Lawrence Block - The Ehrengraf Obligation

“Her father hates you?”

“Despises me. Oh, I can’t really blame him. He’s this self-made man with more money than God and I’m squeezing by on food stamps. There’s not much of a living in poetry.”

“It’s an outrage.”

“Right. When Robin and I moved in together, well, her old man had a fit. Up to then he was laying a pretty heavy check on her the first of every month, but as soon as she moved in with me that was the end of that song. No more money for her. Here’s her little brother going to this fancy private school and her mother dripping in sables and emeralds and diamonds and mink, and here’s Robin slinging hash in a greasy spoon because her father doesn’t care for the company she’s keeping.”

“Interesting.”

“The man really hates me. Some people take to me and some people don’t, but he just couldn’t stomach me. Thought I was the lowest of the low. It really grinds a person down, you know. All the pressure he was putting on Robin, and both of us being as broke as we were, I’ll tell you, it reached the point where I couldn’t get any writing done.”

“That’s terrible,” Ehrengraf said, his face clouded with concern. “The poetry left you?”

“That’s what happened. It just wouldn’t come to me. I’d sit there all day staring at a blank sheet of paper, and finally I’d say the hell with it and fire up a joint or get into the wine, and there’s another day down the old chute. And then finally I found that bottle of bourbon and the next thing I knew—” the poet managed a brave smile “—well, according to you, I’m innocent.”

“Of course you are innocent, sir.”

“I wish I was convinced of that, Mr. Ehrengraf. I don’t even see how you can be convinced.”

“Because you are a poet,” the diminutive attorney said. “Because, further, you are a client of Martin H. Ehrengraf. My clients are always innocent. That is the Ehrengraf presumption. Indeed, my income depends upon the innocence of my clients.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“It’s simple enough. My fees, as we’ve said, are quite high. But I collect them only if my efforts are successful. If a client of mine goes to prison, Mr. Telliford, he pays me nothing. I’m not even reimbursed for my expenses.”

“That’s incredible,” Telliford said. “I never heard of anything like that. Do many lawyers work that way?”

“I believe I’m the only one. It’s a pity more don’t take up the custom. Other professionals as well, for that matter. Consider how much higher the percentage of successful operations might be if surgeons were paid on the basis of their results.”

“Isn’t that the truth. Hey, you know what’s ironic?”

“What?”

“Mr. Littlefield. Robin’s father. He could pay you that eighty thousand out of petty cash and never miss it. That’s the kind of money he’s got. But the way he feels about me, he’d pay to send me to prison, not to keep me out of it. In other words, if you worked for him you’d only get paid if you lost your case. Don’t you think that’s ironic?”

“Yes,” said Ehrengraf. “I do indeed.”

When William Telliford stepped into Ehrengraf’s office, the lawyer scarcely recognized him. The poet’s beard was gone and his hair had received the attention of a fashionable barber. His jacket was black velvet, his trousers a cream-colored flannel. He was wearing a raw silk shirt and a bold paisley ascot.

He smiled broadly at Ehrengraf’s reaction. “I guess I look different,” he said.

“Different,” Ehrengraf agreed.

“Well, I don’t have to live like a slob now.” The young man sat down in one of Ehrengraf’s chairs, shot his cuff, and checked the time on an oversized gold watch. “Robin’ll be coming by for me in half an hour,” he said, “but I wanted to take the time to let you know how much I appreciated what you tried to do for me. You believed in my innocence when I didn’t even have that much faith in myself. And I’m sure you would have been terrific in the courtroom if it had come to that.”

“Fortunately it didn’t.”

“Right, but whoever would have guessed how it would turn out? Imagine old Jasper Littlefield killing Jan to frame me and get me out of his daughter’s life. That’s really a tough one to swallow. But he came over looking for Robin, and he found me drunk, and then it was evidently just a matter of taking the fire axe out of the case and taking me along with him to Jan’s place and killing her and smearing her blood all over me. I must have been in worse than a blackout when it happened. I must have been passed out cold for him to be sure I wouldn’t remember any of it.”

“So it would seem.”

“The police never did find the fire axe, and I wondered about that at the time. What I’d done with it, I mean, because deep down inside I really figured I must have been guilty. But what happened was Mr. Littlefield took the axe along with him, and then when he went crazy it was there for him to use.”

“And use it he did.”

“He sure did,” Telliford said. “According to some psychologist they interviewed for one of the papers, he must have been repressing his basic instincts all his life. When he killed Jan for the purpose of framing me, it set something off inside him, some undercurrent of violence he’d been smothering for years and years. And then finally he up and dug out the fire axe, and he did a job on his wife and his son, chopped them both to hell and gone, and then he made a phone call to the police and confessed what he’d done and told about murdering Jan at the same time.”

“Considerate of him,” said Ehrengraf, “to make that phone call.”

“I’ll have to give him that,” the poet said. “And then, before the cops could get there and pick him up, he took the fire axe and chopped through the veins in his wrists and bled to death.”

“And you’re a free man.”

“And glad of it,” Telliford said. “I’ll tell you, it looks to me as though I’m sitting on top of the world. Robin’s crazy about me and I’m all she’s got in the me and the of million bucks her father left her. With the rest of the family dead, she inherits every penny. No more slinging hash. No more starving in a garret. No more dressing like a slob. You like my new wardrobe?”

“It’s quite a change,” Ehrengraf said

“Well, I realize now that I was getting sick of the way I looked, the life I was leading. Now I can live the way I want. I’ve got the freedom to do as I please with my life.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“And you’re the man who believed in me when nobody else did, myself included.” Telliford smiled with genuine warmth. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I was talking with Robin, and I had the idea that we ought to pay you your fee. You didn’t actually get me off, of course, but your system is that you get paid no matter how your client gets off, just so he doesn’t wind up in jail. That’s how you explained it, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s what I said to Robin. But she said we didn’t have any agreement to pay you eighty thousand dollars, as a matter of fact we didn’t have any agreement to pay you anything, because you volunteered your services. In fact I would have gotten off the same way with my court-appointed attorney. I said that wasn’t the point, but Robin said after all it’s her money and she didn’t see the point of giving you an eighty-thousand-dollar handout, that you were obviously well off and didn’t need charity.”

“Her father’s daughter, I’d say.”

“Huh? Anyway, it’s her money and her decision to make, but I got her to agree that we’d pay for any expenses you had. So if you can come up with a figure—”