Skolnick jumped up to welcome them. “So come in, come in.”
Sennett introduced himself as Skolnick was pulling the wooden barrel chairs from his leather-topped poker table into a circle, a task with which Tex Clevenger rendered wordless assistance.
“I know you, I know you,” said Skolnick. He mentioned a moot-court function at Blackstone where they’d met. He resumed his seat on his sofa, pulling his robe closed to assume whatever dignity he could under the circumstances. He cast a final shameless glance at the game and then used the remote to darken the set. “So, fellas,” he said, “what have we got here?”
He always proved as dim as Robbie’s initial portrayal. Every now and then, given the peculiarities of certain statutes, the United States was forced to appear in the Common Law Claims Division, and Skolnick seemed to believe that Sennett and his coterie had arrived for that reason. An emergency motion of some kind.
“Judge, I’m not here as an attorney, at least not one appearing before you. I need to ask you a few questions. On behalf of the government of the United States.”
“At eleven at night? This can’t wait till the morning?” Confusion swarmed over Skolnick’s large pink face, and he glanced to the others as if they might explain. When his eyes lit on Evon, the only female, he smiled very slightly and she found herself mildly surprised by the impulse to respond in kind. It was like being nice to an infant or puppy.
“There’s a case I’m concerned about, Your Honor.” Stan named it. “Involving a painter who fell off a scaffolding? A widower? There was a motion for a judgment on the pleadings. Do you recall that?”
Slowly, very slowly, Skolnick was beginning to realize there was some gravity in this situation.
“Mr. Sennett,” he said. “I can call you Stan? Stan, there are hundreds of motions before me. Thousands. Thousands, actually. You should come and sit in my courtroom one day. It’s not like the federal court, you know. I know a lot of the fellas sit on the federal bench—Larren Lyttle I know for years and years—and it’s not the same. We still give argument now and then. We don’t have full-time law clerks. It’s a terrible backlog. And one motion, you know, it can look just like another. Now, if you had the papers, the documents, I’m sure I’d remember.”
Sennett nodded and from her briefcase Evon withdrew Robbie’s motion and McManis’s response. Sennett let them drop on the new colonial coffee table, which matched the sofa arms.
“So I’m supposed to start reading this stuff at eleven at night?” He murmured in Yiddish under his breath. “You know what that means? A horse should have such luck. Wait. Where are my glasses?” He found the spectacles in his pocket. “All right, all right,” he said. He tossed his head back and forth as if he were reading a score, mumbling a few of the phrases aloud. There was no indication he was really taking them in. “Yeah, so okay, so there’s a problem here?”
In his perpetual blue suit, Sennett was implacable. He turned his face for one second to scratch at his cheek.
“Judge, do you know a lawyer named Robbie Feaver?”
Skolnick sat back. Sennett finally had his full attention.
“Feaver?” Skolnick’s tongue, like some furtive animal, appeared briefly and circled his lips. “I know Feaver. I know thousands of lawyers.”
“Judge, did you have any private meetings with Feaver while you were presiding over this case?”
“Talk to him, sure. He’s a likable fella. You tell him a joke, he tells you a joke. Did I see him on the street? In the courthouse somewhere? Of course. You should pardon me, Mr. Sennett, Stan, but that’s not exactly a federal case.”
“No, Judge, I’m asking if you ever met privately with Feaver to discuss the merits of this lawsuit and the outcome?”
“You mean without—Who’s on the other side of this thing?” He thumbed through the papers. “This guy, McManis?” Skolnick paused, his heavy face slowly gravitating through the motions of thought. Was that his problem? This new guy, McManis? Was he beefing? Recognition suddenly flooded his expression. He pointed at Jim, finally drawing the intended impression, albeit far later than anyone might have predicted. “That’s you! I see, I see! So you ran to the U.S. Attorney without even a how-do-you-do to me? I’m a reasonable fella. Tell me what’s on your mind. You think we need this in the middle of the night?”
Sennett asked again if Skolnick met privately with Feaver during the case and Skolnick did an unacceptable version of what was meant to be a hearty laugh. His breath got caught up and he could not manage the kind of heaving exhalation he’d intended. His color, too, was rising.
“Well, I certainly don’t remember anything like that.”
“You’d remember that, wouldn’t you, Judge? Discussing privately with a lawyer how you’re going to rule on his motion?”
“Well, you know, lawyers can say most anything, Stan. They’re not timid creatures. The baytzim, balls, on some guys, frankly. Sometimes I leave court, I say to myself, Barnett, you’re too nice, you should have held that young fellow in contempt. But I don’t.” His bovine form rose and fell with his shrug, as if he himself were baffled by his benign nature.
“Judge, didn’t you meet with Feaver on March 5 in your automobile?”
“Oh!” said Skolnick suddenly. He was happy as a child. He remembered now: Feaver had a flat and Skolnick picked him up while Robbie was flagging a taxi. He laughed as he gestured toward Jim. “So you saw that and got the wrong idea? Silliness,” said Skolnick. “Stan, my friend, may I make a suggestion? Just be plain, Stan. Tell me who said what and I’ll give an honest answer. As best I can. To the best of my recollection.”
Sennett asked again if Skolnick had talked to Robbie about the outcome of the painter’s case on March 5 in his Lincoln. Skolnick finally denied it.
“Did you meet with him in your car again on April 12?”
“This is a crazy discussion. We’re playing ring around the rosy. If Feaver was there—and I said ‘if’—then he was there for a good reason. That’s all I know. That’s all I can say.”
“And giving you two bribes—$10,000 on March 5 and $8,000 on April 12—wouldn’t be good reasons, would they, Judge?”
Skolnick took quite a bit of time, apparently weighing the correct response, and then forced himself through the motions of outrage. After a slight quaver to start, he became quite convincing.
“You come here, in my home, and say such things to me? I took a bribe? Me? Barnett Skolnick? After twenty-six years on the bench? Me, who could have retired with a full pension four years ago? I don’t need this tsouris, Stan.”
“You’re saying those things didn’t happen, correct, Judge? You never met with Robbie Feaver to discuss the painter’s case? You didn’t receive a $10,000 payoff from him in March, or $8,000 in April because you’d forced McManis to settle before he was able to conduct any discovery? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You’re darn tootin that’s what I’m saying. You’re darn tootin. Nobody gives Barnett Skolnick money. That I would throw a case?” His face appeared on the verge of crumbling; a lip wiggled and his eyes watered at the ugly insinuation. He pointed again at McManis. “You go to hell,” Skolnick said to him. “Go ask Feaver, for crying out loud. This is a complete bubbie maize, a wives’ tale. He’ll tell you that ”
Stan nodded to McManis, the faintest foreshadowing of a smile apparent. Evon figured he had stifled a naughty impulse to simply lean back and call, “Come a-w-w-n down.”
Robbie’s tread was deliberate. He arrived looking quite drawn, ducking his head to avoid a soffit where the acoustical tile ceiling dropped to box out a heating duct. Evon gave Robbie credit. He looked straight at Skolnick and he did it with no smugness, no anger or pride. He wouldn’t play it Sennett’s way. He was unhappy to be here. Then, when Sennett lifted a finger, Robbie opened the button of his suit coat, undid his shirt, and displayed the FoxBIte, which had been positioned for show just under his heart. Even though she knew what was coming, the moment had the piercing effec
t of one of those sci-fi movies where a totally appealing character is revealed as a robot or some other creation with a mechanical brain and no blood, rather than a person.
Even as Feaver continued to face Skolnick, there was a certain vacancy to Robbie’s expression. After six months of skipping along the government’s tightrope, he was starting to lose his balance. Of course, he’d had a day to remember, starting at 6 a.m. with a revolver pointed at his forehead in a serious way. He’d told all of them in the van afterwards that, given what had happened at Evon’s place, he’d realized as soon as he saw the cop that Tuohey had sent him. He saw it for what it was, a clever pretext for a frisk, one he couldn’t complain about. He was still thinking Tuohey would show up, when the revolver was drawn.
‘I heard the snap on the holster, and I was like, Well, okay, so this is how it’s going to be. And I was actually all right with it, and then I thought, Oh my God, Rainey, how can I do this to Rainey?’
He cried at that point. McManis, Sennett, Evon, and I were all in the van with him, and I took the tears as a sign of the overwhelming terror he’d endured. I’m sure only Evon understood the full implications. Sennett, who’d remained visibly upset by the way things had gone awry, dispatched Robbie for home. He would be under twenty-four-hour guard now and there was a tap on his phone. Were it not for Rainey’s condition, McManis would have preferred to move both of them.
As Robbie had disrobed, Skolnick had actually stood up from his seat on the family sofa. He issued a tiny, stifled outery, ticking his head in disbelief. Barnett Skolnick, however, was not entirely without resources.
“You crummy son of a bitch,” Skolnick said to Robbie. He seemed momentarily surprised by his own show of gumption. He coughed then and grabbed at his chest and, finally, in pure frustration began to weep. The extraordinary pile of creamy white hair resembled the topping on a soda fountain creation, almost luminescent against the sanguine hue that rose through his brow.
As Skolnick continued crying, Sennett directed Tex to play back some of the recorded output from the Lincoln. Tex turned on the TV Skolnick had been watching and found the VCR. He replayed the section in which Skolnick acknowledged the envelope Robbie had buried in the seat, saying to Feaver, ‘Genug. We’re friends, Robbie. We’ve done a lot together.’ Skolnick rocked on the sofa with his eyes closed, weeping and murmuring, “Oh God, oh God, oy vay, oh God.” He could not have seen much of it. But he’d already gotten the point.
“I’ll never live through this,” he told Sennett when it was over. “Never. I’m a dead man. I’m totally a dead man.”
“You’ll survive, Judge. It’s up to you to decide how hard this goes for you.”
Skolnick issued a tiny disgusted sound. Even he wasn’t stupid enough not to recognize the pitch.
“Sure.” He pointed to Robbie. “I should be a schtoonk like him. Right? That’s what you want to tell me, right? That’s why you’re in my house in the middle of the night.”
Sennett remained himself, calm and unrelenting. The Angel of Death. Skolnick was exactly where he wanted him. Already broken.
“You can help yourself. You can help yourself a great deal. A great deal. You have a lot to tell us. But I can’t offer you the same opportunity later. Right now, tonight, you have to tell us everything and agree to help with the people we should be concerned about. We don’t think you’re the mastermind.” Again, for the fleetest instant, a nasty grin played at the corners of Stan’s mouth. “We know somebody put you in that courtroom. We know that not every dollar you receive remains with you. There’s one name especially.” Sennett sat down on Skolnick’s new coffee table and, virtually knee to knee with the man, spoke in a low, intense tone.
“Judge,” he said, “what can you tell us about Brendan Tuohey?”
Skolnick’s mouth flapped around. “Tuohey?” he asked weakly.
“Judge, have you ever had occasion to deliver money to Brendan Tuohey personally or received instructions from him of any kind—explicit or implicit—about how he wanted you to deal with a lawyer or a case?”
“Per-sonally?” He seemed astonished, even flattered by the notion. “I barely talk to the man. My brother, Maurice, you know, Knuckles, he talked to Tuohey. Me? I talk to his schmuck. Whatchamacallit. Kosie. I talk to Kosic.”
“But you do talk to Brendan Tuohey, you say, from time to time. You could have a conversation with him? You could try, for example, to ask his advice about how to deal with us, what to say?”
Skolnick’s reddened eyes enlarged as he got the picture.
“With a jimjick on my stomach like him?” He pointed at Robbie. “Oh, sure,” Skolnick moaned. “Sure. I’d be dead for sure. I’ll have a bullet through my brain.”
“This is the government of the United States,” said Sennett. “No one’s killing anybody here.”
“Oh, right, hotshots. What, am I going to live with bodyguards and a nose job and a new name?”
“You’ll be safe where you are. And afterwards your security can also be assured.”
Afterwards. Skolnick’s mouth fell open when he realized that Sennett was speaking about the penitentiary. He had not even considered that. He had been thinking about shame and scandal. Ugly gossip. About losing his judgeship and his pension. Now another intense spasm constricted his face. With a humbled moan, he fell again to uncontrollable tears.
“I think you should consider some other people,” Sennett said. He pointed to the display shelves with the family photos.
“Ach!” remarked Skolnick in apparent rejection of Sennett’s suggestions. He started to stand up, and it was only as his hand suddenly shot to his throat that Evon could see he was in trouble. His left leg came out from under him and he canted backwards at an oblique angle, lingering an instant, like a leaf in an updraft. Then gravity took hold and he tumbled heavily to the floor, his shoulder striking the arm of his new sofa and his hip flipping over the coffee table on which the court documents rested.
Everyone rushed toward him. He was conscious when they eased him to his side. He seemed able to respond, but for the fact that he was again overcome by weeping. He cried in great waves.
“Should we call 911?” Clevenger asked. It was only then that Skolnick spoke, getting to his knees and weakly waving a hand.
“Angina,” he said in a wee voice. “I get light-headed. I’ll take a pill. I just need some time. I need some time with this thing.” McManis had him by an arm now and pulled him back up to the sofa. They all stood in a circle around him while the old man held his face in his hands and poured out tears.
Eventually McManis motioned to Sennett and Evon, and Tex came as well. They stood like the infielders around a manager and the pitcher at a tense spot in the late innings. The only one not part of the circle was Robbie, who’d taken a seat on the bottom tread of the stairwell, appearing far too blown out to absorb much.
“Stan,” said McManis quietly, “if we keep this up, we’ll croak this guy.”
“For Godsake!” responded Sennett. Tomorrow, tonight, while the bad guys were all scrambling like ants after their nest was flattened, something might slip. Once they were organized, layered off by lawyers who’d share information and forbid the government to contact their clients, nothing of value would happen. “Give him a few minutes. He’ll calm down.” He asked Clevenger to get Skolnick water, but McManis detained Tex.
“Stan,” said McManis slowly, “Stan, this is not our guy. He can’t do Brendan. Not face-to-face. He never talks to him. Tuohey will see him coming a million miles away. He’ll do the three monkeys, the same way he did with Robbie. And this guy won’t be one-tenth as good as Feaver. It could be the Titanic. By the time Tuohey’s done with him, he’ll have Skolnick swearing Brendan didn’t know anything.”
Sennett stared bitterly into a corner of the room.
“Stan,” said McManis quietly, “this guy can testify. We can make him a witness. Let’s preserve that possibility. Let’s not kill him tonight.”
“Shit,”
said Sennett. He thought another moment, then gave in, with one of his unpredictably ugly remarks. “I suppose that’s not the first headline we want to make.”
Skolnick in the meantime seemed to have made up his own mind. He was wandering drunkenly toward the narrow, paneled stairwell.
“I can’t do this. Not now.” He wobbled and braced himself, applying both hands to the walls. His wedding band glistened under the basement track lights and seemed to attract his attention. “Oh God, Molly,” he said. He took the first step and wavered again, clearly on the brink of collapse. Robbie, who was nearest him, reached Skolnick before he could go down. He threw an arm around the old man and, once the judge was righted, helped him up the first stair.
“One at a time, Barney,” Robbie said. “One at a time. Let’s just take it slow.” With their arms entwined, they slowly made their way up together.
40
SHERM CROWTHERS LIVED IN ASSEMBLY Point, a spit of land jutting into the Kindle River, which had been the site of a French fortress in the pre-Colonial days and of various tanning facilities when the city was first settled. By the 1930s, as barge traffic diminished, it had become the most prominent enclave of Kindle County’s small black middle class. After the Second World War, some pioneering residents who were not afraid to mix—or to bear what inevitably went with it—moved to University Park, one of the first integrated neighborhoods in the United States. Later, there was some exodus to other areas of the city which had become more welcoming. Recently, a strange transformation had started in Assembly Point, with younger white and Asian families buying houses here, prompting outcries from some long-term residents that the Point was losing its ‘unique character.’