John Dobbyn - Neon Dragon

I walked Lanny up the six steps to the door.

“Would you like to come up for coffee? I grind it fresh.”

“Would the Bruins like to beat the Rangers for the Stanley Cup?”

I love to throw sports analogies at her because she looks so cute while she’s grasping for a clue as to what I’m talking about.

“Does that mean ‘yes’?”

“It means ‘yes,’ but no. I have to be awake enough to play in the big league in about four hours. If I sleep fast, I’ll get three hours.”

I gave it a second or two before asking a question to which I really did not want to hear a negative answer.

“How about a real date? Dinner, North Shore?”

“When?”

That sounded promising. “Wednesday? I’ll give you a call. Would you like to?”

“Would Versace like to see Chanel in the red?”

It was my turn. “Does that mean ‘yes’?”

She kissed me. “Call and see.”

It was about 8:30 AM Tuesday when I stepped off the elevator at Bilson, Dawes. I never made it down the corridor to my office. I was cruising past the cluster of secretaries’ desks with a paper cup of black caffeine, when Julie waved to me from behind a telephone. Her right hand pointed south, and her expression said, “Poor baby.”

I got the message. Mr. Devlin wanted to see me.

I parked the coffee on her desk and caught her attention. She held a hand over the mouthpiece and looked up. I reached over and pushed her “hold” button. She looked indignant.

“Hey, you just cut off a client.”

“No, I didn’t. That was your lunch date.”

“You listened!”

“Of course. Do me a favor. I may not get serious time in my office till Groundhog Day the way this thing is going with Lex.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Oh, ‘Lex,’ is it?”

“Only out of his hearing. Otherwise it’s ‘Your Excellency.’”

“You better not get those two confused. You’ll be seeking employment.”

“Naw, he wouldn’t fire me. That would be small and vindictive. He’d just eat me alive. To finish the thought, I’ll never get to my mail or messages. Go through it all, will you? If anything looks like an emergency, leave a note on my desk. I may get to it by Friday.”

I headed for the lion’s den. I heard from behind, “What’s an emergency?”

“Death threats, malpractice actions, my subscription to DownBeat is expiring. I don’t know. I trust your judgment.”

The King was in his throne room, skimming the Globe and inhaling something black and steaming out of a paper cup. I thought of my own, cooling on Julie’s desk, and wished that I had known that it was the breakfast hour.

He waved me into the chair in front of his desk. I accepted the invitation, beginning to feel like a golden retriever responding to hand signals.

As he swung around to face me, his blackish blue suitcoat winged open over his barrel chest to a pair of red suspenders. I couldn’t help thinking that on another man they could be an affectation. Not Mr. Devlin. I sized him up as a man who measured himself by his own standards and to hell with anyone else’s. He was reminding me more of Miles O’Connor every time I saw him. I realized that if I didn’t catch myself, I could slip into something akin to hero worship.

“What have you got for me, sonny?”

I wasn’t proud of the catch. There was no way to make it look good.

“I’ve got a witness, elderly Chinese woman, who kills our client with a positive ID. She says she saw him pull the trigger. Why, I don’t know. It’s hard to read her. She’s wound pretty tight, but what really makes it difficult is that she only admits to speaking Chinese.”

“Could it be she’s telling the truth? I mean about Bradley.”

My gaze had wandered to the window, but that last question brought me back to eye contact with a snap. I felt caught like a bug under a microscope.

“I know I should never believe a client in a criminal case. I know they lie to get the best defense out of you. I know that.”

“Good. Live by that, sonny. Because if you turn this into a crusade to free a poor innocent defendant, you’ll be worse than useless to me and the client. You’ll be dangerous. You’ll be looking for evidence to back up your theory instead of the truth. That’s the best way to get blindsided.”

I gave him the agreement-in-principle nod he was looking for, but he knew there was more.

“So? Give it to me.”

“I know that. But I talked to him.”

“That’s why I’m asking. I want to know what I’m working with here.”

I sucked in an inch of stomach and looked back into those laser beams.

“It won’t change the way I work, but you might as well know this, Mr. Devlin. If they accused my grandmother of doing the Brink’s job, I’d be more likely to believe it than that this kid’s guilty. It’s not because of his background, the judge and all. It’s just something about the way he says he didn’t do it.”

I knew what I meant, but it sounded lame. He took a deep breath before swinging back in his chair. I was ready to be told that he could survive without my help. I had taken the case for Judge Bradley, but heaven knew the judge would be delighted to have the great Lex Devlin in substitution.

There were times the previous night when being back working on pretrial motions for Whitney Caster seemed almost attractive. But this was morning. I’d had a few hours’ sleep, and I realized that I’d grown fond of the big league. I watched him rub his eyes while I waited for the shoe to drop.

“How’d you find that witness? I thought the police weren’t giving out the names.”

I spun out the story of my newfound Puerto Rican contact in the police computer section. I might have been grasping at straws, but I thought I caught the slightest trace of a smile softening those Mount Rushmore features. I was cool on the surface, but inside I was sipping champagne.

The phone buzzed, and he took it. Whatever his secretary said seemed to surprise him. He punched the speaker-phone button and set it back down.

“You never know what a new day’ll bring, sonny. I want you to hear this. Put her on, Carol.”

There was something reaching for warmth and charm in the female voice that came through the speaker, but it still sounded like a barracuda in drag.

“Good morning, Lex. How are you this morning? This is Angela Lamb.”

That was never in doubt. Mr. Devlin matched her warmth. It was like watching two pit bulls sniffing each other.

“Is the sun shining on the district attorney’s office this morning, Angela?”

“It’s a beautiful day, Lex. I think I have good news for your client.”

“That’s generous. Let me guess. You caught the killer, and you’re dismissing all charges.”

I could almost hear her teeth grinding.

“Oh, we caught the killer. He’s sitting in the Suffolk County jail. As your little errand boy knows.”

This time Rushmore cracked into a slight grin. The gloves were off, and he felt more comfortable.

“You’re out of line, Angela. Michael Knight is cocounsel on this case. Matter of fact, since I haven’t entered an appearance yet, he’s the only counsel on this case. Would you like to speak to him? He’s listening to the conversation.”

Mr. Devlin threw himself back in his chair. I knew he was eating up the uncomfortable pause on the other end of the line. I also knew that the “cocounsel” speech was to stuff Angela’s patronizing remark down her throat. It still felt good.

I threw in a pleasant, “Good morning, Angela.”

It seemed a nice complement to Mr. Devlin’s salvo to put her on a first-name basis with the errand boy. She handled it by ignoring it.