Suzy's Case: A Novel (18 page)

I
walk the few blocks back to my office, clutching the videotape. My plan is to view it, look at the records, then go home. About twenty feet from my building my peripheral identifies a large object coming from my right carrying a man’s Gucci handbag. Bert Beecher.

He casually walks over in a nonthreatening manner from the heap he’d been leaning on, illegally parked at the curb, and angles in front of me so as to break my stride. “I was going to call you when I got upstairs,” I tell him. “What’s up, Bert?”

“I want to know what those things are you said were in conflict with my claim between the statement I gave under oath and Betty’s medical records. And I want to know now.”

“Bert, that’s a great idea, but there’s a lot to discuss. Why don’t we make an appointment instead of you stalking around in front of my building waiting for me to return?”

“An appointment. That’s a good idea. I’d like to make an appointment right now to see you right now. How’s that?”

“I’m a little busy right now.” I flash him the tape so as to say, “I got to watch this.”

“Porn?” he asks.

“No, Bert, it’s not pornography. It’s a videotape of one of my clients and I’m committed to watching it and going over the medical records pertaining to it right now.”

Bert smiles, but it’s not the happy kind. It’s the type of smile
someone gives you just before they inform you that you have an unexpected change in plan. Without choice. “Fine,” he says. “You can do that after we talk.”

I take the sidewalk of least resistance. I give him the international hand gesture for “after you.”

In the elevator up I switch the tape into my left hand and wipe my sweaty right palm on my pant leg. I take a look at the label for the first time. It features colorful yellow and orange flowers with green stems drawn in Magic Marker around the entire edge, acting as a frame to the inscription. In a child’s handwriting in red marker it reads:
MY 5TH BIRTHDAY PARTY
. Suzy must have personalized the label at some point after her party and before her injury.

My left palm is sweaty now so I switch the tape back. I look at my palm and it’s smeared with yellow, orange, green, and red marker. This guy makes me nervous.

As we enter my office suite Lily is speeding out. “Got to go,” she says. “I’ll make it up. Bye.” She vanishes into the elevator we just left.

“Come on, Bert,” I tell him, “we’ve got some serious talking to do.” He follows me into my office. It’s just him and me. My drug-running tenants from
TOKE
magazine are even gone, having fled the country this week for their annual junket to Amsterdam to restock supplies. I don’t like it, but at least I’ve got the desk between us. “Now do you remember what you said about your sex life with Betty when you gave oral testimony under oath?”

“Of course I do. That’s when I told them how my sex life sucked with my wife because of that doctor leaving those lenses in her eyes.”

“Correct. You were very emphatic about the intimacy compromise from what I read in the transcript.”

“That’s right. Sex sucked after the surgery and it was great before.”

“That would be the perfect scenario to get you money from a jury
for your claim, and it appears you knew exactly that prior to giving testimony.”

“That’s right. I discussed it with Benson before the questioning.”

“I figured you were in the prep bubble with Henry because your testimony read like it was scripted. Great sex before, shitty sex after. It read contrived especially because any juror who’s married is going to know the truth anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“A truthful answer would’ve been ‘sex was okay with my wife before the surgery and a little less than okay after.’ ” Bert gets my point. I continue. “Now we must deal with how defense counsel is going to cross-examine you on this. They will attempt to have the jury believe your sex life with Betty sucked, as you’ve termed it, prior to the date of the malpractice, and that nothing about her dry eyes had any effect on your already sucky sex life.”

Beecher starts laughing. “How the fuck they going to do that? They weren’t in my bedroom and Betty ain’t going to say anything different.”

“She already has.”

Beecher starts slowly motioning his right hand open, then closed. Violently. Murderously. Only at this moment, there’s no handgrip exerciser in it. “What the fuck you talking about?” he asks crossly.

“Her medicals, Bert. Her gynecological records that predate her eye injury say something different and it’s all going to come out in court. How your wife felt about having sex with you and your aptitude as a lover
before
her dry eyes.” I pull some medicals out of the file Henry gave me. “These are her records right here.” I wave them in Bert’s face from a safe distance. If he doesn’t agree to 5 percent after what’s about to happen next, then he’ll deserve the 50 as compensation for his public humiliation.

“Let me see those,” he angrily demands.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

Beecher has started to approach rage status. “You can and you will. Now let me see them!” He gets up with obvious intent.

“Sit back down, Bert,” I direct in a firm voice to disguise my fright, wishing Otis were here. Beecher tilts his head to the right and gives
me the evil stare. Things are tense, but then he slowly sits back down. “I can’t and I won’t show you these records because of attorney-client privilege, so please don’t ask again. I must tell you I feel threatened by your conduct. It’s probably not a good thing to do that to the guy who’s trying to get you money. Besides, I’m uncertain if I’m a ‘fight or flight’ guy and I don’t want to find out against you.”

“A pussy like you is a flight guy,” he replies with a hint of challenge.

“Bert, we have a situation here, and it’s not between you and me. Let’s not complicate things with personal attacks.”

He doesn’t respond so I take the opportunity to have a little internal dialogue. I say to myself,
I hate Bert Beecher
. He’s a bad guy who’s trying to shake down his wife for money he’s not entitled to. He needs to be shown he can’t go around bullying everybody. He needs his face rubbed in the reality of you can’t always get what you want—and I’m going to take satisfaction in doing it.
Yeah, you want to see your wife’s records? Then you can see them, fucker.

I focus on him again. “Are you the kind of guy who can keep a secret, Bert? I mean, if I show you Betty’s records, could you keep it between us guys?”

“I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t no stoolie. Secrets are my specialty.”

“Heck, I’ll show you her records, then. Would you mind if I came around this big desk separating us and sat next to you?”

“No, I don’t mind. Just let me see them.”

“Coming right up.” I move around and sit in the chair next to him. I put the records down in front of both of us and open them up. “Can you see good, Bert?”

“Perfect.”

“Excellent. I don’t want you to miss anything. Apparently, Betty made some complaints to her gynecologist that are inconsistent with a great sex life before the malpractice.”

“I doubt that.”

“I understand. That’s a natural reaction, but I’m pretty sure the truth of the matter is she hated having sex with you.”

Beecher starts turning red. “I totally doubt that,” he grumbles angrily.

I point to the chart. “Look at this entry right here. Over a year before the malpractice it reads, and I’ll quote: ‘I hate having sex with my husband.’ See?” I point with emphasis to the chart again. “It says ‘I hate having sex with my husband’ right here.” I start tapping on the entry with my finger. Beecher looks but has no response.

I go on. “Let me show you something else. Over the next three-month period, your wife submitted to a battery of tests in an effort to ascertain if there was an organic basis for her hating to have sex with you. That means they evaluated things such as the size of her vagina, its moisture content, whether or not it had any bacterial organisms, anatomic abnormalities, such as a variation in its shape that would contribute to her having complaints of pain during sex, and other things that would explain why she couldn’t stand having sex with you. They concluded nothing was wrong with her organically, meaning her equipment was completely normal. Are you with me on this, Bert?”

No response.

“They also took a medical history from her,” I continue. “She said you were the first person whom she ever hated having sex with. Let me show you. See?” I hammer my finger into the chart. Beecher looks at the record and says nothing at first, then takes a stab at reason.

“If she did complain of pain while having sex with me, which I’m sure she didn’t, despite what those records say, then maybe my package was too big for her. Yeah, that was it. My package is too big.”

“That would be the first thing I’d say in my own defense. Good for you. You’re thinking like a lawyer with a big dick, Bert. Now I have to go out for a minute. Look through these records while I’m gone. There’s some other stuff in there, too. They got a lot of info on you and your penis for cross-examination. I’ll be right back.” I exit my office, leaving Bert looking all rattled. I head for the elevator.

I go down to the lobby and walk out with a purpose. Snacks. I go next door into Deli-De-Lite to pick up some beef jerky and a big bag of popcorn to munch on during the second act of the Bert Beecher show. Since they’re out of jerky I go for the beef stick. Okay, two beef sticks. One hot and one teriyaki.

I go back upstairs and sit down next to Bert, who’s using his finger
to read the records, one word at a time. “Beef stick?” I offer, tilting one in his direction.

“I don’t eat that shit.”

After demolishing both sticks while watching Bert try to make sense of the handwritten doctor’s entries, I take out the large bag of popcorn. Beecher looks up. “Popcorn?” I offer.

“Yeah. I’ll take some of that.” His monster-sized hand barely makes it into the open bag. He comes out with half the popcorn. Figures—half, his favorite percentage.

As he swallows a handful, I start in. “Where were we? Oh yeah, you were saying your package was too big. That’s something her doctors definitely considered.” I slide the records back so they’re between us, then turn a few pages. “Yes, here it is.” I point to what looks like a multiple-choice question. Bert leans over to see. “Look at these three questions in large print,” I say. “The first question instructs, ‘Circle one,’ and reads: ‘I consider my partner’s penis small, medium, or large.’ Betty circled the word
small
. See, right here? She circled the word
small
. See it right here? Is that the way she makes a circle, Bert? Is that her circle right there around the word
small
?”

Beecher says nothing, but clearly he’s agitated.

I could stop. But I don’t. “The next question reads: ‘I would describe the thickness of my partner’s penis as thin, medium, or thick.’ Your wife circled the word
thin
. See it right here? Are you looking where I’m pointing, Bert? It says ‘thin’ right here. See it?” Beecher says nothing, his complexion reddening.

I carry on. “The next question states: ‘When making love to my partner, I reach an orgasm never, some of the time, or always.’ Betty circled the word
never
. See it? Right here. ‘Never.’ It’s right here.” Beecher is just about at a boil. Perfect. I turn the page. “Look at this entry, Bert. It reads: ‘Patient states her partner would measure less than four inches when aroused, ruling out a mechanical basis for her pain from her slightly anteverted uterus.’ ”

Bert, now steaming, keeps his head down. Looking at the record, he says nothing.

“According to the impression on the next page,” I say, “their conclusion was your wife has a psychosomatic disorder relative to having sex with you.”

“What’s that? Something’s wrong with her, right?”

“Um, no. That means since there wasn’t anything abnormal with either of you physically, the only explanation was the way she felt about you. In effect, Betty hated you and hated having sex with you, so her subconscious conjured up some nonsense pain response associated with your intimacy. Let me show you, right here next to the word
impression
. See?” Beecher looks and says nothing. His eyes are now bloodshot, presumably from elevated pressure.

“Since you want money for a loss suffered to the quality of the marital intimacy,” I tell him, “and since these records generated before the malpractice say things inconsistent with this claim, the jury will hear it all, as it goes to your credibility. I also might add these gynecological records indicate your wife tested positive for venereal disease on two separate occasions prior to the malpractice. There’s actually a quote that reads: ‘My husband gave me VD,’ as a presenting complaint on one of these visits. See? Look right here for yourself.”

Beecher looks and becomes belligerent, defensive, and attacking all at once. “She was the one who gave me the VD!” After his outburst, Bert looks both deflated and defeated. It seems he has learned the lesson I set out to teach him. I just sit, watch, wait, and continue to eat popcorn in the stillness of the moment, curious to hear what he has to say next.

Finally, after about a minute, Bert speaks up. “Listen,” he says, “I knew about these entries. They’re wrong. In fact, Betty wrote a letter asking the doctor to correct her record.”

“Really? That’s helpful. We need to get a copy of that letter because the doctor didn’t make it a part of her permanent chart.”

“I’ll get it from Betty and if she don’t got a copy I’ll make her write it again, yeah, that’s what I’ll do.”

“So long as you deal with her in a civil manner, that would be fine.”

“You saying I ain’t civil?” he challenges.

“Not at all, Bert, not at all. But I’d suggest the five percent is very acceptable in light of these entries. I mean, it’s all in the records, Bert, and I’d hate to see this stuff come out in court. Those VD entries offer the jury the option to give you nothing, and we’re not talking about the schvitzing kind of VD either.”