Authors: Barbara Rogan
During the first session of Fleishman’s trial, Barnaby sat far to the back of the crowded courtroom, well out of Gracie’s sight but not Ronnie Neidelman’s. Ronnie spotted him and glared; he blew her a kiss. When court recessed at four o’clock, following Christopher Leeds’s opening statement, Barnaby raced back to the
Probe
to write his column.
“One day after Lily Fleishman’s funeral, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Buscaglio went to court and appealed in an
in camera
session for a change of venue. Fleishman lawyer Christopher Leeds objected; his client had a right to be judged by his peers, the people with whom he had worked and lived, blah-blah-blah.
“Judge Malina ruled for the defense.
“Buscaglio, whose aggressive prosecution of this case has so far been exemplary, then pressed for a postponement. She argued that in the atmosphere of bathos created by the death of Fleishman’s wife, it would be impossible to impanel an unbiased jury.
“Again Leeds objected. His client’s sole desire, he said, after the tragedy of his wife’s sudden demise, was to get on with his life and let his children get on with theirs. Prolonging their ordeal would be cruelty. In full confidence of his acquittal, Jonathan Fleishman demanded his right to a speedy trial.
“Judge Malina’s ruling was a slap to the prosecution’s face. It was the first time, said the tart-tongued judge, that she had ever entertained an appeal for postponement on the grounds of ambience. The trial would proceed as scheduled.
“And so the trial begins, and Jonathan Fleishman drags into court his grieving children and his old mother, draped from head to toe in black; and he has the gall to pretend, in a staged scene with his lawyer, that he’s looking not for sympathy, oh no, but for justice. The hypocrisy thickens.”
He was printing out the copy when the door opened and Ronnie Neidelman barged in. Barnaby stood to block her view of the printer.
“What do you mean,” she said, “by horning in on my story?”
He hooted. “Your story?”
“I’m covering this trial, not you.”
“And I’m sure you’re doing a fine job of it. Now, run along, little darling.” Barnaby swung her toward the door and gave her ass a pat.
Ronnie wheeled around and mashed his instep with her heel. “Oops.”
“Goddammit, bitch, that hurt!”
The printer clattered to a halt. Ronnie’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s see your story.”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” She left the office without a word and returned with a typescript. They swapped and sat down to read.
“Pathetic,” Barnaby sneered.
“You took the words out of my mouth.”
“Do yourself a favor—don’t submit this drivel.”
“Roger’s already approved it,” she said, gloating. “I can’t wait to hear what he thinks of yours.”
“What’s happened to you, Ronnie? You used to be a reporter; now you’re writing for
Seventeen
again.”
Ronnie blushed. She’d done a stint on
Seventeen
in her early days and didn’t like to be reminded of it. “I call it like I see it. I’m not saying Fleishman should walk. I’m saying the U.S. attorney is taking the easy way out by scapegoating Fleishman.”
“You can’t scapegoat a guilty man.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fleishman couldn’t have delivered without help from friends higher up. Why aren’t they on trial with him?”
“That’s got nothing to do with Fleishman’s guilt. You publish this—” he waved her copy—”you’re aiding and abetting the enemy.”
“You’re obsessed with him.”
“I’m not obsessed with him. He just happens to be the devil incarnate.” Barnaby laughed.
Ronnie didn’t. “That’s what I mean. You’ve lost touch with reality. Can’t you see that after what happened, you’re the last person to accuse Fleishman of hypocrisy? Christ, talk about people in glass houses.”
“Fuck that shit. I’m sick of hearing about that.”
“Then you picked the wrong girl to screw.”
“Oh, shut up, Ronnie, you moron. You know as well as I do, we do what we gotta do. You want to tell me that if that girl had talked to you, you wouldn’t have used it?”
“I wouldn’t have slept with her to get it.”
He guffawed. “You’ve never slept with a source?”
“She’s a baby.”
“She’s no baby.”
“It was a repulsive thing to do.”
“I’m not running for sainthood. My personal life has nothing to do with my work.”
Ronnie looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, I bet that’s what Fleishman tells himself.”
“Don’t compare me to that prick!” Barnaby exploded. “Ask yourself this, Lois Lane. Who’s really abusing Gracie? Who dragged her into court, who put her on display days after her mother croaked?”
“Have you considered the possibility that she wants to be with her father?”
“Right. I’ve seen her little Stepford-wife routine. Holding his arm, smiling bravely for the cameras. God knows what goes on in the house.”
She threw up her hands. “You’re nuts, you know that? You’re really nuts.”
As the door slammed behind her, Barnaby shouted, “Someone ought to pull her off that sinking ship. Someone ought to save Grace.”
33
ON THE DAY MICHAEL KAVIN TESTIFIED, Jonathan rejoiced in his wife’s death.
Sitting in court, listening to the testimony, which Michael delivered in a stilted, rehearsed monotone without ever looking in Jonathan’s direction, he could not take his eyes off Michael. It was like looking into a mirror, the face was that familiar; and though he’d known all along that Michael was going to testify, the actual hearing and seeing of it shook him to the core, as if the words issuing from that too-familiar face pierced straight to the very marrow of Jonathan’s bones, without mediation of ear or mind.
He didn’t lie, Michael. He said nothing to which Jonathan could unequivocally reply: “No. This didn’t happen. You made this up.” What he did was more insidious: he showed things in the wrong light, or at least (for lately Jonathan had grown wary of words like “right” and “wrong”) in a light other than the one in which they had tacitly agreed always to regard them. In the fluorescent glare of the courtroom, understandings became conspiracy, friendly accommodations revealed themselves as extortion, and the fine line that Jonathan had always trod, with Michael in his footsteps, between what was acceptable and what beyond the pale was utterly obscured. “Michael’s going to turn on you,” Lily had said, but not even she could have envisioned the sheer awfulness of Michael’s betrayal, which used, not lies, but discolored truth as its weapon.
The witness before Michael had been Arthur Speigel. Arthur blinked his rabbity eyes and answered questions in a defensive yet sanctimonious whine, imperfectly secure in his blanket of immunity. Jonathan listened with impassive disdain. No Speigel, no matter how ignoble and ungrateful, could touch him.
Michael’s treachery did touch him, though, in a place he had ceased to feel, ceased almost to believe in. The pain was exquisite yet not without a certain clarifying value. For the first time since his trial had begun, Jonathan felt oriented. Michael’s betrayal had supplied a point of reference, a base line against which he could measure himself.
Afterward, in a small office in the courthouse, he said to Christopher Leeds, “Thank God Lily isn’t here. I wish to God I’d died before I saw this day.”
They were waiting for the press to give up on them before venturing outside. At the moment, though, Jonathan would rather have faced an avalanche of reporters than his children and mother, who waited in another room.
Leeds said, “I expected worse. This wasn’t so bad. And tomorrow”—he all but rubbed his hands—”we get him on cross.”
An image flashed before Jonathan’s eyes of Michael, plump and pinkly naked, crucified on a cross. He shook his head to clear it. “What are you going to do to him?”
“As he did to you, so shall we do to him.”
“How?”
Leeds clasped his hands behind his back and paced up and down. “So often,” he said sadly, “when a man has most cause for gratitude, he feels resentment. Such a man is Michael Kavin, whose secret envy of his friend and benefactor led him at last to a terrible betrayal. Michael Kavin turned on his mentor and sought to destroy him, concocting a scheme to elevate himself while simultaneously diminishing Jonathan Fleishman. He inveigled my client into a series of increasingly compromising situations, culminating with the absurd farce of the Tortelli episode, the stoogelike, fumbled bathroom handoff he so graphically described in his testimony.”
Jonathan heard him out. Then he applauded. “Excellent, Christopher. Very plausible, psychologically speaking. But it won’t fly.”
“Why not?”
“No one who knows us is ever going to believe that Michael inveigled me into anything.”
“The jury doesn’t know either of you.”
“If anyone could pull it off, you could,” Jonathan said. Leeds bowed his head. “But I don’t want you to.”
“Actually,” the lawyer said, “that’s my call.”
They eyed each other like boxers before the bell.
Jonathan said, “I will not lower myself to do to Michael what he’s doing to me.”
“We talked about this.”
“I don’t recall. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m finally finding my feet, Christopher. I’m coming back to myself.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“I’ve discovered that there are limits to what I will do.”
“That’s a dangerous attitude for a man in your situation. You ought to know by now it’s a dog-eat-dog world.”
“We still have choices.”
“Not many.” Leeds cast him a worried look. “Not anymore. This case requires aggressive handling. We can’t just respond to their version of events. We’ve got to put forth our own scenario.”
“That Michael ‘inveigled’ me into everything? I never told you that.”
“But that is what I think happened,” Leeds said blandly.
“No, you don’t. Christopher, don’t think I’m not grateful. Your support means a great deal to me. It’s just, there’s more at stake than you realize.”
“Your future is at stake. That’s all that concerns me.”
“My future, yes. Mine. Whatever happens, I need to be able to live with myself.”
“My friend, if you hobble my defense, you will be living with yourself for a long, long time.”
“Possibly. That’s outside my control.”
Leeds’s plump face puckered with distress. “You’re not seeing things objectively.”
“No, I see them subjectively.”
“Lily’s passing has affected you.”
“Yes. She told me to do the right thing. I’m feeling my way toward it.”
“With all due respect,” Leeds snapped, “Lily’s not running this defense. I am. And I cannot defend you with my hands tied behind my back. Michael Kavin is the prosecution’s star witness. I have to discredit him, or the game is lost.”
“Ah, but there’s always another game for you.”
Christopher Leeds drew back, blinking rapidly behind his glasses.
“I’m not complaining,” Jonathan said. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. But I’m the one who has to live with the consequences, so I’m the one who has to decide.”
“Decide what? What have you got in mind? Tell me now, Jonathan. I don’t like surprises in court.”
“I’m thinking of changing my plea.” He astonished himself with these words, which seemed to have sprung full-blown out of nowhere. They filled him with a sense of elation, even giddiness.
Christopher Leeds gazed up at the ceiling and pressed his plump palms together. “Lord, give me patience.”
“Listen to me. If I’ve got to go, I want to go with a bang, not a whimper. I won’t be dragged down like a stag by a pack of dogs. I’d rather hurl myself off a cliff.”
“And land in jail, you silly man. You mustn’t despair, Jonathan. That’s what they want you to do. That’s why they used Kavin so early in the trial.”
“It’s not despair. Oh,” he said, “it’s hard in there. It’s foul, listening to that miserable woman talk of things she’s incapable of understanding. I feel, God help me, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, tied down, totally immobilized, tormented by hordes of tiny creatures. But that’s not it, Christopher. That’s not the reason.”
“What is the reason? No—don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. It’s too late to plead guilty. You’ve got to stay the course.”
“I’m entitled to change my plea.”
“You had the opportunity to plead guilty to reduced charges. You turned it down.”
“And I’d turn it down today, on their terms,” Jonathan said indignantly. “I’m not interested in passing the buck. The buck stops here.” He thumped his chest.
Christopher Leeds sighed. “My friend, do you know what happens to people who are too good to live?”
“You think I’m off the wall?”
Leeds put a hand on his shoulder. “I think you’re exhausted. I think you’ve had an emotionally draining day. I think you need to go home and put your feet up and have a drink. Have two. Tomorrow everything will look different.”