Hostile Witness (9 page)

“Now, Mr. Concannon,” said the judge. “I’m willing to give you a continuance if you ask, but your counsel tells me you don’t want one. Is that correct?”

Concannon stood. “That’s correct, Your Honor.”

“So I don’t want to hear from you that your counsel didn’t have enough time to prepare if the verdict goes against you,” said the judge. “You are waiving your right to that claim in any future proceedings, and your right to any other insufficiency of counsel claim. Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes, sir,” said Concannon.

“Explain it to him anyway, Mr. Carl,” said the judge.

I leaned over and explained it to him as if English was indeed his second language.

“That’s fine with me,” said Concannon.

“You satisfied with that, Mr. Eggert?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Eggert.

“Do us all a favor, Mr. Carl,” said Judge Gimbel, “and stay away from Chinatown until this case is over. October sixth, ten o’clock. Come prepared to pick a jury.”

THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART
sits aristocratic and brown atop a rise at a bend in the Schuylkill River, spreading its wings to embrace the whole of the city before it. Long flights of stairs rise from a great statue of Washington on horseback to a courtyard fountain, surrounded by columns supporting colorful Greek pediments. It is a grand entrance, made famous by the movies, and the courtyard affords a spectacular view of Philadelphia. At night, with a full moon and the city lights twinkling, if you squint you can imagine yourself someplace exquisite and full of hope, someplace elegant and magical. For me that had always meant someplace else until that evening. That evening the city truly did seem to sparkle like a jewel of promise in the night, a jewel ready to be plucked.

I didn’t have an invitation and so, while gay, formally dressed men and women with haircuts and gleaming teeth flashed their invitations and breezed on by, laughing, I had to wait as the guard at the rear lobby checked for my name on the list.

“Oh, yeah, here you are, Mr. Carl,” said the guard. “But it only says one.”

“There must have been a mistake,” I said in my best Winston Osbourne impression.

“I guess so, Mr. Carl. Go on in and enjoy yourself. You too, ma’am.”

“I suppose men in tuxedos do get more respect,” I said once we got inside.

“Unless they’re mistaken for busboys,” said Beth.

I had brought Beth because I needed company as I brushed shoulders with a crowd two or three classes above me. She would rather have spent the night at Chaucer’s Pub, where the draft beer is Rolling Rock and T-shirts are acceptable, but as a favor to me she had put on her red dress, the tight one, about which she was forever fretting as to whether or not it still fit. It fit tonight. Its smooth curves softened the normal sharpness of her face and she looked almost beautiful. I had always been a little bit in love with Beth. It was never a sexual attraction, really, but there was a power in Beth that I could sense, a sharp integrity. In some strange way I needed her to think I was worthy of her and, to my astonishment, she always had. Beth was my best friend, it was as simple as that. And that night I thought my best friend looked pretty damn good.

I looked pretty damn good myself. It was the first time I had ever worn my tuxedo. I bought it when I was still full of optimism and beneficence, six years before, in anticipation of my wedding. It is a long story, but suffice it to say that on the eve of the ceremony my bride-to-be took a long hard look at me and decided she was too young to be married. The tuxedo didn’t fit like it had when I bought it, but I guess that’s why they invented cummerbunds.

We handed our coats off to the coat check guy and climbed the stairs alongside the huge yellow Chagall mural of a sun and a field of wheat and a man stuck out alone in a boat. We passed statues of fat naked women, turgid bronze breasts thrust forward, and stepped into the Great Hall, where a huge formal staircase rose to a bronze of the naked Evelyn Nesbit as Venus. Underneath a soaring Calder mobile we snatched champagne glasses from a passing silver tray. The place was teeming with tuxedos and formal gowns; they leaned against the walls and huddled in
cliques and glided like spirits in and out of the open galleries. A small jazz band played at the foot of the stairs. A tray of cheese sticks passed by and I swiped three.

“What’s this benefit for again?” asked Beth as she sipped her champagne and looked around.

“Drugs, I think, or maybe AIDS,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

“Misery is such a clever excuse for a party.”

“I’ve never been to one of these before,” I said. “Are those little shish kebabs over there?”

“It’s amazing how far you’ve come in just a few days, Victor. Our finances are on the edge of solvency, your face was on the television this evening, standing behind Moore as he gave his speech on the courtroom steps, and if you don’t watch out your name will be in bold print in the society column. ‘Who was that partying into the wee hours last night for AIDS? Why, our own Victor Carl, looking very chic in his black tie.’”

“I was beginning to wonder if I would ever wear this thing.”

“You look good in it.”

“Yes, I do,” I said. I did look good in it, and I felt good in it, too. For a moment as I stood among that crowd of the wealthy, the sophisticated, the elite, who had done all they could to keep me out, as I stood there and surveyed the scene something hard and cold in my gut began to ease and the bitterness seemed to melt away. I was finally where I was always meant to be. I looked around and sipped champagne and decided I would stay.

“I should wear my tuxedo more often,” I said.

“Julie doesn’t know what she missed.”

“Let’s find Prescott,” I said, suddenly scanning the crowd. “You should meet him.”

“Look at that face on you, my God. Oh, I’m sorry, Victor.”

“There he is, now,” I said and I led her to a stern looking Prescott and two sober-faced round men in the corner.
Together they looked like mourners at a wake. They were standing before a Diego Rivera mural, three soldiers swathed in bandoliers cutting down a whipped and hogtied man and wrapping him in blankets. As we approached Prescott I slowed down, warned off by the demeanor of the men and the somberness of the mural, but then Prescott saw me and his face cracked into a smile that drew me to him.

“Ah, Victor,” he said over the band, shaking my hand. “Terrific that you could come.”

“Thank you for having me, Mr. Prescott. This is Elizabeth Derringer, my partner.”

“Pleased to meet you, Elizabeth. It’s a shame my partners don’t look so good in their evening wear.”

“Richard DeLasko is one of your partners, isn’t he?” asked Beth. DeLasko was the current Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association.

“Yes, he is,” said Prescott, proudly.

“Well, you know,” said Beth in a confiding whisper, “I heard the Chancellor looks just marvelous in his black pumps and red sequined gown.”

Prescott was taken aback for a moment and then he smiled tightly, saying, “Yes, well,” before turning to me. “Victor, these are two men I’d like you to meet, Jack and Simon Bishop.” I knew of them, they were names for sure, the most successful real estate developers in the area. Each month a new Bishop Brothers development was opening somewhere in the far suburbs.

“Good to see you, Victor,” said one of them, Jack or Simon, I couldn’t tell yet which. His accent was British, his voice smooth and melodious. “Bill has told us all about you. Said you might fancy working with us on a new project we’re developing. He speaks quite highly of you.”

“Valley Hunt Estates,” said the other brother, with a harsher voice and a harsher accent. “We bought ourselves an old mansion not too far from the Schuylkill. Hit upon
the notion of a neighborhood of manor homes around it. Huge front lawns, six bedrooms and whatnot. For those with upscale dreams, if you gather what we’re proposing.”

“Luxury throughout,” said the first brother.

“But very traditional too, mind you,” said the second. “And the options are gorgeous. Optional stable. Optional carriage house. Optional stained-glass window running up three stories, makes you think you’re living in Westminster Abbey. Valley Hunt Estates. Simon’s the genius came up with the name.”

“Yes, well, but it does have a certain ring, doesn’t it,” said Simon Bishop.

“I’m taking a more active role in this limited partnership than I normally do,” said Prescott. “Recently I’ve begun to take an interest in the business side of things and so we were talking about the need for outside counsel. For opinion letters and the like. Your name came up.”

“Take my card, Victor,” said Simon, reaching into his inside pocket. “Ring us up tomorrow.”

“I will,” I said.

“Have you received the documents?” asked Prescott.

“Yes, sir,” I said. He had sent me over six boxes of documents released by the government and copied for me by Talbott, Kittredge and Chase, six boxes at twenty-five cents a page, all billed to CUP. I was overwhelmed by the quantity of it. “Thank you.”

“If you need anything else, let me know. Anything at all.”

“I will, sir.”

“So that is how it’s done,” said Beth after we had swung away from the trio. The jazz band was playing “Begin the Beguine,” an older couple started dancing in the open area in front of the stairs. They must have been names because, as if on cue, other couples crowded past us to start dancing alongside them. A tray of tiny egg roll squares swept through, but as I reached for them I was
stymied by a broad tuxedo back and then the tray was gone.

“That’s how what is done?” I asked.

“Networking. I had heard about it but I never saw the real thing until tonight. You’re surprisingly good at it.”

“Just trying to build up the practice. You see any more of those egg roll things?”

“Yes, sir, no, sir, anything you want, sir. But you shouldn’t kiss Prescott’s butt so intently, Victor. It can leave stains on your ears.”

“It doesn’t help,” I said, “when you start accusing his partners of cross-dressing.”

“Your friend Prescott’s a snake. I wouldn’t trust him for a second. I looked him up in
Martindale-Hubbell.
Did you know he worked for Nixon?”

“A lot of fine people worked for Nixon.”

“Ehrlichman,” she said. “Haldeman, Mitchell, Dean, Kissinger.”

“Kissinger never went to jail. Oh, Nixon wasn’t so bad. Take away Watergate and Vietnam and he was a pretty good president. Pretty damn good.”

“Victor,” she shouted loud enough to get the attention of a group nearby.

I tried to shush her quiet.

“Listen to yourself,” she said. “Don’t turn into a whore, Victor, just because some Republican gave you a case.”

“At fifty bucks an hour you’re a whore,” I said. “At two-fifty an hour you’re a success.”

From out of one of the galleries and into the foyer came first a clatter of noise and shouts and then the surge of a crowd of tuxedos and gowns and sprayed hair. At the front, marching forward with his back arched and head high, was Jimmy Moore. Behind him was an entourage, grown larger by the event, a gaggle of followers following gladly. Jimmy’s tuxedo was tight around his barrel chest and thick shoulders. He was laughing, eyes bright, shaking hands as
he passed the partyers, talking a bit here, talking a bit there, shaking hands with the vigor of a politician on the campaign trail, which I guess is what he was.

“Victor Carl, Victor Carl,” he said when he reached me, grabbing my hand and shaking it with the enthusiasm of a Kennedy. “Terrific of you to join us. Terrific.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it, sir.”

The crowd behind him seemed to flow around us until we were in the center of a very large group.

“Quite the turnout, wouldn’t you say, Victor. Funding for our youth home on Lehigh Avenue is just about completed. We’ll be able to start construction as planned, thanks to these good people. You’ll be generous, I’m sure, Victor. Lawyers are always so generous when it comes to the needy,” he said with a wink.

“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Moore,” I said.

Leslie Moore was by her husband’s side, clutching a small purse in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. The tendons in her long neck were as taut as suspension wires. Her sister, Renee, held tightly to her arm as if to keep her standing. “Thank you, Victor,” said Leslie in her soft voice, barely discernable above the blatting of the crowd. “We’re both so grateful you could come.”

“This is my partner, Elizabeth Derringer,” I said.

“Good to see you, young lady,” said the councilman. “Yes. Always grand to see another lawyer for the cause.”

“And what cause is that?” asked Beth.

“Why, giving kids a second chance,” said Jimmy with a huge smile. “Raising up the disadvantaged, healing the sick. Righteousness.”

“Since when did City Council ever care about righteousness,” said Beth, taking a sip of her drink. “I thought all it cared about was parking spaces.”

As Jimmy and Beth were talking I saw Chester Concannon walk by the group, looking unusually sharp in his evening clothes. He held onto the arm of a tall young
woman whom I didn’t recognize until she turned her head to look at me. It was Veronica. I raised a finger to say hello, but she acted as if she didn’t remember me. They were a handsome couple, Chester and Veronica. After they passed I looked back at Jimmy and Leslie. Jimmy was concentrating on Beth, his eyes never wavering, but Leslie followed the handsome couple as they walked the length of the wide hall. There was something fierce and strained in her face as she watched them, something serpentine.

“But if you’ll excuse me, Victor,” said Jimmy, interrupting my spying. “It’s time for the obligatory speech. It was a distinct pleasure, Ms. Derringer.”

“Good luck, Councilman,” she said.

“Where would I be if I depended on luck?” he said. “Keep up the good work, Victor.”

And then the crowd surged past us, like we were two stones in the middle of a mighty river. The band stopped playing. Jimmy climbed four of the steps, hopped onto one of the great granite blocks that rose on either side of the stairway, and turned around. Magically the foyer quieted. Jimmy gave his speech.

I had heard it all before.

I was at the bar, waiting on a Sea Breeze for me and a beer for Beth, when I heard a familiar voice behind me. “You’re missing the speech, Vic.” I turned around. Chuckie Lamb was grinning at me with those fish lips, his scraggly hair brushing the shoulders of a rather ragged tuxedo.

“It’s the same old crap,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” said Chuckie. “I wrote it. Bourbon,” he barked at the bartender and then turned back to me. “You got yourself a nice gig here, Vic, lawyering for Chester. Big bucks, invitations to the nicest parties, a chance to wear a rented tux.”

“Yes, it is nice,” I said.

“Who’d you blow for all this? Prescott?”

“Did we go to school together, Chuckie?” I asked him. “Did I beat you up at recess or something and you still hold the grudge, is that it? Because otherwise I don’t understand why you despise me so.”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those jellyfish who just want to be liked.”