Gladiator-At-Law

Chapter One

The accused was a tallow-faced weasel with "Constitutional Psychopathic Inferior" stamped all over him. He wailed to Charles Mundin, LL.B., John Marshall Law School:

"Counselor, you got to get me off! I been up twice and this time they'll condition me!"

Mundin studied his first client with distaste. "You won't plead guilty?" he asked again, hopelessly. He had been appointed by the court, and considered that the court had played a filthy trick on him. This twerp's pore patterns were all over Exhibit A, a tin cashbox fishhooked from a ticket window at Monmouth Stadium. Modus operandi coincided with that in the twerp's two previous offenses. An alleged accomplice, who had kept the ticket clerk busy for almost all of the necessary five minutes, was all ready to take the witness stand— having made his deal with the prosecutor. And still the twerp was stubbornly refusing to cop a plea.

Mundin tried again. "It won't be so bad, you know. Just a couple of days in a hospital. It's quite painless, and that's not just talk. I've seen it with my own eyes. They took us around in my junior year——"

The twerp wailed, "Counselor, you just don't understand. If they condition me, my God, I have to go to work."

Mundin shrugged. "You're acting against my advice," he said. "I'll do what I can for you."

But the trial was over in a matter of minutes. Mundin tried for a reversible error by objecting to the testimony of the accomplice. He claimed feebly that the moral character of the witness made his testimony inadmissible in a conditionable offense. The prosecutor, a grandee from Harvard Law, haughtily smacked him down by pointing out that the essence of the conditionable offense lay in the motivation of the accused, not the fact of commission, which was all the accomplice had testified to. He snapped a series of precedents.

The judge's eyes went blank and distant. Those inside the rail could hear confirmation of the precedents droning faintly into his ears through the headphones under his elaborate wig. He nodded and said to Mundin, "Overruled. Get on with it."

Mundin didn't even bother to take an exception.

The prosecution rested and Mundin got up, his throat dry. "May it please the Court," he said. His Honor looked as though nothing had pleased that Court, ever. Mundin said to the jury box, "The defense, contending that no case has been made, will present no witnesses." That, at any rate, would keep Harvard Law from letting the jury know of the two previous convictions. "The defense rests."

Harvard Law, smiling coldly, delivered a thirty-second summation, which in three razor-sharp syllogisms demonstrated the fact that defendant was guilty as hell.

The court clerk's fingers clicked briskly on the tape-cutter, then poised expectantly as Mundin stood up.

"May it please the Court," said Mundin. That look again. "My client has not been a fortunate man. The product of a broken home and the gutters of Belly Rave, he deserves justice as does every citizen. But in his case I am impelled to add that the ends of justice can be served only by an admixture of mercy."

Judge and prosecutor were smiling openly. The hell with dignity! Mundin craned his neck to read the crisp yellow tape that came clicking out of the clerk's encoding machine. He could more or less read jury-box code if it was simple enough.

The encoded transcript of his summation was simple enough. The tape said:

o-o . .. o-o . .. o-o ...

"Defense rests," he mumbled and fell into his chair, ignoring a despairing mutter from the twerp. The judge said, "Mr. Clerk, present the case to the jury box.

The clerk briskly fed in the two tapes. The jury box hummed and twinkled. If only you could fix one of those things! Mundin thought savagely, staring at the big seal on it. Or if you could get one of those damned clerks to cut the tape—no, that was out too. They were voluntarily conditioned. Like voluntary eunuchs in the old days. Gave up manhood for a sure living.

The red window lit up: guilty as charged.

"Work!" the twerp muttered, his eyes haunted.

The judge said, shifting his wig and showing a bit of earphone under it, "Mr. Bailiff, take charge of the prisoner. Sentencing tomorrow at eleven. Court's adjourned."

The twerp moaned, "I hate them damn machines. Couldn't you have got me a human jury, maybe get an injunction——"

Mundin said wearily, "A human jury would have crucified you. Why did you have to steal from the Stadium? Why not pick on something safe like the Church or the judge's piggy bank? See you tomorrow." He turned his back on the defendant and bumped into Harvard Law.

"Nice try, young man." The grandee smiled frostily. "Can't win them all, can we?"

Mundin snarled, "If you're so smart why aren't you a corporation lawyer?" and stamped out of the courtroom.

He was on the street before he regretted the crack. Harvard's face had fallen satisfactorily, but the jibe was another O-O. Why, indeed? The same reason Mundin himself wasn't, of course. He hadn't inherited one of the great hereditary corporation-law practices and he never would. Even grinding through Harvard Law School can't get you conveniently reborn into the Root, or Lincoln, or Dulles, or Choate families. Not for Harvard (or for Charles Mundin) the great reorganizations, receiverships, and debenture issues. Not for them the mergers and protective committees. Not for them the golden showers that fell when you pleaded before human judges and human juries, human surrogates and human commissions. For them—the jury box and the trivia of the criminal law.

A morose fifteen-minute walk through Monmouth's sweltering, rutted streets brought bun to his office building. His wallet nerve twinged as his eye fell on the quietly proud little plaque beside the door of the building. It announced that its rental agents were sorry but could offer no vacancies. Mundin hoped it would stay that way, at least as far as his own office was concerned.

He got an elevator to himself. "Sixteen," he told it. He was thinking of his first client, the twerp. At least he would get a fee; you got a fee on conditionable cases. The twerp was terrified that he'd find himself unable to steal. Maybe Counselor Mundin himself might soon be driven to dangling a hook and line over the wall of a ticket window at Monmouth Stadium. ...

Or he might get really desperate, and find himself one of the contestants in the Field Day inside.

His mail hopper was empty, but his guaranteed fully automatic Sleepless Secretary—he was still paying for it—was blinking for his attention. The rental agents again? Lawbook salesman? Maybe even a client? "Go ahead," he said.

In its perfect voice the machine said: 'Telephone call, 1205 hours. Mr. Mundin is out, Madam. If you wish to leave a message I will take it down."

The voice was the voice of Del Dworcas, chairman of the County Committee and purveyor of small favors. It said: "Who the hell are you calling madam, sister?"

The secretary: "Gug-gug-gug—ow-wooh. Sir."

Dworcas, his voice annoyed: "What the hell——? Oh. One of those damn gadgets. Well, listen, Charlie, if you ever get this. I sent somebody over to see you. Named Bligh. Treat him right. And give me a call. Something to talk about with you. And you better get that damn machine fixed unless you want to lose some business."

The secretary, after a pause: "Is that the end of your message, madam?"

Dworcas: "Damn your guts, yes! And stop calling me madam!"

The secretary: "Gug-gag-gug—ow-woooh." And click.

Oh, fine, thought Mundin. Now Dworcas was sore at him and nothing could be done about it. The secretary's confusion between the sexes and banshee howl didn't seem to be covered by the service contract.

And Dworcas was chairman of the County Committee, which handed out poll-watching assignments to deserving young attorneys.

The mailtube popped while he was blaspheming Dworcas and the salesman who had flattered him into buying the secretary. He eagerly fished the letter from its hopper, but when he caught sight of the return address he dropped it unopened. The Scholarship Investors' Realization Corporation could have nothing of interest to say to him; he knew he owed them the money, and he knew by virtue of the law course they had paid for that they couldn't do anything drastic to make him pay.

Then there was nothing to do until someone showed up— this Bligh or the man from the sheriff's office. Sing hey for the life of a lawyer, gabbling at machines you naggingly suspected thought you were not so bright as they were.

The Sleepless Secretary said: "Sir or madam as the case may be. Gug-gug-gug. Regret to advise." Mundin kicked it savagely. It burped and said: "A gentleman is in the outer office, Mrs. Mundin."

"Come in!" Mundin yelled at the door. Then he said, "Oh, excuse me. Mr. Bligh?"

The man blinked at him and came in cautiously. He looked around and picked out a chair. He wore a hearing aid, Mundin noticed; perhaps that was why he cocked his head a little.

He said, "That's right; Norvell Bligh. I—uh—asked Mr. Dworcas if he could recommend a first-class attorney and he—uh—suggested you."

Mundin said aloofly, "What can I do for you?"

"Well." Bligh's eyes roamed nervously around the room. "My wife—that is, I would like to get some information on adoption. I have a step-daughter—my wife's daughter by her first marriage, you see—and, well, my wife thinks we should arrange about adopting her."

Good old Del Dworcas, Mundin thought savagely. He knows I belong to the Criminal Bar, and he goes right ahead ——He said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Bligh. I can't help you. You'll have to find a civil attorney to handle that for you."

Bligh touched the control of his hearing aid. "Beg pardon?"

"I said," Mundin enunciated loudly, "I—can't—do—it."

"Oh, I know you can't," Bligh said. "Mr. Dworcas explained that. But he said that the civil attorneys would charge an awful lot, and you—— That is, since you were a friend of his and I was a friend of his brother, it would be done on a friendly basis. All I need to know, really, is what to do. I don't think I'd have to have a lawyer in court, do you?"

Mundin pondered hopefully. "Maybe not." It was questionable practice, no doubt of it, and small thanks to Dworcas for getting him into it Still, if it was just a matter of advice and information—thank God, the corporation boys didn't have that sewed up yet.

He leaned back, covertly looking Bligh over. Not the most imposing figure he had seen, but tolerably well dressed, certainly not a deadbeat. He'd be some land of contract worker, no doubt, getting his regular pay, living in a G.M.L. house, suffering his wife's obvious nagging. Mundin said:

'Tell me the story. First of all, how much—? That is, the court will want to be sure you can earn enough to support the child."

"Well, I've been supporting her for three years. Excuse me, Mr. Mundin, but can we keep this short? I'm on my lunch hour, and Mr. Candella is very fussy about that."

"Certainly. Just give me the facts—age of the child, where the father is and so on."

Bligh coughed self-consciously. He said, "My name is Norvell Bligh. I'm an associate producer for General Recreations, in charge of Field Day procurement, mostly. My wife is named Virginia. She was married before I met her to a man named Tony Elliston. They—uh—didn't get along too well. It was a pretty tough experience for her. They had one daughter, Alexandra. Virginia and her first husband, they got divorced, but I understand he's dead now. Anyway, she got custody, complete. I have the papers here. Alexandra is ten now. Is that all?"

Mundin scribbled rapidly—purely pretense, since the Sleepless Secretary was recording the whole thing automatically. On second thought, he told himself, maybe not pretense at that. "That's enough for the time being," he said. "I'll have to look up—have to discuss this matter with one of my colleagues. If you would care to come back, say, Friday at this time? Fine."

As Bligh left, looking vaguely alarmed, the Sleepless Secretary told him. "Pending the receipt. Ow-woooz. Mrs. Mundin is out of town."

Mundin turned it off.

Two clients in one day, he thought wonderingly. Anything was possible. Perhaps he wouldn't, after all, have to let the factory reclaim the secretary and the Scholarship people garnishee his salary and the landlord toss him out on the street.

Perhaps.