“Yes, I remember that too.” J.T. listened carefully.
“And, based mainly on that conflict in the grand jury testimony, Tauber and his son were indicted.”
“There’s a little more to it, but basically that’s correct. Come on, Marty, get to the point. I have to get to a meeting uptown. We’re putting our team for the mayoral run together, and I have an appointment with the president of the Regional Teamsters Council. I want to get their endorsement. And some of their money!”
“You may need their money more than you know, when you hear what I have to tell you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“This tape,” said Marty, taking a cassette from his pocket, “was made by Rainone when he talked to Randolph Tauber.”
“What’s on it?”
“Tauber very distinctly and audibly tells Rainone that he cannot take the stand, that his record is so bad that it is impossible to let him appear before a jury. Therefore, these was no concocted defense—just as young Tauber said.”
J.T. said nothing.
“It means, doesn’t it, J.T.,” Marty continued, “that our undercover man deliberately lied to our grand jury? Our own tape makes Rainone’s—our witness’s—testimony perjurious. We had to know about this. It’s our tape! And we let it stand! We sat back and let the indictment lodge against the Taubers and put their careers on the line. And we knew—or should have known—they were telling the truth in front of the grand jury. They didn’t commit perjury, our man did.”
“I knew nothing about it,” J.T. said flatly.
“This was a special situation that you personally concocted. How could you not know?”
“I didn’t know how Levine was going about it, Marty.”
“Do you realize how embarrassing this is going to be? You can protest all you want that you didn’t know what was going on, but that isn’t going to relieve you of legal responsibility when the Taubers sue the State of New York and you personally for a jillion dollars.”
“Does this tape have to get out?” J.T. asked.
“What?” Marty raged. “Are you suggesting that we suppress this tape, that we let the Taubers go to trial and be convicted, when we know they didn’t commit the crimes they’re indicted for? You think I’d be a party to that?”
“No, no, of course not. That’s not what I meant. You don’t think I’d let myself be a party to anything like that either, do you?”
“I’m wondering.”
“Jesus, Marty. I said I didn’t know about it,” J.T. said, offended. “But you’re right. I’m going to be held responsible for it. The papers will have a field day dancing on my head. Just when I don’t need bad publicity.” J.T. winced. “Damn.” He pounded his desk with the palm of his hand. “That bastard Levine.”
“Why the hell are you blaming Levine? You encouraged him to the hilt to get you this indictment.”
“God damn it!” J.T. screamed, flinging everything from his desktop with one sweep of his arm. “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.”
“And that’s putting it mildly,” Marty said.
“Sure, you can afford to be clever. You’re not the guy out front who’s going to be kicked in the ass. The press will flay me. You’ve got to help me out of this, Marty,” J.T. said desperately.
Marty wondered if J.T. was affecting this emotion for his benefit. “Excuse me, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this situation, J.T.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to turn these tapes over to the defendants.”
“What? Marty, the newspapers’ll kill me. How can I start a mayoral campaign if you do that? Those liberal rags will have a field day.”
“What the hell do you want me to do, let the Taubers get convicted, lose their licenses to practice law, Judge Tauber be defrocked? I told you this scheme of yours was dangerous.”
“Okay, okay, so you told me. Now what? I’m in a real jam, and at the wrong time. Couldn’t be a worse time.”
“Do you realize that all this started because Sergeant Lewis vaguely remembered a rumor that Seymour Fine might have mentioned to a client that he had given money to Judge Tauber? All this from a rumor!”
“What do you think we should do?” J.T. wondered absently.
“Even after Seymour Fine insisted he was only reaming a client for a bigger fee, you persisted. You wanted to indict a judge so badly that you went to this length to get a case against Tauber. Did it ever occur to you that Seymour Fine was telling the truth? That he was really just a cheap shyster trying to steal a few extra bucks?”
J.T. shuddered. “Don’t mention Seymour Fine’s name to me.”
“Why, because he committed suicide in a fit of depression over this?”
“Let’s talk about the mess we have on our hands now. What should we do, Marty?” J.T. rose and took Marty by the arm. His eyes were round with fright. “Please, Marty, please. I swear I didn’t know.”
“Get hold of yourself, J.T.”
“Suppose, just suppose, that you were me, Marty. What special words in the English language could you use to convince your best friend that you needed help? Are there such special words?”
“All right, all right, just don’t beg.”
“You believe me?”
“Yes, anything, just so you stop whining. It’s demeaning.”
“Do you have to give them the tapes right now?” J.T. wondered.
“You’re not telling me you want me to suppress these tapes and let the Taubers keep going through emotional torture until the trial?”
“The law doesn’t require you to turn them over now. Not until trial, right? Delay the trial so they’ll still have plenty of time to prepare. Where’s the harm there? Primary’s only a few months off. After that, give them their tapes over now. Our entire futures, our careers are on the line.”
“Our futures?”
“If this office is blasted by headlines suggesting improprieties while you’re the chief of staff, you’re not going to get a standing ovation out in the job market either, you know. You have a stake in this too, Marty. I’m just asking for a little time.”
“Why should the Taubers continue to suffer just to save our hides?”
“We didn’t do anything, Marty. We didn’t know. Why should we suffer for Levine’s insanity?”
Marty hesitated.
J.T. saw that fatal hesitation and smiled to himself. “Besides,” he said, “there are other counts to their indictment other than the one about the phony alibi, aren’t there? Even if you give them the tapes now, the case wouldn’t be over, would it?”
“There’s nothing much to the rest of the case, J.T.”
“But there is something?”
“Yes.”
“Just hold on to the tapes for a little longer. I’ll get my mayoral campaign moving so fast we’ll fly out of here. Let’s leave this hot potato for the next special prosecutor.” J.T. jammed his fist down on the intercom button.
“Yes, sir?” the secretary’s voice asked.
“Get Stern on the intercom for me,” J.T. demanded.
For a few minutes, Marty and J.T. sat silently. J.T. stole an occasional glance at Marty, who was deep in thought. After a short wait, the intercom buzzed.
“Yes?” J.T. said into the phone.
“It’s Stern. You wanted me?”
“Call Levine into your office. Fire his ass. Immediately. And make sure he’s out of this building in thirty minutes.”
“Right,” Stern said with pleasure.
“And if he tries to see me, tell him there’s nothing to discuss. Get him out of here. Now!”
J.T. looked over to Marty for approval. Marty was staring at the ceiling, unhappy with himself.
“Well, what’s wrong now? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“If you fire Levine now, it’ll underscore the Tauber situation, won’t it?”
J.T. was pensive. “Good thinking, Marty,” he said, pushing th
e intercom button again.
“That’s what I was afraid of. I’ve even learned to think like you.”
“Don’t fire him,” J.T. directed into the intercom. “Just ream him out royally for being a dumb bastard.”
October 2, 1968
“This Boxer fellow is full of baloney,” Sabbatino said to Brill. “Not that that’s a surprise, of course.”
“What did he say when you called and asked about the tapes?”
“He said we’ll get them. It’s just that he’s been tied up, and he’s planning on leaving the office soon, etcetera. A lot of phony excuses.”
“I thought we were actually going to get some discovery well in advance of trial this time. I guess I guessed wrong.”
“I’ve never been a prosecutor, Joe. You have. But I just have never understood why it’s skin off the DA’s nose to let the defendant get a fair—I mean that—a fair trial.”
“Even DAs are human, Peter. They want to win—not put people in jail necessarily, but they do want to do well. You can’t do well if your opponent gets all your good stuff.”
“But we’re dealing with people’s lives, Joe, people who are facing jail. This isn’t just some business.”
“As professionals, defense attorneys purposely, in order to be objective, deal with cases just as cases, not as people. Isn’t that true, Peter?”
“True. I don’t want to know a thing about my clients or their families. I’d get too involved emotionally, otherwise.”
“DAs are in the same professional mold. They aren’t dealing with people, they’re dealing just with cases.”
Sabbatino thought for a moment. “You think Boxer changed his mind, decided to hedge his bet, keep the material to himself until just before the trial?”
“I don’t know. You say he’s leaving the special prosecutor’s office? Perhaps he doesn’t want to tie the hands of the fellow who inherits the case.”
“In any case, we’ll see in a few minutes when we get to court.”
“I really feel like a deadbeat,” Marty said bitterly to J.T. They were in J.T.’s office, waiting for Stern to fetch the car to take them to Judge Moriarty’s court.
“Look, I’m going to have a meeting with DeValen to set up the final arrangements for his retainer. I’m going to ask him for a guarantee—win, lose, or draw in the mayoral campaign—funds for at least one year. This way, at least we know that we’ll have the time and the money to get our office going, even if DeValen becomes disenchanted with us.”
“Does that mean you’re having some doubts about being able to carry this mayoral thing off?”
“Not at all. But I can hedge against the future. Why should we take any chances?”
“I still feel like a deadbeat.”
“About what?” J.T. said absently, flipping through some papers he took from a manila envelope.
“About first telling Brill and Sabbatino they could have the discovery, and then having to make up some dreary excuse for not giving it to them. Why the hell am I bothering to tell you? You’re not even listening.”
“Yes I am. I heard you. You’re feeling guilty because you haven’t turned over the tapes to the lawyers,” he said casually, still studying the papers in his hand. “The papers I’m looking at are survey results on people’s reaction to my campaign. We had them compiled last week. We’re strong in the areas that we figured we’d be strong in—Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island. In fact, it looks like we’re picking up strength.”
“When are you resigning from this office?”
“As soon as I have a piece of paper guaranteeing our retainer, with DeValen’s signature on it. If I announce my resignation before we have the guarantee, DeValen will have me by the short hairs and could walk away from his promise, and we’d be out in the cold without a job or a private office.”
“You don’t leave too much to chance, Otto.”
“Otto? You know we haven’t used that in a long time. Reminds me of the days of our innocence and youth.” He thought. “But I’m not that naive Otto I once was.”
“We’re both far from innocent anymore, J.T. The way we’ve been slipping and sliding through the narrow cracks doesn’t leave much room for innocence.”
J.T. shrugged, with a little smile. “We may not fight fair, but we don’t often lose.”
“I’m sorry to see that’s become your philosophy.”
“And not yours?”
“Not consciously. Or perhaps I should say, not by conscious choice. But, going along with your ideas without much opposition, I guess that makes me equally guilty.”
“That’s a rather strong word—guilty.”
“Why are you coming to court yourself this morning, J.T.?” Marty asked.
“Balzano set something up with the court reporters. They’re going to cover the Tauber case and catch me, accidentally-on-purpose, in action. That’ll give them an opportunity to do an article about the campaign. Every bit of publicity is important.”
“I should have known you had some devious reason.”
“Of course,” J.T. smiled. “Now where are we with the case, so I’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“We’re exchanging discovery. At first I told the defense I’d give them the tapes. Now—thanks to you—I’ve told them that the turnover would have to wait because I’m resigning from the office and I didn’t want to do anything that would interfere with what my successor wants to do.”
“Good, good.” J.T. nodded abstractly, his attention again wandering to the mayoral survey documents.
Marty stopped speaking as he saw J.T. absorbed in his statistics.
“People versus Tauber,” called the clerk.
Judge Moriarty glared savagely at Sabbatino as the lawyers and defendants walked to the defense counsel table.
“What’s your pleasure, Mr. Wright?” the judge asked, turning toward the prosecutor’s table. J.T. was still fascinated with those statistics, which showed that he was liked, wanted, needed, by thousands of people all around the city.
Marty nudged J.T.
“That’s not necessary, Marty,” J.T. whispered harshly. “I heard him. I believe, Your Honor, that the people are ready for trial,” J.T. said aloud.
Of course, J.T. knew that neither he nor anyone else in the office was ready to try the case. But he also knew the defense wasn’t ready yet either, as the motions for a Bill of Particulars hadn’t yet been decided. Thus it was safe for him to announce his readiness, putting the burden of asking for an adjournment on the defense lawyers.
“Your Honor,” said Joe Brill calmly, “apparently there’s some mistake on Mr. Wright’s part.”
J.T. looked up from his statistics. He was well aware that reporters were in the audience, listening, writing.
“The last time we were in court, Mr. Boxer advised us that we would receive all the discovery we needed in order to prepare this case. We have received nothing. While I appreciate that some might think that’s what defense counsel should be allowed to prepare a case, I for one admit I am unable to do so.”
“Your Honor,” said J.T. “We turned over what we believed to be all the discovery material—except, of course, for the tapes. Those will be turned over. I assumed that was everything.”
“Your Honor,” Sabbatino countered instantly, “since Mr. Wright was not here the last time this case was on the calendar, he may not be aware that Mr. Boxer advised defense counsel that whatever was needed could be obtained without further motions or objection. I’m sure Mr. Boxer recalls that.”
J.T.’s mind was absorbed in his documents, preparing for the interview that awaited him.
“That’s not necessary,” the judge said, smiling. “The fact that Mr. Boxer was attempting to be cooperative doesn’t create a compact, bonded and copper-sheathed, which binds the prosecutor to its terms.”
“J.T.,” Marty whispered, “will you get your face out of those statistics!”
“What is it?”
“Tell them they’re
going to have everything I told them they’d have.”
“You realize there are reporters here waiting to interview me?”
The eyes of the entire courtroom were centered on Marty and J.T.’s whispered conversation.
“Then you’d better announce that you’re retiring from this office.”
“I can’t make that announcement this morning. I told you I had to get something in writing from DeValen first.”
“Gentlemen?” the judge said in a kindly fashion.
“Your Honor,” said Marty, turning to the judge. “Everything I said the defense would have, they shall indeed have.”
The judge’s eyes flicked immediately to J.T.
“The tapes, however, are not ready to be turned over at this time,” Marty concluded.
“Your Honor,” said Sabbatino, “I don’t understand why the tapes cannot be turned over now. Particularly since they are the essence of the case.”
“You know what is said about looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
“I only know a little about the various ends of equine anatomy, Your Honor,” said Sabbatino.
“What was that remark, Mr. Sabbatino?” The judge’s eyes opened wide, his scrubbed skin turning an angry, bloodless white around the jaw muscles.
“I know little about horses’ parts,” Sabbatino said calmly.
“If I thought for certain that you meant something snide and insulting to the court, you can rest assured, sir, that I would have you flung into jail for contempt this very minute.”
“I certainly did not mean to infer anything other than that I know almost nothing about horses,” Sabbatino said innocently.
Sabbatino was at his best under adversity. It seemed to take years of age away from him as he stood straight, facing the judge directly, unafraid, bold, at ease.
“Give me a date, gentlemen,” the judge said, staring with narrowed eyes at Sabbatino.
“Three weeks from today, Your Honor,” suggested Brill.
“Very well, October twentieth,” the judge said. “Call the next case.”
J.T. Page 28
