Warren Murphy: Sue Me

"Well, all we have is gassing and electrocution," said Remo. "Oh, or death by poison injection now, in some places."

"The Greeks used poison. Hemlock has a nice ring . . ." said Chiun. "But use gas if you must."

"He's working on the histories. All of this stuff goes in. We'll take gas."

"Gas it is," sang out Dastrow, still avoiding even a glance at what he knew was no longer a hand. When the printout arrived, spit like a long white tongue from one of the machines against the wall, Remo went over to read the evidence. He had forgotten much about what constituted evidence in court since his early days as a policeman, before Sinanju. But this read like a half-dozen airtight cases. Naturally Dastrow knew how the courts worked.

"Okay, look. I'm painless when I choose to be," said Remo.

"Is there any deal we can make? For my life I'm willing to pay twice what I offered for your services."

"Sinanju is known for mercy, if nothing else," said Chiun.

"No," said Remo. "You gotta pay for Debbie Pattie. You gotta pay for those poor people in the airplanes. You gotta pay for the people of Gupta."

"I'm willing to. In cash. In gold. In machines."

"No good in this market," said Remo.

"My lunatic son," moaned Chiun. "Into these crazy hands have I entrusted Sinanju."

Dastrow did not even see the stroke. He was waiting for one more response when suddenly all the waiting ended forever. He didn't see the darkness. He didn't even know there was darkness. He knew nothing, least of all how anything worked, except one last faint thought gone in an instant. And that thought was that the universe always exacted payment for crimes against it.

Nathan Palmer, Genaro Rizzuto, and Arnold Schwartz were all sentenced to death for conspiring to murder and for being accessories before and after the fact. In the courtroom each turned on the other with a ferocity rarely seen in the annals of jurisprudence. At first the prosecuting attorneys were afraid that these powerful lawyers from the all-powerful Palmer, Rizzuto might escape. But individually none of them could present a powerful case. Palmer had the overall strategy but could not quite get the law together to defend himself. Schwartz knew the tactics of law but came across to the jury as a man not to be trusted. And Genaro Rizzuto gave one of the most touching and heartrending summations ever heard in the courtroom. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with his case.

As the old saying went, a lawyer who represented himself had a fool for a client. On appeal, however, with new attorneys, the three managed to get their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. And then a strange thing happened. Somehow someone, reportedly a thin man with thick wrists, broke into their prison cells and released all three of the defendants. At first it looked like an escape, but it seemed this man brought them all to a little grove outside of Palo Alto where the families of some of the victims of the disasters had gathered, and there with heavy stones they together ended forever the most successful negligence firm in America.

At Folcroft, Harold W. Smith saw the overview of lawsuits in America. Remo had been only partly successful. He slowed them down for a few weeks. The trend had not been reversed.

In Gupta, Debbie Fattie's memory would outlast any statue or Hindu god. Before she died, she had donated a percentage of her income to the people of that city, specifically monies derived from the sale of her final record, the one she had died singing. "Help, I'm Being Electrocuted" sold more single records than any other song ever released in America. The video of her execution did not do quite as well. Viewers said that compared with other rock videos, it was too tame.