“What? You’re a hell of a magician, Natalie. That’s all I’m saying. It’s a compliment.”
“I just blinded a man!”
“Maybe you blinded a man. It was a playing card, not a knife.”
“I can pierce the rind of a watermelon with a playing card.”
He winced. “Well, then, all the more important you and I are talking.” He offered me a meaty hand with black hairs sprouting out from the tops of his fingers. “Brock McKnight.” I was relieved when his handshake didn’t crush my bones.
We were by a window, and I could see across the road to another hotel where outside, beneath the overhang, a doorman stood alone and hugged himself for warmth. I shivered. “I feel sick,” I said. It was true. Long ago I had decided that nothing was worse, nothing less forgivable, than to be the cause of someone else’s physical harm. In all the years since, I had subscribed to very few creeds, but always that. “I didn’t really mean to hurt him.”
I was relieved that the words tasted mostly true.
“Of course you didn’t,” Brock said. “Why would you want to sabotage your career?”
Yes, exactly, I thought. An eye is very small. My aim was good, but was it that good? I didn’t remember taking aim. I had been irate and embarrassed, true, but the throw had felt automatic. Like with classical pianists, how the fingers do the thinking, not the brain. Otherwise, they could never do those lightning-fast runs up and down the keys.
But even if my hand had gone rogue, doing what my mind wouldn’t have allowed it to do, did that make it any better? My hand was still part of me, wasn’t it? That snapping wrist, those quick fingers, were mine.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked.
“It depends,” Brock said. “Do you carry liability insurance?” When I didn’t answer right away, he sighed and began to relate highlights from The Legend of Lou Husk. The man with a plan. And that plan was evidently to make his adversaries wish they had never heard the name Lou Husk.
“If he goes to the police,” Brock said, “it’s conceivable the prosecutor could charge you with aggravated assault. But maybe not in Newark, where actual crimes are being committed and taking up police time. You’d probably be looking at misdemeanor endangerment.”
“Which means?”
“The fine caps at a thousand dollars and a year in prison.”
That word, “prison,” echoed like profanity in a language I could barely identify. “For a playing card?”
“You said yourself it cuts watermelons.”
“I guess a thousand dollars could be worse,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry—it will be, since he’ll almost certainly file a civil lawsuit, too. That’s where the real money is. But that’s a ways down the road.” My eyes welling up didn’t seem to faze Brock at all. He didn’t bother to look out the window or pick imaginary fuzz off his suit in order to give me a moment to collect myself. He must have been used to people hitting rock bottom in his presence. “I’d like to be your lawyer, Natalie,” he said.
“I can’t afford one,” I said, wiping my eyes with shaky hands.
“And now I’m supposed to say, ‘There’s no way you can’t afford one.’ And it’s true. If he ends up blind in one eye …” He didn’t need to finish. “Instead, I’ll tell you I’m really good, and I work on a sliding scale.”
But just how far would it slide? I dropped my head into my hands. “Why the hell would I let him get to me like that?” I muttered.
Over the years I’d faced some nasty characters, been in actual threatening situations. Yet I’d always kept my composure.
“Yeah, but lawyers,” Brock said. “We’re professional assholes. We have it all down to a science.” He didn’t totally mask his pride in saying so. “Look, I can tell you need a drink. What’s your poison?”
If I knew my poison I’d be able to avoid it. And anyway, the bar where we were sitting was closed. I looked out the window again. It was only November. God knew what December would bring. “I can’t believe I have to drive home in this.”
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Too far away for a cab,” I said.
“And you’re telling me there’s no hotel rider in your contract?”
“I have birds,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Doves. To feed. They need food and fresh water.”
“She has birds.” The lawyer shook his head and pried himself off the bar stool. “Come on, what’s your drink? I’ll get it from the other bar.”
Outside, the ice was falling harder. “Just get me something I can’t afford.”
“That’s just what I’ll do”—he held a finger in the air as if testing the wind—“the moment I’m done taking a leak.”
Alone with nothing but a promise. My stomach growled, and I saw my refrigerator at home—plenty of condiments, little to put them on—and wondered who exactly I had been spiting earlier by refusing to invite myself to the buffet. Maybe a stomach full of peel-and-eat shrimp would have made me more patient with my volunteer.
I checked my phone. No missed calls. I’d been hoping to hear from my mother today. As I was returning the phone to the side pocket of the duffel bag, Brock came back empty-handed. “I didn’t feel like waiting,” he said. But rather than sit down again, he went behind our private, closed-down bar and knelt down until only the top of his head was bobbing around.
“And … bingo.” He stood up again. “I’m very surprised they have this.” He came back around carrying a bottle and two rocks glasses. “This is like two hundred a bottle.” He poured us each a generous drink. “No way should they be letting us do this.” He shook his head. “It’s a shame what America’s become.” Then he said, “To my newest client,” and we drank, and the Scotch felt nourishing going down my throat.
Brock laid a reassuring or maybe possessive hand on my arm. “I think it’s vitally important,” he said, “that I pour
