she had never met Bobby Gallagher, but that was ridiculous. If there'd been no Bobby, there'd be no Scott, and she loved her son with all her heart. Part of her wished she'd never divorced Bobby, but that was ridiculous, too. She had to choose between Bobby and her father. Once Bobby became the avenging angel of justice, at least in his own mind, the two men were mutually exclusive players in her life.
I had to choose Daddy. Didn't I?
Her father had insisted that she retain Jailbreak Jones, the most famous criminal lawyer in Dallas. Christine had wanted to use a female divorce lawyer, a friend from the Kingsley Center, but her father was adamant.
'Jailbreak saw me through my darkest days,' Martin Kingsley had told her. 'I'd trust him with my life, or even more important, my grandson's future.'
Years earlier, just after the Texas City refinery explosion, Jailbreak Jones had practically become a member of the family. He was at her father's side during press conferences and appearances before the grand jury. How she had feared for her father's well-being then. Everything was at stake, his wealth, his health, his sanity. Publicity after the accident was devastating to Martin Kingsley's reputation. Seven men died at the refinery, and the newspapers blamed her father for cutting corners on safety. A federal investigation turned up dozens of workplace hazards and OSHA violations. On a tour of the burned-out shell, the Secretary of Labor called the place a 'death trap for the innocent, a money machine for the guilty.'
Her father had assured her that his only sin was allowing Houston Tyler to run the plant. Grand juries were impaneled. Victims' families sued. Reporters camped out on their lawn. Her father was on the verge of bankruptcy, indictment, and mental breakdown. He had fallen into a depression so deep it was as if he were lost in a thick, dark forest that the sun could never reach.
It seems like a lifetime ago.
Now, thanks to skillful lawyering-Jailbreak's-and solid business advice-hers-Daddy was posing for the cover of TIME this very morning. But still Martin Kingsley could not relax, could not enjoy his success.
'It's a long, hard climb up,' he always told her, 'and a damn quick fall down. I could lose everything in a heartbeat.'
It was true, she thought, for all of us, particularly those who live as close to the edge as her father. The higher the peak, the steeper the precipice. A slip of the accountant's pen might draw the attention of the I.R.S.; a shadowy spot on an X-ray might foretell an excruciating death. We are so fragile, hurtling along, vaguely hoping the train doesn't jump the tracks.
'What about it, Ms. Suarez?' the judge asked. The Honorable Seymour Gerstein leaned back in his high leather chair, a spare man with rimless eyeglasses perched on his nose. Christine and Jailbreak Jones sat on one side of the conference table that formed a 'T' with the judge's desk. Bobby and his lawyer sat on the other side facing them. Christine had watched the body language earlier when Bobby and Angelica Suarez had entered chambers. Bobby held out the chair for his lawyer, and she had smiled sweetly at him. Then later, when he became overwrought at something Jailbreak had said about his 'unsavory' character and the fate of 'the minor child,' Ms. Suarez placed a calming hand over his. Was it Christine's imagination or did her hand linger a moment too long?
And damn it! Why do I even care?
'Scott Gallagher is now a resident of Florida,' Angelica Suarez said. 'He is enrolled in school here. His friends are here. His loving father is here. In addition, there are grave doubts as to whether the Texas court sufficiently retained jurisdiction. If we turn to the language of the order…'
She droned on for a while in that lawyerly way, picking at words here and commas there. Christine wondered about her. No wedding band, nails well manicured, an expensive business suit, Chanel perhaps. She had a gorgeous head of dark hair which she had pulled back into a bun for her court appearance, but Christine could picture her in a cocktail dress, hair down, someone Bobby would find exotic and enticing.
At least she called my son by his name, not 'the minor child.'
Sitting next to the judge, a young stenographer pecked away on her machine, recording every word. This is what it comes to, Christine thought. A marriage, a child, a life. We record what our formerly beloved has done and said, then paint the deeds and words on a canvas in the harshest colors possible. There will be a winner and a loser-cheers and tears-just like a football game. Trial by combat, battle by attrition. It was all so depressing.
The man I loved sits across from me, a stranger, or even worse, an enemy. How did it come to this?
Finally, the judge nodded to his court stenographer and began reciting in a senatorial timbre: 'This court finds that Texas has jurisdiction over the subject matter hereof and the parties hereto. There is before me an order of the Texas court compelling the Respondent, Mr. Gallagher, to return the child to the care and custody of Ms. Gallagher for enrollment in the Berkshire Academy in Massachusetts, and thereafter to return to Dallas. I have no choice but to enforce it, and if I may say so, I would enforce its provisions on the merits even if I were free to ignore its clear dictates.'
The anger smoldered inside Bobby like a spreading fire. He refused to look at Christine or her lawyer. He suddenly felt exhausted, spent. A sharp, hot pinprick of pain worked its way into his skull like a drill bit. He had invested so much of himself into his son, and now they were taking him away.
Damn! But what could I expect? My lawyer had warned me.
The judge turned to Angelica Suarez. 'Counselor, I suspect you may appeal my ruling, and though I'm ruling against you on the threshold jurisdictional question, you may make a proffer of what your evidence would be on your client's fitness as a parent.'
'That won't be necessary, Your Honor,' Angelica said.
'What!' Bobby hissed in her ear. 'Don't give up a chance to get our case on the record. We can't let the accusations against me go unrebutted on the appellate record.'
She leaned close and shook her head. 'That's irrelevant to jurisdiction.'
'But not to the way judges decide cases,' Bobby insisted. He was stunned by her decision not to protect the appellate record.
The judge waited a moment until attorney and client ceased arguing. 'Alternatively Ms. Suarez, you may take a limited amount of testimony for the record.'
'Put Chrissy under oath,' Bobby said in a loud whisper. 'Ask her if Scott loves me, if he loves spending time with me. Subpoena her prick father. Prove this is a vendetta against me.'
'There is no testimony to elicit at this time,' she replied to the judge.
Bobby's hands trembled like branches in a gale. Anger had turned to numb disbelief. Why was his lawyer abandoning ship? Why had everyone turned against him?
Jailbreak Jones was exchanging pleasantries with the judge about the fine bone fishing in Florida and had His Honor ever hunted wild bore? Christine was looking at Bobby, but he avoided her glance, shamed by his defeat. Angelica Suarez was packing her briefcase, seemingly in a hurry to leave the chambers.
'I'm not planning to appeal,' Angelica Suarez said to Bobby in a low voice.
'Dammit! That's not your decision.' His voice was loud enough to stop the conversation between the judge and the Texas lawyer. Jailbreak Jones looked directly at Angelica, smiled and nodded. It was not the smile of a victor to the vanquished, Bobby thought, but rather a congratulatory look. She turned away from him.
Now what the hell was that all about!
Bobby stood up and confronted his lawyer. 'What the hell's going on?'
'It's best for you to put all of this behind you,' Angelica said, trying to calm him.
'That's not your decision either!' he shouted, then stormed out of chambers.
'Hookers love the Super Bowl. Thousands of affluent men hit town. Not just beery football fans with their faces painted, either. In January [the Super Bowl site] is jammed with successful guys who feel like showing off, a city full of Charlie Sheens. The typical ticket holder is an executive or star salesman on a company-paid holiday. After a year of corporate war he may want a cocktail. He may want to loosen his tie and his wallet, roll down his limo window, do a little shouting, maybe even do his part to help make Super Bowl week the best prostitution week of the year.
— 'Sex and the Super Bowl,' by Kevin Cook, Playboy
