ORDERING IN THE COURT

During closing arguments the plaintiffs’ lawyer turned to the jury and said, “I’ve enjoyed sharing the last 10 days with you. It’s been very intense.” The entire jury nodded; it sounded corny, but it was true.

The case at first seemed incredibly dull. As best I remember, it went like this. Two children were suing an insurance company for their father’s death benefits. I envisioned endless talk of actuarial tables. But as the days wore on, forgery, murder, and bigamy all entered the courtroom. As we heard increasingly interesting testimony, the jury, a group of total strangers, became friends. Admonished not to talk about the case, we spent lunchtime talking about the lawyers looks and whispering about the judge’s clothes. We learned an awful lot about each other, and at the end of two weeks I had discovered two things: The judicial system may not be efficient, but it works remarkably well. And if you have an hour and a half to eat lunch near the Civic Center, there are a lot of wonderful places in which to do it.

DAY ONE

The plaintiffs’s lawyer has a penetrating stare and a minister’s voice. He is fascinating to watch. During jury selection he asks me if I am able to recognize a lie. Everybody else has answered yes; I answer, truthfully, that I’m not sure. The defense counsel asks me very few questions, but he does inquire about the identity of the Reluctant Gourmet. Taken aback by his familiarity with my writing, I answer. After all, I’m under oath.

Given this line of questioning, it is not surprising that most of the jurors think I’m the perfect person to tell them where to eat. Not knowing their tastes, I take the easy way out and recommend the Court Cafeteria in Crocker Center. The food isn’t fabulous, but it looks appetizing and the selection is good (there is a Deli counter, a Far East counter, a salad bar, a grill and La Salsa for Mexican food). But the attractive surroundings make this more than an ordinary cafeteria. The room is clean and open, there are seats out in the lobby’s airy atrium, and there is even a glass-enclosed patio with a fine view. And it is a mere 5-minute walk from the County Courthouse.

My choice is popular: the airline clerk has sweet and sour pork with fried rice, the admissions counselor has some rather sticky clam chowder and I opt for a hamburger. As we eat, we discuss the judge; the airline clerk says, with perfect accuracy, that he looks like a cross between Fred MacMurray and Richard Nixon.

The Court Cafeteria, 330 S. Hope (in the Crocker Center), L.A. (213) 617-7074. Lunch for one, $2-$6.

DAY TWO

The case immediately gets complicated. The kids, it seems, were not named on the insurance policy. A business partner was-- as well as another woman who Dad apparently married without bothering to divorce Mom. Then Dad and the other woman were murdered. Who killed them? We aren’t told. All we have to decide is whether or not one of the insurance documents was forged.

All this is so titillating that it is hard not to discuss it. I decide that an equally interesting lunch is in order, so I suggest Restaurant Plaza in Little Tokyo. This is one of the more diverting restaurants in town.

It is the custom in Japan for restaurants to specialize in a single item. Thus you go to a sushi restaurant for raw fish, a tempura restaurant for fried dishes. In a nation of specialists, this makes sense. It makes less sense in a nation of generalists, so a group of small restaurants have banded together--each serves its specialties, but in one large dining room. Thus the menu has many pages, and the waitress will get your noodles from the noodle stand and your friend’s salmon teriyaki from another of the little kitchens clustered around the dining room.

In our group, one person has an appetizer of iced tofu with soy sauce and ginger, followed by a sushi assortment. Another has the fat white udon oodles in broth, topped with chicken, while a third has the beautifully arranged Japanese bento box, filled with pickles and cold broiled fish and sesame-sprinkled rice. All the food is tasty and reasonably priced and the service is speedy. Most of us spend about $5, and during the 15 minutes it takes to walk back to the courtroom I realize that lunch has taken my mind off the alleged forgery.

Restaurant Plaza, 356 East 1st St., (2nd floor), L.A. (213) 628-0697

DAY THREE

The forgery experts have testified. No surprises here. Naturally the plaintiffs have an expert who says the documents probably were forged and the defense has one who says they probably weren’t. More interesting is the testimony of the plaintiffs’ mother, who says that when she married dead Dad he had another name. (This is never explained.) Her lawyer manages to make this seem perfectly reasonable. Then the business partner gets up to testify. An older man, he claims that the dead dad was not really his partner, but just somebody who did some work for him and to whom he loaned thousands of dollars. It is starting to sound like a sleazy soap opera.

After listening to all of this, I am in the mood for something wholesome. Phillippe’s seems perfect, a bastion of old-fashioned, solid values, a place that has been giving you a decent return for your money since 1912. People stand in line before the long counter, watching as heaping sandwiches (beef, pork, lamb) are constructed. This is an exercise in democracy; everybody comes here, everybody waits his turn and everybody sits together at the long no-nonsense tables. Phillippe’s is a refreshing return to a simpler America. The only question is: Can you get to the Courthouse and back in time?

The answer, thanks to Dash, the 25-cent downtown minibus, is a resounding yes. Get off at Olvera Street, and you’re a block and a half from the restaurant. Restored with a beef dip and a bit of coleslaw and a doughnut (they make their own, and they’re wonderful, but I’d avoid the pies), I march back into court, ready for anything.

Phillippe the Original, 1001 N. Alameda, L.A., (213) 628-3781. Lunch for one, $2-$5

DAY FOUR

And that’s what I get--anything. The next witness is the business partner’s adopted son. Fine. But there is an audible gasp when he walks into the courtroom; he looks almost as old as his father and when he was adopted 20 years ago he could not have been young.

You’re probably wondering how this could possibly be relevant. Well, Dad was paying the dead man to fix up Son’s house. And to be his bodyguard. (Why he needed a bodyguard is never explained.) And the insurance policy was written by one of Son’s friends. A good friend, who dropped in every day. You draw your own conclusions; the jury certainly did.

“We can’t discuss it,” says the financial expert with whom I have lunch, “so let’s get something great to eat to take our minds off the case.” We are walking down First Street, and we decide to treat ourselves to sushi. I’m not hopeful about getting into Sushi Imai, which has only 14 seats, but there are a couple of empty places at the counter so we sit down and put ourselves in the master’s hands. He first gives us strips of tuna that look like steak, followed by Spanish mackerel and sea bass and sea eel. We end, many pieces later, with refreshing rolls made of salted plum and radish sprouts. “It leaves a clean taste in your mouth,” says my friend. It is more than you can say for the case.

Sushi Imai, 359 East 1st St., Los Angeles (213) 617-7927. Sushi lunch for one, $10-$30.

DAY FIVE

There are a lot more questions than there are answers, but the judge keeps us into the lunch hour to hear closing arguments; the jury is to get the first half of the case today. They have to decide whether or not the document was forged. I am in a particularly horrible spot: only an alternate, I am not even allowed to listen to jury deliberations.

Since lunch is short, I walk over to La Petite Boulangerie and get myself a box lunch. There is a different lunch special every day; for $3.95 you get a sandwich, a soda, a little cup of potato salad and a big cookie. Right across the street is the not-yet-open Contemporary Art Museum. Outside there are benches and fountains and a number of lovely places to sit. I watch the water, look up at the skyline towering above me, munch on my roast beef sandwich and wonder what the jury will do.

It comes down to who you believe in this cast of characters, I think, as I eat my coleslaw. I drink my soda, eat my cookie and head back for the courthouse--where I sit all day. The jury’s still out and court is adjourned until next week.

La Petite Boulangerie, 330 S. Hope Street, L.A., (213) 613-1525.

DAY SIX

Early in the morning the jury returns a verdict: The document is a forgery and the money goes to the kids. The judge betrays no emotion as he begins the second phase of the trial--the plaintiffs are suing the insurance company for damages.

Now members of the insurance industry are marched through the courtroom. They are a dull lot, and when the judge announces a long lunch break, there is general jubilation and some of us decide to eat dim sum at ABC Seafood in Chinatown. (Do not attempt this unless you get out of court early; if you arrive before noon you will get a table, but if you arrive much later you will have to wait.)

ABC Seafood is almost always packed with enormous groups of Chinese eating enormous quantities of dumplings and dishes of roast duck and spare ribs. As the carts of food are wheeled around the room, you have to watch carefully, for if you don’t demand that they stop, they probably will rush on by. There is almost always one cart filled with little steamers containing shrimp and pork and beef dumplings. Another has a portable griddle to make turnip cakes and stuffed peppers. Still a third is a cold case, containing plates of sliced roast meats and jellyfish salads. Another little portable kitchen has a pot of boiling water on it, so that when the server stops at your table she can instantly cook up some Chinese greens. We eat a large amount of food and pay a small amount of money (with a group it’s hard to spend more than $6 each). Leaving, one of the jurors comments that the meal seemed a lot more interesting than the case.

ABC Seafood, 708 New High St., L.A., (213) 680-2887.

DAY SEVEN

This is soon to change. The next witness, an insurance investigator, testifies that the dead man’s father said he had been married seven to nine times; everybody’s ears perk up. We all listen for clues as to who killed him, but all that we find out is that he didn’t pay his bills and there were lots of cars in his yard. The guy is looking increasingly exotic, and while the smooth-talking lawyer for the plaintiff tries hard to make all the insurance people look evil, they just don’t play as heavy villains.

We are all curious about the dead man. As I head for the nearest saloon, I indulge myself with the fantasy that Philip Marlowe will be sitting in the next booth trying to solve the case. The Redwood is the perfect place for such a fiction; it is dark and cool, filled with the aroma of a million cigarettes. There are tattered red booths, people who look like they’ve been sitting at the bar for years and waitresses who seem that they’d sport you to a drink if you needed one.

But the real reason to come here is that the hamburgers are the best in the area. I can’t recommend a whole lot else, although I know a couple of people who are addicted to the tuna salad (it comes in a large bowl), and I’ve even met people who like their omelets. Myself, I’d stick to the hamburgers.

Redwood Second Street Saloon, 316 West 2nd St., L.A. (213) 617-2867. Lunch for one, $4-$7

DAY EIGHT

The plaintiff’s attorney keeps hammering away about how slow the insurance people were; he mentions bad faith so often that even I am tempted to object. Yawns are audible as we endlessly go over who did what when.

I decide to bring a little excitement into our lives with lunch at Dewi, one of Los Angeles’ few Indonesian restaurants. (Dash stops one block away.) Their homemade sambal is a hot sauce of real distinction; it would put stars into most people’s eyes. But not everything in this tiny, cluttered, and very plain-looking restaurant is spicy. The dishes range from fried rice and noodles to pepper beef and curried chicken cooked with coconut. (I would suggest that you avoid the fried appetizers; reheated in a microwave, they tend to get soggy.) Almost everything else is exotic and delicious, as are the cooling tropical drinks. The food leaves me with a glow, and it is with real reluctance that I head back to hear more testimony.

Dewi, 211 Alpine St. (in Alpine Plaza), L.A., (213) 625-0914. Lunch for one, $3-$7

DAY NINE

A lost day. The lawyers spend most of it in chambers, arguing over jury instructions. We spend much of the morning sitting in the hall discussing the fact that half of the women have fallen in love with the judge. We are dismissed before lunch, which I skip.

DAY TEN

Closing arguments: the plaintiff’s counsel has a fit of oratory. He speaks beautifully, and convincingly. He mentions millions of dollars in damages without a blink of the eye. The plaintiffs’ mother sits at the table looking small and meek.

Counsel for the defense has his chance. His voice is low, reasoned, honeyed. He points out all the extenuating circumstances. I can’t help thinking it’s a lot like television. Who are you going to believe?

It’s not my problem, I think, as I prepare to wave my fellow jurors off to their deliberations. During the morning break, I even make lunch reservations at the modern, attractive, Stepps. (If you’re planning to eat lunch here, reservations are a must.)

Stepps has something for almost every taste; the huge menu spans the world. To my mind the best bets are the grilled fish dishes. I find the Asian food too sweet, and feel the focaccia would be better if it were cooked a little more. But the salads are good, the Cajun meatloaf is fine, and the chocolate pot de creme is not to be missed. And for once I don’t have to hurry back to court.

Stepps on the Court, 350 S. Hope St., L.A. (213) 626-0900. Lunch for one, $5-$15

DAY ELEVEN

The jury reaches a decision: They decide that the insurance company acted reasonably under the circumstances and they overwhelmingly decide not to award damages.

It doesn’t even matter. While they were coming to a decision, the case has been settled out of court; the plaintiffs walk away with $350,000.

Some of the jurors are disgruntled. “But it wasn’t a total loss of time,” says one. “At least we discovered some good restaurants.”