Scott Turow - Personal injuries

I hopped down the stairs of the rickety risers erected to form the dais and cast a parting wave to Cal Taft, this year's Bar President, who mouthed a word of praise for a successful event. When I turned, Brendan Tuohey was directly behind me in the space between tables. He was having a word with a couple of men I did not know, but his eyes crept my way once or twice, so I knew he'd noticed me.

"George!" he cried when he was free. He grabbed my right hand and layered the left over it to add a special measure of sincerity. He said it was grand to see me. "You fellows always do such a marvelous job with this affair. And it's such a fine thing for the bar. It's the Lord's work you folks are doing, George, it makes all of us proud."

I'm afraid my doubts may have reached my expression.

"No, no. Who was it who was talking about you, George, just the other day, as if you had wings comin out of your shoulder blades? Lawyer, I think, sayin such nice things I'd half a mind to blush on your behalf. Who was it?" Tuohey was a formerly handsome man, with regular features. In age, a wizened, pinched look had enshrouded his light eyes, and whiskey or time had been harsh with his skin. There were large rosy patches, feathered with veins, on his cheeks, and when he gestured, the backs of his hands resembled fallen leaves. "Robbie Feaver!" Tuohey shouted and gave his long, dry fingers an impressive snap that sent a shudder southward from my solar plexus.

Robbie, I said, yes, Robbie.

"Thinks you're a wonder, George."

I joked that I should probably ask for more than a third of the fee the next time I sent Feaver a case.

Hail-fellow-well-met, Tuohey allowed a moment of contained laughter. Behind us, the busboys and waiters were already breaking the room down, snatching off the stiff linens to reveal the plywood circles with folding legs that lay beneath. There always seemed a fine irony in the disclosure that everyone had paid $100 a plate to dine on wormy lumber.

"Terrible burden that boy is carrying," Tuohey advised me, growing somber. "Well, `boy,' now listen to me. But I've known him all his life. A grown man many years, but that's how I think of him. Partners with my nephew, did you know that? I take an avuncular interest. Concerned about him, naturally. I worry that all of it--!' Tuohey folded his lips before resuming. "He seemed a bit, I'd say, irregular when I bumped into him last Tuesday. Have you seen him since? Does he appear all right to you?"

I was no match for Brendan. I'd been bred to a reserve that if nothing else generally left me time to think, but I didn't have Tuohey's speed or his guile. His probes, placed with the delicacy of acupuncture needles, could intrude barely noticed. What was coming to me through a process of plodding calculation was known to Tuohey largely by instinct, but I finally realized he was at my side because he'd heard nothing from Mel Tooley.

Mel was a former Assistant United States Attorney, who had gone from being one of Stan's darlings to, more recently, a Satanic outcast. Once he'd left the government, the appetites of private practice had led Mel to begin defending many of the same made members of the Mafia he'd formerly investigated. There had been outrage in the U.S. Attorney's Office and protracted battles, which the government lost, aimed at throwing Mel off the cases. Stan had entertained thoughts of sending Robbie, attired in his sound-wired boots, to visit Mel, as Tuohey had suggested. UCORC, however, found there was no hard evidence of a potential crime and declined to authorize a recording. Stalemated, Sennett had figured that silence might drive Tuohey or his minions to recontact Robbie on their own. Instead, Brendan had clearly concluded that, despite his discouragement, Robbie was seeking legal advice from me.

Tuohey's glance swept over me like a searchlight. I did not know if it was my weakness or my honor that Brendan meant to exploit, but he was sure I would never mislead him, whether as a matter of highminded rectitude or out of knee-knocking reluctance to offend the mighty. Appropriate lawyerly conduct was to let Brendan's lingering question pass with no comment, but I knew that, given his suspicions of me, he would feel he could no longer count on Robbie.

And so in this grand old ballroom, with its velvet-backed chairs and huge mirrors veined in gold, I swung like a spider caught in descent on its own web. I should have moved off with the myth of the waiting conference call, and let Stan clean up the resulting mess. But I stood my ground. I was driven by too many motives to know which was dominant-commitment to my client was part of it; so was what Sennett, with his craft, had long counted on, namely, my anger and disdain over Brendan's private appropriation of the power of the law. Whatever, as I'd always suspected, I was thrilled to tempt the fates. Well knowing where the line lay that I'd long drawn for myself, I marched across it, committed to making the man who in all likelihood would soon run all the Kindle County courts an enemy for life.

I gave Tuohey a look as grave and level as I could muster and said that Robbie Feaver was a tough guy and not the kind to share his woes. He did not understand why anybody would want to make trouble for him, but he was a stoic and would take the weight of whatever came his way.

From the withered depths that gave his light eyes an aspect of privacy, Tuohey's look remained on me as he evaluated the message.

"Ah," said Brendan slowly. "So he's okay?"

I was sure of that, I said with no wavering.

"And you'll let me know if there's any change? I want to help however I can."

Departing, Tuohey shook again with a fierce two-handed grip, pleased with me and himself and my assurance that Robbie was a stand-up guy. He'd given another bravura performance, finding out what he needed without admitting a thing. His remark that Robbie'd seemed `irregular' might even have loosed a weevil of doubt about the reliability of anything Robbie had let slip to me, although I'd done my best to convey the impression that Feaver had told me nothing.

"You didn't have to do that, George," Robbie said, when I shared the details of my encounter with Brendan. We sat in the parking lot of a McDonald's near his home where I'd stopped on my way from the office that evening. Together we watched the young moms coping with the anguish of dinnertime. Robbie was sharp to the nuances of practice and knew the burden I was taking on if Tuohey escaped.

I reassured him that I'd chosen to do it. But I had one request.

"Anything," he answered.

Let's not tell Sennett, I said.

On Friday at noon, Evon made a trip to Feaver's, carrying an urgent message. She found him in no state for visitors. He answered the door in tears. Like a child, he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his polo shirt as she stepped into the marble foyer Her first thought was to leave, but he took hold of her wrist, clearly craving company.

"We were talking," he said. "About kids. I mean, you understand." His black eyes briefly rose to her as if the look alone betrayed a secret. And it did. Evon, for once, immediately made the connection. Rainey must have indicated that she did not have the same reasons to continue her life she might have if she were a mother.

"I mean, you know-regrets?" he asked. "Millions. But that's number one. Kids." They were on the long white sofa in the living room where Robbie had first faced the IRS agents last fall. She had no place to ask for details, but Robbie, as ever, spoke.

"It was always an issue. I was for kids. I mean, I was afraid of fucking up like my father, but, you know, I wanted the chance to do better. But Lorraine, with that screwy upbringing of hers? It became kind of a manana thing. She had her job, and wow, she made big money. And then, you know, I was trouble. I made trouble. She was always with one foot out the door, and I'd say I'd mend my ways, and I didn't. And then, to teach me a lesson, she did some stuff. But when we got the news, whatever it was, three years ago, I was like, No, wait one minute, we were just about to get this right. I think we would have. I do. Every New Year's, for maybe five years, it was my last loopy thought right before I crashed through into sleep: This year we're pregnant.