Blood Money

by Laura M Rizio

  Grace smiled unsympathetically. “So? What’s the worst that can happen? You lose and you get what you wanted, but your ass is in a sling. You’re sued by the Riley’s for legal malpractice. Big deal, you’re insured,” she paused. “Or do you want vindication, too?” He chuckled, showing her a genuine smile for the first time in a week. She went on, almost yelling, further annoying the nearby diners. “You win, the Rileys are rich and so are you. Manin has no one to blame but himself.”

  “It’s blood money.” He took a long sip of the strong martini and winced. “I promised myself when I went to law school I’d go straight. No more hustling, no more bag boy for the bad guys, no more blood money. It’s always on your hands. I promised myself, and I promised Joe, too. And so far I’ve been clean—up till now.”

  “Stop with the double bind. Stop with the violins.” She threw up her hands and pushed her untouched drink across the table. “Give it away then.” Her green eyes flashed with anger and then drew up into thin slits of defiance. “Give the fucking money away.”

  The cell phone in Nick’s inside coat pocket vibrated. He pulled it out and flipped it open. “Ceratto,” he snapped.

  “Mr. Ceratto. This is Judge Primavera’s chambers. The jury has a verdict.”

  CHAPTER LI

  It was the moment that every trial lawyer worked toward, sweated blood for, and sometimes laid everything on the table for— emotionally, physically, and in the case of the plaintiff’s attorney, financially as well. There would be a winner and a loser, nothing in between. The twelve gods had shuffled into their respective thrones and waited silently for their cue.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?” Primavera had asked this question more times than he cared to count. These were the magic words that would unleash the sword that would blindly strike one side down and elevate the other. They would cause agony to one and ecstasy to the other. They would bring tears to one and shouts of joy to the other. Opening Pandora’s box was part of Primavera’s job. It was the part he liked the least. He preferred listening to testimony, the stuff of everyday life—ruling on objections, deciding what testimony and which documents were in and which were out, what the jury should consider and what it shouldn’t. In other words, he liked the academic exercise. He did not care for what it wrought, what laypeople, ordinary citizens, would do with it. People who could not escape their own bias, their own prejudices. People who understood little or nothing about applying the law he so carefully explained, or at least tried to explain, in his charge to them before they retired to the jury room to fight about who was right and who was wrong. In actuality, whom they liked and whom they didn’t. Who was a good dresser and who was a slob. Who had to get the hell out to go home, or to go to a job, and who would stay forever just to prove a point. Primavera knew that there was one certainty in a jury trial, and that was that there was no such thing as impartiality—no such thing as fairness. Flesh and blood by its very nature was tainted at birth. Chips were programmed, even his own as he would fully admit, and there was nothing he could do about it but preside over a process which he hoped would result in something resembling fair. He had accepted the fact that the half naked, blindfolded woman with a scale in one hand and a sword in the other was simply a mythical creature.

  “Yes we have, Your Honor.” It was no surprise that it was Alonzo Hodge who stood as the jury’s foreman to announce the decision, which had only taken forty-five minutes to make. He had dressed for the occasion. He wore a navy blue blazer, charcoal gray pants, a white shirt, and a brightly printed red tie. It was his moment, his fifteen minutes of fame, where all eyes were on him, all ears were tuned to him, and lives, important lives, depended on him. Alonzo liked the feeling, the power he had never had. He liked it a lot.

  Judge Primavera glanced nonchalantly at the verdict sheet through his thick glasses, pretending to be completely disassociated from the tension that ricocheted off the walls of the courtroom like a racquet ball. He would read the questions both sides had agreed would be presented to the jury, which the twelve had taken to the jury room to be answered one by one. “Question number one: was the defendant Doctor Victor Manin guilty of negligence?” Primavera intoned.

  Alonzo Hodge shifted his weight, squared his shoulders, and cocked his head. His eyes went to Manin briefly, and then back to the judge. “Yes,” he said in a loud, almost defiant tone.

  A low moan came from somewhere, but no one knew exactly who was responsible for it. Manin stood stoically, as he had been told to do by his attorney. “Show no emotion. Say nothing.”

  Asher took his own advice and willed his shaking knees into a locked position, as well as his jaw.

  Primavera appeared unmoved, although he could have been knocked over with a feather. He was a pro at masking his gut feelings. He went on, “Question number two: was that negligence a substantial factor in causing the Plaintiff Sean Riley’s death?”

  “Yes,” Alonzo answered with the same conviction, not hesitating for a second.

  Nick’s heart leapt. The next question was going to be how much. Every trial lawyer’s dream: to get through these first two questions with a yes. Emotionally, he was on a roller coaster ride. He wanted to win. After all, he was a courtroom gladiator. But at the same time he wanted to lose—to have the case go away without a verdict. But it didn’t and it wouldn’t. So he thought he might as well enjoy the ride.

  “Question number three: what do you award the plaintiff, Mrs. Riley, under the Wrongful Death Claim?” Primavera asked, following the questions on the verdict sheet. (This was the claim of the widow Riley and her sons for the loss of her husband and their father.)

  “Five million dollars.” The sum was announced flatly as flatly, as if it were five dollars.

  “Question number four: What do you award the estate of Sean Riley under the survivor’s claim?” (This was the claim that survived Sean Riley’s death to compensate him for his pain and suffering, the legacy to his estate that would be inherited by his widow and sons.) Before the foreman could announce the balance of the verdict, Dr. Manin turned away.

  “Five million dollars.” Alonzo Hodge’s voice drowned the sound of the doctor’s chair scraping back as he stood and quickly exited the courtroom. Asher was abandoned to face the pain alone.

  Primavera ignored Manin as the heavy door slammed shut behind him. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your service in this case. You are now excused.”

  Margaret Riley threw her arms around Nick’s neck. Her lined face broke into a tearful smile. “I knew you would win for Sean and me. I knew you wouldn’t let us down. You’re a good boy and a good lawyer. Thank you.” She leaned forward and kissed Nick’s cheek.

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Riley,” Nick whispered still keeping one eye on the judge. He smiled kindly at the woman who could be his mother. “Now let’s go talk to the jury,” he said, taking her by the hand. “May we approach the jury, Your Honor?”

  Judge Primavera always allowed both sides to question the jury to find out what led them to their decision. Usually, he wasn’t interested enough to stay to hear what fact, what facial expression, what shift of eye or body, or which witness, had triggered their decision. But this time he stayed put. He needed to know how in the name of God this jury reached this absurd result.

  John Asher didn’t hang around. He wasn’t interested in how or why. He didn’t waste a minute. He threw three bulky file boxes onto a cart to be picked up by his law clerk and was out the door, mentally formulating his appeal, in which he would ask Primavera to override the verdict. This was one appeal he felt he could not lose.

  CHAPTER LII

  It was a bright, clear winter morning. There wasn’t a cloud in the February sky, but the temperature at eighteen degrees nullified the warming effects of the sun. There were only four people at the grave site. Two were in the business and two were genuine mourners, or at least they were there to pay respects because no one else was. But all four were in a hurry to get it ov
er with. It was far too cold to do otherwise.

  The undertaker in a frayed black overcoat and a mismatched black suit nodded his head to signal the nondescript clergymen to begin the service. The Reverend Joseph Pick, unshaven and bleary eyed from a bout with the bottle the night before, began the Twenty-first Psalm and finished it in record time.

  “What a fucking shame,” Nick said under his breath in lieu of a prayer, while staring at the cheap metal box bearing the name of Doctor Victor Manin. Clouds of carbon monoxide billowed from the dented black hearse as it pulled away, leaving Grace and him standing alone in the cold. It was a pauper’s funeral for a bankrupt loser—a has-been who had made the fatal decision to believe in the system and trust the jury. He had given them the privilege of pulling the plug, and true to form they had. Nick had gotten the call from Mike Rosa the night of the verdict that Manin had OD’d on heroine. It happened in Montgomery County, at St. Barnabas Hospital, where Manin still maintained a small office, Rosa had gotten the call first. Soon it was out, and the suicide made the major newspapers and small local rags, as well as the local TV stations.

  DOCTOR FOUND GUILTY OF WRONGFUL DEATH COMMITS SUICIDE. KILLS SELF OVER PATIENT. TOO MUCH FOR SOCIETY DOC…

  Manin had left a short note of apology to Nick and John Asher for the trouble he had caused. Rosa personally delivered a copy to Nick the day after the suicide, telling him that he didn’t know whether to congratulate him or console him. He shook Nick’s hand and patted him on the back, giving him a little of each. He also broke the news that the FBI had caught up with Silvio in a disco in Tel Aviv. A teller at Bank Naomi had seen through the cheap wig and mustache disguise. It was the way he chewed his cigar that signaled his true identity. The young banker found the habit more disgusting this time than when he’d had the misfortune of having to deal with Silvio in person. And now found it enormously rewarding since there was two hundred thousand dollars on Silvio’s head. So the young Israeli didn’t pass go. He went straight to the police instead. Extradition documents were prepared and signed, and Silvio would soon be on his way back to Philadelphia. He would face charges from insurance fraud to capital murder.

  Nick shook Rosa’s hand, accepted the pat on the back, and thanked him for the news. He excused himself and went straight to bed. He wept. And he did not know whether it was from sheer exhaustion or sheer elation that things were finally falling into place, or because he had lost. He had not accomplished what he set out to do. Grace held him closely and he finally fell asleep in her arms. It was the first true sleep he had had in over a month.

  It was only fitting that he attend Manin’s funeral. Not only had he handed Nick a four million dollar attorney’s fee, forty percent of the jury’s award, but he also had an irresistible attachment to the man. He didn’t know why. He also had an irresistible urge to say good-bye. He knew Manin’s wife and family wouldn’t be there. He knew that John Asher wouldn’t attend the funeral of the man who had lost his firm its major client. Pro-Med fired Asher immediately after the verdict and hired a major competitor to file the appeal. Yes, there was an appeal, but the chances of Pro-Med winning it were somewhere between slim and none. The jury had told Nick after the trial that Dr. Manin had deviated from his own standard of care by not seeing his patient immediately after the surgery— not checking him as Donna Price testified he had done with other patients in recovery. Saying that if he had done this, Sean Riley would be alive. The negligence was in the aftercare, or lack thereof, according to Alonzo Hodge. “He was in a hurry to get with his rich buddies and his bitch of a wife and didn’t care what happened to the common man.” In other words, they bought Nick’s argument, or rather the widow Riley’s. No matter that Marina Doletov actually did the job; Manin had made it possible. There was even some speculation among other members that there might have been a conspiracy between Doletov and the doctor—that he would get a cut of whatever she might have been paid. They didn’t know if this was reasonable speculation, but they had heard of doctors murdering their own patients, or allowing them to be done in. “What was the name of that doctor in England?” the curly blond asked.

  Grace poked Nick as if to wake him from his trance. She pulled her coat protectively around her swelling middle trying to keep herself, as well as her unborn warm. “Let’s go, Nick. It’s over. Let him rest in peace now.” She picked up a half-frozen rose from the lone floral basket tossed on to the brown grass at the foot of the grave. It was from them. Not one of Dr. Manin’s friends or relatives had sent any acknowledgment, not even his own children. She gently laid the rose on the casket and turned toward the car.

  “Sorry, Doc.” Nick pulled his collar up around his freezing ears. “I did the best I could.” He took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and tossed it into the open grave. It was the last pack he would ever buy. “Have one. They can’t hurt you now. Nothing can hurt you now.” He made the sign of the cross and turned away.

  The Boxster hummed quietly along Roosevelt Boulevard toward Cottman Avenue and the entrance to Interstate 95. The inside of the car was almost too warm. Nick lowered the heat and down-shifted into second gear as he slowed to enter the Interstate, heading south toward home. He was silent, deep in thought as he watched the white strips on disappearing under the tires of the finely tuned sports car.

  Grace was grateful for the sun coming through the windows and the extra warmth it brought. The heat and the humming engine soon lulled her into sleep. She dozed until she felt the car abruptly stop. What seemed to her to have been five minutes had actually been a half hour. She opened her eyes to find that they were in the plaza of the Society Hill Towers, in front of the North Tower. A moving van was parked directly behind them. Nick said nothing to Grace. He opened the car door, got out, and began talking to one of the drivers, giving him directions to the freight elevators used for moving furniture and bulky objects in and out of the building. The driver backed the van up and pulled the huge rig around them, heading in the direction Nick had indicated.

  “Moving?” Grace asked jokingly as Nick reentered the driver’s seat.

  “Yep.” He looked straight ahead as he put the Boxster into gear.

  “You’re kidding,” she said with a strained, disbelieving smile. “Aren’t you…?”

  “Nope. I’m not.”

  “Wait,” she yelled. “Stop the car. I want to talk to you.”

  He shifted into park and turned the engine off abruptly.

  “OK, talk.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were doing this? No—wait. First, why are you doing this…and…” She hesitated, her eyes filling with tears. “…what about me?”

  Nick turned to her and for the first time in twenty-four hours, looked directly at her. “I didn’t think I had to tell you—number one. I’m doing this because I’m through with the law, clients, courtrooms, trials, juries, the whole goddamn thing—number two. I want—no, correction, I need a new life—that’s three. I appreciate what you did for me…

  “Fuck you,” she hissed. Her face turned scarlet. “No, you don’t. You don’t appreciate anything, you selfish bastard. You only appreciate yourself.”

  “Look, Gracie, I have to do this. I can’t stay here any longer.”

  “OK. Then where are you going?” She folded her arms defiantly over her chest. “Or don’t you want to tell me?”

  “I’ll tell you,” he said sharply, reaching in his coat pocket for the pack of Marlboros. But then he quickly remembered he had left them with Victor Manin. He threw up his hands in frustration. “Gracie, remember I told you no attachments, no commitments. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, I do.” She nodded her head, looking straight ahead. “I just want to know where to send the letter bomb.”

  Nick couldn’t help smiling. That’s my Grace, he thought. That was the smart Celtic mouth he knew and loved. “OK,” he laughed.

  “Well?” she prodded.

  “Nantucket.”

  “Nantucket? Where in God’s name is that?
It sounds like it belongs in a porno movie.”

  “It’s the opposite,” he answered defensively. “It’s an island thirty miles off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s natural. It’s clean. It’s got dirt roads, no traffic lights, and it’s quiet in winter. It’s got lighthouses, a windmill, fog, and roses growing on the roofs of houses—and it’s got history. It was the whaling capital of America, the Starbucks, the Macys, the Folgers…”

  “So what are you going to do? Catch whales?” she interrupted, still not looking at him.

  “Anything I can—except people.”

  “You’re going to be a fisherman?” She finally turned to him and burst into laughter.

  Nick said nothing. His face reddened. He tapped the steering wheel with his fingertips until she had finished laughing.

  “What’s wrong with being a fisherman?”

  “Nothing. But you’re a South Philly punk turned lawyer. You’re a slick mouthpiece, not a fisherman.”

  “I can learn, about boats, about the sea. I always wanted to sail—to be out there on the open ocean. It’s clean. It’s honest. Look, Grace, I changed careers once and did OK. I went from bag boy to trial lawyer, from one con job to another. I can go from being a con to being a straight guy with a boat. That should be easy.”

  “My ass,” she said scornfully. “It’s a dangerous, dirty job. Fishermen get lost at sea all the time. Even experienced ones.”

  “Yeah, true. But it’s no more dangerous than losing your soul like I’ve done. How many people died for this case, Grace? We were just lucky.”

  “Nick, tell me one thing. Who’s going to teach you to catch these slimy creatures, to pilot a boat?”