answer about a client. The preservation of ambiguity has almost irresistible appeal in our line of work.
I finally suggested, “It doesn’t exactly fit with my view of him.”
“Now that’s enlightening.”
“Look… he just doesn’t fit.”
“You can be very annoying.”
“Okay, for those who need lengthy explanations, Morrison doesn’t fit the crime.” Ticking down my fingers, I added, “He’s a pathologically ambitious prick. He’s an oily bastard and an inveterate bully. But a traitor? I could be wrong, but they’ve got the right kind of man for the wrong kind of crime.”
“Trying to cram an oval into a round hole?”
“That works for me.”
“Did you attend the wedding?”
“Damn it, what is it with you?”
She looked down her nose. “It was a perfectly innocent question. Am I missing something here?”
Innocent, my ass. I replied, “Why do you want to know?”
“Until a minute ago, it was idle curiosity. Now I’m wondering if there’s a tar pit here.”
“There’s no tar pit here. I was invited, but, uh, I… I was too busy to attend.”
“Too busy?”
“Exactly.”
“Not too bothered? Too busy?”
“I was in Panama, helping track down some asshole named Noriega.”
“You’re serious?”
“The wedding invitation was in my P.O. box when I returned from the war. It’d been sent a month before.”
She said, “Boy, that sucks.” And she was right; it did suck. Then she asked, “Would you have gone?”
The woman was like a dog with a bone. Stubbornness can be a virtue. At the right place and time, it can also be a king-size pain in the ass.
Anyway, the right and proper thing to say, obviously, was, Well, yes, absolutely. All’s fair in love and war, and so forth. I wouldn’t have sat in a front-row pew, where I could hear their lips smack when the preacher got to that “man and wife” part: I would’ve been there, though, the classic good sport, rooting for the bride and wishing her everlasting love and happiness with the idiot she chose.
I was fairly certain that lie wouldn’t sell, however.
“I don’t know,” I said, and tried my best to sound convincing, while sensing from her expression that I was wasting my time.
Having squeezed more out of that response than I wanted her to, she asked, “Can you adequately defend him?”
“I won’t know that until we hear the full charges and see the evidence.”
“Nice try. Deal with your compatibility issues.”
“Oh… that. Yes, I can represent him.”
She sipped quietly from her coffee and let that one drop off a cliff. I said, “Can you adequately defend him?”
“It’s going to be a challenge. This whole world of the Army and espionage is completely foreign. I’ve been handling street criminals.”
“And what makes you think this is different?”
“It is different.”
“Why?”
“The people I’ve been defending have miserable, hopeless lives. I come from the street and can get into their heads. People who work in espionage are different.”
“Not really. Just think greed, larceny, jealousy.” I smiled and added, “And since we’re delving into my personal life, what about yours?”
“What about it?”
“You’re what-twenty-nine and still single?”
“And you’re what-thirty-nine and still single?”
“In the event you’re not aware of it, age is irrelevant with guys.”
For some reason, this struck her as hilarious. She slapped the pillow and nearly choked to death. “You’re a piece of work.”
My smile widened. “I just want to know who I’m working with.” Okay, I know. It sounded lame even to me.
She smirked and said, “Then let me help. Do I have a boyfriend? No. Have I ever? A few. Am I desperately seeking? Not. Did I miss anything?”
Like I needed this. “No. That’s fine, thank you.”
“Maybe you want a description of what I’m looking for?”
“Fine. What are you looking for?”
“Definitely not some chest-thumping meathead who spends his weekends knocking down six-packs and screaming obnoxious things at the football jocks on his TV. Masculine, but the right kind of masculine-the kind that knows the difference between a flute and a piccolo.”
This sounded more like a dickless canary than a man to me, although I do know the difference between a flute and piccolo: Spelling.
She continued, “Good-looking… but the right sort. California beach boys are a turnoff. Back hair is a turnoff. I’m inclined toward the dark-haired, worldly, charming types.”
Now she was talking. Mouton Cadet, ’67, anybody?
I suggested, “And now I suppose you want to know what I’m looking for?”
“I already know.” She glanced in the direction of the fireplace and said, “Our client’s wife.”
That didn’t even dignify a reply, but I gave her a finger in the air anyway.
We moved on to researching the cases of the Walkers, Ames, and Hanssen. The ever-resourceful Imelda had found a trove of material that covered everything from the trial procedures to some well-written synopses of the strategies used by the prosecutors and the defense. In separate folders were materials on the Wen Ho Lee case, which were vastly more hopeful, from our perspective, since the defense slipped the willie to the prosecutor for the whole world to see. But then, there were distinct differences between the Lee case and ours-like our defendant was white and couldn’t accuse anybody of racial discrimination; he didn’t have a charming daughter to run around and hold free-my-daddy rallies; and in Lee’s case, when forced to put up or shut up, the government suddenly coughed a few times, looked mortified, and admitted it had caught a fairly severe case of evidence deprivation. If O’Neil and Golden were to be believed, the government’s dilemma regarding our case wasn’t an evidence shortfall but a swamp so vast and murky that an army of attorneys could barely slog through it.
By midnight, drool was spilling out my lips. I stretched and mumbled, “I’ve got to get some sleep.”
Katrina’s beaded nose was stuffed in a big folder. The girl had endurance, having been in the office at six that morning and she was still going like a choo-choo eighteen hours later, while my gas gauge bounced off empty.
In my bedroom I slipped out of my clothes and was asleep almost immediately. I’m a light sleeper, however. The problem with old Army quarters is creaky stairs, as well as a complete absence of modern insulation and noise abatement buffers. At three-thirty, I heard her footsteps on the stairs. I alternately cursed and prayed she’d move her skinny ass a little faster and then rush through her ablutions and let me get on with my sleep.
Then I swore I heard cabinets opening and shutting downstairs. I quietly slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the door. I paused to briefly consider my quandary. Definitely there were at least two different sets of noises out there, possibly three. I needed to see why, although sneaking quietly down those stairs was out of the question.
I chose the other way and plunged down so fast that I nearly tripped over my own feet. And at the base of the stairs, that was exactly what happened. Sort of. I flew through the air and crashed face first into a wall. Except I hadn’t tripped. Something had shoved my back and helped me along.
I recovered my senses and spun around just in time to get a hard, booted kick in the center of my chest. I made a loud “ooof” sound and sank to my ass on the floor. The lights were out but I saw a large figure looming over me.
