Judge & Jury (3 page)
Authors: James Patterson,Andrew Gross
“Manny and Ed are down,” I yelled into the mike. “Get help here now!”
Cavello was running toward a helicopter. The cabin door was open. I took off after him.
“Cavello, stop!” I shouted. “I’ll shoot!”
Cavello looked back over his shoulder. He didn’t stop though.
I squeezed the trigger of my gun—twice. The second bullet slammed into his thigh.
The godfather reached for his leg and buckled. But he kept going, dragging the leg, like some desperate animal that wouldn’t quit. I heard a
thwack, thwack, thwack
—and saw the Coast Guard Apache coming into sight.
“That’s it,” I yelled ahead, aiming my Glock again. “You’re done! The next shot goes through your head.”
Cavello pulled himself to an exhausted stop. He put his hands in the air and slowly turned.
He had no gun.
I didn’t know where he’d thrown it, maybe into the sea. He’d been close enough. A grin was etched on his face despite the bullets in his thigh and shoulder.
“
Nicky Smiles,
” he said, “if I knew you wanted to be at my niece’s wedding, all you had to do was ask. I woulda sent you an invitation. Engraved.”
My head felt like it was going to explode. I’d lost two men, maybe three, over this filth. I walked up to Cavello, my Glock pointed at his chest. He met my eyes with a mocking smile. “You know, that’s the problem with Italian weddings, Pellisante, everybody’s got a gun.”
I slugged him, and Cavello fell to one knee. For a second I thought he was going to fight me, but he just stood up, shook his head, and laughed.
So I hit Cavello again, with everything I had left in me.
This time, he stayed down.
THE FIRST TRIAL
IN HIS HOUSE on Yehuda Street in Haifa, high above the sky-blue Mediterranean, Richard Nordeshenko tried the King’s Indian Defense. The pawn break, Kasparov’s famous attack. From there Kasparov had dismantled Tukmakov in the Russian Championship in 1981.
Across from Nordeshenko a young boy countered by matching the pawn. His father nodded, pleased with the move. “And why does the pawn create such an advantage?” Nordeshenko asked.
“Because it blocks freeing up of your queenside rook,” the boy answered quickly. “And the advance of your pawn to a queen. Correct?”
“Correct.” Nordeshenko beamed at his son. “And when did the queen first acquire the powers that it holds today?”
“Around fifteen hundred,” his son answered. “In Europe. Up until then it merely moved two spaces, up and down. But . . .”
“Bravo, Pavel!”
Affectionately, he mussed his son’s blond hair. For an eleven-year-old, Pavel was learning quickly.
The boy glanced silently over the board, then moved his rook. Nordeshenko saw what his son was up to. He had once been in the third tier of Glasskov’s chess academy in Kiev. Still, he pretended to ignore it and pushed forward his attack on the opposite side, exposing a pawn.
“You’re letting me win, Father,” the boy declared, refusing to take it. “Besides, you said just one game. Then you would teach me . . .”
“Teach
you?
” Nordeshenko teased him, knowing precisely what he meant. “You can teach
me.
”
“Not chess, Father.” The boy looked up. “Poker.”
“Ah,
poker?
” Nordeshenko feigned surprise. “To play poker, Pavel, you must have something to bet.”
“I have something,” the boy insisted. “I have six dollars in coins. I’ve been saving up. And over a hundred soccer cards. Perfect condition.”
Nordeshenko smiled. He understood what the boy was feeling. He had studied how to seize the advantage his whole life. Chess was hard. Solitary. Like playing an instrument. Scales, drills, practice. Until every eventuality became absorbed, memorized. Until you didn’t have to think.
A little like learning to kill a man with your bare hands.
But poker, poker was liberating.
Alive.
Unlike in chess, you never played the same way twice. You broke the rules. It required an unusual combination: discipline and risk.
Suddenly, the chime of Nordeshenko’s mobile phone cut in. He was expecting the call. “We’ll pick it up in a moment,” Nordeshenko said to Pavel.
“But, Father,” the boy whined, disappointed.
“In a moment,” Nordeshenko said again, picking up his son by the armpits, spanking him lightly on his way. “I have to take this call. Not another word.”
“Okay.”
Nordeshenko walked out to the terrace overlooking the sea and flipped open the phone. Only a handful of people in the world had this number. He settled into a chaise.
“This is Nordeshenko.”
“I’m calling for Dominic Cavello,” the caller said. “He has a job for you.”
“Dominic Cavello? Cavello is in jail and awaiting trial,” Nordeshenko said. “And I have many jobs to consider.”
“Not like this one,” the caller said. “The Godfather has requested only you. Name your price.”
New York City. Four months later.
ALL ANDIE DEGRASSE KNEW was that the large, wood-paneled room was crowded as shit—with lawyers, marshals, reporters—and that she’d never been anywhere she wanted to get the hell out of more.
But it was the same for the other fifty-odd people in the jury pool, Andie was quite sure.
Jury duty
—those words were like
influenza
to her.
Cold sore.
She had been told to report at 9:00 a.m. to the federal courthouse in Foley Square. There she filled out the forms, polished her excuses, and killed an hour leafing through
Parenting
magazine.
Then, at about eleven thirty, her name was called by a bailiff, and she was herded into a line of other unfortunate people with unsure, disappointed faces and up to the large courtroom on the seventh floor.
She looked around, trying to size up the rest of the fidgeting, kibitzing group squeezed into the bull pen. This was definitely not where she wanted to be.
The scene was like a snapshot taken on the number 4 Lexington Avenue train. People in work uniforms—electricians, mechanics—blacks, Hispanics, a Hasid in a skullcap, each trying to convince the person on either side that he or she didn’t belong there. A couple of well-to-do types in business suits were punching their BlackBerries, demonstrating in the clearest possible way that they had something far more important to do with their time.
Those were the ones Andie had to worry about, and she regarded them warily—the prospective jurors who had their time-tested, A-number-1 alibis honed and ready to go. Bosses’ letters. Partners’ meetings. Travel schedules, deals going down. A cruise to Bermuda that was already fully paid.
Of course, Andie hadn’t exactly come empty-handed.
She had put on her tight red T-shirt with the words D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
emblazoned across the chest. It was the tackiest thing she owned, but we weren’t talking
fashionista
here.
We were talking
adios
—excused. Even if it was on the grounds of being thought an airhead or a bimbo.
Then there was the single-mother thing. That was legit. Jarrod was nine, and he was her best buddy as well as her biggest handful these days. Who would pick him up from school, answer his questions, help him with his homework, if she couldn’t be there for him?
Finally, there were her auditions. Her agent at William Morris had scheduled two for this week alone.
To amuse herself, Andie counted the faces of people who looked intelligent and open-minded and didn’t seem to be conveying they had somewhere else to go. She stopped when she got to twenty. That felt good. They only needed twelve, right?
Next to her, a heavyset Hispanic woman knitting a pink baby’s sweater leaned over. “Sorry, but jou know what kinda trial dis is?”
“No.” Andie shrugged, glancing around at the security. “But from the looks of it, it’s something big. You see those guys? They’re reporters. And did you notice the barricades outside and those cops milling around? More uniforms in this place than in an
NYPD Blue
wardrobe closet.”
The woman smiled. “Rosella,” she said amiably.
“I’m Andie,” Andie said, extending her hand.
“So, Andie, how jou get
on
dis jury, anyway, jou know?”
Andie squinted at her as if she hadn’t heard right. “You
want
to get picked?”
“Sure. My huzban say you get forty dollars a day, plus train fare. The woman I work for, she pay me whichever way. So why not take the cash?”
Andie smiled and shrugged wistfully. “Why not?”
The judge’s clerk came in, a woman with black glasses and a pinched, officious face, like an old-time schoolmarm. “All rise for Judge Miriam Seiderman.”
Everyone pushed themselves out of their seats.
“So, Rosella, you want to know how to get
on
this thing?” Andie leaned over and whispered to her neighbor as an attractive woman of around fifty, with touches of gray in her hair, entered the courtroom and stepped up to the bench.
“Sure.”
“Just watch.” Andie nudged her. “Whatever I do, do the opposite.”
JUDGE SEIDERMAN STARTED OUT by asking each of them a few questions. Name and address. What you did for a living. Whether you were single or married, and if you were, if you had kids. Highest level of education. What newspapers and magazines you read. If anyone in your family ever worked for the government or for the police.
Andie glanced at the clock. This was going to take hours.
A few of them got excused immediately. One woman announced she was a lawyer. The judge asked her to come up to the side of the bench. They chatted a few seconds, and she let her go. Another man complained that he’d just served on a jury up in Westchester. He’d only finished up last week. He got a pink slip, too.
Some other guy who was actually half cute announced he was a crime novelist. In fact, another woman in the jury pool held up his book. She was reading it! After he finished up, Andie heard him snicker, “I don’t have a prayer of ending up on this thing.”
Then, Judge Seiderman nodded Andie’s way.
“Andie DeGrasse,” Andie replied. “I live at 855 West One eighty-third Street, in the Bronx. I’m an actress.”
A few people looked back at her. They always did. “Well, I try to be,” she said, qualifying. “Mostly I do proofreading for
The Westsider.
It’s a community newspaper in upper Manhattan. And regarding the other question, I
was,
Your Honor, for five years.”
“Was what, Ms. DeGrasse?” The judge peered over her glasses.
“
Married.
The nuclear option, if you know what I mean.” A couple of people chuckled. “Except for my son. Jarrod. He’s nine. He’s basically a full-time occupation for me now.”
“Please continue, Ms. DeGrasse,” the judge said.
“Let’s see. I went to St. John’s for a couple of years.” What Andie really wanted to convey was,
You know, Your Honor, I dropped out in the fourth grade, and I don’t even know what
exculpatory evidence
means.
“And let’s see, I read
Vogue
and
Cosmo
and, oh yeah,
Mensa.
Charter member. I definitely try and keep up with that one.”
A few more chuckles rippled around the courtroom.
Keep it going,
she said to herself.
Push out the chest. You’re almost off this thing.
“And regarding the police”—she thought for a second—“none in the family. But I dated a few.”
Judge Seiderman smiled, shaking her head. “Just one more question. Do you have any reason or experience that would prejudice you against Italian Americans? Or render you unable to reach an impartial verdict if you served on this trial?”
“Well, I once played a role in
The Sopranos,
” she replied. “It was the one when Tony whacks that guy up at Meadow’s school. I was in the club.”
“The club?” Judge Seiderman blinked back, starting to grow short.
“The Bada Bing, Your Honor.” Andie shrugged sheepishly. “I was dancing on one of the poles.”
“That was
you?
” a Latino guy cracked from the first row. Now a lot of people were laughing around the courtroom.
“Thank you, Ms. DeGrasse.” Judge Seiderman suppressed a smile. “We’ll all be sure to check out the reruns when they come around.”
The judge moved on to Rosella. Andie was feeling pretty confident she had done her job. She felt a little guilty, but she just
couldn’t
be on this jury.
Now, Rosella was perfect. A juror’s dream. She’d cleaned house for the same woman for twenty years. She’d just become an American citizen. She wanted to serve because it was her duty. She was knitting a sweater for her granddaughter.
Oh, you’re a
lock.
Andie grinned to herself. Rosella hit every question out of the park. She was like a juror commercial!
At last the judge said she had just one question for the jury at large. Andie’s eye checked the clock. One fifteen. If she was lucky, she could still catch the Broadway number 1 and pick Jarrod up at school on time.
Judge Seiderman leaned toward them. “Do any of you know the name, or have you been associated with in any way, Dominic Cavello?”
Andie turned toward the stolid, gray-haired man seated in the third row of the courtroom.
So that’s who that was.
A few people murmured. She glanced at Rosella, a little sympathetic now.
These people were in for one scary ride.
I WAS SITTING in the second row, not far from the judge, during the jury questioning. Security marshals lined the walls, ready to go into action if Cavello so much as scratched his nose. Most of the marshals knew I was the one who had taken Cavello down and that this case was personal for me.
