William Lashner - Falls The Shadow

“Did you tell her what kind of evidence might be most helpful?”

“I told her evidence that cast doubt on her husband’s ability to care for the child would be most valuable.”

“Evidence of drug use?”

“Absolutely.”

“Evidence of multiple sex partners?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Evidence of bizarre sexual perversions?”

He smiled and bared his teeth as if he were being offered a plump swimmer’s leg. “Such evidence is always helpful in these cases.”

“Did you suggest to Mrs. Dubé that she hire an investigator to see if such evidence existed?”

“I did, but she claimed she didn’t have sufficient funds after paying my retainer.”

“How much did you get up front, by the way?”

“Objection,” said Dalton.

“What’s the purpose of that question, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.

“Professional curiosity. I might be in the wrong branch of the business.”

“Objection sustained.”

“Thank you, Judge,” I said. “And thank you, Mr. Gullicksen. I have no further questions.”

I don’t know why I awoke when I did. There was a stillness in the air, and maybe that was it. I lived in the city, and in the early summer I kept my bedroom window open to the breeze, so I was serenaded to sleep each evening by the rise and fall of traffic, the distant horns, the laughter of passersby on my street having a better life than was I. But when I awoke that night, there was only the quiet. Maybe I was like the London man who was startled out of his slumber when Big Ben failed to chime.

Or maybe I was waiting for him. If so, he didn’t disappoint.

I was lying with my eyes open, letting the pieces of my consciousness fall together and adhere to one another, when the phone rang. My nerves reflexively jangled at the sound.

“Hello,” I said quickly.

No answer, and suddenly I knew who it was.

“It’s you, I suppose,” I said, without any desperation this time. In fact, if anything, my voice was downright hearty.

I heard nothing but the slight rasp of a breath.

“I figured you’d call again,” I said. “You don’t have anything to say? That’s okay. But please, don’t hang up. I have a special message especially for you.”

I waited a moment. The line stayed open.

“But before I relay the message” – was that a sigh I heard from the other end of the line? – “I wanted to tell you that there’s nothing personal in what I am doing. I like you, actually, against my better judgment maybe, but I do. And I sort of admire you, too. Those false classified ads were pretty funny. Annoying, yes, and you ruined my secretary’s day, what with all the people showing up for the paralegal job, but still, it was a pretty good gag. And the worst of it was those damn Labradoodles. My cell phone never stopped ringing. I turned it off to escape the desperate yapping of the callers, and whenever I turned it back on, there were, like, twenty new messages, all asking about Labradoodles. I still don’t know what the hell a Labradoodle is, it sounds like a kind of processed breakfast meat, but the demand, I can tell you, is insatiable.

“And I liked how you arranged to have those porno magazines scattered around my office with my name on the fake subscription labels. Cute. My secretary was not happy about that, first realizing what you had done and then searching high and low to see if she got them all. I’ll have you know I’ve taken them home with me, and I have spent hours scouring the evidence and I am still puzzled. Bottoms Up, I can understand, Jugs, sure, but Lesbian Grannies ? Really? No wonder I’m having trouble sleeping. I can barely wait to see what you have in store for me next.

“But it isn’t the cleverness I most admire about you, or the wherewithal to inconvenience my life so. It’s the sense of obligation you have, the sense of mission. You like to help, you always say, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? More like an obsession. And I think I understand where it came from. But you have to understand, I have my own obligations. And my main obligation, right now, is to my client. Frankly, I don’t like François any more than I suppose you do, but still, he’s my client. That means something, at least to me. I have to do what I can to help him, and from where I’m sitting, to do that I have bring you into it all.

“You still there?”

I listened. Just the raspy breath, but it was enough.

“It’s sort of nice to be the one talking for a change, almost as if I have my hands in your mouth.”

I laughed a little, but he didn’t, not at all.

“I don’t understand everything that happened the night Leesa Dubé died. Who did what to whom and where? It’s all a muddle. But I know for sure that you were somehow involved. And I believe that I might be able to convince the jury of that, too. And if I do, there’s a chance François could be acquitted. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is not for me to say. I tried once to play judge and jury, and it didn’t work out too well. What I learned is that I don’t know enough. To be frank, I barely know enough to get myself dressed in the morning, and Carol Kingsly will tell you I don’t do a very good job at that. But all I can be certain about in this world is that I have this job to do and I’m going to do it, and no amount of harassing phone calls or false subscriptions to porno magazines can change that.

“I just wanted you to know. Nothing personal.

“Okay, I guess it’s time for the message. I was in Chicago a few days ago, right by the ballpark. A little house about three blocks west of third base. That’s right. Your house, your boyhood home. You’re not the only one who can dig into the past. I had a nice little talk with Jim and Franny. Your brother and sister were so happy to hear about you. They hadn’t heard from you in so long they thought you had died. There were almost tears when I told them how well you were doing. Almost. And believe it or not, your father was with them. Good news. He’s out of jail. But I think he had a stroke, and frankly, I don’t think he’s being treated so well, not that he deserves much better. I thought you should know. But the message I have is from your brother and sister. They said your dad would like to see you, and they would like to see you, too. They want you to visit. They want you to come home.”

I waited awhile for some sort of reaction, but there was nothing, just the rasp of breath. And then a click.

Good.

I hung up, laid my head on the cool of my pillow, felt my lids grow heavy. That worked out pretty well, I thought. Tonight it would be his turn to lose his sleep.

Tommy’s High Ball, early afternoon on a day court was in recess. I stepped into the cool of the bar, waved at the barkeep with his shock of white hair. He nodded and gestured me over to the booth next to the door, where Horace T. Grant sat with another old man, a chessboard between them, the pieces scattered like weary soldiers across the black and white squares.

Horace looked up when I stepped on over, grimaced as if experiencing a shooting pain in his hip.

“You here for another whipping?” he said.

“No, sir,” I said. “The scars of our last meeting haven’t yet healed.”

“I wouldn’t think so.” He turned his attention back to the board. “You going to move that knight, Simpson, or you going to stare at that miserable position of yours for the rest of this beautiful afternoon?”

“I got possibilities,” said the man across from Horace.

“Maybe,” said Horace, “but they’re all bad.”

“I got possibilities, I say,” said Simpson, “all kinds of possibilities. And I don’t need you sitting across from me and being so high and mighty. I’ve taken you down before.”