Against the Wind (13 page)

“If anybody else asks me about this I don’t know shit, that what you’re saying?” he asks.

I drink some beer. “You ought to think about going to law school,” I tell him, half-serious. “You’d make a pretty good lawyer.” It’s really the beer talking.

“I tried it,” he answers.

“You went to law school?”

“Case Western Reserve. In Cleveland. A semester. Wasn’t for me. My last futile attempt at living the straight life.”

I look at him. Maybe it’s the beer, I don’t know. But I’ve got to ask him.

“You’re an intelligent man,” I tell him sincerely. “Why have you chosen to live this way?”

“That’s a dumb fucking question.” He starts on another beer.

“Humor me.”

“Not everybody can live the way you want ’em to,” he tells me straight-forwardly. “Or ought to. Anyway,” he adds, “you don’t really want to know.”

“I just asked, didn’t I?”

“Come on, man. Get real with me, okay? I know how the straight world works. It romanticizes men like me. Well that’s dangerous, ’cause we’re dangerous men. I mean, look … I ain’t as bad as people sometimes make me out to be, but I ain’t America’s sweetheart, either. I mean I ain’t Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, hear what I’m saying? I been in the joint myself. And you know what? Guys’re in there for a legitimate reason. They did something bad, probably violent. It’s something in their heads all the time, the violent stuff. Like if they ain’t thinking about fucking some cooze they’re thinking about kicking the shit out of some civilian, more’n likely. So what I’m saying is, man, don’t fucking romanticize any of this. It could blow up in your face.”

“I certainly don’t want that,” I say. This man does not pull his punches. “But I’m still curious … why pick a life-style that makes you a punching bag?”

“Maybe it picked me.”

“You don’t strike me as the passive type. Lone Wolf either.”

He looks at me; he pins me with his eyes.

“I’ll tell you a little story,” he says. “I went to New England last year. First time back east in fifteen years. In the fall, the leaves turning, the whole bit. Just me and the old lady, like a couple of straight tourists. No chopper, no colors. Invisible.”

He polishes off another beer. I wait. He doesn’t seem inclined to continue.

“And?” I ask finally.

“Didn’t feel right, the invisible part,” he says. “But that’s not what it’s about. We were in New Hampshire … damn beautiful place. You ever been there? In the fall, the leaves, all that good shit?”

“Once,” I reply. I went up to Winter Carnival once when I was in college. I don’t remember it well, I was drunk most of the time, like everyone else there.

“Real pretty. My old lady about creamed over it, talking about moving there and all. I told her wait until you’re ass-deep in snow for a month, then tell me about moving. Anyway, they got a slogan on the license plates in New Hampshire. It really hit home to me. You know what it says?”

I shake my head.

“‘Live Free or Die.’ That’s me, man. That’s Lone Wolf, the other bro’s. That’s what we stand for.” He looks across the table, leveling his gaze at me. “I’d eat a ton of shit for the chance to taste an ounce of freedom,” he says. “What about you?”

I HAVE TO KNOW
the truth about Lone Wolf’s gay brother. So I go to the source. “I don’t talk about that shit,” he tells me harshly. “You do with me, ace,” I say. “This murder had homosexual over-tones. If you’ve got skeletons in your closet I’ve got to be prepared for them.”

He buries his head in his hands. It’s the first honest show of human emotion I’ve seen in him.

“He’s dead.” He looks up at me. “He died a long time ago.”

“How?”

He shakes his head. “It was a long time ago. Let it go, okay?”

“What about the rest of your family?”

“There is no ‘rest.’ Lone Wolf, man—that’s my name. That’s who I am.”

CLAUDIA’S SLEEPING.
I hold her in my arms while I wait for Patricia to open the door. I want Patricia not to have heard my deliberately soft knock, to be on the phone in her bedroom in the back, talking long-distance to her mother, with the television going. I want to stand here like this until dawn. It’s bone-dry even at this hour, not a trace of humidity; it’s been this way all summer. Butterflies move through the hot still air in clusters, attracted by the smell of jasmine and honeysuckle. They form a halo around my baby’s head.

Patricia opens the door without making a sound, a mother’s way.

“Why did you bring her back so late?” she whispers, making sure the peevishness in her voice comes through so I don’t miss it. I may have the world by the balls (so she thinks), but she has our daughter and she doesn’t want me to forget it. “She has a swimming lesson at eight in the morning.”

“We were having fun,” I protest. “She wouldn’t leave; I had to wait until she fell asleep.”

“Okay.” She nods. She knows. She can be gracious; it’s truer to her nature.

I carry Claudia through the small house to her bedroom, lay her on the bed, gently strip off her shoes, socks, shorts. She can sleep in her T-shirt and undies. I cover her with a sheet, less for warmth than for protection, against what I don’t know. Not true; I know, more than anything in the world I know this. Because
I
need to protect her, to feel I’m her protector, that it’s necessary. She curls into a ball on her side, her mouth slightly open.

“Would you like a cup of tea before you go?” Patricia asks. She’s sitting at her breakfast-nook table in shorts and a T-shirt, making notes on a brief. She’s taken to wearing reading glasses, tortoiseshell half-frames. It somehow enhances her sex appeal; like looking at a woman in a lingerie ad wearing glasses, the juxtaposition of sex and intelligence. It reminds me of how long it’s been since I had intelligence in my sex life.

“Do you have a beer?” I ask casually. It’s still hot enough out that I can ask for a beer without looking bad.

She shakes her head. “I don’t drink in the house anymore,” she tells me, glancing up. “I don’t like that image for Claudia.”

Has Claudia been talking to her about my drinking? I wonder. She sees me doing it but she’s never said anything about it. I think back, how much do I drink in front of her? Not counting beer, of course, it’s almost nothing; maybe a Scotch or two while I’m cooking dinner. I’m not a solitary drinker, I usually find my trouble in large groups of strangers.

“A cup of tea would be nice. Don’t bother getting up,” I say as she starts to, “I know where it is.”

“That’s okay. Let me.”

I sit at the table while she fills the kettle from the tap. Her work is spread out, the brief and her scribblings on legal pads. I glance at it: a utilities case in its fourth year of appeals. The kind of boring shit I hate. I understand why she wants to leave. I would, too, if I had to do this kind of work day in and day out. She’s right; she’s underpaid for a job that requires constant reading of this stuff. If you’re going to lose your eyesight it should at least be from reading exciting material.

“Regular or herb? I’ve got Sleepy-time, Peppermint, Earl Grey.” She holds up the boxes to me.

“Whatever.”

“Earl Grey. You’ll sleep through it anyway.”

She sets the cup down in front of me with the bag still in it, freshens her own. She’s drinking herbal tea; she’s always been a restless sleeper, caffeine would probably keep her up all night.

“Interesting?” I ask, referring to her work.

“No.” She pencils a question mark in a margin. “Do you know how many law school graduates cannot write? I mean a simple declarative sentence. It’s appalling. And the worst-written briefs seem to invariably wind up on my desk.”

“Pretty soon you won’t have to put up with it anymore.”

“It can’t be soon enough for me.”

I was fishing, hoping she’d tell me she’d changed her mind and wasn’t taking the Seattle job. She took the bait and calmly spit out the hook.

“So how’s your preparation going on the murder case?” she asks off-handedly.

“Good, good,” I tell her.

She looks up. “Oh?”

“Yeh, better than I expected actually, at this point anyway. I’ve got some pretty good people lined up for the other three defendants, we’re getting together formally next week to start plotting strategy. But the best thing,” I tell her, “is I’m finding holes in their case you can drive a tank through. By Robertson’s own construct the whole timing is off. Look,” I say. “Listen and tell me if I’m crazy.”

She looks at me as if I am crazy. I ignore it and press on.

“They left the bar at two. Dozens of witnesses confirm that. They took her up to the mountains. That’s a good forty-five-minute ride, you know that, you know the area. They all fuck … have intercourse with her. Twice apiece. With me so far?”

She nods. She’s starting to listen with interest.

“Okay,” I go on. “Let’s say ten minutes a pop. Then they take her back. So that’s an hour and a half travel time plus the same amount of time playing doctor. It’s five in the morning already; oh, I forgot, two more pops back at the motel, another fifteen minutes, they were probably quickies, now it’s a quarter after five. At five to six they’re in Cerrillos, I’ve got a receipt and a witness, and an hour later they’re in Madrid, again with a witness. Now you tell me: when did they take this guy back up to the mountain, stab him countless times, shoot him, emasculate him, and get her back to the motel? It doesn’t track, Pat. It’s a physical impossibility.” I beam at her. God, this feels good. Saying it out loud confirms it. “Unless I get a real curve thrown at me I have a damn good chance to walk these four. I’m talking completely.”

She stares at me. Like I did something wrong instead of proving my case beyond a doubt.

“What is it?” I ask. I sip the tea; it’s not bad, although a beer would be better.

“Nothing.”

“What? Tell me.”

She pushes her work aside, takes off her glasses. It’s a classic move, done unconsciously of course, but nicely executed. She’s never tried a case in her life but I’ll bet she’d be pretty good at it.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she tells me.

Whenever somebody says that to me I know I’m going to.

“What?” I ask again.

“I’m only telling you this because I think you should hear it.”

“What, already?” I hate procrastination; I do it enough myself that it grinds me when it comes from someone else.

“I heard what you said and it sounds good, Will. But the word on the street is this is a hopeless case. That you’re tilting at windmills.”

I explode inside.

“What kind of bullshit propaganda is Robertson spreading?” I demand of her, my voice rising with my temper. “That bastard,” I fulminate, “he’s trying to rig this fucking thing. You see,” I say, pointing a finger like a schoolmarm, “this proves he’s nervous. He knows he’s already got problems and he’s trying to win it outside the courtroom. You just heard it,” I say, “you can see I’ve got genuine goods.”

“Please don’t yell at me,” she says softly. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“Sorry, babe, sorry. But I hate that kind of shit. It’s a typical prosecution ploy, but I’ve never known John to resort to it.”

“He doesn’t want to lose.”

“Of course he doesn’t want to lose. I don’t want to lose either but I’m not playing head-games on him, trying my case outside the courtroom.”

“He especially doesn’t want to lose this one. It’s all over the office,” she says. “He’s convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re guilty and he can’t stand the idea that four scumbag bastards—those are his words not mine—might walk away because of some devious lawyering, his words again,” she adds quickly, “not mine.”

“It’s not the way you do it,” I tell her. “You know that. It’s unprofessional.”

She puts her hand on mine. It sends chills down my back. I stare at the two hands.

“Will … I’m warning you, that’s all. At least listen to that.”

“These men are my clients,” I tell her with conviction. “They deserve the best defense they can get. Especially,” I add, “since I’m convinced they did not murder that man.”

“Okay. I said it. It’s over.”

“Thank you.” I’m touched. “I appreciate it. I really do.”

Actually, I’m bothered, a lot; she wants me off this case too much. Everyone does. They all want my clients to lose, and they’re afraid I’m going to go down in flames trying to stop it.

“You are my child’s father,” she reminds me. “I don’t want to see you winding up in an ugly place.”

“I’ll try not to. But I am going to conduct the best defense I can.”

“You always do. That’s why you’re the best.”

Even as I’m basking in her praise the proverbial bell goes off in my head. “Have you been talking to Andy or Fred?” I ask.

“What would I be talking to them about?” she asks back.

“Nothing. Just asking.”

“Are they down on this case too?”

“Not really. They’re down on me in general,” I throw in, hoping to defuse the future.

“I know.”

“You do?”

She nods. “It’s around town.”

I slump in my chair. “What exactly is ‘around town,’ as you put it?”

“That you might leave the firm.” She actually looks away for a moment.

“You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not.”

“That’s bullshit! Stupid rumors, pure and simple,” I tell her. “Because of the timing of my leave.”

She nods again.

“I don’t know how some of this stuff gets started,” I go on. “There’s nothing to it.”

“That’s good. It would be tragic if it was otherwise,” she says.

The air’s become too close in here. I’ve got to leave. The trouble is, I don’t want to. I want to stay in this little house of memories with my child sleeping in the next room and her mother holding my hand in hers.

“It’s late,” I say. “I’d better go.”

I’m hoping she’ll stop me. It won’t take much.

She nods. “I’m beat. Big day tomorrow.”

I’m forced to my feet. “For me, too.”

She walks me to the door.

“’Night.”

“Good night.”

She leans forward, brushes my mouth with her lips. I read more meaning into it than she does, I think.

“Good luck, Will.”