Pleading Guilty (35 page)

The old school housing BAD is the kind of structure whose starkness you don't notice until you remove the color and randomness of children. We were in a grim old classroom, with wood floors and walls of that shiny functional tile that resisted abrasion and ink pens. There was a distinct resonance when anyone scraped a chair or cleared his throat.

By ten after, I knew there was a serious problem. Across the long conference table where we were arrayed, Tom Woodhull questioned us about our absent client. The distinguished governmental functionary, enforcer of rules, man with cool white skin, no dark spots or bug bites, Tom had never cared much fo
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e--my drinking, my moods, my occasional assertions that commingling client funds was not a crime on the level of treason. I had long suspected that he had held on to this file for the sheer personal pleasure of kicking my ass.

Brushy rooted in her purse and handed me a quarter. "Better find him."

Jesus Christ, I thought. Another one.

As I was on my way to the door, my client poked his head in. Toots was heaving for breath and he motioned me into the hallway.

"Got," he said and repeated it many times. "Got someone for you to meet."

By the dusty stairway, hanging on to the square steel newel post was a rotund little fellow in the same condition as Toots, red as Christmas from exertion, breathing hard and spotted with sweat. Brushy had followed.

"You won't believe this," Toots said. "Tell them." Toots motioned with the cane and again asked the man to tell us. Taking a seat on a plain wooden bench in the hall, the man removed his topcoat. At that point I saw the Roman collar. He was a little guy, bald but for a white fringe and some fried-up strands growing straight out of his scalp.

He held out his hand. "Father Michael Shea."

Father Michael was Judge Dan Shea's younger brother, retired from a parish in Cleveland and attached to a friary there. He had come to town last week to visit relatives--Dan Shea's son, Brian, as a matter of fact, Father's nephew--and in conversation he had heard that Mr. Nuccio here was still having trouble over that old business.

"I give Mr. Nuccio a ring at once. I talked many a time to Daniel about this and he always told me he never knew a t'ing about any generosity from Mr. Nuccio. The dues over there by the country club had just completely slipped his mind. I was skeptical, I am the first to say. Daniel was no angel and he confessed some terrible things to me, as a priest and as a brother.

But he swore on Bridget's memory that there'd never been any kind of funny business between him and the Colonel. Never." Father Shea absently touched the crucifix that he wore. My partner and the love of my life, Ms. Bruccia, absorbed this intently. Our fine tropical romance was now past. There was sand in our shoes and sweet feelings between us which we had nurtured at her apartment all night. But we were again in the cold Middle West, in the land where the subdued winter light, dull as pewter, makes some people crazy and where troubles abounded. She had a million concerns. Us. And all the stuff I wouldn't tell her. Groundhog Day approaching at the firm. But Brushy was now a trial lawyer ready for trial. In her own theater all the seats were sold to Toots, even the standing room. Her powers of concentration were phenomenal; great performers of all kinds, athletes, entertainers, share this single-mindedness. And when I assessed her now, I saw nothing subdued. Rather, there was glee, the flame of celebration. She was looking from Toots to Father Shea to me, about to win the case that everyone told her she'd lose, ready to prove to the world at large what every trial lawyer secretly yearns to establish, that she was not merely an advocate or a mouthpiece but a palpable magician. Toots had finally recovered his breath and, if possible, looked happier than she did. His old stoved-in face danced around the fire.

Hitching my shoulder, I strolled them both down the old school hall. There were still those little half-height metal lockers on either side on which various enterprising youngsters had scraped their initials, hearts, and an obscenity or two, all of these symbols now enlarging in rust.

"Can you believe this?" Brushy asked. "It's phenomenal." "It certainly is," I answered. "Just phenomenal. Right at the last minute. After the last minute. So late nobody could even ask this guy boo."

Brushy looked at me strangely.

"Tell her, Toots," I said.

The old guy stared up at me dumbly. He wiped his mouth with the heel of his hand.

"It must have been a tough decision, Toots, to hire someone who looked more like Barry Fitzgerald or Bing Crosby." "Mack," said Brushy.

Toots wouldn't even feign injury.

"Forget me. Forget you," I said to him. "She could get disbarred for a stunt like this. And she has a career."

He displayed the rumpled-up sour face that appeared whenever I corrected him. He'd sunk onto another bench and was staring vacantly down the hall, rattling his cane and doing his best not to look at me. Somewhere a radiator spit a bit. I had not quite shaken the chill of winter since getting off the plane.

Brushy, now that it had come through, had lost color. "Is he a priest at least?"

"A priest? I'll bet you a bundle this guy's name is Markowitz. He's straight from central casting."

"I believed it," Brushy said. She touched her head with her short hands and bright fingernails and sat down next to Toots whom she fixed with a brief, baleful look. "I believed it."

"Sure you did," I said. "So would that dope Woodhull, probably. But somebody would figure it out eventually. Here or on the Court's Commission. If anybody ever asked for this guy's fingerprints, I'd book a seat on the next stagecoach."

The old guy still wasn't saying anything. He'd learned from the best. If you get caught, dummy up. No good ever came from confessing. I thought about his luminous expression when he had Brushy going. It must have been music to him every time he fixed something. The unraveling of society was his secret symphony. He was the hidden conductor, the only guy who knew the real score. In a way you had to hand it to him. This was the coup de grace. Imagine corrupting your own ethics hearing. Now that would make a story. After all, they forced him. He'd just wanted a continuance.

Woodhull appeared down the hall, outside the door to the hearing room.

"What's going on?" he demanded. His straight thick hair, dirty blond, had fallen down over one eye. Hitler youth. "What are you up to now, Malloy? Who's that guy?" he asked as he came closer. He meant Father Markowitz, who was still on the bench down the way.

"Who's the guy?" Tom repeated. "Is he a witness?"

Brushy and I looked at each other, neither of us answering.

"You have a new witness? Now?" It didn't take much from me to set Tom off. He'd brought a yellow pad with him and he began worrying it in the air, while he let his temper mount. "Eleventh hour, we're going to get a surprise witness? Who we haven't heard word one about? Now? Who we haven't even had a chance to interview?"

"Talk to him," Brushy said abruptly. I reached for her arm, and that gesture of restraint was all the encouragement Tom needed.

"I will," he said and advanced past the three of us.

I whisked Brushy around a corner and asked, concisely, if she'd lost her mind.

"It's unethical to put him on to testify," she said. "I know that.-

" 'Unethical' isn't the word, Brush. You do straight time for that stuff."

"Okay," she said. "But you said Woodhull would believe him." "So what? You don't think he'll drop the case. Woodhull doesn't know how to change his mind. The testimony's hearsay, and even if it comes in, he'll argue that it's worth nothing, that the judge was just too ashamed to level with his brother. You know the pitch."

"But he'll believe him, right? That's what you said." "Probably. He's probably having a shitfit right now." "So he'll be afraid he's going to lose. Suddenly. A case everybody thought he was going to win." She was giving me the reverse of her own logic, which is what I mean about her being quick-witted and devious. "He'll be willing to settle. For something short of disbarment. That's what we want. Am I right:P-

I finally saw her point. But there were still problems. "Brush, think about this. You just introduced the Deputy Administrator of Bar Admissions and Discipline to a supposed witness who your client told you is an impostor."

"My client didn't tell me anything. I didn't take any fingerprints. I'm an advocate. And I made no representations. Or introductions. Tom was free-associating. Am I supposed to protect him from himself?" She stared at me. "1 believed this guy. If somebody else doesn't, fine. The witness won't testify either way. I mean, Mack," she said quietly, "there's no downside." Toots was gimping our way. He was having a great time. Father obviously was selling well. There was no point in warning the Colonel about consequences. He'd lived his life jumping chasms, scaling perilous heights. I heard Woodhull's voice rising around the corner.

The deal we cut was unique. Under the state law attorneys could be disbarred for five years. After that they were free to reapply, and the Court's Commission, with a frequency exasperating to BAD, tended to readmit them on the theory that for most of these men and women it was the only profession they knew, like shoemakers who could only make shoes. What we offered on Toots's behalf was something better: Toots would promise never to practice law again. Not much of a concession, since he didn't practice anyway, but he would take his name off the door of his firm, give up his office there, and not receive another penny from firm income. If he ever violated the agreement, he would consent to an order of disbarment. In exchange, the proceedings against him ended. No findings. No censure. No record. His name stayed on the rolls. He would never be publicly disgraced.

Toots, in the grand tradition of clients everywhere, refused to be grateful, becoming reticent as soon as the agreement was announced to the panel.

"How'm I gonna support myself?" he asked out in the hallway after we had put on our topcoats.

We both gave him the fisheye. Toots couldn't spend what was in his mattress if he lived to one hundred.

"Toots, it's what you want," I told him.

"I like the office," he said, and no doubt he did. The secretaries who called him Colonel, the phone calls, the pols coming to visit.

"So take an office down the hall. You've retired. That's all. You're eighty-three, Colonel. It's logical."

"All right." But he was downcast. He looked elderly and glum. His color was bad and his skin seemed ripply like the rind on an orange. It's always sad to see the high brought low.

"Toots," I said, "they have never done this for anybody else. It's a one-of-a-kind. We have to swear to God and the Governor that we'll never leak one word of this deal to anyone. They can't admit they backed off on a disbarment."

"Yeah?" He liked that better, being a category of one. "So what's so special about me?"

"You hired the right lawyers," I told him. That, finally, made him laugh.

B. Final Accounting

Back in the office, Brushy and I went for what is called a victory lap, moseying by the offices of various litigators and casually describing the result. The acclaim was universal, and by the time we reached the desk of our secretary, Lucinda, we were feeling roundly admired, a sensation I experienced with a surprising rush of sentiment, since it had been some time.

Brush and I stood there checking out our message slips an
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ail. The firm's fiscal year ended today, and all partners had received a solemn memo from Martin stating that even with good collections before midnight, income was likely to be down lo percent. That meant the distribution of points two days hence on Groundhog Day was going to be a slaughterhouse for the lower-level partners like me, since Pagnucci would not allow the top tier to be stinted. As we'd moved cheerfully between offices, the air was already growing fraught. Brushy ran off with her phone messages--one triumph behind her, a world of possible triumphs ahead. I lingered by Lucinda's work station. There was, as usual, not much doing for me.

"Same guy's been calling," she told me. "Keeps asking when you'll be back in town." She had described these calls to me this morning, saying they had started yesterday.

"Any name?"

"Just hangs up."

Brushy and Lena and Carl were the only people who'd known I was leaving. I hadn't even told Lyle much more than the fact that I might not be home for a night or two. As near as she could recall, Lucinda said, it sounded like the same man who'd phoned the office on Friday morning before Pigeyes nabbed me out on the street. That fit. Gino or someone from his crew had probably been keeping an eye on the house, maybe even tailed me to the airport, and was trying to figure out where I was now. If Gino was good to his word, he was toting a subpoena for me.

Or, I thought, it could be Bert. If he'd spoken to Lyle first, he might have figured I was gone. But Lucinda surely would have recognized the voice. Maybe he had Orleans calling for him?

Lucinda watched me with her usual brimming expression. A stout, handsome, dark-skinned woman, Lucinda keeps her own counsel, but it bruises her heart to work up close to such a living mess. She is a great pro--my salvation, as loyal to me as to Brushy, even though everybody in the place understands that I am the underbill and Brush the big star. Lucinda keeps plugging. A picture of her husband, Lester, and their three kids was at the corner of her desk. They were all posed around the youngest, Reggie, at his high-school graduation.