Rogue Lawyer (3 page)

Lunch is always a treat. Since it's not safe to leave the courthouse, actually the courtroom itself, Gardy and I eat a sandwich by ourselves at the defense table. It's the same box lunch fed to the jurors. They bring in sixteen of them, mix them up, draw ours at random, and take the rest to the jury room. This was my idea because I prefer not to be poisoned. Gardy has no clue; he's just hungry. He says the food at the jail is what you'd expect and he doesn't trust the guards. He eats nothing there, and since he's surviving only on lunch, I asked Judge Kaufman if the county could perhaps double up and give the boy two rubber chicken sandwiches, with extra chips and another pickle. In other words, two box lunches instead of one. Denied.

So Gardy gets half of my sandwich and all of my kosher dill. If I weren't starving, he could have the entire box of crap.

Partner comes and goes throughout the day. He's afraid to leave our van in one spot due to the high probability of slashed tires and cracked windows. He also has a few responsibilities, one of which is to meet occasionally with the Bishop.

In these cases where I'm called into a combat zone, into a small town that has already closed ranks and is ready to kill one of its own for some heinous crime, it takes a while to find a contact. This contact is always another lawyer, a local who also defends criminals and butts heads weekly with the police and prosecutors. This contact reaches out eventually, quietly, afraid of being exposed as a traitor. He knows the truth, or something close to it. He knows the players, the bad actors, and the occasional good one. Since his survival depends on getting along with the cops and court clerks and assistant prosecutors, he knows the system.

In Gardy's case, my deep-throated pal is Jimmy Bressup. We call him the Bishop. I've never met him. He works through Partner and they meet in strange places. Partner says he's about sixty with long, thinning gray hair, bad clothes, a loud, foul mouth, an abrasive nature, and a weakness for the bottle. “An older version of me?” I asked. “Not quite,” came the wise reply. For all his bluster and big talk, the Bishop is afraid of getting too close to Gardy's lawyers.

The Bishop says Huver and his gang know by now they've got the wrong guy but have too much invested to stop and admit their mistakes. He says there have been whispers from day one about the real killer.

It's Friday and everyone in the courtroom is exhausted. I spend an hour haranguing a pimply, stupid little brat who claims he was at the same church service when Gardy called forth the demons and disrupted things. Honestly, I've seen the worst of bogus courtroom evidence, but I've never seen anything as bad as this. In addition to being false, it is wholly irrelevant. No other prosecutor would bother with it. No other judge would admit it. Kaufman finally announces an adjournment for the weekend.

Gardy and I meet in the holding room, where he changes into his jail uniform while I offer banalities about having a good weekend. I give him ten bucks for the vending machines. He says tomorrow his mother will bring him lemon cookies, his favorite. Sometimes the guards pass them through; sometimes they keep them for their own nourishment. One never knows. The guards average three hundred pounds each, so I guess they need the stolen calories. I tell Gardy to take a shower over the weekend and wash his hair.

He says, “Mr. Rudd, if I find a razor, I'm gone.” With an index finger, he does a slashing motion against his wrist.

“Don't say that, Gardy.” He's said it before and he means it. The kid has nothing to live for and he's smart enough to see what's coming. Hell, a blind man could see it. We shake hands and I hurry down the back steps. Partner and the deputies meet me at the rear door and shove me into our vehicle. Another safe exit.

Outside Milo, I begin to nod and soon fall asleep. Ten minutes later, my phone vibrates and I answer it. We follow the state trooper back to our motel, where we grab our luggage and check out. Soon we are alone and headed for the City.

“Did you see the Bishop?” I ask Partner.

“Oh yes. It's Friday, and I think he starts drinking around noon on Friday. But beer only, he's quick to point out. So I bought a six-pack and we drove around. The joint is a real dive, out east, just beyond the city limits. He says Peeley is a regular.”

“So you've had a few beers already? Should I be driving?”

“Only one, boss. I sipped it until it was warm. The Bishop, on the other hand, took his cold. Three of them.”

“And we believe this guy?”

“I'm just doing my job. On the one hand, he has credibility because he's lived here all his life and knows everyone. On the other, he's so full of crap you want to dismiss everything he says.”

“We'll see.” I close my eyes and try to nap. Sleep is virtually impossible in the midst of a capital murder trial, and I've learned to grab it whenever possible. I've stolen ten minutes on a hard bench in an empty courtroom during lunch, just as I've paced back and forth in a dingy motel room at three in the morning. I often black out in mid-sentence when Partner drives and the van hums along.

At some point, as we head back to our version of civilization, I fade away.

It's the third Friday of the month, and I have a standing date, if you'd call two drinks a real date. It feels more like an appointment for a root canal. The truth is this woman wouldn't date me at gunpoint, and the feelings are so mutual. But we have a history. We meet at the same bar, in the same booth where we had our first meal together, in another lifetime. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it; it's all about convenience. It's a corporate bar downtown, one of a chain, but the ambience is not bad and it's lively on Friday evenings.

Judith Whitly arrives first and gets the booth. I slide in a few minutes later just as she's about to get irritated. She has never been late for anything and views tardiness as a sign of weakness. In her opinion, I possess many of these signs. She, too, is a lawyer—that's how we met.

“You look tired,” she says without a trace of compassion. She, too, is showing signs of fatigue, though, at thirty-nine, she is still strikingly beautiful. Every time I see her I'm reminded of why I fell so hard.

“Thank you, and you look great, as always.”

“Thanks.”

“Ten days and we're all running out of gas.”

“Any luck?” she asks.

“Not yet.” She knows the basics of Gardy's case and trial and she knows me. If I believe the kid is innocent, that's good enough for her. But she has her own clients to fret and lose sleep over. We order drinks—her standard Friday night glass of chardonnay and my whiskey sour.

We'll have two drinks in less than an hour, then that's it for another month. “How's Starcher?” I ask. I keep hoping that one day I can pronounce my son's name without hating it, but that day has not arrived. My name is on his birth certificate as the father, but I wasn't around when he was born. Therefore, Judith had control over the name. It should be someone's last name, if it has to be used at all.

“He's doing well,” she says smugly, because she's thoroughly involved with the kid's life and I am not. “I met with his teacher last week and she's pleased with his progress. She says he's just a normal second grader who's reading at a high level and enjoying life.”

“That's good to hear,” I say. “Normal” is the key word here because of our history. Starcher is not being raised the normal way. He spends half his time with Judith and her current partner and the other half with her parents. From the hospital, she took Starcher to an apartment she shared with Gwyneth, the woman she left me for. They then spent three years trying to legally adopt Starcher, but I fought them like a rabid animal. I have nothing against gay couples adopting kids. I just couldn't stand Gwyneth. And I was right. They split not long afterward in a nasty fight, one I enjoyed immensely from deep in left field.

It gets more complicated. The drinks arrive and we don't bother with a polite “Cheers.” That would only waste time. We need the alcohol ASAP.

I deliver the awful news by saying, “My mother is coming to town next weekend and she'd like to see Starcher. He is, after all, her only grandson.”

“I know that,” she snaps. “It's your weekend. You can do what you want.”

“True, but you have a way of complicating everything. I just don't want any trouble, that's all.”

“Your mother is nothing but trouble.”

Truer words were never spoken, and I nod in defeat. It would be a dramatic understatement to say that Judith and my mother hated each other from the opening bell. So much so that my mother informed me she would cut me out of her last will and testament if I married Judith. At the time, I was secretly having some serious doubts about our romance and our future, but that threat was the last straw. Though I expect Mom to live to be a hundred, her estate will be a delight. A guy with my income needs a dream. A subplot in this sad story is that my mother often uses her will to bully her children. My sister married a Republican and got herself cut out of the will. Two years later, the Republican, who's really a nice guy, became the father of the most perfect granddaughter in history. Now my sister is back in the will, or so we think.

Anyway, I was preparing to break up with Judith when she gave me the crushing news that she was pregnant. I assumed I was the father, though I didn't ask that loaded question. Later I learned the brutal truth that she was already seeing Gwyneth. Talk about a shot to the gut. I'm sure there were clues that my dearly beloved was actually a lesbian, but I missed every one of them.

We got married. Mom said she changed her will and I would get not a penny. We lived together off and on for five wretched months, were technically married for fifteen more, and split to save our sanity. Starcher arrived in the middle of the war, a casualty from birth, and we've been sniping at each other ever since. This ritual of meeting once a month for drinks is our homage to forced civility.

I think I'm back in my dear mother's will.

“And what does Mummy plan to do with my child?” she asks. It's never “our” child. She has never been able to resist the little digs, the sophomoric cheap shots. She picks at the scabs, but not even in a clever way. It's almost impossible to ignore, but I've learned to bite my tongue. My tongue has scars.

“I think they're going to the zoo.”

“She always takes him to the zoo.”

“What's the harm in going to the zoo?”

“Well, last time he had nightmares about pythons.”

“Okay, I'll ask her to take him somewhere else.” She's already causing trouble. What could be wrong with taking a fairly normal seven-year-old boy to the zoo? I don't know why we meet like this.

“How are things around the firm?” I ask, my curiosity similar to that of watching a car wreck. It's irresistible.

“Fine,” she says. “The usual turmoil.”

“You need some boys in that firm.”

“We have enough problems.” The waiter notices both glasses are empty and goes for another round. The first drinks always disappear fast.

Judith is one of four partners in a firm of ten women, all militant lesbians. The firm specializes in gay law—discrimination in employment, housing, education, health care, and the latest: gay divorce. They're good lawyers, tough negotiators and litigators, always on the attack and often in the news. The firm projects an image of being at war with society and never backing down. The outside fights, though, are far less colorful than the inside brawls.

“I could join as the senior partner,” I say in an effort at levity.

“You wouldn't last ten minutes.” No man would last ten minutes in their offices. In fact, men avoid them zealously. Mention the name of her firm and men run for the hills. Fine fellows caught screwing around jump off bridges.

“You're probably right. Do you ever miss sex with the opposite sex?”

“Seriously, Sebastian, you want to talk about straight sex, after a bad marriage and an unwanted child?”

“I like straight sex. Did you ever like it? You seemed to.”

“I was faking.”

“You were not. You were pretty wonderful, as I recall.” I know two guys who slept with her before I came along. Then she ran to Gwyneth. I've often wondered if I was so lousy in bed that I drove her to switch teams. I doubt it. I must say she has a good eye. I loathed Gwyneth, still do, but the woman could stop traffic on any street in town. And her current partner, Ava, once modeled lingerie for a local department store. I remember her ads in the Sunday newspaper.

The second drinks arrive and we grab them.

“If you want to talk about sex, I'm leaving,” she says, but she's not angry.

“I'm sorry. Look, Judith, every time I see you I think about sex. My problem, not yours.”

“Get help.”

“I don't need help. I need sex.”

“Are you propositioning me?”

“Would it do any good?”

“No.”

“Didn't think so.”

“You have fights tonight?” she asks, changing the subject, and I don't resist.

“I do.”

“You're sick, you know. That's such a brutal sport.”

“Starcher says he wants to go.”

“You take Starcher to the cage fights and you'll never see him again.”

“Relax. I'm just joking.”

“You may be joking, but you're still sick.”

“Thank you. Have another drink.” A shapely Asian in a short, tight skirt walks by and we both have a look. “Dibs,” I say.

The alcohol kicks in—it takes longer for her because she is naturally wound tighter—and Judith manages a grin, the first of the evening. Could be the first of the week. “Are you seeing anyone?” she asks, her tone noticeably softer.

“Not since we last met,” I say. “It's been all work.” My last girlfriend said good-bye three years ago. I get lucky occasionally, but I'd be lying if I said I was on the prowl for a serious woman. There is a long, heavy gap in the conversation as we get bored. When we're down to the last few drops of our drinks, we go back to Starcher and my mother and the next weekend that we both now dread.

We walk together out of the bar, dutifully peck each other on the cheek, and say good-bye. Another box checked off.

I loved her once, then I truly hated her. Now I almost like Judith, and if we can continue these monthly meetings, we might become friends. That's my goal, because I really need a friend, one who can understand what I do and why I do it.

And it would be much better for our son, too.