Nelson Algren - The New Black Mask Quarterly (№ 1)

George Higgins began practicing law in 1967. Now forty-five, he lives in Milton, Massachusetts.

Panda Feeney, fifty-three, was employed as a court officer. He escorted juries between the courtrooms and the rooms where they deliberated, and he made hotel and restaurant accommodations for them when they were sequestered. He fetched sandwiches and coffee for them when they were deliberating, and he delivered messages between them and the judges on their cases when they thought of silly questions during their deliberations. “But basically,” Panda would say, “my job is to take care of the judges and do what they want, all right? What the judges want.”

Panda did not like all of the judges that he served. Those he disliked made his back hurt, so he would disappear. He would stay somewhere around the second civil session, technically on duty but a little hard to find. It was not that he feared detection, loafing; he still remembered much of what he had learned wrestling, so he was indifferent to detection.

“My back,” Panda would say, rubbing it, when some assistant clerk of courts located him bent over morning papers and a cup of coffee in the vacant jury room and said: “Judge wants to see you.” Panda would nod painfully, writhing slowly in his chair. “Naturally, he wants to see me. Could’ve bet on it. Never fails: my back acts up, there’s some guy like him in here. What’s he want, huh? You know? Can you tell me that? This damp weather, Jesus, I can hardly move.”

Clerks would never know what it was that judges wanted, only that they wanted Panda and had not seen him around. Panda would nod, once, when they told him that, and grimace. “Okay,” he would say, “then can you do me a favor? Tell the judge: when I fought Casey — he has heard of Crusher Casey, even if he is a moron like he acts like he is — Crusher may’ve been an old guy, but he still had a body slam that ruined me for life. You can get the Judge’s coffee for me, can’t you? Do an old, lamed-up guy a favor? Tell him that for me.”

One judge that Panda especially disliked was Henry Neelon. Before Judge Neelon was relieved of trying cases so that he could spend all of his time as the administrator of the courts, he had had a run-in with Panda Feeney. Panda after a few drinks would sometimes recall the story. “Hanging Hank’d spent the morning sending guys to Walpole. Handed out about a hundred years and still he wasn’t satisfied. Gets back in his chambers and he’s still looking to make trouble. Sends Grayson, that pinhead, out to look for me.

“I give Grayson the routine,” Panda would say, chuckling. “Grayson’d believe anything you told him. He goes down and gives the word to Hanging Hank.

“Henry blows a gasket,” Panda would say, laughing now. “He does not believe what Grayson tells him I said about my back, all right? He is going to check it out.

“I am sitting there, in the jury room. I can hear old Henry coming, stomping up those iron stairs and swearing like a bastard. He is going to take my head off. ‘Lazy goddamned officers. Good-for-nothing shirkers.’

“So, I think quick,” Panda said. “I don’t have much choice. And when old Henry comes in, I am lying on the table. ‘Damn you, Feeney,’ he says, when he slams the door open, and then he sees me lying there like I am all set to be the guest of honor, my own wake. Except I do not look as good as I will look when old Dave Finnerty finally gets me and lays me out in the front room. I’ve been holding my breath, so my face is red. And I have got a look on me like we used to use when the guy that’s supposed to be the loser in the matches is pretending he is chewing on your leg, or pulling some other dirty trick that only bad guys do. Pain, you know what I mean? Pain. I am in agony — one look and you can see it. And Henry’s jaw drops down.

‘I dunno, Judge,’ I say. I have got big tears in my eyes. ‘I hate to even think about it, but the pain is awful. It doesn’t stop, I’m gonna have to. Even though I don’t want to, go on disability and just collect the pension. I may not have any choice.’

“Does he believe me?” Panda said. “At first, I guess he does. And then when he starts to suspect something, maybe I am jerking his chain, right? But he isn’t sure. And even to this day, I catch him looking at me, he still thinks I was giving him the business that day I was on the table. And if he ever gets a shot at me again, that guy is gonna take it. I can see it in his eyes.”

Panda Feeney liked Judge Boyster, so his back was always fine when Andrew Boyster drew his session. “Now you take someone like Drew Boyster,” Panda would tell other judges when he served them the first time. “He is my idea, a judge. Not the kind of guy, you know, where everything is hard and fast and there’s no allowances for human nature, you know? Drew Boyster is the kind of guy that I’d want judging me, if I was ever in that spot, which God forbid, I should be. If we had more like Andrew Boyster this would be a better world.”

Andrew Boyster always squirmed when Panda’s praise got back to him. “Ahh,” he’d say, looking embarrassed, “I wish Panda wouldn’t do that. Every new judge comes along, Panda gives indoctrination. And all it really means, I guess, is that I am too easy. I let Panda disappear, if I don’t really need him — I suppose he’s sleeping, but then, Panda needs his rest. Then too, I let Panda pick the hotels when the juries are sequestered, and the ones that Panda picks are always grateful for the business. He selects the restaurants when the juries sit through dinner, and he picks out the delis when they’re having sandwiches. He’s probably enriching pals, but then, should he pick those who hate him? And they probably show their appreciation in ways that might be worth some money. Nothing against the law, of course — I am not suggesting that. But I bet Panda has some trouble, paying for his dinners out.” He did not tell Neelon that.

Panda’s explanation differed. “You know why I like Drew Boyster?” He would squint when he said that, studying the novice judge for some sign of inattention. “He thinks I am smart, is why. He does not think I am stupid. Judge Boyster doesn’t come in here, like lots of these guys do — and, Christ, you come down to it, some of the broads we get are worse. He doesn’t just barge in here and start throwing weight around, acting like he owns the place and everybody in it. Drew Boyster... well, I had one case he was involved in, before he became a judge. And that was all I needed, right? To see what kind of guy he is. This guy, he may be a lawyer and he made a lot of money before he went on the bench, although from what I heard, I guess his first wife made a big fat dent in that. But he has always had some class. Drew Boyster has got class. I have been here fifteen years, fudge Boyster is the best I never ate a meal with him, or had a drink with him. It’s not like we are buddies, you know? Or anything like that. It’s just that, all the years I’ve been here, he’s the best I ever saw.”

He made that speech, with variations, to so many judges, that when Drew Boyster dropped dead at the age of fifty-nine, victim of a massive stroke that killed him instantly, Panda’s name was mentioned by everyone who saw Judge Neelon on the morning afterward. Henry Neelon was in charge of making the arrangements for the speakers who would say a few words at Boyster’s memorial, and as little as he liked the man, Henry Neelon saw the logic of including Panda Feeney.

“Look,” he said, “I realize this may be hard for you. I know how you felt about Drew — everybody did.”

Panda shook his head and looked down, as though he did not trust his voice to perform reliably.

“The thing of it is,” Judge Neelon said to Panda, “you’ve been to enough of these things so you know what they are like. They are deadly, Panda — they are boring and they’re dull. We get a couple lawyers who won recent cases in his court — we do not ask folks who lost. The Chief Justice declares on the record: ‘He was not a pederast.” If he has one kid who can talk, we let the kid stand up — and then we all watch carefully to see if he breaks down, or displays any evidence that he’s been using harmful drugs. For some reason, we don’t ask surviving spouses to address us — it’s probably because we’re all afraid of what our own might say, if they got full attention, and we weren’t there to reply. Then finally, one friend of his, if the dead guy had a friend, takes four or five long minutes to say nobody else knew him.