Personal Injuries

by Scott Turow

  True to his view of himself as a stage veteran, Feaver’s jitters had largely passed once the drama was in motion. He alighted from the elevator on the eighth floor and led Evon toward the rear corridor and the office of Judge Malatesta’s clerk, Walter Wunsch. Walter had been a creature of the Kindle County Courthouse since the age of nineteen, when his ward committeeman found him his first job running the elevators, a position which some patronage appointee continued to fill until two years ago, long after the cars were fully automated. These days Walter was a precinct captain himself and an alternate ward committeeman, a man of considerable political swack. According to Robbie, he’d been bagging for various judges for decades.

  Walter was angular, long-nosed, and moody. By Feaver’s description, Wunsch, dressed with Germanic discipline in heavy wool suits, even in the heat of summer, would stand behind his desk, his hands always in his pockets, as he offered stark opinions on all matters. As revealed by the recordings, he had a sour, piercing sense of humor that occasionally reminded me, privately, of Sennett’s.

  “You know how some people are always talking to you like they hate your guts?” Robbie explained to us. “Sarcastic? Making fun? That’s Walter. Only he isn’t kidding.” Wunsch’s poor humor was attributed to a hard-knocks childhood, but Robbie had few details.

  Walter was in his office today, dourly contemplating the stacks of court filings on his desk, when Robbie and Evon arrived at his doorway. He looked up grudgingly.

  “Hey, Walter!” cried Robbie. “How was Arizona? Good weather?” Robbie had financed a golf trip for Walter late in the fall, at the conclusion of a lengthy damage prove-up which had gone quite well for Robbie and his client.

  “Too damn hot,” said Walter. “Hundred six, two days. I was hugging the sides of those buildings when I walked down the street, trying to find some effing shade. I felt like a lousy cockroach.”

  “How about the missus? She like it?”

  “You’d have to ask her. She was happy I couldn’t go golfin. She seemed to like that part. I don’t know how she liked the rest.” He moved papers from one side of his desk to another and asked what was up.

  “Reply brief.” Robbie turned to Evon for the document and introduced her, light-handedly laying down Evon’s cover. Attempting warmth, Walter failed. His smile, as Robbie had suggested to her, was mean. In any mood, he was not very pleasant-looking, sallow, with gravelly skin. He was goat-shouldered and potbellied, one of those narrow men on whom nature had hitched an almost comical hummock of fat. His large, ruddy nose veered off noticeably at the point and his hair was almost gone. What remained was pasted in unwashed gray strands across his crown.

  “All right, lady,” said Robbie. He squeezed Evon around the shoulders for Walter’s benefit, well aware that she was onstage and could offer no resistance. “Why don’t you give me one see with Walter? I want to tell him an off-color story.”

  Evon took a seat on a wooden bench across the corridor, within range of the infrared.

  “Your latest?” she heard Walter asking as soon as she was gone.

  “Latest what?”

  “Yeah, right,” said Walter.

  “I wish I got half as much as people think.”

  “That’d be about a tenth of what you say.”

  “Walter, you used to like me.”

  “Tunafish used to be twenty-nine cents a can. So how long will she entertain you?”

  “Awhile.” Robbie’s voice, as it next emerged, was leaking oil. “Suck a golf ball through a garden hose, Walter.”

  Evon started and reflexively glanced down the hall. In Wunsch’s office, there was a long pause as Walter loitered, perhaps with disconsolate thoughts of his wife.

  “So whatta you got besides gardening tips?” he finally asked.

  She could hear the envelope crinkling as Robbie handed over the reply brief. He asked Walter to make sure the judge read it.

  “Silvio reads every word. Christ, sometimes I wonder if he thinks he’s the Virgin Mary. I don’t think he figured out yet there’s such a thing as bullshit.” With that, there was a thick thwack as the envelope landed on yet another pile of pleadings on one of the cabinets. Walter’s assessment of the brief’s merit was plain.

  “Walter, I got a case here.”

  “You’ve always got a case. At least so far as you’re concerned.”

  “This is a good one. Strict liability. My guy’s got brain damage. Trader down at the Futures Exchange. This is a million-dollar case. If I get past this bullshit motion to dismiss. The insurer’s got to step to the plate then. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Yeah, brain damage. That must account for why he hired you. You gonna rent that chair or were you about to leave?”

  Robbie’s clothing shifted, chafing the microphone, and Feaver’s voice dived. Listening, Evon could feel the drama sharpen. This was the moment. He was going to set Walter up. He must have leaned over the desk.

  “Watch out for this one, Wally. Make sure he sees it the right way.”

  “I just work here.”

  “Right,” Robbie whispered. “Right. That’s why it’s always Christmas.”

  “You are a gardener, Feaver. Full of manure. Beat it.”

  “Make me happy, Walter.”

  “I thought that’s what she’s for.”

  Evon was across the hall as Robbie swung open the door, and the last two lines were audible, even without the earpiece. Other people might have been embarrassed, but Walter, catching sight of her, administered an insultingly direct look across his wayward nose, before turning to confront the many papers on his desk.

  THE RECORDING WAS A SUCCESS. Klecker played it back for Sennett and me and several of the other undercover agents as soon as Robbie had returned. Feaver had been flawless—no sign of nerves as he’d made a subtle effort to nudge Walter into incriminating himself. Stan dispensed congratulations, but he was visibly grumpy about the ambiguousness of Wunsch’s responses.

  “Why does he say he just works there? Or that the judge is the Virgin Mary?”

  Feaver was impatient, played out from the effort and late for a settlement meeting with an insurance adjuster. I also took it that he wanted a more wholehearted pat on the back.

  “Stan,” said Robbie, “it’s how he talks. He’s not gonna bend down to the mike and say, ‘I’m a great big crook.’ I was stepping on his toes as it was. But he’ll take the money. Believe me.”

  Before Feaver departed, I took a second alone with him to reassure him about how well he’d done. Returning to the conference room, we were greeted by a round of raucous laughter. For some reason, it had come at Evon’s expense. She’d pulled back against the oak cabinetry with a narrow expression, and when she caught sight of Feaver she told him at once it was time to go.

  He asked what had happened as soon as they were snug in the Mercedes.

  “Nothing,” she answered.

  He asked several more times.

  “It was Alf,” she said finally, “if you have to know. He was doing an impression of the look on my face when they replayed that line.”

  Behind his sunglasses in the strong winter light, Feaver seemed to take a moment to recall what she was talking about. The golf ball. The garden hose. As she could have predicted, he was unabashed.

  “Hey, Walter believed it.” He smiled. “Must be you got a strong-looking jaw.”

  “Strong stomach is more like it. Men are sick creatures. Why do you have to brag?”

  “Hey, Walter hasn’t heard half of what he could have from me.” He started a story about a juror in that courtroom with whom he had dallied throughout the last week of a trial, but interrupted himself. “Hell,” he said, “forget the juror. Walter clerked for a judge I’ve messed around with.”

  “A judge!”

  “A woman, okay? It’s a long story.”

  “It must be.” A female cop in an optic vest hurried them through the intersection in the mounting afternoon traffic.

  “Look, it’s
my play, okay? It gives me an edge with guys like Walter, that I’m his fantasy life. Some people, I don’t know, they love to think there’s something they’re missing. But it’s a play. Truth? I mean, this’ll blow your mind but I stopped skunking around on Rainey when she got sick. I can’t really explain it. I barely took a breath after we were married. But now?” He shrugged in his dark cashmere overcoat. “It seems kind of crummy. Disloyal. I’ll be single soon enough anyway.” His eyes were indetectable behind the shades, which was just as well. His occasional casualness with the rawest truths confounded her. But she was still unwilling to allow him to sidetrack her with shock tactics.

  “You enjoyed degrading me. And don’t say it was just a play.”

  “Oh great. Right. ‘Degrading.’ ‘Dehumanizing.’ Let’s hear em all. Gloria Steinem’s greatest hits. Why do women always think a guy’s urges come at their expense? How do you figure he feels being dragged through life by his steed?”

  “I’ll send a sympathy card.”

  “Hey,” he said, “you won’t ever meet a man who likes women better than me. They’re the best thing on the planet. And I don’t just mean horizontal. Women hold the world together.”

  She peeked over to be certain he wasn’t smirking. Even then, she remained unconvinced. On the pavement, a fellow was pulling his wheeling suitcase behind him. He wore a bright fleece pullover, nylon moon boots, and, despite the January weather, a pair of shorts. A skier, Evon thought, headed off for vacation. For a moment, even as she went on shaking her head about Feaver, she felt a pang for the speed and the space and the snow that would always be part of home.

  “Look,” Feaver said, “it’s the cover. Like it or not. That’s our cover. Right?”

  “That’s the cover,” she said resignedly.

  “So stop fighting it, will you? You keep telling me how I’m gonna blow this deal, then you jump about ten feet every time I give you so much as a warm smile. Relax, will you? I’m not gonna take you wrong. I’ve got the picture. Believe me.”

  “And what picture is that?”

  He pouted a little bit as he fiddled with the temperature controls amidst the walnut console.

  “Can I give you some advice? I mean, I acted. You know that, right? Is that in my vita or résumé or dossier, whatever you guys worked up on me?”

  “You told me. The bar show.”

  “Please,” he said. “That’s retirement activity. No, high school, college, that was my dream. I wanted to be on the stage. I used to wait tables at the Kerry Room. I swept up at The Open Door. I had it bad. I used to get in a sweat just standing next to somebody I’d seen perform, even if they’d only walked onstage playing the butler. I wanted them to touch me and give me a little of that stuff. Obviously, that’s why I love the jury trials. You know. Cause I’m such a frustrated ham.” In his gloves, he tightened his grip on the wooden steering wheel, seemingly staggered by the depth of this forsaken passion. After a moment, he recalled his point.

  “Now, you can tell everybody in the office your name’s Evon Miller from Idaho without even a quiver, but you get sick to your stomach at the thought of maybe touching my hand. It’s like you’re saying, I can do a part, I can tell all these white lies, but not that, that’s who I am. And that’s amateur hour, frankly. ‘An actor’s work is on himself.’ That’s what Stanislavsky said. You can’t judge or try to keep some little piece of yourself sacred. It’s like taking LSD. Don’t trip if you’re gonna fret about whether you’re coming back.”

  She wouldn’t know about that, she replied, but smiled toward her window where a small fogged patch was withdrawing in the hot breath from the air vents. He was smooth. It sounded like a farmer’s daughter joke, the way he was putting it. We have to do this to keep warm.

  “Okay,” he said, “so here’s an actual example. Once in summer stock I worked with Shaheen Conroe. On The Point? On TV?” Evon had never seen the show. The actress’s name meant something only because it appeared frequently on the lists of prominent and acknowledged lesbians magazines liked to compile these days.

  “What a talent she is. We were doing Oklahoma! She’s Ado Annie, the girl who can’t say No, and I’m Ali Hakim, the fella she’s cheatin with.”

  “Typecasting?”

  He frowned, but otherwise ignored her. “Okay, here’s the play. Shaheen never made any secret about her proclivities. She had a wild thing going with one of the makeup girls. Open and notorious. But we had this onstage kiss, and for that moment she couldn’t wait to get after me. Every bit of her. I mean, afterwards, I was afraid to turn around and face the audience. Because for thirty seconds, she’d stopped hanging on to herself. And that’s what makes her great. The letting go. That’s talent.”

  “Wait,” she said. She’d actually reached out to grab the armrest. “Wait. Let’s see if I’m getting this. You’re so hot that even another dyke couldn’t keep her hands off you?”

  The car jerked briefly when he went for the brake. “What! Not at all.”

  “The hell.”

  “You think I was calling you a lesbian?”

  “Weren’t you? Not that I give a hoot.”

  “Hey,” he said, “that’s your thing, that’s not my thing.”

  “I mean, it’s gotta be, doesn’t it? Why else would I be making faces at such a wonderful opportunity?”

  “Criminy,” he answered. They had arrived at the adjuster’s office. He gave her a burning look and seemed on the verge of an outburst. But instead he popped the door locks and alighted. For once he did not have much more to say.

  8

  WHO IS PETER PETROS AND WHY DON’T I know anything about this case?

  The Post-it from Dinnerstein was stuck to the complaint which Evon had left sitting in her carrel. Mort apparently saw it when he’d happened by looking for something else. They’d all known this moment was coming. Nevertheless, the note left her heart rattling around like a bell clapper as she rushed off to find Feaver.

  McManis had never tired of reminding her that Dinnerstein was the most dangerous person in this case. No one was more likely to sniff out Petros, and if he did, there’d be no sure way to keep him from going straight to his Uncle Brendan. But it was hard to regard Mort, with his mild stammer and his persistent tone of apology, as a menace. As a child, Dinnerstein had contracted polio, which had left him with a distinct hitch, now worsening in middle age as tertiary effects of the disease asserted themselves. Mort was tall, actually, and well built, but he made a boyish impression. Some years ago, when they first began earning what Robbie referred to as ‘real money,’ he had tried to take Mort in hand, introducing him to the salespeople at Feaver’s downtown haberdashery. The suits didn’t seem to fit Mort. The pants drifted below his waist, so that he had difficulty keeping his shirttails in his trousers, and he snagged the rich Italian fabrics on the corners of his desk.

  They had been friends for nearly forty years now, first brought together when Feaver’s father had deserted the family and his mom, Estelle, had asked Sheilah Dinnerstein next door to look out for Robbie while she was working. The men had not tired of each other yet. Robbie generally reserved his lunchtimes for Mort, and every morning, after Feaver and Evon arrived, he and Mort spent a few minutes in what was called “the business meeting.” Anything but business seemed to be discussed. As Evon passed by, most of what she overheard was talk about their families. Robbie had an intense interest in the two Dinnerstein boys. Mort, on the other hand, was the only person whose inquiries about either Lorraine or Robbie’s mother were answered with more than a philosophical gesture.

  In their practice, Feaver claimed they’d never endured a disagreement. Mort shook like a leaf in the courtroom. Instead, he did all the things that Robbie despised—office management, the brief-writing, the interrogatories, routine deps, and, especially, the endless comforting demanded by their clients, who usually felt intensely victimized.

  Mort’s renowned patience was being put to the test when Evon arrived with Robbie at his d
oor. Mort, who had won the corner office on a coin flip, had furnished it in colonial style. The credenzas and desk space were crowded with photos of his family—his wife and the two boys were all dark—and an array of sports mementos: signed basketballs, lithographs of athletic stars, a framed ticket from the Trappers’ lone playoff appearance, nearly twenty years ago now. At the moment, Mort was dealing on his speakerphone with a woman who was eager to engage the firm to sue her landlord.

  “My boyfriend was drunk. Hal? He came in. He said a few things I said some things. He threw me out the window. I broke my arm. My knee is messed up something terrible.” The woman was nasal, harsh, excitable. She stopped there. Mort scratched a hand through the thinning springy pile atop his head. There were prospective clients who contacted them out of the blue every day, most with nothing close to a case. A number came to reception, but more called in response to Feaver & Dinnerstein’s large ad in the Yellow Pages. Robbie avoided these inquiries, directing them to Evon. In just three weeks, she’d spoken to two different people who hoped to sue some branch of the government for failing to protect them from unwanted encounters with extraterrestrials. But Mort rarely screened callers. He had a moment for everyone. In the rare instances when the complaint had some potential, he’d refer the call to younger lawyers starting out, or even, in the most isolated cases, take the matter for the firm. As the saying went, though, Mort’s good deeds seldom went unpunished.