David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

“You shoulda seen the other guy.”

“How is the governor’s daughter these days?”

He means Shelly. I look up at him and don’t say anything, but my expression betrays me.

“Ah, too bad.” He settles back in his leather chair. “I liked her. She had a real-spirit.”

“That she did.”

“Her loss. Hmm. I see you have Senator Almundo in the Public Trust indictments. Are the screws pretty tight?”

“Any tighter,” I say, “he’d explode.”

“Well, if anyone can pull a rabbit out of a hat…” The judge nods at the door. “Interesting that Larrabee’s suing Harland Bentley’s company. I mean, with the history.” He shakes his head, like he doesn’t know what to make of it. “Some kind of grudge or something? ”

I shrug. “His client killed Harland’s daughter. What would he have against Harland?”

Judge Landis drums his fingers conclusively on his desk. He doesn’t know, either. How could anyone understand the erratic mind of Jeremy Larrabee? “Now, Paul, about this case-”

“Not a dime, Danny,” I say. “Larrabee’s a cockroach. We throw him a crumb and he multiplies.”

The judge drops his hands on his massive desk. His chambers are an homage to the hunter. The floor is covered with bearskin and the walls are adorned with various beheaded animals. I’m no hunter, but I’ve played a few rounds of golf with the Honorable Daniel Landis. The only thing I’ve seen him hunt for is a Titleist that he sliced into the woods.

He massages his prominent forehead and then wags a finger at me. “You’re going to give him nuisance money,” he says.

“We’ll give his client a year’s worth of soap,” I say.

The judge’s shoulders tremble as he laughs.

“And we’ll strap a feedbag to her face.”

“Stop.” The judge’s face is red as a beet, a smile planted on his face. He catches his breath. “Ten thousand,” he says. “Your billionaire client spends that on dinner. And the woman gets reinstated.”

“Ten thousand what?” I say. “Ten thousand nose plugs for the people who have to work around her?”

Danny likes that one even better. His laughter turns to a cough and he waves me out. His face a bright red, he holds up ten fingers as I close the door to the judge’s chambers.

Jeremy Larrabee is sitting in the empty courtroom, talking on his cell phone. He seems surprised to see me. “Already?” he asks, punching out the cell phone. He needs some work on his poker face. He was hoping for something, anything, from me, and the fact that I spent about sixty seconds in there gives him the answer. I pick up my jacket and briefcase.

“You’re leaving?” he asks.

“I am.” I try to show lawyers every courtesy, but this guy is trying to play one of Harland’s companies and his cases are bogus. He needs to see how little I care about him.

“Give the judge a minute,” I say. “He’s still in tears over the plight of your client.”

“I’m going to get that class certified,” he answers. “Then we’ll talk.”

There is no chance that Danny Landis is going to allow a class action on this case. Jeremy should know that. A good lawyer knows the law. But a great lawyer knows the judge.

“Jeremy.” I step closer to him. “Do yourself a favor and pick another company. We won’t settle a single one of these. That’s eleven trials and you’ll lose them all. That’s a guarantee. Make a good business decision.”

I rethink the judge’s question, why Jeremy would pick Harland’s company to go after. Is he looking for a rematch with me? I’ve wondered that since the first suit was filed, but I’d never ask him. He wouldn’t admit it, anyway.

I walk away but he calls out to me: “Cost of litigation.”

The three-word mantra of any desperate plaintiff’s lawyer. It will cost you a hundred grand to litigate this case, so give me eighty and we’re all winners. Sure, Larrabee’s right that it will cost Harland Bentley over a hundred thousand to take this case through trial. That’s what this parasite is counting on, that companies will forgo principle and pay out some cash just to save money on the defense of the case. They aren’t counting on Harland Bentley. Or me.

“Five thousand,” I say, remembering what the judge asked but cutting it in half.

“Five thousand isn’t even close,” Larrabee says. “Her lost wages alone-”

“I meant for all eleven cases.” I push the door open and leave the courtroom.

McDERMOTT is twenty minutes late to work, but he figures he has it coming after working late into the night on the Ciancio homicide. The desk sergeant says, “Hey, Chief,” as he walks past. McDermott curls in his lips, winks at the guy. The coffee in the Styrofoam cup, dark roast from Dunkin Donuts, is hot in his hand, but he’s betting he won’t have the first sip until it’s cold.

“Morning, Chief.” Kopecky, another detective, hits him on the arm.

“Enough with the ‘Chief’ shit.” McDermott says it loud enough for everyone to hear, but it’s probably a bad idea to sound pissed off with this bunch, it only encourages them. He places the coffee on his cluttered desk, half of which is taken up by the new expensive Dell computer that he can barely use.

“Hey, Chief, Streets and San found a Vicky in a Dumpster.” Collins this time, a big Irish guy like McDermott. “I’m taking Kopecky.”

McDermott lets his eyes wander through the buzzing station house to the lieutenant’s office. The lew must be having a bad day. That’s why Collins is asking McDermott. “Sure, Collins, sure.”

McDermott isn’t chief of anything. The detectives at Area Four, Third Precinct, answer to Lieutenant Coglianese, who has seen better-more sober-days of late. Four months now since the lew’s wife passed away, and the cops at Four could smell it on him the day he returned from bereavement. He’d gone a few rounds with the bottle in the past, like his father, and there was a debate within the detectives’ squad about what to do. They turned to the senior detective, McDermott, who had made the call to get the lew through the next six months, until he had his thirty and could retire full.

Which is fine, but now McDermott has much of the lieutenant’s administrative work to go along with his own paperwork. In between, he’s expected to solve a crime here and there, too.

He looks at the “leader board” and counts the number of unsolved violent crimes. More to come today, starting with the Dumpster girl. Business at Four is booming. The summer months are the best for business. Rapes and muggings double from May to September. Gang shootings triple; some say because of the heat, its effect on emotions. McDermott thinks it’s because of the extended daylight hours. More time for the bangers to look at each other wrong.

“Collins,” he says, opening the lid on his coffee, breathing in the rich aroma. “Where’s the Vicky?”

Reason he’s asking, three weeks ago on Venice Avenue, a gang sniper opened fire on a crime scene, a cluster of at least eight officers and detectives. Turned into a full-scale assault on the Andujar housing project. Since then, most of the detectives have taken to wearing vests, like the patrol officers.

Turned out the sniper was an eleven-year-old kid with a 30.06 rifle.

“East side.” Collins hangs his shield around his neck. “LeBaron and Dillard.”

LeBaron and Dillard. Not a bad area, so reinforcements not needed. “That’s my neighborhood,” McDermott says. “Clean it up.”

By THE TIME I get back to my office, I’m relatively sure an army of tiny gnomes has taken up residence inside my head, hacking my brain in search of gold. At ten-eighteen precious minutes from now-I have twelve partners and senior associates waiting in a conference room for our monthly update on every piece of litigation related to BentleyCo or one of its subsidiaries. Last I checked, we have sixty-nine open matters. It will be a long meeting. Yesterday, I had everyone draw up summaries of the cases, so that I wasn’t walking into the meeting cold. I probably should have read them.