Scott Turow - Personal injuries

Evon and Robbie set out for the courthouse separately from Jim. Feaver today was fully relaxed. In fact, as he was about to enter the elevator in the Temple's vast rotunda, something caught his attention and he jumped out, marching to the sundries counter across the way. He addressed the blind proprietor by name.

"Leo!" The man was elderly, close to seventy and stout. His striped cane hung from a hook beside the rear displays of cigarettes and aspirin and newspapers. He wore a starched white shirt, buttoned at the collar without a tie, but he was poorly shaven. His dark glasses for some reason had been laid next to his register and he faced forward with his still, milky eyes.

Leo and Feaver exchanged sad remarks about the Trappers, a never-ending lament now renewed with spring training imminent. As they spoke, Robbie picked up two packs of gum from one of the counter racks.

"Whatta you got there?" asked the old man.

"One pack of spearmint."

"'One'! Sounded like you took the whole damn display."

"Just one, Leo." Robbie turned to Evon and winked as he showed her both packages. She was too appalled to speak.

Feaver again insisted that one pack was all he'd taken. Then he withdrew his alligator billfold from his pants pocket and laid a one-hundred-dollar bill in the plastic dish resting on the glass counter. There was a photo molded into the contours of the tray of a carefree young woman and the logo of Kool cigarettes. The old man picked up the bill and fingered it carefully. He rubbed at a corner a long time, rolling it between his index finger and thumb.

"What is this?"

"It's a one, Leo."

"You got yourself stuck on `one' today. I ask you how many in a dozen, you gonna say `one'?"

"It's a one, man."

"Uh-huh. I know you, Robbie."

"I swear to you, Leo, there's a number one right on it." His voice barely contained his laughter, he was having so much fun. "Only don't put it in the drawer with the ones. Put it underneath. In the bottom of the register. It's a special One."

"Yeah, special." The old man made a tiny tear in one corner and lifted the cash drawer. He dropped four dimes and a penny in the tray on the counter and Robbie scooped them up.

"You gotta stop doin this, Robbie."

"No, I don't, Leo. I got no reason to stop. I'll see you next week." He grabbed the old man's spotted hand to draw him forward, then kissed him squarely atop his glistening bald scalp.

As Robbie walked back toward the elevator, he explained to Evon that Leo was his father's first cousin.

"He was my dad's best friend as a kid. He went blind at thirteen from the measles, but my old man stuck by him. Even after my dad took off, my ma always gave him credit for that. `He didn't turn his back on Leo, your father, I'll say that much, he didn't forget his cousin."' Evon had heard Robbie's mother's voice emerging from the speakerphone in his office and her son had caught the old lady's inflection precisely. Evon had to laugh and Robbie laughed himself once she did.

"My ma used to invite Leo around. You know, I'd find them sitting there, having tea, when I got home from school, laughing like a couple of old guys in a tavern. I loved to see him. Leo can be a real card. And he told me stories about my dad. Nice stories, you know. Nice for a kid to hear. How they used to run from Evil-Eyed Flavin. Or flatten pennies on the railroad tracks. Or play ball. I'd see him sittin there with my ma, and naturally I'd think what a kid would think, you know, wishing that it was my father instead." He looked down the hallway wistfully. The elevators dinged and the smell of bacon drifted from the cafeteria. "And you know who got him this stand here?" Robbie asked.

"You?"

"Well, I mean, I asked for him. But I'm dick. I ask them to hold the elevator around here, they don't even do that. You know who I went to? You know who listened to Leo's whole sad story and arranged it with Judge Mumphrey and the committeemen and all the other heavyweights who had to have their rings kissed? Can you guess?"

She couldn't.

"Brendan Tuohey. Yeah, Brendan." He made a sound then and another sad face. With no other recourse, she suddenly tapped her watch. Robbie had forgotten. "Shit," he said and scowled, despairing momentarily over everything. In his hand, he noticed the packages of chewing gum and handed them to Evon. He tapped his jaw.

"Bridgework," he said and entered the elevator as it arrived.

Like the rest of the Temple, Judge Malatesta's courtroom had a leaden, functional air. There were straightbacked pews of yellowing birch and a matching installation of squared-off benchwork at the front for the court officers. The witness stand stood lower than the judge's bench to which it was joined. The court reporter and clerk had desks immediately before the judge, and the lawyers' podium was centered yet another yard or so ahead. Everything was square. The great seal of the state hung behind the judge, between two flags on standards. On the west wall, across from the windows, hung a gilt-framed portrait of the late County Executive Augustine Bolcarro, referred to by everyone as the Mayor.

Malatesta's call was already in progress. Lawyers bustled in and out with their briefcases and topcoats in their arms. Jim entered by himself and sat stiffly on the opposite side of the room, waiting for the case to be called. He was careful not to look in their direction, nibbling absentmindedly on his lips now and then.

Walter, in his heavy suit, was at his crowded desk in front of the bench. He called each case and exchanged papers with the judge, receiving the ones from the concluded matter as he handed up the briefs and orders Malatesta would need next. He, too, acted as if he had not noticed them, which Evon did not take as an especially welcome sign. Sennett's fretting about the hearing had affected her. If for some reason Malatesta ruled for McManis today, the whole Project was going to be in trouble. It would be hard to explain in D.C., or anywhere else, why their fixer had failed. This was the first concrete test to see if Robbie Feaver was more than hot air.

"Petros v. Standard Railing, 93 CL 140," Walter finally called out lethargically, after they'd been there nearly half an hour. Evon reached into her briefcase and clicked the remote for the FoxBIte. From the birch podium, Robbie and McManis identified themselves for the court reporter, a young black woman, who took the information down without glancing up at either of them. Evon followed Bobbie up, and stood, as she'd been instructed, a few feet behind him. McManis had carried several pages of inked notes on yellow foolscap to the podium with him.

At near range, Silvio Malatesta did not really look to Evon like a crook. That was not surprising. Crooks often didn't run to type. Con men all had a self-impressed air, but bank robbers, on the other hand, seemed to come from any direction, plenty of gang toughs and thugs, but often the guy next door. Public corruption cases, they said, were the same, enmeshing plenty of obvious hustlers, but, often, the seemingly trustworthy.

Malatesta fit in the latter category. He appeared pleasantly avuncular, with thinning grayish hair and heavy blackframed glasses, his small quick eyes swimming within the distortions. Even in the robe he looked slightly too thin for his clothing, his shirt gapping at the neck. He licked his lips before speaking in his mildly officious tone, a bit like a clergyman's.

"Well," he said and smiled at the lawyers. "This is a very interesting matter. Very interesting. The papers here are very well drawn on each side. Both parties have had the advantage of top-rate advocacy. Now, counsel for Standard Railing-McMann?"

Jim repeated his name.

"Mr. McManis makes the appealing argument that a person ought not be allowed to drink himself to the point of senselessness and then blame someone else for the mishaps that follow. Mr. Feaver counters that Standard's position is a bit of a red herring: balcony railings, he says, must be built of a sufficient height and durability to prevent a fall, whether the plaintiff stumbles because he's deliberately tripped by an usher, or gets caught up in his own feet, or keels over drunk. In Mr. Feaver's view, a railing is like a lawn mower or a pharmaceutical drug, where the manufacturer is strictly liable for any injuries that result from use of the product. The cases in other jurisdictions admittedly go in both directions."