Cool & Lam 15 - Beware the Curves

He carefully refrained from asking us anything about the gun.
    During the noon recess, I took him off to one side where there were no reporters around and handed it to him straight from the shoulder.
    “This is the kind of stuff that separates the men from the boys,” I told him. “You’re in this case as an attorney representing a defendant who is charged with murder. The punishment for murder is death. The jurors are watching the district attorney and the jurors are watching you. You look like a man who’s defending a guilty client. That’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to your client. Get the hell in there and fight. Don’t fight as though you had your back to the wall, but fight with the smiling confidence of a man who is representing an innocent defendant.”
    “I’m not that good an actor,” Quinn said.
    “You’d better start learning then,” I told him.
    He did a little better in the afternoon.
    Using the information we had dug up for him, Quinn knew everything there was to know about the jurors. The danger, of course, lay in the fact that the panel would be exhausted. Then the judge would have to order a special venire, and Quinn would have a list of names about which he knew nothing.
    Mortimer Irvine, the district attorney, was a tall, good-looking, dignified man with wavy dark hair, broad shoulders, slim waist and an air of distinction.
    Irvine was unmarried, considered one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, and he loved to get impressionable young women on a jury. He’d also go for the older, white-haired, matronly type. He didn’t like the horny-handed ranchers.
    The impressionable young women looked on him as they’d look on a matinee idol. They’d listen to his arguments and bring in a verdict of conviction, walk out of a courtroom and say to each other, “Wasn’t he just wonderful!”
    The older women said Irvine reminded them of what “Jimmy” would have been like if “Jimmy” had only lived. “Jimmy” had always wanted to be a lawyer.
    Some of the horny-handed old ranchers would look at Irvine ’s carefully combed hair, gaze into his soulful eyes, and return a verdict for the defendant.
    Barney Quinn had made up his jury list with the idea of keeping as many of the young women as possible off the jury. Irvine had made up his jury list with the idea of getting an all-woman jury if possible.
    After I saw the way things were going, I got Barney to one side.
    “Play into his hands, Barney.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Let him get women on the jury.”
    “Gosh, no!” Quinn protested. “He’s got too many of them on there now. Women go for him. He has a rich resonant voice. He looks soulfully into the eyes of each woman on the jury as he argues. He pays three hundred dollars for his suits, and he puts on a freshly pressed suit every morning. The guy’s got enough property so he isn’t dependent on his law practice. He wants adulation and influence. He’s got his eye on being a state senator, attorney general and governor.”
    “Nevertheless,” I said, “play into his hand. Let him get women on the jury.”
    Quinn sighed. “Hell,” he said, “I don’t know what we want a jury for anyway. The guy might as well plead guilty.”
    “What you need,” I told him, “is a pint of liquor, a night’s sleep and a babe. Get up on your toes. This case is either going to make you or break you .“
    “Well, it won’t make me,” he said gloomily. “That’s for certain.”
    “Not if you go about it this way,” I told him.
    I stuck it through until court adjourned at five o’clock. Then I let Bertha drive her own car home. I rang up Stella Karis and made a dinner date.
    We had cocktails, dinner and went back to her apartment for liqueurs. She didn’t sit on the davenport. She sat in a chair. She was just a little reserved.
    “How you coming with your boy friend ?” I asked.
    “What do you mean, my boy friend ?”
    “The banker.”
    “Oh, Cooper,” she said. “You know, Donald, I’m afraid there’s just a little masculine jealousy on your part.”
    She looked at me archly.
    “Perhaps there is,” I admitted.
    “Cooper is a good guy. He appeals to me a little teeny bit.” She laughed throatily and said, “I don’t know what appeals to you. You’re one of the most standoffish persons I’ve ever seen. I’ll tell you one thing, Cooper’s smart.”
    “I’m not standoffish,” I told her. “I’m working on this Endicott case and I’m