Lost Girls

can't move my head back from where it hangs over the smudge of papers on the desk. Nothing at all but a weight on my shoulder that is my client's hand resting next to my cheek in silent comfort.

chapter 48

It's hard to see Graham Lyle sitting on the window ledge of the honeymoon suite, hands gripped to his knees, eyes touring the walls of photocopied newspaper while trying to remain calm. But there he is, real as anything else. Arrived the morning after he pulled me out of court and was knocking at my door before I'd gotten out of bed myself although it's difficult to say who looks worse between the two of us. Apparently he wasn't kidding about being allergic to the country air. Pulling a nasal spray out of his breast pocket every couple of minutes to give each nostril a swift blast followed by an automatic Pardon me under his breath.

''Would you like some Kleenex?'' I offer him from my place at the end of the bed. Graham's gaze held somewhere to my left, on the photo of the Lady possibly, although she would be too small to make out from where he sits.

''No, thank you. I think I'll just stick with the prescription drugs.''

''Now there's wisdom.''

''I don't anticipate being here long anyway. As a matter of fact, I'd very much like to be on the road the day after tomorrow.''

''Are you going to play tag team with Bert for the rest of the trial, then?''

''It requires only one lawyer to deliver a motion to dismiss.''

''What are you talking about?''

''The Crown is finished with its case and there's not enough to nail our friend. You know this yourself, or would have known it before your wits abandoned you. So I'm going to ask Goldfarb to finish this silly business right now so we can all go home.''

Graham throws his head back to glance out the window and finds something on the street that catches his interest, or at least it appears he does, for he remains turned away from me for a long while.

''I hope you understand why I did what I did,'' I say finally.

''Well, then, you hope in vain, my boy, because I don't have a clue. Although I could guess it has something to do with what you might mistakenly see as some kind of moral reckoning or other. But understand ? That I don't.''

''I don't believe you.''

''Seems you've inherited your client's taste in interior decoration,'' he says, pretending not to hear and swinging his head back to show an upper lip glistening beneath his still-streaming nose.

''They're not decoration.''

''Beg your pardon. What would you call all this, then?'' He circles his arm around the room. For a moment I actually search for an answer, though I know there isn't one.

''Why don't I pack all this stuff up so you can get to work?'' I say instead, and for the first time Graham turns his eyes to the still largely untouched disclosure materials stacked on my desk.

''Yes, why don't you do that.'' Gives his nose another injection. ''I'll be in Room Twenty-four at the end of the hall.''

Clips over to the door and places a hand on the tower of bedsheets that comes up to his chin.

''You were the best student I ever had, you know,'' he says on his way out, as much to himself as to me. But by the time I think of something to say in return he's already gone.

The next morning I manage to find a seat in the gallery without meeting anyone's eyes. Focus on nothing but Graham's back as Goldfarb comes in to take her chair. Watch only his hands as they begin to dance in the air at his sides, framing his points in clean boxes and ovals. A motion to dismiss. Insufficient evidence to meet the charge. A waste of the court's resources to continue with the trial. Your Honor, the law on the matter is plain.

It doesn't take long.

Then a moment when several things happen at once:

The jury turning to each other to determine whether any of them knows what the hell just happened while Goldfarb mumbles thanks for their responsible conduct throughout the proceedings. An explosion of violent sobbing from someone in the rows behind me, followed immediately by a howl of troubled digestion and a sigh of such strangled anguish--Oh, Christ!--it sounds like the speaker's last living breath. Tripp throwing his head around to look my way. And what he sees is a man who appears pained, though only by some minor physical irritant. A full bladder perhaps, heartburn, a pinched nerve between the shoulder blades.

Soon everyone is working out ways to leave the room, attempting to control equal urges to remain where they sit for the rest of their days or make a dash for the door. A full minute required for each of us to pull on our coats without touching whoever stands next to us.

Tripp the last one to move. And in the end it's the bailiff who has to grip him by the arm and lead him over to the side door once again. But they don't quite make it. The bailiff turning to hear something. Spinning on his heel, as a matter of fact, so he can put a face to the voice now booming out from the back of the courtroom. Squeezes his mouth tight at the disappointment of seeing that it's only Lloyd McConnell. And who else would it be? Shouting not in grief but a strange, giddy triumph. You're going to burn in hell! You hear me, you filthy bastard? Goddamn you to burn in damnation forever!

Then, without turning to look, Tripp releases his arm from the bailiff's grip, pulls the door wide, and is free.

I end up hanging around town for a couple of days. With Graham gone it's just me alone in the hotel again, a situation I'm starting to get miserably used to. There is, after all, nothing for me to return to in the city now except another empty room. And by that standard this one is as good as any.

But I'm staying for a reason. There's always a reason, isn't there, even when it comes to the most addled courses of action. I need to talk to my client. My former client. The trouble is he's nowhere to be found.

I've tried calling but his phone is out of service and he doesn't answer the buzzer at his apartment although I'm convinced he's up there. There haven't been any sightings of him since his last day in court and God knows the whole town's had its eyes wide open. Everybody wants to see what a man who's gotten away with it looks like.

He's up there because I can feel him up there. Then have these feelings confirmed when I go through the garbage bins in the lane behind his building and discover the teen girl magazines that I'd seen strewn across his bed. Loose clippings that sit there as a bundle of colored ribbon atop eggshells, burnt toast, and coffee grounds.

The next night I stand across the street from his apartment and wait. The front windows are dark, but once or twice there's a murky brush of movement inside, a body whose shifted weight causes the glass to warp the streetlight reflected against it. Then sometime halfway to morning it comes to stand and look down at me. A charcoal outline within the window's frame.

I wave up to him. Stepping out into the street, one arm arcing above my head in what could be seen as either greeting or warning to someone far away. Don't call out his name because I'm frightened of how my voice would sound on its own in the hardened air. So I just keep waving up at him, a man caught passing through an unlit living room like a thief.

But before he pulls the blinds down for good he takes a half step forward so that there's a second when he's almost visible. The floating circle of his face. Fixed by a look of shallow horror, eyes held open to something he doesn't want to see but knew was there all along.

I'm walking out into the frigid lake with my shoes on. One minute I'm looking up at the vaultless night sky from where I stand on one of the big rocks near shore, the stars precise and screwed to their places, and in the next I'm stepping off into the shallows, the water so still, my feet make a dull thunk as they push through. The kind of cold where the body can't decide between pain and numbness so it flashes between them. My legs could be sawed off at the hip. They could be on fire.

There is no breeze, yet the air carries a dusty half rain that meets my face in dry pricks. It may even be snow of the not-quite-there-yet sort but it's too dark to make the distinction. Look down to watch the water creeping