, and now we need more money for steel-toed boots.”

In describing the current posture of the case to their client, she advised, Watson should be guardedly optimistic, carefully exuberant, if such a thing was possible. Celebrate triumph without raising false hopes. They still had the court of appeals to contend with, but the deference that the court of appeals was required to give to Judge Stang’s evidentiary rulings—what lawyers called the “standard of review” on appeal—was so much in their favor that some, if not most, of the evidence of racial animus would not be admissible at trial. More important, they had thrown a procedural hurdle in the path of Donahue and Harper, who now had to write a brief and argue an appeal in the Eighth Circuit before they could even think about going to trial.

“See what happens when you do your job?” said Myrna. “I’m the first to work with opposing counsel, until they try to do me in the eye. When that happens, I smack the other lawyer upside the head with a riot stick and break his teeth. Then I tell him if he ever, ever disses me again, I will go banshee. I will go Harpy, succubus, fuckubus, you name it. I will show up in his worst nightmare, sink my talons into his back, strangle him with piano wire, gnaw off his scalp with my fangs.” She stopped for a breath. “Am I too wrapped up in my work?”

The snap and hiss of a match igniting led him to believe she was administering another maintenance dose of nicotine. Then he smelled burning herbs.

“Myrna! Are you brain damaged? We are in the car, for the love of …”

“Celebrate,” she croaked in the breathless whisper of a pothead who has learned to talk without exhaling. “We owe it to ourselves. We’ve made a real difference in the life of a poor, helpless, downtrodden, defenseless bigot.” She swallowed a cough without losing her hit.

“Where did you get that?”

“My purse,” she said.

Watson flashed on the session in chambers, where Myrna had pulled a cigarette instead of a cookie out of her purse as a reward for her command of the federal rules of evidence. So, not only was she reckless enough to fire up a joint in a moving automobile on a major thoroughfare in broad daylight, but she also had waltzed through metal detectors operated by court security officers; into a federal courthouse; past regional
offices of the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Attorney; and into federal district court, where she appeared before Judge Whittaker J. “Black Jack” Stang—Ivan the Terrible, the Prince of Darkness—all the while serenely in possession of a Class I narcotic.

He needed to finish this case and promptly reassess his post–Stern, Pale office arrangements.

She passed a thin, pink joint wrapped in strawberry rolling papers up to the front seat.

“In the car?” cried Watson, waving it away. “Do you want to get arrested and tossed into the cell next to Whitlow’s?”

The notion so amused her she lost her hit in a series of spasmodic chuckles. “We have our lawyers with us, don’t we?”

Watson kept glancing into the rearview mirror, scanning for cherry-topped avengers, managing to get his pulse back under control when he didn’t see any. He berated Myrna again; he didn’t care if she endangered her own career, but he did not appreciate her putting
his
ass in legal peril. The next time he looked up at the mirror, he noticed a gray sedan. Noticed it, because it had been there before, or so it seemed. A few minutes ago? A gray Ford? A Taurus? A Probe? Two serious-looking galoots—almost twins, dark hair, dark suits, dark sunglasses … make that mirrored sunglasses. They didn’t seem to be talking, just staring straight ahead at … Had they been there before? He’d checked the mirror before turning up the ramp onto Highway 40. Was this the same gray car he’d seen then? Nah.

He changed lanes. The gray car followed.

“Uh, Myrna,” he said, glancing again into the rearview mirror, “I’m not buzzing a cop, I’m not copping a buzz—I mean, maybe I’m having some contact paranoia. There’s a car behind us, possibly following us. Two guys in suits and sunglasses.”

Myrna calmly exhaled her last hit, put the roach out on her tongue, and swallowed it. “If they want me for possession, they’ll need a warrant and a stomach pump. Don’t gape in the mirror,” she said. “The worst that can happen is you’ll get a clinic on probable cause and auto searches from a leading expert.”

She fished a compact out of her purse, opened it, and dabbed at the corner of her lips with a tissue.

“Couple a serious fucks in suits,” she said, tilting the compact mirror. “You got automatic windows?”

“Yeah,” said Watson, struggling to keep his eyes off the rearview. “I
do. And power windows will help get rid of the smoke. But what about the big wad of cash from Buck’s lawyer I have in the trunk?”

Myrna emitted a vocal call that seemed to originate from somewhere in their evolutionary past. “YOU KEEP THE MONEY IN THE TRUNK OF YOUR CAR?” she yelled. “And you’re beating me over the head about having a hit of pot on me? Please advise that we have a container search on our hands here and not plain view!”

“It’s still in the envelope it came in,” he said. “You told me bank deposits look like
income
to the IRS,” he protested, thinking—more like internally screaming—
Not only do I lose my job! Now I lose my law license!
Maybe Sheila will bring a bumper sticker home from school that says:
DARE TO KEEP YOUR DAD OFF DRUGS
. Or maybe he could show up on Parent Career Day for a short presentation on money laundering.

“I have about ten safety deposit boxes in different names,” she said. “Remind me to show you how they work. In the meantime, make some big cracks in these windows back here, while I get this license number down. Missouri 5YW-77F.”

Watson heard a click and beep as she powered up her cellular phone.

“I know a friendly Department of Motor Vehicles dispatcher with main database access,” she said. “Got her kid off with a suspended sentence for a weapons charge.”

“Where do I go?” asked Watson, steadfastly staring straight over the wheel and concentrating on the logo of a Bunny Bread delivery truck in front of them.

“That depends if behind us we have government goombahs or some other variety of big tuna. Don’t look in the rearview. Turn on your blinker, make a lane switch, and check them in the sideview.”