not as if he doesn’t know the client.
“Gideon,” Steve Huddleston says, his baritone voice not quite as low over the phone, “I thought I better get in touch with you. I can’t find anything specifically on reactions of small children to the sort of situation you described.”
Damn. I look at Clan and shake my head. I would have figured that with as much useless research as is cranked out in this country some academic psychologist would have zeroed in on this area, given all the attention to child abuse nowadays.
“What do you suggest?” I say glumly.
Gina Whitehall had better start preparing for a criminal trial. If her kid dies, she will be charged with murder.
I listen to Steve clear his throat and watch Clan draw a finger across his own. He ought to be handling this case.
Steve says, “If you’d like, I’d be willing to testify generally about the problem-solving ability of a child this age.
The fact is that a two and a half year old wouldn’t necessarily be able to figure out that she could escape the pain of the hot water by climbing out of the tub. The literature shows by that age a child just doesn’t have the reasoning ability, and I imagine the panic a child would feel wouldn’t improve it any either.”
Clan waggles his jowls at me in approval.
“You realize the client can’t afford to pay you an expert witness fee,” I say, making sure I’m not going to be hit with a bill down the road.
“All I want is a subpoena,” he says, “so I won’t have to take a vacation day.”
Spoken like a true state employee.
“No problem.” I smile, watching Clan pop another peanut into his mouth.
I’ll get him a subpoena, but I suspect I’ll forget about the statutory fee of thirty dollars. After all, he’ll still be receiving his salary from the state.
“Can you be prepared to back that statement up with some research?”
“That’ll be simple enough,” Steve says, sounding pleased to be part of this. Some professors love to testify.
“Do you want me to bring it?”
“Just know it,” I say. The Department of Human Services won’t be prepared to rebut it. There is no sense letting their attorney pick it apart. I give him the date and time and tell him I will be calling him back to go over it Thursday afternoon.
“Where do you find these guys?” Clan asks, genuine admiration in his voice.
“People like to help. You forget I worked for the state for years as a child abuse investigator. You get to know all kinds of folks. Let’s go,” I say, feeling a little better.
This doesn’t mean we’ll win, but at least I’ll have something to argue to the judge.
Clan looks sheepish as he says, “I can’t make it.”
I had a feeling he would wimp out on me. I ask, “Why the hell not?”
“I guess I feel too weird,” he says, looking down at the floor.
“I slept with Gina once at her apartment.”
I look at Clan in disbelief.
“You’re shitting me.”
Dan’s eyes dart around the room, landing everywhere but on my face.
“That’s a hell of a thing to do, isn’t it?”
I try to conjure up the scene: a fat, middle-aged, balding lawyer dropping his trousers to bed down a farm- girl whore who paid his fee with a screw. Now I understand better why he dropped her on me.
“Where was the kid?” I ask, wondering if my client’s child could have been playing in the tub and was burned while Clan was busy with her mother. I feel disgust creeping over me like a dirty fog.
“Day care, I think,” Clan says, his face red with embarrassment.
“I only did it once, but I still feel like an asshole about it.”
I think of the girl: except for her eyes, as uninteresting as a digital clock. I feel sorry for her, but Clan is my friend, and I feel worse for him. Brenda must be giving him hell to drive him to a whore, but he is possibly exposing her to AIDS.
“Did you use a rubber?”
“Two,” Clan says, breaming hard.
“I couldn’t feel a thing.”
“I’ve heard that’s more dangerous,” I say coldly, “because they break that way.”
Clan looks miserable.
“You know, if she reported me to the ethics people, they’d probably jerk my license for this one.”
I stand up, embarrassed for my friend. It hasn’t been too many months since Clan pleaded guilty in municipal court to shoplifting fifty cents’ worth of food.
“Lawyers have done a lot worse than snitched a Twinkie or bartered their fee,” I say loyally, putting the best spin I can on Dan’s activities.
Clan stands and waddles over to the door.
“That’s what’s pathetic about me. I’m so damn petty.”
Awkwardly, I clap him on the shoulder as he goes out ahead of me.
“No,” I say, turning out the light and locking the door, “your problem is you’re so damn human.”
Walking toward his office with his head down, he mutters, “In my case, I don’t see there’s a difference.”
I head down the hall for the elevators, thinking that at least Clan has the guts to admit it and the decency to be ashamed. The older we get, the crazier we become. At the front desk, Julia pops a bubble when I tell her I’m going to Gina’s house.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she says, checking her tiny lips in a compact mirror for remains of the explosion.
Don’t tell me that, I think. Julia is wearing a conservative and even elegant dark green paisley dress, but the top two buttons of her blouse are undone, revealing the top of a black lacy bra underneath.
“Maybe I’d be safer,” I say, smiling at the outrageous pretense that we are civilized, “if I didn’t do anything you would do.”
Julia makes a face but doesn’t respond. It is rare that I get the last word. As I stand before the elevators, smugly I glance back at her. She has made a circle with her right thumb and forefinger, and with her left index finger she moves it back and forth through the 0 she has formed, all the while shaking her head. A female client for one of the other attorneys on our floor is seated a few feet away from her desk and is watching Julia with a look of utter amazement. Is this really a law firm?
A light rain has begun to fall, further darkening my mood. I hope the weather clears before I return to Fayetteville on Wednesday for Dade to give Binkie a statement. The euphoria from the Alabama game has already begun to fade, and the question uppermost in my mind is how long it will take the university administration to re view the “J” Board’s decision. If I could get Binkie to drop the criminal charges against Dade, surely that would influence their decision. Dade is doing his part: the Hogs have jumped to fourth in the UPI Poll and fifth in the AP.
We play Auburn, ranked third in both polls, Saturday, and a win, if both Florida and Notre Dame lose, should put us on top. Surely the vice-chancellor and the chancellor are feeling some heat to let Dade finish the season when he is so clearly central to our chances. There isn’t a person in the state who didn’t feel the excitement when the Razorbacks won their first NCAA basketball championship.
With Clinton taking what seems to be a daily pounding by the media, it is about the only thing in the state to feel good about.
On 1-640 heading east I pass a billboard and see beaming down at me a slutty but expensive-looking model advertising pantyhose and think again of Julia’s parting gesture. No wonder women are cynical. They expect the worst from men and with good reason. We are the ones who commit the rapes, the murders, the never ending garden-variety domestic beatings that seldom get reported.
