It had to be Maximum Mazie, Hanborn thought miserably as he sagged back in his seat. Now there was a very real possibility he would not only be a laughingstock, he would go to jail as well. He slumped even further until he was almost sitting on his shoulder-blades.
Judge Schumann was oblivious. “Counsel ready?” she asked, flipping through her copy of the petition. Both lawyers rose and nodded. “Let’s begin then. Now the government,” she gestured at McWilliams, “wants an injunction to protect a new and possibly endangered species. The state opposes, is that correct?”
“It is, your honor,” Sculley said. “We feel…”
“We’ll get to what you feel in a minute, Mr. Sculley.” She kept her attention on McWilliams. “Doesn’t the Endangered Species Act have provisions for emergency listing of a species?”
“It does your honor,” McWilliams said, “but we are asking for protection for this animal until the emergency provisions can be invoked. We have reason to believe that the few surviving members of the species, perhaps the entire remnant population, is in immediate and dire danger.”
“Your honor,” Sculley cut in. “The state contends that if this animal does in fact exist there is absolutely no evidence to show that it is entitled to protection under the Endangered Species Act. Further, the thing, if it exists, is dangerous and the state must be able to protect its citizens.”
Judge Margaret (Maximum Mazie) Schumann hadn’t made it to the federal bench without a finely tuned set of antennae. These endangered species cases were tricky. They usually meant someone was trying to build something someone else didn’t like. In Las Vegas, where development was nearly as big an industry as gambling, that usually meant a lot of money was at stake. It was even worse when you were asked to issue an injunction for an animal that wasn’t even officially listed as endangered. Besides which she recognized the clown sitting beside the government’s lawyer as the nut who tried to get the flies at the local landfill declared an endangered species.
“Someone trying to build a golf course?”
“No, Your Honor. The species is being hunted to possible extinction by the Las Vegas police.”
“What is this thing? King Kong?”
A couple of spectators chuckled.
“It’s, uh, a reptile,” the plaintiffs council said. He looked at his Fish and Wildlife expert for support.
“A large reptile,” Hanborn added miserably.
For the first time the judge looked interested. “What kind of reptile?”
“Uh, if Your Honor will just read Exhibit A attached to the petition you’ll find a description.”
Judge Schumann flipped through the document Reptile, large, species unknown. Wings…
Maximum Mazie Schumann jerked her head up and slammed her gavel down. “Court’s in recess.” She glared down at the counsels’ tables. “I want to see the parties in my chambers. Now.”
Mazie Schumann had started out as a dancer in the Las Vegas shows. While she was strutting it by night she went to college by day and then to the University of Nevada law school. When she graduated she traded feathers and beads for a gray wool suit and a job with the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. Thanks to her abilities, drive and political skill she eventually wound up on the Federal District bench. If she was not a towering legal scholar, she was smart, politically savvy, and a hard-boiled no-nonsense judge who retained a streak of the theatrical. The media loved her, lawyers respected her, criminals feared her and nobody, but nobody, trifled with her.
Just now Maximum Mazie felt she was being trifled with.
“Now,” she demanded as soon as her clerk closed the door to her office. “What the hell is this? A publicity stunt for a casino?”
“No, Your Honor,” McWilliams said smoothly, “it’s not a publicity stunt. It’s…”
“Crap,” Judge Schumann finished. “That’s what this is. Mr. McWilliams, do you know how long it takes to bring a civil case to trial in this district?”
McWilliams knew almost to the day, but he also knew when to shut up and take his licking. “No, Your Honor.”
“Nearly two years. Two blessed years to get a serious case to trial and you come marching in here wasting this court’s time with crap. I know a load of crap when I see it And this,” she said, tapping the petition with a blood-red fingernail, “is prime-cut, table-grade crap.”