Tommy Cassidy

This is a true story as told to me by the son of a colleague of the story’s protagonist. It is a fine example of old school bare-knuckle lawyering.

When Tommy Cassidy got up in the morning, he put on his tie, but he didn’t tie it right away. First, he barked at his eighteen-year old son. “Benny, pour me a scotch and water.”

“Scotch and water?” Benny answered. Benny was a handsome kid, enjoying the summer off from his freshman year at Harvard. He was black Irish like his father, but his beautiful French Huguenot mother, long since divorced from Tommy, had managed to tame the Cassidy nose a bit, and refine the burning Irish eyes, giving Benny a chance at being more handsome even than his father in his prime, and also a prayer of avoiding a lifetime plagued by alcoholism.

“Scotch and water. And I’ll take the water in the form of ice cubes,” Tommy said. He put the tie around his neck and sat at the kitchen table, holding one end of the tie with each hand. Benny arrived with the drink and set it down in front of Tommy as he had done a dozen times already on weekday summer mornings. His mother had wanted him to spend the summer in upstate New York where she had moved with Benny and his younger brother Sam, but Tommy had a nice oceanfront house in Nahant, and Benny had an internship at the Boston Globe, so he was staying with the old man all summer.

Tommy extended a shaky right hand holding the fat end of the tie and grasped the glass. With his left hand, he pulled the skinny end of the tie downward, providing just enough stability to get the glass to his lips without spilling it all over the table, an alcoholic human pulley system that by minimizing spillage, slowed ever so slightly the pace with which Tommy went through a jug of Dewar’s. He downed it in a long chug and held the glass to Benny, who wordlessly refilled it. He could usually get the second glass down without the help of his tie, and that meant he was ready to go to court.

That day’s first case was going to be tricky. It was a snotty rich kid named Joey Fontana trying to beat his third DWI. Cassidy had gotten him off twice before, and was pretty annoyed with the kid, but his old man had promised a $5,000 bonus if he could pull it off again. The cops were all the way sick of both Tommy Cassidy and Joey Fontana, the reason for the first two acquittals being some trivial piece of botched paperwork on the part of the cops. One thing about Cassidy, he forced the cops to learn how to do their jobs better, and Tommy was concerned that they might have done everything right this time.

The cops were convinced of this, and the arresting officer taunted Cassidy as he walked into the District Court hallway.

“We got your boy this time, Cassidy, dead to rights.”

“I’ll bet you a McDonald’s cheeseburger you’re wrong,” Cassidy said.

“You’re on, Cassidy. Let’s make it a Big Mac.”

When the judge sat and asked for a plea, Cassidy said, “We plead not guilty judge (Tommy never said ‘your honor’), but before we go much further and waste the court’s time, be advised that the arresting officer Mr. Delahay has placed a wager with me on the outcome of the trial.”

“Is this true, Officer Delahay?” the judge asked.

“It’s for a Bic Mac your honor—“

“I don’t care if it’s for all the gold in Fort Knox or a nickel. This court finds the defendant not guilty. Mr. Fontana, you are free to go.”

Tommy knocked off early that early that day. Hell, it wasn’t even 9:30 and he had already made ten grand.