David Ellis - The Wrong Man

The seventh came courtesy of the goombahs again. I don’t know why the bartender didn’t run interference for the lady, but he served her up. That was it for the lady. She pushed it away and pushed herself off the bar stool.

She didn’t even acknowledge the corner boys, which might have been a smart move. Save them some face. Italians are like that. Lost every war they ever started but still think they’re the toughest guys going.

“Ho!” one of them called out.

I settled up and threw on my coat.

Both men stood up. They weren’t tall, but they were wide. Weight lifters, the muscular shapes of their shoulders and arms notable, even through their winter coats.

“That’s no kinda polite,” thug number one said. “All those drinks and not even a hello?”

The woman, who had thrown on her long white coat and gathered her purse, turned to the man. “Hello,” she said. “And good-bye.”

“No, no, no.” They picked up their pace as she left the bar.

So did I. When I pushed through the door, the three of them were standing outside. One of them, the beefier one, was holding the lady’s arm by the biceps as she tried to yank it away.

“-your name,” he said. “Least you can do is tell me your name. I bought you all those drinks.”

“I didn’t tell you to buy me any drinks,” she protested. Her voice wasn’t so weak, after all. She seemed like someone who could take care of herself under normal circumstances.

“Just let her go,” said the second goombah.

“I’ll let her go when she tells me her name and thanks me for the drinks.”

All at once, everyone seemed to notice me. Maybe that’s because I cleared my throat really loudly. The woman caught my eyes. Both goons turned and looked at me. Our breath lingered in the frozen air. This is where the protocol called for me to de-escalate the situation.

“I’m the one who should be upset,” I said. “I sat there the whole night and you didn’t buy me a single cocktail.”

“This don’t concern you,” said the one holding the woman’s arm.

“A wine spritzer, something,” I said. “Throw me a bone.”

Goon number two squared off on me now. “How ’bout I throw you my fist?”

“Clever. Good comeback. Listen, fellas,” I said.

Don’t ask me why I do the things I do. As awkward as it was, my presence was eventually going to be enough to make them release this woman. And a smooth diplomat like me could have gotten these men on their way without fisticuffs. A lot of braggadocio and threats-face-saving-but not fisticuffs. The guy was too close for me to throw a punch, anyway.

So I threw him an elbow. I’m right-handed, but for some reason I can throw a stronger left elbow. Go figure. Like my brother’s a righty but swings a golf club lefty.

The elbow caught him in the soft part of the skull at the temple. I can’t take total credit for knocking him over, as there was a decent patch of ice on the sidewalk. Anyway, he lost his feet and fell hard on his left shoulder, and his head collided with the ice.

Maybe it’s unresolved aggression. Reliving my childhood or something. My mother always told me I couldn’t solve problems with my fists.

But like I said, it was an elbow.

“That had to hurt,” I said to the other goon. “I’m Jason, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Now, what’d you do that for?” said he. Sounded like a rhetorical question. He was playing it tough, but from my take, the wariness in his eyes, he didn’t want to escalate the situation. More bark than bite. Once again, protocol dictated I give him an out to save face.

“You still haven’t told me your name,” I answered. “I’ll get you started. It ends in a vowel.”

The other guy got to his knees. His shoulder was bothering him. He probably had a headache, too. This ice is a bitch.

“Not the last time we’ll be seeing each other. Understand?” This from the first one, who released the woman and went over to help his buddy.

“I’m here most nights,” I said.

It took them some time to leave. Number two got to his feet, cussed a few times, and mumbled some aggressive thoughts. But they were leaving. The threat was over.

The woman could have been on the next block by now if she’d wanted to be. But she stuck around. Watched them leave, waited until they were well out of sight.

Then she turned on me. “I can fight my own battles, thank you.”

“You had that situation under control, did you?”

“Dealing with jerks has become my specialty.”

Present company excluded, I’m sure. She smoothed her hands over her white coat. Frozen breath trailed out of her mouth. Her heels looked vulnerable on the ice.

“Safe travels,” I said.

She walked away without another word.

I made it to my law firm the next morning by nine. I kept my own hours, and on days when I didn’t have court in the morning, I often worked out in the morning and arrived late. But today I wanted to finish up my notes on the prosecution’s evidence in Stoller and get them typed up for the beginnings of a crude database.

I pushed through the door bearing the stenciled lettering of T ASKER amp; K OLARICH and smiled at our young receptionist, Marie, who majored in archaeology and minored in the avoidance of productive labor.

“Hold all my calls,” I said. “I’m on with the Pentagon in ten minutes.”

She hardly looked up. There was definitely a document in front of her, so she must have been working very hard on it. “You have a ten-thirty.”

Right. I’d forgotten. Some guy who called a couple days ago and was vague about why.

My partner, Shauna Tasker, had a young couple in her office. My guess, a real estate closing for a husband and wife. Shauna was good about diversifying. She preferred litigation but took on all sorts of transactional matters, too, from real estate sales to corporate formations to employment agreements to falling asleep from boredom.

“What up, old man?” said the third member of our team, Bradley John, as he passed the office with a cup of Starbucks in hand.

“Hey, Rock Star.”

I’m only seven years older than Bradley, for the record. He’s been out of law school for three years and joined up with us three months ago. I like the kid but try not to let him know it.

I had court this afternoon on a state drug possession, and another appearance in federal court on a gun case. The drug possession was a guy running pills, including a couple that hit Schedule I and therefore could get the kid six years inside, even for a first offense. The gun charge was an arrest by city cops but was scooped up by the feds, who can kick the sentence on a gun crime into the stratosphere compared to state guidelines. I have a decent chance on that one, because the kid dumped the gun during the chase, but nobody saw the dumping.

All fine, they’ve paid up front and both will probably go to trial, which is the only thing that keeps my heart pumping these days. But my ten-thirty, from what I gathered between the lines over the phone yesterday, might be a homicide.

The guy’s name was Lorenzo Fowler. He was of medium height, thick across the middle, with heavy bags under his bloodshot eyes. He was wearing a dress shirt open at the collar and a cheap wool sport coat. He wore too much cologne-any cologne is too much-and shook my hand too hard when he sat across the desk from me.

He smoothed his hands over the arms of the chair and tapped his feet. Nerves. That’s not unusual in my line of work.

“So this is attorney-client, right?” he asked.

“Are you an officer of a publicly held corporation?”

He cocked his head. “What? No.”

“Are you going to tell me about a crime you plan to commit in the future?”