Steve Martini - Prime Witness

Saudi’s is one of the priciest restaurants in town, and Roland makes the most of it. He has ordered little crepes smothered in apricot sauce, and escargot, appetizers at eighteen dollars a hit, for a plate the size of a child’s tea saucer. To this he has added three bottles of wine, imported French Bordeaux, of which he has now drunk two-thirds. His face flushed, he is getting more obnoxious by the moment.

His eyes go all round, as a hefty woman in a tight skirt ambles by our table. He slaps Boudin on the arm, gestures toward her backside and, in a voice that carries, says: “Looks like two alley cats fighting in a bag.” For this we are all treated to a drunk’s inane laugh. Boudin casts a quick glance in my direction, then humors Roland with a nervous grin.

It would be bad enough if Overroy were paying for this. But he has demanded that excess change in the office coffee fund be raided to subsidize this frolic, a sparse reserve approaching $70 which he has now exhausted before lunch.

Goya has distanced herself, as far as she can get, from Overroy-this I think to avoid killing him.

“Given the deal you got from the firm, Lenore, you otta be buyin’ us lunch.” Overroy is loud, big gestures, out of place with his hands. His voice can be heard on the other side of the restaurant. He is talking to Goya about her proposed association with her new employer.

“Sure, Roland. When hell freezes.” Goya’s reply to springing for lunch.

Overroy is laughing. She is not.

She is entertaining an offer from one of the big firms in Capital City. Though she is playing this close to the vest, I have heard rumors, probably the same ones that Roland is hearing, that they have dangled a forty percent pay hike in front of her, and a chance at a partnership. She would no doubt get an office with a view of something more than mortar and chipped red brick. I have little with which to tempt her back into the fold. I would offer her Overroy’s fried testicles for lunch if I thought it would do any good.

“We’ll have to talk about the Putah Creek stuff. I’m in a position to give you some help.” Roland is offering me his expertise. There’s a little rivulet of wine dripping down his chin as he says this to me, a confident smile planted on his face. He is assuming that with Goya gone he will be getting heavier fare in the office, more noteworthy cases. I grit my teeth a little, unwilling to make a scene here.

Yesterday I caught him mucking in Iganovich’s case, returning a phone call to the U.S. Department of Justice through which all correspondence must flow on its way to Canada. The U.S. Attorney General is the diplomatic conduit for all formal communications in the international law of extradition.

I chewed on Roland for five minutes and told him he was not to intervene in this matter again. He called it an emergency, something that could not wait. I kneeled on him one more time, and he appeared properly rebuked, said he understood. But with Roland, I suspect that such assurances are only good until the next time.

The menus arrive. Overroy recommends the lobster to me. “Delicious,” he says, kissing three fingers like a five-star chef. At market price it should be.

There are a few toasts around the table. Goya to the secretaries for their silent tribulations in making the office function.

Overroy, not to be outdone, offers another.

I propose a quiet toast to Lenore Goya, a shameless attempt to pluck at the strings of guilt.

“To a great lawyer,” I say. “Someone we respect and who we will miss greatly.” I nod toward her.

Lenore takes up her glass and smiles at me. With all that has happened, she still harbors me no ill will.

“I can honestly say that for the most part working with all of you has been a pleasure, a high point of my life,” she says. She is smiling. “And there are others that if I lived two lifetimes, I will never forget.” I catch her glancing slight sideways slits of hostility at Overroy, who is oblivious, working on one of the little snails with a thing that looks like a chrome cross between a nutcracker and pliers.

Harry Hinds has come over, across the river, in response to my call. He thinks maybe I’m getting ready to pack it in. Harry has come to encourage me to do the right thing, to cut and run. We are in my office with the door closed. I can hear Overroy outside at the public counter telling some off-color joke in a feigned Mexican accent.

“Got yourself in a little mess?” says Harry.

“What makes you think that?”

“With a hiring freeze, in a few months the place will look like a ghost town, you and an empty office.”

“Nonsense,” I tell him. “Nobody would hire Overroy.”

He laughs at this.

“I’ve got a plan,” I tell him.

“So did Hitler,” he says. “It ended outside a bunker where they turned him into crepes suzette. Why don’t you tell ’em to jam their case where the sun don’t shine and come back where you belong?”

What he means is on the right side of the law, with the honest perpetrators of crime. There have been times in the last weeks when this has looked appealing.

“The supervisors will authorize one more body under contract,” I tell him, “part time, to help out with the Putah Creek thing. They figure they can still save a little money on the benefit package.”

“Good! Some fool’s gonna buy bleeding ulcers with no health insurance,” he says.

I arch an eyebrow and look at him.

There’s a moment of silence, mental telepathy as my thought waves settle on him like ether.

“Wait a second,” he says. “No way. Not a chance. I’ve got my own practice. Uh-uh.” He says this with meaning.

I give him a look, like what are friends for?

“You’re incredible,” he says. “I’m shoveling shit against the tide trying to hold your practice together while you’re over here, and now you want me to join you in this fools’ paradise?” Harry is now overseeing two younger associates, lawyers he has brought in to handle some of my lighter cases.

“It pays three thousand a month-for half-time work,” I tell him.

I can see a look in his eye, the glint of money. But he hesitates for only an instant.

“Not a chance,” he says.

Though I tempt him like a demon, it is what I expected from Harry. He has an abiding distrust of all things governmental. To Harry, signing on with the state would be to deal with the devil. He leaves me no choice. I will go and grovel with Goya.

I have no manhood left, but I have at least solved my problem. Two days have passed, and my knees still feel the psychic ache of having crawled on the hard linoleum of her office floor. Harry is back in my office, bringing papers for me to sign, some cases from my office that are being closed out.

There’s a knock on my door.

“Come in.”

It’s Overroy, his head and shoulders through the jamb of my door.

“Paul, you gotta come out here for a second,” he says. “There’s some screwup over at county general services.”

It seems two guys are here with dollies to move furniture out of his office. He is all sunshine and smiles waiting for me to correct this little blunder. His office is palatial, bigger than my own. Feretti had not taken it from him when he struck Overroy’s title from the rolls as chief deputy.

“No mistake, Roland, they’re here to move you.”

He has the look of a letter delivered to the wrong address.

“What?” he says. It’s a face unclouded by human thought, like a moose in the path of a high-speed train.

I’ll say it slower this time. Read my lips, I think. “They’re here to move you,” I say.

“Whataya talkin’ about?”

“You’re going down the hall,” I tell him, “into Lenore’s office.” I smile at him, a grin that says welcome to brick walls and bundles of files, asshole! In a more equitable world, Roland would be in a sealed coat closet with a naked light bulb.