“Then later, after he threw my last two attackers off the bus — the phrase he used was ‘get the fuck out of here’ — he was kneeling on the floor trying to see to Jerry. He was three feet below any windows on the bus, which are six feet off the ground in any case, so how did he see me attack the other two? He didn’t know anything about what happened until after the police and ambulance arrived and he came down off the bus.” I continued.
“So why did he say different?” he asked.
“Well, what was he going to say? That he had no idea what was happening and couldn’t keep control of the kids on his bus? How long would he stay employed after that? I would bet that he’s not actually a school employee and protected by a union, but a part time employee of the contracting company that operates the busses.” On the first go around, the same driver had reported that nothing at all had occurred, despite what some of the passengers had said.
“Interesting thought.” He was very noncommittal to my statement.
“Have you interviewed any of the other witnesses? Any of the other students on the bus?”
“Who should I interview?”
“I saw you writing their names down.” I read off the list that he had written. “They would have been right beside me on the bus. They saw the attack this morning and they heard the threats and extortion yesterday afternoon.”
“That’s an awful lot of time to take these statements. Why should I do anything with this other than let you go on a misdemeanor disturbing-the-peace complaint?” I looked at him curiously and he continued. “Let’s be realistic here. This is never going to trial. You four boys got into a beef and the bus driver decided to cover his butt. You are going to take the misdemeanor and go home.”
“Because I want those three arrested on at least four felony counts.” I answered calmly.
The room exploded, with all three men exclaiming the ridiculousness of this. I just sat there with a calm look until they quieted down, and then held my hand up for silence. The detective simply shook his head at me. “Felonies? Never going to happen. This is never going anywhere near a court.”
“You’re right, this is never going to go to court, but I have a problem now because of this, and the only way my problem gets solved is with your help.”
“You have a problem?”
I nodded. “A big one. As it stands, I have been arrested and hauled away in handcuffs, and the bus driver has formally accused me of attacking three kids on the school bus. At the bare minimum, I’m barred from riding the bus, and much more likely, I’m expelled from school. Right now, as we speak, Towsontown Junior High is getting ready to burn me at the stake.”
It was obvious that the adults in the room had never thought of this. My father, in particular had a worried look on his face. “I know this isn’t going to court. However, if the three boys are formally arrested and charged with felonies, the school will have to allow me to stay in school, especially since no charges have been formally filed against me yet. A detective trumps a bus driver any day of the week.” Maybe I could play to his vanity a touch. “I don’t care if they plead it down to attempted jaywalking. It will keep me on the bus and going to school, with no record.”
“Interesting. You’ve given this some thought.” Unspoken was ‘A lot more thought than a 13 year old kid should be having!’ “What felonies did you have in mind?”
He wouldn’t have asked me this if he wasn’t thinking of going along. “Just the obvious ones. Assault. Conspiracy to commit assault. Attempted extortion. Conspiracy to commit extortion. I bet there’re a few others you can think up. Maybe something gang related.” We didn’t have any criminal gangs in Towson that I had ever heard of, but I was being ambitious.
He shook his head with a certain degree of incredulity. “I’ve got to tell you, this is the craziest stuff I have run across in a long time.”
“But certainly it is the right thing to do,” interjected Steiner. He had been following along closely and was nodding and making other motions to push the detective along.
“And I do this how?”
“Everybody is at school now, probably at lunch. You go over there, right now, and get those three kids to come to the office. Ask them what happened. Ask them if they heard the threats yesterday. They have no reason to lie to you. If they back me up, you tell the principal. If they don’t back me up, you throw my sorry butt in jail. I’ll be safer there than at home with him.” I pointed at my father as I said this.
“Like you would not believe,” Dad said dryly.
“Just do it right now. It will be the most fun those guys have had this year! I’ll hang around here until you get back. You can do it in an hour,” I pushed.
He gave an exasperated look at me, but then he stood up. “My captain will never believe me when I tell him about this. I’ll be back.” He left the room.
Once he had left, Dad looked at me. “Where do you get off talking to the police like that?”
“Charlie, it’s okay, he did okay,” said Steiner.
“Dad, I was neither rude nor loud nor coarse. If anything, I was the voice of reason.”
“Carl, I don’t know what you plan on doing someday, but if you ever get a law degree, look me up.” Steiner gave me a very approving look.
I smiled at him and nodded my thanks. “Thank you. Now we come to part two. I couldn’t say this in front of the detective, so we have to plan this out.”
“Plan what out? What’s part two?”
“That would be the lawsuit we bring against the three of them and their parents.”
“What?!” My father had jumped out of his chair and was staring at me.
Steiner was calmer. “A lawsuit? On what basis?”
“A civil suit based on the assault and extortion, my severe emotional disability, the slanders they have been speaking — I don’t know and I don’t care. You’re the lawyer. You can figure it out.”
Steiner just shook his head. “This will never go to trial. It’s ridiculous. You destroyed those boys.”
“Yes, I did. They are all going to be hospitalized, and the bills are going to be horrendous. If we don’t sue them, they will sue us.” My father got very worried looking at this. He really hadn’t thought this through.
“They can sue us regardless.”
“I know, but it won’t matter. They get charged with felonies, they plead them down to something minor and do no time in jail, but the plea is prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. The standard of proof in civil court is lower than in criminal court. I don’t need anything more. Meanwhile, I will have no criminal arrest record and they will have been expelled from school. We win so fast your head will spin.”
“We win in ten years. They will drag this out forever.”
I smiled. “Stop thinking like a lawyer for a second and think like a parent. They don’t want to drag this out. They want it to go away! Sue them for a quarter million apiece.”
“A quarter of a million dollars? Are you crazy?”
“Too low? Half a million?” Steiner sputtered and I just grinned. “I don’t care if you ask for their first born male children. You offer to settle for ten grand each. They’ll cave in a heartbeat. You take a third. It will be the easiest and quickest ten grand you will ever earn.”
Dad was beside himself, sputtering indignantly. “This is the craziest thing I have ever heard of. Nobody is suing anybody!”
Steiner, on the other hand, slowly smiled and nodded. He grinned at my father and said, “No, this makes perfect sense. It’s brilliant.”
“This is crazy.”
“Crazy like a fox, maybe. Look at it. It keeps him in school, it keeps them from suing you for damages, and it maybe nets us all some cash. What kind of a cut do you want?” he asked.