Death's Witness

by Paul Batista

  “But, Judge, your comment suggests—”

  “Mr. Sorrentino, if you have a problem with my comment, you can save it for your appeal, but unless you stay with the issue I’ve got to deal with, you’re going to leave this room.”

  “I just take exception, Judge—”

  “Mr. Sorrentino, I think I told you to hold it down.”

  Sorrentino did. For the first time this morning, Neil Steinman was smiling. His teeth, as Sorrentino saw yet again, were bad—

  D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

  widely spaced, dark-edged. He was not a man who took care of himself.

  After another fifteen minutes at the conference table, it was clear Judge Feigley wasn’t going to decide what to do until late that afternoon at the earliest. She was legendary for her “all deliberate speed” approach. It was not unusual for her to take six months to resolve a relatively simple pretrial motion. A trial put her under far greater pressure to act much more swiftly, yet she still maintained the same maddening repose.

  “I’ve heard enough from all sides,” she said. “I’m going to 29

  reserve decision on this until a little later. In the meantime, I’m going to ask the Marshals to release the jurors for the day, and I may talk with each of them tomorrow. I’m not certain. Would anyone object to my speaking here in Chambers with each of them?”

  “What would be the purpose, Your Honor?” It was Jennifer Kellman.

  “The purpose, Ms. Kellman?” Judge Feigley gazed in disbelief at her. “To conduct a voir dire, to poll them as to the impact of Mr.

  Perini’s death on them. What else?”

  Neil Steinman knew instinctively that Judge Feigley was leaning toward denying the motion for a mistrial. She had been impressed, he thought, by what he said about “less drastic alternatives” to mistrial and “prophylactic measures to alleviate the impact of Mr. Perini’s death.” Now, savoring the judge’s rebuke of Jennifer Kellman, he said, “The government would have no objection to Your Honor’s meeting with the jurors, if Your Honor decides that’s appropriate.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Steinman,” she said. Looking expansively around the room, she asked, “Now, have we missed anything? Is there anything else?”

  At that point, a slim, nervous lawyer who had barely spoken during the course of the trial said, “What about Mr. Klein?”

  “Does anybody here know,” Judge Feigley asked, an expression of surprise on her face, “whether any new lawyer has entered an appearance for Mr. Klein?”

  P A U L B A T I S T A

  The same lawyer said, “Mr. Klein came to court alone this morning. He was sitting alone at the defense table when you asked the lawyers to come up here.”

  Sternly, she said, “I wish somebody had raised this before. The man was entitled to be here.”

  “I would have objected to that,” Sorrentino said. “This whole conference has been more in the nature of a sidebar, Judge, for lawyers only.”

  “Mr. Sorrentino, you seem to forget that this is my court. Mr.

  Klein, in effect, is now pro se. Nobody represents him. So as far as 30

  I’m concerned he represents himself until he finds another lawyer, and he has the same standing as you do to be here. I want him up here.” She motioned to one of her law clerks, telling him to contact the courtroom deputy to find Mr. Klein and bring him to chambers.

  The intricate system of moving jurors, witnesses, and others around the courthouse operated smoothly during Judge Feigley’s trials. Because of her seniority, she had a large staff and had, during the course of her years in this same building, developed a range of techniques for moving people from place to place. The courthouse was like an old castle and she knew where all the pul-leys and airshafts were. Her system needed less than five minutes to produce Selig Klein.

  Klein, who had built a durable trucking empire on the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts, was unmistakably bewildered when he walked into Judge Feigley’s chambers. The least sophisticated and the least known of all the defendants, Klein had dropped out of school in the tenth grade and worked as a truck driver before he started his own company, with one used truck, when he was in his mid-twenties. He still boasted about being a union member and collecting a two-hundred-dollar-a-month pension from the teamsters.

  Despite his decades on the waterfront, he managed to stay out of serious trouble with the passing parade of prosecutors, reformers, and Waterfront Commission members who policed the piers D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

  where he had his multiple depots. This was the first time he had ever been indicted. Given his background, it seemed strange that his only face-to-face encounter with the legal system was in a case like this, involving bribery and political payoff schemes, instead of one involving the kind of physical violence everyone assumed Sy Klein had put in motion for years.

  “Sit down, Mr. Klein,” Judge Feigley said, almost deferentially.

  “Maybe these ladies and gentlemen will make room for you at the table,” she continued, gesturing.

  Klein’s face was an open book. No matter how tough he was 31

  (and everyone believed he was tough), this setting was beyond him. He looked hopelessly intimidated in this group of lawyers.

  He had no idea how to act. And he couldn’t conceal his continuing amazement that this judge was not only a woman but black and that she had a mystical control over him. He had never been this close to her, and he stared at her. The bewildered expression on his face almost made Jennifer Kellman laugh.

  “Mr. Klein, I want you to relax,” the judge said, “and I want you to answer one or two questions.”

  Klein’s eyes bounced around the other faces at the table. “My lawyer,” he said, “always told me to say nothing to nobody.”

  “That’s good advice, Mr. Klein, but you’re in a unique situation, and nobody but me is going to ask you any questions, and none of these questions can hurt you.” She paused. “The court is only trying to help.”

  Klein shrugged. “I don’t know anything. Ask me what you want.”

  “Have you had an opportunity to find another lawyer yet?”

  “Hey. What kind of opportunity? The kid got killed over the weekend. Ever try to find a lawyer on a weekend?”

  Even Neil Steinman laughed. Sorrentino noticed that there was genuine affection in Klein’s use of the word “kid” to describe Perini. Klein was ordinarily hard and taciturn. Vincent Sorrentino imagined he was a difficult client. But even Sy Klein had absorbed Tom Perini’s pleasing, warm charisma. Klein and Perini P A U L B A T I S T A

  had developed that intense, ear-to-ear whispering relationship that evolved sometimes between criminal lawyers and their clients during the course of a trial.

  Judge Feigley was almost gentle with Klein. “How long do you think it would take you to find a lawyer?”

  Klein had always been a quick opportunist. He now believed that this conversation could help him. “I don’t know. It took a long time to find Perini. There aren’t that many lawyers around who do this kind of work. It could take weeks, months.”

  Steinman, suddenly concerned that he was losing his advan-32

  tage, jumped in, “Judge, with all respect, I think Mr. Klein is exaggerating—”

  “Stop there, Mr. Steinman. I’m talking to Mr. Klein. One thing I know for sure. You never had to find a lawyer for yourself in the middle of a criminal trial, and I know I never have.”

  Klein was speaking. “And there’s another thing. I’m tapped out, money-wise. I had to pay Mr. Perini more than two hundred and fifty grand, up front, and there ain’t no other attorney around who’s gonna come in for less.”

  “Don’t mislead the court, Mr. Klein. You’re not a poor man.”

  “Judge, I’m not misleading nobody. That’s what it costs when these guys go after you.” He gestured at Steinman and the other government lawyers near him. It was a mean, almost threatening pointing of his index finger. “They put you in the poorhouse.”

  �
��If you’re indigent, Mr. Klein, the court will appoint a lawyer for you.”

  “I’m not that, Judge. It just won’t be easy. It’ll be real expensive. I can’t just snap my fingers. I can’t just go to his wife and kid and get my money back.”

  Judge Feigley motioned to her law clerk. Behind her large left hand they whispered to one another. In the pause, Vincent Sorrentino now remembered that his client, Congressman Fonseca, once told him that Sy Klein was “no fool.” Sorrentino could now appreciate the comment, which he had dismissed at the time.

  At the head of the table most of the whispering was done by D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

  the judge’s law clerk, a twenty-six-year-old lawyer, also black, who had graduated from Yale two years earlier and whom the judge leaned on inordinately for advice. She now waved him away and looked around the table.

  “One thing I might consider,” she said, “is severing Mr. Klein and letting his case get tried later. Anyone want to comment on that?”

  Sorrentino leaned forward. “I object to it, Judge.”

  “What a surprise, Mr. Sorrentino. You object to everything I do or suggest. Do you have a reason for this one?”

  33

  “Absolutely, Judge. It would be highly prejudicial to my client if Mr. Klein were let out at this stage.”

  “You care to tell me why?”

  “Congressman Fonseca is not guilty of anything, Judge. But the government has so far tried to create the impression that he got stock in lots of companies, including Mr. Klein’s, in return for favors. None of that’s true, and I believe that the case will be dismissed as against the Congressman after the government rests, because its case is speculative—”

  Judge Feigley cut him off. “The difficulty I’ve got with you, Mr.

  Sorrentino, is that you never seem to talk about the issue I’ve got to deal with. I asked why you’d object to Mr. Klein’s severance, not whether your client was guilty or innocent. I want an answer, not a summation.”

  “Because—and I don’t want to give out privileged information to Mr. Steinman—if the Congressman does have to put on a defense, we will show that Mr. Klein was really the prime mover behind an aborted scheme to bribe the Congressman and others—”

  Now Klein was on his feet. “You fuckin’ liar.” His face was transformed from the bewildered man who had walked into the room. He was concentrated. He was genuinely furious. He pointed at Sorrentino. “You’re a fuckin’ lyin’ Wop—”

  Three U.S. Marshals immediately threw open the door to Judge Feigley’s chambers and raced toward Klein. He may once P A U L B A T I S T A

  have been physically powerful but was now in fact old. The three agile men had no trouble controlling him.

  Sorrentino, as Neil Steinman noticed, was visibly upset.

  Klein’s fury was real, the instant rage of the hoodlum, and Sorrentino was its object. Steinman relished the thought that Sorrentino was shaken, plainly concerned that he had gone too far in antagonizing Klein. Steinman knew the FBI had secretly recorded a conversation of Sy Klein boasting that he was one of the only “guys still around” who knew where to go to “buy a shvartzeh for fifty dollars to bust people up.” That was its own 34

  kind of special power, and Klein had it. Sorrentino sat far back in his chair as he watched the marshals lead Klein from the room.

  Judge Feigley showed no sign of any emotion. “I think we’ve had enough for the morning. We know what all the issues are.

  You’re all dismissed for the day, and the jurors will be, too. I hope to have a decision by ten tomorrow morning.”

  She rose slowly to her feet, as did everyone else in the room.

  “One last thing. I’m telling you all right now I don’t want to read about any of this in the papers or see any of your faces on the news. I’m sealing the transcript of this session. You’re all officers of the court. I want silence. I’ll lock up the first one who talks.

  Period.”

  As she spoke, she looked at Vincent Sorrentino.

  * * *

  At ten the next morning, Judge Feigley stepped majestically into her courtroom. She wore black robes and tinted glasses, and her Lady Bird Johnson hair was freshly done, glistening. The spectator section of the courtroom had seats for two hundred people. They were all filled.

  She announced that the defense motions for a mistrial had been denied. The trial would resume the following morning. She also announced that the court had, on its own motion (she loved to use Latin expressions and said “sua sponte”), raised and considered the issue of severing Mr. Klein from the trial. She had determined to D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

  grant that motion and sever. A date for his separate trial would be set in the future.

  Standing to state his objection to the severance on the record, Sorrentino, without glancing at him, felt Selig Klein pass behind him as the old man left the courtroom.

  35

  5.

  The head of the NBC news department called Julie seven days after she returned from Lowell. Although Stan Wasserman wasn’t an emotional person, he’d always been a professional and, unlike other people at his level in the news business, treated his writers and reporters, both men and women, with respect. He said three things to Julie: that what had happened to her and Kim was overwhelming, unimaginable; that she could come back to NBC

  whenever she wanted, either full-time or part-time; and that Special Agent McGlynn wanted to speak with her.

  “Who is he?”

  “All he would tell me was that he was an FBI agent with what he said was the Organized Crime Strike Force. He said he thought it would be better if I told you he wanted to speak with you instead of his just showing up on your doorstep. He said he didn’t know who else to call to get through to you.”

  “The NYPD said they were handling this.”

  “Apparently they need help from a higher authority.”

  Julie tried to joke. “And I thought the police were New York’s finest. Every last one of them a hero, at least since 9/11.”

  Laconically, Wasserman said, “McGlynn wants to see you soon.”

  “Sure.” She was subdued again. “I want to talk to him. Or to anybody who can help, if there’s anybody anywhere in the world who can do that. But, Stan, when it happened it was dark. Seven D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

  million people live in this crazy city, everybody’s hopped up.

  Anybody and everybody could have done it.”

  Stan Wasserman was matter-of-fact. “When do you want to see him?”

  “Ask if he can see me tomorrow. But, Stan,” she added quickly,

  “I don’t want to go to him. See if he can come uptown.”

  “I’m sure he will; he’s anxious to talk to you.”

  “Ask if he’ll meet me at eleven tomorrow morning at the coffee shop at 79th and Madison. It’s called Nectar. The one on the southwest corner.”

  37

  “I’ll call him.”

  “But how will he know me?”

  “How? Your pictures, Julie, your pictures. You’ve been on television a great deal lately. Newspapers, too. Magazines. Haven’t you seen?”

  “I haven’t noticed anything, Stan. I’ve been sleepwalking.”

  “Stay strong,” Stan Wasserman said, awkwardly. “And call me if you need anything.”

  * * *

  McGlynn looked exactly as she’d expected, about forty, blue eyes, a full head of closely cropped, sandy hair, dressed neatly in a light blue suit. He introduced himself as “Special Agent McGlynn,”

  in a Brooklyn accent, too polite. He wore too much sandalwood cologne. Its residue stayed on her fingers after she shook his hand. As she sipped her strong coffee at a table near the window overlooking the sunny intersection at 79th and Madison, she decided after the first few words that she didn’t like him, that he was one of those retirement-obsessed, unimaginative veterans of government service who were marking time. This guy, she thought, will never find the man who kill
ed my husband.

  McGlynn said he had been a fan of Tom when Tom was with the Jets and he even remembered a Vikings–Jets game at Shea Sta-dium on a cold day when Tom scored two touchdowns. “He was real fast, people used to say that, sportswriters, and I remember P A U L B A T I S T A

  when I saw him, I thought, that’s right: he’s got speed and balance.

  And strength. I remember that. It was a big thrill to see him on the field.”

  He sounded, to Julie, like one of those guys who calls all-night sports-talk radio shows—washed-out, empty macho guys with nothing better to do with their time and their lives than talk about the easiest subjects in the world—sports and the people who play sports.

  “Look, Mr. McGlynn,” Julie said. “It’s difficult for me to talk about those things. I appreciate your saying them, but I can’t talk 38

  about that kind of thing. I was never much of a football fan. I never saw him play. He was my husband. That’s how I always thought about him.”

  McGlynn abruptly looked her straight in the eyes. Suddenly his blue eyes conveyed to Julie what blue eyes in men had always conveyed: cold, passionless calculation, almost always about sex.

  Now more businesslike, he explained he was one of a group of federal agents assigned to look into her husband’s death. He said the United States government had an interest in finding out who was responsible for what happened to Tom Perini.

  “I thought the New York police were looking into it. There have been policemen all over Central Park.”

  “There are, for sure,” McGlynn answered. “They do the ground-work, if you know what I mean. They’re the foot soldiers. They look to see what’s in the grass. But we have a parallel investigation.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we want to make sure we find out as much as we can.” And then he coldly responded to the specific question he read on her face. “But I can’t give you the exact reason.”

  Julie realized that the appearance of her face was wan, defeated, but she was surprised at the steel in her attitude toward McGlynn. “I’ll ignore the mystery, although I think I’m entitled to know. I want help. Any help I can get. What can I tell you?”