Client Privilege (18 page)

“The television guy?”

“You know him?”

“No. Not really. I know who he is. What did they ask about him?”

“Well,” she said slowly, “nothing, really. Did I know him, had I met him, did Wayne talk about him. Stuff like that.”

“What’s funny about that? The police always ask about other people.”

“Well, for one thing, he was the only one. I would’ve maybe expected them to ask about Gretchen or some of Wayne’s other girlfriends, but they didn’t. And the other thing…” Her voice trailed away.

“Suzie?”

“Hm? Oh, I was just thinking. Sorry.”

“What was the other thing?”

“About Rodney Dennis. Right. The other thing was, they mentioned him right in the middle of all those questions about coke, Mr. Coyne. I mean, I told them what I knew, which was that Wayne had mentioned Mr. Dennis. He was Wayne’s boss. But that was all I knew. Don’t you think that was kinda funny?”

“Yes,” I said. I thought it was even funnier that the police hadn’t mentioned the name Coyne to her. “It’s funny, Suzie. But don’t worry about it. Just give Mr. Garrett a call.”

A
FTER I HUNG UP
with Suzie, I waited for the length of time it took me to drink one cup of coffee and smoke two cigarettes. Then I called Zerk’s office in North Cambridge.

“Xerxes Garrett, Attorney,” answered one of his secretaries. He had two, a white one and a black one. Zerk liked to say that he ran an equal opportunity office, and he wouldn’t discriminate on account of race, sex, religion, country of origin, income, or golf handicap, whether it came to hiring office help or taking on clients.

He said this pointedly. Zerk did a great deal of
pro bono
work. My clientele was, as it happened, all white, mostly WASP, generally wealthy. Not that I turned needy folks away. They just didn’t tend to seek me out.

“It’s Brady Coyne, Mary,” I said. Mary was an Irish lady from South Boston with six school-age kids and an alcoholic husband she hadn’t seen in four years. “I need to talk to Mr. Garrett.”

“Well, do ye, now, Mr. Coyne?”

“That I do, Mary.”

“This bein’ business or pleasure?”

“It’s business, Mary. Honest.”

“Well, you just hold tight, Mr. Coyne, and I’ll see if I can get him for ye.”

A minute later Zerk came on the line. “Yo, bossman.”

“We’ve got to talk.”

“Whoa,” he said. “Not even a ‘how are the wife and kids’?”

“You haven’t got a wife and kids. Whereas I have a problem.”

“Client who can’t foot the bill?”

“No. I’m serious. I’ve got a bunch of cops who think I killed somebody.”

“Yeah, I suppose that might qualify as a problem. Need a lawyer, huh?”

“I think it’s time I retained counsel.”

“Good thinking. You know what they say?”

“Yes. In fact, you learned it from me. One of the several golden nuggets of wisdom I have given you. The attorney who defends himself has a fool for a lawyer. I think I’ve already proved myself a fool. Can we meet?”

“Lemme look.” A minute later he said, “I’m in court all day. Why don’t you come by at five this afternoon.”

“Five it is.”

“Meanwhile, as if I had to tell you, don’t talk to anybody.”

“Sure. I know that. Another thing. I referred a client of mine to you.”

“I’ve already got a shitload of clients.”

“This one’s name is Suzanne Billings. She’s young and beautiful and blond and she may be a suspect in a murder case.”

I heard him chuckle. “The same murder case?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s probably better off with me than you for a lawyer, then.”

“That’s what I figured.”

After I hung up with Zerk I walked out of my office.

“Be gone about an hour,” I told Julie.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll mind the store.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“You wouldn’t be,” she said.

I took the elevator down to the parking garage and strode over to my reserved slot. Here and there on the concrete floor large puddles of melted snow had spread under parked vehicles.

My little BMW seemed to hunker self-consciously among the larger and shinier models that surrounded it. I had bought my first Beemer shortly after Gloria and I were divorced, which was before I had any awareness that a BMW made some sort of statement to other people. I liked it because it was small, maneuverable, and dependable, and because it came with a terrific stereo system. I did not seriously consider getting a Jag or Mercedes or Volvo wagon. Those cars, it seemed to me, inevitably did make a statement.

In five years I put 120,000 miles on my first Beemer. It took me to trout streams from the Catskills to the Cumberland Valley to Nova Scotia and to most trouty waters in between. It zipped through city streets and slipped into undersize parking slots. It never let me down. When I finally, and reluctantly, realized it was time to turn it in, I was faced with a dilemma.

During the time I had been driving it, my car had somehow become a driving machine.

An
ultimate
driving machine, no less.

And I, by virtue of driving that machine, had become some kind of superannuated yuppie.

I seriously considered getting a Dodge. I don’t like easy labels. A bachelor lawyer driving a BMW—that was too easy.

But I realized that a Dodge, too, would make a statement. As would a Volkswagen, a Ford Escort, or a Ferrari. In the end I said a pox on all of ’em and got myself another little white BMW with an even better stereo system.

This one was five years old now, and pushing 110,000 miles. There were a couple dings on the door panels, and a rust spot the size of a quarter had appeared on the hood. It was about time to turn it in. I supposed I’d get another driving machine.

I nosed it out of the garage and cut across to Storrow Drive. I got behind a van with a bumper sticker that read
MAKE WAR, NOT LOVE
…
IT’S SAFER.
A true slogan for our times.

It was when I was crossing the Tobin Bridge that I first noticed the dark blue sedan two cars behind me and realized that it had registered somewhere in my brain back in Copley Square. I wondered if Sylvestro or Finnigan was driving, and decided that they would have assigned an underling the deadly boring task of tailing me.

Then I thought maybe it was some newshound from Channel 8, sniffing out the story he thought he had.

Whoever he was, he was either not very good at it, or else he had been instructed to take no pains to disguise his intentions. I figured it was probably the former.

As I hooked onto Route 93 where it was elevated high above the city, my first impulse was to try to lose the guy in the blue sedan. I figured it wouldn’t be hard in my driving machine.

Then a better idea occurred to me.

So I kept the needle on fifty and the blue sedan in my rearview mirror all the way to the turnoff to Medford Square. I parked in the lot behind the big brick and concrete building. Medford City Hall looked like a big, solid high school, vintage 1950, when they were still making schools that looked like schools rather than California office parks. The blue sedan didn’t follow me into the lot. When I walked around to the front door, I spotted it cruising slowly past.

I figured if he was a cop, he’d radio for someone else to go in after I left, flash his badge, and demand to know what I’d been doing in there, so the guy in the car could continue to follow me.

If it was a reporter, he’d surely want to know what I was doing at Medford City Hall.

Either one was okay with me.

The City Clerk’s office was in Room 103 on the first floor. I walked in and propped my elbows on the counter until a woman at a desk looked up and spotted me. “Help you?” she said without getting up.

“I want to check a marriage license that was issued here,” I said.

“Date?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Between 1970 and 1975, maybe. Is that close enough?”

“I’ll need one of the names…?”

I grinned. “Sure. Karen Lavoie. I want to know who old Karen ended up marrying.”

She smiled and nodded, as if this were a common request. She got up and came to the counter. She wore thick glasses. Behind them were two large blue eyes, one of which wandered off to study the ceiling while the other peered at me. I focused my smile on the one that seemed to be doing most of the work.

She slid a scrap of paper and a pencil to me. “Write down the name on this and I’ll look it up.”

I printed Karen Lavoie’s name on the paper. She picked it up and disappeared around a corner into what I assumed was a room full of records. After what seemed like several minutes she returned with a thick square ledger. She heaved it up on the counter and turned it around for me. It was already opened to the right page.

“There you go,” she said.

She remained standing there, one of her eyes watching me, as I studied the license. It included the place of the wedding (St. Agnes Catholic Church), the person who performed the ceremony (the Rev. Matthew O’Donnell), all other pertinent names, and the date. I said to the clerk, “Can I have another piece of paper, please?”

She gave me one and the pencil, too. I printed “Peter Roland Gorwacz” on the paper. I was delighted it wasn’t Smith. I gave the pencil back to the woman.

“She married Pete Gorwacz,” I said to the clerk. “Son of a gun.”

She smiled at me in her walleyed way.

“Thank you very much for your help,” I added.

She just shrugged. It was her job.

I paused at the foot of the steps outside City Hall to light a cigarette. The blue sedan was nowhere to be seen. It didn’t matter. My tail knew where I’d been. If he was any good, he’d find out what I had been doing there. I strolled around back to the parking lot. I slid into my car and took the scrap of paper out of my shirt pocket. Peter Roland Gorwacz. A helluva name. I figured it would be an easy name to track down. I figured I’d be able to find Karen Lavoie Gorwacz, wherever she was.

I also figured either the cops or Channel Eight would do the same. Sooner or later, it would lead them to Chester Y. Popowski.

When I walked into my office, Julie looked up at me with that tight little grimace on her lips and that hooded look in her eyes that said, “So nice you could drop in.”

I hung up my coat and went to her. I stood before her desk like a contrite schoolboy who has been nailed by his principal for playing hooky. “Hi,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, flashing a big phony smile of greeting. “How wonderful.”

“I have returned.”

“For how long?”

“For the whole entire rest of the day.”

“Why?”

“Because I work here.”

“You do?”

“Well, actually, I may leave a little early. Barring court appearances and whatnot, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Had lunch?” I said.

“Oh, sure. I had nothing else to do. Just closed up shop, hopped a cab, and had the daily catch at Jimmy’s. Coupla martinis.” She sighed. “How the hell could I have lunch?”

“I dunno. Sorry. Hey. Let’s celebrate. How about a big fat Italian sub with lots of hot peppers, extra cheese?”

“Celebrate? What’s to celebrate?”

I shrugged elaborately. “I don’t know. Another beautiful winter’s day? The benign hibernation of Punxsutawney Phil? The fact that in a month I can go trout fishing if I’m willing to freeze my assets?”

“My,” she said, her head cocked to one side, smiling for the first time since I had walked in, showing me that big dimple in her cheek. “Aren’t we chipper this afternoon.”

“I’ve had a productive morning.”

“Me too,” she said pointedly.

“So what about the sub?”

“With a Pepsi Cola?”

“Absolutely.”

She tilted her head at me. “Do I have to run out for it?”

“No. I will run out for it.”

“Go,” she said. “And quickly, before you change your mind.”

I went. I was back twenty minutes later. We spread out the waxed paper on my desk and leaned over it while we ripped chunks out of the big sub rolls. Oil dribbled off our chins. Pieces of pickle and hot pepper and chopped onion and tomato spattered down on the paper.

We ate without talking. When we were done, Julie wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, belched delicately behind her hand, and said, “Okay. Peace offering accepted.” She sipped from her can of Pepsi.

“Thank you.”

“Wanna talk shop?”

I shrugged. “Do I have to?”

“It’s unavoidable.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

She rattled off a list of clients and lawyers who had called, or who I should call. She reminded me of a conference with a client scheduled for Tuesday, two appointments with lawyers on Wednesday, and a Bar Association luncheon on Friday.

There had also been, she added, a call from Mickey Gillis. And yet another from Rodney Dennis.

After Julie left I lit a cigarette. I had to be careful. Since Channel Eight had decided to offer a reward, the media competition for the Churchill story would have escalated.

Dennis’s call I would not return. I owed him nothing. But I had to call Mickey. She was a good friend. She was a better reporter, though, than she was a friend, I reminded myself.

I stubbed out my cigarette and called her.

“Mickey Gillis,” she said.

“It’s Brady.”

“Oh, hi. Hang on a minute.”

Before I could say okay I had been clicked off. I pictured her there in her cluttered office with a phone on each ear pecking at her word processor and riffling through endless stacks of odd-shaped scraps of paper and somehow paying full attention to all of it. I didn’t know how she did it, but she did.

It was five or six minutes before she came back on the line. “Boy,” she sighed. “Guy telling me he saw this state senator in a gay bar down off Boylston Street. Told me he thought it was my kind of story. I asked the guy his name. He wouldn’t tell me. Asked him what he was doing there. He giggled. I told him it wasn’t my kind of story, even if it was a story. Which it isn’t. He giggled some more. Finally I told him to fuck off, and he kinda gagged. What a job this is.”

“Yeah, but you’re so good at it.”

“I am, ain’t I?”