The Judge (30 page)

It is for this reason that Lenore has agreed to spend the day. She is my alibi against paranoia, my own and that of others.

We sit talking in the kitchen while Sarah supposedly straightens her room. The doorbell rings and I look at my watch.

"A little early for her friend," I tell Lenore.

"Mom's probably looking for some free day care," she says.

I excuse myself for a second and head down the hall for the door; I hear the patter of Sarah's feet on the stairs.

"I'll get it," I tell her.

She makes it a race to the front door and of course gets there ahead of me, only to shrink in the shadow of the man through the screen, who fills the frame as she opens it.

"Is your daddy home?"

"I told you I would get it," I tell Sarah.

By now she is pressing herself back into me, retreating in the way children do when confronted by a strange adult.

The guy's wearing a khaki work uniform, a patch with his name-- "Mike"--over the left breast pocket.

"Mr. Madriani?" "Yes."

"Capital Cable," he says.

I give him a dense look. This means nothing to me.

"Your cable television service. We have some repairs we have to make to your system."

"I didn't call anybody."

"Our office should have called you. They didn't?" "No."

"Dam," he says. "Somebody screwed up. We have to install a booster where the cable comes into your set. We've been getting a lot of complaints about weak signal in this area. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes. And there's no charge." He can tell by my look that I'm not happy with the interruption.

"Of course if it's inconvenient I can come back another time." "That might be best," I tell him. "I'm expecting company in a few minutes." The fact is that Lenore and I were planning to take the girls out for a picnic to a local park.

"Maybe we can reschedule." He's looking at a clipboard in his hand, some coaxial cable in his hand still encased in its plastic wrapper.

"I should warn you that you'll probably lose service without the booster. We'll be adjusting the signal once they're installed in the area here. Without the booster all you're gonna be seeing for a while is a lot of snow." He studies his clipboard for a couple of seconds. "It doesn't look good. I doubt if I'm gonna be able to get back here for at least a week, maybe ten days." I give him a look that is not kind.

"Sorry," he says.

"How long will it take, if you do it today?"

"Ten minutes, in and out," he says. "It's very quick." "Do it." I open the screen door and let him in.

He steps through the door and takes off his hat, just as Lenore is coming down the hall.

"Sorry for the interruption," he tells her. "Cable service," I tell her.

"What do you need?" I ask the guy. "Just your set," he says.

"Over there." I point to the cabinet against the far wall in the living room.

I offer him help moving it away from the wall. He tells me he can handle it, but he needs his tools first.

"Fine. We'll be in the kitchen if you need anything else." He gives me a smile, puts his hat back on, and is out the door, leaving it open just an inch so that it does not lock behind him.

Sarah turns back down the hallway, her body filled with disappointment. "I thought it was Mindy."

"How's your room coming?" I ask her.

With this she is curving her little body into Lenore's side, seeking sanctuary.

"Fine," she tells me.

"You want me to come up and look at it?" "No. I want her."

"A court of higher appeal," I tell Lenore.

"What's wrong with our television set?" asks Sarah. To my daughter the thought of a broken TV is a tragedy on the order of a terminal illness.

No more Disney.

"Whatever it is, the man will fix it. Not that it's going to do you any good. Not until after you finish your room. Now get up there." To this I get a lot of moaning, and evasive body language. She bats her eyes at Lenore in hopes of intervention. When this doesn't work she's back to me. Your average manipulative child.

"Do I have to, Daddy?"

"Yes, you have to. Now go do it." She slumps her shoulders and trudges up the steps.

"I have a lot of authority with dogs and little children," I tell Lenore.

"Wait until she gets a little older," she says.

"You mean it doesn't get any better?" Lenore just laughs.

We settle in the kitchen again. I warm up her coffee. We talk just a little around the edges of Acosta's case. Lenore wants me to bring her current, though I am careful what I tell her. There is no privilege for communications with Lenore out of the case. Anything Acosta has told me is protected information, attorney-client. Should I disclose this to
Lenore, however, now that she is no longer of counsel, the state may be able to force her to reveal it on the stand.

I mention my bout with Tony on the street in front of the courthouse. "With him it is very personal," I say.

"I have to apologize," she says. "It was a mistake to refer him to you in the first place." She calls it a clash of personalities, and tells me that Arguillo has a warm heart, but a hot head.

I'm having trouble rationalizing Lenore's actions in removing the note from Hall's calendar, and she knows it.

She apologizes and says (hat sometimes you do stupid things for friends. "I wasn't thinking very clearly," she says. "I'd been fired and I was drinking." She tells me that if she'd been thinking more clearly she would never have done it.

"Have the cops gotten into it with you?" I ask.

"I did what you suggested. Told them nothing and took the Fifth," she says.

"Is Kline still threatening to call you to the stand?" She tells me that she thinks he is satisfied that she is out of the case.

"I'd love to see you kick his butt," she says. It is clear that she has not buried this hatchet.

"I'll have to find some other way to get to Tony," I say. She calls this a dead end.

"You still don't think he is capable," I say.

"Forget what I think. The investigators would never have taken it seriously, even if they saw the note that I took." I can't tell how much of this is rationalizing, trying to play down her interference with the evidence.

She tells me that Tony had a perfectly good explanation.

"You have two people, the same age, who worked together, they had a lot in common, both attractive. Why wouldn't they date? It was simply that they canceled that night. Nothing odd in that."

"That's fine, if Tony has an alibi," I say. "Does he?" "I haven't asked him," she says.

"Maybe you should," I tell her.

"You're not thinking of putting him on the stand?" "Why not?"

"You're not going to get anything."

"I see. His warm heart doesn't prevent him from lying." By her look I can tell that this does not sit well, the thought that to get at the substance of the note, I may have to lay a foundation, an evidentiary highway that passes directly over Lenore's body.

"Let's hope it's not necessary," she says.

For the moment I cannot tell if there is something of a threat in this. I choose not to treat it as such.

We turn to more pleasant subjects. She tells me how she is filling her days. She has picked up two new clients in the last week, referrals from I friends.

Then out of the blue she tells me she's going to return whatever fee she's been paid in Acosta's case, the small draw she took up front.

"Don't worry about it. You earned it."

"I am not going to worry about it. I am going to pay it back. As soon as I sort things out, I'll cut a check." This seems a matter of pride, so I don't argue the point.

"Whatever makes you happy." There are footsteps in the hall behind me. I turn and look. It's cable man.

"Can I use your bathroom?" he says.

"Sure. It's halfway down the hall. On your left."

"Thanks." He's wearing a web belt and a bag for tools on his hip. I don't get up and he finds his way, closing the door behind him. "What's he doing?" says Lenore.

"Probably number one or number two. I'll ask him when he comes out." She gives me an exasperated look.

I laugh. "You asked."

"I mean with your set?" she says.

"Beats me. Something to boost the signal." In three seconds I hear the toilet flush.

"Number one," I tell her.

"Forget that I asked." And then something that is unmistakable to anyone who has ever lifted it off the clink of heavy porcelain.

I give Lenore a quizzical look. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know." The guy comes out of the bathroom, and doesn't look this way.

Instead he heads into the living room. I get up from the chair.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"Just a second." I head down the hall, into the bathroom, step inside, and look around. Everything is as it should be.

I head out of the bathroom, down the hall toward the living room. talking before I get there.

"I didn't know your cable came through my toilet." When I turn the corner into the room I realize I'm talking to myself.

The guy is gone. The roll of new coaxial is on top of my set, unopened, the cable disconnected from the back of the set. He's gone, perhaps to get more Cools or parts.

I walk to the door and realize that it's closed, locked. Maybe he forgot and locked himself out. I open the door, then the screen. No sign of him. I walk out to the front of the house. He's gone. There's no vehicle.

By now Lenore is curious. She joins me on the front lawn. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." I head back into the house, down the hall to the bathroom. She's right on my heels. Inside I lift the lid off the toilet, and I see it. Sheathed in a sealed clear plastic bag the size of a small brick is a package, the sub stance inside unmistakable to anyone who has ever seen a bust on video or handled the stuff in court. I am looking at maybe two hundred thousand dollars, half a kilo of cocaine.

The look on Lenore's face tells me she needs no explanation. "I'll get Sarah out the back door," she says.

As she runs for the stairs I hear the shriek of tires as cars come to a stop on the street in front of my house. I lay the lid of the toilet on the floor and run for the front door. I bolt it, then realize this is a futile exer else.

Four months ago I bought one of those brass devices that slips in a metal hole at the base of the door, designed so that the door will swing open a few inches to absorb the force of a blow without breaking. In a panic I cast about looking for this. Then I see it, behind a curtain by the windows. I drop this into its hole, and sprint for the bathroom.

I can now hear footsteps racing along the walkway at the other side of the house, and voices: "Move. Move. Move." Then the squeak of my front screen door being opened. An instant later I hear the first shot of the metal battering ram as it hits the front door. The small piece of leaded glass, the tiny window that Sarah and I made in a craft class together last year, comes flying in shattered pieces down the hall past the opening to the bathroom.

I can hear voices cursing at the front door. The brass security bolt has 'earned its keep. Another shot with the ram and I hear the sound of splintering wood.

I close and lock the bathroom door.

"Daddy." I can hear Sarah on the stairs outside with Lenore. For a moment I consider opening it and letting them in. But they are better off out there, away from what I am now holding in my hand, the bag of deadly white powder, twenty years of hard time if I am caught.

I consider the toilet for a brief instant, then realize I don't have time.

It would take several flushes, and even if I could, there would be sufficient residue in the bag to nail me.

I look at the small window on the wall next to me. I slide its translucent pane up. This looks out on the fence, which I can nearly reach with my hand. The eaves of the neighbor's roof another three feet beyond that.

I grab the towel from the rack and wipe the surface of the plastic back gingerly. If they find the bag, at least my prints will not be on it.

Then, holding the bag in the towel, I put my arm out the window, low on the wall, as if I am about to pitch a long shot in a game of horseshoes.

It is not a heroic posture in which to be caught. By the time the shot comes from the battering ram I am seated on the commode with my pants down around my ankles, the towel back on the rack, and the window closed.

I am showered with splinters of wood as the door to the bathroom does not come off cleanly. Two cops, both bulls, one of them wearing a baseball cap backward, the other with his face hooded, both try to put their shoulders through the opening of the door after the thin center panel gives way. One of them reaches a hand through and turns the lock from the inside. This actually traps the other one in the hole of the door as it swings open, so that by the time they reach me, they are both charged with a full load of adrenaline, and flushed with anger.

They grab me by both arms and slam me against the wall by the window. That this does not break the glass amazes me. There is a sharp burning pain at my forehead as it hits the molding around the window.

I feel a trickle of blood from my scalp, and the cold metal of a pistol barrel press hard against the back of my neck.

My feet are pulled out so that if the wall were not there I would fall on my face, hand pulled behind me, the side of my face pressed against the wallboard.

"Does he have a gun?" One of the voices behind me.

Where I would keep this with my pants around my ankles, and a shirt they have nearly torn from my upper body, is a mystery.

"Nothing. He's clean." I feel cuffs being slapped on my wrists behind me, locked so tight that they close off the circulation to both hands.

One of them pulls my pants up so that I hold them from behind, open in the front.

By now I can hear Sarah, who is hysterical, screaming somewhere off near the kitchen. She is calling my name.

"It's okay, Sarah."

"Get the woman in the living room. Get the kid outta here. Take her downtown, GPS," he says. Child Protective Services.

"Touch my daughter and I'll kill you," I tell him.

This earns me a sharp knee, a full thrust into my kidneys, pain that is white hot behind my eyes.

"Fuckin' hotshot lawyer. I told you you were gonna be seeing a lot of snow. So where is it? Tell me?" The words are hissed in my ear as he presses the gun harder into my neck.

I am sliding down the wall in pain. One of them has me by the hair, lifting me literally by the locks that I have left. They drag me through the door, and down the hall toward the living room.

I am not seated but thrown onto my couch, from which all the cushions have now been removed. One of the cops is busy slicing these with a sharp knife, pulling all the padding from each of them and throwing it on the floor, not a purposeful search as much as sheer destruction. They know that I did not have time to zip these open and slip the cocaine inside.

There are china cups and small dishes that Nikki left to Sarah assembled in a little tray on our coffee table. These are shattered where they sit, the remnants swept onto the floor with a baton by the cretin with the backward baseball cap. The one dish that does not break he stomps with his foot until it is many pieces.

"Daddy!" I can hear Sarah's screams as she is being carried down the walkway by the side of the house. I glimpse her for an instant through a window in the living room. She is being carted off, her feet under the skin of one of these animals.

"Leave my daughter alone." Without warning I thrust myself across the table with all the force my thighs can propel. I crash headlong into the gut of the cop with the backward cap, flattening his gut and forcing the air from his lungs.

In an instant two of the others land on my back, and I pay the price. Truncheons land full force on my head and shoulders, what feels like the trigger guard on a pistol cuts into the back of my head, and the gun discharges near my ear with a loud report, nearly deafening me.

"Son of a bitch." One of them in high anxiety. "You stupid shit. Put the safety on." The pain of the blows to my shoulders numbs my spine, its own form of anesthesia, until I can no longer feel my legs. They are still beating on me.

"Cut it out. You're gonna kill him." From a daze I hear this voice.

"One less fuckin' lawyer. Who's gonna miss him?" Whoever says this has a knee in my back so that I cannot breathe. These are masters of pain.

there on the floor for several moments while they argue over what they should do to me: more beating or put me on the couch. One of them periodically comes over and kicks me in the ribs, full force with a work boot. He does this two or three times as a gratuitous diversion from their debate. I recognize the khaki pants and the boot, though when I look up his face is hooded. It is cable man.

They drag me back and throw me on the couch. This time I remain lying on one side, conscious of only one thing: I can no longer hear Sarah's frantic screams.

Shuffling feet in the hallway.

"Bring her in here." They drag Lenore into the room. I can see her from my partially prone position on the couch. Her hands are cuffed behind her. There are scratches on her face, and marks where they have struck her with something on one cheek. One of the bulls has her by the nape of the neck, a hand so big that he could crush her throat without giving it thought.

"I tried to get Sarah out." It is all she can say to me before the guy squeezes.

"Shut up." The hooded marvel throws her across the coffee table.

She lands on the couch beside me, falls on her side, and has difficulty righting herself, showing more anger in her eyes than I have seen in a lifetime.

"Where's Sarah?" I ask her.

"I don't know." One of the cops comes over and, with the full force of a backhand. lays his baton across the shin of my right leg. The pain is excruciating, so that I cry out. Nausea begins to rack my body. My brain reeling, I wonder if he has broken the bone.

"Shut your fucking mouth. Understand? You talk when we want you to." I hear the porcelain on the toilet being smashed, the hissing of water as the plumbing goes, flooding the floor in the bathroom.

"It's not there." One of them steps out just long enough to announce this. "Should I get the dog?"

"It's gotta be there. Look again." I hear cupboards opening, doors being ripped off their hinges. Drawers being pulled from their runners, and the contents spilled on the floor.

Two of them in the room with us are whispering. A cold chill runs down my spine. No doubt that there is more where the first kilo came from. In hushed tones they talk, consider the alternatives available. So far I have counted four cops. Then I hear pots and pans being tossed in the kitchen. There is at least one more, maybe two. A total of five or six.

"He only had sixty seconds." This is cable man talking. It is a face I am not likely to forget soon.

"Maybe we should call Phil." This is the backward baseball cap. "Shut up." Two distinct words from cable man.

The black jackets they are wearing, the ones I have seen, all have the same logo emblazoned on the back: the word POLICE in four-inch-high white letters. I see nothing that says DEA, FBI, or identifies these thugs as Treasury or Customs agents. Unless I miss my guess, this is strictly a local party.

Suddenly there's a lot of commotion, agitation among the cops in the room. "Who's that?" They're looking out the window behind me.

I prop myself up by the elbow of one arm so that I can see over the back of the couch to the front street. Two cops in uniform are getting out of a squad car, coming up across the lawn.

"Get the dog," says cable man. "We gotta find it. Move!" One of them is out the front door. He nearly runs over one of the uniformed officers, who has now made it to the walkway leading to the front door. He says something to the cop running by, but I cannot hear it. The man seems to ignore him, so the uniformed officer continues to the front door.

He's a big man, well over six feet, eyes shaded by dark glasses, wearing a crisp blue uniform and a badge that could blind you in the bright sunlight.

"What's going on?" he says. He doesn't take off the glasses, so that the direction of his gaze is only a guess.

No one answers him.

"Jesus." He does a quick survey with his eyes of the damage down the hall, Noah's flood.

"You guys bring your own wrecking ball?" He carefully removes the dark glasses from his eyes, then glances at Lenore, then me. He puts the glasses in his breast pocket.

"Lemme guess. Resisting arrest?" he says. "The lady beat the shit out of each of you." Only the other uniform laughs at this. The one who is talking is wearing sergeant's stripes.

"What are you doing here, Hazzard?" It's cable man's voice that I hear. "My patrol area," says the sergeant. "I might ask you the same thing." "We got a tip on drugs." Cable man finally pulls the hood off his head. His face is flushed, covered with sweat. He straightens his mussed hair with one hand. His patch with the name "Mike." is now covered by a flak jacket. I know this workshirt is borrowed when the sergeant in uniform calls him Howie.

I can hear dishes being broken in the kitchen. They are working their way through my cupboards.

"What are you guys doing out there?" the sergeant hollers down the hall.

Howie gives a head signal to the backward baseball cap, who sprints down the hall. Like magic, the clatter of glass splattering on my tile floor ceases.

"Why didn't you guys call for backup?" says the sergeant. "Nobody told Patrol this was happening."