The Hidden Man

remind me of myself.

It didn’t feel like Smith, or someone he loved, had been victimized by this pedophile, which was what he was suggesting. He wasn’t carrying that emotion. I like to think I can read a guy, and his face wasn’t registering that kind of pain. I was getting disdain, though it seemed to be directed more at me than anything else.

“You’ll take the case at three hundred dollars an hour,” he informed me. “Or someone else will gladly handle it.”

With that, Smith pushed himself out of the chair and remained standing before me. I’m not a big fan of ultimatums, unless I’m the one giving them. It’s been said that I have a problem with people telling me what to do. I think I was the one who said that.

Smith checked his watch. He’d obviously figured that I would jump at the chance for a case like this, but I hadn’t. In his mind, I was either stubborn or stupid.

But, I noted, he hadn’t walked away. He didn’t like bidding against himself, but for some reason he was set on hiring me for this case, and he knew he needed to give me more.

“When was he arrested?” I asked.

“September,” he said. “Of last year.”

“September-of ’06?” If this were a single-defendant case, as it seemed to be, that meant the trial couldn’t be far away.

“Four weeks from today,” Smith informed me.

“Well.” I waved a hand. “We’ll have to get the trial date kicked.”

“That won’t work.”

Sometimes I smile when I’m getting really annoyed with someone. I smile and count to ten. After reaching the count of six, I said, “We need to be clear on a few things, Smith. If you want to pay me, that’s fine. I don’t care who’s doing the paying as long as the money is there. Right? But you don’t decide what will work. My client and I make those decisions. You’re not my client, nor are you even related to this client. So you have no say. You’re an ATM machine to me and nothing more. And I’m not taking a first-degree on one-month’s notice.”

Smith nodded at me, but he wasn’t agreeing with me. Kind of like how I smile when I’m pissed off. “You’ll consult with your client on that,” he said.

“I’ll tell this client what I just told you, and if he doesn’t like it, he won’t be my client.”

Smith considered me. I wanted to wipe the smug expression off his face. Maybe I’d use his pocket square to do it. Finally, the briefest hint of a smile appeared.

“The client is an old friend of yours,” he said. “The client is Sam Cutler.”

Sammy. It came at me at once, a tidal wave of images, sights and sounds and smells from so long ago. So this was why Smith had picked me.

“Audrey,” I said. “Sammy killed the pedophile who killed his sister, Audrey?”

“Correct.” Smith nodded. “Griffin Perlini, you’ll recall.”

Even now, I physically shuddered at the name. The bogeyman to a seven-year-old. I could attribute many sleepless nights, and many burned-out lightbulbs, to that name. The man who single-handedly laid wreck to the Cutler family.

“There are those of us who believe that Mr. Cutler should not be punished for that act,” Smith said.

Of all the images that might stick, for some reason it was this: Audrey Cutler, a year and a half old, staggering around on a toddler’s legs in the grass backyard, Sammy hovering behind her to catch her fall. One of the other kids made a joke about how Audrey walked-she looks retarded or something like that. Sammy didn’t say anything at the time; he only looked at me. When Sammy’s mother called for Audrey to come in, Sammy carried her inside. By the time he returned to the backyard a few minutes later, I was already holding the kid down, and Sammy and I made sure he never had anything but compliments about Audrey’s walking ability in the future.

I didn’t know how to feel about all of this. Since Talia and Emily, most of my emotions had atrophied. I felt tension and panic begin to flex their muscles.

Sammy, obviously, had asked for me. That stood to reason, I guess. I wondered how closely he had followed the course of my life. I hadn’t spoken to Sammy Cutler in almost twenty years. I had no idea what had become of him, which made me feel uneasy with myself.

“The money will not be a problem,” Smith informed me. “I will have a healthy retainer delivered to you no later than tomorrow. I trust you’ll have time in your schedule to visit Mr. Cutler this afternoon?”

I nodded absently, as the wave of memories poured forth, a young boy who’d lost his sister, a devastated mother, the picture of an open window into Audrey Cutler’s bedroom on a haunted summer night.

5

TALIA PUSHES OUR DAUGHTER, Emily, in the stroller through the city’s zoo, stopping at the sea lion pool as Emily squeals with delight. Emily wants out. Talia lifts her in her arms and approaches the gate, where the sea lions pop out of the water to the delight of the children, proudly thrusting their black snouts in the air.

“Seals,” Emily says.

“Sea lions.” Not that Talia knows the difference. She smiles at her daughter.

Talia always loved the city. The daughter of Italian immigrants, she was born and raised out east but moved to the city for college and never left. She loves the vitality, the pace, the diversity, the theater and dining and culture. She wants Emily to grow up here.

“Seals,” Emily says. But after ten minutes, her attention span is spent, and she is saying, “Hippos.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Talia musses Em’s hair and kisses her forehead. Emily doesn’t want the stroller and she doesn’t want to walk, leaving Talia to carry our daughter while pushing the stroller.

“Where’s Daddy?” Emily asks.

“He has that case he’s working on, honey.” But Emily has already moved on, distracted as they pass by the next exhibit, otters. She forgets her question and struggles with the word. “Ott-oh,” she manages, clapping her hands in self-applause.

Talia’s face lights up, as it always does when our daughter is happy. Funny how those tiny details can make such a difference.

Talia kisses the top of Emily’s head. “I love you, sweetheart,” she says.

I love you, too. I love you both.

I WAS A LITTLE EARLY to the detention center where Sammy Cutler was held. The center, next to the criminal courthouse, was shiny new, but with the new construction came additional security as well. It no longer mattered if you had a bar card; attorney or not, they ran you through the metal detector and inspected your bag. I didn’t mind because I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t ready to concentrate on what Sammy would tell me. I was thinking about Emily, the first time she reached out to grab my nose, though her little wrinkled hand couldn’t yet form a fist. I remembered that baby smell, the feel of that warm, tiny body in the cradle of my forearm, those wondrous, innocent eyes-

I took a ridiculously long drink from the water fountain, used the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. I was always in a foul mood after lunch, but still I kept that daily appointment, notwithstanding the fierce come-down, the growing resentment with each passing day, wondering when it would get better, if it would get better, why it would get better.

The only thing I knew was I was still a mess, still mired in a combination of self-pity, bitterness, and hopelessness. I was a lawyer, but I would be of no use to Sammy Cutler.

Sammy. Many different snapshots filtered through: The skinny little kid with the big ears and flyaway hair, scampering through the rushing water of an open fire hydrant. The ten-year-old with a buzz cut, a growing