"But, Barney," the manager protested. "The surveillance video clearly shows that Connie Jean stood too far back from the vegetable bin and water from the spray got on the floor. I know that you are trying to protect Connie, and I admire your loyalty, but you've got to be realistic."
"I know what the tape shows," said Barney in a measured tone doing his best not to sound condescending. "But there is more to it than that. This guy is a professional con artist. I believe that he saw the water on the floor and took advantage of the opportunity to slip so he could sue the store."
"Why would somebody risk hurting their self slipping like that?" countered the manager.
"There isn't much risk if you know how to fall," Barney replied.
"Well, he sure looked like he was in pain," observed the manager.
"He's faking," Barney stated with confidence. "He has probably done this so many times that he has it down to a science." Barney then went on to cite statistics on the activities of con men that he had gotten from the seminar. He wasn't sure if he had remembered them correctly, but his figures were impressive and so were the figures that he had heard. So completely accuracy wasn't of paramount importance.
"OK,OK" conceded the store manager, "assume what you say is true. How in the world could we prove that? If we claim this guy is a con man and we don't have an airtight case, we come out looking like fools. It will look like some honest customer got hurt due to our negligence and we tried to blame the patron rather than accept responsibility."
"Just let me talk to our defense attorneys," Barney pleaded. "I have some information that they might find very useful. And I know a couple of contacts at Intercontinental Detective Agency in Chicago that specialize in bunko and fraud. They might be able to give us some guidance in how to handle this." He made this last statement as though Gita and Maria were personal acquaintances of his rather than a couple of business cards he kept in his wallet.
Garner thought he had the case in the bag. It was a straightforward negligence suit and the only question would be how big the settlement should be. But, he should have been suspicious when he had trouble getting an attorney. The better attorneys, in Gary, had gotten wind of the flaws in the case and did not want to take it on a contingency that was likely to come up empty. His second clue that things might not be going well was the doctor he was seeing about his back. None of the better doctors, in town, wanted to testify about elusive back injuries when there was a possibility that the injuries might be faked. The doctor he did find always smelled of medicine and if Garner were a little more astute he would have noticed that the medicine was a cheap brand of rye whiskey. The naiveté that had put Garner's marks at such a disadvantage was now turning back on him; biting the hand of its master, as it were. After all, Gary Indiana was a small town and everybody of prominence knew exactly how the case was likely to turn out. Everybody, that is, except Garner.
"Mr. Bullet," began the attorney that Garner had finally engaged to press his case against the grocery store. "Please tell us in your own words what happened that day when you slipped and fell at the Food Lion and did irreparative damage to your back."
Garner winced in pain. It wasn't his back that was hurting, however, it was his sensibilities. In his office this attorney had seemed like just another rogue attorney willing to take on the establishment. Garner had likened him to Shorty Wilcox. But the error of his judgment was becoming rapidly apparent as the attorney mispronounced his last name along with half of the words he used in excess of six letters. This attorney had graduated dead last in his class. And many thought that his graduation was a gift to keep him from coming back for another semester.
Unfortunately, the growing dark comedic qualities of the situation were exacerbated by the fact that Garner had misaligned the buttons on his sports jacket to distort his appearance and give greater credence to the notion that his back was seriously damaged. However, with this attorney mispronouncing every third word, Garner realized that they were beginning to look like a couple of clowns. Nonetheless, Garner was determined to persevere.
"Well, it's really very simple," Garner began. "I went into the Food Lion to get some raspberries. On the way back down the produce aisle to the checkout counter, I slipped on some water on the floor, fell and hurt my back."
"How badly did you hurt your back," the attorney pressed.
"Well, I am in constant pain," Garner responded, "and my doctor feels that little can be done to relieve it. I, I," he stuttered with practiced timing, "may never be able to work again."
"And what is your occupational…", the attorney paused unable to think of what the adjective should modify and after being unable to come up with an appropriate noun just completed the sentence with "occupation.".
Garner's face was impassive, but inside he was in shock moving towards despair. He wanted to look over at the jury to see if they had caught the stumble, but was also afraid to see their faces. So instead he just went into his practiced character.
"I am a waiter," Garner replied proudly, but it did resound as impressively as being the hero of the construction site. With the crooked buttons and the pride over being a waiter, Garner did not look like a promising young man on his way up the social ladder. He glanced over at the jury box and noticed one of the members trying to suppress a snicker.
"Thank you Mr. Bullet," said the attorney, and then turning to the defense table, "your witness."
Garner looked over at the defendant's table. There was a man sitting just behind the defendant's attorney staring at him with great intensity. He could see the man's jaw muscles work as he watched as though he were having a conversation in his head. His hands were tightly gripping the railing in front of him and Garner could see a vacant spot on the man's left hand where the third finger was missing. It gave him a chill. The man also looked strangely familiar. Maybe he was the guy from the grocery store. But he seemed even more familiar than that. But, Garner did not have time to dwell on it because he saw one of the attorney's from the defendant's table rise and walk toward him.
"Mr. Bullis," said the lead attorney for Food Lion, smiling unctuously at the jury over having pronounced the name correctly, "has this sort of thing ever happened to you before?"
Garner felt a moment of shear panic. How could they possibly know? He decided it was a bluff and further decided to call the bluff. "No, sir," he replied, "never."
"That is all for now, but I may want to recall Mr. Bullis later," stated the lead attorney. He smiled again at the jury having flawlessly executed the correct pronunciation of this name a second time.
Garner stepped down and his attorney called the doctor as the next witness. The doctor sauntered up to the witness box, looking all together a little wobbly, and tripped on the first step leading into the box. He put out his hand to catch himself, but before it made contact with the floor, the bridge of his nose made contact with the arm of the witness chair. The bailiff had to come over and help him into the chair while providing several Kleenexes to stop a nosebleed.
"I'm alright, I'm alright," claimed the doctor. His eyes were watering from the blow to his nose and he had plugged his nostrils with little wads of tissue paper. Garner slid down in his chair at the plaintiff's table becoming increasingly more unhappy with they way his case was unfolding.
"Tell us, Doctor, how serious is the injury that Mr. Bullet sustained when he slipped and fell on the floor at the Food Lion?" said Garner's attorney.
"Mr. Bullet?" exclaimed the doctor with uncamouflaged dismay. His eyes darted around the courtroom as though he had just realized that he was testifying in the wrong case. It looked, for a moment, as though he might vault over the witness box railing and run out of the court. But then his eyes found Garner and his panic subsided. "It was very serious," he said deepening his voice and trying to sound as professional and authoritative as possible, "he may never be able to work again."
The doctor almost got away with his pretense of authority except that one of the wads of tissue paper chose that moment to pop out of his nose. It dropped onto his protruding stomach and then bounced out onto the floor in front of the attorney.
Garner's attorney did not know whether to ignore the wad of tissue paper or kick it aside. He nodded as though digesting this terrible news that the doctor had just given, but in reality he was trying to figure out what to do about the wad of Kleenex. His train of thought completely broken, he turned the witness over to the Food Lion attorneys.
The lead attorney for Food Lion walked purposefully over to the wad of tissue and kicked it aside with a flick of his shoe. It shot over a dozen or so feet and came to rest a few feet in front of the jury box. Having shown that he was not afraid of this wad of tissue as the plaintiff's attorney clear was, and having placed it in such a way as to continually remind the jury of the event, he was extraordinarily pleased with himself and turned to address the witness.
"What is your specialty, Doctor?" inquired the lead attorney.
"Dermatology," the Doctor replied. The sinking feeling in the pit of Garner's stomach was getting worse.
"Is Mr. Bullis experiencing problems with his complexion as a result this incident?" asked the attorney looking as though he were trying to suppress a smirk.
"No," replied the doctor, "he injured his back."
"But, if you are a dermatologist," pressed the attorney, "how can you diagnose and treat back ailments?"
"Most of my work these days," replied the Doctor, his voice somewhat nasal and a little off balance from the remaining wad of tissue in his one nostril, "comes from injury cases such as this one. So I am quite familiar with these kinds of injuries." The doctor was trying to look dignified. But his eyes were watering and his nose was beginning to swell from the blow. In addition, a high-pitched whistling noise came from the unplugged nostril as he spoke.
"Isn't it true that you do injury cases because you are no longer licensed to practice medicine in the state of Indiana," pressed the attorney.
"It seems that the Board of Dermatology and I are not seeing eye-to-eye at the moment," the Doctor responded with as much dignity as he could muster. "So I must supplement my income in the interim with services that sometime require me to be an expert witness."
This proclamation was followed by a large unintentional, but extended, belch that sent a wave smelling of cheap rye whiskey to the attorney's table and the jury box.
The last piece of evidence offered by Garner's attorney was the videotape from the store's security camera. It clearly showed Connie Jean spraying the vegetables from a couple of feet back making the floor wet with the mist. It also showed Garner walking innocently across the wet floor and falling. It was a very convincing piece of evidence and it made Garner feel more comfortable and confident that things would go his way. Even if his lawyer and doctor were buffoons, the evidence on the tape would be very difficult to refute.
But Garner had gotten used to things going his way. And, when the fates decided not to work with him, he had no idea what to do.