The gist of the matter was that Eddie demanded to know my role in the disappearance of his two key witnesses. He somehow found out I’d been beaten while under their custody, and he wanted to know if I’d pursued a vendetta against them. What he was suggesting was that I might’ve crossed over the line of serving as a defense counsel and become personally implicated in the case.
The law has some fairly quirky rules about the relationship of attorneys to anybody else in a courtroom. Say, for example, either counsel is married to, or sleeping with, the judge, or the jury chairman, then somebody’s expected to recuse themselves. Those are ludicrously self-evident examples, but there are many others that are more slithery. For example, if a defense attorney becomes privy to knowledge about key opposition witnesses by working with a government investigatory agency, that also might imply a need for recusal or disqualification.
Eddie had no direct knowledge about my activities except his gut instinct, but in this case his washboard tummy was reliable. So he fired a well-placed shot in the dark.
How did I learn this? Because there was a big red sticker pasted on the door to my hotel room when I got back. The handwriting was Katherine’s. It said, “My room! Immediately!!”
Her chilling reception spoke volumes. She opened the door, fixed me with a frosty frown, tossed Eddie’s motion in my face, then spun around and walked over to a chair by the window. She fell into it and waited.
I read it. His suspicions were vague, and some of the details were salaciously off base, but Eddie’s query was inclusive enough that I was in big trouble. In a nutshell, he wanted to know if I was in any way involved in the flight of his two key witnesses. That was broad. That was too broad to wiggle out of.
The truth was I’d probably crossed some line. I hadn’t meant to. I’d been unintentionally drawn much deeper into the CIA’s counterespionage activities than I’d expected, and along the way, I’d become a player.
“Well?” Katherine asked, once I’d digested the motion.
“Well, well,” I evasively replied. I could feel my face redden. I hoped my bruises and scabs kept it hidden.
The room got colder. “Do we have a problem here?”
“We could,” I admitted.
“Tell me about it,” she demanded. She had the right to know.
But I couldn’t sate her highly warranted curiosity. Everything involved in the Bales-Choi case was classified. If I told her a word and suddenly journalists started showing up on Mercer’s doorstep, I’d be looking at prison time.
I said, “I can’t.”
She looked quite angry. “The hell you can’t, Drummond. You’re my co-counsel. You work for me on this case. I have every right to know what you’ve been doing.”
“All the more reason I can’t. If I share my knowledge with you, I’ll infect you. You’ll be just as much at risk as I am of being disqualified.”
That wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was true. If I informed her what I’d learned about Bales and Choi by working with the CIA and the KCIA, she’d share in the fruits of my efforts.
Right now, everybody on the defense team partook of the common suspicion that the Itaewon precinct was rotten. They also shared the unproven conjecture that Choi and Bales were fixing cases and framing our client. Their motive, though, was still a mystery. Maybe it was anti-Americanism, like I’d suggested in one strategy review. Maybe it was antigay hysteria, like Allie had suggested. Maybe they were taking money or trying to drive up their conviction rates. Maybe they were just a couple of homicidal, sadistic maniacs out to create havoc and have a good time.
I was the only one who knew their real motive, and that put me in a box. I couldn’t disclose that motive in court, and with Eddie’s motion I couldn’t even hint at it to Katherine without subjecting her to the same risk of disqualification.
But like I already said, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“Are you admitting involvement in implicating activities?”
“I’m not admitting anything.”
We traded cold fish eyes for a long-drawn-out moment.
Then Katherine stiffly said, “We have an appointment to meet with Carruthers and Golden in one hour.”
And I said, “Forget about it. I’ll have a private conversation with Carruthers. One way or another I’ll get it resolved.”
“Be that as it may. Do I need to prepare a consent for substitution of counsel?”
“It’s probably not a bad idea,” I was unhappily forced to admit.
I awkwardly continued. “There’s one or two really good lawyers here on the peninsula. I know a guy down in Pusan. He’s a crackerjack. You’d like him. If you want, I’ll make some calls, see if he’s free.”
While I was still babbling, she stood up and walked over to her desk. She turned her back on me and picked up some papers that she started to read through. “Call me with the name by three this afternoon so I can submit the consent before close of business. Now, please leave.”
I was being summarily dismissed.
I didn’t move, while she tried to pretend I was already gone. I knew she was mad about this legal thing, but I’m not a completely clueless oaf. That phone call to my room early that morning was butting its ugly head into this.
But just like this legal imbroglio, I couldn’t admit my real relationship with Carol Kim. I couldn’t very well say, “Hey look, she was a CIA agent and the two of us were busy breaking up the biggest spy ring in our country’s history.” Even if she believed me, Mercer would have my balls.
What I should’ve done was let it drop. I should’ve sneaked out with my tail between my legs. But for some funny reason, I didn’t want to.
I shuffled my feet and coughed. “Hey, about this morning…”
At first she didn’t answer, like she hadn’t heard me speak.
Not until it was apparent I wasn’t just going to slink away did she murmur, “What about this morning?”
“You called my room around five.”
“Did I?” she asked, motionless.
“It wasn’t what you think.”
She still had her back turned and was reading through her papers. “I didn’t think anything. I don’t even remember calling.”
“Come on. I was in the shower. A woman answered,” I filled in the blanks, unnecessarily of course. But a hurt woman can play games, and you just have to march along with the flow. That’s a primary rule of life.
“Umhumm,” she mumbled, her voice rising on that “humm” part, like, How could it possibly have been anything different from what she thought?
“Katherine, the woman was a business colleague. It was a uh, a business meeting.”
Her back was still turned, and I’m a perceptive guy, so I took that as a poor harbinger. Maybe I should’ve explained this some other way. That “business” word was the type of adjective that can be open to nasty misinterpretation. After all, what kind of business is conducted in a hotel room at five in the morning?
I said, “Sure, it sounds a little odd that I was taking a shower with a woman in my room. I can see where you might get the wrong impression. But I’d been up all night. I needed a shower.”
“Get out,” she mumbled.
That being “up all night” phrase, I suddenly realized, was another ambiguous choice on my part. Maybe I should have specified I was
“Look, I, uh-”
She spun around and pointed her tiny hand at the door. “I said get out. I mean get out.”
Her face had icicles hanging off it.
I left.
And I did the only other thing I could. I walked to the judge’s office. I told his long-nosed secretary I needed to see him in private, and she haughtily ordered me to sit and wait. So I sat and waited.
Finally she pushed her snooty nose in the air and told me to go in.
The office was dark again and I wondered if that had anything to do with his moods. You know, like bright on a cheery day; dark when he was in the mood to kill somebody.
I stuck my head in and said, “Good morning, Your Honor. I need to have a private word with you.”
He said, “Come in and have a seat.”
