Steve Martini: The Judge

I tap on the glass panel, the translucent sidelight beside Lenore’s door.

“Come in.” She has one hand over the mouthpiece of her phone as she waves me in and points to one of the client chairs on the other side of her desk.

There’s a woman in the other chair, young, maybe early twenties, with honey blond hair down to the shoulders, startling blue eyes as she looks up at me. It is one of those faces college boys dote on. Clear complexion and soft chiseled cheekbones, she has the look of a girl bred on the sands at Santa Monica. A miniskirt only partially covers her tanned thighs. There is just enough muscle tone here to be sexy, so that you can’t tell where robust ends and sultry begins. I wonder if this is Lenore’s secretary, though she does not have the look, or a notepad or pen.

“Be with you in a minute,” says Lenore.

“No. No. That’s not the deal. He cops a plea to counts one and two and we drop the rest. He does a minimum of one year with probation.

“Who said straight probation?”

A pause while she listens on the phone.

“That’s not what Mr. Kline told me.

“No, I have talked to him.”

A lot of gestures with the hand as she tries to get a word in on its edge.

“Listen, that’s the deal. Anything else, and you can tell your client to forget it. No, there’s only one deputy handling this case, and you’re talking to her.”

She listens.

“Well, I’m not responsible for what you promised your client. That’s the final word. You got it from the horse’s mouth,” she says. Another pause.

“Well, if you were a licensed veterinarian I’d be more concerned with your references to equine anatomy. As it is, you’re getting the talking part right now. If you want what comes out of the other end we can go to trial.”

I can now hear the guy coming over Lenore’s receiver six feet away, loud and clear. I think I recognize his voice. If she can reduce him to this on the phone I’m left to wonder what she might do in court.

“Fine. You go ahead and talk to him. I already have, and he’s approved the offer. Just say the word and it’s off the table.” The litigator’s cocked pistol.

There’s a lot of shouting on the phone, more haggling, Lenore holding firm.

“Take it or leave it,” she says, and finally hangs up, then utters some mild profanity under her breath.

“Can’t blame him for shopping ’til he drops,” I tell her.

“Yeah, he’s trying it in the bargain basement.” She nods a little toward the membrane that is the office wall she shares with Kline. The woman seated next to me doesn’t catch this, or it goes over her head. I can’t tell which.

I start to talk, edging toward the article in today’s paper, but Lenore cuts me off.

“Paul Madriani, I’d like to introduce Brittany Hall. Paul is a friend. He’s come by to take me to coffee,” she says.

This is news to me. But clearly whatever Lenore has to say she does not want to say in the office. I play along.

“You work here?” I’m looking at the woman called Brittany, trying not to ogle.

“In a manner of speaking.” Lenore speaks before she can. “Brittany does some work with the police department from time to time. She’s a police science major at the university, and a reserve deputy.”

“Undercover,” says the girl.

“Oh.”

“Maybe you read about her latest outing, in this morning’s paper? ” Lenore can see it in my hand.

“The judge who was arrested,” she says. Lenore gives me a look, a face full of wink, like shut up . “Brittany is our key to the case. A very important witness,” says Lenore.

“Oh.” The decoy. Vice in this city has a history. They have been known on occasion to use some police groupies, women who hang out with the cops the way others shadow ballplayers. In the past they have hired a few beauty contestants to pose as hookers: “Miss Tomato” and a “Daisy Princess” or two, girls in their twenties with curves that would stop traffic on the Grand Prix circuit. Reduce them to sheer panties in a little dim light and I could think of some popes who might suffer a moral lapse. I do another take, catching the well-turned knees and a tangle of legs pressed against the front of Lenore’s desk, better than a drag net for snaring a bottom feeder like the Coconut.

“Nice job,” I tell her. There’s a definite tone of enthusiasm to my words.

She returns a million dollars in enamel, a broad smile. “Gee. Thanks.” There’s an instant of reflection, then the judgment.

“I guess he was a pretty bad guy.” She’s trying to gauge the dimension of her contribution. I think she mistakes my felicitations for a genuine interest in good government.

“Reprehensible,” I tell her. “Man’s lower than dirt.”

“And a judge, too,” she says. She makes it sound as if only presidents and governors are higher on the ethical food chain. A real notch in the old handle. She’s all smiles, loosening up. After all, I am not some starched tight-ass from one of the big firms, resentful of her activities as holding the law up to disrepute, victimizing a brother of the cloth. My view of the Coconut is not unlike the partisan’s view of Mussolini. To haul him up by the heels and shoot him could be construed as an act of sportsmanship.

“Guy has the morals of a garter snake,” I tell her. Building on the image. I would ask exactly how far this particular serpent went. But Lenore is eyeing me. Looks to kill.

“I’ve done this before and all. But, well, being that he was a judge. I had no idea. He just looked like a businessman to me.”

She sounds like some kid who just realized she’s decked the block bully.

“And today it’s all over the paper,” I tell her. This seems to put a little flush in her cheeks.

I hold up the copy in my hand. I would ask her to autograph it, but Lenore would get pissed.

“My name wasn’t in the paper.”

This seems to bother her.

“Give ’em time.” I can imagine the feeding frenzy when the press gets a gander. They will cut a big piece of cheesecake for the front page.

“Your name’s not in there for a reason,” says Lenore. “That’s the way we want to keep it. I hope you understand,” she says.

A sober nod from the woman, though I can tell the thought of anonymity does not rest well.

“We were just finishing up a little debriefing,” says Lenore. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind waiting in the outer office?”

Whether I would or not, she is showing me to the door so that she can vacuum up the dirt for the criminal complaint her staff must draw up on Acosta. I could press an ear to the keyhole, but the secretaries might not like it.

In ten minutes the cheeks of my nether-side are numb from the hard wooden bench where I sit nourishing hopes that Lenore might share something with me when she is finished, some tidbit of sleaze from the Coconut’s nighttime foraging. I can hear the undercurrent of buzzing voices in Lenore’s office, but nothing distinct. For entertainment I zone in on one-half of Kline’s conversation on the phone through his closed office door. I can tell he is dour, even with a partition between us, something on the order of a pin-striped statesman. His part of the dialogue consists of a few pointed questions. On the single occasion I had to deal with the man he used such an economy of words he bordered on the awkward.

“Yes. As I said, I will look into it and get back to you. Um-hm. Um-hm. What’s your client’s name?” Silence, as if perhaps he were taking notes.

“Any other offenses? Priors?” he says. There’s a longer pause. More notes.

“I’m not going to promise anything, but I will talk to her. No, Ms. Goya works for me. I make the final decisions.”