Personal injuries (28 page)

When they arrived, Walter was already in the courtroom, getting ready for a hearing at 2 p.m. Once court started, Robbie would have a hard time holding any conversation with Wunsch, and they galloped across the corridor. As Evon flew through the swinging door behind Robbie, she nearly knocked over a burly guy twice her size. He was somebody she'd seen around here before, a cop or a deputy from the looks of him. While she apologized, he stared incredulously, not so much angry as unaccustomed, Evon figured, to taking that kind of wallop from a female. Walter was walking back and forth on the yellowish birch tier beneath the judge, with his customary ill-humored expression, giving directions to the bailiff and court reporter regarding the session about to get under way. Evon hung back, allowing Robbie to approach Wunsch on his own, although the voices were clear through the infrared. Handing over the motion, Feaver declared, between his teeth, "This guy is my case, Wally."

Walter's rumpled face shrank with distaste, but he said nothing. When Robbie asked how soon the judge would decide, Wunsch recited the court's rule on emergency motions: McManis would have two days to reply, and the judge could then take up to two days to rule. That meant he'd consider the motion on Thursday or Friday.

"You gonna ask me to add one plus one next?" Walter asked Robbie, before shooing him away. When Stan called midday Friday to ask if Robbie and I could join him at McManis's, I figured we were being summoned for another celebration. But there were no upbeat greetings from the UCAs. In the conference room, both Jim and Stan sat with long faces. The dead gray eye of the video monitor was exposed in the red oak cabinets. When I asked what was wrong, the two looked at one another. Robbie arrived then, and even before he was seated, Stan pushed the button on the VCR. The screen sprang to life with a black-and-white image. The date and time, down to tenths of seconds, were displayed in a running count of white block letters in the upper right-hand corner. The footage, whatever it was, had been taken at 5:05 pm. yesterday and the perspective was strange. The camera was positioned somewhere near the ceiling in a phony smoke detector, Klecker told me later-and the lens was a fisheye, foreshortening the sides of the room much like the goldframed parabolic mirror that hung in my parents' foyer. The halftones blurred to white in the weak light.

Eventually, I recognized a large desk, ponderous as an anvil, with Old Glory and the county flag on standards behind it. Two figures were at the edge of the picture. When they moved into the frame, they were, as anticipated, Malatesta and Wunsch. The judge held a sheaf of documents, which, it developed, were rulings on various cases. Silvio, in his Harry Caray glasses, looked over each one, then entered his name at the bottom. Hanging over his shoulder, Walter picked up the order as soon as it was signed. As he went along, Silvio made remarks to Walter and himself. A settlement conference was due on this one. The trial in
Gwynn
would last a lifetime. In response, Walter showed none of the dourness so much in evidence elsewhere. While the judge worked, he was a fountain of compliments about the wisdom of each decision.

"Figures," Robbie said. "What a toady."

Klecker had entered and Stan waved at him to cue the tape ahead. When the imagery began moving forward again, Malatesta was taking some time with the draft order in his hands.

"What's this, Walter?"

"
Drydech
. You looked at the papers last night, after defendant filed, Judge. Remember? This is the case where the defense is that the cows had gas. It's some discovery baloney. Same as usual. Defendant's got his wheels in the mud."

Malatesta touched the center of his frames to push them back up on his nose.

"Walter, how do you keep track of these cases? I can't remember half of them. It's a blessing to have you. Remind me again of the issue here."

Walter explained that Feaver wanted to depose, out of order, an engineer who supposedly was on death's doorstep. "It's a complete blank, Walter."

"Judge, you read it."

"Did I?" Absently, Silvio tugged up the sleeves of his cheap shirt, which swam on him, and reset the garters over his negligible biceps. "Get the papers, Walter. I just want to be sure I didn't do something temperamental at the end of the day."

Malatesta had finished the stack of remaining orders by the time Walter was back with Robbie's motion and McManis's response. The judge shook his head as he read.

"Walter, I must have paid no attention at all. This is quite a complicated issue. I'm not sure that the defendant doesn't have a point." McManis had argued that it was unfair for Robbie to take the engineer's deposition before staking out a position on various technical issues related to the testimony. If Feaver wanted to expedite this dep, he had to expedite expert discovery as well. Hovering behind the judge, Walter was silent at first.

"Well, all right, Judge. But one thing. The plaintiff here, Feaver, he's going straight to the Appellate Court."

Malatesta rolled back in his large chair. "Is he?"

"Straight up there. That's the impression he gave me. Says he can't put on his case without this engineer. He'll stipulate to a verdict and go right up."

"I see." Malatesta covered his mouth and studied Bobbie's motion again.

"I don't know, Judge, you're the judge, but you know, that whole appeal thing doesn't happen if you rule for the plaintiff. Why not see what this engineer has to say? If it's nothing much, Feaver loses. If it's hot stuff, the Appellate Court'll never reverse you. They'd have no use for a defendant tryin to sweep bad testimony under the rug."

"Well." Malatesta swung his head back and forth. "I'm sitting here to render my best judgment, Walter, not to handicap the Appellate Court."

"Yeah, well, naturally, Judge, but you know, you got such a great record. Judge Tuohey talks about that all the time. How you're leading the league upstairs. Nobody down in the Superior Court is close, Judge."

Malatesta, a man little inclined to laughter, actually giggled, an oddly childish sound.

"True, true enough, Walter. I saw Brendan last week and he was praising my name to three or four other judges, how well regarded I am up there. It was a trifle embarrassing, actually. Still, I confess I'm proud of my record. There are some very fine jurists here in the Superior Court, Walter. It's an accomplishment to be the least often reversed."

"And, Judge, I don't know, but I got it in mind the Appellate Court threw a case back in the last few days-I thought it was just like this. `Let the plaintiff have his discovery.' Ain't that what they usually say?"

"Well, yes, normally, Walter. But there has to be some even-handedness." Malatesta continued to deliberate. He fishmouthed and tapped on one cheek. "I don't see the parties citing a case like that."

"Just came down, I thought. Brand-new opinion. Not even published. What's the name?" Walter walked around, pounding his fingertips on his forehead. "Why don't I remember this?" he asked himself. "But they reversed whoever it was. Almost exactly like this case."

"A reversal?" Malatesta asked again.

Walter nodded soberly. In a gingerly way, Malatesta threw up his hands so as not to loosen his sleeves.

"You've got good sense on these things, Walter. I acknowledge that. Well, all right. File the order, Walter. First instinct's always best in this business. I granted the motion last night; that was probably the right thing to do."

"Right." Walter almost bowed as he turned heel.

Stan stopped the tape. He lifted his chin as he faced us. He asked what we thought.

"You're kidding, right?" Robbie answered. He'd been unable to hide his amusement for some time. "For Godsake, Stan, Walter's leading the poor little son of a bitch around by the nose. He's getting him to sign orders blind. Isn't that what it looks like? He goes and splits the money I give him with Rollo Kosic and has a laugh about how Silvio is thinking so hard he can't tie his shoes. And then Brendan, just to keep it all moving, Brendan comes along and pats Silvio on the keester for his great record of never getting reversed."

Behind Stan, McManis flashed me a look. I took it Bobbie's dialogue with Sennett was a replay of what had already gone on between Stan and Jim.

"So you mean you've been cheated all along?" Sennett asked.

"Cheated? Christ, Stan, who am I to complain? I get what I want. Walter takes the money and keeps it? So what? For me it's the same thing."

Sennett bristled. "It's hardly the same thing. A devious minute clerk isn't a corrupt judge." He cast a hard look at Robbie. "Not for either of us," he added with a menacing flash of candor. He was right. Walter was a flunky, both in the court of public opinion and in that of a sentencing judge.

"What I'm thinking," Sennett said, "is that you got made." Feaver stared, insulted. The cover for the Project, maintained by huge mutual effort, was a shared treasure. The person who was detected as a government operative would have let everyone down.

"Think about it," said Sennett. "There must be a way they found out the camera is there. Walter knows he's rare roast beef, so he's helping Malatesta wriggle away. If-" He stopped, brought up short by our reactions. McManis and Robbie and I seemed joined in a moment of awe and wonder such as the Scripture describes, not of celebration or joy, but of amazement and dread. The power and speed of Stan's thinking and the way it could divert him from even the most glaring realities was stunning.

"What?" he asked, in response to the staring. He folded his hands and sat forward stiffly. "It's possible. It's completely possible," he said. "Completely."

CHAPTER 24

THE NEXT THURSDAY, APRIL 30, EVON found herself sitting alone in the Mercedes on the top floor of the Temple parking garage. The car was within sight of the glass vestibule housing the ruined elevator, and she'd watched as the doors wobbled open and Robbie had joined Walter Wunsch. After a few words of hearty greeting, they passed completely out of range of the infrared while the elevator groaned and rattled as it made its descent. She sat there, unknowing, isolated, hoping like hell it didn't go to fudge, and feeling an unexpected irritation in her bladder. Following a few days of confused debate, the best tactical option seemed to be to proceed with another payment to Walter in gratitude for the favorable ruling in
Drydech
. It would put to the test Sennett's theory that Wunsch was somehow on alert. No matter how loyal he was to Malatesta, Walter was not going to buy more time in the pen by accepting a second envelope. Even before the elevator had arrived back on five, Evon knew something was wrong. The sea rush of static in her earpiece began to yield to voices. Instead of having hightailed it on the first floor, Walter was still with Robbie. They were talking about a woman, with the usual unpleasant undercurrent. Feaver was laughing, in his humoring fashion, and Wunsch was growling in a low way that made his words difficult to discern.

The elevator doors, engraved with rusty gang signs and markered graffiti, slowly parted. Unharmed, Feaver stepped forth smiling, still in the company of Wunsch. In spite of a heavy topcoat in the mild spring weather, Walter's narrow shoulders were hunched, almost up to his ears.

"Not possible," she heard Robbie say. He tossed a wave at Wunsch and pushed off from the vestibule. Walter stood his ground. He stared through the smeared plate glass toward Evon in the car, his complexion like a bowl of oatmeal, his look ugly as it loitered on her. Unexpectedly, she heard Feaver speaking to her over the infrared as he advanced on the Mercedes.

"Okay, now when I get into the car I'm going to say something to you, blah, blab, blab, and I want you to laugh out loud. Hysterical laugh. Okay? I just told you something that's a living, fucking riot."

Feaver bounced into the driver's seat and, as he'd said, mouthed several sentences, making no sound whatsoever, a pantomime intended for Walter. "Laugh!" he then exclaimed through his teeth. She did it, while he continued offering stage direction. His hand was lifted to obscure the movement of his lips, as he told her to shake her head, laugh so hard she was coughing. Eventually, Robbie turned to the windshield and mushed up his face. He shrugged at Walter, and Walter shrugged in response. The elevator car had opened behind Wunsch, and he turned for it. She waited for a hand sign, something, but Feaver gave no explanation. Instead he rammed the car into gear and peeled from the garage. Several blocks down, he veered into an alley, bucketing along until he'd pulled into the graveled parking lot behind a small store. Its back doors were protected by a rusted security grate. Robbie pointed emphatically to his belt line and mouthed,

"Off."

She did not have the remote today. They were only a few blocks from the LeSueur and she had figured to deactivate the FoxBIte at McManis's.

"Shit," said Feaver out loud. "Frisk," he told her. She asked what was going on.

"Goddamn it, frisk," he answered. He sat through it stiffly, looking off through the window. He told her to state her findings and the time, and then, without another word, plucked the microphone bud out of his shirt and tore it from the lead. "Show time's over," Robbie said.

"He didn't take the money?"

"Ate every bite. Same as always." At Klecker's advice, Feaver had bought custom-made boots as a safer and more comfortable spot to hide the FoxBIte, and he jacked up his calf now to wrestle one off. He had considerable difficulty in the cramped confines of the car. She asked repeatedly what was wrong, but he refused to answer. Finally, he tore the FoxBIte from the ankle harness and slapped it down on her purse.

"For God's sake, what's the problem?"

"The problem is," he said, "as Walter and I are about to go our separate ways, he tells me a story. It's half a joke to him, half maybe not. Apparently, when we were in Malatesta's courtroom last week, you plowed into some guy? Well, he's a copper. Old chum of Walter's from when they were both around felony court. This guy's got a lawsuit going, administrative appeal from a ruling of the Fire and Police Board. He caught thirty days for something. Name is Martin Carmody." Feaver stared, waiting for a response. "Wanna buy a vowel?"