The Defense: A Novel

by Steve Cavanagh

  The New York Chambers Street Court building was an old Victorian Gothic-style courthouse on steroids. Twenty-one courts spread over nineteen floors.

  I counted twenty people in the line ahead of me.

  The courthouse greeted visitors with a fifty-foot-wide stone staircase leading up to a row of Corinthian columns that sheltered a run-down entrance hall last decorated in the sixties. More people came and stood behind me as we slowly shuffled up the steps. I chanced an upward glance at the building. Statues, busts of former presidents and the first justices of New York, sat along the ledges, but time and weather were taking their toll on the old place.

  As I climbed the last step, I felt sweat running down my cheek. My shirt clung to my back and made me even more aware of the bomb, which felt warm and alien. I counted only twelve people in front of me.

  Getting into the courthouse without being searched seemed to be even more of a remote possibility than it had first appeared in the limo. Without consciously removing it from my pocket, I suddenly became aware of my pen in my right hand. Trudging slowly toward the entrance, I rolled my pen around my fingers absently. I’d often found myself doing this without even realizing. Somehow it helped me think. The pen had been a gift from Amy.

  At the time it had felt like a parting gift. When I’d been drinking, I’d rarely made it home. About a week before Father’s Day, Christine decided I should move out and that Amy had a right to know. Christine told me that she didn’t recognize me anymore and that it was better for Amy not to have to watch me decline any further.

  Kids are smart, and Amy is smarter than most. She knew something bad was on the horizon when she saw both of us standing at her bedroom door. She’d tied up her long blond hair so that it wouldn’t get in her eyes while she worked on her computer. As usual, she wore her favorite denim jacket over her jammies; if she wasn’t sleeping or in school, she wore that jacket, covered in pins with smiley faces and rock band logos. She’d saved her weekly allowance for a whole month to buy it in a cheap clothing store, then set about decorating it in her own style. I stared at her for a while—we both did. Before we could say anything, she simply put aside her laptop and cried. We didn’t need to tell her anything. She saw it coming a mile away. She asked the usual questions: How long would I be gone? Is it permanent? Why can’t we just get along? I didn’t have any answers. I just sat on the bed beside her, hugged her, and tried to be strong. Instead, I felt ashamed. Glancing at her laptop, I noticed she was looking at a website that sold engraved pens and had selected one with the inscription WORLD’S BEST DAD.

  The pen stopped in my hand, the same pen Amy gave me just after I moved out of the house. I glanced down at the single word engraved on the polished aluminum shaft—DAD. She nearly broke my heart with that one. I stuffed the pen into my hip pocket and checked the line.

  Ten people in front of me.

  A whir from heavy machinery drew my attention skyward. The mayor had authorized extensive, external building restorations for the courthouse, and a huge suspended scaffold stage hung from the roof, cradling the stone workers about four floors from the top. It was difficult to make out the workmen from the ground, but even from this distance I could see the stage gently swaying in the wind. They were blasting the dirt from the masonry and restoring the broken ornamental work. Developers wanted to pull down the courthouse and move justice to cheaper accommodations. With the mayor being a former lawyer, it hadn’t taken long for a petition to get the backing of influential councilmen. The courthouse could stay. They would restore the exterior and continue to let the interior rot away. New York was like that sometimes, content to let the polished veneer hide the rotting corpse in the basement. The reality was that Chambers Street Courthouse had historical value, as it was the first night court ever to be established in the United States. Night court is the most important court in the city. Every defendant has to be brought before a judge within twenty-four hours of being charged. With three hundred arrests per day in Manhattan alone, that meant an extra court sitting from five p.m. through to one a.m. When the recession really took hold, crime in the city went up. Now Chambers Street ran a criminal court twenty-four hours a day. Justice didn’t sleep in this courthouse, and it hadn’t closed its doors in the last two years.

  As the line moved slowly forward, I began to hear the occasional beep from the security equipment. Luckily, I knew the security guards by name. One of the secrets to successful litigation was getting to know the court staff—all of them. You never know when you’ll need a favor—an urgent fax picked up, a wayward client located, change for the coffee machine, or in my case, somebody to come get me when an urgent call came through to the pay phone in the lobby.

  Eight people ahead of me.

  I looked around the reporter’s shoulder to get a better view of the entrance hall security. Barry and Edgar were handling the door. Security in most New York courts is handled by security officers who are really cops in all but name. They carry guns and wear a uniform. They can arrest you, restrain you, and if you are enough of a threat, they can put you down, permanently.

  Barry stood behind the bag scanner, handling the trays, collecting cell phones, keys, wallets, and bags and putting them through the X-ray scanner while people stepped underneath the arch of the walk-through metal detector and hoped not to beep. Edgar patted down, removed forgotten offending items found on a person, and then resubmitted them through the gray arch until he was satisfied.

  Beyond those guys, I saw a young, fair-haired guard I didn’t recognize. Behind him I saw a fourth guard. He stood ten feet back from the security entrance with his hands resting on his gun belt, thumbs tucked behind the leather, his arms hanging over his bloated stomach. It wasn’t unusual to have an extra security officer in the lobby as a backup. I couldn’t place this guy; he had a mustache and small, piglike black eyes. Although I couldn’t remember seeing him before, I decided that I must have met him because he clearly recognized me. Barry, Edgar, and the new kid were concentrating on checking those people at the head of the line. The fat guard never took his eyes off me.

  Six people between me and the security check.

  I brushed sweat out of my eyes.

  If I waited in line, I would be put through the same procedure as everyone else. I tried to recall how I usually acted. For me, entering this building had been like brushing my teeth; I had done it every morning, but I couldn’t remember a single thing about it. Did I just rock in past the security check? Did I wait like everyone else and then get waved through? As I stood in the line, with hands trembling and my mouth dry and bitter, I was close to panic. I couldn’t remember any single occasion of having walked through those doors.

  Only four in front.

  The bomb felt bigger and heavier with every step. The fat guard was still staring at me. Maybe I was giving off all the warning signals that these guys were trained to look out for. Since 9/11, everyone who’s even remotely involved in law enforcement gets trained on how to recognize a potential terrorist threat.

  I thought of Amy wiping her tears on her jammies, begging me not to leave.

  No. I was through letting down my daughter. I made up my mind instantly. Terrorists don’t bump the line. They wait. They want to blend in and look inconspicuous. I decided to be a brash, arrogant dick and be as loud and obnoxious as possible in the hope the fat guard thought I was just a jerk, not a potential bomber.

  People called after me as I moved past them. I heard the reporter mutter, “Asshole.” My heart rate picked up its pace again, faster and faster the closer I got to the head of the line.

  “Hey, Barry. Let me buzz in real quick. I’m late for my big comeback,” I said as I moved through the metal detector, causing a really loud beep. It was probably just as loud for everyone, but it seemed deafening to me. I switched my gaze to the fat guard. He hadn’t moved. He just stared. Edgar, on the other hand, was focused on searching a man at the head of the line.

  “Eddie!” said Barry. He got up ou
t of his seat at the scanner screen and shuffled around the machine. “I need to see you for a second.”

  I quickened my pace and moved for the hall, but the young, blond guard put his hands up to bar my way. He kept his hands there, in a crucifix position, and it took me a second to realize he wanted me to adopt the same position—so he could search me. I kept my hands low.

  The fat guard started forward. Had I been made?

  I thought about making a run for it. Push everyone out of the way and dart back out past the crowd. Behind me, a huge, bearded guy stood in the doorway, blocking out everything including most of the daylight. No way past him. I fought down the urge to run, and my legs started to shake.

  “Hey, kid, usually you have to buy me dinner first,” I said.

  “Just hold up your hands, sir. I need to do a quick search.”

  “Look, kid, I have to go. I’ve never met you before, but trust me, I practically lived here for about ten years. I’m a lawyer. Ask Barry,” I said as I tried to move past him.

  His open palm hovered inches above the butt of his Beretta, and his fingers flexed like a bad actor in an old Western.

  I stopped dead.

  “What? You gonna ask me to draw, cowboy?”

  I could feel people behind me getting out of the way. It was all going to be over in a heartbeat, thanks to a walking doughnut shop and one stupid kid who just wanted to do his job.

  “Hank, let Eddie through,” Barry said, coming to my rescue.

  Hank dropped his arms, rolled his eyes, and stepped to the side. The fat guard stopped and folded his hands across his stomach.

  Barry waved a finger at me, chuckled, and said, “That bastard Saint Christopher will end up earning you a cavity search one of these days.”

  How the hell had I forgotten that? I thought. Popping open an extra button on my shirt, I drew out the silver chain. I laughed nervously before I swung the white-gold Saint Christopher medal at Barry.

  It all came back to me.

  When I first started out in the law and began representing clients in this courthouse, I set off the alarm every day. Barry, Edgar, and others would search me, find nothing, and then send me through the scanner again, only to hear the same beep. That medal had been around my neck since I was a teenager. I never took it off; it was like an extra limb. I didn’t think about it. While the guards asked me if I had a steel plate in my leg and I took off most of my clothes and they scratched their heads in disbelief at why I was still beeping, a line would begin to build up behind me. It was Barry, one wet Wednesday morning, who finally found the chain. He told all the security guards about it. Looking back, I couldn’t remember being searched after that. If I beeped, I walked on, and if a guard bothered to get out of his seat to search me, I would take out my chain and wave it at him as I went by. Even after 9/11 I wasn’t searched. By then I was a known face; I was there every day. Searching me would be like searching the judges. I’d even represented a couple of the guards. They began to see me as a fixture in the court, as a friend. There was no need to search a friend. It must have been the adrenaline, the shock of my situation hitting me, or the booze or the knock on the head from the big Russian, but for some reason, I hadn’t remembered anything about the medal until Barry had mentioned it.

  “Don’t you know who this guy is?” said Barry. “This is Mr. Eddie Flynn. I forget you haven’t been here that long. This guy’s the best lawyer in New York. You look after him and he’ll look after you. He needs anything, you call me.”

  Reluctantly, Hank nodded and turned to the person behind me to call them through the metal detector. Barry was probably busting this kid’s balls every minute of every shift.

  I watched the fat guard turn and walk away.

  That was close, far too goddamn close.

  “Barry, I really got to go, man. I’m so late. I’m in the mob trial starting this morning, and I don’t even know what court I’m supposed to be in.”

  “I didn’t know you were representing that scumbag. You’re in luck anyways: Judge Pike is hearing that case, and she’s still having breakfast. Edgar and I have to go get her in fifteen minutes. Sorry about the kid. Been trying to teach him something, but he’s too stupid to learn. Come on, just over here. It won’t take a sec.”

  Looking around, I couldn’t see anyone from Volchek’s crew in the line. But they could have other eyes I hadn’t spotted yet. My ears rang with the sound of my pulse. I didn’t know what Barry wanted. What if he had a whiff of something from Jack? What if the Russians saw me in whispered conversation with Barry?

  I had to talk to him. He would know something was up if I didn’t.

  “Sure,” I said, my head spinning in all directions as we walked to the corner of the lobby. Barry gestured for me to come in close.

  “It’s Terry,” said Barry. “He meant to speak to you about his RSI case.” I thanked God silently. Barry wanted to catch a freebie for his pal. I liked Barry. He was in his sixties and close to retirement, an ex-cop who just wanted to sit behind an X-ray machine until he finished his shift and then hit the bar.

  “Terry’s with Hollinger and Dunne, and they’re costing him a fortune. I told him to go see you at the start of all this, but he wanted to go with the union lawyer. I couldn’t talk him out of it. They’ve taken sixty grand already, and he’s only seen one doctor. Could you take a look at his case file?”

  At that moment I would have given Terry a kiss and a seven-course meal at the Ritz if it got me away from security, never mind a free ride on a repetitive strain injury case.

  “Tell him I’ll represent him for free,” I said.

  Barry smiled. “I’ll tell him, all right. I’ll call him right now. He’s up on twelve.”

  “Look, I really gotta split, Barry.”

  “No problem. And thanks. I’m gonna tell him right now. He won’t friggin’ believe it.”

  I got out from under Barry’s spell quicker than I’d hoped, and he sprang back to his seat behind the scanner.

  I was in.

  Turning, I put my back to the cool marble and felt the bomb clinging to my spine as I took in the line of people pouring through the entrance.

  My watch read nine thirty. We had maybe a half hour before the trial began.

  Arturas came through security and then hefted a large, Samsonite suitcase off the rollers after it had been through the X-ray scanner. He put it down on the floor and wheeled it behind him as he came over.

  “Well done,” he said.

  I said nothing. He reached behind me and pressed the elevator button.

  The elevator doors opened, and I pressed the button for the fourteenth floor, which housed court sixteen. Arturas pressed the top floor, floor nineteen.

  “We’re in court sixteen. It’s on the fourteenth floor,” I said.

  “We have a room upstairs. You need to change for court,” said Arturas.

  The doors closed, and I heard the counterweight take off as we began to slowly ascend.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As I rode the elevator to the top floor, I couldn’t help but think about the old courthouse that had shaped so much of my life. The Chambers Street Courthouse had made me and broke me. Old-timers who hustled plea bargains in the lower courts called it the “Dracula Hotel,” but no one was really sure why. Some said it was because of a long-serving judge who bore a striking resemblance to Bela Lugosi. For me, this courthouse had actually served as my hotel for the last six months of my law practice. Jack Halloran and I were trying desperately to fight off the recession and capitalize on the rising crime rate in the city. It could have been a gold mine for the right set of criminal attorneys. So we hit the criminal courts hard. We handled our cases during the day, then hung out and hustled the new arrests at night court. Most defendants didn’t have a lawyer at night court because most law offices were closed, and there were only a limited number of reliable criminal law practices that carried a twenty-four-hour emergency service.

  We worked our regular nine-to
-five and then split the shifts; on Monday I would do the first court session of five thirty to one a.m.; then Jack took the graveyard shift. We’d swap shifts the next day and so on. By the time I wrapped up a case at, say, three a.m. or sometimes five a.m., there would be little point in me going home, so I’d put my head down in a conference room, or sometimes, if the other lawyers got there first to speak to their clients or get some shut-eye themselves, some of the clerks let me doze in their colleague’s office. Or I might have had a drink with Judge Harry Ford before falling asleep on the couch in his chambers. The only good thing about the Dracula Hotel was that it was free.

  The old courthouse was due a health check in the next six months. The money City Hall had spent on refurbishing the outer shell was being reported as wasteful by city management. Most of the upper floors were unoccupied apart from old filing cabinets and furniture that wasn’t worth saving. A lot of the support staff had relocated to the new offices across the street, which was another blow for the campaign to save the building.

  The elevator door opened on floor nineteen: a whole floor of unused offices. I’d been up there before in the early hours to sleep before my next hearing. I’d spent more nights sleeping in different parts of the courthouse than I cared to remember. There were few facilities in the building, and the main problem was the lack of conference rooms where you can talk privately with your client. I’d used some of the old offices up there to consult. But aside from the occasional lawyer whispering with a client, or a lawyer catching a power nap, nobody came up there.

  A moldy smell seemed to permeate through the walls. No one had been up there to do any cleaning in some time. We turned right out of the elevator, walked along a wide corridor, and then stopped at the second door on the right. Arturas took a set of keys from his coat pocket and slipped one into the lock. The lock looked brand-new. Arturas had planned on bringing me here. He opened the door and went inside, dragging the suitcase behind him. He closed and locked the door after me. The room within served as a large reception area for a judge’s chambers. The reception area contained a stained desk, three green leather, studded couches, and an ancient photocopier.