was you took shit from everyone. You were your own worst enemy, and you fucked yourself every chance you got.
“It got to a point where no one would work with you anymore. So you gave up. You quit acting, and you worked your way through law school. You just got out a year ago. You went to work for the law firm of Wilson and Doyle. You handled one case for them. They fired you. You haven’t worked since.”
She stopped talking and just looked at him.
He sighed. “I see.”
“Is it true?”
“Yeah. It’s true. They fired me. You wanna know why?”
“No, but I know you’re dying to tell me.”
“Shit.”
“Go on. Tell me.”
“Forget it.”
“No. I’m sorry. Tell me.”
“Okay.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. “Well, it was my first case. A hit-and-run. An elderly man struck down at a crosswalk. The man accused of driving the car was our client. I wasn’t handling the case. I was just assigned to get experience. My job was to coordinate information for the real lawyer. Mainly to answer the phone and fetch coffee. I wasn’t supposed to do anything.
“Well, I found out the victim had regained consciousness and the police were going to drag our client up to the hospital to see if he could identify him. Well, you know what that means. Or maybe you don’t. But anyway, in a hit-and-run, nine times out of ten the victim never even saw the car coming. At best, he just caught a glimpse while trying to dive out of the way. But the police go to him and tell him they got the guy who hit him, but they want him to take a look to make sure. So when they drag the guy in there the victim usually identifies him without even stopping to think about it. After that, your client doesn’t stand a chance.”
He paused. “So?”
“So, I got a guy about our client’s age and description and rushed him down to the hospital before the police got there. Sure enough, the victim took one look at him and said, That’s the guy. So, when the police showed up fifteen minutes later with our client, the victim said, ‘Naw, that can’t be the guy. I just saw the guy who hit me and it wasn’t him.’“
She was looking at him with genuine interest. “So they fired you?”
He shrugged. “The police were pretty mad. They came down on Wilson and Doyle hard. Well, they should have backed me up-what I’d done might have been sharp practice, but it was perfectly legal. But they didn’t want to stand the flack, so they fired me. The irony is, because of what I’d done our client beat the rap.”
“Was he innocent?”
“How the hell should I know?” Steve said. “I’m a lawyer, not a judge and jury. My job is to present my client’s case in the best possible light. I do everything I can to prove him innocent. The prosecution does everything it can to prove him guilty. The jury decides. The minute I start trying to decide if a client’s innocent or guilty I’m violating that client’s right to a trial by jury.”
Sheila, quietly undercutting him, said, “Was he guilty?”
“He… uh… yeah, he was guilty, guilty as hell,” Steve said. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead.
She sat watching him. She was intrigued. She’d scored with the question, “Was he guilty?” She’d really gotten to him. She’d expected to get to him with the news she knew he’d been fired, but she hadn’t. It had bothered him, but not badly. Not like this. It was unexpected, and it was interesting.
“Did you know it?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Know what?”
“Did you know he was guilty?”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’d like to know.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my lawyer, and what happens to me depends on you, and I need to know how you work. Did you know he was guilty?”
He sighed. “I found out later. I didn’t know at the time.”
“What do you mean at the time?”
“When I did it. Pulled the stunt. I believed the story, what the other lawyers on the case told me. The guy was innocent, the cops had gotten the wrong man, and were trying to force an identification. It’s an old line. Only I was the one who swallowed it.”
“Would you have done it if you’d known?”
“Hell, no.” Steve rubbed his head. “But I was stupid. I read it wrong. I thought it was a case of an innocent man being wronged. It wasn’t. It was a case of some rich son of a bitch hiring a bunch of high-priced lawyers to try to get himself out of a mess. And I helped. Like a damn fool, I helped. It’s kind of funny, really. My one act as a lawyer, and what did it do? It got me fired, it let some rich bastard beat the rap, and it earned good old Wilson and Doyle a whopping big fee.”
Sheila was looking at him closely. “You wouldn’t have done it if you’d known he was guilty?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yeah. You did. Are you telling me you wouldn’t defend me if you thought I was guilty?”
“I wasn’t telling you that, no.”
“But you wouldn’t, would you?”
“No.”
“What would you do?”
“If I thought you were guilty? I’d withdraw from the case.”
“Well,” she said, sarcastically. “Isn’t that just fine. Here you are, defending me, and any time things start to look a little black, you can just decide I’m guilty and walk away.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Because you’re innocent.”
“Oh, you’ve decided that, have you? Of course you have, or you wouldn’t have taken the case. Well, that’s just great. And just why are you so sure I’m innocent?”
The needling was getting to him. “I’ll tell you why,” he snapped. “Because of what I told you before. Because you’re a shrewd, calculating, manipulative woman. Because, whatever else you are, you’re not dumb. Now, I wouldn’t put it past you to have killed this guy-you might have done it-but not like that. It’s too stupid. You kill him in your apartment with your knife after taking his blackmail letter to the police, and you haven’t even thought up a decent story to tell. All you say is, ‘I don’t know who he is, I don’t know what he’s doing here, I don’t know who killed him.’ I mean, hell, you’re either the stupidest murderer that ever lived, or else you’re innocent.”
“Oh, great,” she said. “That’s why you think I’m innocent. That I couldn’t be that stupid. Not that you have any confidence in me.”
“Confidence in you?” he said. “Hell, you change your story every time I talk to you. You really inspire confidence.” Suddenly he felt very tired. “All right, that’s the story. That’s the way things are. Now you know the whole thing. And you know where we stand. So it’s up to you. You want to fire me?”
She looked at him. “If I do, it means the end of your law practice, doesn’t it?”
He smiled mirthlessly. “I have no law practice. At least I’ll be twenty-five grand to the good.”
“No, you won’t. Uncle Max will stop payment on the check.”
He shook his head. “Don’t kid yourself. I cashed that check the minute his bank opened this morning.”
She smiled. “You know, you’re not as dumb as you look.”
28
