Dead Man's Rule Read Online Free PDF Page B

across from theirs.
    Ben glanced over. A man wearing a double-breasted black suit with a matching black shirt and tie was doing his best to look nonchalant, but his eyes were wary. A gold watch showed at the end of his left shirtsleeve and a heavy gold bracelet adorned his right wrist, as did what looked like the end of a tattoo. He had long, thinning black hair slicked back into a short ponytail. Ben counted three earring holes in his left ear. “He looks like a drug dealer,” he whispered back to his client.
    “He is a drug dealer.”
    “Are you sure?” Ben asked.
    Ivanovsky nodded.
    Ben smiled, planning ways to use the information on cross-examination. “Any convictions?”
    Ivanovsky shrugged. “I do not know.”
    Ben was about to follow up with more questions when another man walked in and sat down next to Zinoviev. Ben stared in surprise. “I wonder what he’s doing here,” he said softly.
    “Who is he?”
    “Anthony Simeon. He’s one of the ten or twelve best litigators in Chicago. I’d think this case was a little beneath him.”
    The judge came back in and nodded to the clerk. “Line twenty-four, Ivanovsky versus Zeen . . . Zeeno . . .”
    “Zinoviev,” supplied Anthony Simeon in his rich baritone as he approached the podium, giving the clerk a friendly smile. The clerk smiled back.
    Simeon was close to seventy, but his perfectly coiffed gray hair, perpetually tanned face, and vigorous, engaging courtroom manner made him appear twenty years younger. He was a thickset man of medium height, but he had an outstanding tailor who made him look burly rather than overweight. He had an impressive book of a business, though he tended to look at his clients’ bank balances a lot more closely than their ethics.
    Both the bench and the bar respected Simeon, but they did not particularly like him. Not that anyone actually disliked him—he was cordial and had a legendary sense of humor—but the general feeling was that he was best kept at arm’s length. He was a man of many acquaintances but no close friends: a polished gentleman brawler with a tendency to play hardball with friend and foe alike. That made him an unreliable ally and earned him the sobriquet “the Velvet Dagger.”
    The two lawyers stated their appearances for the record, and Judge Harris immediately started questioning Ben. “Why should I issue a TRO here?”
    “To preserve unique property, Your Honor. My client is entitled to a safe-deposit box containing one-of-a-kind jewelry that Mr. Zinoviev is now attempting to—”
    “Surely this jewelry has a monetary value. What did your client pay for it?”
    “Five thousand dollars, Your Honor, but—”
    The judge held up his hand and looked at Simeon. “Is your client willing to post a five-thousand-dollar bond?”
    Simeon glanced back at his client, who in turn looked at two men sitting in the back of the courtroom. One of them nodded. “Yes, Your Honor,” said Simeon.
    The judge turned back to Ben. “Problem solved, no?”
    “I’m afraid not. We’re talking about one-of-a-kind items of jewelry here that can’t be replaced by any amount of money.”
    “You keep saying ‘one-of-a-kind,’ but that’s just a phrase from your client’s affidavit. What exactly is in the box that’s so unique?”
    “As described in Mr. Ivanovsky’s affidavit, he only has secondhand reports that generally describe the jewelry. He has never been able to look inside the box himself, so—”
    “So you can’t carry your burden of proof on this point, can you?”
    “I think we have, Your Honor,” Ben replied, putting as much certainty in his voice as he could muster. “Under the law, it’s sufficient for purposes of a TRO to allege uniqueness. This is an emergency proceeding with no time for discovery. Once we’ve had an opportunity to look in that box, we’ll be able to provide more detail.”
    “That’s my point. If you don’t know what’s in the box, you don’t know whether you’re