track.
“Well, give me a ring sometime.”
“I will,” I call after her, deciding to break my selfimposed vow not to go out with women as young as Amy. Since they haven’t exactly been lining up outside the house, it has been an easy pledge to keep. I decide to go home, though I’ve hardly worked out. If she compares me with some of the guys circling the track, she could easily change her mind.
After a shower I put on a pair of pants and a T-shirt and call a much younger classmate who graduated law school with me from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Barton Sanders is the only lawyer I know in Fayetteville.
Most graduates migrate to the center of the state, but Bar ton moved to Fayetteville to take advantage of a real estate operation that was already thriving under his father-in-law. Rich and well connected. Barton is a dye ding-the-wool Hog fan and may be able to help me jump start this case if he is willing. Though we are not close, we were friends in law school and I have been by to see him a couple of times since Sarah has been in school at
Fayetteville. His wife calls him to the phone, and I tell him I am representing Dade Cunningham.
“No shit?” Barton exclaims, his voice high and reedy as usual.
“That’s incredible!”
I ask him to fill me in on what he has heard. Although he is excited to be in the loop, it turns out he doesn’t know much more than Roy Cunningham.
“It’s like there’s a news blackout at the university-while they stew about this thing. The girl’s father is a big Baptist,” he says, supplying me with one fact I didn’t have.
“Lots of money. The girl is a looker, too. Have you seen any games this year?”
“Only the one in Little Rock,” I answer, delighted there have been no announcements that Dade has been suspended. The fact is things have been so slow lately that I haven’t really been able to afford the trips this year to Fayetteville, but I don’t let Barton know it.
“Do you have any idea how well Coach Carter would react to a phone call from me? I want to slow this down before they make any decisions that would be hard to reverse.”
“Let me make some calls, and I’ll find out,” Barton volunteers.
“I know a couple of guys who know him pretty well. Carter’s the type of guy who might be willing to talk about this, but I bet he’s getting a lot of pressure from the higher-ups to drop him from the team. The old do-right rule. With all the crap in the past, this is a real PR problem for the school.”
“I know,” I concede, “but Cunningham’s the difference between the Sugar Bowl and another .500 season. All I want to do is talk to Carter. I’ve read that he sticks up for the players.” Years earlier Dale Carter had brought Houston a couple of almost undefeated seasons but had a problem with the bottle and got run off. He dried out and had been coaching quarterbacks with a number of teams when Jack Burke, the Razorbacks’ athletic director, tapped him in the spring to revive the team after a number of bad seasons.
“He does,” Barton agrees.
“In his interviews, he always says he knows what it’s like to be down. I’ll see if I can get his number. It’s probably unlisted.”
“Thanks, Barton,” I say.
“I appreciate it.”
“I’m always glad to help a real lawyer,” Barton says slavishly.
“Barton, you make more in a day than I make in a month,” I remind him. Barton (who was advised by our trial advocacy professor not even to try crossexamining a dead dog because he got so flustered in class), has the kind of mind that can trace a chain of title practically without pencil and paper. I could have five computers working night and day and never get a parcel of land back further than three owners without becoming hopelessly confused. The last time I saw him he had on a Rolex and a gold ring that ought to be locked up in Fort Knox. The metal on my body couldn’t even buy me lunch.
“Don’t kid me, Gideon,” he says.
“I read about you in the papers. You’re the real thing.”
Why discourage him? If he wants to believe what he sees on the tube, that’s his problem.
“Whatever you can find out,” I say, “I’ll be in your debt.”
“No problem,” he says, his voice rushing on to another topic.
“Here’s something that might help. Did you notice this case was actually filed by the assistant prosecuting attorney, a kid by the name of Mike Cash? Our prosecutor is on vacation for three weeks in the wilds of Canada.
There’s a feeling that Mike should have waited until Binkie Cross got back in town to bring this kind of charge. There’s a rumor going around he has a sister who was raped and he’s got an itchy trigger finger when he comes to that kind of crime.”
This is welcome news. There is nothing to say that a charge can’t be dismissed. I thank him and hang up so he can get on the phone. While I’m waiting, I call Sarah to let her know I’ll be coming up tomorrow. She answers on the fifth ring and sounds sleepy. It is only seven-thirty.
She shouldn’t be tired this early on a Tuesday.
“What’s wrong, babe?” I ask.
“You sound exhausted.” I try to imagine her room. Unless she has improved her house keeping, there are more clothes on the floor than in her closet. At least she is living in a dorm. Apartments are nothing but trouble. The year I lived in one at Fayetteville my grades dropped a full letter.
“I’m fine. Daddy,” she says, yawning audibly.
“I had a math test yesterday and stayed up late. I was just taking a nap so I won’t be sleepy later on.”
Damn, what is going to happen that she has to take a nap for? I know I shouldn’t ask. If she doesn’t want me to know, I couldn’t dynamite it out of her.
“You have a party to go to in the middle of the week?” I yelp, knowing I sound stupid and old.
There is silence on the other end.
“It’s not a big deal,” she says finally.
“I was just leaving.”
So make it quick. Dad. I look down at Woogie, who is curled up on the cool linoleum. He isn’t giving me the bum’s rush.
“How was your test?”
“It was hard,” she admits.
College algebra. I made a “D” in it almost thirty years ago at Fayetteville. An excellent student otherwise, Sarah has unfortunately inherited my math brains.
“Hang in there,” I advise.
“And don’t get behind.” The pearls of wisdom are really dropping tonight. I get to the point of why I called.
“I’m coming to Fayetteville tomorrow to interview a client. Do you know Dade Cunningham?”
“Dad!” Sarah shrieks into the phone.
“You’re representing him?”
“His uncle is James Cunningham, who lives down the street,” I explain.
“I just talked to Dade’s father about an hour ago. Do you know Dade?”
“This is so weird!” Sarah wails.
“You’re really going to be his lawyer?”
“Is it going to cause you any problems?” I ask. My daughter has never reconciled herself to the way I pay her bills. She concedes that in the abstract criminal defense work is a necessary evil, but like most people, she believes that once someone is actually charged with a crime, the only worthwhile thing left to do in the case is to figure out the length of the prison term. I should have realized Sarah wouldn’t be too thrilled about my taking this case. A kid goes off to school to get away from her parents, and here I am popping up again.
“I guess not,” she says, her voice sounding even more tired than when we began the conversation.
“I’ve seen him at pep rallies and stuff like that. He was in my west em civ class last year. I know him well enough to say “Hi,” but that’s all.”
