“Say that again, Mr. Stoller?”
“I don’t wanna move it. I want this over.”
The judge studied Tom for a moment, concern arching his eyebrows.
“May I be heard, Judge?” I asked.
“You may.”
“My client doesn’t want a continuance, Judge. But I very well may. My client is mentally ill, and I think he should take my advice. So far, he hasn’t. I’m not prepared to move for a continuance at this time, but I may do so.”
“You’ll carry a heavy burden,” Judge Nash warned me. He granted the motion allowing me in as lead counsel and called the next case.
I looked back at Deidre Maley-Aunt Deidre-who was watching her nephew walk out of the courtroom, tears brimming in her eyes. When he was gone, she turned her eyes to me.
Thank you, she mouthed to me, showing a bit more hope in that expression than I’d previously seen.
I sincerely hoped that it was warranted.
6
Don’t ask me why I do the things I do.
The part about being at Vic’s until closing-that part’s easy. The vodka helps me sleep. And I don’t like drinking alone, even if I don’t know anyone else in the bar.
The part about the girl, though. That’s the don’t-ask-me-why part.
I watched her for three hours at the end of the bar. Came in alone about ten, maybe ten-thirty. Thin and dirty-blond and pretty. But not like a Barbie doll. Petite face, slightly crooked nose, but a look about her more than anything. Like she’s seen a lot.
Character, they call it. That’s what I like, a face with character. I don’t trust Barbie dolls. I prefer women who don’t realize how attractive they are.
Ten-thirty, we’ll call it, she came in. Kept to herself. Looked my way once or twice, but that was due more to the fact that we were opposite bookends of the wraparound bar, so I was directly in her line of sight.
She wasn’t the problem. The yuppies and middle-aged burnouts in their work costumes, talking big and making their moves, they weren’t the problem, either.
The two guys in the corner booth, they were the problem. Swarthy Italians with thick manes of hair and even thicker necks.
They sent over the first drink to the lady at about midnight, when the population had dwindled from thirty to single digits. A glass of pinot. She turned and smiled and looked away before she could see the two men in the corner, raising their glasses of scotch to her in response.
The second drink came at half past midnight, when there was a finger’s worth remaining in her glass. She said something to the bartender that I couldn’t make out. Maybe that’s because I was on my fourth vodka, but the volume of her voice seemed to match her petite build.
The bartender personally delivered the next round of scotch to the goons in the corner, and his voice was a little stronger than the lady’s.
“She said thanks, guys, but she’s not in the mood for company tonight. She said no offense.”
“Ho!” cried one of the Italians, wounded.
The peppy adult-contemporary music had changed to soft, boozy jazz. Cologne still lingered in the bar. I was getting tired and figured I could sleep well now, but something told me to stick around.
Besides, I could use the exercise. In the week-plus since I’d entered Tom Stoller’s case, I’d gone through all the evidence the prosecution had turned over and everything that Bryan Childress and the public defender had gathered on Tom’s behalf. I’d spoken again, with little success, to Tom himself. I didn’t get much out of him besides the meal plan for that day and the temperature of his room. I hadn’t gone for a run for nine days straight, and our recent mid-October ice storm hadn’t helped matters any. Either way, the lack of exercise had left my muscles itchy.
The woman fiddled with her smart phone for a moment. She didn’t seem like the smart-phone type. Not the aggressive, corporate sort, this one, not if I was reading her correctly. But what did I know? All I could really figure was that she was nursing some sort of wound, and she could hold her liquor. Counting how she started plus the ones courtesy of the Sicilians, that made six wines, which would tip me more than four Stolis.
The seventh came courtesy of the goombahs again. I don’t know why the bartender didn’t run interference for the lady, but he served her up. That was it for the lady. She pushed it away and pushed herself off the bar stool.
She didn’t even acknowledge the corner boys, which might have been a smart move. Save them some face. Italians are like that. Lost every war they ever started but still think they’re the toughest guys going.
“Ho!” one of them called out.
I settled up and threw on my coat.
Both men stood up. They weren’t tall, but they were wide. Weight lifters, the muscular shapes of their shoulders and arms notable, even through their winter coats.
“That’s no kinda polite,” thug number one said. “All those drinks and not even a hello?”
The woman, who had thrown on her long white coat and gathered her purse, turned to the man. “Hello,” she said. “And good-bye.”
“No, no, no.” They picked up their pace as she left the bar.
So did I. When I pushed through the door, the three of them were standing outside. One of them, the beefier one, was holding the lady’s arm by the biceps as she tried to yank it away.
“-your name,” he said. “Least you can do is tell me your name. I bought you all those drinks.”
“I didn’t tell you to buy me any drinks,” she protested. Her voice wasn’t so weak, after all. She seemed like someone who could take care of herself under normal circumstances.
“Just let her go,” said the second goombah.
“I’ll let her go when she tells me her name and thanks me for the drinks.”
All at once, everyone seemed to notice me. Maybe that’s because I cleared my throat really loudly. The woman caught my eyes. Both goons turned and looked at me. Our breath lingered in the frozen air. This is where the protocol called for me to de-escalate the situation.
“I’m the one who should be upset,” I said. “I sat there the whole night and you didn’t buy me a single cocktail.”
“This don’t concern you,” said the one holding the woman’s arm.
“A wine spritzer, something,” I said. “Throw me a bone.”
Goon number two squared off on me now. “How ’bout I throw you my fist?”
“Clever. Good comeback. Listen, fellas,” I said.
Don’t ask me why I do the things I do. As awkward as it was, my presence was eventually going to be enough to make them release this woman. And a smooth diplomat like me could have gotten these men on their way without fisticuffs. A lot of braggadocio and threats-face-saving-but not fisticuffs. The guy was too close for me to throw a punch, anyway.
So I threw him an elbow. I’m right-handed, but for some reason I can throw a stronger left elbow. Go figure. Like my brother’s a righty but swings a golf club lefty.
The elbow caught him in the soft part of the skull at the temple. I can’t take total credit for knocking him over, as there was a decent patch of ice on the sidewalk. Anyway, he lost his feet and fell hard on his left shoulder, and his head collided with the ice.
Maybe it’s unresolved aggression. Reliving my childhood or something. My mother always told me I couldn’t solve problems with my fists.
But like I said, it was an elbow.
“That had to hurt,” I said to the other goon. “I’m Jason, by the way. What’s your name?”
“Now, what’d you do that for?” said he. Sounded like a rhetorical question. He was playing it tough, but from
