An Engineered Injustice

by William L. Myers Jr.

  “What do you have for me?” Balzac says.

  “In a few hours, I’ll have your associate.”

  “A few hours?”

  “Yeah. I was waiting for her this morning, outside her house. You know, she has that town house and usually walks to work. But today she drove out of her garage, and I’ve been following her since. Five and a half hours so far. We’re on I-80, just outside of Youngstown, Ohio, heading toward Akron. I thought for sure she’d have had to stop by now, but that girl sure can hold her pee. Or maybe she’s wearing a diaper like that female astronaut who drove fourteen hours to her boyfriend’s house to kill him. Anyway, I’m going to follow her until she stops, which she’ll have to sooner or later, then zap her with the stun gun. I’ll toss her into the trunk and head back.”

  Balzac breathes a big sigh of relief. “Good man,” he says. “Just don’t let her get away.”

  “How’d that hearing go today? With the engineer?”

  “Not good. He remembers that he was being shot at. And they had Jack’s video from inside the cab.”

  “Fuck me,” Badgett says, drawing out the words.

  “Fuck us all, if the engineer’s lawyer has anything else up his sleeve.”

  “What’s Jack say?”

  “I can’t reach him.”

  This clearly shocks Badgett. “You don’t think there’s any way he—”

  “I can’t imagine it,” Balzac cuts him off. “But . . .”

  Balzac wonders whether Coburn could have Bunting in the wings, ready to testify tomorrow. He mulls this and realizes it can’t be the case; if Jack had turned coat, he’d have been the first witness the defense put on the stand. Coburn would simply have had Bunting lay it all out, in detail, for the court: the plan, the participants, how it was actually done. And that would have been the end of it. The judge would have released the engineer and taken him and Day into custody.

  No. Coburn didn’t put Bunting on because he doesn’t have him. The best he had was the engineer’s fantastic claim and the video showing him talking on his phone when he shouldn’t have been, and diving to the floor, God knows why.

  Those were the strongest cards in Coburn’s deck, which is why he led with them. Which means that from here on out, his evidence is going to get weaker and weaker.

  An hour after Balzac hangs up with Badgett, Vaughn is sitting on his couch at home, channel surfing the local six o’clock news. They all lead with what they call Eddy’s “bombshell” testimony that he was shot at, and the “dramatic” video showing him diving to the floor. It’s exactly what Vaughn was hoping for. In the media, at least, this is no longer a clear-cut case of a train crash caused by a criminally reckless engineer. To the contrary, it seems Eddy the Villain might in fact be Eddy the Victim.

  But vindication in the press is a hollow victory. Other than Nunzio, there is only one audience that matters here: Regina Johnson. And she’s made it clear that Eddy’s testimony and the videotape haven’t convinced her of anything.

  Vaughn lifts his cell and dials Erin’s number, again. She’s been on the phone for an hour, and he keeps getting thrown to voice mail.

  Why doesn’t she just put the other person on hold and answer me?

  “Vaughn?”

  “Finally.”

  “I’ve been talking with Laurie, and—”

  “Where is she?”

  “Will you let me talk?” Erin huffs and then goes on. “Her brother lives in Toledo. She’d planned to drive there but got too tired to go on and stopped for the night, just outside of Youngstown, Ohio—”

  “Ohio! What the f—”

  “Stop! She’s afraid, Vaughn. She’s worked with Balzac for nine years, and she has a good sense of what he’s about. And she told me that if he’s willing to crash a trainful of people, he’s willing to hurt her as well. And I really couldn’t disagree with her on that.”

  Vaughn exhales loudly. “But we need her. Without Laurie, there’s no crash-in-progress video. No link to Balzac. No tie-in to Geoffrey’s drone.”

  “I get it. That’s why I’m going to find her.”

  “You can’t leave. I need you to testify yourself tomorrow.”

  “I have to go. Laurie’s not going to listen to anyone but me. Call Tommy and tell him to pick me up at my place, ASAP. We’ll drive to her hotel, and, hopefully, I can convince her to come back.”

  “But Akron has to be six hours away. The hearing starts at eight tomorrow.”

  “That gives us fourteen hours. If we drive fast, we can make it there and back in time.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Vaughn says, rubbing his forehead.

  “Call Tommy.” Erin hangs up.

  Midnight. Royce Badgett sits in the driver’s seat of his Cadillac CTS—a present forced on him by the boss six years ago for his work on a truck-on-bus accident. He’s parked behind the Fortune Garden Restaurant, which shares a parking lot with the Motel 6 on Belmont Avenue, off exit 229 from I-80. His car faces the motel, a two-story ’70s-style structure where the cash-strapped can rent a room for fifty bucks a night. Not the kind of place you’d expect to find a hotshot Philly lawyer pulling down $200K a year. Which, he figures, is why Laurie Mitzner is staying here on her way to who-knows-where.

  Mitzner pulled in just after 5:30 p.m., Badgett right behind her. While she checked in at the office building, he parked across from her car, in front of Fortune Garden. She exited the office after about ten minutes and moved her car to the main building. Royce watched her pull her suitcase through a first-floor doorway, then reappear on the second-floor balcony. The motel was one of those places where the doors to the rooms were on the outside—a fact that Badgett knows will be helpful when the time comes to take the young lawyer.

  Badgett positioned his car so he could keep an eye on Laurie’s door, make sure she didn’t leave. He watched for two hours, until he was satisfied that she was going to stay the night, then drove across the street to the Station Square Ristoranti, where he wolfed down the broiled stuffed-shrimp appetizer, spaghetti con funghi, and Granny’s apple pie.

  Now, sitting in his car, Badgett is about ready to make his move. His plan is simple: he’ll walk over to the hotel, go up to the girl’s door, quietly pick the lock, enter, point a gun at her head, and tell her to keep her mouth shut. He’ll walk her to his car, open the trunk, stun-gun her, and push her inside. Tape her mouth, bind her hands and feet—maybe feel her up a little—then head back down the pike to Philly.

  He’d have gone in a lot sooner, but there was too much activity at the grungy motel. Surprising for a Thursday night, he thought, but who can figure out Ohio? You know what they say about Ohioans . . . Badgett chuckles to himself. On the great trek westward, they were the first ones to quit.

  Badgett starts to open his car door when he sees a Ford F-150 pull into the lot in front of the hotel. Shit, another delay, he thinks. Wait a minute . . . Badgett leans forward to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. Getting out of the pickup is Day’s associate, the one who’s screwing Vaughn Coburn. And with her is the big hard case who followed him for a while, then tried to ply him for information at the bar. Coburn’s investigator.

  “Trifecta,” he says out loud. The boss’ll be as happy as a pig in doo-doo.

  Badgett reformulates his plan. He’ll barge into the motel room with his sawed-off shotgun to show them he means business. Then he’ll have one of the girls bind the big guy’s hands behind his back so that the investigator can’t make trouble. He’ll march them all to the car and drive off to some secluded place, get them out of the car, and stuff them all into the trunk. He’ll put a couple of slugs in the investigator’s head and maybe Coburn’s girlfriend’s head, too. He can’t hurt the boss’s associate because the boss wants her for himself.

  Standing outside the hotel, Tommy asks Erin, “Now what?” This is because, although Laurie told Erin what hotel she was staying in, she didn’t share the room number. Erin didn’t ask because she didn’t want Laurie to know tha
t she intended to show up. Which might’ve caused her to scram. But Erin knew that her only chance of persuading Laurie to change her mind and come back to Philadelphia was a face-to-face meeting.

  Erin thinks for a moment, then says, “Streetcar Named Desire.”

  “What?”

  “Laur-ie!” Erin shouts the name. “Laurie! Laurie!”

  Tommy joins in.

  A door opens on the second floor of the motel. Laurie runs out, leans over the balcony, and whisper-shouts down to Erin and Tommy. “Do you want the whole world to know where I am? Why don’t you just run a newspaper ad?”

  Laurie turns and walks back to her room but leaves the door ajar. Taking the hint, Tommy and Erin race into the hotel and up the stairs.

  Ten minutes later, Tommy is doing his best to keep the two women from coming to blows. Erin has cajoled, begged, and cursed, but Laurie refuses to budge. Now the two lawyers are facing off across the bed, yelling at each other.

  “You can’t leave Vaughn in the lurch,” insists Erin. “You can’t let his cousin get sent to prison for something that’s not his fault. And you can’t let those two murderers walk free!”

  “Balzac will kill me if I go back. He knows. Somehow, he knows that I copied the crash video and gave it to you.”

  “And tomorrow, the whole world will know. That’s the whole point. The news is carrying the story about the video already. This is how you get safe. You testify to clear Eddy Coburn and sic the legal system on Balzac and Day.”

  “They’ll find a way out of it, Erin. You know they will. They’re smart. They’re slick. And they have all the money in the world. They’ll find some way to turn it all around, and I’ll end up holding the bag, or worse. And if—” Laurie is about to say, And if you think I’m going back with you, you’re crazy, but she stops short when she sees the man standing in the open doorway—Erin and Tommy must not have locked the door—holding a sawed-off shotgun.

  The first thought that flashes through Laurie’s mind is this: Why is the president of Russia staying at a Motel 6?

  Then she realizes what’s happened.

  Royce Badgett closes the door behind him and smiles. “Well, well. The gang’s all here.”

  At the same time Royce Badgett enters the hotel room, Vaughn picks up his cell to call Erin. It’s been a half hour since he last spoke with her, and she’d told him she and Tommy were almost at the hotel. They should’ve been there by now, met with Laurie, and called him.

  Vaughn has spent the past two hours pacing his apartment. The past two hours, and the two hours before that. This is already the longest night of his life, and it’s not even half over.

  Erin’s phone starts to ring, and Tommy warns her with his eyes.

  “Don’t even think about it, sweetheart,” Badgett says. He orders Laurie—the more terrified of the two women—to come to him, and he hands her a set of Safariland double cuffs. He nods toward Tommy and tells Laurie to secure Tommy’s hands behind his back. “Nice and tight,” he says.

  Standing next to Laurie, on the far side of the bed from the door, Tommy takes in the room, the furniture, and all the players, searching for a way to avoid being restrained and to take out that scrawny crook Badgett. But the sawed-off is insurmountable. He could leap left, or right, or dive across the bed, but it would be impossible not be ripped apart by the shotgun blast, which would certainly catch Erin and Laurie as well.

  “Fuck,” Tommy says.

  Badgett chuckles, and gestures with a nod for Laurie Mitzner to get busy. As Laurie moves away from the door toward Tommy to apply the plastic cuffs, Badgett sees Tommy and Erin look behind him. Before he has the time to figure out why, his right wrist—the wrist of his trigger-finger hand—is splintered by what feels like an iron vise grip, and he’s lifted off the floor. When Badgett looks down at the vise grip, he sees that it’s a huge human hand. Despite himself, he starts to scream as his shotgun hits the carpet.

  Laurie Mitzner turns around and sees her captor being held—like a schoolboy holds his books—against the hip of the biggest man she’s ever laid eyes on. Badgett is wriggling and writhing maniacally, like a cat held over a tubful of water.

  Johnny Giacobetti balls his free fist and smashes it squarely into Royce’s nose. The sound of crunching nasal cartilage is sickening, and Laurie and Erin wince. Still, they’re all relieved when the Putin doppelgänger loses consciousness and stops moving.

  Tommy stares, amazed, and says, “How in the hell—”

  “I was following you. Well, not you. Her.” He nods to Erin. “I was outside her apartment building when she ran out to your truck. I tailed you the whole way here. It wasn’t long before I noticed this joker was tailing you, too. Who is he?”

  “He grew up with Balzac,” Erin answers for Tommy. “My guess is he’s working for him.” Erin pauses, then demands to know, “Why were you following me?”

  “To get to the bottom of this.”

  Erin is taken aback. “What the hell does that mean? You know what’s at the bottom of this. And who: Balzac and Day. You and your boss saw the video of Eddy inside the train.”

  “Yeah, we saw the video. And we heard the judge say it didn’t really mean shit. Bunting handed it over, but he didn’t admit anything about the scheme your boyfriend says was cooked up by those two P.I. lawyers. Your boyfriend, who looked the judge in the eye and sold her a bullshit story about some messenger giving him the video.”

  “Are you saying you don’t trust us?”

  “Trust?” This draws a snort from Johnny Giacobetti.

  “What are you going to do now?” Tommy interjects.

  The big man smiles but says nothing. His boss will soon be on his Gulfstream G650 headed for a nearby private airport. Jimmy Nutzo has the plane equipped with a special “fun” room, in which Royce Badgett will have no fun at all.

  Laurie Mitzner collapses on the bed. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “Laurie, stand up!” It’s Erin. “We’re going back to Philadelphia, and you’re coming with us. You said you were afraid of Balzac? Look at this giant, then look at Balzac’s little toad. Still afraid?”

  Laurie shifts her gaze back and forth between Johnny G. and Royce Badgett. Then she slowly lifts herself from the bed and looks Johnny G. in the eyes. “Do it again,” she says.

  Giacobetti furrows his brow until he figures out what Laurie wants. Then he smiles and punches the unconscious Badgett in the face.

  “Thank you,” Laurie says. Then, to Tommy and Erin: “Come on. Let’s get those bastards.”

  36

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 1

  An absolute disaster. That’s what Vaughn is thinking. It’s almost eight o’clock, and Judge Johnson will take the bench minutes from now. And Vaughn has no witnesses. Erin, Laurie, and Tommy took off from Youngstown shortly after 12:30 this morning. That gave them seven and a half hours to get to Philly. Just enough time. But Erin called at 5:30 and told Vaughn they were caught in a massive traffic jam on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. A tractor-trailer overturned and blocked both lanes. Nothing was moving. Vaughn called back at 6:00 and 6:30, and nothing had changed. At 7:00, there was some movement, but not much. At 7:30, things were clearing and they were making good time, but they were still two hours out. With court starting at 8:00, Vaughn now has ninety minutes of trial time to fill.

  Eddy is nervous. He fidgets, shifts in his seat, taps his feet. Vaughn is nervous, too, though he’s doing his best not to show it. He looks back at Kate, Vaughn’s parents, and the rest of the family, and smiles. His bosses, Susan and Mick, are present today, and he nods at them. With the revelation of the video, Susan has done a 180-degree turn and now fully supports Vaughn in his efforts to save his cousin and to nail those who caused the crash.

  “Good morning, everyone.” It’s Judge Johnson. Vaughn turns and sees that she’s already on the bench. The judge briefly discusses some administrative matters with her staff, then addresses Vaughn. “Present your first witness.”

  Vaughn sta
nds. “Your Honor, we have an issue with our witnesses. They are caught in transit and won’t be here until about nine thirty.”

  This doesn’t sit well with Regina Johnson. “Well, then, your client’s at bat.” She nods at Eddy. “Mr. Coburn, please take the stand for cross-examination,” she adds, turning to Christina Wesley.

  Christina stands. “Your Honor, as you may recall from yesterday, it was my hope to call the defendant after the defense had presented all of its own witnesses.”

  “And it was my hope to be rich and retired by now,” Regina Johnson says, drawing laughter. “I told you that you’d have your shot at the defendant. Well, here it is. Are you going to take it or not?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Until now, Christina has remained seated while questioning witnesses. But for Eddy, she’s going to stand. She walks to the podium between the prosecution and defense tables, and Vaughn still cannot get over her transformation since the Hanson case. Back then she’d been soft, maybe even a little flabby. Now, Christina’s arms, visible in her sleeveless blouse, are cut. Her leg muscles are well defined. Her eyes are predatory, her movements ferociously feline.

  Christina pauses at the podium and stares at Eddy. He holds her gaze for a moment, then looks away. As soon as he does so, Christina starts in on him.

  “As an experienced engineer at the time of the crash, you knew all about the 2008 Chatsworth crash, correct?”

  “Sure.”

  “Twenty-five people killed, dozens injured, all because the engineer was on his cell phone and didn’t see a red signal.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was to prevent something like that from ever happening again that Amtrak instituted its rule prohibiting engineers from having live phones in locomotive cabs?”

  “I guess so.”