Page 5 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

I heard another car come up onto my level.

This time BMW. M series. Midnight blue.

I turned away from Jan and his client and approached the young man getting out of the BMW.

His name was Chris Doyle, a young up-and-coming assistant district attorney.

Smart and fair. At least one of those qualities meant he wouldn’t have a future in the district attorney’s office.

He wasn’t long out of law school, and I figured he would last another six months before he’d go for a job in one of the old white-shoe law firms in Manhattan with his real-world criminal experience, his contacts in the DA’s office, and his heart full of the pride and fulfilment that comes from public service.

But you can’t live on pride. Chris was working on a big payday that would come with a corporate job.

‘Hey, man,’ I said.

‘Eddie, you waiting to beat me up?’ he asked, with a smile.

‘I don’t beat anyone up any more, Chris. I’ve got people who do that for me.’

‘Is Bloch on the other side of that pillar, then?’

‘Nah, she likes you. Especially after that deal for little Jackie.’

Chris had taken pity on an old client of mine.

Jackie was a great card player and an excellent hustler in his time.

He got caught with cash that he couldn’t account for when he was busted for assaulting an asshole who came after him with a ten-pound hammer.

Jackie had cleaned the guy out at the card table and acted in self-defense.

The police don’t like Jackie, and they don’t like illegal card games, so they arrested him.

Chris did him and me a solid, and let Jackie plead out the charges for six months’ probation and a confiscation order on the cash.

‘You walking to court?’ I asked.

‘Why do I get the impression you want something from me?’

‘I don’t know what would give you that idea, but now that we’re on our way to court together I figure I may as well pick your brains on money laundering . . . ’

Chris had written a few articles for various law-review publications on the Banking Act and digital fraud. He knew what he was talking about. We found the elevator. Chris went in first and I followed.

He leaned over to hit the button for the lobby.

I asked him a question about digital fraud and RICO.

I didn’t listen as he started to answer. I didn’t want to know anything about digital fraud and RICO.

I just wanted to wait until he was distracted, focusing on the elevator panel, leaning over, turning away from me, so I could steal his car keys from his jacket pocket.

I learned from the best. My old man. Smart hands, he used to call it.

To execute a clean pocket dip, you need to master two contradictory movements simultaneously.

You need to be fast. And you need to be soft.

Specifically, soft fingers. Moving your arm at speed tends to tense the muscles – the key is to keep a light wrist. A tense wrist means hard fingers, which means the mark will feel the lift.

I put his car keys in my pocket, and pretended to listen while he regaled me with the latest legal developments in an area of law that few understand.

The elevator took us to the ground floor and we walked around the corner together, through Brooklyn Park to the courthouse.

I told Chris he should go on ahead, I had to meet a client outside.

In truth, I just didn’t want him to see me pulling his car keys out of my pocket and putting them in the plastic tray as I went through security screening.

He went into the building ahead of me. I waited ten minutes, then followed.

Civil court is on level three. Criminal, level four.

I took the elevator to the third floor and found my client pacing the hallway.

Lawyers and their clients lined the benches and slouched against the painted concrete walls.

Morrie was dressed in a white shirt, open at the collar, and black pants.

His stomach hung, reassuringly, over his belt. Morrie liked cannoli.

‘Eddie, where’ve you been?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been preparing. How are you feeling, Morrie?’

‘I’m going out of my mind. I can’t believe this. I swear to you I swept the floor the night before this happened. We hadn’t cut any meat that morning, so I don’t know how this man slips on a piece of prosciutto? It’s not possible.’

‘I know. I believe you,’ I said.

‘I don’t have much money, Eddie. What with Gloria sick in the hospital . . . ’

His wife, Gloria, was having treatment for ulcers. The doctors would never say it, but I knew the stress of this case was taking a toll on this elderly couple’s health.

‘How is she?’

‘She’s worried. The business has been in my family for generations . . . to think I could lose it . . . we could lose our home. It’s too much for her,’ he said.

‘Look, Morrie, I’m going to do my best today. This is just a settlement discussion, but if everything plays out, we could finish this . . .’

‘I told you, I don’t have much money. The goddamn insurance company, I paid them every month for years and they leave me in the gutter,’ said Morrie, and his right hand gripped his chest. His daughter, Julia, had told me Morrie was having chest pains since the lawsuit began.

With the amount of damages Neville Carmichael was claiming, Morrie would have to sell his apartment and the store and he could still be in debt.

‘You can’t give them any excuse not to honor the policy, Morrie. I told you, paperwork . . . ’

‘Julia thought she did all the paperwork. That’s what I told the insurance guy,’ he said, throwing his arms up. His face, usually a pale red, was beginning to darken into a deep crimson. I could almost hear a hiss from his blood pressure rising.

‘If you don’t have paperwork logging the times and frequency of the floor cleaning, then that violates your insurance policy.

It means you can’t prove a reasonable system of maintenance and inspection.

And you didn’t write up an accident report, either.

That’s why the insurance company wouldn’t indemnify you. ’

‘They expect me to write reports? Reports? What am I – the Polizia ? If I knew how to write a report, I wouldn’t be chopping meat for a living.’

‘There might be a way out of this. I can’t promise anything, but I believe you when you said the floor was clean. Let me see what I can do.’

I left him on a bench, panting. His head looked like somebody trying to blow up a red balloon.

His hand, clutched to his chest, was trembling.

I was worried for Morrie. The legal system in America can take lives, but putting a needle full of poison into someone isn’t the only way to kill them.

Morrie’s wife, Gloria, was already in the hospital and if this case didn’t go away fast Morrie could be in the bed next to her.

They were good people, let down by a rigged system. Like so many in the country.

And Morrie’s insurance company wasn’t the only one on the make.

As I moved through the crowd, trying to locate my opponent, he grabbed me by the arm and gently pulled me to the side.

Jan Jeffers moved quietly.

‘Eddie, I see your client is here. Good, good. I know his insurance company has pulled the plug so I want to be fair . . . ’ said Jan.

He made a clicking sound in his throat as he spoke. It was some kind of tic, or nervous habit, but with the skeletal frame, the gray skin, gray hair, and big eyes, he looked like a dead stick insect in a suit.

‘Jan . . . ’ I began, but he interrupted. He was one of those guys who was always on transmit. Like he communicated through a two-way radio, but Jan always had his ‘talk’ button held down. He wasn’t interested in what anyone else had to say.

‘Now, you’re smart enough to realize liability is not going to be an issue for my client. He slipped on a piece of prosciutto on the floor of a deli – it’s res ipsa loquitor . . . ’

He pronounced the doctrine of law in what I guessed was his attempt at a Latin accent. It might have been correct, but I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t so hot on the law. That was Harry Ford’s domain, my consultant, best friend and former judge.

Res ipsa loquitor is Latin for ‘the thing speaks for itself’.

It can apply in cases like this, where the plaintiff can’t prove a specific act of negligence, like one of Morrie’s employees dropping prosciutto on the floor and not cleaning it up, but it’s clear that Morrie’s people had control of the floor, and the prosciutto, and there must have been negligence for the meat to be there on the floor so his client could slip on it and fall on his ass.

‘I don’t think it’s res ipsa— ’ Again, I was getting nowhere fast with Jan.

‘Let me finish, Eddie. I’m going to do you a favor.

My consultant orthopedic specialist says this is a compression fracture, tiny, but it’s there, and with pain and suffering and loss of earnings you’re looking at three hundred and fifty grand in damages, easy.

Now I know your guy doesn’t have that kind of money.

I’ll go easy. Settle today, I’ll recommend two-fifty.

That’s the best deal you’ll ever get in your life. ’

‘Morrie would need to sell the store and his home and he still wouldn’t raise a quarter million dollars after debts and taxes,’ I said.

‘Shit happens, my client is horrifically injured and it’s Morrie’s fault. He’s gotta pay up,’ said Jan, pointing to his client on the bench.

The guy in the orange shirt I’d seen earlier. The crutches were leaning against his thigh. A pained expression in his face.

The plaintiff, Neville Carmichael.

‘Here’s what I’m gonna do, Jan. I’m going to make you an offer. This is a non-negotiable, one-time deal. You take it today, or it’s off the table forever. You understand?’

‘Don’t low-ball me, Eddie. Just don’t. What’s the offer, ’cause I can’t go below a quarter mil on this case or my client will sue me, and he’d be right.’

‘Here’s the offer. You like Latin? Morrie pays nihil . Nil. Morrie pays you zero dollars . . . ’