A Fine Line (12 page)

16

I was in my office with one of the trainees, the latest to arrive and the grandson of an old schoolteacher of mine who had asked me to take him on. Unfortunately, considering the nature of the request, I hadn't been able to object, even though the young man had the expression of a psychotic pigeon and the pernicious habit of wearing the same shirt for two or three days, with all the olfactory consequences you would expect.

We were discussing the first document I had entrusted him with drawing up: an action for fraud, with a request for the seizure of a number of bills of exchange. The young man had thrown himself into the task with great enthusiasm, but also with a somewhat idiosyncratic, even Dadaist interpretation of grammar and syntax. The vocabulary wasn't any better. It was full of expressions like
aforesaid
,
above-mentioned
,
herein enclosed
,
your lordships
and things like that.

Federico had graduated with first-class honours and hadn't yet decided whether to be a defence lawyer or a magistrate. My plan, when I heard about this dilemma, immediately became clear: to urge him, using all means possible, to opt for the second of these. Not a very good prospect for the magistrature (even supposing he passed the exam), but excellent for me and my practice.

“Why do you use these expressions, Federico?”

“What expressions, Avvocato?”

I leafed through the action and pointed almost at random at a line towards the end of the document. “This, for example: ‘May your lordship be congratulated on granting the seizure as a matter of urgency…'”

He threw me his best pigeon look and remained silent.

“All you have to say is:
we ask for this seizure as a matter of urgency
. If you meet a flesh-and-blood prosecutor, do you say to him: ‘Good morning, your lordship'?”

He didn't know what to reply. In his first six months as a trainee, in another practice, they had inculcated certain teachings in him as if they were gospel truth. One of these was that in legal documents, and in particular those addressed to a magistrate, this was the way you wrote. Now he was being told that maybe things weren't like that. In all probability, he was thinking that he had ended up with the wrong lawyer, and on that point I couldn't gainsay him. At that moment, the internal telephone rang.

“What is it, Pasquale?”

“Signorina Annapaola has arrived. She's in Consuelo's office. They say to take your time, and when you've finished join them or they'll come to you.”

I had no desire to take my time with the psychotic pigeon. Annapaola's arrival was timely. A real lifesaver.

“All right, tell them I'll be there in two minutes.” I hung up and gave the draft of the action back to Federico. “Please look at it again. Try to use shorter sentences, twenty, twenty-five words maximum. If you think of a longer one, break it up. Drop the
your lordships
. Write as you'd speak – not in a bar, obviously. Write as you'd speak if you were trying to explain the situation out loud to a judge. I'll see you later, or tomorrow.”

He walked to the door, looking dazed and dejected.

“Oh, Federico?”

“Yes, Avvocato.”

“My impression, from this first period of acquaintance with you, is that your disposition is more geared towards the work of magistrate than that of defence lawyer.”

Disposition more geared
… What are you talking about, Guerrieri? Have you gone mad?

“Maybe you should think seriously about your future prospects. Partly because there's one sure way to fail in everything, and that's by doing many things simultaneously, and badly. If you decide to continue in this profession, I'll be happy to have you” –
dirty liar,
I thought – “but if, as I think would be better suited to your gifts, you decide to take the magistrature exams, well, I think you should devote yourself body and soul to that, and not waste time on other activities.”

The pigeon assumed a grateful expression and I smiled at him paternally, feeling like a worm.

The door of Consuelo's office was ajar. I could hear nonstop chatter and muted laughter. The two women seemed very much in sync, as if they were exchanging amusing female confidences. I knocked gently at the door. Consuelo said: “Come in”, sounding like someone trying to regain composure without really wanting to.

“Am I disturbing you? I could come back in half an hour, when you girls have finished.”

“Hello, Avvocato,” Annapaola said cheerfully, but with a touch of irony.

“Would you like us to come to your office, Guido?”

“Here is fine.”

Annapaola pointed at me. “Did you know your boss is some kind of Rocky Marciano?”

Consuelo threw her a questioning glance, then turned to me.

“She's talking about boxing,” I intervened, to avoid – in case that had been the intention – the story of our nocturnal feats.

“Oh, of course,” Consuelo said. “Middle-aged men have their obsessions. Best to be indulgent.”

I noticed a new poster on the wall facing the desk. Consuelo goes around the streets – in Bari and elsewhere – looking for unusual graffiti, which she photographs and collects. She even held an exhibition once and sold everything. Every three or four months, she has one of the photographs blown up to poster size, frames it and hangs it on the wall of her office, replacing the previous one.

That afternoon there was a new one. A wall overhanging a marble staircase, maybe the entrance to a school or another public building. At the top, someone had scrawled in black:
Do you learn from your mistakes or what?
And about eight inches below, in bright blue, the answer:
What
.

“When did this arrive?”

“I brought it in yesterday. Nice, isn't it?”

“Fantastic. I could have written it.”

“I already said that before you arrived,” Annapaola said.

“All right. I give up. Shall we work?”

“I'll make the coffee,” Consuelo said.

After having the coffee, we sat down at the desk and I told Annapaola what we needed to prepare Larocca's defence for the pretrial hearing.

“In a nutshell: everything we can find out about Marelli, Capodacqua, Ladisa and Salvagno. I don't think Capodacqua made it all up on his own initiative or because he was induced in some way by the prosecutors. Our line of defence can't be: It's all lies, it's just a nasty slander. When Capodacqua says that Ladisa boasts a lot, it's likely that he's telling the truth. He may be embellishing it a little, without even realizing
it, because he knows it's the kind of thing the Prosecutor's Department likes to hear. Larocca is one of the judges the prosecutors and the police hate the most.”

“So how would you like to formulate the defence?”

“We have to evaluate two hypotheses and work on those. The first is that Ladisa was talking rubbish just to boast. The second is that Salvagno was influence peddling to increase his fees, and I think that's the likelier of the two. It wouldn't be the first time: there are a good number of supposed leading lawyers in this city who've got rich by claiming they could oil the wheels and getting paid triple.”

“I know who you're referring to,” Annapaola said.

Consuelo seemed to be on the verge of asking who these leading lawyers were, but she held back. Another time, maybe.

“Anyway,” I resumed, “in order to explore these hypotheses, thinking of the possibility that the case might go to trial, we need to know everything about the four individuals concerned. In particular, we need information about Salvagno's financial situation, and something more about the accident in which he died. Assuming there is any more. But not for now. Right now, to speed things up, I'd like you to prepare me a dossier on Marelli – who's the least important of them from our point of view, because I think he told the truth – and one each on Capodacqua and Ladisa.”

“Do you want dossiers you could show to anyone, or complete ones?” Annapaola asked. She meant: dossiers containing only information that could be acquired without breaking the law, or – well,
complete
dossiers.

“Nobody's supposed to see them. I need them to figure out the best way to cross-examine Capodacqua. Providing it suits us to cross-examine him. It might be better not to ask him any questions at all and wait to see how the case
develops. Having said that, I have no interest in knowing who your sources are.”

Annapaola nodded.

“So we don't inquire into Salvagno's financial situation until later?” Consuelo asked.

“No, because that'll take time. Right now, the urgent thing is to prepare for the hearing.”

“But the date hasn't been fixed yet, has it?” Annapaola asked.

“We haven't received anything, but I think we'll get the ruling giving the go-ahead for the hearing in a few days and then we'll know the date.”

“So when do you need these dossiers for?”

“No rush. Yesterday.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

17

Five days later, two things happened. Notification arrived of the ruling granting a pretrial hearing – it was one week away: as I'd foreseen, they hadn't wasted any time – and the existence of the investigation was revealed by a news agency. That meant it would be picked up by various websites, the TV news and finally, the following morning, the daily papers.

There was no way of knowing the source of the press agency item, but evidence pointed to the likelihood that the information had been leaked by somebody involved in the investigation. The clearest proof was that there was no mention of a previous petition for a custody order or its rejection on the grounds of insufficient evidence. As usual, the item was brief and neutral, but the gist of it was clear enough: the head of the appeals division of the Court of Bari was being investigated in Lecce for the crime of judicial corruption. The charge, based on statements by an ex-Mafioso who had turned state's evidence, was that he had taken fifty thousand euros in return for ruling a prisoner's release. Judge Larocca's counsel for the defence was the “well-known Bari lawyer Guido Guerrieri”. That mention gave me a few moments of cloying smugness, which fortunately faded quickly.

I was in the office seeing clients when Larocca's call came in.

“Did you read it?”

“I was about to call you.”

“Those bastards in the Prosecutor's Department. It was them, I'm sure of it. What do we do, Guido?”

“Could you get here…” – I glanced at my diary, where two appointments were still marked – “… in an hour?”

He said yes. By the time I said goodbye he had already hung up.

An hour later he was sitting in the armchair in my office. The ringing of the entryphone had been so punctual as to make me think that Larocca had come early, maybe immediately after our phone conversation, and had waited outside.

He conveyed a sense of neglect that I hadn't noticed the previous times. He was wearing a rather old-fashioned suit, a purple tie and a blue striped shirt with a white collar.

There aren't many things I boast about, but one of them is never having owned a shirt like that.

“Did you see how they gave it?” He meant: the news.

“I assume they're convinced nobody knows about the custody petition or its rejection.”

“Do you think we should try talking to a few journalists and bringing that out into the open? That way people would know the examining magistrate already fucked them over.”

Why did it bother me so much when Larocca swore? The words he employed may have been inelegant, but they were in common use. And yet, every time he came out with one, I had the same sensation I would have felt if he had used it during a hearing. Maybe because there was a kind of ostentation, a vulgar bit of role playing, an awkwardness in the pose he was striking. It was an affectation, and it didn't ring true.

“I've thought about that, and I don't think it's a good idea. We'd only be spreading the news even more. People would know that the prosecutor has contested the decision and that there's going to be a pretrial hearing, and the press
would go wild. On the day of the hearing, they'd be all over us. I really don't think it's the sensible thing to do. Best to keep it all as quiet as possible.”

“And what if they leak the news of the hearing?”

“Then, of course, we'll have to reveal that the custody petition was rejected. But let's wait and see.”

Angrily, he passed his hand over his face, screwed up his eyes and clenched his jaw. These gestures, too, had something unnatural about them.

His expression, though, was genuine enough: that of a man terrified at the possibility that what he has constructed in life might fall to pieces, a judge dismayed by the sense of powerlessness that comes from finding yourself implicated in a criminal case. Few people are more upset at being under investigation than magistrates.

“Listen to me, Pierluigi. I know this is all very unpleasant for you, but I'm convinced we'll sort it out. First, I want to complete our inquiries in readiness for the hearing, then—”

“I want to come to Lecce, too. I want to be present at the hearing.”

Technically, the defendant's presence isn't necessary at a pretrial hearing. The only people who really have to be there are the judge, the prosecutor, counsel for the defence and the person who is to be examined.

My general feeling is that we lawyers work much better, and more soberly – at least those who understand the meaning of the word – if our clients aren't present in court and we don't have to demonstrate how much we deserve our fee. There are trials in which it's obvious that the defendant will be acquitted. The prosecutor knows it (if he's a real professional he'll ask for acquittal himself), the judge knows it and defence counsel knows it. In such cases, there is no need for long pleas. In fact, there's often no real need for a plea at
all. If his client isn't in court, the defence lawyer speaks for a few minutes, just as the judges linger in their chambers for only a few minutes. If, on the other hand, he is in court, we have to justify to him the money we have asked, or will ask, for our work. If you speak for five minutes, it's very likely that he'll question the amount once he's acquitted. That makes it necessary to speak at length and with indignation about what the defendant has unjustly had to suffer so far, along with all kinds of learned legal references and calls for justice. In the end, the result is the same, but the client is happier to pay. Or, if nothing else, puts up less resistance.

“I'm not sure it'd be a good idea. What use would your presence serve? It'd only arouse the journalists' curiosity.”

He took three or four short, violent, angry breaths through his nose. “Arseholes, damned arseholes. A judge only has to behave like a judge and not like a servant of the Prosecutor's Department who rubber-stamps everything, and it drives them crazy. You're a lawyer, so you understand me. If a prosecutor screws up – and you know they screw up a lot – I consider it my duty to punish that, not to smooth it over. I've rejected intercepts that were badly done, I've released individuals who in all probability were criminals of the worst kind when the investigations had been improperly and thoughtlessly conducted, with serious legal errors. It's obvious they're out to get me.”

“Pierluigi, I understand how perturbed you are…” –
Perturbed
? What is this vocabulary out of a nineteenth-century novel? I asked myself – “… but we have to keep a clear head. It's evident that quite a few people don't like you, and it's evident that the news that there are proceedings against you will please these people – including some magistrates in the Prosecutor's Department. But to go from that to imagining that Capodacqua was prompted to accuse you is
quite another matter. I really don't think that should be our line of defence. Not even as a back-up. It's a frontal attack that won't yield any useful results, apart from the fact that it's based on what I think is a false premise: that there's a conspiracy against you. We have to shift our ground. We have to look for alternative explanations, otherwise we'll be on a collision course. It's in our interest to lower the temperature and find a plausible version of events that'll allow you to come out of this business clean, as you should, without the prosecutors feeling that they're likely to lose face. We have to demolish the charge while giving them a get-out. That's always the best way.”

The telephone rang. I replied, and said that until further orders – I actually said
further orders
: my vocabulary really was getting out of hand – they weren't to put any calls through to me. As I hung up, I noticed that Larocca's feet were moving – moving of their own volition, he wasn't moving them – in the sequence tip-heel, tip-heel, almost as if they were miming a slightly grotesque walk.

“I'm really pissed off, Guido, I don't just want to
come out
of this business, I don't just want to be exonerated as soon as possible. My name has been bespattered by this garbage, and I want those who are responsible to pay.”

It often happens to me when I'm not convinced by something that someone is saying or when I see a false note in it: I allow myself to get distracted. And I have rather a personal way of doing that: I linger over
how
the person is talking rather than
what
he's saying.

If you're going to nitpick, I thought, you can't be bespattered by garbage, only by soft things like mud or – not to put too fine a point on it – shit. Saying that you've been bespattered by garbage is to construct a defective metaphor. To mean something, a metaphor has to have an inner
coherence. I can say that a certain investigation is garbage, and I can say that I've been bespattered by mud, meaning that my honour has been tarnished by something, but to talk about being bespattered by garbage means mixing metaphors and creating a small linguistic monster.

All right, I'm sorry. I know it isn't the mark of a balanced mind, but while Larocca was repeating things I had no desire to hear, this was more or less what I was thinking. For at least a couple of minutes, he spoke without knowing that the person he was talking to was somewhere else. At last I returned, and his voice faded back in.

“Guido, we have to prove that the accusations are
false
, not just that they're insufficient for me to be committed to trial. I want whoever set all this up to be tried for slander. I want it to be quite clear at the end of it all that they can't make such serious accusations with impunity.”

The problem with clients who are magistrates is that they think they know what has to be done and demand to frame their own defence. But the profession of magistrate and that of defence lawyer are very different. You may be a very good magistrate – Larocca certainly was – and not understand what the work of a lawyer really consists of, day to day and in detail. There are so many small invisible decisions that you have to make; there's your duty towards your client; there are balances to maintain: with judges, with prosecutors, with the police, with the employees of the clerk of the court's office; there are your relations with your colleagues. Magistrates – most of them, at least – have no idea that you think a lot about the judge: who he is, his psychology, what his priorities are: priorities which are sometimes noble but more often very human, if not petty.

When judges are investigated, they realize at last that finding yourself caught up in criminal proceedings can be
very unpleasant, and that courtrooms are places it's best to keep away from.

“One thing at a time, Pierluigi. Our first objective is to put an end to these proceedings without too much damage. Which means, before anything else, handling this pretrial hearing as best we can. I understand your reasons, I understand that you have a sacrosanct desire to protect your name and career, but we have to avoid letting our emotions interfere. Let's make sure of the result first. Later, maybe, we can weigh up the possibility of bringing charges for slander. I can tell you right now, though, that I'm not very convinced by the idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you then end up with no decision being made – which is the likeliest hypothesis, given that criminal intent in this case is going to be hard to prove – there will always be someone who says: Look, Judge Larocca may have been acquitted, but his accuser was also acquitted, so there must be something true in the accusation. You know the script.”

He seemed in search of an argument with which to reply, and luckily for me didn't find one. At this point, given that we had nothing more useful to do, my main desire was for him to leave me alone. Clients can be troublesome. Clients who are magistrates can be
very
troublesome.

So I decided to trust in my body language and stood up, trying to convey the idea of a friendly goodbye. It took him a few seconds, but finally he understood and also stood up.

I placed a hand on his shoulder as I guided him towards the door. “Within a couple of days, I'll have personal dossiers on Capodacqua and Marelli and I'll be able to prepare my cross-examination. If I need anything, I'll call you. The hearing is in a week. We have plenty of time.”