"Sandy," she said. "I already told you: we don't need a hearing. May need one, but don't need one yet. Tell whoever it is down there in the US Attorney's office to send up the order they want me to sign. Then if the witness still takes the Fifth, then we'll have him in and I'll put on my usual impressive performance, plant my brogan right on his neck. What's the matter with the government anyway? This isn't the first one of these things we've ever had here. They should know by now how we do them."
"The guy's lawyer's the one that wants it," Robey said. "He's got some argument why he thinks the grant's improper, unenforceable, and therefore his client shouldn't be compelled to take the Fifth and make the grand jury think he's guilty of something, before he gets in to see you."
"That's a new one," the judge said. "Who dreamed up this new way to waste time? Some jackass with his first federal case?"
"Could be, now that you mention it," Robey said, grinning at her. "I know I've never seen him in here. Heard of him though. Geoffrey Cohen's his name. People say he's not bad. Think his office's over South Hadley."
The judge regarded Robey with mixed vexation and amusement. "SHee-it," she said, 'you're not telling me that. The jackass lawyer's my lawyer?
Was, anyway. Did a good job for me, too. What the heck is he doing down here, federal criminal case? He's not a criminal lawyer;
Geoffrey's a divorce lawyer. He's always been that. Bob Pooler's the man for this kind of ugliness. People should stick to what they know."
"In the first place," Robey said, "Cohen appears to be branching out.
That drug case that you drew last Thursday there. Sanderson, I think it was? Golf pro; in the winter he tends bar in Vermont moderate amount of coke; Bissell tells me Cohen represents the broad who turned him in. State plea-bargain of her own. Apparently in this corruption matter that we're talking about now, Bob Pooler already had a client.
His client's the one they want Geoffs client to sink. Bob'd have a big conflict of interest."
"Who's Bob's client?" the judge said. "What poor devil're they after now?"
"From what Bissell told me," Robey said, 'the lucky nominee's the ever-popular Daniel J. Hilliard. Former state rep from Holyoke?
Chairman of House Ways and Means when he stopped running, Eighty-two, Eighty-four, I think it was. His pals on Beacon Hill gave him his very own college. Hampton Pond Community. Since then he's more or less faded out of sight."
Judge Foote looked glum. "Oh I hope that that isn't so," she said, after a while. '1 hope that isn't true. And I hope if it is true that they don't decide to indict him. And if they do, then I hope they lose. Now I don't want you telling anybody else what I just said, but goddamn, I wish they wouldn't do that."
"Oh God, I'm sorry," Robey said, looking chagrined. "I didn't realize you knew the guy, were close to him."
"Oh I wasn't," she said quickly, silently chastising herself for having spoken impulsively and hoping not to have to tell more lies than she'd be able to remember. "Not the way you're thinking, at least. Keep in mind, Sandy: I can almost always tell what you're thinking. Shame on you." Robey looked sheepish.
"It was nothing you could really call "personal," she said, thinking:
It was more what you'd call sexual.
"I got to know him from when I was still married to Ray. Not happily married by then, anymore, but still, you know, under contract." For another eight or nine years or so, as a matter of fact -not that I let that stand in my way. "That racetrack deal I mentioned, "Seventy-two or so, early in "Seventy-three. One of the chores the Chief had me doing involved staying in touch making sure the local reps were up to speed on the project. Dan Hilliard naturally was one of them." Getting into bed with Dan Hilliard wasn't on the Chiefs specs; that was extracurricular.
"I saw him three or four times. Once I had to drive down to Boston, I recall." And a room in the Lenox Hotel. "And then the other times I went up to Holyoke, the huge second-floor office he used to have there.
Unless it was crowded, your voice echoed in it. I thought he was a very nice man, a thoroughly, truly, nice, man. I suppose I have to say he was charming." He's buying it, she thought, with a tincture of relief and shame. What they say is true, I guess: Once you get the hang of it, you never lose the touch. Very nicely done, girl, very nicely done.
"In fact I may've been a little bit too hard on you just then. Now that you've gotten me thinking about it, I remember having it go through my mind at the time that if I hadn't been still married to Ray and so forth, I could see myself getting very interested in this Hilliard guy. Although of course he was still married then, too."
"Talk was he never let that interfere with his personal life," Robey said, smirking. "He is a charmer, no question. I remember when his wife was divorcing him; she alleged adultery. There was a lot of talk.
