Chapter 542 - 255: 12 Angry Men
Mike Fonda, Juror Number One, stood up.
He wiped his greasy, sweaty face.
"All right, everyone."
Mike looked around the room, his gaze sweeping over each exhausted face.
"We’ve been locked in here for nineteen hours, arguing for nineteen hours. The sun is already up."
"Let’s take one last vote. If we still can’t reach a unanimous decision, I’ll notify the bailiff and declare a hung jury. Let the prosecutor worry about the retrial."
Mike raised his right hand, palm forward.
"Now, based on the facts of this case, based on the judge’s instructions, and based on the damn letter of the law."
"All those who find the defendant, Luigi Randall, not guilty, please raise your hands."
The room fell silent for a moment.
Then, arms began to rise.
The stockbroker, Juror Number Four, raised his hand without hesitation. The salesman, Number Seven, followed close behind. The ad man, Number Twelve, also raised his hand.
One, two, five...
Finally, Davis raised his right hand as well.
Eleven hands.
Eleven arms were raised in the room, like a silent forest.
In an instant, all eyes focused on the one person who hadn’t raised his hand.
Juror Number Three, Cobb.
The owner of a fifty-truck transport company, the hard-liner who, just a few hours earlier, had been roaring about upholding order and sending criminals to prison.
Now, he sat there like a statue.
His hands gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles white, his nails nearly digging into the wood.
His chest heaved violently. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the crumpled document in front of him.
It was the insurance company’s risk assessment report.
On it was written: Cost of denial: fifty thousand dollars.
Cobb stared at that line of text.
The words were like a branding iron, searing through his retinas and into his brain.
"Mr. Cobb?" Mike called out tentatively. "We’re just waiting on you."
Cobb didn’t move.
A brutal war was raging in his mind.
On one side was order.
It was the rules he had believed in for half his life, the iron-clad law of a life for a life, his bottom line as a law-abiding citizen.
On the other side was his conscience.
It was his natural hatred for cheaters, his fury at the system that killed with a calculator.
He remembered the look in Luigi’s eyes during the trial.
He just sat there so calmly, as if awaiting a foregone conclusion.
His eyes were too clear.
So clear it was painful for Cobb to see.
If he condemned him now, that young man would be locked away in prison, never eligible for parole.
And those managers who signed the denial-of-claim forms, those actuaries who pocketed fifty-thousand-dollar bonuses, those insurance company bosses sitting in their high-rises drinking champagne...
They would live.
They would keep wearing their expensive suits, keep looking at the world with those arrogant eyes, and keep using their algorithms to reap their next victim.
Cobb thought of himself.
He thought of the days he was squeezed breathless by the big logistics companies, of the times he was played by the rules.
’If I don’t raise my hand, then I’m not the Cobb who stands for what’s right anymore. I’d just be an accomplice to the system. A watchdog kept by those Vampires. I’d be the one mauling the person who fought back, just to wag my tail for a reward... or maybe just to go home and get some sleep.’
"Cobb!" Juror Number Four said, getting impatient. "Stop dragging your feet and raise your hand!"
SLAM!
Cobb violently swung his arm, sweeping all the documents, pens, and water glasses in front of him onto the floor.
"No!"
Cobb let out a beast-like roar.
He covered his face with his hands, his large frame trembling violently in his chair.
"I can’t do it!"
The words, choked with pain, anguish, and a soul-tearing despair, escaped from between his fingers.
"I know he’s guilty... Damn it, I know he killed someone! I saw the video, I saw the gun!"
Cobb snapped his head up, his bloodshot eyes brimming with tears.
"But... but that damn insurance company is more guilty than he is!"
He pointed at the memorandum on the floor, his finger trembling in the air.
"They cheat! They cheat at the card table! They hold our heads down and force us to sign contracts we can’t understand, and then when we’re on our deathbeds, they tell us this isn’t covered and that isn’t covered!"
"Arthur Vance killed thousands of people! Thousands!"
"If we sentence Luigi to life in prison, is that fair?"
Cobb shot to his feet, roaring at everyone in the room.
"If I’m going to sentence this kid to prison, then I’d have to send the manager who signed that denial to the electric chair first! I’d have to execute the entire board of directors of that insurance company first!"
"Otherwise, it’s not fair! It’s not fucking fair!"
The room was dead silent.
No one dared to speak. No one even dared to look Cobb in the eye.
Because they knew Cobb was telling the truth.
The facts of the law could not cover up the massive moral deficit.
Cobb gasped for breath and collapsed back into his chair.
He looked at his own hands.
These hands had driven trucks, repaired engines, and gripped steering wheels.
They were calloused and stained with grease, but they were clean.
He didn’t want these hands stained with that young man’s blood.
"I can’t be the executioner."
Cobb’s voice dropped, laced with a sense of finality.
"I can’t let those bastards in suits hide in their offices drinking champagne, pointing at us and laughing—laughing at what fools we are for cleaning up their mess."