John - The Runaway Jury

When the lunch dishes were cleared and all the smokers had returned from the smoke room, it became apparent that they were now supposed to do what they'd been dreaming about for a month. They took their places around the table, and stared at the empty seat at the end, the one Herman had so proudly occupied.

“Guess we need a new foreman,” Jerry said.

“And I think it should be Nicholas,” Millie added quickly.

There really wasn't any doubt about who the new foreman would be. No one else wanted the job, and Nicholas seemed to know as much about the trial as the lawyers themselves. He was elected by acclamation.

He stood by Herman's old chair and summarized a list of suggestions from Judge Harkin. He said, “He wants us to carefully consider all the evidence, including the exhibits and documents, before we start voting.” Nicholas turned to his left and stared at a table in a corner piled high with all those wonderful reports and studies they'd been collecting for the last four weeks.

“I'm not planning on staying here for three days,” Lonnie said as they all looked at the table. “In fact, I'm ready to vote now.”

“Not so fast,” Nicholas said. “This is a complicated, very important case, and it would be wrong to rush things without thoughtful deliberation.”

“I say we vote,” Lonnie said.

“And I say we do what the Judge says. We can call him in for a chat, if necessary.”

“We're not going to read all that stuff, are we?” asked Sylvia the Poodle. Reading was not one of her favorite pastimes.

“I have an idea,” Nicholas said. “Why don't we each take a report, skim it, then summarize it for everyone else? We can then honestly tell Judge Harkin that we reviewed all the exhibits and documents.”

“Do you really think he'll want to know?” asked Rikki Coleman.

“Probably so. Our verdict must be based on the evidence before us-the testimony we heard and the exhibits we've been given. We at least have to make an effort to follow his orders.”

“I agree,” said Millie. “We all want to go home, but our duty demands that we carefully consider what's before us.”

With that, the other protests were snuffed out. Millie and Henry Vu lifted the bulky reports and placed them in the center of the table, where they were slowly taken by the jurors.

“Just skim through them,” Nicholas said, coaxing them along like a flustered schoolteacher. He grabbed the thickest one, a study by Dr. Milton Fricke on the effects of cigarette smoke on the respiratory tract, and he read it as if he'd never seen such dynamic prose.

In the courtroom, a few of the curious hung around for a spell in hopes there might be a quick verdict. This often happened-get the jury back there, feed 'em lunch, let 'em vote, and you've got yourself a verdict. The jury had made up its mind before the first witness.

But not this one.

AT FORTY-ONE THOUSAND FEET and at five hundred miles per hour, the Lear made the trip from Biloxi to George Town, Grand Cayman, in ninety minutes. Marlee cleared customs with a new Canadian passport, one issued to Lane MacRoland, a pretty young lady from Toronto who was down for a week of pleasure, no business. As required by Caymanian law, she also possessed a return air ticket, which showed her booked on a Delta flight to Miami in six days. The Caymanians were delighted to have tourists, but had other thoughts about new citizens.

The passport was part of a perfect set of new papers she'd purchased from a noted forger in Montreal. Passport, driver's license, birth certificate, voter's registration card. Cost: three thousand dollars.

She took a cab into George Town and found her bank, the Royal Swiss Trust, in a stately old building a block from the seafront. She'd never been to Grand Cayman before, though it felt like a second home. She'd been studying the place for two months. Her financial affairs there had been carefully arranged by fax.

The tropical air was heavy and warm, but she hardly noticed. She wasn't there for the sun and beaches. It was three o'clock in George Town and New York. Two P.M. in Mississippi.

She was greeted by a receptionist and led to a small office where another form had to be completed, one that couldn't be faxed. Within minutes, a young man named Marcus introduced himself. They had spoken many times on the phone. He was slender, well groomed, well tailored, very European, with a slight accent to his perfect English.

The money had arrived, he informed her, and Marlee managed to take the news while suppressing any sign of a smile. It was difficult. The paperwork was in order. She followed him upstairs to his office. Marcus' title was vague, like a lot of bankers' titles in Grand Cayman, but he was a vice president of this or that, and he managed portfolios.

A secretary brought coffee and Marlee ordered a sandwich.

Pynex was at seventy-nine, up strongly all day in heavy trading, Marcus reported while pecking at his computer. Trellco was up three and a quarter to fifty-six. Smith Greer was up two to sixty-four and a half. ConPack was trading even at around thirty-three.

Working from notes which were virtually memorized, Marlee made her first trade by selling short fifty thousand shares of Pynex at seventy-nine. Hopefully, she would buy it back in the very near future at a much lower price. Short selling was a tricky maneuver normally used by only the most sophisticated investors. If the price of a stock was about to fall, trading rules allowed the stock to be sold first at the higher price, then purchased later at a lower one.

With ten million in cash, Marlee would be allowed to sell approximately twenty million dollars' worth of stocks.

Marcus confirmed the trade with a flurry of keypunching, and he excused himself for a second while he put on his headset. Her second trade was the short selling of Trellco-thirty thousand shares at fifty-six and a quarter. He confirmed it, and then came the flurry. She sold forty thousand shares of Smith Greer at sixty-four and a half; sixty thousand more of Pynex at seventy-nine and an eighth; thirty thousand more of Trellco at fifty-six and an eighth; fifty thousand of Smith Greer at sixty-four and three-eighths.

She paused and instructed Marcus to watch Pynex closely. She had just unloaded one hundred and ten thousand shares of its stock, and was very concerned about the immediate response on Wall Street. It stalled at seventy-nine, dropped to seventy-eight and three-quarters, then eased back to seventy-nine.

“I think it's safe now,” said Marcus, who'd been watching the stock closely for two weeks. “Sell fifty thousand more,” she said without hesitation. Marcus skipped one beat, then nodded at his monitor and completed the trade.

Pynex dipped to seventy-eight and a half, then down another quarter. She sipped her coffee and fiddled with her notes as Marcus watched and Wall Street reacted. She thought about Nicholas, and what he was doing right now, but she wasn't worried. In fact, she was remarkably calm at the moment.

Marcus removed his headset. “That's approximately twenty-two million dollars, Ms. MacRoland. I think we should stop. More sales will require approval from my superior.”

“That's enough,” she said.

“The market closes in fifteen minutes. You're welcome to wait in our client lounge.”

“No thanks. I'll go to the hotel, maybe get some sun.”

Marcus stood and buttoned his jacket. “One question. When do you anticipate movement on these stocks?”

“Tomorrow. Early.”

“Significant movement?”

Marlee stood and held her notes. “Yes. If you want your other clients to think you're a genius, then short sell tobacco right now.”

He sent for a company car, a small Mercedes, and Marlee was driven to a hotel on Seven Mile Beach, not far from downtown and the bank.