The rich to Evon were Other People. She’d never envied much of what went with money. Merrel’s husband, Roy, was a businessman, an MBA, who traveled all over the world and seemed to ship dollars home by the suitcaseful, but Evon wasn’t certain it had done her sister much good. Clubs and fashion, the competition to keep up often seemed to have constricted Merrel’s life.
When Evon climbed into the Mercedes each morning, Robbie was cheerful as a sunbeam. He zipped along, entertaining her with chatter, while she remained in the sullen funk of the sleep-deprived, still grieved that his circus act with Judge Medzyk had cost her another hour in bed.
Their first stop, a few miles in the wrong direction, was his mother’s nursing home. While he was inside, Evon read the paper. She pushed her seat back, reclined, took in the aroma of the leather. The engine ran and she had the enormous solid machine to herself. One morning he decided to invite her inside.
“Hell, come on, you’ll meet my ma.” It seemed unthinkable to him that she would have no interest. And she did, actually. She was curious about the woman who’d borne him.
The result of Mrs. Feaver’s stroke last year was a nearly total hemiplegic paralysis. She had no use of her left leg and only marginal ability to move the arm on that side. But she still could speak, much as Robbie occasionally wished that weren’t the case; after therapy she had no audible impairment. Mrs. Feaver’s home, the apartment in which Robbie had grown up, was a second-story walk-up, which she’d had to abandon as a result of her disability. Robbie had wanted to take her into his house, but his mother, even in her weakened state, would hear none of it. He had enough on his hands with Lorraine. After much discussion, this nursing home seemed to be the best alternative. It cost him a left lung, he said, which made him feel a little better.
Today Estelle Feaver sat upright in a padded day chair, dressed and ready for breakfast, which was still some time away. She held on to her heavy black-framed glasses with one hand, as if this might improve her vision, while she extended her neck turtle-like in the effort to follow the TV suspended on the opposite wall. Judging from the volume, her hearing, too, was failing. The utter immobility of her left side was apparent even from the doorway. Her arm hung down like wet laundry. She did not realize they had entered the room until Robbie was quite close to her. When she saw her son, she threw her right hand in the air, then recovered enough to whisk the glasses from her face and bury them in the folds of her skirt.
“Rob-bee!” She fell into his arms and lifted the one good hand to his shoulder. She held him for quite some time until her cloudy, dark eyes found Evon.
He introduced his new paralegal. To account for the fact that they were together so early in the morning, Robbie claimed they were heading to court. His mother’s mouth went through a series of sour reflexes that signified disbelief, but she looked away rather than castigate her son for his antics. Robbie, as always, happily avoided unpleasantness.
“She looks great, doesn’t she look great?” he asked Evon. Mrs. Feaver in fact looked simply old. Her skin was engraved by heavy wrinkles which the thickly applied base and makeup did not really hide, and the chin beneath her neck hung in several folds that no doubt displeased her. It was clear she continued to take pains with her appearance. Even if Robbie had not told Evon that he engaged a manicurist and a stylist to come to the home weekly, it would have been plain. There was no missing the incredible orangutan orange of the hair dye or the popping red paint on her nails; they contrasted too pointedly, both with the glum surroundings and with her decrepitness—the bent spine, the pallid spotted hands, the rattling cough. Looking at Mrs. Feaver, Evon found it difficult even to say that she might once have been attractive. Her nose was hawkish and her false teeth, on which some of her bright lipstick was smudged, seemed to have altered her jawline. But she was a force. You could feel that much. She brushed aside her son’s compliments with a show of bashfulness.
“Well, it’s just for him,” Estelle said. “Who else sees me in this place?”
In his cheerleading fashion Robbie again extolled the way his mother took care of herself, once more inviting Evon to chime in with praise of her own. She’d have been willing to flatter an old woman, although she’d never had much enthusiasm for ladies in war paint, the way they felt it was a female’s responsibility to be so much more colorful, more glittering and glamorous than God and nature had made them. These days her own hair was barely combed; she was growing more perfunctory with her Elizabeth Arden makeup every morning, and she’d taken the color off her nails several weeks ago.
But there proved no need to patronize. Mrs. Feaver continued as if Robbie had not invited Evon into their conversation. Evon saw quickly that, at least as far as Mrs. Feaver was concerned, no one really intruded on her relationship with her son. And in fact, as Robbie and his mother went on chortling over events here in the home, Evon realized that the same was true for him. They were so happy in each other’s presence! Robbie tended to speak of his mother as if she were a drain. But it was his disinterest, his objectivity, that was feigned. The man was really a through-and-through fake. He was as clearly bound to her as she was to him; his litany of compliments even, as her body failed, seemed sincere, a measure of the comfort he took in her physical presence. He held on to her hands as he questioned her about the doctor’s latest report, while his mother lingered contentedly in the hot light of his interest.
“Oh, the doctors. What do they know? You think you get Nobel Prize winners in here?” She squinted at Evon, her harsh voice reduced to a whisper. “They’re all foreigners. They’re here for the Medicare. They give them I don’t know what, six bucks for every old bag they glance at. They run through here like their pants are on fire. I can’t even pronounce the names. Shadoopta. Baboopta. God save me if I ever needed to call one. I’d just be dead.”
Robbie received this speech, like everything else the old lady said, with great mirth. He hugged her again, and then, after further banter, motioned Evon to go. To detain him, Mrs. Feaver inquired after Lorraine.
“Eh,” he answered.
“My son. His wife and his mother, one sicker than the other. Sometimes I’m alone, I cry for him, it’s such a terrible thing. Who takes care of Robbie?”
He was jiggling the water pitcher throughout this speech. But he heard her, apparently. He reminded her about Mort.
“He always sees the bright side,” answered Mrs. Feaver. “He makes jokes anyway. He’s on the economy plan with Hospital Supply. My God.”
“Hey, shaddup, willya?” He leaned over and kissed her brow.
“So you’ll come tomorrow?” Mrs. Feaver asked somewhat plaintively.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. End of the day. I got court in the morning.” He waved, then shot down the hallway. Mrs. Feaver watched his departure with dismay and did not respond when Evon lingered at the threshold to say it had been a pleasure.
“So that’s my ma. A pistol, right? There’s only half of her left and she’s still full of beans.” Advancing down the corridor, each doorway revealing another frail body, shattered by age and disease—the skin parchment-colored and like a luffing sail, mouth toothless and desperately agape—Robbie managed another thrilled laugh.
Seeing what was required, Evon made the previously suspended remark about how well Mrs. Feaver kept herself.
“Yeah,” he said again. “She looks great. She’s always looked great. I mean, when I was a kid—” He rolled his eyes. “You look at the pictures now, I don’t know, it’s not like she was Liz Taylor or anything, but she had something. Pizzazz? Vitality. What was Jackie Gleason’s old line. ‘Va va va vooooom!’ She was always put together really nice. She was going out and selling and looking good at it. Still today, I’ll smell Chanel Number Five—Channel Five, I used to call it—and I’ll think about my ma, hugging me before she ran off to the store.
“Guys dug her. I could tell that. And she was like a lot of pretty women I’ve known, she liked being dug. She liked the power of it
, I think. I could always tell that she loved walking down the street on the way home from work. In those straight skirts and high heels? The neighbor guy, in his sleeveless undervest, smoking a cigarette and pushing a hand mower over the little strip of city lawn, would stop and draw a smoke and take a real long look, even shake his head for mercy once she went past. She loved that. Half the wives in the neighborhood wanted her arrested. They called her ‘Sophia Loren,’ and not to be nice.”
They were crossing the parking lot by now. The temperature had increased and the sun was seen some days now, but winter, a stubborn old witch, held on. The sky was piled with ugly soiled messes of clouds. Robbie, caught up in his reverie, looked to the pavement where oily rainbows had gathered.
“I think, you know, when it came to the actual act, she was probably pretty prudish, like a lot of ladies that age. I mean, I don’t really know. She had one boyfriend for a while, a few years after my old man skipped, but that came to the usual sad ending, and after that she pretty much scrapped the whole notion. I caught her crying one night and telling herself and me it was for the best. He was a goy. A gentile. And younger than her. I was frantic. I couldn’t stand that she was crying. I was eleven years old and I wanted to go after this guy with a bat, especially when I began to get the picture. With my mother?” Robbie had a sudden laugh. “I still would,” he said. “I’d still like to kill him.” His breath, turned to smoke by the cold, raced upward and he smiled at Evon, inviting her to laugh with him at his sudden recognition of himself.
21
THE HASH SENNETT HAD MADE OF THE first encounter with Judge Skolnick left him with serious tactical problems. Robbie could have employed the usual gambit, announcing that the case of the painter with cancer had settled and making his drop. But Stan felt he’d be left with a relatively weak case on the judge, much less imposing than what he needed to finally get Washington off his back. Skolnick’s lawyer would argue to a jury that the first payoff had been refused—the recording supported that—and that the second, even if accepted, was not intended to influence any official act, since Skolnick had emphasized in the Lincoln that he would stay discovery for any party.
Instead, Sennett decided that Robbie should appear before the judge with McManis and actually ask Skolnick to grant his motion for judgment on the pleadings, a claim that his client deserved to win the liability phase of the lawsuit without a trial, or even discovery. In his car, Skolnick had said flatly he’d never grant such a request. Sennett, therefore, felt there was little to lose, particularly since Stan thought there was some chance Robbie might even win.
“If you show up,” Stan explained to Robbie, “that tells the judge that McManis won’t settle. So if Skolnick denies the motion, he knows discovery starts and McManis finds out your client has cancer. You’ll get nothing, the kids will get nothing—and Skolnick will get nothing.” Stan was convinced he had the judge cornered.
“You’re missing one thing,” Feaver told Sennett. “Barney isn’t smart enough to figure all of that out.”
When McManis and Feaver arrived in court to argue the motion, Skolnick sat on the bench with his perfect judicial hairdo and his florid face scrunched down among his many chins. He seemed to understand nothing but the fact that a plaintiff’s motion for judgment on the pleadings was virtually never granted. Just as Robbie had predicted, the judge swiftly denied his motion.
Yet this setback proved only momentary. After ruling, Skolnick invited Feaver and Evon and McManis back to his chambers. He was entirely agreeable as he sat behind his desk, still in his robe. He offered coffee, told a few of his usual jokes, and then began mercilessly pressuring McManis to settle the case.
“You got out of here with your gatkes today, Jim,” he said, addressing McManis, who’d never been in Skolnick’s courtroom before, as if he were a friend through the ages. “You know what that means? Rough translation, you got out with your boots on. But who knows about next time, when Feaver makes another motion? Not that I’m prejudging. I’m not. I’m keeping an open mind. Completely open. Believe me, after twenty-six years on the bench, that’s one thing you learn to do. You have to learn all the facts and hear both sides. Next time, who knows, maybe I’ll still see this exactly your way. But I could grant plaintiff’s motion. I very well could. I was about this far.” The judge held up his thumb and index finger, which were not parted at all. “Then where are you, Jim? The insurance companies, I don’t know why they like to hang on to their money so long. It’s like those cartoons where the moths fly out of the wallet. A case like this. Does he have a family?” Skolnick asked Robbie innocently. “The plaintiff?”
At the end, Skolnick stayed discovery another month to allow the parties to consider his remarks. He could not quite bring that off with aplomb; his eyes never left his leather desk blotter.
The FoxBIte had captured the judge’s song and dance perfectly. Sennett accepted congratulations without preening, knowing, as we’d all seen, that there was no end to the way things could yet go wrong. Skolnick still had to take the money, and the complicated equipment in the Lincoln had to function. On April 12, Robbie, having reported to Pincus that the painter’s case was now settled, prepared to visit the judge again in his car.
“We need this,” Stan told Feaver before he departed from McManis’s. Considerably shorter than my client, Stan laid his narrow hands on Robbie’s shoulders and looked at him almost plaintively. The brotherly appeal, the fact that Stan was asking and not commanding, seemed to impress all of us, even Robbie.
“JUDGE, I’M SHAVING YOU a little,” Robbie said, almost as soon as he was on the nail-polish-red leather of the front seat. Feaver had seen the prior tape a number of times and had his mark exactly. He held the envelope containing the cash in his left hand and waved it in front of the lens. The picture today was noticeably better. Alf had added a signal booster, and at considerable expense, Sennett had requisitioned a second surveillance van from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was also receiving the picture as a backup. Alf manned the dials feverishly, while Stan and McManis and I were belted to our little tin seats on the walls.
“Hah?” asked Skolnick. The judge had been providing his own windy analysis of what the Clintons should do about health care reform and had seemed sincerely oblivious as Robbie prepared to deliver the payoff. Even with the camera, Feaver had to find some way to get Skolnick to talk about the money. If the envelope was simply stuffed into the seat unnoticed, a defense lawyer would argue Skolnick knew nothing about it. Thus, Feaver had employed a variation on the ruse with Walter.
“Judge, you know, like I say, it’s a little less, but to get this done, I had to undercut myself on the settlement. And I’d like to leave the family, the kids, with as much as I can. Only I don’t want you to think I’m stiffing you.”
Skolnick’s large face labored through the calculations inspired by this deviation from form. He finally looked straight down at the envelope.
“Veefeel?” he asked quietly, meaning ‘How much?’
“Eight. If that’s okay.”
Skolnick laughed out loud. “My God, they should all worry like you. Genug. We’re friends, Robbie. We’ve done a lot together. What you think is right, fine. Besides,” said Skolnick, “you gave me last time. For nothing.” Robbie played dumb and Skolnick added, “With Gillian.”
Across from me, Sennett rattled his fist in the air, but issued no sound. He’d learned better.
In the Lincoln, Skolnick’s garrulousness had overtaken his caution.
“See, you know, you hear stories, some of my brethren, they’re like bandits with pistols, really, what they do, it’s a stickup. Here, with me, it’s good for you, okay, so it’s good for me. I’m not for grudges. I appreciate what you do. And if you did nothing, it would be the same, you know that.”
“I do,” Robbie said. Sennett recoiled, but Feaver quickly sent things in the proper direction. “It’s just this time, you really went out of your way, Judge. You know, when you denied that m
otion, I was—”
“I could see,” said Skolnick. “You looked like I had my finger in your kishkes. Right? Come on. I could see. You were thinking, What’s this guy doing to me? Am I right? I could see that.”
“Well, you know, Judge, I just saw this guy, his kids. But what you did, in chambers. That was brilliant. Really. That was just terrific. That scum-sucker, McManis, he wouldn’t have come up with a nickel if you hadn’t given him a poke.”
“Well, thank you, you know, when I saw that look on your face, I said, So what can I do so this works out like it should? Same as always really, this isn’t different from some other case, you talk to the two sides, you tell them to be sensible. That’s what I did.”
Stan was still making faces—Skolnick’s continuing insistence that he hadn’t behaved improperly would be a small impediment—but the fact was the judge had annihilated himself. He was already driving back toward the LeSueur, but he detained Robbie in order to finish another joke, this one about a priest and a rabbi who have a collision. After a cautious start, each agrees that he’s partly at fault. To cement their amicable resolution, the rabbi offers the father a drink from the sabbath wine which he happens to have in his trunk. The priest takes a long draught, then offers the rabbi the bottle.
“‘Right after the police get here,’ the rabbi says.” Skolnick reddened further as he roared over the punch line, and even in the van there was a current of suppressed laughter. Robbie departed the Lincoln chuckling, but Amari continued to follow Skolnick’s car. Given the results of the first recording, Stan had persuaded Judge Winchell to expand her order slightly, allowing the camera to remain activated for an additional ten minutes to see if Skolnick retrieved the envelope from the front seat. The second surveillance van was by now in the Temple parking garage, near the section reserved for judges where Alf had punctured Skolnick’s tires five weeks before. We stayed on the street, where, despite Alf’s apprehensions, the picture was clear.