The only witness I planned to put on the stand was Veronica. With Chet’s two forgery convictions, Eggert and Prescott both would easily make him out to be a liar if he testified, so everything would depend on her, which was fine by me, except she wasn’t in the courtroom. I had expected I wouldn’t need her until tomorrow.
“Your Honor,” I said. “We will have one witness, but if the court will allow, in light of what occurred to me this morning,” I was milking it but so what, “in light of the events of this morning, and in deference to the Lamb family, we ask that the court be recessed until tomorrow.”
The judge wasn’t happy about it, I could see that, being that it was only two o’clock and he could squeeze in another hour and a half of testimony before the scheduled quitting time, but he seemed willing to go along with my request until the disturbance broke out.
“If you could be giving me just a minute,” shouted Morris from the back of the courtroom, standing in the aisle with his hand up. He was wearing his shabby hat and a crumpled blue suit dusted heavily with dandruff and his tzitzis were hanging down from beneath his too tight jacket. “Just a minute is all I am needing to talk here with Victor.”
One of the marshals, blue blazered, his ear stuffed with ominous plastic, immediately rushed to Morris’s side and took hold of his arm. Prescott ducked and the judge cringed. Now that the community of our courtroom knew I was a marked man a noticeable nervousness had set in.
“What is happening here?” said a surprised Morris, trying to pull his arm away from the marshal. “What? Am I now a criminal?”
“Your Honor,” I said. “Can I have a minute?”
“You know that man?” asked the judge.
“Yes, sir. He is my investigator.”
There was a sudden laugh from the group of young lawyers behind Prescott, from Brett with two t’s and the others, a laugh at just how ludicrous it was that someone like Morris could be an investigator. People in the audience joined in, it spread gaily.
Without thinking I turned on the laughing young lawyers and said, loudly and angrily, “Is something funny, you little pissants?”
It stopped just that fast. There was a peculiar silence, like the whole court had been caught at something, and in the silence I remembered that just three weeks before, when Morris first appeared in court and there had been a snicker, I had turned away in embarrassment.
“Take your minute, Mr. Carl,” said the judge.
I motioned for Morris to come forward, and he did. I leaned over and he stood on his tiptoes and whispered in my ear, “I have for you a witness.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Your friend, Miss Beth, she gave me a paper and I showed it to the man.”
“A subpoena?”
“Because of such paper he agreed to come with me, but I fear, Victor, that if you don’t use him now he won’t be back tomorrow.”
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Gardner, a very nice man, actually, though he pretends to be not so nice. You should maybe, Victor, I’m no lawyer, but maybe you should call this man before he decides he doesn’t want to be here anymore.”
“What is this about?”
“You ask this Mr. Gardner some questions, Victor.”
He handed me four pieces of paper, a yellow original and three copies.
“Miss Beth said you would be needing more than one. I’ll be charging, of course, for the copies. A quarter they cost in this building. Gonifs, and our own government too.” Then he turned and went to the back of the courtroom and sat down again.
I looked over the original document briefly. Still puzzled, I said, “Your Honor, on behalf of Chester Concannon I call Mr. Leonard Gardner to the stand.”
He was a tall, middle-aged man with a fine suit and shiny black loafers. His hair was curly and very tightly trimmed. There was something hard about him, something defiant and angry. He had been put upon for too long and was not going to take it anymore, dammit. But even so he was walking up the courtroom aisle and slipping into the witness stand.
He answered the usual questions, checking his nails, letting out the arrogant sigh of a man whose time was being wasted. He was Leonard Gardner, G-A-R-D-N-E-R, he lived at 408 North 3rd Street, he was a businessman, primarily in fashion, importing certain fabrics from Pakistan.
“Now, Mr. Gardner, on the night of May ninth of this year, did you by chance rent a limousine from the Cherry Hill Limousine Company in Cherry Hill, New Jersey?”
“I don’t know specific dates,” he said. His voice was a near sneer. “How am I supposed to know what night May ninth was?”
“It was the night Bissonette’s nightclub burned down. Does that help?”
“No.” His shoulders hiccuped in a snort and his gaze rose, as if he were required to inspect the ceiling for cracks.
“Well, maybe this will refresh your recollection.”
I marked the original document into evidence and tossed a copy each to Prescott and Eggert. Then I handed the marked document to the witness. “Do you know what that is, Mr. Gardner?”
“It looks like an invoice for the rental of a limousine.”
“On May ninth of this year, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen this invoice before?”
“This afternoon. The man in the back with the funny hat showed it to me.”
“You mean Mr. Kapustin.”
“That’s his name, right. Kapustin.”
“Does this document refresh your recollection as to whether or not you rented a limousine on May ninth of this year?”
“Well, my signature’s on it, so I guess I did.”
“And you signed for the limousine.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And though you live in Philadelphia, you went all the way to New Jersey for a limousine?”
“That’s where I went, yeah. What about it?”
“Where did you go that night, Mr. Gardner?”
“We went out to dinner and then drove around. I had just closed a large deal for a shipment from Karachi and we were celebrating. That against the law?”
“Where did you have dinner?”
“I don’t remember. The Garden maybe, or someplace. I do remember that the veal was overdone and the wine a little too impertinent, if that’s what you want to know. A definite two forks only, no more than that.”
“And after dinner where did you go?”
“I don’t know. I possibly celebrated a bit too hard that night. I seem to recollect I fell asleep in the car. I spilled champagne on my suit, too. A nasty stain. Ruined it. Twelve hundred dollars.”
At that moment Eggert stood up. “Your Honor, I object. There is testimony of a limousine rental on the night of the fire. I will stipulate that limousines were rented on the night of the fire. Beyond that, however, I don’t see how Mr. Gardner’s testimony is relevant.”
“Mr. Carl,” said the judge, “are you going to link this up any further?”
“I hope so,” I said.
“The law doesn’t traffic in hopes, Mr. Carl,” said the judge. “Either tell me you can link it up or the testimony will be stricken.”
I turned around and gave a shrug to Morris.
From his seat, he shook his head with sadness. Slowly he stood up and started the long walk toward me. The whole courtroom was watching him now. He had planned it this way, I thought, and I didn’t know whether to hug him or wring his neck. When he reached me I leaned over to him and he again stood on his tiptoes.
“Don’t be a goyishe kopf, Victor. Ask him who the person he was with that night was.”
Morris shook his head some more, shook it at all the goyishe kopfs in the world, turned around, and slowly walked again to the back of the courtroom.
“I’ll link up the testimony with just a few more questions, Your Honor.”
“Get to it, Mr. Carl.”
“Who were you with that night in your limousine, Mr. Gardner?”
“I had a date.”
“Who?”
“None of your business,” he said.
“I’m afraid it is, Mr. Gardner.”
He turned to the judge and in an aggrieved voice said, “Must I go into personal matters? Is that necessary?”
“Is it necessary, Mr. Carl?” asked the judge.