Bad Lawyer (33 page)

“What I’m tellin’ you,” she rasped, “is that’s how it went down.”

I caught Alfred Wong’s eye, held it while I asked my next question. “Miss Norton, will you please describe Priscilla Sweet’s appearance on the night you had this conversation?”

“She was beat up,” Kaisha responded without hesitation. “She was beat up bad.”

Margo Robertson told a story very similar to Kaisha Norton’s, a story made all the more effective because it came from the mouth of a very pretty, very white young lady. On Margo, the dark blue dress, the black pumps, the gold circle pin over the breast looked natural. When she spoke, her Connecticut origins were readily apparent in her clipped tone and precise diction. “Yes,” she told Isaiah, “Priscilla and I were good friends. Best friends, I think.”

The word on the street, according to Caleb, was that Margo Robertson was a dabbler, a slice of whitebread come to the Lower East Side for a taste of the wild before settling into a safe, middle-class life. An accounting major with a degree from N.Y.U., she’d taken her first bust three days after Priscilla shot Byron. Ordinarily, middle-class white women are forgiven their first offense, but Margo’s boyfriend, Carlos Azzirre, who owned the four kilos of cocaine in the trunk of Margo’s Honda, had chosen to shoot it out with his Dominican connection. When the smoke cleared, Margo was the only one left to take the weight and she’d been charged with criminal possession in the first degree, an A1 felony punishable by fifteen years in prison. Fifteen years to life.

A quarter of a century ago, the deal offered to Margo Robertson would have gone unheard by the jury. Margo, if asked directly, would have replied that she had received no promises from the District Attorney, that she’d been driven by conscience to come forward. Today, these deals are negotiated by counsel and etched in stone: this for this, that for that. The state’s this was Margo’s testimony; Margo’s that was a sentence of probation to a C felony. Isaiah, like Carlo before him, revealed the terms of Margo’s deal at the opening of his direct examination. His tone was mild, his questions to the point and directed to the jurors. He stood exposed, his jacket unbuttoned, shoulders spread. Telling the jury that the prosecution had nothing to hide. Telling them, beyond that, to transfer the state’s apparent honesty to the witness before them.

Margo Robertson told the expected story. She and Priscilla were confidants, they shared every facet of their lives, including Priscilla’s troubled relationship with Byron. In fact, on two occasions, Margo, who ordinarily avoided Byron, had been present when Byron went off on Priscilla. Both times, he’d charged her with stealing his money. After the second incident, while Priscilla nursed a cut lip in Margo’s apartment, Margo had asked her, point blank, if Byron’s accusation was true.

“I’m not gonna come out of this broke,” Priscilla, according to Margo Robertson, had replied.

“And did you return to this subject in the future?” Isaiah asked.

“Yes, from time to time.”

“And did the defendant ever tell you that she was in fear of her life?”

“Yes. In November of last year—I don’t recall the exact date—Priscilla told me that Byron had threatened to kill her if she didn’t return the money.”

Isaiah let his voice drop a notch, forcing the jurors to lean forward. “Did Priscilla Sweet take this threat seriously, Ms. Robertson?”

“Yes.” Margo stole a glance at Priscilla before replying, a glance that seemed, to me, full of regret. “What she told me was that if it came down to him or her, it was going to be him.”

Delaney called the noon recess before Isaiah got to his chair. Ninety minutes later, after a stringy roast beef sandwich in a packed deli, I rose from my chair, pitched my first question across the well of the court. “How many days, Miss Robertson? How many days have you spent in jail since you were arrested for possessing more than nine pounds of cocaine?”

Margo recoiled slightly, then curled her cupid’s bow mouth into a pouty frown. Her nostrils flared into perfectly rounded circles. Her right hand fluttered to the silver cross at her throat.

“Miss Robertson, did you hear my question?” I was in motion by then, striding up to the lectern, buttoning my jacket, slapping down a stack of notes. My aim was to clean the jury’s memory, to turn Margo Robertson into a witness for the defense.

“Yes, Mr. Kaplan.”

“Then please answer it.”

“I was in jail for one day.”

“A full day? Twenty-four hours?”

Margo stole a glance at the prosecution table. Judge Delaney’s eyes followed. Her message: Please help me. His message: If you try to coach the witness, I’ll make you pay for it. Delaney being the man wearing the black robes, Isaiah and Carlo maintained deadpan expressions.

“Let’s make it a little easier,” I said. “According to your police file, you were taken into custody at 10:45 P.M. on Monday, February eighteenth, then released at 3:30 P.M. on the following day. Would you disagree with that?”

“No.”

“So you were incarcerated for exactly sixteen hours and forty-five minutes. Is that right?”

“I guess so.”

“Miss Robertson, you were charged with an A1 felony. Is that correct? Criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree.”

“Yes.”

“And you are guilty of that crime, are you not?”

It was a trick question. Margo Robertson might very well not have been guilty. The cocaine might have belonged to her boyfriend. She might not even have known it was in the trunk of her car. But she was going to take a plea; she was going to admit that the drugs belonged to her. That was also part of the deal.

“I am,” she said after a long moment.

“Miss Robertson, did your attorney, Alice Blankman, ever tell you that if convicted of an A1 felony, the minimum sentence you could expect to receive was fifteen years in prison?”

“She told me that,” Margo said.

“And did Mrs. Blankman negotiate a deal with the prosecution in return for your testimony? Or did you speak to the prosecution directly?”

“Mrs. Blankman negotiated.”

“And the deal she negotiated for your testimony against a woman you characterize as your ‘best friend,’ calls for a reduction of your sentence from fifteen years to the sixteen hours and forty-five minutes you’ve already served. Is that right?”

Isaiah objected and Delaney sustained him. There was no way Margo could predict her actual sentence if she’d gone to trial. But the point was made and I was certain the jurors would carry my version of the deal into their deliberations.

“Miss Robertson, have you ever been incarcerated in a state prison?”

“No. Never.” Margo straightened in the chair, squared her shoulders, slid her hands from the arms of the chair to her lap.

“And before your recent arrest, had you ever been confined to a county jail?”

“No.”

I turned slightly, pitched the next series of questions to Latisha Garret. From time to time, our eyes met and locked. I understood that she was weighing me, that I was offering myself to her. Throughout, I kept my voice soft, my manner relaxed.

“Are you afraid of prison, Miss Robertson?”

Isaiah, who saw what was coming, tried his best to protect her with a series of objections, but I refused to react. The truth was that Margo Robertson, like any other son or daughter of the middle-class, was terrified by prison and would do anything short of suicide to avoid it.

“Bad things,” Margo finally whispered some ten minutes later, “can happen to you in prison.”

I stepped back, turned to face Margo. “You ever see Priscilla Sweet with a split lip?” I barked. “A black eye? Bruises on her face? On her neck? On her arms, her legs, her back, her breasts …? Would you say that bad things can happen to you
outside
of prison?”

Delaney stopped me with a bang of his gavel. “No more of this,” he warned.

“I apologize, your Honor,” I responded before putting the questions to Margo one at a time. After a series of affirmative responses, I asked her if she’d ever urged Priscilla to have her injuries treated at a hospital.

“Yes. About a year ago. I thought she might have broken one of her ribs.”

“She? You thought Priscilla Sweet broke her own rib?”

“I thought Byron might have broken her rib.”

I rotated my shoulder toward the defense table, then spun back to again face Margo. “How much, Miss Robertson, did Priscilla steal from her husband? A thousand dollars? Ten thousand? Fifty? A hundred thousand?”

“I don’t know.”

“But whatever the amount, it was enough to justify her remaining with her husband. Would you agree with that?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“Miss Robertson, if Priscilla was stealing all this money from her husband, why didn’t she just buy an airline ticket and leave him?”

“She was afraid he’d kill her,” Margo answered before Isaiah could object. Delaney, after instructing Margo not to respond if either counsel voiced an objection, told the jury to disregard her answer as a matter of pure speculation.

I tucked my notes under my arm, stole a glance at Latisha Garret. “Are you saying, Miss Robertson, that Priscilla Sweet was afraid to
leave
her husband, but she was not afraid to
steal
from him?”

Somewhere in the course of my summation, I would urge the jurors to use their common sense. Nobody would endure the abuse endured by Priscilla Sweet for money. I would point out that we, the defense, had proven that Byron’s abuse extended back for more than a decade. Had she been stealing all that time? Dr. Elizabeth Howe would tell the jury that abusers virtually always justify their abuse, that Byron’s accusation was no more rational than that of a husband who attacks his wife because he can’t find his favorite pair of socks.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Margo responded after a long hesitation. “I’m just saying that’s what happened.”

It was time to get out. “No further,” I told Delaney.

Carlo was up before I got back to my chair. He moved to the lectern quickly, head erect. “Your Honor,” he announced, “the prosecution rests.”

I
WALKED ALL THE
way back to Fourteenth Street, a little over two miles, straight up the Bowery. Even through the commercial district above Canal Street, there were knots of strolling pedestrians, mostly young, on every block. The temperature was still up in the mid-fifties and I could smell the odor of spring as surely as I had in Brantley, Alabama, the night before Caleb’s funeral. It rose above the exhaust of the taxicabs, the trucks, and the buses, pierced the acrid stink of urine in the doorways, so insistent I found myself wondering if the light breeze had carried the fragrance from some little valley in New Jersey, had conserved it explicitly for winter-weary Manhattan. Within a week, thousands of daffodils in Central Park would extend yellow trumpets from stiff, determined stalks. On the following Saturday, half of Manhattan would come out to pay their respects. I could remember a time when I’d watched this pilgrimage from the balcony of my Central Park West apartment, cradling a morning cup of Hennessy-laced coffee, wearing my green silk robe over my green silk pajamas.

Somewhere near Houston Street, I passed a derelict wearing enough layers of clothing to obscure every curve and angle of her body. She was sitting on a square of torn cardboard, her back against the stone wall of an office building, staring up at the sky as if about to ask a question. As I passed, she grabbed a Styrofoam cup with a few pennies at the bottom and shook it in my direction. I fished a quarter out of my pocket, dropped it in.

“Survived another winter?” I asked. “Congratulations.”

She put the cup next to her right hip, kept her eyes on the firmament above. My quarter didn’t entitle me to a conversation, not even a thank-you.

As I turned away, I suddenly realized that I was jealous. Not of this old woman, but of the good citizens who moved around us. A year before, Julie, Caleb, and I had joined the pilgrimage to Central Park, had carefully observed hyacinth, daffodil, and crocus, had played audience to street singers, jugglers, even a robed magician. Now that it was time to renew the compact, I could not imagine returning alone.

A few minutes later, as I reached Fourteenth Street, still wallowing in a sludgy mix of self-pity and righteous anger, I had a sudden vision of myself strolling past the Central Park Zoo, arm in arm with Priscilla Sweet. And why not? If things went well, and I intended to make sure they would, she’d be out of jail before the end of the following week. Central Park in springtime would be the perfect place for a born-and-bred New Yorker to begin a new life. Maybe we’d take a carriage ride up to the Metropolitan, stroll through the exhibits, accept congratulations from the assembled (and appreciative) multitudes. All I had to do was put Caleb and Julie to rest. Then, like Priscilla, I could get on with my life.

I came out of the elevator expecting to pass a long night alone with my thoughts, took several steps toward my office at the end of the hall, then pulled up short. Pat Hogan was sitting on the floor, legs splayed, his flabby torso as shapeless as that of the homeless woman I’d run into on Houston Street.

“Hey, Pat, you alive down there?” I resisted an urge to drop a quarter in the upturned hat next to his right hand.

He opened his eyes, stared up at me until the light of recognition dawned, then opened his hand to reveal a set of lockpicks in a small metal box. “I told ya I couldn’t use ’em,” he said. “I ain’t got the fingers for it.” It took him a long minute to gather his hat, rise to his feet, and shake off the cobwebs. Finally he said, “The chickens have come home, Sid. Now let’s see if you really wanna play rooster.”

Once inside, he flopped into a chair, pulled a nearly empty pint of Absolut from his jacket pocket, drank without apology. I took the chair behind my desk, put its weight between us, suddenly afraid of the message I’d paid thousands of dollars to hear.

“I did what you asked, Sid. I went back to the neighborhood where Joey Barrow had his hardware store and asked around. No problem. When I told ’em I was workin’ for the great Sidney Kaplan, they got in line to talk to me. In fact, one or two went so far as to actually tell me the truth.” Hogan scratched his jowls, settled his bulk against the back of the chair, and lit a cigarette. “You were right about Joey Barrow. He kept a gun in his store, showed it off to the neighbors, liked to play the macho man. Guy who owns the barber shop down the block, Eddie Bogolio, told me him and Joey dabbled in stolen goods. Small appliances mostly, toasters, clock radios, electric shavers, like that. Joey referred to his son-in-law as the nigger, never called him anything else. ‘You know what the nigger did this time?’ That’s the way he began his haircuts. He ended his haircuts as follows: ‘One day I’m gonna shoot that nigger.’”