Anxious to avoid open warfare, I put my hand on Morris’s arm to restrain him.
“Andy, if there’s more to this than an accident,” I say quietly, “there’s still time to make a deal with Jill Marymount.”
With a look of utter disdain, Andy stalks out of the room.
Morris watches him go and surprises me by commenting after Andy is out of earshot, “He probably does love her.
He’s never happier than when he’s taking care of a cripple.”
I stand up and stretch. My back feels as if it has calcified since this morning. After this trial I’ve got to start getting some exercise again.
“I wish now I’d insisted that you sat in on this,” I say.
“I can’t figure her out, but I doubt if Olivia Le Master fits into the category of a cripple.”
Twisting his hands outward Morris pops a thick, hairy knuckle and stares at his fingers.
“Oh, I can see how the bitch could get all twisted.”
I walk over to the window and stare at the street. Morris has put me in my place-he doesn’t seem the compassionate type, but even he is willing to concede Olivia has had a hard time of it.
“Maybe so,” I admit, “but lots of people with retarded children don’t go to the extremes she has, and I’m not even talking about whether she’s guilty of murder.”
Morris scratches his sparse, graying hair.
“I don’t know,” he mutters softly, ‘you white folks don’t handle bad shit too good sometimes. When that silver spoon gets taken away from you, it’s mighty easy to get withdrawal symptoms.”
“Could be,” I shrug, unwilling to argue. As long as he is writing the checks, Morris is free to put a racial spin on whatever he wants. For all I know, he may be right. If you don’t expect much, you sure as hell can’t claim to be disappointed.
And yet there is his brother, who refuses to interpret anything through the lens of racism. Why should I be surprised?
We all do what works.
“You think Andy would let himself be talked into taking Pam’s life?” I ask, lowering my voice.
Morris stands and comes over to the window by me.
“He wouldn’t do it for the money,” he whispers, “but damned if he couldn’t think of a whole shit load of other reasons.”
I look down on the rapidly emptying street and think of the nightly preoccupations that await these people who are still scurrying out of the Layman Building. TV. Children.
Some will work. Maybe a few will even read a book. How many are going home to have sex outside of marriage with someone of a different race?
“What do you think your chances are?” Sarah asks. She had come into the kitchen for a glass of milk. As the product of a mixed marriage, Sarah would be the ideal person to try this case for Andy. She wouldn’t have to say a word to get across Andy’s point that race should not be an issue in this trial.
I look up from the table, which is covered with my papers.
Though I have nailed down their stories (Andy admits to five
“meetings” with Olivia since he was initially charged;
through Karen, Olivia agrees with this number), our case stinks. As soon as Andy opens his mouth, he will be on the defensive. Once the jury hears about the money Olivia was to receive upon Pam’s death, that is all it will be thinking about. Yettie will testify that she heard Olivia say Pam would be better off dead than alive, etc.” etc. Jill will build facts and motives on top of each other until they reach the top of the courthouse. And then the jury will hear they have slept together as recently as last week.
“About the same,” I say, smiling at my daughter, who is wearing ragged cutoffs and a T-shirt the size of a circus tent, “as the chances of the universe randomly coming into being.”
Woogie, his long nails tap-dancing on the linoleum, has ambled in from the couch perhaps to hear this discussion, but more likely in hopes that Sarah is opening the door to get him a snack. Sarah, who has attended Mass every Sunday since returning from Camp Anytown, cracks, “Well, they must be pretty good since it happened.”
I watch Sarah, who now has a white mustache, unwrap from its plastic a slice of cheese, break it in two, and throw the smaller part to Woogie, who catches and swallows it in a single motion.
“Do you do this often?” I ask, exhausted, and wanting but unable even for an instant to forget the trial.
Ah, the science of reinforcement. Somehow, it’s difficult to imagine Albert Einstein with a cattle prod in his hand.
“If all you were allowed to eat was dog food,” Sarah says reasonably, “you’d hope somebody would throw you a little cheese, too.”
“He doesn’t even taste it,” I protest, putting down my pen and watching it roll off the table.
“It’s like throwing him a quarter every time you do it.”
“More like a dime,” Sarah says, throwing him the rest of the slice to spite me.
This commentary on my cheapness rolls straight off my back. I bend down to pick up my pen.
“If you want to chip in for your food, it’s fine with me.”
Sarah gives me a stricken look.
“Are things that bad?”
“They’re great,” I lie. To hell with Andy, I think. I ought to be worrying about myself. If he goes down the tubes, my venture into private practice may not be far behind him. Getting your client the death penalty doesn’t make for such a great referral.
“I’ve got more clients at this stage than I ever dreamed.” Too bad they don’t pay. I refuse to worry Sarah.
My mother worried about money so much after my father died I thought at any moment I would be sent into the streets to beg for bread. It was never that bad, and if she had been a little less dramatic, I might not be such a tightwad now. I want Sarah to enjoy her senior year and not spend her time wondering whether I can pay the mortgage. The phone rings.
As my daughter flies to the phone, I say, “See, there’s a client now.”
In one fluid motion Sarah shuts the refrigerator door and snatches the phone from the wall as if she is expecting the President to call and give us his opinion on our finances instead of one of a half-dozen nightly calls she receives from her friends.
“Hi!”
Sarah’s features knit into an uncharacteristic frown.
“Just a moment, please,” she says, bringing the phone, its cord a long corkscrew tail, to the table for me.
“I’ve heard this voice, but I can’t place it.”
Mona Moneyhart, I think dejectedly as I take the phone and identify myself.
“Gideon,” Mona says, her voice, its normal breathy tone, now that she has me on the phone, “your little daughter doesn’t let you get far away from her, does she?”
“Mona,” I say angrily, “I’m getting ready for a murder trial that starts tomorrow, and I haven’t got time to listen to you. What do you want?”
“Why, Gideon,” Mona says, “you’ve never been ugly to me before. Is your little daughter having a fit about something?”
I get Sarah to smile as I roll my eyes back in my head.
“It’s nine-thirty, Mona. What’s the problem?”
“I just wanted to tell you,” she says sounding like Shirley Temple as a child, “that Steve and I have reconciled. We’re together now. Would you like to talk to him?”
“No, no, that’s all right,” I say hastily, imagining Steve desperately setting rattraps out all over the kitchen, tightening screws on the stove, doing whatever he can to guard against the inevitable morning he will be again served rat muffins for breakfast.
“Congratulations! I’ll call his lawyer as soon as I can.”
“You can keep all the money I’ve paid you,” Mona says.
“It’s not worth suing you over.”
“Thanks,” I say, winking at Sarah. I figure with all her calls I’ve made about twenty dollars an hour off her case at this point.
“I honestly feel I’ve earned it.”