Final Appeal Read online

  Galanter glances over at Armen like a jockey on a Thoroughbred. “But Chief Justice Rehnquist made clear in Scheidler that there was a pattern of extortion, of federal crimes. Where’s the federal crimes with the floral conspiracy? Florists wielding pruning shears? Gimme that money or I snip the orchid?” Galanter shudders comically and the gallery laughs on cue.

  “But they do threaten society,” the lawyer says, fumbling for the rigging. “Mr. Canavan signed a contract, and they didn’t send him any orders. They intended to drive Canavan Flowers into bankruptcy. It was part of a plan.”

  “Your client did file for Chapter Eleven protection, didn’t he?” Armen says.

  Suddenly Judge Townsend emits a noisy snort that sounds like an ancient steamboat chugging to life. Armen and Galanter look over as Judge Townsend’s heavy-lidded eyes creak open. “If I may, I have a question,” he says, smacking his dry lips.

  “Go right ahead,” Armen says. Galanter forces a well-bred smile.

  “Thank you, Chief Judge Gregorian,” Judge Townsend says. He nods graciously. “Now, counselor, why are you letting my colleagues badger you?”

  The smile on Galanter’s face freezes in place. The gallery laughs uncertainly.

  “Sir?” the lawyer says.

  Judge Townsend snorts again and lists gently to the starboard side. “As I see it, the question with this new statute is always the same.”

  Ben whispers, “New? RICO was passed in the seventies.”

  “The question is always, How is this case different from a case of garden variety fraud? How is it different from other injuries to one’s business, which we decide under the common law?” Judge Townsend waves his wrinkled hand in the air; it cuts a jagged swath. “In other words, have you got some precedent for us? A case to hang your hat on?”

  The lawyer reads his notes. “Wait a minute, Your Honor.”

  Judge Townsend blinks once, then again. Galanter smooths back the few hairs he has left. The lawyers in the gallery glance at one another. They’re all thinking the same thing: Nobody tells the Third Circuit to wait a minute. The answers are supposed to roll off your tongue. The case is supposed to be at your fingertips. Better you should pee on the counsel table.

  “Way to go, Einstein,” Ben says.

  “I know I have the case somewhere,” says the attorney, nervously riffling through his legal pad. He should be nervous; the circuit court is the last stop before the Supreme Court, which takes fewer appeals each year. It’s all those speaking engagements.

  “Armen’s upset,” Sarah whispers, and I follow her eyes. Armen is looking down, worried about the appeal. The only sound in the tense courtroom is a frantic rustling as the lawyer ransacks the podium. A yellow page sails to the rich navy carpet.

  The silence seems to intensify.

  Galanter glares at the lawyer’s bent head.

  A sound shatters the silence—ticktickticktickticktick—from the back of the courtroom.

  The back rows of the gallery turn around. The sound is loud, unmistakable.

  Ticktickticktickticktick.

  Row after row looks back in disbelief, then in alarm.

  Ticktickticktickticktick.

  “It’s a bomb!” one of the lawyers shouts.

  “A bomb!” yells an older lawyer. “No!”

  Ticktickticktickticktick.

  The crowded courtroom bursts into chaos. The gallery surges to its feet in confusion and fear. Lawyers grab their briefcases and files. People slam into each other in panic, trying to escape to the exit doors.

  “No!” someone shouts. “Stay calm!”

  I look wildly toward the back row where Artie was sitting. I can’t see him at all. The mob at the back is pushing and shouting.

  Tickticktickticktickticktick.

  Ben and other law clerks run for the judges’ exit next to the dais. My heart begins to thunder. Time is slowed, stretched out.

  “Artie’s back there!” I shout.

  Sarah grabs my arm. “Armen!”

  I look back at the dais. Armen stands at the center, shielding his eyes from the overhead lights, squinting into the back row. Judge Townsend is stalled at his chair.

  Galanter snatches Armen’s gavel and pounds it on the dais: boom boom boom! “Order! Order, I say!” he bellows, red-faced. He slams the chief judge’s gavel again and again. “Order!”

  “Oh, my God,” Armen says, when he realizes what’s happening. “It can’t be.”

  2

  “Are you saying it was Shake and Bake?” I ask, incredulous.

  “Yes. I’m busted. Totally,” Artie says. He flops into his chair in the small law library that serves as the clerks’ office, having been grilled behind closed doors by Armen and an assortment of bureaucrats. “It took the poor guy an hour to stop crying. He was worried he got Armen in trouble, can you believe that?”

  “Yes,” Ben says, typing nimbly at his computer keyboard.

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “Did he have a bomb?”

  “No. He had a shot clock.”

  “A what?”

  “Actually, he was the shot clock.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I,” Sarah says.

  “I do, but I don’t care,” Ben says, gulping down his third cup of coffee. He gets in at seven and guzzles the stuff like a thirsty vampire. “The whole thing’s absurd.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Artie says. “Not if you think like Shake and Bake.”

  “Like a paranoid schizophrenic?” I say.

  “Look, Shake and Bake was watching the argument. He knew the lawyer had to answer a question and he thought time was running out, like in basketball. He figured the guy had twenty-four seconds to shoot. It got all crossed up in his head.”

  I try not to laugh. “So he starts ticking.”

  “Yeah, with his mouth. He was counting off the time.” Artie yanks the knot on his cotton tie from side to side to loosen it.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sarah says.

  “Not to a paranoid schizophrenic who loves basketball,” I say, a quick study.

  “Right, Grace.” Artie nods and tosses the tie on the briefs scattered across his desk.

  “Told you. Absurd,” Ben says, tapping away.

  “Is he really schizophrenic?” Sarah leans over the Diet Coke and soft pretzel that constitute her breakfast. These kids eat trash; it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

  “I don’t think so,” Artie says, unbuttoning the collar of his work shirt. “He’s like a little kid. Harmless.”

  I smile. I own a little kid. They’re not harmless.

  “Why do you say he’s harmless?” Sarah asks. “He’s obviously not.”

  “Come on, Sar. He’s fine. Shake and Bake can’t even do his laundry. You think he can blow up a building?”

  “I do, Weiss,” says a dry voice at the door to the clerks’ office. It’s Eletha Staples, the judge’s Secretary for Life, a willowy, elegant black woman. Prone to drama, Eletha pauses dramatically in the doorway.

  “Yo,” Artie says.

  “Right, bro. Yo.” Eletha rolls her eyes as she walks into the room, trailing expensive perfume. Her glossy hair is pulled back into a neat bun at the nape of a slim neck. In her trim camel suit she looks more like a judge than a secretary, and the day black women get to be federal appellate judges, she’ll be mistaken for one. “Who you invitin’ next, Charlie Manson?”

  “That’s not funny, El.”

  Eletha stops in the center of the office and puts a hand on her hip; a quintet of clawlike polka-dotted fingernails stand out on her otherwise classy look. “It’s not funny, bro?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not funny when you invite a crazy man to court? It’s not funny that some nut boy endangers Armen’s life? Endangers the lives of us all?”

  Artie fiddles glumly with his Magic Eight Ball, one of the many toys on his desk. “He’d never hurt any of us, he idolizes Armen. And he’s not a nut boy.”

  “He tick
s, Artie,” I remind him.

  Eletha looks crazed, but she crazes easily. “What are you tellin’ me, he’s not a nut? The man thinks he’s a friggin’ Timex! Why they let him in the courthouse I’ll never know.”

  “They have to,” Sarah says. “He has a right to access. It’s in the Constitution.”

  “The hell it is,” Ben says, without looking away from his monitor.

  “He’s not a nut.” Artie pouts.

  Eletha puts a hand to her chest and begins Lamaze breathing to calm herself. I first saw this routine three months ago when she had to interview me for my job, because Armen had gotten stuck in Washington. After she calmed down, we spent an hour swapping ex-husband stories. I touch her arm. “El, keep breathing. Don’t push, it’s too soon.”

  She looks down at me, her face suddenly grave. “That’s not the worst of it. Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “They filed the appeal in the death penalty case this morning. Hightower. The death warrant expires in a week.” Her words hang in the air for a moment.

  “Oh, no.” I sink deeper into the leather chair next to Artie’s desk. I better not get this case. I’m a working mother now; I have enough guilt for an entire hemisphere.

  “A week?” Ben says, shaking his neat head. “Of course Hightower waited until the last minute. Wait till the bitter end to file and hope the warrant expires. It’s a game with them.”

  Sarah looks over sharply. “It’s only his first appeal.”

  “Fine. Let’s make it his last.”

  “Ben, he even tried to kill himself. He thought he deserved to die.”

  “He did.”

  Eletha’s soft brown eyes linger on Ben’s face, but her thoughts are clearly elsewhere. “This case is gonna be a real bitch. The law clerk’s gonna be up all night, Armen’s gonna be up all night, and I’ll be up all night. Last time, I didn’t tell Malcolm why.” Malcolm is Eletha’s son, whose picture she keeps on her desk; he’s an intelligent-looking boy with lightish skin and glasses. “Some things kids don’t have to know.”

  I wonder how I’d tell Maddie. What would I say? Honey, Mommy works for a man who decides whether another man should live or die. No, Mommy’s boss is not God, he just looks like him.

  “Has Armen served on many death panels?” Sarah asks.

  Eletha rubs her forehead. “Too many.”

  “Three,” Ben says. “All dissents. The proverbial voice in the wilderness.”

  Eletha glances at him. “They were from Delaware, I think. None from Jersey. And we haven’t executed in Pennsylvania since I don’t know when.”

  “About thirty years.” Ben pops the SAVE button with an index finger. “Elmo Smith, for the rape-murder of a Catholic high school girl. But I can’t recall the method.” He pauses just a nanosecond, his mind working as rapidly as the microprocessor. “Pennsylvania executes by lethal injection now, but then—”

  “Christ, what difference does it make?” Sarah says, making tea on the spare desk. “Move to Texas, you can watch it on pay-per-view.”

  Ben snaps his fingers. “Electrocution, that’s right!”

  “Death penalty for twenty, Alex,” Artie says, and Eletha starts to breathe in and out, in and out.

  “The death penalty is revenge masquerading as justice,” Sarah says, unwilling to let the grisly subject go. I like Sarah but am coming to understand that not letting anything go is an avocation of hers. It served her well last November; she worked on Armen’s wife’s campaign for the Senate, in which the feminist lawyer came from behind to win by a turned-up nose.

  “When we talk about justice,” Ben says, “we shirk thinking in legal terms.”

  “I’m impressed, Ben. Did you make that up all by yourself?”

  “No. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it.”

  Sarah looks nonplussed.

  “Played for the Knicks,” Artie says. He launches the Magic Eight Ball on an imaginary trajectory through that great basketball hoop in the sky, that one all men can find when they don’t have a real ball. The air guitar principle.

  “It’s irrelevant what happens at this level anyway,” Ben says. “It’s going up to the Court.”

  “And what’ll that do to your chances, Safer?” Artie says.

  Ben hits a key but says nothing.

  “Chances for what?” I say.

  “Didn’t you know, Grace? Ben is waiting for a phone call from Justice Scalia. He’s this close to a Supreme Court clerkship.” Artie squints at his forefinger and thumb, held a half-inch apart. “Maybe even this close, am I right, Ben? This close?” He makes his fingers touch.

  “Ask the Eight Ball,” Sarah says.

  “The Eight Ball! Excellent!” Artie shakes the ball and turns it upside down to read it. “Oh, my God, Ben,” he says in mock horror. “‘Better not tell you now.’ Very mysterious.”

  I look at Ben, reading his monitor screen. “Ben, did you really get an interview with Scalia?”

  “Yes,” Ben replies, without looking away from the monitor.

  “But Grace, Ben has a big problem,” Artie says ominously. “If Armen decides Hightower and the guy don’t fry, we got trouble. Big trouble, right, Ben?”

  Ben types away. “Of course not, Weiss. I still have the credentials.”

  “You mean like clerking for Armen the Armenian? Husband of Senator Susan, another flamer?” Artie winks slyly at Sarah, and she smiles back. I wonder if they’re sleeping together, and how Sarah squares it with her lust for Armen. Not to mention her alleged allegiance to Armen’s wife.

  “The chief has sent clerks to the Court,” Ben says. “He’s very well regarded by the Justices.”

  “By the conservative Justices?”

  “Depends on what you mean by conservative.”

  “Anybody not on life support.”

  Ben’s mouth twitches, and I can tell Artie’s hit a nerve. I hold up my hand like a traffic cop. “That’s enough outta you, Weiss. Don’t make me come over there.”

  “Who else is on the panel in Hightower?” Sarah says.

  Eletha looks at a piece of paper in her hands. She doesn’t notice Ben reading the paper upside down, but I do; Ben spends more time reading upside down than right side up. “Here it is. Gregorian, Robbins, and Galanter.”

  “Awesome!” Artie says. “That means Hightower walks. Armen writes the opinion, Robbins joins it, and Galanter pounds sand. Two to one.”

  Sarah looks less certain. “Galanter’s a Federalist, but Robbins can go either way on this one.”

  “What’s a Federalist?” I ask.

  “Fascists. Nazis.”

  “Republicans with boners,” Artie adds.

  Ben clears his throat. “It’s a conservative organization, Grace. Of which I was an officer in law school, as a matter of fact.”

  Suddenly, the door to Armen’s office opens and men talk in low, governmental tones as Armen walks them to the main door of chambers. Artie strains to listen and Ben inhales what’s left of his coffee. Eletha turns around just in time to catch Bernice.

  “Roarf! Roarf!” Bernice, a huge Bernese mountain dog, bounds through the door. Yes, Armen brings his shaggy black doggie to work, all hundred pounds of her. He’s the chief judge, so who’s gonna tell him he can’t? Me? You? “Roarf!”

  “No! Don’t jump up!” Eletha barks back. The sharp noise stops Bernice in her tracks. Her bushy black tail, white at the tip, switches back and forth; she sneezes with the vigor of a Clydesdale.

  “Sit, Bernice. Sit!” Armen says, coming up behind the dog.

  Bernice wiggles her wavy hindquarters in response. Her eyes roll around in a white mask that ends in rust-colored markings on her muzzle. Bushy rust eyebrows give her a permanently confused look; appearances are not always deceiving.

  “She never sits, Armen,” Eletha says. “I don’t know why you even bother.”

  “She used to, she just forgets,” Armen says. “Right, girl?” He scratches the plume of raggy hair behind Bernice’s ears and
looks at Artie. “So, Weiss, you shitting bricks?”

  Artie sets the Eight Ball down. “Enough to build a house, coach. I’m really sorry.”

  “Can’t you grovel better than that? I’m disappointed.”

  “Really sorry, coach. I am not worthy.” Artie bends over and touches his forehead to the briefs on his desk. “It’ll never happen again,” he says, his voice muffled.

  Armen smiles. “Good enough. Shake and Bake can come to the games, but he has to stay away from the courthouse. If he doesn’t, the marshals will shoot him on sight. Plus I got you out of jail free, so you owe me a beer.”

  Artie looks up, relieved. “After the game next week. At Keeton’s.”

  “Fine.” Armen’s gaze falls on the papers in Eletha’s hands and his smile fades. “Is that Hightower?”

  “Yes.”

  He takes the papers and begins to read the first page. His brow wrinkles deeply; I notice that the dark wells under his eyes look even darker today. He’s given to occasional black moods; something will set him off and he’ll brood for a day. It makes you want to comfort him. In bed.

  “Chief,” Ben says, “the defendant killed two sisters.”

  Armen seems not to hear him. His broad shoulders slump slightly as he reads.

  “One was a little girl and one was a teenager, very popular in the town.”

  Armen looks up from the memo and his eyes find me. “It’s yours, lady,” he says.

  I hear myself suck wind. “Mine?”

  “You’re Grace Rossi, right? It’s got your name all over it.”

  “Me, on a death penalty case? But I’m part-time.”

  “I’ll give you time off later, and don’t whine.”

  “But I don’t want to get involved,” I whine.

  He half smiles. “Get involved. Somebody’s life is at stake.”

  “But why me?”

  “I need a lawyer on this one.”

  Sarah freezes as she looks at Armen. I can almost hear the squeak of a hinge as her perfect mouth drops open.

  3

  Empty coffee cups dot the surface of Armen’s conference table, along with sheaves of curly faxes, photocopied cases, and trial transcripts from the Hightower record. We worked straight through dinner and into the night, reading cases and talking through the opinion. Then Armen began to tap out an outline on his laptop and I picked up the habeas petition to check our facts.