The Two-Witness Rule: A Novel

by William Eleazer

  Their conversation continued about employment possibilities; old criminal trials that Scott had prosecuted, including the Harrison trials; quirky criminal defense attorneys; and recent and unusual events at the Library Bar. Eventually the conversation got around to the Atlanta Braves and remained about the Braves for the rest of the journey.

  They arrived well in advance of the first pitch and were pleased to see that Chipper Jones, who had often been sidelined with knee, back, or shoulder injuries, was in the lineup. It was a balmy 78 degrees, and the stadium was packed—over forty thousand. The Braves got off to a 8-0 lead, thanks in part to a two-run homer by Greg Norton and stellar pitching by Mark Hampton. And they remained in control, winning 11-5 and ending a five-game losing streak.

  “Time to celebrate!” Juri said after the Giants hit into a double play, ending the game.

  Scott was in full agreement. He had a ravishing appetite and had already selected a restaurant where he planned to order a big steak and taste some of Atlanta’s craft beers: Colosimo’s—“Diamond Jim’s” restaurant out at Buckhead. Scott had been curious about it and its 1920s decor since his friend Grady had described it. After clearing the traffic at the stadium, it was a short drive, less than twenty minutes.

  There was a twenty-minute wait for a table, and Scott took that time for a self-directed tour of the restaurant, which with its four dining rooms and its long, wide hallways, was a significant undertaking. It was as Grady described, quite garish, with an authentic Chicago “Roaring Twenties” look—marble-topped furniture, Italian tapestries, glazed chintz draperies, copper wall sconces, and slag glass lamps on each dining table producing just enough light to read the menu. The dining rooms all had Victorian gaslight chandeliers, though Scott could not tell whether they were simulated or real. Waiters wore formal attire—black trousers; long sleeve white shirts; black, button-front vests; and black bow ties. The waitresses were dressed similarly, except they wore black shorts so revealing they seemed to end where they started. The hall walls were decorated with photos of Chicago in the 1920s—speakeasies, gangsters, flappers in various costumes—at least half of which were semi-nudes—and warehouses full of barrels of bootleg whiskey, some showing federal agents with axes, hovering over barrels that were gushing moonshine onto the warehouse floor. There was a large photo of what was claimed to be one of the two hundred brothels owned and operated by the original “Diamond Jim” Colosimo. A lighting track ran above, and individual lights illuminated all the photos.

  In a large vestibule near the restaurant entrance were numerous photos and biographical information of Chicago’s “Diamond Jim.” It showed a large man with slicked back dark hair and a wide and broad black moustache covering at least a quarter of his face. He was wearing a dark wool suit coat with a V-neck waistcoat, white shirt, and dark bow tie. Several photos showed his large hands, with enormous diamonds decorating most of his fingers. The largest photo was approximately five feet high and three feet wide. And as Grady had promised, the bio beneath it attested that “Diamond Jim” died in a hail of gunfire by someone tied to the mob. What impressed Scott most was that the bio wasn’t merely printed and framed, but was engraved on a large heavy brass plate with quarter-inch black lettering. A bit of an overkill even for this “Roaring Twenties” themed restaurant, Scott thought.

  Juri waited in the large, lavishly-furnished bar for the availability of their table in one of the dining rooms. He was more interested in the bar’s milieu and operation than in the hallway decor. He leafed through the restaurant’s ten-page wine list. He had visited Bern’s Steak House in Tampa and had seen its impressive wine list of 6,500 selections. The Colosimo’s list was minuscule by comparison but still impressive. The least expensive bottle was fifty dollars, with most priced around a hundred. Some, like Caymus Estate Cabernet and Opus I, were in the hundreds. A few had prices in the thousands. Juri wondered if anyone actually ordered wine for a thousand dollars a bottle at any Atlanta restaurant or if it was merely for show.

  When he received notice that their table was ready, he left the bar to find Scott, who still had not completed his tour of the hallways. They were escorted to a small table in the Capone Room, the largest dining room. Colosimo’s restaurant featured beer from Chicago’s Mickey Finn’s Brewery. Both ordered an oatmeal stout named Pint O’Porridge, which Juri had heard of but never sampled. It was excellent. He made a mental note to see if he could find a distributor and add it to his menu at the Library Bar. This was followed by their steak orders. Both ordered one of the house specialties and the steaks were superb. They sat enjoying their beer and steaks, discussing the game they had just watched at Turner Field and the Braves’ chances for making the playoffs this year or next. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. The only downside—and a minor one— was a strolling violinist dressed in fashionable 1920s attire. There was a note attached to the menu that the violinist was there “for your dining pleasure and he is not to be tipped.” He was quite talented, but he just seemed to appear too frequently and hover at their tableside, which stopped their conversation.

  They had finished their meal and just finished paying the check when there was a disturbance at a table on the other side of the dining room. A lady seemed to be shouting for help, but at first they could not make out just what she was saying. Juri stood up from the table, and then clearly heard her shout, “He’s choking . . . choking, help, somebody please!” Two waiters were nearby, and one appeared to be holding onto a man to steady him. The other just seemed to be glancing around the room. The lady was frantic, still shouting for help.

  Within seconds, Juri was at her table. The middle-aged man was obviously in great distress. He was bent forward with both hands clutching his throat. Juri turned his face into the man’s face and could see his painful expression. His eyes were opened wide with a fixed stare. He could not speak. Juri turned to the waiter who was standing behind the man, and said, “Move! And call 911.”

  The waiter quickly jumped backward, and Juri moved behind the man and administered a quick forceful slap between the man’s shoulder blades with the heel of his right hand. Nothing was coughed up. He waited a second or two and then gave another. After five such slaps, still nothing was dislodged from his throat and he remained in serious distress. Juri could see his lips were beginning to turn blue. The lady was apparently not in a position to see the change of color, as she had quit screaming. She stood frozen nearby, with wide eyes and tight lips and her arms firmly clutching her chest.

  Juri moved behind the man and locked his arms around his waist just below the rib cage. Grasping his hands together, he placed the underside of one fist in the middle of the man’s abdomen, thumb-side against the abdomen, and made separate inward and upward thrusts. On the third thrust, the man jerked, and a small piece of his dinner steak was dislodged from his throat. He spit it out. Juri eased him on to a nearby chair. The man was now breathing heavily but no longer showing serious signs of distress. The lady, apparently his wife, moved to comfort him. Juri remained nearby until he was sure his assistance was no longer needed.

  A small crowd had gathered to watch. Soon, paramedics were on the scene and began examining the man. One of the paramedics asked the crowd to please leave the area. As the crowd began to disperse, someone whom Scott had seen only once before, appeared.

  It was James Colosimo. “Well, well, well. Mr. Marino,” he said. “What do we owe the pleasure of this visit from the Savannah DA’s office?”

  Scott was not especially surprised to see Colosimo. He knew that Colosimo, as owner, could possibly be at the restaurant during the visit. But he had not seen him during his twenty-minute tour before dinner and would have missed him had the near tragedy not occurred in his dining room.

  “I came for a steak dinner.” Scott extended his hand toward Juri and continued. “My friend, Juri, came to save one of your customers from choking to death. Your waiters seemed to be clueless.”


  Colosimo looked over at Juri, who was standing near the paramedic team that was tending to the choking victim. “Yes, I saw him help the man. But, I must say I’m surprised to see you here after hearing of your recent incident down in Savannah.”

  “What recent incident?” Scott quickly replied.

  “Oh, come now. We have sources for the information. Your little late-night visit last Wednesday was caught on camera. I don’t want to embarrass you. I’m just curious of the status of the investigation.”

  Scott gave Colosimo a searing look as the words sunk in. So this is the man responsible for the setup at the Henry Grady Inn! He found himself breathing faster and deeper, and he could feel his anger overtaking his thoughts. He knew he must control himself. Take it easy, Scott, he tried to tell himself. Stay cool, Scott. But it was no use.

  “So you’re the son-of-a-bitch that set it up! You fucking slimy bastard!” Scott shouted, as he clenched his fist and stepped toward Colosimo. And just as suddenly, a man appeared at Colosimo’s side, and Colosimo stepped behind him. Then another man appeared at his side, and within seconds half the wait staff of the restaurant had appeared and formed a wall around Colosimo.

  Juri had heard and observed the entire confrontation. He rushed over and grabbed Scott by the arm. “Don’t do it, Scott. We’re way outnumbered. This is their turf. Let’s get out of here.”

  Scott did not move and neither did the opposition. They all stood silently, immobile, glaring. Then with both hands on Scott’s shoulders, Juri firmly pushed him toward the exit. Scott was not resisting but neither was he leaving willingly. Colosimo and his assistants did not follow, and soon Scott and Juri were out of the restaurant. They got into the Camaro and headed south on Peachtree, with Scott behind the wheel.

  “Juri, sorry we had to leave. You didn’t even get a ‘thank you’ for saving that guy’s life. If we had stayed maybe you would have gotten a meal voucher.” Scott looked over at Juri with a grin. “But you were awesome. He was turning blue, and he would surely have died right there had you not taken charge. Where did you learn that?”

  “Signed up for a first aid class that taught it. Everyone in the restaurant business should know how to treat a choking victim. Should be a requirement for a permit.”

  “Well you obviously learned the procedure well. He owes you his life.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t follow all the recommended steps. As I recall them now, I believe I was to ask the guy if he was choking, tell him I can help, and then get his damn permission to assist before slapping him on the back. I think that’s to keep from getting sued if the procedure fails. I recall wondering during the instruction if that really could be followed—now I know. I heard the lady shouting, ‘He’s choking. Help!’ And the guy was grabbing his throat and turning blue. So, I’m supposed to say, ‘Sir, you appear to be in serious distress, are you perhaps choking, maybe got something stuck down in your throat?’ And he says, ‘Now that you mention it, sure appears that way.’ And then I say, ‘Well, I’m trained in a procedure that is frequently used to assist choking victims. Would you like me to assist you?’ And he says, ‘I think that would be a marvelous idea. Where do I sign?’”

  Scott laughed, “I don’t think that would have worked tonight. You did good, Juri. No question that if you hadn’t taken charge with some quick action, that would be the last steak that guy would ever see.”

  “That man you called a ‘slimy bastard’—that was the restaurant owner, Colosimo? Max Gordon’s attorney?”

  “That’s him,” Scott replied.

  “You should have called him a ‘cheap slimy bastard’—like you said, no meal voucher, not even a drink offer at the bar. Do you suppose we did something that pissed them off?”

  Scott laughed but did not respond. They drove south on I-75 in silence. Juri knew Scott was now in deep thought and decided it best not to interrupt him. It was now a little after midnight and traffic on the Interstate was light. Scott was maintaining a steady speed of about 65 mph, and Juri found himself dozing off occasionally. At Macon—about an hour south of Atlanta—they took I-16, which would take them to Savannah. They had gone only a few miles on this new Interstate when Scott startled Juri by smacking the center of the steering wheel hard with an open palm, and exclaiming, “I’ve decided!”

  Juri sat up in his seat and turned toward Scott. He had just dozed off, and it took him a long moment to respond. “Decided what, Scott?”

  “I’m going back to the DA’s office and take over the Max Gordon trial. I want to watch that cheap slimy bastard and his slimy client when the jury brings in the verdict. I want to be right there, I don’t want to just read about it.”

  “Good decision. That’s where you belong.”

  “Apparently the DA and my boss, Joe Fasi, at least for a while, didn’t believe so.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Scott. With what they knew then, I think they took the right action. They had a responsibility to do it. They had a photo of your car with your license plate clearly showing. No one else drives it. You said so yourself. And the young lady—the so-called victim—she ID’d you from your driver’s license photo. What else could they think? They obviously respected you or they would have arrested you on the spot. And one other thing I’ve been thinking about. You told me you heard Max Gordon tell his attorney as they were leaving the courtroom, to ‘get that arrogant son-of-a-bitch off the case.’ Did you ever tell Fasi or the DA about that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you should have; it may have made a difference. When they got that initial investigative report, they may have said, ‘Hey, wasn’t Max Gordon out to get Scott from the get-go? This thing at the Henry Grady doesn’t sound like the Scott we know. Maybe this is a setup.’ But they didn’t have that possibility to consider. You’re being way too unforgiving. They did what they had to do. That’s my take on it.”

  Juri looked at Scott as he spoke, and Scott occasionally turned to make eye contact, which was difficult in the dim light. But he did not respond, and Juri did not speak further.

  They were almost to Savannah when Scott finally spoke. “Juri, you are right. They did what they had to do. I should be grateful—and I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Monday, August 18

  Scott was in his office by 7:30 a.m. Monday. He wasn’t sure of the protocol for what he had to do that day, but he knew he had to do it. The task—informing Joe Fasi of his decision regarding the Gordon case—was heavy on his mind. He had plenty of work to do on his other cases and decided there was no rush. That task could wait until the afternoon, and he would keep it as low-key as possible. He would not explain any of his reasons and did not expect any further explanation from his boss. He would just try to take up where he left off.

  The issue was resolved painlessly and more quickly than he expected. Fasi entered his office with a large file.

  “Here’s the Gordon case, Scott. I hope you are ready to take it again. You are still lead counsel, and I’m ready to assist as second chair—just let me know how I can help.”

  Scott took the file from Fasi and said, “Thanks. I hope you’ll do the jury selection. That’s still my weakest part, and you are good at it.”

  “Sure, I’ll take it. I actually enjoy jury selection. I think you will too, eventually.”

  “Well, I’m getting plenty of practice in my other cases, just not there yet.”

  “Keep me posted on this case. Josh has a special interest in it. I’m sure he’ll be wanting me to update him soon.” Fasi began to walk toward the door, then turned. “And let me know when you hear from his attorney—‘Diamond Jim’ I believe you call him?”

  “No, I don’t call him ‘Diamond Jim.’ He would prefer that I call him ‘Diamond Jim,’ but the last time I saw him, which was Saturday night, I called him a ‘slimy bastard.’ I think you should hear how that came about. Why don’t you have
a seat, and I’ll tell you about it.”

  Fasi gave Scott a puzzled look and walked over to a chair beside Scott’s desk and sat. Scott began by telling him briefly of the trip to Turner Field for the ball game. Then he gave a detailed report of their visit to Colosimo’s, the choking incident, and the appearance of “Diamond Jim” and his question about the “little late night visit that was caught on camera.”

  “I was ready to give him a Tennessee knuckle sandwich, but he ducked behind one of his goons. And then, we were quickly outnumbered by about eight to two. Juri ushered me out and we headed back to Savannah. Guess I was lucky—I might be calling from Atlanta about now, asking for you to bail me out of the Fulton County Jail.”

  Fasi had listened intently as Scott relayed the story, shaking his head slowly as Scott ended.

  “No way Colosimo could have any information on the incident unless he or someone working for him organized it. The investigation was strictly confidential,” Fasi said.

  “Bill Baldwin can vouch for that,” Scott said. “I asked him to find out why I was interviewed regarding some incident at the Henry Grady Inn. He spent a couple days asking around and came up empty—and he has good connections with a number of Savannah detectives.”

  “So it was obviously a set up, and Colosimo was somehow involved. We have to get this information to Carl DeBickero—he’s now in charge of the investigation,” Fasi replied.

  “I’ll brief him today. I’ll be checking in with him this afternoon to discuss preparation for the trial.”

  “Good. And I’ll brief Josh,” Fasi said as he got up to leave. “He considers this one of the most important cases we have right now, and he’ll be expecting weekly briefings. You are still lead counsel, but I’m involved in this trial, too, so let’s plan to meet and discuss it early next week—I’ll check my calendar and call you.”