David Rosenfelt: Play Dead

I tell him to get a photographer and meet me at the animal shelter. He doesn’t want to, but he trusts me a little from past stories, so he considers it. I close the deal by promising to buy the burgers and beer the next time we go to Charlie’s, our favorite sports bar.

I drop Tara off at home and then go down to the shelter. Vince hasn’t arrived yet, so I use the time to bring Fred up to date on the situation. I think he likes what he’s hearing, because every few sentences he claps his hands and smacks me on the back.

When I’m finished, he says, “You think you can pull this off?”

I nod. “I’m most worried about the timing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got to get the judge to move much more quickly than judges like to move. I don’t want anything to happen to Yogi in the meantime.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Fred says. “I’ve got a hunch I’m not going to be able to find my syringes.”

He’s telling me that he won’t put Yogi down on schedule, at least not until he’s heard from me. He’s taking a risk, particularly since this will be a well-publicized case, and I appreciate it. As will Yogi when he hears about it.

Vince and his photographer arrive, and I explain the situation to them. When I’m finished, I take them back to the quarantine area. “This is him?” Vince asks. “This is the big story?”

“It’s a human interest story, Vince. Which means that if you were an actual human, you’d have an interest in it.”

Fortunately, Vince’s photographer is a dog lover, and he eagerly gets to work. I make sure that all the pictures are taken through the bars of the cage; I want Yogi’s miserable situation to be completely clear in each photograph.

When he’s finished, he shows Vince the picture he thinks is best, and we both agree. It captures Yogi perfectly and dramatizes the injustice of his plight.

Tomorrow that picture will be everywhere, because Yogi is about to become America’s dog.

* * * * *

SOMETIMES THINGS COME together perfectly.

It doesn’t happen often; usually something can be counted on to go wrong. Murphy didn’t become famous by passing a bum law. But when everything goes right, when a plan is executed to perfection, it is something to be cherished.

The voracious twenty-four-hour cable, Internet, blogging media is onto Yogi’s story before Vince’s paper even physically hits the newsstands. The idea of a dog taking refuge in the abuse-excuse defense is just the kind of thing to push more significant news to the side, and it certainly does exactly that here.

I wake up at six a.m. and turn the television on. There on CNN is Yogi’s beautiful, pathetic mug, with the graphic across the bottom asking “Stay of Execution?” Their details are sketchy but accurate, having already gleaned from Vince’s story the main facts, including our legal actions.

The phone starts ringing, as I knew it would, and I find myself fielding calls from what seems like every media outlet in the free world. My standard response is that I will have a great deal to say on this later, and I arrange late morning interviews to take place at the animal shelter with the main cable networks. I have appeared on all of them as a celebrity legal commentator at various times during the past two years, so my involvement with this case provides a level of comfort for them to cover it.

I finally make it into the shower, and I spend the endless minute waiting for the conditioner to sink in, by happily reflecting on how perfectly this is going. In less than a day, I’ve made an entire country, or at least the media of an entire country, sit up and take notice.

I am Andy, the all-powerful.

The phone rings as I’m turning the water off, and I decide to ignore it. I’ve already done enough to reach saturation coverage, and I’m not going to have time for any more.

I let the machine pick up, and after a few seconds I hear a woman’s voice. “Andy, it’s Rita.”

The caller is Rita Gordon, the clerk at the Passaic County Courthouse, and the only reason that venerable institution operates with any efficiency at all. I once had an affair with Rita that could be characterized as brief, since it lasted only about forty-five minutes. But those were forty-five great minutes.

I pick up the phone. “Rita, sorry I screened the call. I thought you were Katie Couric.”

I don’t think Rita and I have ever engaged in a conversation that was not dominated by banter of some sort. Until now. “Andy, Hatchet wants to see you right away.”

That one sentence renders obsolete all my gloating about the perfection of my legal and public relations effort. “Hatchet was assigned this case? Is that what you’re telling me?” I ask.

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Judge Henry Henderson has been called “Hatchet” for as long as I can remember. One doesn’t get nicknames by accident, and they are generally quite revealing. You won’t find demure librarians named Darla “the Sledgehammer” Smiley, or nannies dubbed Mary “the Exterminator” Poppins. And there won’t be many professional wrestlers with names like Brutus “Little Kitten” Rockingham.

Legend goes that Hatchet got his name by chopping off the testicles of lawyers who annoyed him. My belief is that this is just urban myth, but that doesn’t mean that if given the opportunity I would want to rummage through his desk drawers.

“How pissed is he?” I ask.

“I would say somewhere between very and totally.”

“When should I come in?” I ask.

“Let’s put it this way. If you’re not here by the time I finish this sentence, you’re late.”

By that standard, I’m late for my meeting with Hatchet, but not by much. I’m down at the courthouse and ushered into his chambers within a half hour of receiving the call. Since the courthouse is twenty minutes from my house, that’s pretty good.

Hatchet keeps his office very dark; the drapes are closed, and only a small lamp on his desk provides any light at all. If it’s meant to disconcert and intimidate attorneys, it achieves its goal. Yet if the stories I hear are true, I am less afraid of Hatchet than are most of my colleagues. For example, I haven’t pissed in my pants yet.

Hatchet etiquette requires letting him speak first, so I just stand there waiting for the barrage. Finally, after about thirty seconds that feel like three thousand, he looks up. “Do you know what time it is?” he asks.

I look at my watch. “Eight forty-five. I got here as soon as I-”

He interrupts. “Do you know how long I’ve been up?”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I have no idea.”

“Four hours. My wife woke me at four forty-five.”

This is a stunning piece of news. Not that Hatchet has been up since early this morning, but that he has a wife. Someone actually sleeps with this man. I find myself picturing a female leaning over in bed and saying, “Hatchet, dear, it’s almost five a.m.-time to get up.” It’s not a pretty image.

“I assume this is somehow my fault?” I ask.

“She woke me to say that I cannot kill some poor dog. I assumed she was talking about an attorney, until she showed me what she was watching on the television.”

“She sounds like a very compassionate person, who doesn’t sleep much,” I say.

Hatchet takes off his glasses and peers at me. “Are you trying to turn my court into a circus? A sideshow?”

“No, sir. Never. Definitely not. No way.”

“Then why are you representing a dog?”

“Because if I don’t, he’ll be killed. And that would be unjust. And it would make many people unhappy, including me and Mrs. Hatch-Henderson.”

If he is going to kill me, this is the moment. He doesn’t say anything for about thirty seconds; it’s possible he’s so angry that he’s unable to unclench his teeth. He finally speaks, more softly and calmly than I would have expected. “I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but I’m going to issue a stay of execution. I am scheduling a hearing in this court tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. It is a hearing that I do not want to take more than one hour, and I will be conveying that view to certain city officials. Is that understood?”