The Ambition Read Online Free PDF Page A

pushed back in his chair. “That’s easier said than done. One of the reforms we instituted was to install a computerized system that randomly assigns cases.”
    Tom was aware of the computer. In the past, chief judges had come under suspicion because politically sensitive cases always seemed to be steered to judges who were amenable to payoffs or who were known to be soft on defendants. The new tamper–proof system was designed to restore the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
    But to Tom, this was irrelevant. He had come on an errand, simple and clear–cut, and frankly he didn’t care how McKelvie took matters from there.
    “Look, I’ve done what I was asked to do,” Tom said. “The rest is your problem.”
    McKelvie thumped his desk. “You’re not done yet!” he snapped. “You hear me? You tell Bugatti this: I will make every effort to get the case to Sepulveda. If I succeed, I keep the money. But if I don’t succeed, I still keep the money. You got that? He’s not paying me for results; he’s paying me for the risk. You make that clear.”
    Buster grabbed the back of Tom’s chair, giving it a violent shake. “Got it?”
    “Okay, sure, fine, I’ll tell Dom. But if you’re saying there’s nothing you can do, I’m not sure how he’s going to respond.”
    McKelvie let a small smile play on his face. “Well, I didn’t say there was nothing I can do. For all practical purposes, the computer assigns cases to judges on a random basis. But there’s a wrinkle.”
    “Like what?”
    “What people don’t know is that the system isn’t totally random.”
    “Meaning …”
    “Judges dispose of cases at different rates. Some work slowly and so they have a big backlog; others are faster and only have a small number of pending cases. If the incoming cases were to be distributed evenly among all the judges, the slower ones would end up swamped. So to compensate for that, the computer taps into the court clerk’s database and monitors the caseload of every judge. It assigns the cases according to a complicated algorithm that takes the pending caseload of each judge into account.”
    Buster spoke up. “So if Judge Sepulveda’s clerk makes a ‘mistake’ when she types in the current caseload at the end of the day today … who knows? What if she accidentally types in that the judge disposed of fifty cases instead of five? That kind of innocent error happens all the time.”
    “In the eyes of the computer, that would deplete his caseload quite a bit,” added the judge. “The computer would weigh that data and the chances are that the first case arraigned the next day would get directed to him. It’s not for sure, but there’s a strong likelihood.”
    “Then,” said Buster, “the clerk would discover her ‘error’ later that morning and correct it. Nobody’s the wiser. Caseload reports are only printed out at the end of every week; by then, it’s nice and pretty.”
    McKelvie looked at Buster. “You work things out with Christine in Sepulveda’s office. Then make sure that Moretti will be the first defendant arraigned tomorrow. Call the jail and make sure he’s over here in the lockup early and is ready to go. No slip–ups.”
    Buster nodded.
    “As for you,” McKelvie said, glancing at Tom, “you make sure Bugatti understands this is the best I can do. You got that?”
    Tom was more than ready to get out of there. He picked up his briefcase, clicked it closed, and stood. “Got it.”
    McKelvie rose to his feet, his judicial robes betraying his sizeable paunch, and put his hands on his hips. “You know,” he said, his voice becoming more personal, “I really liked your dad. He played ball. We got along well. It was, shall we say, a mutually profitable relationship.”
    Tom considered the impact his fist would have on the soft, overripe flesh of McKelvie’s jaw before he managed to utter, “Thanks.”
    I can’t do this ever again, Tom told himself as he emerged from the chambers