I tailed off, because Judge Burchell, the county court judge, a cherubic southern man of perhaps sixty, no doubt as dangerous as a coral snake, was shaking his head at me as if I were a backward child.
“Mr. Jaffe,” he said, “I think you may have a fool for a client. You’re accused of striking a correctional officer at the prison. He’s the equivalent of a police officer. That’s always a felony. I can see by the look on your face that you’ve forgotten that. But do you remember now?”
“You’re absolutely right, Judge. I forgot about that little detail.”
Judge Burchell surprised me. Or took pity on me as a man in a rumpled suit who didn’t quite know his trade—a has-been, or maybe a never-was. The bond for a second-degree felony was $2,500. I had a hundred and twenty dollars in my wallet, no checkbook, and I was well aware that the State of Florida didn’t accept American Express or even Visa.
But the judge said he’d be willing to let me go ROR—released on my own recognizance—and the young assistant state attorney, who had to live with Judge Burchell in this courtroom five days a week, announced that he had no objection. The judge set a court date for the future.
“You’ll show up, Mr. Jaffe?”
“Your Honor, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Goodbye, sir.”
“Goodbye, Judge.”
I took a taxi back to the prison parking lot to pick up my rental car. My hands were trembling, and the inside of my mouth felt as if I’d eaten glue. I knew that if I weren’t a lawyer, and if I hadn’t been wearing a suit, and if I had been black, I’d be back on that steel cot in the Bradford County Jail.
On the way to Jacksonville I stopped at a gas station and bought a pack of Benson & Hedges Lights.
The next morning I stared into the bathroom mirror of my hotel room. Whatever suntan I had was gone. My eyelids were red, and my eyes itched from the smoke that curled from the ashtray.
Just one after each meal, I told myself, to make life a little easier, to calm these rapidly aging nerves. Then just one after each cup of coffee during the day, or each vodka tonic in the evening. Maybe half a pack. And soon an extra one with coffee in the morning, because those were the best ones of the day, before your tongue turned numb and your throat to dry fire. And then the hell with it, I’ll smoke whenever I goddam want to smoke!
I understand you better than before, Alan. I’m an addict too.
Behind his desk at the public defender’s office, Brian Hoad said to me, “There are procedural land mines, so watch out. Your main issue is the false testimony on the confession, but you’ve got to include every other possible argument you can think of. Because if Judge Fleming denies relief and you go up the ladder to the Florida Supreme Court, or file a writ of habeas with the feds in the Eleventh Circuit, you can’t introduce any new issues.”
“But what if something new comes up?”
“Tough titty. The bastards want to be able to read it all in the record—that way, they can say no before you even get to Tallahassee.”
Without thinking, I reached for the pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket and lit one with a plastic throwaway lighter. I scanned the desk for an ashtray, but there was none.
Hoad was looking at me curiously, rather as if I had produced a turd from my pocket. “I don’t remember you smoking.”
“My life’s changing,” I said.
I didn’t go down to Raiford again on that trip. Darryl had nothing to do with this. He was the man meant to die, not the advocate for his survival.
I tried to communicate with Toba now and then. How goes it? How’s Alan? They were fine, she told me, with unremitting hostility. At the offices of Royal, Kelly, Wellmet, Jaffe & Miller I felt the same coolness. I was working on my cases but not putting in a lot of billing time. Harvey Royal wanted me in Washington. Barry Wellmet wanted me in Bradenton—the chief client among the milk distributors was counting on my experience. I told Barry, “The case will settle out.”
“But they want you there, and they’ll pay for it.”
“Buy them lollipops,” I said.
I was not a man who dreamed much—or rather, not a man who easily remembered his dreams. But at night now the dreams were thick with fear and often breathless with flight from unknown pursuers. Or I was being led somewhere by uniformed men who meant to do me harm. Worse, I felt I was always on the edge of the dream where a human head flamed heavenward, but in sleep I managed to keep that at bay. I was warding off evil. The head that threatened to burn was not Darryl Morgan’s or even Eric Sweeting’s. Some part of me feared that the head was my son’s.
I submitted my motion to Judge Horace Fleming on the last day of March. Morgan’s execution at Raiford was scheduled for Thursday, April 11.
On Monday, April 8, at noon, Fleming called me into chambers at the Duval County Courthouse. A little one-on-one game without the adversary lawyer on the scene—ex parte, it’s called, and it’s definitely not done by ninety-nine percent of decent judges. But old hands in the game never play by the rules we learned in law school, and sometimes not even by the canons.
The judge slouched in his chair, silver hair brushed back, glasses perched on the edge of his red, veined nose. He spoke slowly, and he looked as if he should have been in a rocking chair on a country porch, sipping a mint julep. In chambers he had taken off his robes and suit jacket and sat there with thumbs hooked in leather suspenders. Potted plants stood in all corners of the room, and greenery climbed all over the judge’s diplomas. On the walls and on his desk were photographs of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and various hunting dogs. There were some of the judge, younger, kneeling on various docks and pridefully inspecting large game fish. Also on the desk, surrounded by other piles of papers, were my petitions for a stay of execution and relief in Florida v. Morgan. The pages of the petitions, removed from their black spring binder, had been fanned out in the center of the desk like a giant deck of cards.
“I read it,” Judge Fleming said.
“Good, Your Honor. I’m glad.”
“Well?”
I waited a moment. “What do you mean, Judge?”
“This is all you got to say?” Judge Fleming asked. He ran a gnarled arthritic finger along the spread-out pile of papers, as if he were saying: Pick a card.
“Yes,” I said, agonizing, wondering what I had left out.
“You were the prosecutor in this case, am I right about that, Mr. Jaffe?”
“Yes, Judge.”
“I talked to Mr. Ruth about this. Now, I have an opinion about Mr. Ruth that I don’t mind communicating to anybody. If Mr. Ruth says a squirrel can pull a freight train from here to Tallahassee, you can hitch up that rodent and clear the tracks. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, Judge, and I agree. You can trust Mr. Ruth.”
“And he says you’re a good lawyer. But that can’t influence my decision. You realize that?”
“Yes, I do, Judge.”
“You want some coffee?”
“That would be welcome.”
“Over there in the corner. Bring some for me too. My mug is the one with my political philosophy written on it. You’ll find it. You like it strong?”
“Political philosophy?”
The judge smiled. “No, Mr. Jaffe. Coffee.”
“Strong will do just fine, sir.”
“I brew it so you can use it to stop leaks in your radiator. How’s your radiator?”
I found the judge’s mug. On its side was inscribed: THE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF A DEMOCRACY IS THAT ONLY ONE OF THESE PEOPLE CAN GET ELECTED.
While I was pouring the coffee, Judge Fleming said, “I’m going to say yes to your petition. Grant you a ninety-day stay. Least I can do if they’re getting ready to fry a man. You bring your witness in here, and Mr. Morgan, and anyone else you want, on June 24—that’s a Monday, according to my calendar—nine o’clock in the morning. I’ll be there too, if nothing breaks or comes untwisted. Suit you?”
�
��Yes, Judge,” I said, my heart pounding with joy.
“I take it with cream and sugar.”
“How much sugar?”
“Half of one of those blue packets that says Equal.”
I brought the two mugs of coffee over to the desk. “Judge, forgive me for reminding you,” I said carefully, “but they’re due to pull the switch on Mr. Morgan in three days. You’ll have to file an order at the state attorney’s office, in writing, that you’ve granted a stay of execution. And probably the same thing in Tallahassee at the attorney general’s office.”
“Mr. Jaffe, this is Monday, isn’t it?” Judge Fleming asked.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“I did all that on Friday afternoon, my boy,” the judge said, sounding a little annoyed.
Chapter 21
TOBA AND I WAITED for the summer rains. The Gulf skies were swollen with heat, the air was gummy and breathless. Despite the sprinkler system, the crabgrass lawn grew brown at the tips. In the evenings I smelled swamplike odors wafting up from the Everglades. Orchids flowered on the trunk of the jacaranda tree outside our bedroom window, but at midday the waters of Sarasota Bay looked warm enough to boil.
In the artificial coolness of my office, I gazed out the tinted window. Afternoon thunderheads massed on the horizon and the sun hung overhead like a ball of smoldering sulfur. It was difficult to face what I knew, what I believed, what I suspected. One step at a time was what I kept telling myself—first the hearing before Fleming, for the important thing was to make sure that Darryl lived.
I picked up the telephone and buzzed through to the firm’s senior partner.
“Harvey, I’ve gone over our proposed submission in the S and L case. Do you and Marian have a few minutes?”
In his office, I set forth my objections. The FDIC had amended their complaint against the defendant, a man named Novak. He was now due to reply. Harvey and Marian had drafted that reply.
“The government’s allegations are inaccurate,” I said. “Things sinister are being made out of nothing, and we should say so. The Reagan administration encouraged S and Ls to expand into commercial loans. Novak exercised due diligence—there was no private jet, no political graft. He became richer, but so did most of Reagan’s business pals. How dare these federal sons of bitches accuse him of chicanery?”
“Calm down, Ted,” Harvey said.
With that remark, Harvey only annoyed me further. “Our client,” I said, “is being slandered by employees of his government, and his taxes pay their salaries. We’re kissing ass when we should be kicking ass.”
If I want to stay in this law firm, I realized, I’d have to be more tactful. But it wouldn’t come easily.
A crust of gray ice seemed to spread across Harvey’s face. “I take it you intend to rewrite this denial.”
“No, that’s Marian’s job. I’ll argue the case in court if it comes to that, but if the job’s done properly, it shouldn’t. I have to fly to Miami day after tomorrow, pick up Jerry Lee Elroy, my witness in Morgan, then haul him up to Jacksonville. I may have to chain him to the bed in the hotel. But on Monday we have our day in court.”
Thursday morning I began making telephone calls. I was informed that Darryl would be brought by bus to the Duval County Jail early Monday morning and then escorted to Judge Fleming’s courtroom at 8:30 A.M. He would be held in the jury room, where I could meet with him.
I asked who was working this case for the state and the clerk gave me the name of an assistant state attorney I didn’t know. The clerk also told me that an assistant attorney general would be in attendance, dispatched from Tallahassee.
That was the way the game was played. One of the thrills of being a criminal defense attorney was that you stood alone on a hilltop, battling the full awesome power of the state. You were a heroic figure, a David against Goliath. But Goliath’s power was daunting; it could easily trample you. Or your client.
On Saturday evening I flew to Miami. Below, as the little plane gained altitude, were the blue dots of lighted pools and the yellow chains of headlights strung back and forth on arrow-straight highways. Forty minutes later, from the black void of the Everglades, Miami sprang like an immense treasure chest of neon jewels, pulsing to every horizon. I found this urban sprawl remarkably beautiful. A pity you couldn’t circle forever, believing such beauty to be the evidence of intelligent human life.
I took a taxi to the address I had in Hialeah. Behind the reception desk of the Man O’ War Motel hung old black-and-white photographs of famous thoroughbreds. A man looked up from a lounge chair near the cigarette machine: a man in his thirties, with a mustache and a Hawaiian flowered shirt under a seersucker jacket. He was drinking a Coke and reading a paperback crime novel. He might as well have had COP branded on his forehead.
The room I was given was clean and odorless, yet it reeked of lost bets and accepted sorrows. A parade of human beings had trudged in and out for twenty years. It seemed to me that their ghosts were still there.
Elroy had given me his room number, so I dumped my single piece of luggage and walked upstairs, following the outdoor walkway with its green AstroTurf carpeting. I heard footsteps scraping behind me. I turned to face the man in the Hawaiian shirt. He had a leather wallet in his palm, and I caught a flash of a gold shield.
I told him I was Elroy’s lawyer from Sarasota and offered my business card and driver’s license.
“Okay, Mr. Jaffe. Just checking.”
When I knocked and called out his name, Elroy flung open the door to his room. He wore new decor: a silver cross on a chain around his neck, baggy mod trousers, a white golf shirt. In his hand he clutched the usual can of Bud. Above the blare of the TV, he cried, “Hey, Counselor, just lemme catch the end of this show.” He was watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He flopped back down on the bed.
“I love that future shit,” he said, when it was over. “How about we eat?”
“Do they let you come and go as you please?”
“They watch, they follow. They’re getting paid, what do they care? There’s this place down the block, not too bad.”
Even in the night air I felt the pavement heating the soles of my shoes. Hialeah Park was nearby, and Lacy’s, the restaurant Elroy had chosen, catered to retirees and horse players. It offered bargain dinners, and I ordered meat loaf that was promoted as “the way your mother’s tasted.” (My mother’s meat loaf was usually dry, which is why she drowned it in turkey gravy.) I glanced around at the senior citizens in plaid shirts and bright-colored trousers, with their iron-gray hair and bulging spectacles. One couple at the next table had their arms intertwined in the last gasps of togetherness. He had a sporty gray goatee, she red shriveled lips. They studied the menu as if it were a treasure map. After they ordered food, they studied the racing form with the same devotion.
Elroy said, “The track, that’s action, man. That’s what I really love.”
I looked at Elroy and didn’t smile. A chain begins somewhere in the mountains of Colombia. It passes through Alfonso Ramos and Marty Palomino and their ilk in Miami. Then through Elroy and maybe a few others under him; then to the addicts, the assorted hip city folk, the legions of kids. One of those chains had ended with my son dangling on the end of it. And somewhere in San Diego, I thought, there’s a kid like Alan who’ll soon buy his stash from this piece of human garbage sitting across the dinner table from me.
The waitress passed by. “Hey, sweetie pie, we have a little more gravy here?” Elroy turned back to me, grinning. “We got an unforeseen problem, Counselor.”
“How do you mean?”
“Guys downtown at the state attorney’s office, they don’t want me to leave Miami. Worried something could happen.”
“Like what?”
“Palomino, Ramos, they’re out on bail. Wouldn’t they love to find me.” Elroy drew a finger across his throat.
I put down my knife and fork. “I spoke to you in the middle of the week. You said no probl
em.”
“There’s this guy Baxter, see? I told him, ‘Look, I want to see my sister in Jax. A day or two, family stuff, gimme a break.’ Guy says, ‘Hey, Jerry Lee, we’ll give you a break, we’ll keep your ass alive.’ So I go, ‘I thought it was part of the deal.’ He says no, there’s no deal for you to testify in Jax.”
I had never told Charlie Waldorf in Sarasota or Robert Diaz, the Miami state attorney, that I needed Elroy as a witness in Jacksonville. If there had been a timing problem, I would have spoken up, but Elroy wasn’t due to testify in the Miami trial until August. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And I definitely didn’t want them to know how I’d lied to Elroy.
“See, they got these plainclothes guys watching me. You met one of them at the motel. Another one’s here in Lacy’s right now—I just spotted him.” Elroy’s eyes flicked to the left.
I looked, and saw the man sitting by himself about five tables away: about forty, prematurely gray with a crew cut, wearing a pale-blue silk sport jacket. He was eating meat loaf and drinking a 7-Up.
“It ain’t gonna work, Counselor,” Elroy said.
“It has to work,” I said flatly. “That hearing is Monday morning. You don’t show up, they’ll execute this man.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, I really am. But they said I don’t have to. Maybe you misled me.”
That was what I had feared. I had that same awful feeling in my chest that I’d had when those deputy sheriffs in Bradford County had said to me, “You have the right to remain silent…”
“If you had some pussy waiting up in Jacksonville,” I said, “you wouldn’t give a flying fuck what Baxter or Diaz or anyone told you. Jesus could rise from the dead and beg you, ‘Stay,’ and you’d still go to Jacksonville.”
Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 02 - FINAL ARGUMENT - a Legal Thriller Page 21
