Justice Hunter (18 page)
“O
kay.” Hunter nodded, rolling with it. Frankly, he didn’t have any other choice. “So what was the upshot with this case?”
“Right,” said Mancini, smiling. “This was a wild one. Some poor guy, Tomas Sapporino. I’ll never forget his name. So this poor guy got wedged between the doors as he tried to get off.”
“He was wedged,” Hunter said sympathetically.
“Correct. One of the train crews took their eye off the ball. Probably a relative of that hooligan back there driving the bus. By the time the conductor or anyone else noticed, it was too late. The victim had been dragged for about fifty feet until his muscles failed and the pressure sucked him under the moving train. Right onto the track.”
“Terrible,” Hunter observed, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Needless to say, he was mortally wounded. Decapitated, actually. The pictures were horrific. Very damning evidence as well. Fortunately, I made sure they never came in. They were a deal-breaker.”
“Don’t mean to sound crass,” said Hunter, “but what was the going rate for something like that twenty years ago? I’m assuming in the millions.”
“Now that all depended on how lucky you got with defense counsel,” replied Mancini, smugly.
“A case like that never gets to the jury. Either way, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not. What would you have done?” asked Mancini, taking his eye off the road even as he raced through a busy intersection, past a string of outlet stores and throngs of possessed bargain shoppers.
“Tough to say. Of course, I’d need to know a lot more. But based on what you’ve told me at least, the liability seems pretty irrefutable.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Mancini sported a Cheshire grin. He seemed to be getting off on his little test. “So you would’ve settled out. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“Very likely. But like I said, I would need more information.”
“Fair enough. And my initial reaction was pretty much the same. The evidence seemed insurmountable, the liability irrefutable. All the red flags were there,” he recalled. “A defense attorney’s worst fucking nightmare. The perfect storm, if you will.” He paused for effect. “Which is precisely why I tried it to verdict.”
“Verdict, huh?” he asked, impressed and considering the relevance. “Not sure I understand, though. Didn’t your instincts tell you otherwise? And the partners? I can’t imagine them agreeing to that.”
“Ah,” replied Mancini, glad Hunter asked. “I faced resistance. Believe you me. Eventually, though, they all caved. Even the client, who was shitting bricks, as you can probably imagine.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Just convinced them that I had an angle.” Even now, Mancini seemed amused that he had been able to pull it off. “The truth be told, I didn’t have a clue how I was going to defend them. I was bluffing. But you’d be surprised by how malleable people can be when you need them to be.” Mancini’s remark reminded Hunter of their initial meeting about the Vito’s case.
Exactly how malleable does Mancini think I am? How impressionable am I?
“Actually, I wouldn’t.”
“Then I guess you’re starting to figure things out,” added Mancini cryptically.
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Of what? Flushing my legal career down the shitter?” Mancini paused. “Of course I was. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t. But I had my own agenda, and I was letting nothing stand in the way. It was the perfect first jury trial. High stakes. Tons of publicity. In a way, I guess you could say I was blinded by ambition.”
“Risky.”
“Damn right. And without a safety net.”
“So was it worth it? It couldn’t have gone too poorly, I suppose. New Jersey R and R is still at it and killing the occasional unsuspecting commuter.”
“I could’ve crashed and burned. They could’ve taken a hit. Written it off. They’ve got more money than God. Self-insured for tens of millions. Same was true back then, too.”
“Well, did you?”
“No,” said Mancini, glaring with a don’t-ever-question-my-judgment-again scowl. “Failing wasn’t an option.”
“Sounds like you pulled off a miracle, then.”
“Nothing miraculous about it. The defense just eventually came into relief. They always do. Just gotta have a little faith.”
“So what evidence came to light?”
“The medical records. They painted a very grim picture of the decedent’s health. As fate would have it, he was dying. Stage-four sarcoma. Diagnosed just a few months before the accident.”
Hunter wasn’t that impressed. “Could’ve made an even more sympathetic victim. I mean, I see how that would’ve impacted life expectancy for the purpose of damages. But if it were me, I’d still be afraid of coming across as heartless to the jury.”
“There was a particularly good reason his illness mattered so much to the case.”
Hunter looked at him inquisitively.
“When the toxicology report came back, we learned he had various drugs in his system at the time of death, with the most predominant being a morphine-based painkiller.”
Now things started to click for Hunter. “Which naturally causes severe drowsiness,” hypothesized Hunter.
“Precisely.”
“So he contributed to his own death.”
“Sadly, that’s exactly what happened. And the fact that he’d been riding the same line for years without incident only strengthened our position. I mean, the guy should’ve been able to get off the car in his sleep by now. But for some reason, on a day when sedatives were racing through his system, he couldn’t do it. My accident reconstructionist offered an extremely plausible timeline to the jury. By the time he concluded his testimony, the only viable theory was that the decedent had waited too long.”
“How about a warning system? Automatic shut-off?” Hunter played devil’s advocate. As gifted as Mancini appeared to be as a lawyer, Hunter’s moral compass was pointing in a different direction. A cancer victim had been decapitated, for God’s sake. And here’s Mancini getting his rocks off, playing the part of the world’s greatest defense lawyer.
“
That
was my Achilles’ heel in the case. And as antiquated as this might sound, the train was not only fully operational. But it was also code compliant. Of course, had the accident occurred today, it would’ve been a different story altogether.”
“So how did it end?”
“Well,” considered Mancini. “Unfortunately, the jury got it wrong.”
“So they didn’t buy your theory?”
“Just the opposite. They bought it all. Hook, line, and sinker. It was purely a defense verdict.”
“So the family walked away with nothing?”
“The win was definitely bittersweet,” said Mancini, solemnly.
“Hey, you had a job to do, I guess.” Hunter tried to put himself in Mancini’s shoes. Would his own ambition have permitted him to put on that kind of a case? “I’m assuming they appealed, though.”
“Actually, they decided not to,” replied Mancini. “Fortunately for my client. Personally, I thought there were several grounds for reversal.”
“That’s weird,” said Hunter.
“Actually, it wasn’t. Their lawyer had just hung his own shingle when he signed up the case. Don’t get me wrong, though. He was a shrewd lawyer,” backtracked Mancini. He was far too proud to admit to a weak opponent.
“He ran out of money? I’m sure he took the case on contingency. He probably thought he’d be set for life after this one hit. A slam dunk like that.”
“And I don’t fault him in the least. I probably would’ve thought the same way. A death case with immensely deep pockets.”
“But deep pockets can also be a negative when things don’t go exactly according to plan,” suggested Hunter. Hunter’s firm, like the other behemoth firms in the city, had the resources and manpower to paper solo practitioners to death.
“All I did was plant the seed. But by the look on his face, I could tell the guy’s litigation account was leaking like a sieve. Anyway, he did all of the convincing for me. In a New York minute, his clients had decided to let it go.”
“Pretty terrible advice, right?”
“I’d say.” Hunter paused. “Just can’t believe he would give up that easily. The family getting nothing? And to live with that on your conscience.”
“So I take it the client was pretty happy,” added Hunter.
“Ecstatic, actually.”
“And the Whitman partners?”
“Let’s just say I was officially on their radar.” Mancini took his eyes off the road to read Hunter’s reaction. Hunter could tell Mancini was examining his tenacity. It was all part of this seemingly never-ending partnership interview process. At that instant, though, the wheels of doubt were spinning furiously inside Hunter’s head. Was he truly cut out to be a defense lawyer? As Mancini’s war story proved, the best ones are merciless. “What’s wrong? Not sure you can do this?”
“Don’t you ever question whether your power of persuasion disrupts the natural order of things?”
“Sometimes. But I can still look at myself in the mirror,” Mancini said as he repositioned himself to catch a glimpse of his mug in the rearview, just for effect. “Remember that we’re ethically bound to be zealous advocates,” he justified. “And no one—not you, not me, not the judge, no one—is in a position to ever second guess the instincts of a jury. To do that would be to undermine the integrity of our entire system.”
He actually sounded as if he believed his own bullshit—distorting the truth, concealing evidence. Those were the Happy Meals served to juries these days. It was delivered to them the way they would expect it if they were on some television drama. Those were the tools used to manipulate the jury’s perception. The system wasn’t working, and Mancini and everybody else knew it.
Mancini wheeled into the valet parking area at the Tropicana Casino. A young Latino hustled over to the car. “Just remember that as you pull together this case,” advised Mancini, referring to the Vito’s case. “There’s a lot riding on the outcome.”
By now Hunter knew the city contract was worth millions for the firm. And in addition to being lucrative, it was an enticement for other major clients. It gave Fortune 500 companies like Mediacast peace of mind just knowing they had something in common with the city’s decision-makers—common outside counsel. Thinking about the Mediacast debacle from that morning turned Hunter’s stomach.
If Mancini only knew the shitstorm about to erupt.
He just nodded diplomatically instead, prolonging the agony.
“I know I can do that,” he replied, trying to sound chipper.
“You have no choice,” threatened Mancini. “That is, if you’re serious about wanting to make partner.”
Hunter swallowed hard.
“That’s all you need to do,” said Mancini, making it sound easy. “Be an advocate. And surely good things will follow. Money would no longer be an object. You can finally pay off those nagging student loans, take care of that mother of yours back in Chicago. Finally get to experience the thrill of playing the high stakes.”
And if I lose? Or even worse, don’t make it until Thursday?
With an assertive nod, Mancini cued the valet to open his door. Hunter opened his own, bracing himself for the rest of the afternoon with one of the most important lawyers in the city. And one who incidentally was watching his every move, getting into his throbbing head.
O
nce inside the casino, Hunter waited for Mancini, his back to the roulette wheels. A crew of frat-boy types, covered with Penn insignias and looking very Ivy, were bonding as they cut class and gambled away their mommy and daddy’s money. They were all over the cocktail waitress, a haggard yet attractive bleached blonde in her mid-thirties; her slender body and fake boobs barely contained by the casino’s sex-sells-middle-finger-to-the-feminist-movement little number.
The Tropicana was seeing serious action for a Monday afternoon with all the usual oohs and ahs, swirling lights, and controlled chaos. The seniors were glued to the penny slots, still searching for something better as they blew their food money for the week. From the looks on their withered faces, it was looking like another week of tuna. No, those were cat food grimaces. One would’ve never known that the economy was in the crapper and people were losing their jobs left and right.
And that reminds me.
Hunter had gotten the distinct impression from Mancini that a lot more than partnership was at stake over the Vito’s case—and Mediacast, for that matter. He could be collecting unemployment checks and struggling to land a document review assignment through a temp agency any day now. Mancini told Hunter he had forgotten something in the car. Hunter suspected Mancini was just trying to ratchet up the suspense. As in, what the hell did a casino have to do with the Vito’s case?
Hunter was distracted by a celebratory cheer erupting behind him. The proud winner, a mischievous college kid resembling Corey Feldman, gloated as the others offered up macho hugs, their hunch that winning was just that easy written all over their pompous faces.
“Looks like dinner’s on Jared,” hollered one of the frat brothers.
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” slurred another, sloshed.
“And Delilah’s on me when we get back to the city,” joined in the nerdiest-looking of the bunch. Delilah’s Den was a well-known strip club on the Delaware River in town.
The loaded one perked up. “Tonight’s the night Ben gets his cherry popped.” Hysterics broke out, the nerd turning beet red but laughing over it, nonetheless.
The roulette dealer, a cool-looking black guy, could only shake his head and chuckle as he observed the scene.
You see one obnoxious brat, you’ve seen ’em all.
“Surprised you didn’t join them,” said Mancini, who snuck up on Hunter.
“Too much testosterone for me.”
“Tell me about it. Anyway, sorry about that. I forgot this little baby back in the car,” he said. He opened his suit jacket slightly and gestured toward his belt. There was a fierce-looking handgun expertly wedged between his pants and waist. “Don’t worry. It’s legal,” assured Mancini, reading the shocked expression on Hunter’s face. “I figured I’d bring it just in case. More for the peace of mind than anything else.”
“Okay,” said Hunter as if he were talking to a certified lunatic.
“It’s the Mafia we’re talking about, right?” said Mancini.
“So that’s why we’re here. Did you arrange a sit-down or something?” Hunter asked.
“Little premature for that,” joked Mancini. “Probably won’t get that far.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Seriously, though, if you want to turn back now, I understand,” offered Mancini sincerely. “You can hang here and try your luck at the tables.” He paused. “On me.”
“Tempting. But technically it’s my case.” In a way, Hunter was relieved the cat was out of the bag. The case had become much more than a typical trial. The danger was inevitable. The sooner he got to the bottom of things, the better chances he’d have of living.
“Very true,” said Mancini, smiling. “Well, follow me. There’s a person of interest I think we’re both due to meet.”
Hunter and Mancini asked around the casino, trying to get a lead on where Vito Armani Jr., the apple of Vito Armani’s eye once upon a time, hung his hat. Finally they got to a middle-aged cocktail waitress with a raspy smoker’s voice and South Philadelphia accent. She was obviously a transplant, probably leaving behind a life of domestic abuse or something, getting a “fresh start,” if that’s what you’d call getting groped and serving drinks to inebriated cheapskates. She got lucky this time, though, as in a hundred-dollar memory jogger. Plus, she was a tough broad, fortunately for them. She had no qualms about blabbing about Junior’s whereabouts.
The red neon sign was supposed to say “The Dunes,” which was the rickety old beachfront motel where Junior supposedly lived. Instead it just read “Dun.” Hunter laughed to himself when he considered the irony. That’s all he could do at this point. If things didn’t go exactly as planned from here on out, he was
dun
. Done practicing law. Done breathing.
Finito.
The toothless septuagenarian manning the front desk was watching
Dr. Phil
on a small black-and-white set when they walked in. He looked up in their direction, barely noticing them—and barely breathing, for that matter. “Can I help you?” he mumbled without ever taking his yolky eyes off the boob tube.
“You sure can,” said Mancini, taking the lead. “An acquaintance by the name of Vito Armani stays here,” he said assuredly and then waited to read the old man’s reaction. He just nodded. “Well it’s urgent that we speak with him.”
“He ain’t in no trouble again, now, is he? You guys aren’t cops?” He dropped his head momentarily and said under his breath, “I knew that boy was bad news.”
“Just old friends.”
“You sure don’t seem like his kind,” he said, looking them over and making eye contact for the first time.
“Don’t let the fancy suits fool you,” chimed in Hunter.
The clerk wasn’t buying it. But he gave them Junior’s room number anyway, with a deviant glint in his eye. He said it as if he were ratting him out. Part of him was probably hoping they were there either to bump him off or arrest him. “And when you see him, tell the muttonhead he still owes me for
last
month. This ain’t no friggin’ charity.”
Mancini whipped out his wallet. “This should tide him over for a couple more days,” he said, dropping five hundred on the counter like Monopoly money. The old man’s eyes bugged, and he grinned ear to ear, the toothless mouth looking like a little old lady’s. The pair didn’t bother waiting around. “Hey! Don’t you need a receipt, mister?” he asked as they took off.
They surveyed escape routes before they got to Junior’s room, which were limited to the fire escape along the side of the decaying building. The second Mancini knocked on the door, they heard the sound of somebody making a run for it. Fortunately, there was no foot chase, but Hunter was prepared to cut him off if need be. Mancini was too quick, though, kicking open the chained door in one shot as if it were a movie prop in a campy Steven Segal flick.
Junior looked as though he’d been rotting away to the core. Booze, drugs, and heavy partying had clearly taken their toll, making the short, stocky guy in his mid- to late-thirties look more like fifty. He could’ve been his father’s brother, a la Frank Sinatra and Frank Sinatra Jr. Everything about his face was virtually identical to Vito’s except for the full head of thick hair, slightly graying now.
Come to think of it, that’s probably the one redeeming feature that got him laid back in the day.
Hunter got a visual of him cruising the neighborhood with his degenerate friends in a brand-spanking-new red Corvette, just purchased by the father, naturally, who probably spoiled the rotten hell of him.
Hunter stood there observing the shakedown and trying to figure out who Junior reminded him of.
Joe Pesci. That’s it.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” threatened Junior. Even the annoying, high-pitched voice was the same. He continued to squirm as Mancini held him against the faded marine blue wall of the one-bedroom studio, a tacky display of nautical knots falling to the ground, the paper-thin glass cracking on impact.
Mancini was a lot tougher than Hunter would’ve ever guessed. His strong hand cupped Junior’s neck like a shackle. If he wanted, he could’ve easily held him off the ground. And Junior’s lame attempts at self-protection couldn’t conceal the fear holding his brooding brown eyes hostage and seeping through his thick, sweaty pores. Junior knew he was up shit creek without a paddle, probably for the thousandth time.
“Why’d you try to bolt?” demanded Mancini softly, looking like a hit man himself in the suit and with a psychotic glint in his eye.
“Fuck you, you faggot,” tested Junior.
Mancini grinned, unfazed. “I take it you prefer the hard way.”
“Fuck your mother!” And then he spit in Mancini’s face. With the back of his free hand, Mancini wiped it off. Then he calmly proceeded to land a powerful blow into Junior’s jaw. His head recoiled.
“Go to hell!”
Mancini cracked him again. This time blood started to ooze from Junior’s mouth.
“I told you guys, I don’t have your friggin’ money.”
Hunter perked up.
So he thinks we’re in the Mafia. Debt collectors.
“You’re not leaving me too many options here,” said Mancini, playing the role of gangster to the hilt.
He is pretending. Right?
Either this was the performance of a lifetime or Mancini was connected.
“Just give me another few days.” Junior still sounded scrappy. But Mancini whaled him again, with blood spurting out this time. Hunter knew what Mancini was doing—wearing him down. Getting him to open up, both literally and figuratively. But he thought that last shot was unnecessary. Junior was starting to sing, as they say. Hunter just hoped Mancini wouldn’t go too far with the act, especially because he was packing heat, legal or not.
“How many chances does one little shit deserve?”
Junior’s Joe Pesci mug was starting to swell up. Suddenly, he was looking more like De Niro’s character in
Raging Bull
.
Pesci and De Niro were friends, weren’t they?
“Please,” he groveled. “Just one last chance.”
Mancini turned toward Hunter. “What do you think? Is little Junior here fresh out of chances?” Mancini flashed his piece for added impact. Junior’s eyes bulged in terror, realizing that his prayers just might not be answered this time.
“I say we cut him one last break,” said Hunter mercifully, awkwardly playing along.
Junior swallowed hard, relieved. “You won’t be sorry,” he vowed pathetically.
“Then I guess today’s your lucky day,” Mancini said as he released Junior from his chokehold and brushed off his shoulders. “And just so we’re on the same page, how much more do you owe us?”
“Fif-fifty,” he stammered. “And that’s with the interest,” he said as if his life depended on getting it right. He paused when he didn’t get confirmation. “Why? Isn’t that what youz guys got?”
Mancini pretended to consider the figure in his head. “Sounds about right.”
“To me too,” seconded Hunter for authenticity’s sake.
“Just curious, though. If you don’t mind me asking, how you gonna come up with our money?”
“I’ll figure it out,” Junior snapped defensively, revealing the false and typically delusional hope of a gambler down on his luck.
“You better. And fast. You’ve got until Thursday. You can only imagine how things are gonna wind up if we have to pay you another visit,” Mancini warned.