word in private with your client.” McEllroy scurries from his own office.
Gus stubs out his cigarette on the sole of his boot. Then he looks at Excelsior for a long time. Excelsior breaks first.
“What? Why are you looking at me and not talking?”
“You know, soon I’ll be dead. And since you don’t seem to be getting any older, or wiser, I think you’re going to outlive me. Outlive me and a whole bunch of others. And if you live long enough you’re gonna be free of it. And then you can do what you want.” Gus struggles to rise from the plush leather chair. His entire frame quivers with anger, “But I know what you did. I was there! We gave you your pass. We gave you the chance to earn it. To prove you were worth it.”
Excelsior gets a faraway look in his eye and sinks into a couch. Gus advances on him.
“So you can play hero all you want. But I know. And unless you get your head on straight, unless you get back in this game, everybody else is gonna know too. You read me boy?”
After a moment Excelsior nods.
“You want that? You want all those people out there to know what kind of a person you really are?”
Excelsior shakes his head.
Gus walks to the office door and calls McEllroy back. “It’s all right son, I gentled him down a might. He’ll behave now.”
Chapter Forty-Eight. A Reasonable Disagreement
“All rise for the honorable Judge Perkins.”
As the packed courtroom gets to its feet. Topper looks over at Excelsior. Jesus, he looks good in that silly costume. Red, white and blue. That full head of hair, strong jutting chin. He looks like all that is best about America stacked up in one place. And the sonofabitch is tall too. Where does this guy get off looking so young? He has to be 70 at least?
In that moment, Topper regrets taking the case. He feels like he is going to throw up. The jury is already swooning over Excelsior. This is hopeless.
“Would the counsel for the plaintiff please rise?” says the Bailiff.
A flash of anger brings Topper back to himself. “Larry, if you got a real job, maybe you could buy a new joke,” Topper fires back.
The judge enters the courtroom. All business. Judge Perkins is not a man to tolerate nonsense. This kind of judge has cost Topper in the past. But this time Topper thinks it will work in his favor. If anyone is going to make nonsense speeches in this case it will be Captain Red White and Blue. Or better yet, his overblown legal counsel, McEllroy.
Topper looks over, and up, at Edwin. His tall friend looks positively Gothic in this setting. His grey suit is immaculate. He looks like the agent of all the ordinary, right and regular commerce of the world; the everyday events and assurances that keep it all on course.
Edwin’s exceptional mind sees the law as a complicated intellectual machinery. It was the right approach for contracts and corporate law, but, not for litigation. Topper thinks that Edwin has never really been able to get his mind around litigation. Edwin is all finesse. He doesn’t realize that sometimes facts make sense only when you when you beat them into shape. And that is what litigation is for.
Edwin certainly doesn’t understand what role appearance and opinion play in the courtroom. How easily and subtly a jury can be swayed/seduced from one point of view to another. No, it was all an equation to Edwin. A very complicated and useful equation. Like a machine. Input here, output there. But this view left no room for magic. And legal magic is what Topper does best.
As he looks back and forth between Edwin and Excelsior, his stomach settles down. He remembers why he took this case. And how he can win it. Next to Edwin, this guy looks like a cross between a clown and a boyscout. Both are great figures for children. But for adults, for the modern world, for the continued progress of civilization, boy scouts are obsolete.
He also wants to do well by his friend. Edwin and Topper are very different. But the world never really fit either of them. And misfits have to stick together, don’t they? Or else all the ordinary people will band together and stomp them flat.
Sometimes Topper feels very stupid around Edwin. But this, this trial, is something that he can do. And do better than the tall man. This is Topper’s chance to come through. To do his part. To pay back all of the favors Edwin has done him over the years. The guy has thrown him an entire practice worth of business. Topper owes. And this is his chance to make good.
“Gentleman,” begins Judge Perkins, “I’m going to give both of you the same advice — I don’t care who you are, or the circumstances of how you got here. This is a court of law. You will respect it as such. As prejudicial to my character as it will be to hold such a great servant of this country as Excelsior to account at my bench or in contempt of this court, I will do it. Here we hold men equal before the law.”
Excelsior nods gravely.
“And the plaintiff, Mr. Windsor. This is an unusual, one might say outrageous, suit you bring. But you have grievances and they will be heard. But I instruct you and your counsel to remember that we are not putting a hero on trial. We are settling a civil matter. It is a question of responsibility and, perhaps, compensation.”
Edwin nods.
“All right then.” Judge Perkins sits. “Commence.” Perkins pounds the gavel a few times. “Court’s in session.”
“Ladies and Gentleman of the jury,” Topper begins with a flourish of the hands. “My client is an ordinary, hard-working businessman. Perhaps his talents are unusual. He does have clients that are far from ordinary. But he is a businessman, a man of trade, if you will. He has never been convicted of any crime. In fact, the only time he has ever been charged is for an illegal right on red. And the case was thrown out, because while the turn was, in fact, illegal, the sign that indicated this to the general public had fallen into disrepair.”
“Objection! The counsel for the defense can’t see how this can possibly be relevant to the matter at the bar.”
“Your honor,” Topper answers with infinite courtesy, “We all know what an upstanding member of the community Excelsior is. I am trying to emphasize that, in the eyes of the law, these two men are exactly the same. My client is tax-paying, law-abiding, as honest as the day is—”
“Enough,” says Judge Perkins. “You’ve made your point. Objection overruled. Move along.”
But Topper has no desire to move along. Because when he said, “As honest as the day,” Excelsior had snickered. Topper’s not about to let that go. “Excuse me, I didn’t quite catch that,” he says to Excelsior
“My client didn’t say anything,” says McEllroy.
“Well of course you’d defend him. You’re his defense attorney aren’t you Lee? Can you read that back from the record?” Topper asks the court reporter.
“I have it as a snigger,” says the court reporter.
“A snicker?” asks Topper.
“No, no a snigger. Two g’s”
“A snigger? Really?”
“Your honor please,” protests the defense.
“I thought you would never ask.” The Judge Perkins drops his gavel. “Objection granted.”
“He didn’t object,” objects Topper.
“Well then I’m objecting. Strike this nonsense from the record.”
“Your honor, he laughed at my client.”
“Sniggered,” says the court reporter.
Judge Perkins’ head swims a little. Not five minutes into the trial and it was already falling apart. “Sniggered, snickered or guffawed, I want it struck from the record! As far as I’m concerned and the jury is concerned, it never
