Reckless Disregard (32 page)

PStern

>What do you mean?

Poniard has signed off.

Caught in a cloud of anti-anxiety med side effects and rising fear, I ride the escalator up to Judge Grass’s courtroom, step onto solid ground, and freeze when I see the slithering blur of humanity milling around at the far end of the hall. By waiving Poniard’s right to a jury when the case began, I committed malpractice—not technically but because my instincts were poor. Back then, we had the fair-minded Tedford Triggs as a judge, but facts change, even judges change, and I shouldn’t have been so shortsighted. Now we’re stuck with Anita Grass, who hates me and owes Lou Frantz and won’t let judicial ethics get in the way of double payback.

My knees buckle and I stumble, almost falling back down the escalator, but Brenda—was she waiting at the top or did she coalesce out of oxygen molecules?—grabs my wrist and with surprising strength keeps me from falling. She leads me not toward the courtroom but down a side corridor. My legs feel heavy while my head drifts upward, as if the laws of gravity apply only from the neck down. We turn left at the end of the hall, but by then the media has seen us and are in pursuit. Brenda presses an intercom button and announces herself. When the door buzzes, she pulls it open and guides me through.

“I’ve been here since six o’clock setting up,” she says. “I made arrangements with Millie the clerk to come through this way so we can avoid the crowd.”

“We should go through the front. The reporters are going to think I’m afraid to face them.”

“That’s not what you’re afraid of, is it?”

“Brenda, it’s not . . . I just felt a little dizzy when I got off the escalator.”

“It’s OK. If I had to talk in front of a bunch of strangers I’d be afraid too.” She’s frowning, but she looks more resigned than worried. She rests a hand on my wrist. “You always come through. That’s why Poniard has such faith in you.”

I notice her light-gray pinstripe suit, white ruffled blouse, and knee-length A-line skirt. She’s backed off on the makeup, not wearing the dark eyeliner.

“You look very professional,” I say.

“I bought these at a thrift shop. I’ve been saving from all my paychecks.”

We go through the empty jury room into the courtroom, fortunately avoiding Judge Grass’s chambers. I doubt Grass knows that her clerk did our side a favor. Brenda has already set out our pens and papers and notebooks and computers and documents.

The air is stagnant, the artificial fluorescence both too stark and too dim. The functionaries who design these halls of justice go to such lengths to ban natural light and fresh air and traffic noises, as if the outside world were antithetical to fairness. For me, pleading a case was once like performing live theater—more exciting, because what happens in a trial isn’t make-believe but art for reality’s sake. I was in total control. Since the day three years ago when Harmon Cherry died, I’ve been lost.

I reach into my pocket, take a Xanax out of a vial, and swallow the tablet dry. With all the practice I’ve had taking these pills, who needs water? They make me numb, but numb is better than frightened.

While Brenda organizes exhibits, I sit with closed eyes, perform useless breathing exercises, and wait for the meds to kick in. They do, sending me into a near stupor. Now I have to fight to keep my eyes open. Brenda prepares in silence, mechanically, and I have the feeling that we’re a couple of morticians preparing for a funeral. After this week, she and I will no longer work together—I don’t have a law practice. What will she do for a job? I’ll certainly give her a great reference, but I don’t know how much weight my word carries. And then there’s William Bishop, whose power to disrupt a commoner’s life is limitless. Will his vindictiveness keep Brenda unemployed?

I don’t really notice the time pass, don’t see the courtroom filling up, don’t become truly alert again until Lovely Diamond walks into the room, followed by Louis Frantz, who makes a show of holding open the swinging gate for her. Frantz and I nod to each other, more out of reflex than etiquette. Lovely doesn’t look my way. Bishop isn’t with them, and I doubt he’ll show up. A financial emperor like William the Conqueror won’t waste his time in a courtroom when there’s no jury to impress, when the judge is bought and paid for.

They sit down at their table to the right of me. Courtrooms are small, and no matter the emotional and adversarial distance, in physical distance my opponents are only ten feet away. I turn toward the gallery so I don’t have to look at them. The seats are almost full, but something’s missing.

“No cosplayers,” I whisper to Brenda.

“They’re here,” she says, tipping her head toward the plaintiff’s side of the gallery.

There’s no one in costume, and I start to ask Brenda what she’s talking about, but then I see—the cosplayers are in the middle row, dressed in street clothing. Banquo is sitting near the aisle, eyes forward. He’s gotten a haircut, but his black beard is thicker than ever. He’s dressed in a yellow cotton dress shirt too large in the neck and too tight in the biceps. He has his antiquated laptop, the one he brought to the very first court session, perched on his knees, and he’s typing into it as though he were a member of the news media. Behind him is the Goth Abe Lincoln, dressed in a coat and tie, and Raggedy Ann Dohrn, in a white blouse and jeans. I can’t identify any of the others—they appear so different without wigs and makeup and costumes. Are they the clean-scrubbed group in the row behind Banquo? Courtney isn’t here, fortunately—at least, I don’t think she is, and suddenly the panic begins to surface through the drug-induced froth of my brain, because that woman sat not more than three feet from me in the coffee shop and I couldn’t recognize her. Who’s to say she hasn’t melded into the gallery?

Brenda taps my arm and tilts her head toward the clerk, who’s sitting rigid in her chair, the phone to her ear—a clear sign that Judge Grass is about to enter the courtroom.

“Let’s win this thing,” Brenda whispers. “You can do this, Parker.” It’s a sign of her naïveté that she thinks of our lawsuit as some athletic event in which a pat slogan can pump you up so that you’ll work miracles.

The clerk replaces the phone in its cradle, stares intently at the door to the left of the bench, and with a practiced prescience says, “All rise” a fractionated moment before the chambers door clicks open. A black-robed Anita Grass steps behind the bench and says, “Trial in
Bishop v. Poniard
.” She leans forward, rests an elbow on the bench, and gazes down at me with a look of motherly concern that seems so genuine and sincere that it has to be feigned. “We’ll proceed. If Mr. Stern is feeling up to it, that is.”

Embarrassed titters ripple through the courtroom, accompanied in counterpoint by a long, uninhibited guffaw that comes from the throat of reporter Brandon Placek.

“That’s horrible,” Brenda whispers. At the adjoining table Frantz watches me, while Lovely keeps her head down, pretending to read a document. I will her to stand up and walk out of here, but of course that doesn’t happen—she’s all in with Frantz and Bishop. The twin triggers of anger and betrayal release hours of pent-up tension and propel me up out of my chair.

“The defense is more than ready to proceed, Your Honor,” I say. “In fact, we’re looking forward to it.”

“Very well,” the judge says. “Mr. Frantz, please present your opening statement.”

Frantz half-stands and, keeping his left arm behind his back military-style, deftly buttons his suit jacket with only his right hand, a skill that he’s honed through thousands of trials. He glances at me and clears his throat, a surprisingly effective beginning. Only the great Louis Frantz can transform a repulsive bodily reflex into an oratorical flourish. His red and gray paisley tie is much too long, falling four inches below the belt, and there are loose threads in the seams of his light-gray coat.

“May it please the Court,” he says. “There’s a key question in this case, and it’s this—who is Poniard? There’s no legal name, no face, no voice, only a fraudulent cartoon character concocted during a deposition in a failed attempt to deceive the Court about who Poniard is. This person who hides behind the name Poniard hasn’t bothered to show up at trial to defend himself, so we can’t ask him who he is.

“So, who is Poniard? The answer is really quite simple. He’s a left-wing radical intent on undermining the United States Government and subverting American culture. He’s a cyber-terrorist with the same goals as Anonymous, with its hacks into corporate and government computers, or WikiLeaks, with its release of top-secret information intended to harm America.”

Frantz walks away from the podium and faces the gallery. He’s one of the few lawyers who could get away with turning his back on the judge, but he’s such a commanding presence that it seems perfectly natural.

“In furtherance of his political goals, Poniard targeted William Bishop,” he says. “Why? Because Mr. Bishop, a man of impeccable reputation, holds conservative political views, values family, promotes democracy and the capitalist system over the welfare state. Because Mr. Bishop has succeeded, as if that’s some kind of crime rather than a badge of honor. With actual malice, Poniard employed his
Abduction!
video game as a weapon of deceit, as a vehicle to publish false and defamatory statements about Mr. Bishop to tens of millions of people worldwide.” He spins around and faces the judge again. “But in fact, Your Honor, the accusation that Mr. Bishop had anything to do with the disappearance of Paula Felicity McGrath is a complete fabrication, and Poniard knows it. Such libelous speech cannot go unpunished.” Frantz quotes Poniard’s most inflammatory statements—supporting cyber-attacks on the Department of Defense in protest of the use of unmanned drones, calling for a war crimes tribunal to try two presidents for failing to close the prison at Guantanamo, announcing that his video games entertain only to undermine the Establishment.

Frantz states unequivocally that William Bishop didn’t know Felicity McGrath, that Felicity’s letters to Scotty mentioning Bishop don’t prove such a relationship. Good—he’s propagating his client’s lies in open court, and his case will disintegrate if I can show that Bishop and McGrath had a relationship.

Frantz launches into an encomium of Bishop, mentioning his decades-long marriage to a remarkable wife, his devotion to family, his charitable works—his Irene and William Bishop Foundation encourages private charitable donations as a substitute for welfare—and his success in building the most formidable media conglomerate in the world.

“Harm to my client’s reputation, Your Honor,” Frantz says. “That’s what this case is about. And through his video game, Poniard has sullied the reputation of a great man, causing him incalculable damages. So in conclusion . . .”

He points to Lovely, who with a few clicks of her computer launches recorded portions of
Abduction!
on the five monitors placed throughout the courtroom. She shows portions of the first cutscene in which Bishop’s two goons violently kidnap Felicity. She displays the bloody animated murder of the Kreisses, after which she projects Poniard’s Internet accusations that Bishop committed those murders. She plays the Skanktified Assembly scene, in which the cartoon film director is a rat with William Bishop’s face. I wonder if her son Brighton helped compile these clips.

Judge Grass gapes at the monitor like a vindictive high school vice-principal deciding a suitable punishment, and I’ll undoubtedly be her target. Those in the gallery watch rapt, the silence punctuated by periodic gasps and shocked giggles that draw an evil eye from the judge.

When the demonstration ends, Frantz says, “Your Honor, this disgusting game speaks for itself. When all the evidence is in, we’re confident that you’ll find for the plaintiff and award substantial damages not only to compensate William Bishop but to punish Poniard for his unconscionable conduct.”

Frantz turns and mugs for the spectators before sitting down. Meanwhile, Diamond has left the image of the rat-like William Bishop on the monitor. It’s a ploy—they want my first words to Judge Grass to be a request that they take the image off the screen, thus underscoring its power. I glance over at Brenda, who punches something into her computer, overriding the Diamond-Frantz computer system. The monitors immediately go dark.