Hostile Witness

Prescott sca

Judge Gimbel put down his pen and looked directly at me. “Mr. Carl,” he said. “Do you have any voir dire?”

“Can I have a moment, Judge?” I asked.

With the jury venire still sitting in the courtroom I calmly broke into the Talbott, Kittredge huddle. “Mr. Prescott,” I said. “May I speak to you, please?”

He pressed his lips together and said, “Let’s go outside for a moment, shall we.”

I followed him out of the courtroom, passing the rows of potential jurors, the press, the court buffs, old men who hang around the courthouse whiling away their retirements with free entertainment. Once outside in the long cream hallway, Prescott lifted his chin and peered down at me, looking very straight and very stern.

“That last bit, Mr. Prescott, sir,” I said. “The questions about the counterfeiter? I have to admit they caused me some concern.”

“They did?” he said, his voice rising in confusion.

“Yes, sir. It appeared as if you may have been indicating, maybe, that a subordinate, not a principal, is the responsible party here.”

Prescott looked down at me, his eyes wide with an injured i

“But still, sir, it caused me some concern.”

“Walk with me to the men’s room,” he said. “Let’s take advantage of the break.”

The men’s room was just down the hall and I found myself in the awkward position of standing next to Prescott at the urinals. He was a stern, formal man, not the type, I would have thought, to chatter while grasping tightly to his prick, but I would have been wrong.

“I’ve tried more than fifty cases in these courtrooms, Victor,” he said as he peed. “And in the course of those trials I’ve learned a little about how to win a case. I have spent hours with our jury expert working on the voir dire, on my arguments, on the presentation of our evidence. Everything I do in this trial has been reviewed beforehand by the best minds at Talbott, Kittredge, every question to the jury was scientifically designed to have the maximum beneficial effect for our clients. Now that question about counterfeiting sets up our entire defense. Unlike the counterfeiter, who is cheating the system, these men were not going outside the system’s demands. They were only doing what the system required. The contrast is just what I was trying to put forward.”

Through the whole of his speech I was restraining myself from checking out his equipment. There was something about Prescott that forced me to make comparisons, even though I always seemed to come out the lesser man. “I guess I see that now, sir,” I said.

He gave himself a shake, pulled up his zipper, and moved to the sinks across the other wall. I did the same. Out of the mirror he stared at me and his eyes turned cold. “I’m in the middle of a fight with Eggert here, Victor. I can’t afford to be explaining myself at every turn to you. When you gain a little more experience maybe you’ll understand what I’m doing, but right now what you need is enough faith not to get in my way. You are clear about your instructions, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, like a schoolboy being reprimanded.

He turned on the faucet and began to wash. I followed suit. “Now, I don’t want you to ask any questions of these jurors,” he said. “I have them right where I want them and you can only move them in the wrong direction. And I don’t want you to get involved in the selection process, I’ll tell you how to use your peremptory challenges and I’ll make all the challenges for cause. What I need from you, Victor, what I must have is your absolute confidence in me. Can you give me that, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep your eyes open, Victor,” he said, grimacing into the mirror. He pressed the sides of his hair back with his palms. “There is no telling how much you can learn. By the way, the Bishops are delighted with your work so far.”

“I haven’t done much yet.”

“Well, they’ve been raving. And there is more to come, I promise. Let’s not keep the judge waiting. The old goose hates to wait.”

Side by side, like comrades at arms, we left the bathroom, marched up the corridor, swung open the courtroom doors, and strode back to the defense table.

“Well, Mr. Carl,” said Judge Gimbel. “Are we ready now?”

Something gave me pause. Maybe it was the look of injured i

I leaned over and spoke with Chet Conca

22

WE WERE IN THE PROCESS of actually picking the jury, or I should say Prescott and his expert were in the process, when I spotted Morris Kapustin entering the courtroom. He saw me notice him and he waved. I gave him the slightest of nods. Morris was dressed particularly shabbily that day, a suit jacket that didn’t match his suit pants, his white shirt undone at the top, letting his faded silk undershirt show through. I hoped that maybe no one had seen the co

Once the questioning was finished, jury selection was an almost mathematical procedure. All forty names were in order of selection on our jury sheets. The judge gave each of the defendants five peremptory challenges in which we could knock any potential juror off the jury for whatever reason we chose. The prosecution had six peremptory challenges of its own, and after the judge had taken seven jurors out of the group because he thought they were unduly prejudiced for one side or the other, including Mrs. Lanford, who had said she believed all politicians took money and put it in their pockets, we began the selection. First Eggert, then Prescott, then I, following Prescott’s recommendations, excused jurors. One by one the excused jurors were crossed off our lists, and then we recalculated who would be in. We ended with a predominantly male jury, as Bruce Pierpont, the jury expert, had suggested, which included Mr. Thompkins, the printer, Mr. Roberts, the man who had believed the voters forced politicians to ask for money, Mrs. Simpson, who believed that buying public officials was a natural part of the political process, and a Mr. Rollings, who had been a security guard for ten years at a warehouse in North Philly. When the selection was completed Prescott looked over the jury, conferred with his jury expert, and nodded approvingly.

“Opening statements ten o’clock tomorrow,” said Judge Gimbel. “And then prosecution’s first witness. Court adjourned.”