“Was? Who is it, the one that got shot outside the car museum on Wilshire?”
“No, you’re talking about Biggie Smalls. This is the late great Tupac Shakur.”
“I can’t believe you listen to this stuff.”
“I told you. It helps me.”
“Do me a favor. Do not listen to this around Hayley.”
“Don’t worry about it, I won’t.”
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Just stay a little bit.”
She complied but she sat stiffly on the edge of the bed. I could tell she was trying to pick up the lyrics. You needed an ear for it and it took some time. The next song was “Life Goes On,” and I watched her neck and shoulders tighten as she caught some of the words.
“Can I please go now?” she asked.
“Maggie, just stay a few minutes.”
I reached over and turned it down a little.
“Hey, I’ll turn it off if you’ll sing to me like you used to.”
“Not tonight, Haller.”
“Nobody knows the Maggie McFierce I know.”
She smiled a little and I was quiet for a moment while I remembered those times.
“Maggie, why do you stay with me?”
“I told you, I can’t stay.”
“No, I don’t mean tonight. I’m talking about how you stick with me, how you don’t run me down with Hayley and how you’re there when I need you. Like tonight. I don’t know many people who have ex-wives who still like them.”
She thought a little bit before answering.
“I don’t know. I guess because I see a good man and a good father in there waiting to break out one day.”
I nodded and hoped she was right.
“Tell me something. What would you do if you couldn’t be a prosecutor?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, what would you do?”
“I’ve never really thought about it. Right now I get to do what I’ve always wanted to do. I’m lucky. Why would I want to change?”
I opened the Tylenol bottle and popped two without a chaser. The next song was “So Many Tears,” another ballad for all of those lost. It seemed appropriate.
“I think I’d be a teacher,” she finally said. “Grade school. Little girls like Hayley.”
I smiled.
“Mrs. McFierce, Mrs. McFierce, my dog ate my homework.”
She slugged me on the arm.
“Actually, that’s nice,” I said. “You’d be a good teacher… except when you’re sending kids off to detention without bail.”
“Funny. What about you?”
I shook my head.
“I wouldn’t be a good teacher.”
“I mean what would you do if you weren’t a lawyer.”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got three Town Cars. I guess I could start a limo service, take people to the airport.”
Now she smiled at me.
“I’d hire you.”
“Good. There’s one customer. Give me a dollar and I’ll tape it to the wall.”
But the banter wasn’t working. I leaned back, put my palms against my eyes and tried to push away the day, to push out the memory of Raul Levin on the floor of his house, eyes staring at a permanent black sky.
“You know what I used to be afraid of?” I asked.
“What?”
“That I wouldn’t recognize innocence. That it would be there right in front of me and I wouldn’t see it. I’m not talking about guilty or not guilty. I mean innocence. Just innocence.”
She didn’t say anything.
“But you know what I should have been afraid of?”
“What, Haller?”
“Evil. Pure evil.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, most of the people I defend aren’t evil, Mags. They’re guilty, yeah, but they aren’t evil. You know what I mean? There’s a difference. You listen to them and you listen to these songs and you know why they make the choices they make. People are just trying to get by, just to live with what they’re given, and some of them aren’t given a damn thing in the first place. But evil is something else. It’s different. It’s like… I don’t know. It’s out there and when it shows up… I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“You’re drunk, that’s why.”
“All I know is I should have been afraid of one thing but I was afraid of the complete opposite.”
She reached over and rubbed my shoulder. The last song was “to live amp; die in l.a.,” and it was my favorite on the homespun CD. I started to softly hum and then I sang along with the refrain when it came up on the track.
Pretty soon I stopped singing and pulled my hands down from my face. I fell asleep with my clothes on. I never heard the woman I had loved more than anyone else in my life leave the house. She would tell me later that the last thing I had mumbled before passing out was, “I can’t do this anymore.”
I wasn’t talking about my singing.
Wednesday, April 13
TWENTY-SIX
I slept almost ten hours but I still woke up in darkness. It said 5:18 on the Bose. I tried to go back to the dream but the door was closed. By 5:30 I rolled out of bed, struggled for equilibrium, and hit the shower. I stayed
