Sideswiped: Book One in the Matt Blake legal thriller series

by Russell Moran

  Why would I need to check my schedule? I thought.

  “Oh, yeah, my schedule. It’s always busy so I figured I’d call you now.” But why? Why the hell am I calling him?

  “How about Saturday, February 7? Figure on staying at least a week, more if you want.”

  “You mean Florida?”

  “No, shithead, I figured we’d get together in beautiful balmy Chicago in February. Of course, Florida. Don’t you remember? You’re going to stay at my place in Delray.”

  “Of course, Delray. But what about your wife and kids?”

  “Matt, my friend, you seemed to be a little pain-free last night. I’m single with a big house and a guest bedroom. Come on down and soak up some Florida sun. I’ll introduce you to so some of my rock and roll buddies. Maybe I’ll have you make a recording.”

  “Great, Jimmy. I’ll plan to get there on February 7. I’m sure I don’t have any trials coming up, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll call you Monday if I have to change anything.”

  “Super, Matt. As long as you don’t have another Chicago blizzard that shuts down O’Hare, I’ll see you then.”

  I still didn’t remember our conversation at the bar, but I loved the idea of heading south. I could use some time off, I thought. My father said I’d been working too hard. I’m sure he and Bill Randolph would be okay with my little vacation.

  Chapter 11

  My flight took off from O’Hare at 7 a.m. on February 7. The temperature in Chicago was 10 degrees, and I was happy to see the Windy City recede from view. We landed in Baltimore for connecting flights at 10 a.m., but I stayed on because my plane’s next stop would be Fort Lauderdale. We sat on the tarmac for over two hours because of weather-related air traffic snarls across the country.

  A flight attendant asked if I would like something from the bar. What the hell, I thought, it was almost noon and I wasn’t going to drive to Jimmy’s house. He had arranged for a limo to pick me up. The Scotch went down smoothly, as it always does. I asked the flight attendant for two more little bottles as a follow up, to supplement the two I had in my coat pocket. She gave me a wink as she returned with them. Flying goes well with booze. Good thing I’m not a pilot.

  The limo picked me up at the airport, and it was a short ride to Delray Beach. Jimmy’s house was beautiful, with a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired roofline and a panoramic view of the ocean. A large deck overlooked the water with a stairway leading down to the sandy beach. The house was right next to the recording studio, although there were no signs indicating that. Jimmy wanted to keep within the zoning laws. As I expected, Jimmy came running out of the house and wrapped me in a bear hug.

  “Always the introvert as usual, Jimmy.”

  “Matt, you arrived at just the right time. We’re about to record a session with one of the best rock groups in Southern Florida, the Manatees.”

  Jimmy told me to sit in the control booth next to him so I could get the full experience of a rock band looking for the big time. He introduced me to the four musicians. The rhythm guitarist, Bill Tilly was also the lead vocalist. I had never been in a recording studio before, and I found it fascinating. The Manatees were well known for their Beatles music. They were one of many bands in the country that specialized in almost exact imitations of the boys from Liverpool.

  They played “Hard Day’s Night,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Paperback Writer,” and, it seemed to me, almost every one of the big Beatle hits. After three straight hours of music, punctuated occasionally by Jimmy asking the band to repeat something, the session was a wrap. It was 6:30 p.m., and Jimmy invited the performers into his house next to the studio for some relaxation. As good as the music was, I found the relative silence relaxing.

  Our musician friends had a gig in an hour so they said good-bye after smoking a joint.

  “What’ll it be, Matt? Scotch, I assume.”

  He handed me a glass of ice completely covered with my favorite amber liquid. As I sipped my Scotch, I noticed Jimmy take a small bag and place it on the counter. He tapped out a white substance onto a mirror and arranged the powder into neat lines “Matt, this goes better with Scotch than a beer chaser.”

  “No, thanks, buddy, I don’t do coke. I’ve seen it fuck with people’s heads in Iraq. I’ll stick with Mr. Johnnie Walker.”

  “Matt, this isn’t coke. This is the powder of the gods, the muse of creativity, the best fucking high you can ever have. Did you ever ride the friendly White Horse?”

  “Do you mean heroin? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Jimmy. That stuff can kill you.”

  “Your lack of faith disturbs me,” said Jimmy, doing an imitation of Darth Vader. “Matt, you’ve been listening to the wrong propaganda and believing it. This stuff should be kept away from kids, but for serious adults, it’s a feast in a bag.”

  “But don’t you worry about becoming dependent on it, you know, addicted?”

  Jimmy rolled up the sleeves of his shirt one at a time. “Do you see anything on these arms, my man? I’ve been riding Mr. White Horse for years. The only needle I ever see is my annual flu shot. A couple of gentle snorts and the world is at peace. Hey, Matt, I wouldn’t fuck with you. Occasional use of this stuff is harmless—harmless and delightful. Hey, try a line. I’m not messing with you. If you don’t want to, I dig it. But a little line won’t kill you.”

  I wasn’t kidding Jimmy when I told him I never did drugs. I’d only smoked weed a few times in my life. I’m not a guy for narcotics, never have been. I am a bit fond of Scotch, I must admit, but drugs are a different story. But I figured that if my old friend Jimmy could be so straight-looking and successful, it wouldn’t do any harm to take a snort.

  “What the hell,” I said. “I’m still celebrating my big verdict.”

  “I heard about it, and I want you to tell me all about the trial later.”

  Jimmy rolled a crisp dollar bill into a tube and handed it to me. He then leaned over the table with his own tube and said, “Like this.”

  As simple as that, I put the tube next to the line, put a finger over one of my nostrils, and breathed in deeply through the other. It had a strange taste at first, and it was a weird sensation to inhale powder through your nose. Within a few seconds I started to feel it, a wonderful sense of euphoria, like all of the problems of the world just disappeared right up my nose.

  “That’s nice, really nice,” I said to Jimmy.

  “Would your old friend kid you?”

  I sat on the couch, staring out the window overlooking the ocean. It was dark and there was no moon, but I swear I could discern sparkling lights on the whitecaps. I couldn’t remember such a pleasant feeling in a long time. It reminded me of the time I had surgery and the doctor gave me a shot of sodium pentothal to relax me for a spinal. I was in a deep calm space. Within a couple of minutes I dozed off, my chin tucked against my chest. I would later learn that this is known as “the nod,” the familiar state of a person on a heroin high. I dreamt about Maggie. It was a good dream, not a nightmare. Jimmy was sitting on the other side of the room enjoying his nod. When he saw me wake up he said, “See Matt, no crash, despite what you may have heard. You just zone out and wake up feeling fine.”

  Well, I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort, but I could sure as hell use another line, I thought.

  In the ensuing months I would discover, as if I didn’t know, that people react differently to narcotics. Some people can take drugs recreationally all their lives without becoming addicted. Others, like me I would soon learn, become dependent within a short time. During my stay at Jimmy’s in beautiful Delray Beach, I had no idea that I had just begun my voyage as a junkie.

  Jimmy was great company. Every day he invited me to listen in on a recording session, and at night we toured some of the great local eateries. I quickly realized that one can have a heightened experience of good music while riding the White Horse. I was up to four lines a day after only six days. Hey, I was only snorting. Ride ‘em cowboy.

  Whe
n it came time to leave, Jimmy drove me to the airport in Fort Lauderdale. On the way, I knew I had to ask him an important question.

  “Say, Jimmy, suppose I want to, you know, relax a bit from time to time when I get back. Do you have any idea where I can get a bag of H in Chicago?” A “bag of H,” I thought. Shit, I’m actually starting to use junkie jargon.

  Jimmy wrote on the back of a business card.

  “Call this guy, Mike Jonas. He’s a physical therapist at Stroger Hospital. A good guy and discreet as hell. Just tell him Jimmy sent you.”

  My plane landed at O’Hare at 6 p.m. on Saturday. When I arrived at my apartment at 7:45, the first thing I did was call Mike Jonas.

  Chapter 12

  Just a few days after my trip to Florida, I walked down La Salle Street to the office. I was delighted that the weather had finally moderated. It was 8 a.m., 45 degrees, and expected to top out at 49. Not bad for Mid-February in the Windy City. A lot of the snow piles had shrunk, and the only trick was maneuvering over the puddles of slushy melt. I felt great. Not a hint of a hangover. I noticed my nose ran a bit, but I assumed that my body was making the adjustment from Florida to Illinois.

  I walked into Blake & Randolph and was immediately hit by applause. “Hey, it’s the 12 million dollar man,” somebody yelled. Wow, we’d already had a party right after the Andres verdict but they were still cheering me three months later. It felt good. I felt like I belonged. I felt like a honcho. Maybe an asshole too, but that would unfold over the next few weeks.

  ***

  As I sat at my desk going over my mail and messages, my intercom rang. It was my father asking me to come to his office.

  Bill Randolph sat on the couch across from dad’s desk. They both smiled at me.

  “I know I said this before,” said Bill, “but that was one hell of a job you did on the Andres case. Just outstanding.”

  “Hey, Bill,” my father said, “don’t give him a swelled head.”

  “Oh screw it, Jim, let him enjoy a swelled head for a while. He’ll eventually get his ass kicked, but meantime, let him bask in the glory.”

  My father laughed good-naturedly. “And get this Matt. There won’t be an appeal in the Andres case, and we won’t have to file a Bad Faith lawsuit. We settled the case. I didn’t want to bother you on vacation, so I handled it without you, if you don’t mind. They were hot to settle.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Well, I let them save a few bucks, $500,000 to be exact. We settled for $11,500,000, exactly 10 times the amount of the policy that they refused to pay.”

  “Oh, and another thing, Matt,” said Bill. “Georgina Rice, your opposing counsel, is very fond of you. Maybe you should ask her out on a date.”

  “She’s a really nice gal, but she’s not my type (what is my type, I wondered), but thanks for the advice, Bill. I’m just not there yet.”

  ***

  “Bill and I didn’t call you in here to pat you on the head. We have an important case we’re going to assign to you. The plaintiff specifically requested that you handle it. Apparently she saw you try the Andres case and was impressed. You’ve proven you can handle big matters.”

  Dad looked at the exact title, or caption, of the case, and read it out loud.

  “The case is The Estate of James Spellman and Diana Spellman, and Diana Spellman individually v. Gulf Oil Company and Harold Morgan. It’s a wrongful death case involving a car crash. Woody Donovan took a slew of witness statements. It’s going to be another case of an asshole on a cell phone, just like the one where your Maggie died. We seem to get more cell phone negligence cases every month. Are you okay with handling a case with that liability situation, Matt?”

  “No problem, dad. I like the idea of going after a jerk who talks and texts while driving.”

  “Woody thinks he’s hearing a lot of lies from various witnesses,” Bill said, “all sorts of inconsistencies and out-and-out bullshit. The damages in this case will be huge, so we’ve hired an outside consultant to vet the witnesses for us, a guy who’s a nationally recognized expert in spotting lies on the witness stand. You may have heard of us talk about him. His name is Dr. Benjamin Weinberg. He retired from the NYPD where he was a psychiatrist and a detective, but he still works for them on a contract basis. He’s also done a ton of work for the FBI. He’s known by anybody who’s worked with him as ‘Bennie the Bullshit Detector,’ a title he’s earned. We’re paying him a load of dough, $50,000, but for a case like this we need him. You’ll like him, Matt. Bennie’s a good guy and a straight shooter. He’ll be here in two weeks. I want you and Woody to go into a cocoon with this guy and build this case.”

  Chapter 13

  I looked at my watch as I woke up. 8 a.m. Shit, I had to get to the office. Wait a minute. Where the hell am I? I thought. I was in my car. I seemed to be in a park somewhere. What the fuck was I doing in a park in February? I was freezing. My foot struck something on the floor. It was an empty Scotch bottle. I had white powder all over my jacket. Shit, where’s the stuff? I thought. I remembered visiting Mike Jonas the previous night for a purchase. But where’s the stuff? I found one bag in my pocket, but where was the other one? I couldn’t have snorted an entire bag in one night. Could I? No, I must have spilled it, I thought. Well, I still had another bag. Time for a wake-up snort. I’ve found that a few lines of heroin can be a great way to start the day.

  I looked in the mirror. I can’t go to the office looking like this, I thought. I have to go back to the apartment to shave and shower. I called the office and said I’d be a bit late. Fortunately I didn’t have any appointments that morning.

  But where the hell am I? I thought. I started the car and drove along a road through the park following the exit signs. It seemed like a bike path. I didn’t recall ever being in that park before. I saw a sign that said Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park. I passed by one modern sculpture after another. One was close by the path around a bend, and I almost crashed into it. How the hell did I wind up in Skokie, about 40 minutes from my apartment in Chicago?

  Maybe it’s time to go easy the booze and Mr. White Horse, I thought. It’s not that I have any kind of problem; it’s just that I sometimes overdo things.

  I often bullshit myself like that, especially in the morning.

  Chapter 14

  Scotty Jenkins, one of my fellow associates at Blake & Randolph, was hospitalized for hernia surgery, so Bill Randolph assigned me to handle his files in his absence. On March 4, I attended a pretrial hearing in the matter of Langley v. Goodyear, et. al., a monster of a case. The Langley matter was a product liability lawsuit involving an exploding tire, which resulted in serious head injuries for our client, Peter Langley. Besides the rubber company, the list of defendants included the garage where the accident occurred, the tire rim manufacturer, the maker of the air hose, and a bunch of other minor players. I counted at least eight cross-complaints by different defendants against each other. A cross-complaint is an action where a defendant says “I’m not admitting the accident even happened, but if it did, it was the other defendant’s fault.” It’s a matter of legal finger-pointing.

  My job at the pretrial hearing wasn’t complicated. Judge Angelo Rubino let it be known that this hearing would concentrate on the status of the pretrial discovery in the case. Rubino has a reputation as a tough judge who tolerates no bullshit.

  TV law dramas usually include lots of surprises. Just as the hero’s case looks like it’s on the rocks, along comes a surprise expert witness who saves the day right after the last commercial break. It doesn’t happen that way. The legal system, state and federal, wants each side to know as much as possible about the other side’s case. This makes a lot of sense. If each side knows what the case against him is all about, chances are that the case will settle, and the justice system can grind on to the next matter. The law doesn’t like surprises. Judges don’t like surprises. Today’s hearing concentrated mainly on everybody’s lists of expert witnesses.

 
My hospital-bound friend and associate Scotty Jenkins had prepared the file perfectly, as is the rule at Blake & Randolph. When an attorney from our firm shows up in court on any matter, the other lawyers pay attention. They pay attention because they know that we’re always prepared. It’s one of the reasons why Blake & Randolph is respected. And feared.

  Judge Rubino called the hearing to order. Twelve lawyers sat around the long conference table in his chambers. The judge polled each of us, one by one, about our list of experts. At the end of the hearing he would ask each of us to hand a copy of our lists to Josie Johnston, his law clerk. Josie is a short, pretty black woman, about 35 years old. Like her boss, Judge Rubino, Josie has a reputation as a tough customer. Some lawyers find her as intimidating as Rubino himself. She’s bright as hell and organized to a fine point. Josie’s been with Judge Rubino for seven years. A lot of people thought that she could do a lot better, given her academic credentials. My take on the subject was that she just liked working for the guy. When you see them interact, you know they’re two of a kind, two smart people who like to get things done. Josie has a lovely voice that can be startling when she yells, and she yells a lot. When Josie raises her voice, you want to duck for cover.

  The expert witness conversation started to drone on, and I could tell that Rubino and Josie were getting pissed, but not nearly as pissed as I was. I began to feel uncomfortable, nervous, and edgy. My stomach was bothering me, and I felt an achiness in my shoulders. I could sure use a little white snort of relaxation, I thought. One attorney announced to the judge that he objected to a certain expert submitted by another one of the defense lawyers. The judge informed him that he should bring a motion, a written motion, and it would be placed on the motion calendar. A motion is one of a zillion things that happens during the life of a lawsuit. It’s a way to sort out legal issues rather than wait for everything to come up at trial.