Justice Hunter

by Harper Dimmerman

  Fortunately for Hunter, Mancini was too busy barking directives at the other partners and playing with his new toy to engage in any substantive conversation. The longer Hunter could avoid the subject of Mediacast the better. Hopefully, because they were heading down the shore to see whomever it was Mancini wanted to see, Mancini wouldn’t have the Mediacast case on the brain for the majority of the afternoon. But Hunter couldn’t rule anything out with Mancini. He was obviously calculated as hell. And Hunter had this ominous feeling Mancini was just waiting for the right time to engage. Mancini needed something from him. Hunter was sure of it. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what that something was.

  And then in the distance, like a mirage rising out of the seedy strip leading up to it, the Atlantic City skyline came into view. Trump’s Taj Mahal. The Borgata. The Showboat. Hunter stared at the casinos, the ultimate symbols of American excess and greed.

  “You a gambler?” asked Mancini, accelerating.

  “No,” replied Hunter, shaking his head. “I mean once in a blue moon I play the slots, couple hands of poker. That’s about it.”

  “Wise man.”

  “And you?”

  “Can’t say the same for myself,” he replied with a deviant smile. “I’ve got to admit I’m a sucker for taking risks. Throwing caution to the wind and experiencing that fleeting moment of uncertainty. And of course the higher the stakes, the more intense the thrill,” he reminisced.

  “I wouldn’t know anything about high stakes. I usually just go with the table minimums.”

  “You see, you’re just underestimating your talents.”

  “Maybe,” considered Hunter. “But I’m probably a little more limited than you in the funds department,” he clarified with his palms turned outward, indicating the Bentley’s cabin as Exhibit A.

  “Oh. I see where you’re going with this,” he replied, like a mega-successful businessman negotiating with the headstrong novice he has decided to take under his wing. “Now what exactly is the going rate for a rising star like you these days?” he asked rhetorically. “Because whatever it is, it’s clearly not enough,” added Mancini, tongue-in-cheek with the classiest-looking wink Hunter had ever seen. Mancini was an unbelievably talented bullshit artist.

  “Amen. Now who do we need to talk with to make things right?” asked Hunter, playing along.

  “Well…” began Mancini, before something in his line of sight distracted him. He wailed on the Bentley’s powerful horn at a New Jersey Rail and Road bus that swerved in front of his car, cutting him off. Mancini was within inches of wrecking. “You fucking piece of shit!” he roared, morphing into a maniac in literally the blink of an eye.

  When the coast was clear, he glanced over calmly at Hunter, pretending he was road-rageless. “Apologies for the little outburst there, my friend.” His smile was positively fiendish. “It’s just that some of these morons are just trying to get rear-ended. The minute they see a nice grille behind them, they perk up and start seeing dollar signs. ‘Why not take that nice long disability holiday I’ve been dreaming about?’ that driver is probably asking himself right now. ‘And who cares that my bus just happens to filled to the gills with dozens of passengers? See those old people rotting away in the first few rows with their canes and their walkers? I’d be doing them a favor. Consider it a fucking gift. And the kids,’ the driver asks as he checks the oversized rearview. ‘Fuck ’em. They’ll grow up to be little degenerates anyway.’” Mancini broke off, clenching his rugged, angular jaw and shaking his head in disbelief. “‘So go ahead. Make my day. Hit me, you rich piece of shit. I’ll take my chances.’”

  Mancini was clearly in dire need of anger management. Either that or he was suffering from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome. It was a known fact that Mancini had a short fuse. But Hunter began to consider the possibility that this guy was out of his friggin’ gourd. The managing partner of his firm, one of the most powerful firms on the east coast, just might be a fucking ticking time bomb. Spectacular.

  “And to think I once represented New Jersey Rail and Road, this asshole’s employer,” he said with a cynical smile as he pursued the bus. The driver recklessly switched lanes, cutting off an Audi sedan this time. The brake lights on the trailing cars lit up suddenly as a half dozen drivers slammed on their brakes. A chain reaction collision was barely averted. “Can you believe this fucking guy?” asked Mancini, gunning it through a small opening in the passing lane. Hunter braced himself for a wreck, clenching the overhead handle.

  “So you represented them? Was this while you were at Whitman?” Hunter tried to distract him from the road-rage incident unfolding.

  “It was. A wrongful death case, as a matter of fact. Very early on in my career. Come to think of it, I may have been lead counsel on that one…” Mancini broke off, the wheels of his memory turning. “That’s right, I was.” Mancini glared at the grinning bus driver and then accelerated past him.

  “Isn’t it ironic, though?” asked Mancini. “When one of these guys slips up, some sucker like you or me winds up defending them. They know it, too. Get injured and collect. Meanwhile, the company’s left to clean up the mess. All the litigation. Construct defense theories around their imprudent decision making.”

  “It’s almost like corporate sabotage.” Hunter knew the point was slightly off the mark. But he decided to make it anyway. He was testing Mancini. Seeing how the word sabotage registered with him. After all, his suspicion all along was that Mancini was setting him up for a fall with the Vito’s case.

  “Sabotage?”

  Hunter tried to make eye contact. “Sure. It’s the little guy’s way of pulling the strings. Letting the bigwigs in corporate know that if the pay and benefits get too crappy, they can always expose the company to serious liability. It’s as simple as crashing.” He wanted Mancini to know that sabotage was a two-way street. Hunter had more control over the Vito’s case and Whitman than a partner like Mancini acknowledged. It was the firm’s astronomical malpractice policy at stake, not his.

  “I guess you’re right.” Mancini chewed on Hunter’s words like a preeminent food critic. Hunter breathed an internal sigh of relief when he realized a full-blown road-rage incident had been avoided. “I was given the case by the firm’s managing partner at the time.” Mancini smiled as if he could see the man standing before him. “A real waspy prick. His father was a senator. Harvard undergrad. Harvard law.”

  “Not bad,” said Hunter.

  “He lived in one of those old Tudor mansions on the Main Line. An avid squash player. Polo in the Hamptons. Custom-made suits. Chauffeured Rolls.” Supposedly Mancini lived in an exclusive luxury condo in town. He was the postmodern interpretation of a managing partner.

  “I know the kind.” The big firms in town were teeming with heirs to old-money fortunes. These trust fund babies grew up in the ritzy Philadelphia suburbs, otherwise known as the Main Line.

  “I bet you do,” replied Mancini. Most of these kids should’ve never been hired in the first place. It was nepotism at its finest. And for that reason alone, Hunter couldn’t help but kick their asses in the courtroom, deriving a significant amount of pleasure from the bludgeoning. “You probably wipe up the courtroom with their Brooks Brothers suits and hundred-dollar haircuts.” Mancini paused to make a point, giving Hunter a longer than usual glance. Mancini wanted to bond with him over their socioeconomic status. They were both scrappers from working middle-class families.

  “Anyway, back to my little anecdote,” Mancini said, maneuvering the Bentley around one of the curves winding into the heart of Atlantic City. Hunter tried to guess their exact destination. Who is this mystery mob connection? From the look of things, they were heading straight to one of the casinos. “And mind you, I was a second-year associate at the time.”

  “Second year?” Hunter couldn’t help but be impressed. Most big-firm associates didn’t see the inside of a courtroom until at least four or five years in. And even that was if the attorney
was fast-tracked. It was unheard of to get a major jury trial that early on.

  “Things were different back then, Hunter. Fewer associates, scarcer competition. Plus I was hungry,” he added, with a burning intensity in his eyes. “Voraciously so. Still am, in fact. How about you?” He stared him down, like a prisoner enlisting the support of a co-conspirator for an impossible escape.

  “Of course.” Am I?

  “Okay.” Mancini wrinkled his brow, unconvinced.

  “So where are we heading, incidentally?” They were stopped at a light on the way into town. The engine purred like a tame lion in the royal court.

  “Come on, Hunter,” he replied with a devious smile. “You wouldn’t want me to ruin the surprise now, would you?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Okay.” Hunter nodded, rolling with it. Frankly, he didn’t have any other choice. “So what was the upshot with this case?”

  “Right,” said Mancini, smiling. “This was a wild one. Some poor guy, Tomas Sapporino. I’ll never forget his name. So this poor guy got wedged between the doors as he tried to get off.”

  “He was wedged,” Hunter said sympathetically.

  “Correct. One of the train crews took their eye off the ball. Probably a relative of that hooligan back there driving the bus. By the time the conductor or anyone else noticed, it was too late. The victim had been dragged for about fifty feet until his muscles failed and the pressure sucked him under the moving train. Right onto the track.”

  “Terrible,” Hunter observed, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Needless to say, he was mortally wounded. Decapitated, actually. The pictures were horrific. Very damning evidence as well. Fortunately, I made sure they never came in. They were a deal-breaker.”

  “Don’t mean to sound crass,” said Hunter, “but what was the going rate for something like that twenty years ago? I’m assuming in the millions.”

  “Now that all depended on how lucky you got with defense counsel,” replied Mancini, smugly.

  “A case like that never gets to the jury. Either way, right?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. What would you have done?” asked Mancini, taking his eye off the road even as he raced through a busy intersection, past a string of outlet stores and throngs of possessed bargain shoppers.

  “Tough to say. Of course, I’d need to know a lot more. But based on what you’ve told me at least, the liability seems pretty irrefutable.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Mancini sported a Cheshire grin. He seemed to be getting off on his little test. “So you would’ve settled out. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “Very likely. But like I said, I would need more information.”

  “Fair enough. And my initial reaction was pretty much the same. The evidence seemed insurmountable, the liability irrefutable. All the red flags were there,” he recalled. “A defense attorney’s worst fucking nightmare. The perfect storm, if you will.” He paused for effect. “Which is precisely why I tried it to verdict.”

  “Verdict, huh?” he asked, impressed and considering the relevance. “Not sure I understand, though. Didn’t your instincts tell you otherwise? And the partners? I can’t imagine them agreeing to that.”

  “Ah,” replied Mancini, glad Hunter asked. “I faced resistance. Believe you me. Eventually, though, they all caved. Even the client, who was shitting bricks, as you can probably imagine.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “Just convinced them that I had an angle.” Even now, Mancini seemed amused that he had been able to pull it off. “The truth be told, I didn’t have a clue how I was going to defend them. I was bluffing. But you’d be surprised by how malleable people can be when you need them to be.” Mancini’s remark reminded Hunter of their initial meeting about the Vito’s case. Exactly how malleable does Mancini think I am? How impressionable am I?

  “Actually, I wouldn’t.”

  “Then I guess you’re starting to figure things out,” added Mancini cryptically.

  “Weren’t you afraid?”

  “Of what? Flushing my legal career down the shitter?” Mancini paused. “Of course I was. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t. But I had my own agenda, and I was letting nothing stand in the way. It was the perfect first jury trial. High stakes. Tons of publicity. In a way, I guess you could say I was blinded by ambition.”

  “Risky.”

  “Damn right. And without a safety net.”

  “So was it worth it? It couldn’t have gone too poorly, I suppose. New Jersey R and R is still at it and killing the occasional unsuspecting commuter.”

  “I could’ve crashed and burned. They could’ve taken a hit. Written it off. They’ve got more money than God. Self-insured for tens of millions. Same was true back then, too.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “No,” said Mancini, glaring with a don’t-ever-question-my-judgment-again scowl. “Failing wasn’t an option.”

  “Sounds like you pulled off a miracle, then.”

  “Nothing miraculous about it. The defense just eventually came into relief. They always do. Just gotta have a little faith.”

  “So what evidence came to light?”

  “The medical records. They painted a very grim picture of the decedent’s health. As fate would have it, he was dying. Stage-four sarcoma. Diagnosed just a few months before the accident.”

  Hunter wasn’t that impressed. “Could’ve made an even more sympathetic victim. I mean, I see how that would’ve impacted life expectancy for the purpose of damages. But if it were me, I’d still be afraid of coming across as heartless to the jury.”

  “There was a particularly good reason his illness mattered so much to the case.”

  Hunter looked at him inquisitively.

  “When the toxicology report came back, we learned he had various drugs in his system at the time of death, with the most predominant being a morphine-based painkiller.”

  Now things started to click for Hunter. “Which naturally causes severe drowsiness,” hypothesized Hunter.

  “Precisely.”

  “So he contributed to his own death.”

  “Sadly, that’s exactly what happened. And the fact that he’d been riding the same line for years without incident only strengthened our position. I mean, the guy should’ve been able to get off the car in his sleep by now. But for some reason, on a day when sedatives were racing through his system, he couldn’t do it. My accident reconstructionist offered an extremely plausible timeline to the jury. By the time he concluded his testimony, the only viable theory was that the decedent had waited too long.”

  “How about a warning system? Automatic shut-off?” Hunter played devil’s advocate. As gifted as Mancini appeared to be as a lawyer, Hunter’s moral compass was pointing in a different direction. A cancer victim had been decapitated, for God’s sake. And here’s Mancini getting his rocks off, playing the part of the world’s greatest defense lawyer.

  “That was my Achilles’ heel in the case. And as antiquated as this might sound, the train was not only fully operational. But it was also code compliant. Of course, had the accident occurred today, it would’ve been a different story altogether.”

  “So how did it end?”

  “Well,” considered Mancini. “Unfortunately, the jury got it wrong.”

  “So they didn’t buy your theory?”

  “Just the opposite. They bought it all. Hook, line, and sinker. It was purely a defense verdict.”

  “So the family walked away with nothing?”

  “The win was definitely bittersweet,” said Mancini, solemnly.

  “Hey, you had a job to do, I guess.” Hunter tried to put himself in Mancini’s shoes. Would his own ambition have permitted him to put on that kind of a case? “I’m assuming they appealed, though.”

  “Actually, they decided not to,” replied Mancini. “Fortunately for my client. Personally, I thought there were several grounds for reversal.”

  “That’s weird,” said
Hunter.

  “Actually, it wasn’t. Their lawyer had just hung his own shingle when he signed up the case. Don’t get me wrong, though. He was a shrewd lawyer,” backtracked Mancini. He was far too proud to admit to a weak opponent.

  “He ran out of money? I’m sure he took the case on contingency. He probably thought he’d be set for life after this one hit. A slam dunk like that.”

  “And I don’t fault him in the least. I probably would’ve thought the same way. A death case with immensely deep pockets.”

  “But deep pockets can also be a negative when things don’t go exactly according to plan,” suggested Hunter. Hunter’s firm, like the other behemoth firms in the city, had the resources and manpower to paper solo practitioners to death.

  “All I did was plant the seed. But by the look on his face, I could tell the guy’s litigation account was leaking like a sieve. Anyway, he did all of the convincing for me. In a New York minute, his clients had decided to let it go.”

  “Pretty terrible advice, right?”

  “I’d say.” Hunter paused. “Just can’t believe he would give up that easily. The family getting nothing? And to live with that on your conscience.”

  “So I take it the client was pretty happy,” added Hunter.

  “Ecstatic, actually.”

  “And the Whitman partners?”

  “Let’s just say I was officially on their radar.” Mancini took his eyes off the road to read Hunter’s reaction. Hunter could tell Mancini was examining his tenacity. It was all part of this seemingly never-ending partnership interview process. At that instant, though, the wheels of doubt were spinning furiously inside Hunter’s head. Was he truly cut out to be a defense lawyer? As Mancini’s war story proved, the best ones are merciless. “What’s wrong? Not sure you can do this?”