carved out of granite like a character on Mount Rushmore. The suit he was wearing was expensive, but I think he sent his larger brother in for the fitting.
The similarity that struck me deeply was in the way their bearing left no doubt of the immensity of their character. Other men, taller men, had seemed like pygmies in the company of Mr. O’Connor. I was getting waves of a similar sensation in the presence of Mr. Devlin.
The man was not given to social preliminaries. I restrained a slight jump when that voice that reverberated off of courtroom walls caught me dead on.
“You’ve accepted the defense of young Bradley. Why?”
That was a question I still hadn’t answered for myself.
“Judge Bradley put the request in a way that was hard to turn down, Mr. Devlin. I don’t honestly know why he picked me.”
“He didn’t pick you.” He spun the heavy leather desk chair around and dropped into it. “He was after me. Now he’s got me.”
“Mr. Devlin, there was no mention…”
“You’re three jumps behind, Sonny. You wear the firm name. This case is going to get more space in the Boston Herald than the Kennedys. Amos Bradley is no fool. He knew I’d be drawn into it.”
It had the ring of logic, and it answered the question I’d had since I left Judge Bradley’s chambers-why pick a rookie when there are a handful of seasoned all-stars ready to take the bat? Still…
“If he wanted you for defense counsel, Mr. Devlin, and I don’t doubt that he did, couldn’t he have just asked you?”
“No. He knows I’m out of criminal work. I wouldn’t touch it, even for him.” I saw his shoulders drop a bit, and I saw something in his eyes that I still can’t fathom. “I guess I’m back in it. Let’s get to work.”
He grabbed a yellow pad and pen with an energy that made me wonder if it was totally against his will. I wondered if something had flowed through the old fighter when he’d heard one more bell.
“Let me have the indictment and the coroner’s report. I assume you got them immediately.”
My right fist clenched behind the chair at the accuracy of my first instincts. The celebration was short-lived. I handed over the copy of the indictment that was still in my suit-coat pocket.
“The DA said she’ll send the coroner’s report as soon as it’s ready.”
His eyes were back on me like a microscope.
“That’s twice you let yourself be taken advantage of today, sonny. Don’t keep up that average if you’re going to work around me.”
He grabbed the phone and punched numbers into it. I came around and sat in the chair I’d been gripping. If he hadn’t invited me to sit down, at least he hadn’t forbidden it.
“This is Lex Devlin. Let me speak to Mrs. Lamb.”
There was a pause, but not a long one. Even the queen DA responded when the king summoned.
“Angela, this is Lex Devlin. I’m entering the defense of young Bradley.”
I’d have traded tickets to Fenway Park for the final game of the World Series to see that grin drop from her lips when she realized that the Perkins School for the Blind was being augmented by the Boston Celtics. There was no audible comeback.
“I’d like you to fax the coroner’s report and a full set of pictures. I’ll need them immediately.”
She apparently saw no advantage in playing snooker with the master, because whatever she said equaled “yes.”
I noticed that Mr. Devlin cut the good-byes to a minimum and rang off without broaching the subject of a plea bargain before he had enough evidence to deal from a position of strength. I absorbed the lesson without necessarily mentioning that the count of my day’s miscalculations was up to three.
“How did you know she had it already?”
Mr. Devlin looked up over the half-glasses that were still focused on the indictment.
“Learn fast, sonny. This graduate course is going to be brief. This case is going to set all of Chinatown on end. That means City Hall’s interested. You’ve got the son of a black judge not everyone wants on the Supreme Judicial Court for a defendant. That’ll get the bar on edge. Believe me, sonny, that coroner’s report was on her desk by midnight.”
He pulled off the glasses and gave me the full look. He held up the indictment.
“How’d you ask for this? I bet you walked right into her office like a piece of raw steak.”
He won the bet.
“Don’t. She’s too powerful on her own turf. Catch her on neutral ground, like outside of a courtroom.”
“Yes, sir. I notice you called her in her office. That’s not the same thing?”
He put the glasses back on, but not before I caught something in his eyes. Associates generally stop at “Yes, sir.”
“I can. You can’t. Not for a lot of years, sonny.”
He read the indictment while I absorbed one of life’s realities. He threw it back to me.
“Start a file. This is straight premeditated murder. She’s going for the full penalty. What have they got?”
“Judge Bradley says they have two witnesses from the Chinese community that can identify him. They say they saw him shoot the victim.”
“And what does he say?”
“He says he had dinner across the street at the Ming Tree restaurant on Tyler Street. He walked over to see the lion. They have a cloth lion with three or four men under it…”
“I know. I’ve seen it. What’d he do?”
“He says he watched the lion approach the Chinese grocery store across from the restaurant. He was about ten yards from the building. Firecrackers going off all over the place. It got too loud, so he left. He was arrested a few blocks away. He didn’t even know there was a shooting.”
He leaned back in the squeaking chair. I saw the Globe on a table to the side open to the conclusion of Mike Loftus’s article. I assumed he knew as much as I did about the second-story location of the old man when he was shot.
“We need to talk to those witnesses. The DA doesn’t have to tell us who they are. She can claim she’s protecting their lives. That means we have to find them on our own. I don’t want to see them for the first time at the trial. Why don’t you go down to Chinatown? See what you can find out. Make it fast. The DA’ll be pushing for an early trial date before we get our feet too firmly on the ground.”
I was up and heading for the door when that voice spun me around again.
“Sonny, I want you on this full time till this trial ends. Whatever else you’ve got on your calendar goes to another associate.”
He was back at the window, and it was my turn to turn him around.
“Mr. Devlin.” He looked back. “My name is Michael Knight.”
He turned back to the window.
“I know who you are, sonny. I want to know what you are.”
On the way back down the corridor to my office I had to pass the office of Whitney Caster, junior partner. Whitney was around my age, but had come directly to the firm from law school. That gave him enough of a head start to put him in a position to give the orders.
Old Whitney suffered from that two-edged phobia that infects the brains of a number of middle-level lawyers. He was petrified of criticism from any member of the firm above him, and equally petrified of competition from those below him.
It was, in fact, old Whitney who was responsible for the pretrial motions on the Lothrop case that I had spent the morning arguing. I had the dubious pleasure of telling him that (a) the morning’s motion session before Judge Bradley had been a total disaster, and (b) he could find another lackey to do his dirty work, since I was off the case.
“The hell you are, Knight! You’ll go back and reargue that motion. If you think I’m going to get my ass reamed by Mr. Dawes for this, you can guess again. Who the hell gave you the authority to get off this case?”
He was already hyperventilating from being up against a rock. In a quiet, respectful tone, I boxed him in with a hard place.
“I’m working for Mr. Devlin full time. You might take it up with him.”
