Scott Turow - Personal injuries

"Not me, Judge. She's the one who's amazing. I look in her eyes every night and it's solid courage." Robbie's voice curled around the edges, and Skolnick, while driving-and in the very center of the broadcast image-briefly touched Feaver's hand. Watching across from me, Sennett scowled, apparently contemplating the effect of Skolnick's tenderness on a jury.

Shaking off despair, Robbie reached into his briefcase and circumspectly removed the envelope the agents had prepared. Knowing the sight line of the camera in advance, he held the package against his chest so it was fully visible. Then with the stylized rigmarole these scenes apparently required, he let the envelope slip from his fingers to the seat and, not quite on camera, jammed it into the crevice under the backrest. Skolnick, who was supposed to remain blind to these maneuvers in order to have deniability later, predictably forgot his role. At one point he actually turned from the road to watch Feaver, although he was wise enough to avoid any direct comment.

"So, Robbie, what's doing?" he asked neutrally. "I haven't seen you in a while. I was surprised to see you called."

"New case, Judge," he answered, and described the matter which Kosic had transferred from Malatesta. Stan insisted Robbie had to ask for a favor now on that matter. If Robbie simply delivered a payoff on the first case, the one concerning the truck driver that had passed to Skolnick from Gillian Sullivan, a defense lawyer might attempt to characterize the payment as akin to a gift, inasmuch as Robbie had never spoken to Skolnick about the trucker's lawsuit. Thus, Stan wanted to make sure that money changing hands was linked to a request for favorable action, albeit on another matter. Robbie told the story of the painter with cancer movingly. But he made it plain he was hoping to bamboozle his opponent.

"See, Judge, I gotta get a stay of discovery. The defense, this lump McManis, they've got no idea about the c.a., the cancer? If we start with deps and medical records, then boom bang bing, they find out. After that, the lostwages component in my case? Out the window. `Sorry for your disability, but you're gonna be dead anyway.' So I need the stay, while I try to hondle with McManis. And the worst part, Judge, this poor bird's a widower. So if I don't bring home the bacon, we got three kids with no mother, no father, and not even a pot to pee in."

"Oy vay," said Skolnick. "How old, the kinder?"

"The oldest is eight," said Robbie.

"tray iz mir," said Skolnick.

Sennett winced again at the last part. Robbie was making this up as he went, lying with his customary eclat, but by painting a bleak picture of the consequences to the family, Robbie was lending an element of humane justification to the misconduct he was requesting. Skolnick, in fact, was quick to explain that from his perspective the whole matter was rather routine.

"In my courtroom, Robbie, you know how it is, somebody makes a motion to dismiss, a motion for summary judgment, something that can dispose of the whole case, I stay discovery. Everybody else, these days, they want litigation to be like an express train. Who cares what it costs, so long as it moves fast? But I stay discovery. That's my practice for twenty-six years. So you make a motion, say, for judgment on the pleadings, I stay discovery. That's how it is. Nu?" Skolnick shrugged as if it was all quite beyond his control. "Now you want help with your judgment on the pleadings? Don't talk to me. My angina will act up." The judge quivered with laughter. A judgment on the pleadings would have declared victory for Robbie on the sole basis of his complaint and McManis's answer, something that rarely occurred. Across from me, Sennett's frown had deepened, as the judge had cheerfully outlined the bounds of propriety. Skolnick was suggesting he wouldn't really do anything wrong.

"I hope that's not why you're monkeying with the seat." Skolnick added. "Cause of this new case."

Robbie was briefly drawn up short by the unexpected reference to the money. All of us were.

"No, Judge. That's Hall. We got a great result after you stuffed them on their motion to strike my claim for punitives. I mean, that's why I'm here." In shadowy terms, Bobbie reminded Skolnick of the first case about the injured truck driver whose brakes had failed. Skolnick searched his memory, his eyes thick with the effort. He concluded with a robust shake of his head.

"Neh, that's Gillian, Robbie. She'd drawn the order when I got the case. We just filed it. You oughta see her, poor thing." He gossiped sympathetically about Judge Sullivan's battle with drink. Adroitly, Robbie promised Skolnick that he'd visit Sullivan, too, but Skolnick continued vigorously revolving his head. "Neh," he said again, "take that there"-he dared to motion in the direction of the envelope-"take it home."

"Oh fuck!" Sennett shouted. His scream shot through the van. Up front, Amari pounded the brake and jerked around to see what was wrong. Stan waved him ahead, but it was too late. We'd missed the next light. As Robbie and Skolnick cruised on, we watched the small screen waver and flicker and finally dissolve to snow. Then the sound began to break up, too, sizzling into static. Kiecker spun the dials futilely as Sennett cursed, his hands and face twisted in anguish.

By the time Amari raced back into range, Robbie and Skolnick's business was completed. There was no further reference to the envelope. Until he dropped Robbie off on a corner near the LeSueur, Skolnick instead regaled Bobbie with a series of Jewish jokes. The best was about Yankel the farmer, who, years ago in the old country, went to buy a dairy cow. Two were for sale. One, the seller explained, was from Pinsk and would breed an entire herd; it cost one hundred rubles. The other, from Minsk, cost ten rubles but could be expected to bear only one calf. If anything, the cheaper Minsk cow looked better to Yankel than the Pinsk cow and Yankel decided to save his money. He bred the Minsk cow successfully once, but subsequently she kicked and bucked savagely whenever a bull tried to mount her. Baffled, Yankel went to consult the shtetl's wise rabbi, who had something to offer in almost any situation.

`This cow,' asked the rabbi, 'is it by any chance from Minsk?'

Yankel was astounded at the rabbi's perspicacity. How did he know? The rabbi stroked his beard at length.

'My wife,' he said, `is from Minsk.'

Alf couldn't restrain his laughter, but he popped a hand over his mouth in deference to Sennett. On his little folddown seat, Stan was brittle with disappointment and rage. After Robbie had disembarked from Skolnick's red Lincoln, Stan pointed at McManis and demanded to know how the hell Joe could have just stopped. No one was willing even to look in Stan's direction. Sennett let his eyes close in their bruised-looking orbits and suddenly held up a hand which settled on his own chest.

"My fault," he said. "All my fault." He repeated that several more times. After close to thirty years, I knew Stan's demands on others were second to what he required of himself. It would take him days to recover from screwing up. Frozen on the narrow seat, Sennett was what he became most rarely and least wished to be-someone for whom everybody felt sorry.

Because Feaver was going to return to the LeSueur Building first, Evon had been assigned to await him in McManis's office so she could turn off the FoxBlte. She sat there, knocking her thumbnail against her teeth, irritated by the suspense, until Shirley Nagle, the undercover agent who posed as the office receptionist, put a call in to the conference room from Jim. He was on the secure phone in the van and explained what had gone wrong. Amari had lagged behind Skolnick in the traffic, taking his time before getting close enough to turn off the camera, hoping that in the interval they might see Skolnick retrieve the envelope. But that hadn't happened, suggesting-at least to a defense lawyer-that the money was no longer there.