No Way Out Read online

  Again, it was left to Aaron Levine to break the silence.

  “The question we should be focusing on is do we how do we go about winning? There’s not much kudos in losing a high profile case.”

  The other partners, looked down or away, anything to withdraw from this pragmatic way of looking at the issue. Alex realized that the question was directed at him. He met the old man’s eyes.

  “It's going to be an uphill struggle.”

  “How steep uphill?”

  Alex thought about this for a moment.

  “There’s a lot of evidence for us to refute – not to mention that we still have to overcome the effect of Claymore’s past. It won’t be easy. The problem is I can’t desanctify the victim without seeming like a bully.”

  “‘Desanctify the victim’?” Levine echoed softly.

  Jo Gale spoke into the silence that followed.

  “A euphemism for character assassination… used by sleazy shysters who like helping rapists and wife-killers beat the rap.”

  Alex smiled, not in mockery, but out of respect for Jo Gale’s feisty attitude.

  “I prefer to think of it as, leveling the playing field after the DA’s finished milking the sympathy of the jury for all it’s worth.”

  “Well if you can’t ‘desanctify the victim,’” asked Jo Gale, “how do you propose to level the playing field?”

  “By making Claymore seem harmless.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  Alex looked around the table to gauge the mood. It was obvious that no one else had anything more to say. This was turning into a grudge match between himself and Jo Gale.

  “That’s very simple. A picture paints a thousand words.”

  She rested her elbows on the oval-shaped table, and leaned forward, meeting Alex’s eyes implacably.

  “And how do you propose to paint a picture for the jury without words?”

  “By putting an attractive woman next to Claymore. She doesn’t even have to say a word on his behalf, just sit there looking comfortable and relaxed. That’s all it takes.”

  Jo recoiled. It was an actual, physical retreat.

  “You can forget it Mr. Sedaka,” said Jo. “‘Cause it ain’t gonna happen.”

  Alex had to fight hard to resist the urge to smile.

  Sherman, who until now had been leaning back in a desperate effort to make himself invisible, now sat forward, sensing an opportunity to earn some brownie points with the senior partners.

  “There’s Andi Phoenix.”

  All the other heads in the room looked round at him. But it was Jo who spoke – and her tone was audibly defensive, or rather passive-aggressive.

  “Who’s Andi Phoenix?”

  “She’s from our New York office. We needed some one to fill our victim litigation slot and she took the bait. She knew she wasn’t going anywhere in the Big Apple so she came out here.”

  “Will she do it?” asked Webster.

  “She’s hot and she’s ambitious. I know she’d just love a piece of the action. If you want a cute piece of ass to sit next to Claymore looking comfortable and keeping shtum, you won’t have any trouble convincing Andi Phoenix to take the seat.”

  Friday, 12 June 2009 – 16:30

  “I won’t do it!” said Andi, flatly.

  This time they were in one of the smaller conference rooms: Andi, Paul Sherman and Alex Sedaka. When she was first summoned here, Andi thought she was going to be consulted about a civil lawsuit against a convicted criminal. It had been a rude awakening when she discovered what Sherman really wanted. In fact she had been so angered when he told her, that it would have had pacifying effect if he’d told her then and there that he was just joking and that what Alex really wanted to sleep with her.

  She was standing by the window, half-looking out, half-glancing at this Laurel and Hardy pair of clowns. Alex met her eyes across the table, surprised by the ferocity of her resistance.

  “Why not? It’ll be great experience for you – and a challenge.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I’m past the stage when I need that sort of a challenge. And I’ve had plenty of experience back east –”

  “Oh my mistake,” said Alex, “I thought you came out here was because you hit the glass ceiling in the Big Apple.”

  Andi felt like punching him in the face for the sarcasm. She felt like punching Sherman too for exposing her to it. But she contained her anger.

  “That doesn’t mean I have to scramble for the dregs.”

  “No one’s asking you to scramble. I’m coming to you remember. All I’m asking of you is your help for our client.”

  “He’s your client not mine.”

  “He’s Levine and Webster’s client,” Sherman stepped in. “That makes him your client too.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to prostitute myself defending him.”

  “We’re not asking you to prostitute yourself,” said Alex. “We’re just asking you to stand up for the principle that a man is innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Oh come off it Mr. Sedaka. What do you need me for? I’m a civil litigator.”

  “You’ve had criminal experience,” Sherman cut in. “Working both sides of the fence.”

  “There are plenty of criminal lawyers here with a lot more experience. Why do you need me?”

  “Okay I’ll be honest with you,” said Alex. I don’t want you to play an active role. I just want you to sit next to him, make him look harmless. Look, you know the kind of pre-trial publicity this case is going to arouse – the sort of publicity it’s already aroused. They’ll drag in every incident from Claymore’s past. They’ve already compared him to O. J. Simpson. They’re going to savage his reputation before the case ever gets to trial. That’s what we’re up against.”

  “And how do you think me sitting there next to him is going to refute all that negative pre-trial publicity?”

  Alex met her eyes, trying to read her.

  “When the jury sees a beautiful young women sitting next to him, it’ll melt away their prejudice. It’ll make him look like a normal, everyday human being. It’ll show them that he’s safe, harmless, inoffensive… not the monster that the prosecution is trying to make him out to be.”

  “And you say you’re not asking me to prostitute myself?”

  She was looking at him hard, telling him with eyes as much as her words that she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  “Look,” he said after a long pause and a deep breath, “Claymore has an image problem with Middle America. Everyone knows about his past, how he raped white women and said it was political. How he broke out of prison and fled to Libya. But he has the right to be judged by the evidence in this case – not his past history from when he was an angry and embittered young man.”

  “I don’t deny that Claymore’s got a problem,” she conceded, shifting uncomfortably. “But trying to solve his image problem by asking me to sit next to him and make him look harmless is like… like trying to use my body to sell a product.”

  “What product? We’re talking about a man’s reputation.”

  “Then sell it like a reputation, with reasoned argument – not with head of bottled blonde hair and a pair of silicone-enhanced tits.”

  Alex was about to argue, but again he fell silent as his face melted into a smile. He realized that there was an element of self-satire in Andi’s description of herself. Finally, he spoke again.

  “Okay, you’ve nailed me. We’ve got to use Madison Avenue techniques. But you know what? We’re doing it in a worthy cause.”

  “What you’re proposing goes way beyond Madison Avenue… more like Sunset Boulevard or Old Moulin Rouge.”

  “All right Ms Phoenix,” said Sherman. “Let me lay it on the line for you. You’re an employee of Levine and Webster and I’m pulling rank.”

  “Pulling rank?”

  “Yes,” he said stiffly.

  Alex said nothing. They were playing the old good cop / bad cop ro
utine, and now it was Sherman’s turn.

  “You seem to think you’ve got something to back it up with.”

  “How about your future at this law firm?”

  “My future?” she echoed, more amazed than afraid, more puzzled than angry. “I have a contract.”

  “That cuts both ways. You’re refusing to work for one of our biggest clients.”

  “Elias Claymore?” she asked incredulously.

  “His insurance company.”

  “Well if it comes down to it, I have a valid reason for not representing Claymore.”

  “What reason?” asked Sherman.

  “A conflict of interest.”

  “What conflict of interest?”

  “My… partner… she works at the Say no to Violence Rape Crisis Center. She might even be assigned to the victim in this case.”

  “She could agree to hand over to another member of staff.”

  “She may have had some contact with the victim already.”

  “We can cross that bridge when we come to it. We can cite the defendant’s right to the representation of his choosing. You can agree not to talk to you partner about the case.”

  “It’ll… put us under… strain.”

  Alex noticed that she had mellowed in her objections: the tone of her refusal was no longer outright. But he also realized that things had been slipping away. And Paul Sherman wasn’t exactly gifted with tact. Alex knew that if he waited any longer, they’d lose her completely.

  “Okay,” Alex cut in. “Try this.”

  He half-turned and grabbed a couple of newspapers from a nearby shelf and threw them on the table.

  “What are you doing?” asked Andi, her tone betraying her confusion.

  “Wait!” he said, thumbing through the papers. “Just listen.”

  Elias Claymore is the kind of man who expects people to believe he’s right whatever side he takes and whatever he says or does. When he was raping white women and calling it a revolutionary, political act, he expected us to think of him as a freedom fighter, not a criminal. When he fled to Libya and started preaching Islam, he expected to be thought of as a religious scholar. Then he ‘saw the light’ and found Jesus – as well as capitalism – and expected us to welcome him back to the fold with open arms. And like fools, we did. Now he’s accused of rape once again and, having come full circle, he asks us to believe that he’s an innocent man who is being victimized because of his outspoken political comments in the recent past.

  “So what? Of course he’s going to get some hostile press.”

  Alex wasn’t finished yet.

  “Okay that’s the mainstream press. And it’s typical of the rest. Trust me, I’ve read through them all.” He pointed to a stack of newspapers on the cherry wood trolley beside the table. Now let’s see what black radical journals are saying.”

  He grabbed another paper. This one was already open on the right page.

  The chickens are coming home to roost for a Judas who betrayed his people for thirty pieces of silver. Elias Claymore, who once stood for the rights of his oppressed brothers now stands exposed as a hypocrite who places self-indulgence above any cause. This perennial campaigner, who keeps re-inventing himself whenever it suits him, has now run out of ideas and has finally reverted to type as a self-indulgent narcissist and egomaniac. Having turned against his own kind and sold his soul to the devil, he has now compounded his crime by bringing his brothers into disrepute.

  When Claymore was a respectable figure of the Middle Class establishment, he was held up by conservatives as an exception to the rule, the black man who worked within the system and succeeded. This was in stark contrast to us “deadbeat” blacks who would never amount to much because we didn’t play by the white man’s rules. The rest of us only had ourselves to blame for our miserable plight because we were lazy and refused to abide by the rules and make use the system. But now that he has been exposed for what he really is, he will be held up as a typical example of the black everyman and the old stereotype of the black male, sex-driven monster will be resurrected yet again.

  “Okay. That’s what we’re up against!”

  “And you think…”

  She stopped. There was no easy way to brush off an appeal to the fighting spirit within her. Bullying hadn’t worked, but this was quiet persuasion.

  “Well what do you say?”

  “I say…” She hesitated again., wondering if Alex could see the civil war raging within her.

  Alex and Sherman looked at Andi, as if inviting her final answer. Ignoring Sherman, she stared back at Alex for a few seconds, breathing heavily as the stress of the argument slowly melted away. Then – not trusting her voice – she nodded her head in reluctant truce rather than surrender. He smiled gently as if accepting it with good grace.

  “Okay,” said Sherman. “I’ll go now and leave you to start working.”

  And with that, Sherman packed his papers into his attaché case and left.

  Friday, 12 June 2009 – 18:10

  “The case took a dramatic turn today when it was revealed that Andromeda Phoenix – a civil litigator with Los Angeles law firm Levine and Webster – is to serve as co-counsel together with Alex Sedaka.”

  Martine Yin’s voice was coming from the television window in the web browser on a computer.

  “Ms Phoenix is in a relationship with a woman called Eugenia Vance, who works at the Say no to Violence Rape Crisis Center. In order to protect Elias Claymore’s right to the counsel of his choice, the court issued an injunction against Ms Vance having any contact with the alleged victim.”

  Standing outside the courthouse, Martine was wearing her snooker vest, speaking to the camera in a dry, clipped tone. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to depart from her trademark blue jacket, but she had worn the snooker vest a couple of times before and on both occasions had got a positive response in her mailbag. And she had a particular reason for wanting to emphasize her figure today. The network had been talking about putting her behind a desk in the studio and were evidently getting some funny ideas about parachuting in some ambitious spring chicken to fill her slot.

  “Ms Phoenix’s participation was opposed by the prosecution. But after a long sidebar, the prosecution’s motion was denied. The DA’s office declined to say afterwards whether they would file an interim appeal.”

  A woman’s hand reached out and clicked on the button to pause the news report. Then she returned her attention to the computer in front of her. With a click of a button she launched an E-mail package and started preparing a message to [email protected]”.

  This would put the fear of God into the bitch.

  Friday, 12 June 2009 – 19:45

  “So how did you manage to overcome her objections? asked Martine over her hors d’oevres of Torchon of Duck Foie Gras with House Poached Adriatic Fig in Muscat Wine.

  A succession of light waves from the wrought iron candelabra rippled across the lace tablecloth. Ten minutes earlier, they had entered The Little Door. As they stepped through the wooden doors to the Patio, it had been like one of those movies where you pass through a gateway into another dimension. In an instant they had left the city behind them and entered a rustic world of bougainvilleas, ferns, a tiled fountain and a Koi pond. They could even see the moon through the open skylight.

  “I don’t want this to end up on the evening news,” said Alex.

  Martine made an up-and-sideways gesture with her right hand.

  “Strictly off the record.”

  This was one of Martine’s haunts. She had invited Alex here as a contrast to the slumming they had done last time, opposite the snooker hall. But Alex had no intention of letting her pick up the tab.

  “We used a bit of gentle persuasion.”

  He didn’t really feel comfortable telling her about the incident. It would probably make him sound like a bully. But the practice of law was a dirty business. They both knew that.

  “We?”

  Mart
ine raised her eyebrows with a delicate smile as her hand – holding a piece of brioche toast – paused in mid-air, awaiting his answer.

  “Paul Sherman and I.”

  “You mean you blackmailed her?”

  “I prefer to call it bribery,” he said with a guilty smile, after a short pause.

  He attacked his own hors d’oevres of Farmers Market Butter Lettuce and Steamed Spring Vegetable, a light starter to allow room for his Filet Mignon and Roasted Fingerling Potatoes.

  “So what was the carrot?”

  This was a pun, alluding to piece of carrot poised at the end of his fork.

  “I sold it as a fight for a man’s right to a second chance.”

  His facial expression was nervous, as if he was expecting a torrent of skeptical laughter or a cutting verbal response. But Martine’s smile was both piercing and bewitching.

  “And what did Sherman use as the stick?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come off it Alex. You were playing Good Cop / Bad Cop.”

  He held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness, caught in the glare of Martine’s headlamps.

  “Okay,” he acknowledged reluctantly. “You’ve got me. We did a little arm twisting.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. It must be pretty hard for her, with her lover working at a rape crisis center.”

  “That’s a personal matter, They’ll just have to work it out for themselves.”

  “You make it sound so easy. Imagine what it must be like for Eugenia Vance: one minute she’s doing her job, next minute she gets handed an injunction telling her she’s not allowed to have any contact with the victim.

  “I’m sorry. I may have sounded a bit callous. But the judge didn’t exactly have a choice. He had to do it to avoid a conflict of interest.”

  Martine’s face turned suddenly serious.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”