Lisa Scottoline - Running From The Law

I folded my arms, looking no tougher than a petulant teenager. “Okay, I’m dieting.”

He rocked back in his chair and stared at the ceiling lights, discreetly recessed. After a minute he said, “You’re being stubborn about this and I’m entitled to know why.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Look, this isn’t a game. This is serious.”

“Games are serious, Mack. You know that.” Mack played big-time blackjack in Atlantic City and Vegas, to stay in shape for managing my law firm.

“Rita, this is a terrible decision you’re making. The judge is your client, he needs you now. You’re a terrific lawyer, a creative lawyer. That result last week at City Hall-”

“Oh, are you kissing my ass now? Because I like it a little to the left.”

A buzzer sounded on the phone and Mack snatched up the receiver. “What? Send him in.” The receiver clattered to the hook and he eased back again. “I called in reinforcements.”

“Who?”

The door opened and in came a gray Armani suit, a silk paisley tie that ended in a knifepoint, and blue-black hair pulled back into a short ponytail, of all things. It was Jake Tobin, firm womanizer. His dark eyes looked faintly amused.

“You know Jake, don’t you?” Mack said.

“Only by reputation.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Tobin said with an easy laugh, then closed the door behind him.

Mack said, “I asked Jake to join us because he’s done extensive criminal work. He was a public defender before he joined us. Right, Jake?”

“For fifteen years,” Tobin said. He leaned against the credenza and glanced enviously at the PowerBook. I was guessing he knew how to use it.

Mack said, “Jake, I was just telling Rita here that you’ve tried a lot of murder cases.”

“About fifty jury trials, give or take some major scum. Most of them got out of jail free.”

A career to be proud of. “I’m impressed. You want to represent Judge Hamilton? I hear he needs somebody like you.”

Mack shook his head. “No, Rita. Wrong. My idea was that Jake could backstop you on the case. Judge Hamilton told me it’s you or he goes to Goldberg’s firm.”

Tobin nodded. “Now I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be, I quit,” I said.

Mack sighed. “Rita, I’ve had reporters calling from the American Lawyer and the National Law Journal. Joanne told me there were almost forty calls yesterday. And that plaintiffs lawyer, Julicher, he’s all over the news.”

“Julicher?” Tobin asked. “I never heard of him.”

“I had his bio checked, wait a minute.” Mack thumbed through a neat stack of papers to the side of his desk, pulled a sheet out, and skimmed it. “He’s from New York, but not from any of the top-tier firms. A nobody. Graduated from a state university, then Fordham Law School, Class of ‘77, blah, blah, blah, blah. He’s a slip-and-fall guy, does workmen’s comp cases. A scrapper, a nothing, and he’s on the tube all night last night.”

“He’s hustling referral business, Mack.”

“Is he a good lawyer?” Tobin asked, looking at me.

“He’s no scholar, but he’s a fighter. If he still had a harassment case, he would’ve given me a run for my money.”

Mack tossed the bio aside and stood up. “But it’s a murder case now, it’s getting everybody’s attention. Everybody’s watching. If you withdraw now, they’ll all know about it. It’ll make Judge Hamilton look guilty.”

What if he is? “No, it won’t.”

“Well, I, for one, won’t hang a federal judge out to dry. The networks are all over the story, so are the newspapers. Rita, we go back a long time. I’m asking you as a personal favor to keep the case.”

“Why?”

“For the publicity, dopey,” Tobin said.

I looked at Mack for confirmation, and his smile was already broadening. “I told you, I had forty calls yesterday. Forty-count ’em- forty. One was from Good Morning America. Federal judge kills secretary? We’re talking national exposure here!”

“ Allegedly kills secretary,” Tobin added.

Mack laughed. “We’re on a roll with this, Rita. I even hired a public relations firm to manage it. It’s a gold mine.”

Wait a minute. The unsayable needed saying. “But what if Fiske really is the killer?”

They both looked at me blankly. “So what?” Tobin said, and Mack nodded.

I was dumbfounded. “It cuts both ways, boys. It could be bad publicity.”

Mack laughed. “Ain’t no such thing, kid.”

“I second that emotion,” Tobin said.

I looked at them and realized that as long as lawyers like this were around, I would always be second-best.

And I’d never even been to Cincinnati.

The tiny, cluttered kitchenette in back of the butcher shop filled with the smell of cholesterol as my father shook a crackling pan of homemade sausage. He was wearing his I’M ITALIAN AND YOU’RE NOT apron, but I couldn’t read the front. All I could see was his thick back, which ended in a white ribbon tied over baggy white pants. The silent treatment again.

“So, Dad, explain this to me. You’re pissed when I decide to represent the judge, then you’re pissed when I want out? What is it? My aftershave?”

LeVonne, who had been rocking his fork by pressing on the tines, laughed softly. He ate with my father every morning at this ancient white drop-leaf, where they both pretended that LeVonne had eaten already and was just keeping my father company.

“You laughin’, Professor?” my father said, without turning around. “I hope not, because it’s not funny. Everything’s a big joke with her.”

“Who, me? Aren’t you going to call me Miss Fresh?”

The only response was the sausage’s. It sputtered, releasing an aromatic smoke of olive oil, fresh garlic, and green pepper.

“Come on, Dad, I like it when you call me Miss Fresh. Then I know it’s you and not some Vito impersonator.” I turned to LeVonne. “LeVonne, what do you think? Is it really him? It must be, who else would wear that apron?”

LeVonne’s smooth lips tightened to hold back his smile. He looked fresh this morning in an oversized T-shirt with a faded picture of Kriss Kross on it. A gentle crease between the twins told me the shirt had been ironed. I wondered who had ironed it, for his parents were long gone and it was all his grandmother could do to get him to my father’s. It occurred to me there was a lot I didn’t know about LeVonne.

“LeVonne, will you talk to me at least? What grade are you in now? Tenth?”

He nodded and looked down at his heavy white plate. Being totally empty, the plate couldn’t have held his interest for more than a moment, but he stared at it, saying nothing, while the sausage sizzled along with my father.

“You like school, LeVonne?”

He shrugged.

“Are you going to take a language next year?”

He shook his head.

I’m usually a better conversationalist than this. “LeVonne, I’ve been meaning to tell you I like your… uh, what do you call that, a beard? Are you growing a beard?”

He touched his chin, self-conscious.

“Do you call it a beard? Or what?” Just to see if he’d talk.

“S’whatever,” LeVonne said.

“It’s a goatee,” snapped my father. “A beard goes all the way around.”

Thanks, Dad. “Well, whatever it’s called, I like it.”

LeVonne hung his head even farther, until his chin was practically buried between Kriss Kross’s steam-ironed, backward baseball caps.

“I like it, too,” my father said.

“I said it first, Pop. So that makes me a nicer person than you.”

“Hmph.” He jiggled the pan.