I have him look at the letter sent to the state bar, the one complaining about Skarpellos and the trust fund.

“Yeah, I wrote it,” he says. “A license to steal.” This is meant as a general indictment of all lawyers. He looks up at Acosta, and from the dour expression on his face, it would seem the same applies to judges.

“Did you talk to Mr. Skarpellos first?”

“I talked to my lawyer first,” he says, “the one who settled the case.” This was one of the younger associates in the firm.

“What did he tell you?”

“What’s he gonna say-your money’s here, your money’s there, insurance site drafts take a long time to clear-the giant stall,” he says. “I’ve spent a lifetime chasing deadbeats, I know a stall when I hear it.”

“Then you talked to Mr. Skarpellos?”

“No, then I talked to his secretary. Mr. Skarpellos is a hard man to catch.”

“And what did you say to his secretary?”

“I got a little hot, I guess. She says Mr. Skarpellos is busy. So I call back. Three times I call back. All the while they’re sitting on two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of my money,” he says. “So finally I have words with this-this secretary.” He can’t seem to come up with a better word for her. I think the lady probably earned her wages that day.

According to Plotkin, his language “became colorful.” She hung up on him. He called her back, says he was polite this time, but I don’t know if I buy this, because she hung up again. A half-hour later Tony called him back and taught him a few words that weren’t in Plotkin’s own vocabulary. The next day Plotkin sent flowers to the secretary, and a note that bordered on a death threat to Skarpellos.

This missive had no effect on the Greek. He just kept the money and instructed his secretary not to put Plotkin through on the phone anymore.

After two more letters to the firm went unanswered, Plotkin called the bar. They invited him to send a formal complaint. He did, and a week later an investigator visited the offices of Potter, Skarpellos. This finally had a sobering effect on Tony. The next day, according to Plotkin, he got a call from the firm.

“They wanted me to come over for a meeting,” he says.

“Who’s they?”

“Another partner called me. Hazeltine. Said he wanted me to come by and pick up my check.”

“Did you?”

“Sure. I went by the next morning.”

“And what happened?”

“They hustle me into a conference room. I look around this place and see where my money has gone,” he says.

“Who was present at this meeting?”

“The lawyer who represented me-Daniel Liston is his name. He’s the only one there.”

This is an associate I knew, but not well, when I left the firm.

“He seems real embarrassed,” says Plotkin. “Tells me he has a cashier’s check for my part of the settlement, but first I have to sign some papers.”

“Papers?”

“Yeah, a receipt and something else.”

I look at him, like “Please continue.”

“He has this letter, typed on plain paper, to the state bar, asking that my complaint be withdrawn, and stating that the entire matter was a misunderstanding. My name is typed at the bottom where I’m supposed to sign.”

I look at the jury. They seem mesmerized by this. Perhaps we have turned the corner. One would think that Tony Skarpellos is on trial here and not Talia.

“Did you sign this letter?”

“I had to get my money. A bunch of bloodsuckers,” he says.

“Objection,” says Nelson. “If the witness could testify without making speeches.”

“Sustained. The reporter will strike the last comment,” says Acosta. “Just answer the questions, Mr. Plotkin.”

I have him look at a copy of this letter. I have subpoenaed this too from the bar. He identifies it as the one signed by him at the meeting.

“After you signed this letter, did Mr. Liston give you your money?”

“That’s all he gave me,” he says. “My portion of the settlement, less their third, and no interest. They kept my money for a year and a half, and didn’t pay a dime of interest.”

“You didn’t sue them?”

“I considered myself lucky to get out of that den of thieves with anything,” he says.

Nelson considers whether he should object to this. He’s halfway up, then thinks better of it. We may argue over Plotkin’s characterization, but the facts are clear, more than a little larceny has in fact occurred.

I have the second letter, the one withdrawing the complaint marked for identification, and move both letters, the complaint and its withdrawal, into evidence. There is no objection from Nelson.

“Your witness.” I look at Nelson.

He confers with Meeks, only for a second. “We have no questions of this witness,” he says. “But we’d like a conference in chambers.”

Acosta looks at his watch. “It’s time for a morning break. We’ll take a half-hour,” he says.

Nelson can see that I am digging a deep hole for the Greek, converting what had started as a sideshow into the main event. My auditor is next. He has facts and figures to document every discrepancy in the firm’s trust account for the last six years. This will lay a bold mental bracket around the Greek’s financial indiscretions for the jury. We have identified more than a half-million dollars that has been “borrowed” at one time or another, all of it against checks bearing Tony’s signature. Not all of this money has been paid back. It seems that Skarpellos had been more relentless in his abuse of these trust funds than even I had imagined. He had operated a considerable Ponzi out of the firm’s trust account for years. In thinking back, Ben had never given me any real indication of the magnitude of this theft.

This evidence begs a nagging question: whether Ben knew about and tolerated these practices for years, and complained only when his own ambitions were placed in jeopardy. I consider this and wonder, as one often does about those now departed, whether I had known him as well as I thought.

Acosta speaks first. “I would like to save some time,” he says. The court reporter’s stenograph keys are tapping softly.

Nelson nods. They have concocted something between them. It doesn’t take a mental giant to see this.

Nelson speaks as if on cue. “We will stipulate,” he says, “that Mr. Skarpellos appears to have engaged in reprehensible conduct.”

“Clear violation of bar ethics,” says Acosta. He’s shaking his head, his features all screwed up, an expression of disgust that is aimed at convincing me that I have now made my point on the Greek, that anything more is just overkill.

“We’re consuming a great deal of the court’s time on this,” says Nelson.

“Now that you have your case in, time is suddenly of the essence?” I ask him.

There is a rule concerning cumulative evidence, facts which are redundant, all tending to prove the same thing. Judges have broad discretion to exclude such evidence in the interest of time, and Nelson makes clear that this will be his objection if I persist with my accountant.

“We think this is more than a little cumulative,” says Meeks, trying to help his boss along. He cites Plotkin’s testimony and Tony’s own babbling bordering on admissions as examples of this.

“We?” I look at him.

“Mr. Nelson and I.” Meeks runs quick cover for the judge, as if Acosta has no hand in this and is hearing it all for the first time.

“I’m not trying to cut you off,” says Nelson. “Please understand.”

“Yeah, God forbid,” says Harry.

Nelson shoots him a little quick contempt. “You’ve been given wide latitude by the court.” He looks at Acosta, who nods, like this is a point well taken. “It’s just that we could save some time if we were to enter into a few stipulations.”

This is a tactical move by Nelson to take the sting out of much of this evidence. I suspect that the state’s auditors have been as busy as our own. Nelson would like to keep this out, but he can’t. The next best thing is some orderly and wooden way of placing this evidence before the jury, some dull rendition that will take the luster from it, that will put the jury to sleep like the repetitious prayers of a rosary.