“Were your offices ventilated?”
“No.”
“How bad was the secondhand smoke?”
“Very bad. There was always a blue fog hanging not far over your head.”
“So you blame the company today because you're not as healthy as you think you should be?”
“The company had a lot to do with it. Fortunately, I was able to kick the habit. It wasn't easy.”
“And you hold a grudge against the company for this?”
“Let's just say I wish I'd gone to work in another industry when I finished college.
“Industry? Do you carry a grudge against the entire industry?”
“I'm not a fan of the tobacco industry.”
“Is that why you're here?”
“No.”
Cable flipped his notes and quickly changed direction. “Now, you had a sister at one time, didn't you, Mr. Krigler?”
“I did.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died in 1970.”
“How'd she die?”
“Lung cancer. She smoked two packs a day for about twenty-three years. Smoking killed her, Mr. Cable, if that's what you want.”
“Were you close to her?” Cable asked with enough compassion to deflect some of the ill will for bringing up the tragedy in the first place.
“We were very close. She was my only sibling.”
“And you took her death very hard?”
“I did. She was a very special person, and I still miss her.”
“I'm sorry to bring this up, Mr. Krigler, but it is relevant.”
“Your compassion is overwhelming, Mr. Cable, but there's nothing relevant about it.”
“How did she feel about your smoking?”
“She didn't like it. As she was dying she begged me to stop. Is that what you want to hear, Mr. Cable?”
“Only if it's the truth.”
“Oh it's true, Mr. Cable. The day before she died I promised I would quit smoking. And I did, though it took me three long years to do it. I was hooked, you see, Mr. Cable, as was my sister, because the company that manufactured the cigarettes that killed her, and could've killed me, intentionally kept the nicotine at a high level.”
“Now-“
“Don't interrupt me, Mr. Cable. Nicotine in itself is not a carcinogen, you know that, it's just a poison, a poison that gets you addicted so the carcinogens can one day take care of you. That's why cigarettes are inherently dangerous.”
Cable watched him with complete composure. “Are you finished?”
“I'm ready for the next question. But don't interrupt me again.”
“Certainly, and I apologize. Now, when did you first become convinced that cigarettes were inherently dangerous?”
“I don't know exactly. It's been known for some time, you know. It did not then and does not now take a genius to figure it out. But I'd say at some point in the early seventies, after I finished my study, after my sister had died, and shortly before I saw the infamous memo.”
“In 1973?”
“Somewhere in there.”
“When did your employment with Pynex cease? What year?”
“In 1982.”
“So you continued working for a company which made products you considered to be inherently dangerous?”
“I did.”
“What was your salary in 1982?”
“Ninety thousand dollars a year.”
Cable paused and walked to his table where he was handed yet another yellow legal pad which he studied for a second as he bit a stem of his reading glasses, then he returned to the lectern and asked Krigler why he'd sued the company in 1982. Krigler didn't appreciate the question, and looked at Rohr and Milton for help. Cable pursued details of the events leading up to the litigation, hopelessly complicated and personal litigation, and the testimony slowed to a virtual halt. Rohr objected and Milton objected, and Cable acted as if he couldn't understand why in the world they'd object. The lawyers met at the sidebar to haggle in private in front of Judge Harkin, and Krigler grew weary of the witness stand.
Cable hammered away at Rrigler's performance record during his last ten years with Pynex, and hinted strongly that other witnesses might be called to contradict him.
The ploy almost worked. Unable to shake the damaging aspects of Krigler's testimony, the defense chose instead to blow smoke at the jury. If a witness is unshakable, then beat him up with insignificant details.
The ploy was explained to the jury, however, by young Nicholas Easter, who'd had two years of law school and chose to remind his colleagues of his experiences during a late afternoon coffee break. Over Herman's objections, Nicholas voiced his resentment at Cable for throwing mud and trying to confuse the jury. “He thinks we're stupid,” he said bitterly.
Seventeen
In response to frantic calls from Biloxi, the price of Pynex shares dipped as low as seventy-five and a half by closing Thursday, down almost four points in heavy trading attributed to the dramatic events in the courtroom.
In other tobacco trials, former employees had testified about pesticides and insecticides sprayed on the crops, and experts had linked the chemicals to cancer. The juries had not been impressed. In one trial, a former employee had spilled the news that his former employer had targeted young teenagers with ads showing thin and glamorous idiots with perfect chins and perfect teeth having all manner of fun with tobacco. The same employer had targeted older teenaged males with ads depicting cowboys and stock car drivers seriously pursuing life with cigarettes stuck between their lips.
But the juries in those trials did not award the plaintiffs.
No former employee, though, did as much damage as Lawrence Krigler. The infamous memo from the 1930s had been seen by a handful of people, but never produced in litigation. Krigler's version of it for the jury was as close as any plaintiff's lawyer had come to the real thing. The fact that he'd been allowed by Judge Harkin to describe it to the jury would be hotly contested on appeal, regardless of who won at trial.
Krigler was quickly escorted out of town by Rohr's security people, and an hour after finishing his testimony he was on a private plane back to Florida. Several times since leaving Pynex he had been tempted to contact a plaintiff's lawyer in a tobacco trial, but had never mustered the courage.
Pynex had paid him three hundred thousand dollars out of court, just to get rid of him. The company had insisted he agree never to testify in trials similar to Wood, but he refused. And when he refused, he became a marked man.
They, whoever they had been, said they'd kill him. The threats had been few and scattered over the years, always from unknown voices and always dropping in when least expected. Krigler was not one to hide. He'd written a book, an expose he said would be published in the event of his untimely death. A lawyer had it in Melbourne Beach. The lawyer was a friend who'd arranged the initial meeting with Rohr. The lawyer had also opened a dialogue with the FBI, just in case something happened to Mr. Krigler.
MILLIE DUPREE'S HUSBAND, Hoppy, owned a struggling realty agency in Biloxi. Certainly not the aggressive sort, he had few listings and few leads, but he worked diligently with what little business came his way. One wall in the front room had pictures of available OPPORTUNITIES thumbtacked to a corkboard-mainly little brick houses with neat lawns and a few run-down duplexes.
Casino fever had brought to the Coast a new herd of real estate swingers unafraid to borrow heavily and develop accordingly. Once again, Hoppy and the little guys had played it safe and got themselves squeezed even further into markets they knew all too well-darling little STARTERS for the newlyweds and hopeless FDCUPS for the desperate and MOTIVATED SELLERS for those who couldn't qualiry for a bank loan.
But he paid his bills and somehow provided for his family-his wife Millie and their five kids, three at the junior college and two in high school. At any given time he had attached to his office the licenses of a half a dozen part-time sales associates, for the most part a downhearted bunch of losers who shared his aversion to debt and forcefulness. Hoppy loved pinochle, and many hours were passed at his desk in the back over cards as subdivisions sprang up all around him. Realtors, regardless of their talent, love to dream of the big score. Hoppy and his motley gang were not above taking a late-afternoon nip and talking big business over cards.