Courthouse (43 page)

“I'll try.”

“You have a fellow going through the mill now, a fellow by the name of Marc Conte,” said Portlac. “Are you really serious about his being a judge?”

“Yes, of course. What's the trouble?” George wondered to himself why Portlac would be interested in, even know about, Marc.

“Do you know the kind of background he has in the law, the kind of people he's been representing?”

“To our knowledge,” said George, playing it very straight, “he's represented a great variety of people on a great variety of criminal charges. His broad base of actual experience might be a fairly good addition to the Criminal Court bench.”

“Did you know that included in the great variety of people are plenty of hoods. He's representing big Mafia boys.”

“Isn't everybody entitled to a good defense lawyer?” asked George.

“If you really want my opinion, I'd say no. Not the way some of these bums get away with murder. And I mean that literally. And here you have one of their mouthpieces being considered for a spot on the bench. Don't you think that's just playing right into the hands of organized crime?”

“You saying this man is corrupt, Eric?”

“I'm saying he'd be a perfect target for their fixes and everything.”

“Let me just ask you this,” said George. “Why the particular interest in Marc Conte? There are so many candidates going through the interviews at the moment.”

“I just got wind of what was going on down there, and I wanted to check out if you were serious. I'll have to run some articles on this sort of thing if you are. I mean, I find it a little incredible, in today's world, to be proposing someone like this Conte guy for a judgeship.”

“Do you have some hard facts, some particular information that he's venal, corrupt, or that he'll fall easy prey to the syndicate? Do you have some facts to show he lacks integrity?”

“No, nothing like that, George. It's just the people he represents. I mean, how could he transcend the element on which he's apparently cut his eyeteeth?”

“Our information and knowledge has it that he's apparently cut his eyeteeth, as you say, learning everything a lawyer's supposed to know to protect someone's rights in a criminal law proceeding. That's just the kind of knowledge a good Criminal Court Judge should know.”

“There's another thing a Criminal Court Judge should know, George, and that's discretion. You know what I mean, when to pull the plug, when to go to his left. For Christ's sake, suppose this guy is sitting on the bench and he gets some big racket guy in front of him. What's he going to do? And whatever he does,” Portlac said, answering his own question, “the newspaper people—including myself—I have to be honest with you—will have a field day on the Mayor's head.”

“Have you ever met this guy Conte?” George asked. “I mean, do you know him personally? Do you have a good source of information on this and not just some scuttlebutt?”

“I've never met the guy, no. But I have my sources of information. You know I can't tell you who they are. But they're reliable, very reliable. I've heard he's a good lawyer. I'll admit that part's true. But, let's face it, he's too close to the fire to come away without being singed, if you know what I mean?”

“The difficulty with picking judicial candidates according to what you're saying, Eric, is that we'd never be able to tap the vast source of raw material in the private sector of criminal law. After all, there are only two sides to a criminal case, prosecution and defense. The only people from the private sector of criminal law are the lawyers who've defended criminals.”

“Nobody said anything about not being able to use defense counsel talent, George. You're not reading me right.”

“That's what I thought you were saying,” said George. “That this Conte fellow is too practiced in defending criminals to be fair and impartial on the bench. Doesn't a former D.A. have the same problem in reverse?”

“Is the Mayor going to be much longer?” Portlac asked impatiently.

“Let me just check,” said George. He buzzed the Mayor's office.

“Yes?” asked Janie.

“Portlac wants to talk to the Mayor. Is he free yet?”

“Yes, he's just come back from the powder room. Is Portlac still on six-eight?”

“Yes,” said George.

“I'll get the Mayor on the wire.”

George pressed the button on his phone again. “Hello, Eric. The Mayor's going to get on in a second.”

“Fine, George. I just think …”

“Hello, Eric,” the Mayor cut in with a jovial air.

“Hi, Scottie,” said Portlac. “Just wanted a rundown on some of your judicial candidates.”

“Sure, Eric. How the hell have you been? I'll take it now, George,” the Mayor said.

George took the phone from his ear and set the receiver on its cradle. He swiveled his chair and looked out the window. Dark rain clouds were hovering over the Tweed Courthouse behind City Hall. A long time ago, the building had been used as the New York County Supreme Court Building, but was now just office space for the Mayor's administrative assistants. It was called the Tweed Courthouse because it was built during the time Boss Tweed was head of Tammany Hall, and several big politicos of the day went to jail because of the graft that was squeezed out of the building contractors.

As George studied the cloud formations, he thought how difficult, how frustrating it was to get any damn thing done in political life. Every point of view had a variant, an opposite, a reaction, a proponent, an opponent, a thesis, an antithesis. There wasn't anything you could propose that wouldn't almost instantly give rise to an entire new faction of opposition. Just because everyone's entitled to have an opinion doesn't mean they actually have one, he thought. But propose anything, anything, and people will start making noise just to have something to do, something to say. Now, someone was apparently putting a bug in Portlac's ear about judicial candidates, and from what side of the prosecutor's table a good judge ought to come. And the someone particularly didn't want Marc Conte on the bench. George was angry.

The buzzer on George Tishler's desk interrupted his thoughts. He picked up his phone. “Yes, Janie.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Oh, I don't know,” replied George. “Just guessed.”

“The Mayor wants you to come in.”

“Okay.” George grabbed for his jacket and made his way through a narrow back passageway, directly to the Mayor's office. The Mayor was seated at his desk, signing some letters.

“You wanted to see me, Mayor,” said George, knowing full well why the Mayor had called.

“Yes, George,” said Mayor Davies, looking up. He appeared rather tired, his face was drawn around the eyes. The campaign was starting to move a bit more quickly now, and that meant breakfast meetings, lunch meetings, cocktail meetings, before- and after-dinner meetings; and sandwiched in was the work of running New York City; and somewhere around those tasks and duties, were public showings and speeches and smiles and eating pizza and knishes and strudel. The Mayor's patience was usually a bit thin around campaign time. George figured maybe it was all the lousy things he had to eat.

“What the hell is Portlac talking about?” asked the Mayor curtly. “We have a judicial candidate who's connected with the syndicate, with the racket boys?”

“No, Mayor. We have a fine lawyer, a fellow named Conte. You remember, you wanted to get an Italian through the committees so we could satisfy Tucci in Brooklyn; you said you needed Tucci to carry Brooklyn.”

“We still need Tucci—that fat little bastard! He has Brooklyn in his pocket, and we have to go catering to his little whims and fancies. Sometimes, George, this political life is a pain. Everybody's in your ear, looking over your shoulder, up your ass. Sometimes, I don't think it's worth it.” The Mayor stopped, meditating silently. He shook his head. “But, what the hell would this city be like if they got a bastard like Dworkin as Mayor? This place'd be so filled with goddamn clubhouse loafers, they'd be coming out the windows.” The Mayor frowned. “But, what's this Portlac was saying about this lawyer, Cantor …” the Mayor tried to think of the name. He snapped his fingers. “Hell, that's Jewish. What's his name, this racket guy?”

“Portlac was talking about Marc Conte, Mayor. He's an excellent criminal lawyer and a man of the highest integrity. I know him very well, and can personally vouch for him. In fact, he's the one we had looking undercover into the Criminal Court problem. Remember?”

“Undercover agents in the Criminal Court?” the Mayor wondered vaguely.

“Yes, after the riots, remember, you wanted someone to check into what was happening in the courts that was causing the problems.”

“Right, right. This is the same fellow?”

“That's right, Mayor,” replied George. “We've been getting some valuable information from him.”

“Mmm.” The Mayor thought. “Maybe it'd be better if you told this fellow to forget about working undercover for us,” he said. “He may be an excellent man and all that, George, but we don't need any bad press right now. We have enough of it, goddamn it, without going out and waving a red flag.”

“Mayor, can I say something?”

“Sure, George.”

“I think this call from Portlac is a crock of shit, to use the vernacular. This fellow Conte is a top-notch guy. You know Portlac is Mister Conservative. If it were up to him he'd have all prosecutors on the bench and at counsel table and in the jury box. Someone is juicing him up about Conte for some reason.”

“George, you and I both know that sometimes Portlac is a perfect horse's ass. And maybe somebody is putting a bug in his ear. And maybe it's not true about this lawyer. But Portlac writes a pretty effective column. Let me ask you a question, George?”

“Sure, Mayor.”

“Do we need any more rocks thrown at us than we already have coming through the windows now?”

“No, Mayor.”

“Well, that's where it's at with this lawyer, George. You know as well as I do, in this political whore's game, you not only have to
be
honest, you have to give the
appearance
of being honest. If you ask me which is the more important quality, I'd probably have to go along with the appearance of being honest as more important. Same thing with this lawyer, this … whatever the hell this candidate for judge's name is …” The Mayor began absently to snap his fingers again.

“Conte,” George supplied.

“Same thing with this Conte. He not only has to actually be straight, honest, without blemish, but he has to appear that way. And in his case, with a guy like Portlac throwing rocks at him, I'll tell you definitely, it's appearances that are more important.”

“It'd be a shame to lose such a good man, Mayor.”

“Hey, George,” said the Mayor, smiling wryly now. “It'd be even more of a shame to lose such a good job.” He glanced around his office.

“I guess you're right, Mayor.” George smiled. “But one judicial appointment surely isn't going to make or break your campaign.”

“Probably not, George,” agreed the Mayor. “But who knows? We have to measure everything by the formula that we eliminate every sore point we can. There are enough sore points we can't do anything about. I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers we can put on the bench who won't have
any
problems attached to them, George.”

“Not with this man's experience, Mayor. A lawyer can't get experience as a criminal lawyer without representing criminals.”

“Then we have to look for someone whose experience won't overqualify him, if you know what I mean, George.”

“Okay, Mayor,” George said reluctantly.

“Look, George, put it this way. This guy may be a nice guy, a terrific lawyer, wrote all the law books. But, if we have two candidates, both qualified, one who'll get us some bad publicity—even if it ultimately amounts to nothing—and one who's going to give us no bad publicity at all, which one do we pick?”

“The one with no bad publicity at all,” said George.

“Of course. We don't need false rumors, true rumors, bad rumors, any kind of rumors, George. Politically it's not worth taking a kicking around because a guy has some problems. We don't need his problems. We have enough of our own.”

“Why don't we just let this candidate go through the rest of the committees anyway, Mayor. The committees may say this fellow is so qualified that it'll overcome Portlac's opposition.”

“Let him go through if you want,” said the Mayor. “It can't hurt to have him going through the committees … I don't think,” he said pensively now.

“How could going through committees hurt, Mayor?”

“I don't know. I can't imagine why we're getting flack on this lawyer to begin with. Just think what'd happen if we appointed him.”

“Shall I let him go through the committees anyway, Mayor?”

The Mayor thought for a moment. “Well, if we don't get any more grief on him, it's all right, George. But any more bad press on him at this stage, and that's the end of it.”

29

Thursday, September 14, 9:40
A.M.

A long line of people, three deep, queued up outside Part 37. The corridor was hot and stuffy, despite all the windows being open. It was hot Indian summer weather again. Police-type wooden barriers had been erected in the corridor to keep the spectators waiting to see The Tombs riot trial in line. A squad of regular city police had been stationed there for crowd control and security. People of all races and sexes made up the crowd, but mostly they were young and dressed in jeans and work-shirts. While waiting, the spectators were idly chatting about racial issues and the unfairness of the trial. The word “Pig” was muttered often, particularly when one of the policemen came near. The policemen, as they had been ordered to do, ignored the insults, just staring past the mutterers.