'I'll check to see about the money. But you're going to have to prove you can deliver.'
'That's fair. Oh, and there's something else to sweeten the pot.'
'What's that?' Jack Stamm asked.
'Not what, who.'
'Who, then?'
Deems grinned broadly. He paused to savor the moment.
Then he asked Stamm and Paladino, 'How would you like to know who iced Supreme Court Justice Robert Griffen?'
'All work and no play makes Tracy a dull girl,' Barry Frame said from the doorway of the office law library.
'Don't I know it,' Tracy said, looking up from the case she was reading.
Barry sat down next to Tracy at the long polished oak conference table that took up the center of the room. Around them were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with Oregon and federal statutes and cases.
'It's after eight, you know.'
Tracy looked at her watch.
'And I bet you haven't eaten dinner.'
'You win.'
'How about some That food?'
'I don't know . . .' Tracy stared at the stack of law books in front of her.
Frame smiled and shook his head. 'He's really got you going, doesn't he?'
'No it's just '
'I bet he gave you his 'If you work for me, you won't sleep right, you won't eat right' speech.'
Tracy's mouth opened in astonishment, then she grinned sheepishly.
'He gives that speech to all the new associates and everybody falls for it. He even had me going for a while, but I wised up. Just because Matt practices what he preaches, that doesn't mean you have to become a machine. Whatever you're working on can wait until tomorrow. You won't be able to write your memo if you die of malnutrition.'
'I guess I am a little hungry.'
'So?'
'So take me to this That place. But we go Dutch.'
'I wouldn't have it any other way.'
Outside, the night air was warm, but not oppressive. Tracy stretched and looked up at the sky. There was a quarter moon and a sprinkling of stars. In the hills that towered over downtown Portland, the house lights looked like giant fireflies.
'Is the restaurant close enough to walk? I need the exercise.'
'It's about seven blocks. No sweat for someone who placed in the NCAA cross-country championships.'
'How did you know that?'
'Matt has me read the resums he receives.'
'Oh. Did you read the one I sent about six months ago?'
'Yup.'
'Why didn't I get an interview?'
'You're a broad,' Frame joked. 'For what it's worth, I told him he was a jerk for ignoring you, but the Sorcerer's got no use for women. I couldn't believe it when he hired you. Justice Forbes must have made some pitch.'
'Why did you call Mr. Reynolds the Sorcerer?'
'Three years ago, Matt won that acquittal at Marcus Herrera's retrial.
Time did a cover story and called him the Sorcerer because everyone was saying that only a magician could save Herrera. He hated it.'
'I think it's romantic.'
'It's also accurate. There are a lot of people who owe their lives to Matt's ' ' magic.
'Why do you think he's so successful?'
'It's simple. Matthew Reynolds is smarter than anyone he's ever faced.'
Tracy thought about that for a moment. Matthew Reynolds was smart, but there were a lot of smart lawyers. If someone had asked her the question she had just posed to Barry, Tracy would have emphasized the hours Reynolds devoted to his cases. She had never met anyone who worked harder at any job.
'What drives him, Barry? What makes him push himself the way he does?'
'Do you know about his father?' Barry asked.
'Mr. Reynolds mentioned him during my interview. It sounds like he loves him very much.'
'Loved. Oscar Reynolds was executed at the state penitentiary in Columbia, South Carolina, when Matt was eight years old. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of rape and murder.'
'My God!'
'Two years later, another man confessed to the crime.
'Matt doesn't talk about it, for obvious reasons. His mother had a nervous breakdown when Matt's dad was sentenced to prison. She committed suicide a week after the execution. Matt stayed in a series of foster homes until a distant relative took him in. He never talks about what happened there, but I think it was pretty bad.'
Tracy felt she should say something, but she could not think of anything even remotely appropriate. What Barry had just told her was too enormous. And it certainly explained all of the questions she had about Reynolds's fanatic devotion to his cause.
Tracy tried to imagine what life must have been like for eightyear-old Matthew Reynolds, growing up with a mother who committed suicide, a father who was executed for a sex crime and murder and a disfiguring birthmark that would be an easy target for the cruelty of children.
'He must have been so alone,' Tracy said.
'He's still alone. I'm probably the closest thing he has to a friend.'
Barry paused. They walked together in silence, because Barry was obviously struggling with what he wanted to say and Tracy sensed it was important enough to wait to hear.
'There's another reason Matt's so successful,' Barry said finally.
'Other lawyers have a life outside the law. Matt's life is the law. And I'm not exaggerating. He literally has no interests outside of his job, except maybe his correspondence chess. I think the real world has been so unbearably cruel to him that he uses the law as a place to hide, a place where he can feel safe.
'Think about it. It's like his chess. There are rules of law, and he knows every damn one of them. In the courtroom, the rules protect him from harm. He can bury himself in his cases and pretend that nothing but his cases exist.
'And as a lawyer, he's needed. Hell, he's the only friend some of his clients have ever had.'
Barry looked down and they walked in silence again. Tracy waited for him to talk about his boss some more, so she could better understand him. Instead, Barry suddenly asked, 'Do you still run?'
'What?'
'I asked if you still run.'
'I've been getting in a workout on the weekends,' Tracy answered distractedly, finding it hard to switch to this innocuous topic after what she had just learned. 'I'm lucky if I get out at all during the week.'
'How far do you go?'
'Seven, eight miles. Just enough to keep the old heart and lungs going.'
'What's your pace?'
'I'm doing six-and-a-half-minute miles.'
'Mind if I join you sometime?'
Tracy hesitated. She wasn't sure if Frame wanted a workout partner or a date. Then she decided it didn't matter. It was more fun running with someone than running alone. Frame was a good-looking guy and she wasn't seeing anyone. She would go with the flow.
'I used to run after work on weekdays back in the good old days. But now I run before work, which means before dawn, when I can, and on the weekends.'
