Dead Ringer (17 page)

Bennie raised an eyebrow, even over the phone. “I didn’t know that.”

“There you have it. I suspect that Herman is increasing his damages estimate in some artificial way, inflating the revenue from the contract I got. There can be no way his damages are greater than mine. None. He has seventy-five employees only and not even ten million in sales, and he didn’t build an entire plant on the strength of certain contracts. Perhaps he is smarter than I.” St. Amien laughed.

“Or maybe he just has less faith.”

“Perhaps. My company is much older than his, founded by my grandfather. Herman and I expanded our European facilities at the same time. He came to the States first, however. Moved here and gained a small foothold on the market two years before I saw the opportunity. As such he feels as if he were my superior, which is not the case, needless to say.”

But it’s cute that you said it anyway.
Bennie liked this client. He seemed more human to her than when they had first met. Though the kiss by the elevator bank may have had something to do with it. Everybody needs positive reinforcement.

“So Herman and I had a brief, unpleasant meeting. I told him I was quite pleased with my counsel and wouldn’t switch.”

“Even with me getting arrested? And my wacky sister?”

“Ha! Wait until you meet my wacky brother, then we shall talk again. Ah, he does not work ten hours a week, but for play, his horses, he has much energy. Riding around and around a ring of twenty meters.” St Amien chuckled. “Don’t worry, Bennie. I stay with you, wacky family and all.”

This guy is loyal
. Bennie flushed with gratitude. Maybe she could learn to smoke. She knew how to eat, and it was basically the same thing. But back to business. “You think that Linette put Mayer up to seeing you? Linette can’t contact you directly at this point, but parties to a lawsuit can always talk to one another.”

“I doubt it came from Linette. Mayer is too stubborn to listen to anyone, least of all a blowhard.”

Bennie smiled. “Blowhard! Who taught you that word? It sounds like a bad translation of asshole.”

“Benedetta, don’t be an asshole,” St. Amien said with a soft chuckle, and Bennie laughed.

“Okay, wise guy. You got my letter, you know what’s going on this afternoon. Meet me there at one. I’m doing it to shore up your position as lead plaintiff.”

“I understand, and I’ll see you at one o’clock. But tell me, how will I know you’re you and not your twin?”

“I’ll be the one you kissed,” Bennie said, and hung up with a smile.
Touché
. Then she caught herself. What the hell was she thinking? St. Amien was way too old for her, and he was a client. Was she that desperate? Of course not, right? Bennie rested a hand on the phone and couldn’t help but wonder:
Can I get him to stop smoking?

Then she came to her senses. She had a master plan to set in motion, and kisses didn’t figure into it.

14

Bennie felt the familiar whoosh of chilly air rush at her as soon as she opened the door to the courtroom and ushered St. Amien inside. In the federal courthouse in Philadelphia, the government conserves money by air-conditioning only the courtrooms, clerks’ offices, and judges’ chambers, and saving it in the many hallways of the twenty-odd-floor building, so the refrigerated blast of the courtroom welcomed Bennie as surely as coffee smells did at the office and a golden retriever did at her house. It signaled to her that she was on her turf, even that she was home.

St. Amien was looking around. “No one’s here yet, we’re so early,” he said, his tone hushed by the spaciousness and grandeur of the courtroom. Bennie had noted that the room usually had that effect on clients and witnesses; it was why she always brought witnesses in for a look-see. St. Amien wouldn’t have to testify today, but he stopped at the door, uncertain. “Benedetta, may we enter?”

“Of course. It’s a courtroom. It’s public. It belongs to us.”

“It is so different from Paris,” St. Amien whispered, eyeing the place, his mouth taut. “Our courtrooms are much smaller. Darker, and much older.”

Sounds great.
She led him up the carpeted center aisle, and his silvery head swiveled left and right, taking in the huge wood-paneled courtroom, which empty seemed even bigger. An immense modern dais dominated the room, flanked by paneled boxes for the witnesses and jury, and it bore the flag of the United States before a rich maroon backdrop meant to absorb sound. Above the dais, a heavy golden medal of the United States Courts hung like a gilded sun in the sky. Okay, maybe Bennie was idealizing the place, but if a lawyer didn’t get a charge in a courtroom, she should get out of the business.

The flag, the dais, the seal, and the jury box—all of these fixtures reassured and thrilled Bennie. They were the stuff of the law, the emblems, accoutrements, and tools used every day to hammer out justice, case by case, verdict after verdict. Bennie wasn’t so naive that she thought justice was always perfect, blind, or evenly administered; she knew from bitter experience that judges and juries made mistakes, were bamboozled, or simply went the wrong way, every day. But she also believed that in the main, judges, juries, and lawyers strove together for justice, and that the courthouse remained a citizen’s best hope for a truly level playing field. Which was why she had come here today.

“Please sit down, Robert,” Bennie said, and gestured him into a seat in the front row of smooth polished wood. He sat down dutifully and placed his cushy leather envelope on his expensive pants. She could have been imagining it, but she sensed a subtle shift in the balance of power between them, as if he were silently ceding her the upper hand. She had become the expert, his Sherpa in the big American courtroom. Now if she could only get him to kick the habit. “Robert, I have to ask you, have you ever tried to quit smoking?”

St. Amien looked up, puzzled behind his spotless glasses. “I won’t smoke here. I know not to smoke in the courtroom. I would never do that.”

“It’s not about that. Why don’t you quit?”

“Quit smoking? Why would I?” He sounded so nonplussed, Bennie almost laughed.

“Because it’s bad for you. Haven’t you heard that in Paris, where the courtrooms are older and smaller?”

“Yes, of course, they say this, but I enjoy smoking.”

Bennie let it go. She had her answer, and it was off the point anyway. “Okay, fine. You stay here and watch. And don’t give this seat up for anything. This is the best seat in the house, and you are about to become the lead plaintiff in this lawsuit. I want the judge to see you, and you first. When Mayer and everybody else arrive, let them step over you.”

St. Amien smiled. “It seems ill-mannered.”

“It is. We call it litigation. Welcome to America. It’s time to bang some heads.” Bennie knew that St. Amien would need an explanation for the idiom, but she didn’t offer one. She turned to plaintiff’s counsel table to take first chair. By the end of the afternoon, St. Amien would understand the term perfectly.

The Honorable Kenneth B. Sherman glared down from the dais, his gray hair slightly frizzy and his dark eyes cranky behind gold-rimmed aviator glasses. He hunched over in his black robe with tiny gathers at the yoke top, and his striped tie was knotted too tight for most liberal Democrats. If he was angry at Bennie because she had requested this conference or because she’d been thrown drunkenly out of a Chinese restaurant
or
because she had been widely reported as guilty of diamond theft, she didn’t know. It might have been moot.

“Well, good afternoon, everyone,” Judge Sherman said as the courtroom settled down. He nodded briefly around the room, now full to capacity and almost warm with body heat.

“Good afternoon, Your Honor,” Bennie responded, in unfortunate unison with Bull Linette, who shifted unhappily next to her at counsel table. He’d be unaccustomed to second chair at counsel table, which was usually occupied by the second-in-command on a lawsuit. He had barely said a word to her when he stormed in with an equally stony Herman Mayer, and he kept his gaze riveted to the front of the courtroom. She knew she’d pissed him off royally with this move, but she was trying to represent her client, not make friends and influence people.

“Does everyone have a seat on the plaintiff’s side?” Judge Sherman asked, eyeing Quinones and Kerpov, who nodded back as they pulled up chairs next to Linette, then the other minor lawyers who formed part of their cabal. More lawyers filled the left side of the courtroom, spilling onto the pews behind counsel table, sitting with their clients, brought for show.

In contrast, the right side of the courtroom, reserved for the defense, was markedly empty, the pews completely vacant. There was no client presence at all, and only a single defense lawyer, an older man, sat at counsel defense table. Bennie knew that the trade association would have retained fleets of lawyers from one of the big, prestigious law firms in the city, but had intentionally sent only a single lawyer, to preempt the underdog position. He wasn’t fooling anybody, least of all Bennie, who felt like telling him to save it for the jury. But she’d fight that enemy later. Right now she had to fight her alleged friends.

Judge Sherman shifted his oversized glasses higher onto his nose, and his mouth became a hyphen as he returned his glare to the lawyer directly in his field of vision, Bennie Rosato. “Now, Ms. Rosato, since we are all here on your motion, do tell us, what is an emergency hearing in a class action? Class actions usually move along as quickly as evolution itself. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a thing in this context.”

It’s okay, Judge, neither have I
. Bennie didn’t require prompting to stand up and take the lectern. This whole proceeding was
about
her taking the lectern. She grasped both sides with sure hands. “May it please the court, my name is—”

“Bennie, for God’s sake, I know who you are. What I don’t know is why you’re here.”

Okay, maybe that wasn’t a good start.
Bennie’s hands shook a little, so she gripped the lectern harder.

“And do tell me, while you’re at it, what these papers are. Is this an exercise in creative writing?” Judge Sherman held up a sheaf of white papers at a delicate distance from his nose, as if they smelled really bad. Unfortunately Bennie recognized the motion she’d filed today with the court and had sent to chambers with her letter. Judge Sherman’s knitted brow told her he thought she was ready for rehab. “What on earth is an ‘Emergency Motion to Determine the Method for Appointment of Class Counsel’? I never heard of such a thing. You on an emergency binge or what?”

“Your Honor, I know this is unorthodox—”

“
Unorthodox!
Unorthodox is Chianti with Dover sole. I
know
unorthodox, Bennie. I
am
unorthodox! This isn’t unorthodox, it’s nuts!”

“Your Honor, please—”

“Wait, I haven’t finished! I know it sounded like I was finished, but that’s just the type of zany, unorthodox judge that I am!”

Bennie stood tall. If his wasn’t the most judicial tone or demeanor, it was the plain talk for which Judge Sherman was famous. And behind it was concern for her mental state and addictive personality; she could hear the softness in his tone. Bennie flushed with embarrassment, cursing Alice inwardly. Her scam had tainted the judge’s view of the motion, and her scheming had infected St. Amien’s interests. Bennie gritted her teeth and bore down.

“It’s not only nuts, it’s premature,” Judge Sherman continued. He let her motion papers drop to the dais like trash. “The complaint in this class action landed on my desk last week, and I got your client’s complaint just yesterday. Now we all have to meet? Today?”

Bennie was about to respond when Linette leapt suddenly to his feet and muscled the two steps to the lectern. “Your Honor,” he said loudly, “if I may say so, I quite agree, and it is vital for the court—”

“Mr. Linette, sit down!” Judge Sherman thundered, and Bennie bit her cheek. Linette eased into his seat. “This is Ms. Rosato’s motion, and right now I’m engaged in a colloquy with her. This case has major circus potential, and I will
not
let that happen in my courtroom, so I’m nipping it in the bud. From here on out, when I need your two cents, I’ll ask for it, Mr. Linette. Now please remain in your seat.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Linette answered. His ruddy face went ruddier, and Bennie felt a rush of satisfaction. She was willing to take the beating she was about to get, but she would keep the floor. If she had to act out to get attention, so be it. It was a lesson every Bad Girl had learned. Mavericks ‘R’ Us.

“Now, Ms. Rosato, please continue,” Judge Sherman said, squaring his puffy black shoulders. “I’d really like to hear you defend this motion. I could have simply denied your request, but I admit, you intrigued me.” His gaze softened for a minute, and Bennie realized he
had
been worrying about her. He couldn’t contact her ex parte, that would have been unethical, but maybe he’d granted her request for a motion simply to see her in person. He could have denied it without a hearing. As if to confirm her thoughts, the judge flashed a smile that was almost encouraging. “Make it worth the price of admission, Counsel.”

“Okay, Your Honor,” Bennie began, steeling herself. “As you can see, the lawyers representing the various class members in this lawsuit are all prominent members of the Philadelphia class-action bar, including Mr. Linette. As you are aware, I do not normally do class-action work, but in this suit I represent Mr. Robert St. Amien, the president and CEO of St. Amien & Fils.”

Bennie gestured briefly behind her to St. Amien, who was sitting according to her seating chart. “St. Amien & Fils is a French company that manufactures lenses for medical equipment, and it recently expanded to the U.S., opening a subsidiary in the King of Prussia area. Mr. St. Amien should be the lead plaintiff in this lawsuit because his is the biggest company in the plaintiff class, at one hundred and fifty employees, and his damages, at sixty million dollars, far exceed any of the other plaintiffs’, including Mr. Linette’s client, Herman Mayer. But my client’s position as lead plaintiff is currently being jeopardized by the process of private ordering among class counsel.”