they used to rewrite their history. Dade never existed. I wanted him to be a character witness at Dade’s hearing, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“The pressure on coaches must be enormous,” Clan says, taking up for him.
“He probably had done all he could do for Dade.”
“Shit! If they’re winning, they can get away with murder.”
My phone rings. Julia tells me it is Binkie Cross, calling from Fayetteville. I give Clan the thumbs-up sign, and pushing the button on the speakerphone, I tell Julia to put him through. This could be good news.
“Binkie Cross, Gideon,” Binkie says, wasting no time on pleasantries.
“I’d like Dade to take a polygraph. If he passes, I really might be able to see my way to a dismissal.”
Polygraph tests aren’t admissible in court in Arkansas unless both sides agree. Yet, law enforcement types use them frequently to weed out suspects. Clan nods. What does Dade have to lose? I ask, “Has Robin taken one?”
“Her parents are balking at it,” Binkie admits.
“They think it’s an insult. I understand their feelings, but if your client were to pass with flying colors, and she still won’t take it, it’d be a lot easier to justify a dismissal.”
Damn right it would, Clan mouths the words.
“Let me talk to him,” I say, “and get back to you. It might take a couple of days. I’ll have to talk to his parents, too.”
“No big rush,” Binkie says.
“Just give me a call, and I’ll set it up.”
“I’ll do it.” Before he gets off the phone, he tells me he has subpoenaed the tape of the “J” Board hearing and will provide me a copy of the transcript when it has been typed. I look down at the calendar on my desk. Though it promises to be a gorgeous, mild Indian summer day, we are into the second week of November. Still, the trial is almost two months away. I thank him and hang up, thinking this is about as good an offer as Dade is going to get “If he dismisses charges, the school might reverse itself and put Dade back on the team,” Clan points out.
“It’d be worth a shot.”
I pick up the phone and call Dade but as usual get his answering machine. I leave a message for him to call me as soon as he gets in. Because he has only been suspended for the rest of the season, he is still being allowed to keep his athletic scholarship and live in the dorm. Actually, the university could have been a lot tougher on him. Before Clan leaves, I ask, “You’re not still screwing Gina, are you?”
Standing at my door, he nods like some three-mont hold puppy who has been caught standing in his water dish.
“It’s not really like you think,” he says.
“She’s fun to be around. I’m crazy about her.”
How foolish and pathetic we are!
“She’ll give you AIDS, goddamn it, ClanI” I yell at him.
“You may be exposing Brenda, too! Are you crazy?”
Embarrassed, Clan mutters something under his breath and scurries out the door. I shake my head at his back. I don’t think he and Gina are spending their time trying to figure out ways to solve the national debt. Yet, if I were married to Brenda, I’d have trouble going home, too.
At noon, as I am about to go downstairs to lunch, I get a coquettish call from Julia telling me I have a visitor.
She won’t say more, and I go out to the waiting room fully expecting to see Amy. Instead, it is my old girl friend Rainey McCorkle.
“Gideon, I wouldn’t be asking you to help this client,” Rainey says, two minutes later, leaning against my desk on her elbows, “if it weren’t so terrible where she is required to stay right now. Confederate Gardens is driving her crazy.”
Though we haven’t seen each other in months, we still talk occasionally. I notice, not without satisfaction, there is more gray in her red hair. She has lost weight, too, and even seems a little gaunt, her skin tight against her jaw. I can’t help comparing her to Amy, who usually can’t help flirting even if she is discussing the weather. Rainey is far more serious. There is something to be said for youth.
“I take it she is crazy,” I comment. Confederate Gardens is a big boardinghouse-like facility that provides care for individuals released from the state hospital.
“She’s in good shape,” Rainey says, sounding like a car salesman.
“She’s got a fixed delusion that Bill Clin ton owes her some money, but that’s all. She doesn’t act on it, and other than that, she’s as normal as you are.”
That’s not saying much. I resist drumming my fingers on my desk.
“Wonderful. She’s threatened the President of the United States. She’s lucky to be out of the state hospital. The Secret Service has a file on her the size of a telephone book.”
Rainey, persistent as a bad cold, shakes her head.
“The incident happened when he was governor. All she did was show up at the Mansion and try to speak to him.” She looks down at some notes in her lap.
“She was arrested and found not guilty by reason of insanity and was conditionally released by Judge Blake last November and ordered to live in Confederate Gardens. I just want you to go out there with me, and you’ll see why it’s so inappropriate for her.”
While she talks, it is hard to keep certain memories at bay. Though in all the time that we dated we never made love, we had some delicious make-out sessions on her couch. It seemed as if we had regressed to being teenagers but the desire I felt I remember more than actual intercourse with other women before her.
“So you want me to go to court with her,” I ask, “and try to get her conditional release amended to let her move?”
“Not just that. Amended to allow her to try to get a job, too. Her conditional release says she has to go to a day treatment program every day. They sit and stare at each other all day. It’s a total waste,” Rainey says bitterly.
I smile at this familiar refrain. I first met Rainey when I was with the public defender’s office, which had the job of representing patients in involuntary commitment proceedings She thought the Blackwell County community mental health center was a joke and never hesitated to tell me so. Instead of helping persons with mental illness to find decent places to live and jobs, they wasted millions of dollars pushing paper around.
“Does she have a job history?” I ask.
“She was a respiratory therapist at St. Thomas for five years.”
I never even saw Rainey nude. The day she found out she had a lump in her breast she spent the night in my bed, but with me on the couch. How strange our relation ship was! I thought she was perfect for me. So did Sarah.
“I suppose she had a big pension plan,” I say sarcastically.
Rainey says, “I’ll pay her fee.”
“I’ll do it for nothing,” I say grudgingly.
“You don’t have any money.” I remember the day Mays amp; Burton fired me, and she, with her modest state salary and a kid in college, offered to loan me money. Rainey would have done anything for me except make love.
For the first time Rainey smiles.
“I’ll buy you a yogurt if you get her out of Confederate Gardens.”
“Whoopee,” I say, and twirl the index finger of my right hand in the air. Rainey was never much of a drinker, and her idea of a hot date was to drive to Turbo’s for a kiddie cup of sorbet and white chocolate mousse swirled together.
“Can you go see her now with me?” Rainey asks. She never stops pushing when she wants something.
“You can follow me to the hospital and drive us over. It’s only a few minutes from there.”
I look at my watch.
“Sure,” I say. Maybe we can go to lunch afterward. I don’t have a client coming in until four.
“You don’t come out here by yourself?” I ask Rainey, when we pull up front. Confederate Gardens is not
