“And you did sign, didn’t you? But afterward, you learned that the market prices had risen. So barely an hour after the contract was signed, you called my client and tried to welsh on the deal.”
“Excuse me,” Judge Lemke said. “I’m a bit confused.”
Ben sighed quietly. Anytime the judge decided to insert himself into your witness examination, it was bad news.
“I’ve heard no discussion of the subject matter of the contract. The res gestae, if you will.”
Swell. Now he was hauling out his Latin. Probably looked that one up in Black’s before he came out of chambers.
“Mr. Kincaid, I can’t very well understand the nature of the proceedings if I don’t know what was being bought and sold.”
Ben nodded. He had hoped to avoid this. Should’ve known better. “Mr. Zyzak, could you please explain to the court what you were selling?”
Zyzak shifted slightly to face the judge. “Pez dispensers.”
The judge blinked. “Excuse me?” . “Pez dispensers. You know. For Pez.”
The judge stared back blank-faced. “I’m sorry. It sounds like you’re saying pez.”
“I am saying Pez. Pez. P-E-Z. Pez.”
“If I may, your honor,” Ben said, reentering the fray. “Pez is the brand name of a candy. Small rectangular sugary treats. Sort of like Sweetarts.”
“Sweetarts?” the judge replied. “Are we dealing with pastries now?”
Ben smiled wearily. Just his luck to have a bench trial before a judge whose cultural knowledge ended with the Andrews Sisters. Or wanted people to believe it did, anyway. “Your honor, I’m afraid Sweetarts is also a brand name. For another candy.”
“Oh. I see,” he said, although the expression on his face suggested that he did not. “And you say this man was selling Pez … dispensers?”
“Yes, your honor. Little plastic gizmos designed to … well, dispense the candy. They have heads.”
“The candy?”
“No. The dispensers. The heads are made to resemble popular culture icons. Comic book characters. Cartoon characters. Santa Claus. That sort of thing.”
“Oh. I see.” Again the surefire indicator that he was clueless. “Excuse me, counselor, but I’m still confused about something.” The judge rustled through his papers for a moment. “I believe I read somewhere that the sales contract at issue was in the amount of eighteen thousand dollars.”
“Yes, your honor. You see, as I explained in the pretrial order”—hint, hint—“some of the older Pez dispensers are treasured by collectors and sell for large sums of money. Like baseball cards. Or comic books.”
“Comic books.” Judge Lemke clapped his hands together. “I used to read those when I was just a boy. I reveled in them.”
“That’s lovely, your honor.” But what does it have to do with this case?
“There was one of which I was particularly fond. What was it?—oh, yes. Captain Marvel. He was just a little boy, you see, but when he said the magic word, he became a huge strapping hero.”
Ben glanced at Christina, but once again, all she offered was a shrug. Was there an objection for the addled judge’s taking an irrelevant stroll down memory lane?
“I remember there used to be a little worm Captain Marvel fought. What was his name? Why, Mr. Worm, of course. No—Mr. Mind. That was it. Yes. Spoke through a little radio transmitter hung around his neck.” He paused for a moment, then sighed. “Don’t see how those comics could become valuable, though. They only cost a dime.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Your honor … if I may.”
Judge Lemke looked up abruptly, shaken from his reverie. “Oh, yes. Of course. Proceed, counselor.”
Ben turned his attention back to the witness. “Didn’t you agree with my client that eighteen thousand was a fair price for the dispensers?”
Zyzak shook his head vigorously. “I did not.”
“You wrote that amount on the contract.”
“He wrote that amount on the contract. I would never have sold my dispensers that cheaply. Especially not the Wonder Woman.”
Judge Lemke looked down again from the bench. “Excuse me?”
“Wonder Woman. The 1965 version, in mint condition. That’s before she lost her eagle.”
Lemke removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite follow.”
Zyzak was happy to explain. “Everyone knows that, originally, Wonder Woman had the emblem of an eagle across her … um …”—he waved his hand vaguely around his chest area—“you know. On her bodice. But in the Sixties, her corporate masters, DC Comics, now part of the Time-Warner mega-monster, changed the emblem to a stylized double W. They wanted a trademark they could register and market, and you can’t claim dibs to the American eagle. So they changed it. The 1965 dispenser, however, was made before the change; hence its heightened value. Some people think it’s the 1969 Wonder Woman dispenser that’s so hot, but that’s incorrect. The 1969 dispenser was of the short-lived superpowerless karate-chopping Wonder Woman written by the legendary Dennis O"Neil. She was modeled after Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel character on The Avengers, which, by the way, was itself a steal from Frances Gifford in Nyoka and the Tigermen. Of course, the Nyoka character was taken from the serial movie adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s book Jungle Girl, but the Hollywood slime changed her around so they wouldn’t have to—”
“Excuse me,” Ben said, coughing into his hand. “This is fascinating, but could we return our focus to this case?”
Zyzak shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”
“Mr. Zyzak, you claim that there was never a meeting of minds between you and Mr. Coe?”
“That’s correct.”
“But the fact remains—you did sign the contract.”
“Yeah.…” He adjusted his bulk from one side of the chair to the other. “But I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. I was … uh … what’s the phrase? Not of sound mind.”
“Are you saying you were temporarily insane?”
“Nah. Nothing like that.”
“Are you claiming you signed the contract under duress?”
“What, like I was threatened by a wimp like Coe? Nah.”
“I gather you’re not a minor.”
“Only in the eyes of the cosmos.”
“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand why—”
“I was drunk.”
Ben lowered his chin. “Drunk?”
“Yeah. Smashed. Blown. Snockered. Get my drift?”
“I certainly do. You said the same thing at your deposition. You’re claiming you were intoxicated at the time you signed the contract, and therefore didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Yeah. That’s it exactly. And that guy, Coe”—he pointed across the courtroom—“he knew I was plastered. He took advantage of me.”
“Mr. Zyzak, that’s about the lamest excuse I’ve—”
“Now, now, Mr. Kincaid.” Judge Lemke rapped his desk with his water glass. “Let’s remember our manners.”
“Your honor, this is ridic—”
“Counsel, we must take this defense seriously.”
“Why? He’s just trying to weasel out—”
“I’m afraid I’m in complete agreement with the witness, Mr. Kincaid. If he was drunk, and your client knew he was drunk, I will not enforce the contract.”
“But your honor, he’s just—”
“You heard what I said, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Yes, your honor.” He shifted his attention back to the witness. “All right, then. We’ll play it your way, Mr. Zyzak. If you were drunk, what had you been drinking?”
“Beer. The staff of life.”