up to the task, but only a few. Getting an impartial jury for Carter Drake in Rockland County was going to be something like getting an impartial jury for Adolf Eichmann in Tel Aviv.
In mid-August, with the hearing and trial scheduled to begin in three weeks, Jaywalker sat down at his computer and composed a one-page letter to Justice Hinkley. In it he stated that despite his very best efforts, there was no way the defense could possibly be ready by September 5, or any time in September, for that matter. He sent the letter off by Priority Mail, and a copy of it to the district attorney's office. That one he sent by regular mail. As far as Jaywalker was concerned, forty-four cents was already far too much to spend on Abe Firestone.
It took only a day and a half for a response. It came in the form of a phone call from Hinkley's law clerk, an earnest-sounding young man. 'The judge would like to meet with the lawyers as soon as possible,' he said. 'She wants to know if you can be at her chambers tomorrow morning, at nine o'clock sharp.'
'Let me check,' said Jaywalker.
A glance at his calendar revealed that the only date circled other than September 5 was January 14 of next year, his granddaughter's birthday.
'I believe I can make it,' he said.
They met around a polished wooden table in the library that was part of the judge's chambers. It put anything Jaywalker had ever seen at 10 °Centre Street to shame. As he had been at their meeting, Firestone was flanked by his twin bodyguards, Nerd Man and Smile Woman. The judge began the meeting by reading Jaywalker's letter aloud so that a court reporter could take it down on a stenotype machine. As soon as she got to the part about the defense not being able to be ready, Firestone shouted, 'I object!' and followed it up with, 'The People are ready for trial.'
'Relax, Abe,' she said. 'There's no audience here.'
'There should be,' said Firestone. 'This should be done in open court.'
'The People's objection is noted,' said Hinkley. 'Mr. Jaywalker, would you care to tell the court precisely why you won't be ready to proceed?'
'I'd be delighted to,' said Jaywalker, who'd actually come armed with a list of reasons scribbled on a crumpled sheet of paper. While none of them was terribly persuasive standing by itself, there were no less than eleven of them, twelve if you wanted to count Come on, this a murder case, for crying out loud. 'But I'll only do so ex parte. My explanation will reveal confidential material and defense strategy, neither of which I'm either required or willing to share with the prosecution.'
'Objection!' shouted Firestone, a vein throbbing visibly in his forehead.
'Sit down, Abe. You're going to hurt yourself.'
'I want this all on the record!'
As the judge rose, she pointed at Jaywalker and the court reporter. 'Come with me,' she said. 'The rest of you relax, chat among yourselves.'
As soon as they were in Justice Hinkley's private office, she took off her robe and lit a cigarette. 'Terrible habit,' she said, inhaling deeply. 'Amy, you take a break,' she told the court reporter, and the young lady took a seat, pulling a copy of O Magazine from her handbag.
So much for on the record.
The judge took another long drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out in an ashtray. 'Disgusting,' she muttered.
Jaywalker fought back a snort.
'So,' she said, 'I gather you need the witness.'
'Excuse me?'
'You heard me.'
'I heard you,' said Jaywalker. 'I just didn't think you were old enough to know the expression.' He was, though. He'd heard it early on in his career, almost always from an old-timer. He needed the witness, he'd tell the judge, when he couldn't go to trial because he hadn't been paid the balance of his fee yet. And if the judge was too young or too slow to catch on, the lawyer would clue him in him by supplying the witness's name, which almost always turned out to be Mr. Green. Though Jaywalker had heard Mr. Franklin's name come up once or twice, as well as Mr. Grant's.
'I'm a lot older than you are,' said the judge.
'I'll bet you're not,' said Jaywalker, fishing into his pocket for a Samoan penny. He had more than his share of vices, but high-stakes gambling wasn't among them.
'I'm afraid you're going to have to take my word on this one,' said the judge. 'My husband doesn't know how old I am, and we've been married…a long time. Anyway, why didn't you just tell me what the problem was? I was in practice once myself.'
Jaywalker hesitated for just a moment. The truth was, he didn't need the witness at all. Amanda Drake had already paid him more than half his fee, and he had no worries about the balance. And he hated the idea of being lumped together with a bunch of incompetent hacks whose chief concern was collecting their fees. But he knew that judges were lawyers, and that this particular judge had just gone out of her way to tell him that she understood his predicament. In other words, it was easier for her to empathize with a lawyer who needed to be paid than it was for her to understand a lawyer who needed to win.
A Jaywalker.
So he swallowed his pride and let it go.
'Look,' she was telling him, 'we both know the Appellate Division wouldn't have let me force you to trial over your objection. I was simply testing you. A lesser lawyer would have whined like a baby in court when I set the date. You didn't do that. You did it the right way.' And here she picked up the letter he'd sent her and waved it in the air.
'We're going to have a fun trial, Mr. Jaywalker, you and I. And when it's over, and the jury has convicted your client, I'm going to give him twenty-five to life. Not a day less. You I like. Him, he's a worthless piece of shit. Now, when can you be ready for trial?'
'I've got a commitment January 14,' he said. 'I can be ready anytime after that.'
'Fair enough,' said the judge, glancing at a wall calendar. 'January 20, hearing and trial. And…'
'Yes?'
'That's it. Before I grant the defense another adjournment, I'll need a certified copy of a death certificate, with your name on the top of it. Do we understand each other?'
'We do.'
Jaywalker would have loved to see the look on Abe
Firestone's face when he learned of the new date, but the pleasure was not to be his. Justice Hinkley instructed him to leave by a side door. 'You go home,' she told him. 'I'll deal with Napoleon.'
Still, he sang halfway home, and when he ran out of voice, he whistled the rest of the way. Even to a normal person, receiving permission to put off an unpleasant ordeal for five months is welcome news. For a certified procrastinator, it's nothing short of Nirvana.
13
But Jaywalker's reprieve would prove short-lived.
It had been one thing to put off working on a case back when he'd had others to turn his attention to. But this time there weren't any others. Still, there was everything else to distract him. There were his daughter and her family to visit in New Jersey. There was the baseball season, suddenly getting interesting with the Yankees and the Red Sox battling it out in the Eastern Division. Football was right around the corner, and the Giants were considered a likely contender for a playoff spot. Meanwhile, the days were still warm, and long walks in the park beckoned. There were a couple of books he'd looked forward to reading, and some writing of his own he wanted to get back to. And chances were there'd be some good movies on late-night TV.
