Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

“It hurt, all right. I felt like I was having one of those operations in China where they use hypnosis instead of anesthesia, only I wasn’t hypnotized,” Winston said. They all smiled bleakly at that, and Nina for once felt a certain amount of comfort in sharing her woes with her colleagues. No wonder lawyers banded together into firms.

“The good news is that the mountain climber, Diane Miklos, and Mrs. Lim are solid in the Lindy camp. They don’t like Mike; it sticks out all over their faces. Nina, you really got them going in your opening; we’ve already talked some about that,” Genevieve continued. “In terms of the questioning, well, everything I heard about you is true. You’re hard-hitting and effective. Eye contact is the only area you need to work on, although you did a job on Markov, that extended-play staring thing at the end. Very good. And smile more, sugar, pul-lease.

“Now, here’s something else you should know. We’ve got troubles. Before he disappeared on us, Paul turned up some late-breaking information that is going to hurt us. Wright’s been having marital woes. Too late for us to use our peremptory, unfortunately.”

“I heard,” said Winston. “And I have something to say about that.”

“Go ahead,” said Genevieve graciously.

A touch of annoyance at her giving him permission passed over his features. “I think we should recognize that Nina’s instincts were right about him. I think she deserves that, and we owe her that.”

“Oh, Nina doesn’t need my approval like some people. And we can attract him back. Highlight the traditional female role that Lindy played at home. By all reports, other than being a political shark, he likes his women traditional.”

“You can’t ignore the rest of the jury to win over this one guy,” said Winston. “We don’t want to lose them once we’ve got them.”

“Nobody’s saying ignore them. It’s a subtle matter of perspective, which I’m sure Nina can handle, can’t you?”

“Uh,” said Nina. “No. I won’t do that. Besides the bad taste it leaves in my mouth, we’ve all said many times that Lindy’s trump card is that she was an equal partner in the business. Once we get around the Separate Property Agreement, I’ve always intended to clinch our argument with the fact that she’s been vital since the beginning to making their business the success it is today.”

Winston nodded his head. “You know I hate popping your bubble, Genevieve,” he said, “but Nina’s right. I don’t think we should change our strategy to win him over. It won’t help.”

Genevieve said, “What’s the matter with you two? You’re talkin’ like losers! We are not going to let one asshole juror ruin our game! We need nine jurors on our side, and we’re gonna get them. You have my personal guarantee.”

Nina said, “Genevieve, I’ve seen a case turn before on the leadership abilities of one angry man…”

“This one won’t. We’re smarter than he is.” Genevieve slammed a notebook shut as if to put an end to all further discussion on the topic. “Now, moving right along…”

They spent most of the afternoon and evening chewing peppermints and nuts going over what had happened, with very little time to plan for the next week, where Riesner would take the reins and redirect the case. And whenever she had a moment to stop and think, the mistake of allowing Clifford Wright to sit up there came back to Nina like a hard plastic tag in her clothing, rubbing at her until her skin hurt.

Sunday, Andrea and Matt invited Nina and Bob along for a day at the beach. Nina said no at first, wanting to sleep late, study her notes, and give Bob a chance to get over his bug, but Andrea came up the stairs to her room, pulled the quilt off of her, and set Hitchcock on her. Packing up her paperwork into her briefcase, Nina agreed to come if they would just sit her at the table with her work. Well, hadn’t she just spent a lunch hour in her office sitting around with the others, commiserating about how they never got out?

At Pope Beach, where Lake Tahoe spread a frothy navy-blue all the way to the horizon, they laid out towels in the warm May sunshine. Nina stripped off her layers of clothes right down to her suit. Putting her head on her briefcase, she promptly fell asleep.

Next thing she knew, something cold and wet had landed on her back and seemed to be snaking its way down. Leaping up, she screamed.

“It’s just a wet ball, Mom, geez,” said Bob, picking up what looked like an exploded rubber star.

She touched her back. “Was that Hitchcock slobber on that ball or lake water?” she asked.

“A little of both.”

So she had to clean herself off, didn’t she? In she went, plunging headfirst into the icy cold snowmelt, followed by Hitchcock, Bob, and his cousins Troy and Brianna. They had a water fight until Bree’s lips turned blue, then warmed themselves at a fire Matt had built in a grate. After that, there were hot dogs to eat, and a quick chess game against Matt, which Nina lost with poor grace. Laughing, tired, sand stuck to every pore, they piled into their cars and waved good-bye.

Bob made faces at his cousins until the two cars finally parted ways around Pioneer Trail.

“I know I’m not supposed to leave it all until Sunday night,” Bob confessed, “but I’ve got a lot of make-up homework I didn’t finish yesterday.” He leaned across the seat to put his head on Nina’s shoulder.

“You’re not the only one,” said Nina.

Bob fell asleep before they got home, and Nina watched the lights of the town coming up along Highway 50, one by one, color by color. To distract herself from falling back into the tired groove of worrying about the trial, she tried to drift off into her greedy little fantasy in which she would plunk down a million for her own personal castle. There she would sip brandy and enjoy a view of the glitzy casinos burning like candles across the lake.

But the fantasy made her anxious. What was happening? Why did she have the feeling things were spinning out of control, when on the surface they were doing well enough?

Paul was right. They were all being affected by the Markov money. Riesner, Winston, Genevieve, even Nina were behaving like wild kids at a birthday party. The first blows had been struck on the piñata. They had glimpsed the prize through cracks in the cardboard, and it was making everyone flail and thrash against each other willy-nilly. God, it was a wonder nobody had been killed yet.

Winston’s cross-examination of Mike Markov took up most of Monday. He hit all the high points and all the low points, and only a few times did he sound impatient. Nina watched him and continued to learn from him.

She saw, for instance, how this sophisticated African-American lawyer from L.A. managed to persuade the white, mostly working-class jury to identify with him. He would drop in little personal references, that he was middle-aged, that he had a bad back, that he liked tea first thing in the morning instead of coffee, that his mother was ailing and in a nursing home. The references were so fleet that Riesner never had a chance to object, but the jurors were affected. Gradually they began to see their father, their uncle, their brother. They warmed to Winston. They wanted him to do well.

Winston had another ability she admired. He took his time. The topic at hand would be fully explored, and Winston didn’t seem to care if a juror was fidgeting or if the subject was tedious. Nina was always running through the testimony at breakneck speed, trying to keep the jurors interested. Watching Winston, she realized she needed to slow down and she saw that her problem was a lack of confidence.

He underplayed all the way through the testimony, almost to the end, a strategy Genevieve had suggested that would keep sympathy for Mike at a minimum. Only once did Winston allow himself to show negative emotion.