Last Chance for Glory (9 page)

Steinberg leaned forward, tapped Blake’s sleeve again. His eyes narrowed to slits. “The cops started by charging my client with rape in the first degree, plus unlawful imprisonment. Add it up, it comes out twenty-nine to life, assuming the judges runs the two maximums consecutively which is exactly what the DA says’ll happen if we force a trial. Meanwhile, because the prosecutor, in her infinite mercy, doesn’t wanna put this poor girl through the ordeal of testifying, if we plead guilty to rape in the second degree, my client will get five years and do three of them.

“So, we go to the motions and I throw so much paperwork at the judge he nearly poops his pants. I challenge everything but the toilet paper in the mens’ room. The judge doesn’t even bother to set a trial date. He doesn’t know when he’ll make his ruling. He hates my guts and he makes it clear that his dislike extends to my client. What he doesn’t know is that a client like mine, a middle-class kid with a big ego, can’t see the difference between five years and twenty-five years. His knees shake if he thinks about five
minutes.
So, when I tell him, ‘Relax kid, you’re not gonna do a day,’ he stands pat.

“Next deal: rape in the third degree. My client gets three years, does one, and passes the time in a special section they got reserved for sexual rehabilitation. I can remember the ADA telling me this as if it happened ten minutes ago. It was like she was biting off her tongue, that’s how much she hated me. ‘I don’t think so,’ I tell her. ‘I haven’t been in court for a long time. I need the action. Let’s see how it turns out.’

“How it turns out is they finally give it up. Two days before the trial, they offer my client sexual misconduct, a misdemeanor. Three hundred hours of community service and two years of therapy.
No
time. Just like I promised.”

B
LAKE SHIFTED IN HIS
seat, toyed with an errant dessert fork. Wondering exactly what it was Steinberg wanted. What it is you’re supposed to say when a guy you just met informs you that he spends his days emptying septic tanks with a soup spoon.

Gee, that’s wonderful. And it’s very nice of you to describe it lump by lump.

Meanwhile, the lawyer, his head cocked to the left, was staring at him through one narrowed eye. As if expecting a response.

Blake finally raised his snifter, managed a wink, reminded himself that he didn’t have to take this job.

“L’chayim,”
he said. Let the fat prick figure out what
that
meant.

Steinberg straightened up.
“L’chayim.
By all means. To life. Because that’s just what it is for a criminal lawyer. That’s what life is. One sleazebag after another. And the more successful you get, the worse
they
get. Loan sharks, pimps, wise guys, rapists.” Steinberg leaned forward, but this time he didn’t tap Blake’s sleeve. He grabbed Blake’s wrist and squeezed hard. “One day, about four years ago, I’m sitting in my office. It was right after another victory. A victory with a celebration, like this one. I wouldn’t say I was drunk, but I was feeling cocky. You know, like the prizefighter, John. L. Sullivan, who used to walk into bars and shout, ‘I can lick any man in the house.’”

Blake pulled his arm back, started to say something, finally decided that discretion was, indeed, the better part of valor. He told himself to wait, that Steinberg would get down to business soon enough. It wasn’t like they were about to do lunch.

“So, I’m sitting there,” Steinberg continued, “feeling no pain, when I suddenly get this notion in my head: How many killers have I saved? How many dead bodies in my filing cabinets, on my balance sheet, in my tax returns? Could I fill my house with ghosts? Put a victim in every room? Under the beds? In the shower? The refrigerator? The medicine chest?”

“You’re nuts, Steinberg.” Blake shook his head in what he hoped was admiration. He sipped at his brandy, noting the onset of a very predictable recklessness. If he kept going, he’d pass through that recklessness, pass into belligerence. He put the glass down, resolved not to pick it up again.

“First,” Steinberg continued, ignoring Blake’s remark, “I say to myself, murderers only, but then I decide to count
any
homicide. I mean, to the victim it’s all the same, right? So, I go to the filing cabinets and I thumb my way through. Any homicide where I’m sure my client was guilty, which happens to be
all
of them, I make a little mark on my fifty-percent Egyptian-cotton stationery. When I get to twenty-five marks, I give it up. The last client’s name is Minelli, a wholesale butcher. He chopped up his business partner with a cleaver. Him, I couldn’t get off the hook. Get it? The hook? The
meat
hook?”

Steinberg paused, sat back in chair. Blake knew he was expected to force a polite laugh, but he couldn’t even manage a smile.

“Now, listen close, Blake, because I’m getting to the point. Right there, sitting on the carpet with the files spread around me, I make a decision. The next day, I start spreading the word: Give me an innocent man who’s been convicted of a crime and I’ll get that man out of prison.”

“What, no innocent women?” Blake noted the wig begin to slide forward. A bad sign. “Just kidding, Mister Steinberg.”

“Max, please. If we’re going to have a relationship, it should be Max.” The wig slowed, finally stopped. “What I’m getting at is this: I’ve got a lot of experience with innocent people who’ve been
convicted
of a crime they didn’t commit. What I
don’t
have is experience with an innocent person who pleaded guilty and waived his right to appeal. You know what I’m saying here, Martin? You know about trials?”

“Maybe you better refresh my memory.” The truth was that Blake had never worked for a criminal lawyer.

“Okay, first you get busted, then you get arraigned, then you get indicted. That’s all rubber-stamp, if you take my meaning. The client’s first chance to fight back comes when both sides make pre-trial motions. By this time, you know what the prosecution’s got, at least in the way of physical evidence, eyewitness identification, etc. And what you wanna do is get as much of it thrown out as possible. Are you with me so far?”

“All the way.”

“Good. Now, this particular defendant, whose name is William Sowell, happens to have an IQ of 68. When the cops pick him up, they tell him they’re just trying to clear his name, but they need his cooperation. That’s the kiss of death, Martin. When they say they’re just trying to clear your name, run for your fucking life. But what does this kid know? He’s homeless; he’s retarded; he’s a drunk. Seventy-two hours later he gives them a statement. He
confesses.

“Martin, you could take this to the bank—if
I
had been Billy Sowell’s lawyer, that confession would’ve been so much toilet paper. Meanwhile, the kid’s Legal Aid lawyer writes a brief that’s almost incoherent and the judge lets the confession in. Likewise for a photo array and a lineup so biased they wouldn’t get past a freshman law student. But the kicker is the hypnosis. Think of it, Martin, all the prosecution has is Sowell’s confession and an eyewitness who puts him next to the body …”

“That’s
all?”

The wig began to move forward again. “Joanna told me you were experienced. Forgive me for saying this, Martin, but you seem a bit naive.”

“I’m sorry, Max. It doesn’t really matter, anyway.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m an investigator, not a cop. What I do is report what I find, one way or the other.” What he didn’t add was that his field experience ran to undercover work in corporate computer rooms. That he had no street experience whatever. “Just go ahead. I’m not making any judgments here.”

“Look, this kid has a mental age of ten years. The cops interrogated him for seventy-two hours. There’s
no
physical evidence connecting him to the crime. They took samples of his blood and his hair, they took fibers from his overcoat, they tested his clothes for bloodstains—
nothing.
I ask you, Martin, if you were a judge, would you let a jury hear that confession?”

“No,” Blake admitted. “Not if the kid’s retarded. I wouldn’t.”

“Good. Now let’s take the magic witness. It starts with her walking her dog at three o’clock in the morning. She comes out of her building and sees a man standing next to a car which turns out to have a body in the backseat. Two hours later, she describes the man like this—dark, curly hair, wearing an expensive overcoat. That’s it. Somehow, between that first description and her testimony before the Grand Jury, she becomes one hundred percent convinced that Billy Sowell, a homeless drunk with a four-inch scar under his left eye, is the man she saw. The man she said she couldn’t identify two hours after the original incident. You beginning to get the point, Martin?”

Blake looked at the brandy, then back at Steinberg. “You’ve got my attention here. Keep going.”

“Okay, now to the kicker. To the
mystery.
Three weeks after the incident, the witness, one Melody Mitchell, undergoes hypnotic regression. You know what that is?”

“That’s where you go back in time, right?”

“Exactly. Now, the cops have been using regression for a long time, decades, at least. And what the courts have discovered is that hypnotized individuals are very suggestible. You can put things in their heads; it’s that simple. Most of the time, the prosecutor not only can’t get the hypnosis admitted, he loses the witness forever. In fact, most of the time, the prosecutor doesn’t even try. Especially in New York, where the judges are very strict about evidence.”

Steinberg paused for a moment. He picked up his fork, toyed with a small chunk of now-cold lobster, popped it into his mouth. “But this judge admitted the whole ball of wax. And I’m not talking about some law-and-order freak. I’m talking about Judge John McGuire, who cut his teeth at the American Civil Liberties Union. John McGuire who has eyes for the federal bench. It’s beyond belief, Martin. Beyond belief.”

Blake looked at his hands, wondering what to do with them. He was at the point where even the Hennessy looked good. The cigarettes he’d given up two years before beckoned to him like the ghost of his first lover.

“You talking about a fix? Some kind of political pressure?” He picked up the snifter, drained it, set it back down.

“Hey, you’re the detective, Martin. I’m saying what happened shouldn’t have happened. And that’s not the end of it. A couple of weeks before Billy Sowell’s trial date, the prosecution offers him a deal. Manslaughter in the first degree with a six-year minimum. Remember, the original charge is murder in the second degree, plus attempted rape. The murder alone carries a mandatory twenty-five. Looks pretty good, right, because under normal conditions, you can appeal the motions while you’re doing your time. The twist here is that the deal only goes down if Sowell waives his right to appeal. Which, on the advice of his lawyer, he does.”

“From what you’re saying, Max, it sounds like his lawyer oughta be taken out and shot. Or maybe you think he was part of the fix.”

Steinberg grunted his disapproval. “You’re putting the cart before the horse.” He leaned forward, dropped his elbows to the table, dropped his chin into his hands. “Right now, the only basis for appeal is Billy Sowell’s competency. What I’m gonna say is that he was too stupid to plead guilty, that he was so retarded that he couldn’t appreciate the consequences of his decision. What I’d
like
to do is add that his attorney was also incompetent. Maybe he was a drunk or on cocaine. Or maybe he was having marital problems, or under investigation for a crime of his own. It doesn’t matter. What the Appellate Court’s gonna need is an excuse, a reason to grant Billy Sowell a trial. If you can make the kid’s lawyer part of that excuse, you’ve already done your job.”

“Yeah, well I don’t see any problem here. I can work up a background check in a few days. If there’s anything there …”

Steinberg shook his head from side to side. The wig, a half-beat behind, followed obediently. “That’s not enough, Martin. I want you a hundred percent committed to getting this kid out of prison. Losing is not on my agenda. Likewise for giving it the old college try. You follow the trail wherever it leads. Remember this, Blake: Steinberg doesn’t back down. Memorize it.” He reached beneath the table, retrieved an attaché case, passed it across to Blake. “It’s all in there—the cops’ investigation, the Grand Jury testimony, the pre-trial briefs. Today’s Tuesday. Friday morning, you’ve got an appointment with Billy Sowell in Columbia State Prison. I’ll be in my office on Saturday morning. We’ll talk.”

Blake smiled at the dismissal. “Max,” he said, “if I understand you correctly, you’re doing this for nothing.
Pro bono.”

“Right.”

“Well, Max, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not in the charity business. I can’t
afford
to be in the charity business.”

“I’m covering your fee. Assuming it’s reasonable.”

“What it is, Max, is three hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. By the time I get into your office on Saturday, you’re gonna owe me a thousand dollars.”

B
ELA KOSINSKI PRIED A
green plastic swizzle stick out of a puddle of beer and stirred his drink. He did it slowly, solemnly, a half-smile on his face. The performance was part of a running joke between himself and Ed O’Leary, the bartender. The joke being that the transparent, tasteless, odorless liquid in the glass didn’t need mixing. It was pure vodka.

“Stirred,” Kosinski said, affecting a mangled British accent, “not shaken.”

O’Leary managed a perfunctory grunt, then turned back to the Yankees, who were down by four runs. The bartender, as Bela Kosinski knew, couldn’t have cared less about the Yankees. Or the Mets, or the Giants, or the Knicks. Ed supplemented his meager salary and the grudging tips left by the regulars at Cryders Bar & Grill with a little bookmaking. And “little” was the right way to describe O’Leary’s handle. A fin here, a sawbuck there—not enough to interest the wise guys who worked the Whitestone area in northern Queens. Just a few extra bucks to, as Ed liked to say, “keep the wife in curlers.”