Scott Turow - Personal injuries

Offshore. Drugs. The usual. Not to mention more eternal vices not banned by the federal criminal code.

"Something on the side?" asked Stan, when I suggested that alternative. "And how. Your fellow needs an odometer on his zipper." He rolled his eyes, as if he no longer recalled that it was a weakness for one of the secretaries at the P.A.'s Office that had ended his first marriage. I mentioned the sick wife and Sennett chuckled archly. Robbie Feaver, he said, had been enshrined long before in the Hall of Fame down on Grand Avenue, the strip of high-end watering holes often referred to as the Street of Dreams.

"But Mort's a solid family man," he said. "And your guy sees more beds than a hotel maid. He's not paying any tootsie's rent. So that's not where the money's going. Wanna know my theory, George? I think it's the cash they're hiding. Not the income."

Sennett unbent a paper clip and twirled it between his fingers. Behind the huge desk, he was smug as a fat house cat. Here was the Essential Stan, the dark narrow boy always in a heat to reestablish himself as the smartest person he knew. He had been born Constantine Nicholas Sennatakis and was raised in back of the family restaurant. `You've been there,' he'd told me dryly when we met in law school. `Menu pages coated in plastic and one of the relatives chained to the cash register.' During his induction as U.S. Attorney, he had misted over recounting his parents' struggles. But for the most part, all that ethnic opera, all that carrying on, was self-consciously left behind. Stan's public persona was as the sort of man who barely snapped his fingers when music played; in private, with friends and colleagues, he was apt to take on the droll pose of a grumpy initiate soiled by knowing it all. Yet to me, although it was shrewdly disguised, Stan remained full of teeming immigrant striving. His entire world was often at stake in a case, as if he had an inescapable obligation to rise and prosper at every opportunity. As a result, he suffered his losses far more intensely than he savored his many achievements. But he clearly knew he was winning now.

"Aren't you going to ask how I stumbled over these fellas and their private cash machine?" I would have, had I thought he'd answer. But apparently Stan was having too much fun today to indulge his usual secretiveness. "Our friends at Moreland Insurance," said Sennett. "They got our whiskers twitching."

I might have thought of that. Stan's fabled prosecution of Moreland for a series of fraudulent sales practices with which the company had gallivanted through the eighties concluded with the insurer sentenced to a staggering finemore than $30 million-and also to a period of probation during which they were obliged to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney in correcting any wrongdoing they knew of. I was not surprised to find that Moreland bad taken the opportunity to tattle not only on themselves but also on their natural enemies, plaintiffs' lawyers.

In almost every personal injury suit, the real defendant is an insurance company. You may sue the neighbor whose tree fell on your house, but it's his insurance company who'll pay the damages and hire the defense attorneys, and which often feels antagonized by the lawyer on the other side. I realized that, in all likelihood, it was one of the checks Moreland had issued over the years to Feaver amp; Dinnerstein that had been trailed to the partners' secret bank account. Unfortunately, though, Moreland's records had revealed more than that.

"Your guy's a tough opponent," Stan said. "Somehow, every time Moreland has a big case against these fellas, the company just can't win a ruling. By now they've learned to settle. Especially since any lawsuit where your guy is looking at a six-figure fee always ends up in front of one of a handful of judges. And guess what? We crawled through the records in the courthouse and it turns out the pattern holds for other companies. Whenever Feaver amp; Dinnerstein has a big payday coming, it's the same deal: bad rulings, big settlements. And the same four distinguished jurists on their cases, George-even though there are nineteen judges sitting in the Common Law Claims Division, all of whom are supposed to be assigned to matters at random." Sennett issued a stiff look. "Know now where I'm thinking the cash is going, George?"

I knew. Rumors of funny business had lingered like some untraceable foundation odor in the Kindle County courthouses since I'd arrived here for law school. But no one had ever proved it. The judges who took were said to be carefully insulated. There were bagmen and code words. And the lawyers who paid told no tales. It was, by report, a small faction, a secret society whose alliances were fierce and ancient, going back decades to high schools, churches, to the Prosecuting Attorney's Office in its bad old days, to union halls, or, even, mob connects. And always the bonds were fired in the overheated politics of the Party.

These grumpy suspicions were often repeated by the losers in Kindle County's courtrooms. But in my more innocent moments, I liked to discount them, believing that cronyism, not cash, explained the obvious favoritism I, like every other lawyer, had witnessed on occasion over the years. For my client's sake, I was skeptical now.

"I'll tell you what clinches it for me," Stan replied. "Morton Dinnerstein's uncle is Brendan Tuohey." Sennett took a beat to let the portent of the name gather. "Brendan's older sister is Mort Dinnerstein's mother. She raised Brendan after their mom kicked the bucket. Devoted to her, he is. And to her son. Looks to me like Tuohey's given nephew Morty a real helping hand."

As Stan expected, he'd caught me by surprise. When I'd arrived in Kindle County in the late 1960s, a Tuohey marrying a Dinnerstein was still thought of as miscegenation. More to the point, Brendan Tuohey now was the Presiding Judge of the Common Law Claims Division, where all personal injury cases were heard. A former cop and ex-deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Brendan was celebrated for his intricate political connections, his general Celtic amity, and his occasional bare-knuckles meanness. In most quarters, among reporters, for example, he was renowned as able and tough but fair. Tuohey's name was the one most often mentioned when people speculated about who would eventually replace old Judge Mumphrey and wield the vast powers of the Chief of the entire Kindle County Superior Court. I'd had my ears scratched by Brendan during my year as Bar President. But both Stan and I could recall Tuohey's tenure long ago in the Felony Division, when there were persistent rumors that he was often visited in chambers by Toots Nuccio, a reputed fixer. I asked, mildly, if Stan thought it was fair to condemn Robbie Feaver because of his partner's relatives, but by now Sennett had lost patience with my temporizing.

"Just do your job, George. And I'll do mine. Talk to your guy. There's something there. We can both see that. If he gets religion, we'll cut him a break. If he sees no evil and speaks no evil, he's going to the penitentiary for evasion. For as long as I can send him. And with these kinds of dollars, we're talking several years. He's got his chance now. If he doesn't take it, don't come groveling in six months, strumming your lyre about the poor wife and her miserable condition."

Stan set his chin against his chest and eyed me gravely, having become the Stan Sennett few people liked, or could even deal with. Behind him, out the window, a boom swung on an immense construction crane a block away, carrying a beam and some daredevil ironworker riding on it. In this town, they were all American Indians, who, reputedly, knew no fear. I envied them that. Somehow my father's death had sharpened my lifelong concern about my lack of daring.

In the meantime, Stan took my silence for crusty disdain. It was one of the occasional rewards of our friendship that he was vulnerable to my opinion of him, perhaps because he knew so much of it was favorable.