John Dobbyn - Neon Dragon

“That’s the best I can do, Lex. I’m one of their breed, so they’re happy to have me as chief clerk. But they don’t invite me to sit around the campfire.”

Lex nodded. “Thanks, Connie. We’ll carry on the war with an eye to our backs.”

We left the Marliave at about one o’clock. The parting handshakes took place on School Street, with Mr. Munsey walking north toward Tremont Street, Mr. Devlin walking south toward Washington Street and ultimately the office, and me cutting behind Old City Hall, ostensibly to catch the train for Harvard Square to check out Bradley’s friends. Actually, I doubled back and intercepted Mr. Munsey at the top of School Street. He was surprised and not altogether comfortable with the return engagement.

“Mr. Munsey, I wonder if I could walk along with you a bit.”

“Public sidewalk, kid.”

My estimate was right. He came about up to my chin, but self-assurance and the secure knowledge of who he was and who I was gave him another six inches.

“I think you touched a nerve back there, Mr. Munsey. I know you didn’t want to aggravate it. I can understand. But I’d like to know more about the Dolson case.”

He registered nothing. We kept walking.

“There’s a reason, Mr. Munsey. There are two reasons. Like you, I think there’s more to this change of heart by the DA than appears on the surface. It might be critical to Bradley’s case. I get the feeling we’re like little rodents in a maze. We’re running after the cheese without knowing there’s a technician who keeps changing the pattern.”

I gave him a good gap before he said anything.

“You said there are two reasons.”

“Mr. Devlin’s tough, but I think he’s tied up in knots over whatever this Dolson case is about. I guess I care that whatever happened to him before doesn’t happen again. Maybe I could do some intercepting.”

We reached the coffee shop in the Center Plaza complex without word one. Suddenly he beckoned with his head and turned into the coffee shop. I followed him to a table in the rear of the shop, clear of other customers.

“Sit down, kid.”

Age or not, I figured it was time for some ground-standing.

“Mr. Munsey, I take it when Mr. Devlin calls me ‘sonny.’ But ‘kid’? What do I have to do to get a name?”

“Earn it! They don’t call him ‘Mr. Devlin’ for his age. It’s respect for the man he made of himself. Sit down, will you, kid?”

I sat. There are some points even a lawyer doesn’t argue.

“You want to hear about the Dolson case. Don’t they talk about it over at Bilson?

“Never. At least not to the associates.”

“Good. And you won’t either. You understand me?”

He seemed to take one more look at me to confirm his decision. When he started, I had to strain to hear the words.

“This goes back more than ten years. Lex was, as a criminal trial lawyer… the master, the best.”

“I know. I’ve heard.”

“You know nothing. You haven’t seen his likes at the bar in the last ten years. Anyway, he took on a client named Dolson. He was a petty hood. He had a few arrests on suspicion of arson, extortion. Couple of misdemeanor convictions. Nothing too serious. This time he’s charged with a major arson, a vacant apartment building down in a run-down section of the South End. The job, if he did it, went bad. The fire spread to the two apartment buildings on either side. They went up like tinder. The clincher was an explosion that brought down most of the building.

“The police got a tip that Dolson lit the match. They picked him up, and he confessed to the arson. He pleaded guilty at the arraignment.

“Then it hit the fan. It took a couple of days to plow through the crumbled building. Everyone thought it was vacant. Anyway, they discovered a few bodies under the rubble. Probably street people who got in out of the cold.

“Now the charge is felony murder. Dolson didn’t want to confess to that, so he reneged on his arson confession. He withdrew his guilty plea and hired Lex.”

I didn’t want to interrupt, but you never know if you’ll think of the question again.

“How could a petty hood afford what Mr. Devlin must have been charging?”

“Well, that was part of the problem. The prosecution showed that a sizable deposit was made in an account set up in Dolson’s name just after the arson. That was part of the prosecution’s case. That, plus an eyewitness who spotted him around the building just before it went up.

“Dolson came up with an alibi. Another punk named Gallagher. I can’t believe I remember that name after ten years. Anyway, he testified that Dolson was with him. On the other hand, he looked as if he’d testify that he was Jimmy Hoffa if there was a drink in it. Even Lex himself will tell you it was the weakest defense he ever had to present. Dolson came up with some story that he’d been hired to plead guilty to the arson. The money in his account was to take the fall and do a few years in prison for someone else.”

I cut in again. “Who was the someone else?”

“Dolson said he never knew.”

“Who paid him the money?”

“He said he never knew that, either. He said it was all arranged over the phone. Anyway, the case was tried, and went to the jury. Three days later, they came back hopelessly deadlocked. A hung jury. One juror held out.

“Now it gets sticky. The assistant DA has the case marked up for retrial before a new jury right away. The next thing Lex knows is that he gets an offer from the assistant DA to drop the felony-murder charge down to negligent homicide, go with the arson, and work a deal for a sentence of six years, probable parole in two. Dolson jumped at it.

“Lex had a couple of problems with the plea bargain. He had a client who first insisted that he was innocent and paid to plead guilty. Now the client insists on pleading guilty and is wishy-washy on whether he actually committed the crime. If he didn’t do it, then the whole guilty plea was a fraud on the court.”

“What other problem?”

Munsey was sitting close, but he checked the area and moved a bit closer.

“I’m going to tell you this, kid, because I want you to understand fact from rumor. First the rumor. Word got out that the first jury had been fixed. The hold-out juror was supposed to have been bought. The rumors hung it on Lex. There was talk of an investigation by the disciplinary committee of the bar, maybe even prosecution. The fact is that the whole thing, if there was anything to begin with, was dropped as soon as the plea bargain went down. The rumor going around was that Lex worked a deal to have the investigation into jury tampering quashed if he got his client to plead guilty.”

“That’s bull. Are you telling me that anyone believed Mr. Devlin would fix a jury?”

“Get off the stand, kid. I’m telling you what was going around the bars.”

I knew that something had hit Mr. Devlin like a tank, but this was out of the range of my guesswork.

“Mr. Munsey, I’ve only known him a short time, but I’d sooner bet that my grandmother would fix the World Series.”

“I don’t know your grandmother, kid, but there was another reason for the rumor.”

I knew I wouldn’t like this one, but I asked anyway. Mr. Munsey gnawed his teeth a bit before he could get it out.

“It could have been true. Don’t split a gut. Listen to me. Ten years ago, what I said about Lex being the best was true. He was a hell of a lawyer. Hell of a man. He was Darrow and Marshall… After that, it wasn’t the same Lex. Even Zeus can get pulled down from Olympus.”

“I don’t believe it.” The words jumped out of me on instinct.

“You want to hear this or don’t you? You got me this far. You’re going to hear the rest of it. And open your eyes, kid. You do Lex a disservice if you think he’s more than human.”