Steven Womack - By Blood Written

She turned to her left, facing him. She thought she could see a glimmer in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

He rolled away from her, then sat up on the edge of the bed. “Me, too.”

Then he turned and faced her. “You want me to go stay somewhere else?”

She sat up quickly, her hips scooting across the smooth sheets. “No, of course not. It’s quite a jump from ‘I’ve got too much on my mind to make love’ to ‘I want you out of here.’ “

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.” She reached over and brushed his face with the tips of her fingers. “I’ll make it up to you. Honest.”

She saw the white of his teeth as he smiled. “Okay. But I still can’t sleep. I think I’m going to go downstairs, have a drink, catch a late movie on TV. Want to come?”

“No. I can’t sleep, but I am tired. I think I’ll stay up here and try to rest.”

He shrugged, then leaned down and kissed her lightly and quickly on the cheek. It was, she felt, almost a dismissive peck. Then he was gone.

Taylor settled her head into the pillow and tried to clear her thoughts. Sometime around sunup, she finally succeeded and drifted off into a restless, troubled, and altogether too short sleep.

Monday morning, Manhattan

The offices of Steinberg, Tillman, Gordon, Jenkins amp; Associates took up the entire nineteenth floor of a twenty-six-story building with a clear view of the East River and beyond. Taylor and Michael stepped off the elevator in the middle of a crowd of busy, droning office workers and entered the main reception area through a pair of heavy glass doors. The receptionist looked up, recognized Michael immediately, and stared for a few seconds before rising and taking them directly into Abe Steinberg’s office.

Steinberg’s office alone was bigger than most Manhattan apartments. A long plate-glass window gave them a view eastward of the sprawling city. Steinberg’s desk was easily six feet wide, made of a deep, rich brown polished wood. As Michael and Taylor were led into the office, he rose to meet them. He was short, balding, almost nondescript, and had to be pushing seventy. He didn’t exactly present a fearsome image, Taylor thought.

He crossed the room from behind his desk and met them in the middle of the room. “You must be Mr. Schiftmann,”

he offered, extending his hand.

Michael nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Steinberg.”

Taylor thought he seemed quiet, subdued, even a little nervous. The two of them had left Taylor’s building through the basement and the boiler room, and out onto the sidewalk at the freight entrance. They’d dodged smelly garbage cans and pallets of flattened recyclable cardboard boxes to avoid the news trucks and vans parked out front. Michael had said less then five words during the long cab ride uptown.

“And you’re Taylor Robinson,” Steinberg said, turning to Taylor and smiling. “Joan Delaney’s told me so much about you. She sees you as the future of the agency, you know.”

“That may be stretching it a bit,” Taylor answered. “But thanks for the compliment.”

Steinberg turned and motioned toward a shiny leather sofa that occupied the center of the office. Next to it, a matching brown leather chair sat next to a long glass coffee table.

“Please, sit down. We’ve got a lot to do and not much time.

We’re going to be here awhile, so would you like some coffee, tea, a soda, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” Taylor said. Michael shook his head.

Steinberg turned and dismissed his assistant with a wave of his hand. Michael and Taylor sat down on the sofa at opposite ends. Steinberg loosened his tie and settled himself into the chair.

“Well, Mr. Schiftmann, you must feel like a character in one of your own books.”

Michael reached up and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think I could ever write anything like this. No one would believe it.”

Steinberg laughed. “You’re not the first person I’ve ever met who was accused of something and couldn’t quite believe it.”

Michael scooted forward on the seat and put his elbows on his knees, his arms extended forward. “First of all, Mr.

Steinberg, I want you to know I’m absolutely inno-”

“Don’t,” Steinberg interrupted. “Don’t tell me that now.

For one thing, it doesn’t matter at this point. For another, we have too much else to do.”

Michael leaned back in the sofa, looking a bit, Taylor thought, like a scolded puppy. Steinberg crossed his legs in the chair and leaned his head back, relaxed and confident.

“The first thing we have to do here is make a couple of decisions. The first is how you’re going to choose to fight this. There are several ways to contend with it. First, you can lay low, keep quiet, and let the best lawyers in the country fight it out for you. On the other extreme is total war, total commitment. Take your case to the public. Hire the best public relations firm in the country. Work the talk-show circuit, the tabloids, the whole thing. Build a case for Michael Schiftmann as the victim of an overzealous prosecutor and an incompetent police department. We can hire private investigators, our own forensic researchers, experts, and take the offensive. We challenge every point, concede nothing, and make them pay with blood, sweat, and tears for every step they take.”

Michael and Taylor looked at each other briefly, then back to Steinberg.

“The advantage to the former course of action is that it’s less stress and cost on your part. Good lawyers with lots of resources can often make these things go away. The downside is that you’re putting your fate in someone else’s hands, and that requires considerable trust.”

“And what are the ramifications of taking the other course?” Michael asked.

“The advantage is that your own personal involvement in the case will often swing public sympathy to your side, and don’t negate the power of that. The downside is when it backfires and the public turns against you. And there’s one other downside.”

“Yes?” Michael asked.

“If you write a check to the lawyers and let them take it from there, it’s going to be expensive. But if you decide to commit to total war-and make no mistake, my friend, this is war-then it could cost you everything.”

“But if I beat this …”

“Then you become a kind of folk hero,” Steinberg said, smiling. “And there are many opportunities in our culture for heroes. You’re a writer. Use your imagination.”

“Yes,” Michael said, smiling. “And I think that I want to take this fight to them. I’m innocent-I know you told me not to say that, but I am-and I’m not going to let them run over me. I don’t want to go to war with them, but if I have to, I will. Total commitment.”

Michael turned to Taylor and held out his hand. She smiled and took it. Then she turned to Steinberg.

“Okay, Mr. Steinberg,” she said. “Total war. What’s the first step?”

“The first step,” Steinberg said, “is you write me a check for one hundred thousand dollars. That’s just to get started.

And when we get your attorney in Nashville on board, you should be prepared to write another one.”

There was a long moment of increasingly uncomfortable silence. Taylor looked over at Michael as he sat there with a shocked look on his face. Then he slowly extracted a leather-bound checkbook from his inside suit coat pocket.

“How should I make out the check?” he asked, his voice subdued.

“Steinberg, Tillman will be fine.”

Michael slipped his black Montblanc fountain pen out of his pocket and removed the cap. “I’m writing a one-hundred-thousand-dollar check with a fountain pen that five years ago, I couldn’t afford.”