Mean Streak (6 page)

About halfway up, standing in the exact spot where the minicams would get a nice shot of the impressive courthouse columns behind him, stood Nick Lazarus. I couldn't hear the words, but every one of the reporters listened, microphones poised, as he spoke. Next to him, Davia Singer wore a carefully schooled expression of neutrality on her thin face. It was the kind of expression a wife wears in public when her husband flirts with the waitress, a wait-till-I-get-you-home look. It was the expression my face undoubtedly would have worn if my boss had hogged the cameras on my case.

Riordan stepped toward the knot of reporters. I wanted to grab his sleeve and pull him back, but he was too quick for me. By the time I caught up, he was at the edge of the crowd. I caught the last few words out of Nick Lazarus' mouth: “Matt Riordan is a cancer in this courthouse,” he intoned, “and this trial will remove that cancer once and for all.”

He's no Cancer
, I thought with flippant irrelevance,
he's a Scorpio
. I had no idea what Matt was going to say, but it was clear to me he wasn't going to let Lazarus have the last word with the press.

Carlos Ruiz of Channel Seven stood next to Riordan. He nudged his cameraman, who turned the lens toward my client. Other reporters and camera people realized Riordan was nearby, and soon all the lenses were focused on him, all the mikes were poised and waiting for his reply to the insulting challenge just issued by the prosecution.

Ruiz was known for his cocky, street-kid style. Geraldo Lite. “So, Riordan,” he began, “this Lazarus dude says you're a cancer. That true, or what, man?”

It was the perfect setup; if Riordan had paid Ruiz to ask the question, it couldn't have gone better. “A cancer?” he quipped. “At best, I'm a hernia. A pain in the you-know-what. And you want to know something?”

By now all the reporters had zeroed in on Matt; Lazarus stood alone, flanked only by Davia Singer.

Matt's resonant voice lowered just a tad, making them edge in a little closer. Emphasizing the fact that the reporters were hanging on his every word, Lazarus forgotten. “It's my job to be a pain in the you-know-what. And Nick Lazarus doesn't like it when I do my job, so he's trumped up this case to teach me a lesson. Well, you wait and see who learns a lesson here. Just wait and see. That's my advice to all of you.”

There were more questions, but Matt waved them away with a friendly smile. He turned and strode back up the steps, without a backward glance to see whether or not I was following.

It wasn't until we reached the landing at the top of the stairs that he acknowledged my existence. He wheeled on me so suddenly, I took a step backwards. His face was a mottled red and the veins stood out in his neck. He shoved me behind one of the massive pillars and pinned me against the smooth marble with a sinewy arm.

“You will
never
, ever use the words ‘no comment' again while you are my lawyer,” he said in a thick voice, biting off each word. “This is a media case and the only way we are going to win is to play the media as carefully as we play the judge and jury. If you have a problem with that, say so now and I'll find somebody else to represent me.”

When I'd agreed to take Matt's case, I had no idea I'd be riding the Mean Streak outside the courtroom as well as inside. I nodded, too upset to speak, but knowing he was right. As long as Lazarus intended to try his case on the courthouse steps, we had to do the same.

I
had to do the same. I should have been the one to talk to the reporters, not Matt. It was my place, not his. He had only stepped up to the plate after I'd struck out.

I had to get a hit next time, or admit I wasn't ready for the bigs.

I pushed open the giant carved wooden door to the courtroom with the name Justice de Freitas on the identifying plaque, and stepped onto the big roller coaster.

I'd thrown up my popcorn and cotton candy after my first ride on the real Mean Streak; walking into my first-ever federal courtroom, representing the most famous defendant I'd ever had, I felt the same queasiness in my stomach. Of course, I reassured myself, this time I hadn't had five beers and two joints before getting on the roller coaster.

I reminded myself I'd gone back later for a second ride. By the time we'd left Cedar Point, the Mean Streak was my new favorite. I hoped I'd feel the same way about high-profile federal cases sometime before the verdict came in.

Davia Singer sat at the prosecution table with her file spread out before her in neat, orderly stacks of paper. I gazed at her as I made my way up the aisle toward the defense table. What kind of lawyer was she? I wondered. How would we play against one another at trial?

Davia. A soft, evocative name. A name that promised loose curls framing an olive-skinned face with huge dark eyes. A name that promised a soft, slightly accented voice. A name that held mystery, femininity, yet conveyed the strength of a David.

Which left me playing the uncoveted role of Goliath.

Lazarus stood aside and smiled as Riordan and I walked through the heavy door. It was the smile of a predator who sees his prey coming within claw range. I smiled back, beaming confidently. If there was one thing I'd learned from the man who was now my client, it was to radiate confidence no matter what. In fact, the more scared you were, the more important it was to make people think you had the world by the tail.

I stepped up to the defense table and set my briefcase on its shiny surface. I opened it and pulled out a yellow legal pad and a nearly-empty manila folder. I set them carefully on the table, marking my territory as instinctively as a cat.

I had to make the courtroom as much mine as Davia Singer's. I opened my card case, took out a card with my name and address on it, and walked up to the court reporter. I handed it to him with a smile and told him I'd want the arraignment minutes as soon as possible. “I'm willing to pay rush rates,” I added.

This was Riordan's idea. It was the legal equivalent of handing the maitre d' a big tip to insure good service.

The courtroom was filling up. The reporters were print people, for the most part; without cameras in the courtroom, the television types were limited in their coverage. I recognized
Village Voice
columnist Jesse Winthrop, the grand old man of New York City muckraking, in the first row. He still resembled an urban Jewish John Brown, with deep-set eyes that burned with indignation.

The rest of the rows were occupied by well-dressed young lawyers. Probably Singer's cheering section; baby U.S. Attorneys eager to see the aging gunslinger Matt Riordan brought down by one of their own. She was a new import from Brooklyn, I'd recently learned. She'd transferred from the quieter precincts of the Eastern District to the goldfish bowl of the Southern.

The huge door swung open and a grossly fat man waddled up the aisle, trailed by a ferret of a man with a bald pate and a furtive glance. Fat Jack Vance, Riordan's bail bondsman, had arrived, along with his lawyer, a Baxter Street hack named Sid Margolies.

“All rise. The United States District Court in and for the Southern District of New York is now in session. All those who have business before this court draw near and give your attention.”

I rose, my heart thudding with anticipation. Judge de Freitas stepped forward and took the bench. He was a small, neat man with liver spots on his bald crown. With his sad eyes and sagging jowls, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Adlai Stevenson. He had taught Evidence before his elevation to the bench; one of his prize students at Fordham Law School had been a young Matt Riordan.

The bailiff called the case. I felt a jolt of doubt and fear as the words were spoken out loud: “United States of America versus Matthew Daniel Riordan and John Anthony Vance.”

I was used to having the state of New York lined up against my client, but this time it was the whole country.

We began the ritual.

“Mr. Riordan, you are charged with violating Title 18, Section 201 of the United States Code. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty, Your Honor,” Matt said in ringing tones. As the lawyer, I usually answered on my client's behalf, but with the reporters avidly taking in every nuance, we'd decided Riordan should proclaim his innocence early and often.

“Ms. Singer,” the judge went on in a thin, dry voice I knew was going to get on my nerves at trial, “do you have Rule 16 material to turn over to defense counsel?”

Singer nodded and handed me one of the massive piles of material on her table; I acknowledged receipt for the record and tried not to look as daunted as I felt. There was an envelope on top, bulging with hard, rectangular objects: tape cassettes.

They had him on tape. Lani had warned me, but it still felt as if the roller-coaster was taking a hundred-yard plunge, leaving my stomach on the platform.

The bailiff turned his attention to our co-defendant. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Mr. Vance, how do you plead to these charges?”

The roller-coaster swerved, nearly knocking me out of the seat. Instead of the “not guilty” I'd been expecting, Sid Margolies replied, “Your Honor, Mr. Vance pleads guilty to the crime of aiding and abetting a bribery.”

I shot a quick glance at Davia Singer. She was wearing a catlike smile, a smile that said she knew she'd scored the first points in this game. She'd done something I hadn't anticipated, for starters, and she'd taken away one of my most important weapons in Matt's defense.

I needed Fat Jack at trial. I could have made a motion under Rule 14 to sever Matt's case and try him separately from the bail bondsman. I hadn't made the motion because I needed the fat man sitting next to Riordan, looking gross and slimy, in sharp contrast to my client's dapper appearance. I needed him as the jury's focus, as the man who'd really done the bribing, using Matt's name but without authority to do so. A guilty plea took him out of the case and left Matt facing the music alone.

It got worse. My stomach churned as I listened to Fat Jack enter his plea. Aiding and abetting—and in order to plead to aiding and abetting, he had to recite chapter and verse regarding exactly whom he'd aided and abetted. And that meant Matt.

According to Fat Jack, Riordan had given him money to give to Eddie Fitz in return for the minutes of the grand jury testimony of one Annunziato Aiello. He'd been the go-between, and he made it very clear that he'd received money from Matt and delivered the grand jury minutes directly into Matt's hands.

Which explained the plea. The prosecution was letting Fat Jack cop a plea in exchange for his testimony against Matt. Singer would call Vance to the stand, and I'd have a shot at showing the jury he'd cut a deal to save his oversized ass at my client's expense. It was a standard prosecution ploy, and one I was increasingly certain I could deal with at trial.

I could handle this, I told myself, as my stomach settled down. The Mean Streak wasn't so different from the old wooden roller coaster I was used to.

When Fat Jack was finished, Davia Singer assured the court on the record that no consideration had been offered for this plea. It was legalese for “there was no deal.”

I gave what I hoped was a ladylike snort of derision; of course Fat Jack had cut a deal; he was going to catch a break on sentence, the U.S. attorney was going to put him on the stand and turn him against Matt, and I was going to have a field day explaining to the jury just how far they could trust a man who'd copped a plea in return for his testimony.

What was Singer thinking? Fat Jack Vance as the linchpin of the government's case? The same Fat Jack who had apparently just pled guilty to fraud? Matt had assured me that Vance's troubles in Brooklyn were wholly unconnected to our case; they involved a construction company and a multimillion-dollar negligence claim. If Singer intended to put Fat Jack on the stand against Riordan, I'd have a cross-examination made in heaven.

I tuned back in; they were talking sentence. “The government will make no recommendation as to sentence, Your Honor,” Singer was saying, “except that it is to run concurrent with whatever sentence is imposed in the Eastern District of New York on the unrelated charge of criminal conspiracy to defraud.”

It was a cute trick. By avoiding any recommendation on the record, by deferring to the Eastern District on sentence, Singer was laying the groundwork for denying a deal in front of Riordan's jury. She would be able to tell them she hadn't offered Fat Jack a cut in sentence in return for his testimony against Matt because the sentence that counted was being imposed in an unrelated case across the river and had nothing to do with her or her office.

It was a cute trick, but it wasn't going to work. No jury could listen to this and believe there was no deal. Fat Jack on the stand was something I was very much looking forward to.

I made a mental note to follow up on something Matt had told me: that Davia Singer had begun her prosecutorial career in the Eastern District, under Dominick Di Blasi. Did that mean she and her old boss were up to something regarding Vance? I intended to find out.

And then the roller coaster took another sharp swerve. “Mr. Vance will not be called at trial by the prosecution,” Singer announced. She gave another one of her enigmatic smiles; she was enjoying this. It was as if she'd anticipated every turn my mind would take—and then shot down all my assumptions, stymied all my strategies. Of course, that was her job as a lawyer and a prosecutor. I just wished she wasn't so damned good at it.

I stood as straight and still as a redwood tree. And just about as intelligent; I was having a hard time adjusting to the concept of a trial without Fat Jack as a co-defendant and/or witness for the prosecution. My entire defense strategy depended on Fat Jack, and now the prosecution was letting him walk. And trying to convince the judge there had been no deal.

But why let Jack take a walk unless they could squeeze him to testify against the man he'd worked for?