Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

At age forty-five, Mack McCall still felt young and randy, and he needed a woman who was young and randy, like Jean. They had sex nearly every day, anytime and anywhere-his private bathroom, the backseat of the limousine, the Senate cloakroom. She had an incredible body, a body that made him feel twenty-five again and brimming with testosterone. And she possessed a sex drive that could permanently disable a man half his age.

She was also a TV camera’s dream, beautiful, articulate, charming, and intelligent. When Mack began dreaming of the White House, he had to make a decision: Did he want a first lady who looked like a grandmother or a fashion model? The decision took less than a minute to make. He divorced Martha.

She hired an asshole for a lawyer and threatened to confirm what the tabloids had suggested: that Senator Mack McCall was having an affair with a member of his staff. Not that that was any big news on Capitol Hill, a member of Congress screwing around on his wife. But it was a sensitive issue when the particular member ran on a conservative family values platform and had his eye on the White House. Of course, Mack McCall could cut a business deal when the need arose. For $100 million, Martha kept her mouth shut and went home to Texas.

Jean had been worth every penny.

But the years had taken their toll on Mack McCall. Now, at age sixty, he didn’t feel twenty-five anymore; he didn’t feel forty-five, or even fifty-five; he didn’t feel young and virile and brimming with testosterone. So he did what any self-respecting sixty-year-old man with money and a wife twenty years younger than him would do: he went to the doctor. Every morning now, Senator Mack McCall showered, shaved, and slapped on aftershave and a testosterone patch, and every night he popped a Viagra pill, all in an effort to satisfy his sexual fantasies and Jean’s sexual desires.

That evening she was stretched out naked on their bed. Her body was still incredibly shapely and inviting; her black hair was draped over her shoulders and fell onto her firm breasts; her belly was flat with no stretch marks from pregnancies; her lean legs didn’t look like road maps. She was wearing her Clark Kent glasses and working on her laptop; the TV was on but the sound was muted. He was taking no chances tonight: he had replaced this morning’s testosterone patch with a fresh one an hour ago when he had swallowed the Viagra pill. The patch was secreting that elixir of youth into his bloodstream and the little blue pill was expanding the arteries leading to his penis, physiological actions that resulted in an impressive erection. Feeling pretty damned proud and young and virile (albeit chemically and momentarily enhanced), Mack went over to Jean and stood by the bed until her eyes left the laptop and found him. Her eyebrows rose, and she smiled.

“I take it we’re not going to watch Dateline tonight.”

Mack could not know his wife was thinking, Or at least the first five minutes of Dateline, as she removed her glasses, set the laptop on the night table, slid down onto the bed, and spread her legs. Mack McCall’s version of foreplay had always consisted of checking the oil futures, so he climbed on top of Jean and entered her without so much as a howdy-do. She felt incredible, her legs pulled up and wrapped around his waist, her fingernails biting into his butt, her large breasts suffocating him with pleasure, as he pushed into her again and again and again with the steady rhythm of an oil well pump and he wondered what oil futures had closed at today when-

“Mack! Mack, stop!”

Jean reached for her glasses and the remote control. She put her glasses on with her left hand and pointed the remote with her right. Mack slipped out of her, panting heavily.

“What?”

Jean pointed at the television. “Look!”

Mack turned to the TV and saw his dead son’s face.

“Tonight, from the federal building in downtown Dallas, an exclusive live interview with Shawanda Jones, the woman accused of murdering Clark McCall, the son of Senator Mack McCall, the leading candidate to be the next president of the United States.”

On the screen, Mack saw the black face of Shawanda Jones, prostitute, drug addict, and murderer. Sitting next to her was A. Scott Fenney, Esq.

“He’s a hunk,” Jean said, which ignited the anger already smoldering within Mack.

On the TV: “With Ms. Jones tonight is her court-appointed lawyer, Scott Fenney. Mr. Fenney, every news show in the country has been trying to get an interview with you or your client ever since she was arrested-why tonight?”

“Because certain information has come to our attention that requires a public appeal. And because certain actions of Senator McCall constitute obstruction of justice.”

“That’s a serious charge, Mr. Fenney. But let’s first go back to the night of Saturday, June fifth. What happened?”

Mack McCall’s blood pressure rose steadily as the black bitch told her story: That Clark had picked her up, offered her a thousand dollars for a night of sex, took her to the McCall mansion in Highland Park, engaged in sex acts with her, and then beat her and called her nigger; that she fought him off, kneed him in the groin, and left, taking the money he owed her and his car keys; that the last time she had seen Clark, he was alive, lying on the floor, in pain and cursing her; that the murder weapon was in fact her gun, but that she had not held the gun to Clark’s head and pulled the trigger and put a bullet through his brain. When she finally stopped talking, the program went to commercial.

During the break, McCall paced the bedroom, naked and angry. And when Mack McCall got angry, someone got hurt. That someone would be A. Scott Fenney. The only question was how McCall would hurt him this time. He had just about decided when the show returned to the air and the reporter turned to Fenney.

“Mr. Fenney, your client is alleging that Clark McCall was a racist and a brutal rapist. But he’s not here to defend himself. How can you expect a jury to believe the word of a drug-addicted prostitute?”

“Because she wasn’t the first woman Clark McCall beat and raped.”

All the anger Mack McCall had experienced in his sixty years of life combined-anger against business competitors, political opponents, his ex-wife-could not compare to the anger that now controlled his being. He wanted desperately to kill Scott Fenney.

“Clark McCall beat and raped another woman a year ago. She filed a criminal complaint against him, but dropped it under pressure and a half-million-dollar payment from Senator McCall. She has agreed to testify at Shawanda’s trial.”

“To corroborate that Clark McCall was a rapist?”

“Yes. And there were other women, six others, who were raped and beaten by Clark McCall. I’m asking those women to come forward and testify so that an innocent victim of Clark McCall will not be sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit.”

Another commercial break had Mack pointing to Jean’s laptop and asking her if she had Dan Ford’s home phone number on it. She did.

When the program resumed, the reporter asked: “Now, Mr. Fenney, let’s turn to your allegation that Senator McCall obstructed justice.”

Fenney said, “Obviously, the trial of the person accused of murdering Clark McCall will be a media circus. The federal court did not believe that the public defender’s office could provide an adequate defense for Shawanda under those circumstances. So the court appointed me to represent her.”

“That must have been a shock.”

“Sure, at first. I’m a partner in a large Dallas law firm and I’m very busy with our paying clients, but I’ve always believed that lawyers have a professional duty to represent people who can’t pay. So when the judge called, I readily accepted the appointment.”