The Client (20 page)

Clint enjoyed the coffee almost as much as his boss did, and the meticulous routine of making it was only half-serious. They began each morning with a quiet cup as they planned the day and talked about the mail. They had met in a detox center eleven years earlier when she was forty-one and he was seventeen. They had started law school at the same time, but he flunked out after a nasty round with coke. He’d been perfectly clean for five years, she for six. They had leaned on each other many times.

He sorted the mail and placed it carefully on her clean desk. He poured his first cup of coffee in the kitchen, and read with great interest the front-page story about her newest client. As usual, Slick had his facts. And, as usual, the facts were stretched with a good dose of innuendo thrown in. The boys favored each other, but Ricky’s hair was a shade lighter. He smiled with several teeth missing.

Clint placed the front page in the center of Reggie’s desk.

UNLESS SHE WAS EXPECTED IN COURT, REGGIE SELDOM MADE it to the office before 9 A.M. She was a slow starter who usually hit her stride around four in the afternoon and preferred to work late.

Her mission as a lawyer was to protect abused and neglected children, and she did this with great skill and
passion. The juvenile courts routinely called her for indigent work representing kids who needed lawyers but didn’t know it. She was a zealous advocate for small clients who could not say thanks. She had sued fathers for molesting daughters. She had sued uncles for raping their nieces. She had sued mothers for abusing their babies. She had investigated parents for exposing their children to drugs. She served as legal guardian for more than twenty children. And she worked the Juvenile Court as appointed counsel for kids in trouble with the law. She performed pro bono work for children in need of commitment to mental facilities. The money was adequate, but not important. She had money once, lots of it, and it had brought nothing but misery.

She sipped the southern pecan, pronounced it good, and planned the day with Clint. It was a ritual adhered to whenever possible.

As she picked up the newspaper, the buzzer rang as the door opened. Clint jumped to answer it. He found Mark Sway standing in the reception room, wet from the drizzle and out of breath.

“Good morning, Mark. You’re all wet.”

“I need to see Reggie.” His bangs stuck to his forehead and water dripped from his nose. He was in a daze.

“Sure.” Clint backed away from him, and returned with a hand towel from the rest room. He wiped Mark’s face, and said, “Follow me.”

Reggie was waiting in the center of her office. Clint closed the door and left them alone.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I think we need to talk.” She pointed, and he sat in a wingback chair and she sat on the sofa.

“What’s going on, Mark?” His eyes were red and tired. He stared at the flowers on the coffee table.

“Ricky snapped out of it early this morning.”

“That’s great. What time?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“You look tired. Would you like some hot cocoa?”

“No. Did you see the paper this morning?”

“Yeah, I saw it. Does it scare you?”

“Of course it scares me.” Clint knocked on the door, then opened it and brought the hot cocoa anyway. Mark thanked him and held it with both hands. He was cold and the warm cup helped. Clint closed the door and was gone.

“When do we meet with the FBI?” he asked.

“In an hour. Why?”

He sipped the cocoa and it burned his tongue. “I’m not sure I want to talk to them.”

“Okay. You don’t have to, you know. I’ve explained all this.”

“I know. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Mark. You look scared.”

“It’s been a rough morning.” He took another tiny sip, then another. “What would happen to me if I never told anyone what I know?”

“You’ve told me.”

“Yeah, but you can’t tell. And I haven’t told you everything, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve told you that I know where the body is, but I haven’t told—”

“I know, Mark. I don’t know where it is. There’s a big difference, and I certainly understand it.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Not really. Not now.”

She was relieved but didn’t show it. “Okay, then I don’t want to know.”

“So what happens to me if I never tell?”

She’d thought about this for hours, and still had no answer. But she’d met Foltrigg, had watched him under pressure, and was convinced he would try all legal means to extract the information from her client. As much as she wanted to, she could not advise him to lie.

A lie would work just fine. One simple lie, and Mark Sway could live the rest of his life without regard to what happened in New Orleans. And why should he worry about Muldanno and Foltrigg and the late Boyd Boyette? He was just a kid, guilty of neither crime nor major sin.

“I think that an effort will be made to force you to talk.”

“How does it work?”

“I’m not sure. It’s very rare, but I believe steps can be taken in court to force you to testify about what you know. Clint and I have been researching it.”

“I know what Clifford told me, but I don’t know if it’s the truth.”

“But you think it’s the truth, don’t you, Mark?”

“I think so, I guess. I don’t know what to do.” He was mumbling softly, at times barely audible, unwilling to look at her. “Can they make me talk?” he asked.

She answered carefully. “It could happen. I mean, a lot of things could happen. But, yes, a judge in a courtroom one day soon could order you to talk.”

“And if I refused?”

“Good question, Mark. It’s a gray area. If an adult
refuses a court order, he’s in contempt of court and runs the risk of being locked up. I don’t know what they’d do with a child. I’ve never heard of it before.”

“What about a polygraph?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say they drag me into court, and the judge tells me to spill my guts, and I tell the story but leave out the most important part. And they think I’m lying. What then? Can they strap me in the chair and start asking questions? I saw it in a movie one time.”

“You saw a child take a polygraph?”

“No. It was some cop who got caught lying. But, I mean, can they do it to me?”

“I doubt it. I’ve never heard of it, and I’d be fighting like crazy to stop it.”

“But it could happen.”

“I’m not sure. I doubt it.” These were hard questions coming at her like gunfire, and she had to be careful. Clients often heard what they wanted to hear and missed the rest. “But I must warn you, Mark, if you lie in court you could be in big trouble.”

He thought about this for a second, and said, “If I tell the truth I’m in bigger trouble.”

“Why?”

She waited a long time for a response. Every twenty seconds or so, he would take a sip of the cocoa, but he was not at all interested in answering this question. The silence did not bother him. He stared at the table, but his mind whirled away somewhere else.

“Mark, last night you indicated you were ready to talk to the FBI and tell them your story. Now it’s obvious you’ve changed your mind. Why? What’s happened?”

Without a word, he gently placed the cup on the
table and covered his eyes with his fists. His chin dropped to his chest, and he started crying.

THE DOOR OPENED INTO THE RECEPTION AREA AND A FEDERAL Express lady ran in with a box three inches thick. All smiles and perfect efficiency, she handed it to Clint and showed him where to sign. She thanked him, wished him a nice day, and vanished.

The package was expected. It was from Print Research, an amazing little outfit in D.C. that did nothing but scan two hundred daily newspapers nationwide and catalogue the stories. The news was clipped, copied, computerized, and readily available within twenty-four hours for those willing to pay. Reggie didn’t want to pay, but she needed quick background on Boyette et al. Clint had placed the order yesterday, as soon as Mark left and Reggie had herself a new client. The search was limited to the New Orleans and Washington papers.

He removed the contents, a neat stack of eight and a half by eleven Xerox copies of newspaper stories, headlines, and photos, all arranged in perfect chronological order, all copied with the columns straight and the photos clean.

Boyette was an old Democrat from New Orleans, and he’d served several terms as an undistinguished rank and file member of the U.S. House, when one day Senator Dauvin, an antebellum relic from the Civil War, suddenly died in office at the age of ninety-one. Boyette pulled strings and twisted arms, and in keeping with the great tradition of Louisiana politics rounded up some cash and found a home for it. He was appointed by the governor to fill the unexpired portion of
Dauvin’s term. The theory was simple: If a man had enough sense to accumulate a bunch of cash, then he would certainly make a worthy U.S. senator.

Boyette became a member of the world’s most exclusive club, and with time proved himself quite capable. Over the years he narrowly missed a few indictments, and evidently learned his lessons. He survived two close reelections, and finally reached a point attained by most southern senators where he was simply left alone. When this happened, Boyette slowly mellowed, and changed from a hell-raising segregationist to a rather liberal and open-minded statesman. He lost favor with three straight governors in Louisiana, and in doing so became an outcast with the petroleum and chemical companies that had ruined the ecology of the state.

So Boyd Boyette became a radical environmentalist, something unheard of among southern politicians. He railed against the oil and gas industry, and it vowed to defeat him. He held hearings in small bayou towns devastated by the oil boom and bust, and made enemies in the tall buildings in New Orleans. Senator Boyette embraced the crumbling ecology of his beloved state, and studied it with a passion.

Six years ago, someone in New Orleans had floated out a proposal to build a toxic waste dump in Lafourche Parish, about eighty miles southwest of New Orleans. It was quickly killed for the first time by local authorities. As is true with most ideas created by rich corporate minds, it didn’t go away, but rather came back a year later with a different name, a different set of consultants, new promises of local jobs, and a new mouthpiece doing the presenting. It was voted down by the locals for the second time, but the vote was
much closer. A year passed, some money changed hands, cosmetic changes were made to the plans, and it was suddenly back on the agenda. The folks who lived around the site were hysterical. Rumors were rampant, especially a persistent one that the New Orleans mob was behind the dump and would not stop until it was a reality. Of course, millions were at stake.

The New Orleans papers did a credible job of linking the mob to the toxic waste site. A dozen corporations were involved, and names and addresses led to several known and undisputed crime figures.

The stage was set, the deal was done, the dump was to be approved, then Senator Boyd Boyette came crashing in with an army of federal regulators. He threatened investigations by a dozen agencies. He held weekly press conferences. He made speeches all over southern Louisiana. The advocates of the waste site ran for cover. The corporations issued terse statements of no comment. Boyette had them on the ropes, and he was enjoying himself immensely.

On the night of his disappearance, the senator had attended an angry meeting of local citizens at a packed high school gymnasium in Houma. He left late, and alone, as was his custom, for the hour drive to his home near New Orleans. Years earlier, Boyette had grown weary of the constant small talk and incessant ass kissing of aides, and he preferred to drive by himself whenever possible. He was studying Russian, his fourth language, and he cherished the solitude of his Cadillac and the language tapes.

By noon the next day, it was determined the senator was missing. The splashy headlines from New Orleans told the story. Bold headlines in the
Washington Post
suspected foul play. Days went by and the news
was scarce. No body was found. A hundred old photos of the senator were dug up and used by the newspapers. The story was becoming old when, suddenly, the name of Barry Muldanno was linked to the disappearance and this set off a frenzy of Mafia dirt and trash. A rather frightening mug shot of a young Muldanno ran on page one in New Orleans. The paper rehashed its earlier stories about the waste site and the mob. The Blade was a known hit man with a criminal record. And on and on.

Roy Foltrigg made a grand entrance into the story when he stepped in front of the cameras to announce the indictment of Barry Muldanno for the murder of Senator Boyd Boyette. He, too, got the front page in both New Orleans and Washington, and Clint remembered a similar photo in the Memphis paper. Big news, but no body. This, however, did not throttle Mr. Foltrigg. He ranted against organized crime. He predicted certain victory. He preached his carefully prepared remarks with the flair of a veteran stage actor, shouting at all the right moments, pointing his finger, waving the indictment. He had no comment about the absence of a corpse, but hinted that he knew something he couldn’t tell and said he had no doubt the remains of the late senator would be found.

There were pictures and stories when Barry Muldanno was arrested, or rather, turned himself in to the FBI. He spent three days in jail before bail was arranged, and there were photos of him leaving just as he had arrived. He wore a dark suit and smiled at the cameras. He was innocent, he proclaimed. It was a vendetta.

There were photos of bulldozers, taken from a distance, as the FBI trenched its way through the soggy
soil of New Orleans, searching for the body. More of Foltrigg performing for the press. More investigative reports of New Orleans’s rich history of organized crime. The story seemed to lose steam as the search continued.

The governor, a Democrat, appointed a crony to serve the remaining year and a half of Boyette’s term. The New Orleans paper ran an analysis of the many politicians waiting eagerly to run for the Senate. Foltrigg was one of two Republicans rumored to be interested.