Scott Turow - Personal injuries

He glanced over, apparently seeking to determine whether the self-rebuke was sincere. She stiffened her face a bit for his benefit. They drove on a mile, the only sound the unnerving hum of the tires on the cold road.

"The girl," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"I was thinking about that little girl. I was thinking about what it's going to be like for her tomorrow morning. When she wakes up. When her eyes spring open and she's thinking something dopey, about school or the movies or something she dreamt, and then, like an arrow right through the heart, she's going to realize that she lost her mother. And she's just going to fall down and down into fear, horrible fear, because she's smart and she'll know she can't even figure out yet how huge and horrible this is. That's what I was thinking."

"So it's not a play. The crying?"

"Huh?"

She repeated herself.

"I thought I explained this to you," he said. "About the play." Irritated, he revolved his head between the road and Evon. "Don't you see this whole thing? What am I doing at that hospital? Or a funeral home? Or anyplace else I go to pick up business? I say to these people, Hey, you're in pain, terrible pain, but I can make it better. Trust me. I hurt for you. I'll get you money. I'll calm your outrage. But it's a play. Remember chaos and darkness? I'd need the power to raise the dead before I could really do anything for that little girl. Right? The money'll be nice. But hey – '

"So you don't care?"

"What? You think I stay up four nights in a row when I'm on trial because I don't care?" Staring at her, he was suddenly paying no attention to the highway at all. He directed the Mercedes into a small wayside, where the picnic tables had been turned over so they would not be crushed by the snow load. The brown legs, cross-membered, looked like arms waving for someone's attention. "Is that really what you think?"

She was afraid to answer. In ire, his eyes had darkened. He was going to spout again, speechify. And she didn't mind. She was glad actually. Except for remote moments of anger, Robbie Feaver could rarely be motivated to be fully sincere. But now something elevated was transmitted into his overorchestrated handsomeness.

"Look, I love the spotlight. I dig the bucks. I adore getting the chance to strut around on my victory lap down Marshall Avenue whenever I win a case. But hell," he said, "you actually think I drop to these judges just for myself? Get real. I can't bear to come back to these people and say, I lost, you lost, fuck hope, it's only pain, and it's only going to get worse. I can't do that. That's why it's a play. They need it. And I need it." Carried away, he had briefly taken hold of her hands. She did not know if he drew back then because he had woken to the precariousness of that gesture, or simply in refuge from what must have flooded from her eyes. He touched his bright muffler and softly said one more thing before he again put the Mercedes in gear.

"It's a play."

A few days later, as Robbie and evon were about to leave for the night, McManis called. Amari had followed Rollo Kosic to Robbie's old hangout, an upscale spot called Attitude. After a hurried stop downstairs for their equipment, Evon and Robbie buffeted through the after-work crowd, the walks illuminated by the autos gridlocked in the avenues. Feaver was surprisingly chipper. His apprehensions about Kosic seemed momentarily eased by the prospect of returning to the place where many good evenings had been spent until about a year ago, when Rainey's debility was no longer impending doom but a calamity that had arrived.

Attitude's long windows fronted Cahill Street, but the bar was entered through the lobby of a fancy retail arcade where headless mannequins posed elegantly in the windows. Dr. Goodbody's, the health club at which Robbie had formerly exercised every evening, was also here in the basement. He said that the serious fitness types remained in the cellar after their workouts, sipping carrot juice and eating soy burgers. The crowd that hurried up to Attitude was more to his liking. They went to step classes, played racquetball and tennis, lifted weights for an hour, then stopped in here for tequila and cigarettes, to see if their strict physical regimen could yield any benefits more immediate than good health.

A stylish black sign hung over the doorway and the decor within was sleek-granite tables and polished chrome railings, Italian fixtures in the shape of inverted caila lilies casting a low light. The crowd was all suits. Some prowled the tumbling scene around the bar, a long arc of granite and wood. Others were settled in for the evening at the narrow tables in the slate loft, suspended overhead amid the smoke.

A chorus rose up as soon as Robbie came through the revolving door. "Hey, ambulance chaser!" a man yelled and arrived through the bustle to embrace him. He was a beefier version of Feaver, dark, elegantly dressed, with shining black hair moussed back into a bullet-shaped do. "Where you been for Chrissake? You hanging out at the rehab hospital, trying to get the nurses to pass out your card to all the quads? I'm waiting for this guy to get a toll-free number. 1-800-PARALYZED."

This was Doyle Mersing, a commercial real estate agent. He put an arm around Evon as he was shaking her hand.

"Come on, have a pop," said Doyle. There were two women beside the stool he'd briefly vacated, one in her late thirties, the other slightly older, both with big hair and bright manicures, both smoking cigarettes and pleasantly drunk. Divorcees, Evon guessed. Neither wore a wedding ring and there was something beaten-down beneath their good cheer. Evon watched as one of them, Sylvia, darker and thinner than her companion, began focusing on Bobbie. It seemed astonishingly predictable, like something in nature, a flower turning toward the sun. Sylvia began asking him questions and tossed her hair back from her face so she could give him her full attention. At Robbie's wisecracks, Sylvia and her friend rattled in delight. After one of these explosions, Evon noticed that Sylvia had laid her hand on Robbie's arm, apparently regarding Evon as no impediment.

Turning away, Evon lifted her face to the smoke, the music and laughing, the smug but desperate emanations that lingered like fumes in Attitude's atmosphere. She had never been much at ease in this kind of place. They could have used a plastic surgeon and an erector set to make her over at Elizabeth Arden and she'd still never count for much here. Even pretending to be someone else, she couldn't project the air of frank and fearless interest that wafted off the Sylvias of the world. How did they do that? To Evon, it remained an enduring mystery.

The bartender, Lutese, was a gorgeous black woman with strong features and perfect makeup, including dramatic shadings around the eyes. She was nearly six feet tall and in beautiful shape. She had yellow nails the length of talons. Lutese was a fortune-teller by profession, Bobbie told Evon. She took that at first for a joke.

"Speaks the truth," said Lutese. "Happens every now and then. You better keep your eye on this boy around this place," she warned Evon. "He's got more lines than a zebra." Robbie laughed but Lutese wouldn't let up. "Watch him, I'm tellin you. He's like a snake, strike anything that moves."

"I'm a one-man menagerie."

"Part jackass, too."

Mersing, who'd gone off for cigarettes, beat the pack on the heel of his palm as he returned to his stool.

"So what's going on in here?" Robbie asked. Despite the din, Evon could hear Robbie clearly in the earpiece. The way the instrument imposed Feaver's voice on the hubbub was slightly disconcerting. Klecker had applied the FoxBIte units to Feaver's thigh hurriedly, complaining about the idea of recording in a crowded saloon. `Way too much ambient sound. You get glasses clinking. Other people's conversations. The defendant always ends up claiming that the guy saying "I did it" was sitting at another table.' Robbie remained adamant that his only chance with Kosic was here after Rollo had had a couple of belts. For the moment, however, Feaver seemed in no hurry to search for him.