“It wouldn’t make sense to have a rule of law that turned on the occupation of the defendant, would it?”
“No, sir,” says the lawyer, shaking his head.
Armen leans forward, his eyes dark as Turkish coffee. “In fact, after what the Supreme Court said in
Galanter glances over at Armen like a jockey on a Thoroughbred. “But Chief Justice Rehnquist made clear in Scheidler that there was a pattern of extortion, of federal crimes. Where’s the federal crimes with the floral conspiracy? Florists wielding pruning shears? Gimme that money or I snip the orchid?” Galanter shudders comically and the gallery laughs on cue.
“But they do threaten society,” the lawyer says, fumbling for the rigging. “Mr. Canavan signed a contract, and they didn’t send him any orders. They intended to drive Canavan Flowers into bankruptcy. It was part of a plan.”
“Your client did file for Chapter Eleven protection, didn’t he?” Armen says.
Suddenly Judge Townsend emits a noisy snort that sounds like an ancient steamboat chugging to life. Armen and Galanter look over as Judge Townsend’s heavy-lidded eyes creak open. “If I may, I have a question,” he says, smacking his dry lips.
“Go right ahead,” Armen says. Galanter forces a well-bred smile.
“Thank you, Chief Judge Gregorian,” Judge Townsend says. He nods graciously. “Now, counselor, why are you letting my colleagues badger you?”
The smile on Galanter’s face freezes in place. The gallery laughs uncertainly.
“Sir?” the lawyer says.
Judge Townsend snorts again and lists gently to the starboard side. “As I see it, the question with this new statute is always the same.”
Ben whispers, “New? RICO was passed in the seventies.”
“The question is always, How is this case different from a case of garden variety fraud? How is it different from other injuries to one’s business, which we decide under the common law?” Judge Townsend waves his wrinkled hand in the air; it cuts a jagged swath. “In other words, have you got some precedent for us? A case to hang your hat on?”
The lawyer reads his notes. “Wait a minute, Your Honor.”
Judge Townsend blinks once, then again. Galanter smooths back the few hairs he has left. The lawyers in the gallery glance at one another. They’re all thinking the same thing: Nobody tells the Third Circuit to wait a minute. The answers are supposed to roll off your tongue. The case is supposed to be at your fingertips. Better you should pee on the counsel table.
“Way to go, Einstein,” Ben says.
“I know I have the case somewhere,” says the attorney, nervously riffling through his legal pad. He should be nervous; the circuit court is the last stop before the Supreme Court, which takes fewer appeals each year. It’s all those speaking engagements.
“Armen’s upset,” Sarah whispers, and I follow her eyes. Armen is looking down, worried about the appeal. The only sound in the tense courtroom is a frantic rustling as the lawyer ransacks the podium. A yellow page sails to the rich navy carpet.
The silence seems to intensify.
Galanter glares at the lawyer’s bent head.
A sound shatters the silence—
The back rows of the gallery turn around. The sound is loud, unmistakable.
Row after row looks back in disbelief, then in alarm.
“It’s a bomb!” one of the lawyers shouts.
“A bomb!” yells an older lawyer. “No!”
The crowded courtroom bursts into chaos. The gallery surges to its feet in confusion and fear. Lawyers grab their briefcases and files. People slam into each other in panic, trying to escape to the exit doors.
“No!” someone shouts. “Stay calm!”
I look wildly toward the back row where Artie was sitting. I can’t see him at all. The mob at the back is pushing and shouting.
Ben and other law clerks run for the judges’ exit next to the dais. My heart begins to thunder. Time is slowed, stretched out.
“Artie’s back there!” I shout.
Sarah grabs my arm. “Armen!”
I look back at the dais. Armen stands at the center, shielding his eyes from the overhead lights, squinting into the back row. Judge Townsend is stalled at his chair.
Galanter snatches Armen’s gavel and pounds it on the dais:
“Oh, my God,” Armen says, when he realizes what’s happening. “It can’t be.”
Copyright © 1994 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.
Running From the Law
Whether it’s poker or trial law, wisecracking Rita Morrone plays to win, especially when she takes on the defense of the Honorable Fiske Hamilton, a prominent federal judge accused of sexual harassment. And it’s no coincidence that the judge is her live-in lover’s father.
Then the action turns deadly, and Rita finds herself at the center of a murder case. She probes deep into the murder, uncovering a secret life and suspects in shocking places. When the killer viciously ups the ante, Rita decides to end this lethal game. She lays it all on the line for the highest stakes ever.
Chapter One
Any good poker player will tell you the secret to a winning bluff is believing it yourself. I know this, so by the time I cross-examined the last witness, I believed. I was in deep, albeit fraudulent, mourning. Now all I had to do was convince the jury.
“Would you examine this document for me, sir?” I said, my voice hoarse with fake grief. I did the bereavement shuffle to the witness stand and handed an exhibit to Frankie Costello, a lump of a plant manager with a pencil-thin mustache.
“You want I should read it?” Costello asked.
No, I want you should make a paper airplane. “Yes, read it please.”
Costello bent over the document, and I snuck a glance at the jury through my imaginary black veil. A few returned my gaze with mounting sympathy. The trial had been postponed last week because of the death of counsel’s mother, but the jury wasn’t told which lawyer’s mother had died. It was defense counsel’s mother who’d just passed on, not mine, but don’t split hairs, okay? You hand me an ace, I’m gonna use it.
“I’m done,” Costello said, after the first page.
“Please examine the attachments, sir.”
“Attachments?” he asked, cranky as a student on the vocational track.
“Yes, sir.” I leaned heavily on the burled edge of the witness stand and looked down with a mournful sigh. I was wearing black all over: black suit, black pumps, black hair pulled back with a black grosgrain ribbon. My eyes were raccoony, too, but from weeks of lost sleep over this trial, which had been slipping through my manicured fingers until somebody choked on her last chicken bone.
