These shortcomings were redeemed by a wicked sense of humor.
When we arrived in court Vinnie and I were introduced to the learned counsel representing the plaintiff, a man named Trumbull. A pillar of the local Episcopalian church. Trumbull had thick mats of hair growing out of his ears. In state court, you sit side by side at the same table with opposing counsel, the dais in between. So each time Trumbull got up to speak, we had an unobstructed view of the vegetation. Moss, it was. It was like thick moss on a rotting tree trunk. It was a marvel of nature.
There were probably many other notable things about him. He may even have been a powerful advocate. But all Vinnie and I could talk about later was earwigs.
The judge had decided he’d hear from the expert before deciding the motion. Usually these things are decided on the papers, and oral argument from the lawyers. So we were already ahead of the game. I was looking forward to cross-examining the guy.
Cross-examination is an art and a science. Perhaps a little sport as well. You need laser-like focus on the only goal. To manipulate, bully or seduce the target into saying things he doesn’t want to say. There’s an infinite variety of techniques. The key is to adapt them to the target and the situation at hand. That ability is what separates the world-class cross-examiner from the merely competent. Anyone can recite the standard questions. Do the routine song and dance. Elicit the testimony they already knew was in the bag. But the masters of the trade, those who have the talent, the cojones and the will, they can push that envelope. Identify and maximize the weakness of the witness.
Everybody, even the slickest and the smartest, has a weakness.
Many times, it’s ego.
This guy had a big one.
He was good, but after a couple of hours of sparring I managed to maneuver him into testifying that a pool of contaminants in the groundwater – ‘DNAPL,’ if you really must know, dense non-aqueous phase liquids – wasn’t actually ‘touching’ the water, because not ‘all of it’ was in contact with the water. Now, I knew what he meant to say. He meant that the contaminants weren’t all mixed up with the water. But I didn’t care what he meant. I was quite happy to use what he said. I swept my arm through the air, my index finger alighting on the dais in front of me.
Am I touching this dais? I asked, raising my eyebrows.
He sat and stared at me for a while. Damn it, I could see him thinking, I have to say no.
And he did. He had to say no, because all of my finger was not in contact with the dais, nor was all of the dais in contact with my finger. So, by his definition, I wasn’t touching the dais. He had to say no, or take back what he’d said before. Either way, he was going to look like what he was – a well-paid flack.
He said yes.
The judge had had enough.
Witness excused, he said.
It was sweet. As always when we won, I left the courtroom pumped, elated, full of myself, high-fiving with Vinnie and crowing about my skill.
Vinnie, I said, let me know when my honorary Ph. D. in groundwater science comes in.
You’ll be the first to know, boss, he said.
It’s what kept me coming back to the office. The once-a-month or sometimes better chance to be the star on the judicial stage. To have my words, my oh so eloquent words, slice through the air and puncture the pretensions of whatever inflated excuse for an argument or a witness the other side had dared to drag into the courtroom.
If only the feeling would last. But it never did. If it got me through the day it was a major event. Some days, it didn’t get me through the cab ride back to the office.
This was a good one, though. I was still humming a happy tune when I strode past Judy into my office. I was about to pick up the phone and summon Dorita, to regale her with my tale of splendiferous advocacy, when Judy interrupted.
Mr. Warwick wants to see you, she said.
The sonofabitch, I thought. He won’t even let me enjoy myself for ten minutes.
There wasn’t any reason to put off the inevitable. The magic of my morning’s victory had vanished the moment I’d heard Warwick’s name. I trudged the length of the thirtieth floor, smiled at Cherise. She nodded me in.
Redman! Warwick said, with uncharacteristic warmth.
Charles, I said.
Everyone called him Charles. We all pretended to an informality we never actually felt in his presence. In return, he called everyone by their last name. It was a territorial thing, I think. Though I wasn’t sure exactly how the metaphor worked, I knew it bore some quite precise relationship to dogs pissing on lampposts.
I was just talking to FitzGibbon, Warwick said. He seems quite smitten with you.
I’m glad to hear that, I said, ignoring the homoerotic choice of phrase.
Good job, said Warwick. This could be the start of great things for you.
I forced a smile.
Thanks, I said. I’ll stay on it.
Excellent, he said. We’ll have that morale problem licked in no time.
I gave that one a pass.
On the way out, I gave Cherise a wink. I figured I owed her one.
To the uninitiated, that brief conversation might not have seemed so bad. But in reality it was fraught with import. Venom. Spleen. Fear.
Morale, shit. The only morale Warwick gave two shits about was his own. And his morale was fed by power, nothing else. The right to squash, humiliate and defile with boundless guile and glee.
I don’t know, maybe he had a good side. I just hadn’t seen it for a while.
What made it worse, we’d come up in the business together. Worked side by side in the trenches. Reviewed documents in dingy conference rooms for days on end, until we fairly bled to death from paper cuts. Drank at the same bars. Chased the same women in those same bars. We’d actually had some fun together, back then.
It was hard to imagine now.
I called Dorita.
It was too late to crow about my morning triumph over the moss-eared man. But at least I had Warwick to bitch about.
Dorita wasn’t in her office.
That only left one thing.
29.
Sheila specialized in addiction. Junkies, drunks, cokeheads, aspirin freaks, whatever. She got a lot of cancellations.
I called her up. Her three o’clock had OD’d, so she had a slot for me. I decided to walk over. It was a nice day.
Her office was in an upscale building in the east seventies, otherwise residential. You’d never have known the office was there. I supposed most of the residents didn’t. I was quite sure that the lunching ladies with Pekingese I passed on my way into the building would have been quite scandalized to know that back behind their very own marble-floored palm-plastered lobby, eight hours a day, fifty-five minutes at a time, sat, weeping, whining and rationalizing, scores of the city’s most hopeless slaves to substance.
The doormen, on the other hand, certainly knew. They knew everything. And being even more snobbish than their tenants, though also professionally discreet, they never failed to give me a tiny nod and a subtle sneer. Which I invariably returned.
I didn’t have to wait. The door was open. Sheila was in her recliner. I always called her Sheila. I liked the name. It reminded me of old Jack Lemmon movies. I knew she didn’t approve, though she never said so. But whenever she left me a voice mail she never said, ‘It’s Sheila’; she always said, ‘It’s Dr. Schwartz.’ And I would
