Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

She looked up from her plate, her eyes swept over to the window and then abruptly to Jack’s face. She caught him staring at her. Jack smiled awkwardly and took a quick gulp of his drink.

She put her napkin on the table.

“The Mall’s a big place to accidentally run into someone.”

He didn’t look at her. “I’ve been having a run of good luck lately.” Now he met her eye. She waited. His shoulders finally collapsed.

“Okay, so it was less of an accident and more premeditated. You can’t argue with the results.”

“What are the results? Lunch?”

“I’m not looking ahead. I’m just taking it one step at a time. New life resolution. Change is good.”

She said with more than a little contempt, “Well, at least you’re not defending rapists and murderers anymore.”

“And burglars?” he shot back, and then instantly regretted it.

Kate’s face turned gray.

“I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean that.”

She pulled out a cigarette and matches, lit up and blew smoke in his face.

He waved the cloud away. “Your first or second of the day?”

“Third. For some reason you always make me feel daring.” She stared at the window, crossed her legs. Her foot touched his knee and she quickly jerked it back. She stabbed out her cigarette and stood up, grabbing her purse.

“I have to get back to work. How much do I owe you?”

He stared at her. “I invited you to lunch. Which you haven’t even eaten.”

She pulled out a ten and tossed it down on the table and headed for the door.

Jack threw another ten down and raced after her.

“Kate!”

He caught up to her just outside the deli. The rain had stiffened and despite holding his jacket over their heads they were quickly soaked. She didn’t seem to notice. She climbed in her car. He jumped in the passenger side. She looked at him.

“I really have to get back.”

Jack took a deep breath, wiped the moisture off his face. The heavy rain drummed on the car’s exterior. He felt it all slipping away. He was far from sure how to handle this situation. But he had to say something.

“Come on, Kate, we’re dripping wet, it’s almost three o’clock. Let’s go get cleaned up and hit a movie. No, we can drive out to the country. Remember the Windsor Inn?”

She looked at him, absolute astonishment on her features. “Jack, by any chance, have you discussed this with the woman you’re engaged to marry?”

Jack looked down. What was he supposed to say? That he was not in love with Jennifer Baldwin despite having asked her to marry him? Right at that moment, he could not even recall asking her.

“I’d just like to spend some time with you, Kate. That’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There is everything wrong with that, Jack. Everything! ” She started to put the key in the ignition but he held her hand back.

“I’m not looking to make this a battle.”

“Jack, you’ve made your decision. It’s a little late for this now.”

His face curled into disbelief. “Excuse me? My decision? I made a decision to marry you over four years ago. That was my decision. It was your decision to end it.”

She pushed wet hair out of her eyes. “Okay, it was my decision. Now what?”

He turned to face her, gripped both her shoulders.

“Look, it suddenly occurred to me last night. Oh what the hell! It’s been every night since you left. I knew it was a mistake, goddammit! I’m not at PD anymore. You’re right, I don’t defend criminals anymore. I make a good, respectable living. I, we...” As he looked at her astonished face, his entire mind went blank. His hands were shaking. He let go of her, slumped back in the seat.

He stripped off his drenched tie, stuffed it in his pocket, and stared at the little clock on the dashboard. She checked out the motionless speedometer, then glanced at him. There was kindness in her tone, although the pain was evident in her eyes.

“Jack, lunch was very nice. It was good to see you. But that’s as far as we can go. I’m sorry.” She bit her lip, a movement he didn’t see because he was getting out of the car.

He poked his head back in. “Have a good life, Kate. You ever need anything, call me.”

She watched his thick shoulders as he walked through the steady rain, got in his car and drove off. She sat for several minutes. A tear traced its way down her cheek. She angrily flicked it away, put the car in gear and drove off in the opposite direction.

The next morning, Jack picked up the phone and then slowly put it back down. What was the point really? He had been in the office since six, wiped out his backlog of high-priority work and moved on to projects that had been on the back burner for weeks. He looked out the window. The sun ricocheted off the concrete and brick edifices. He rubbed the glare out of his eyes and pulled the blinds down.

Kate was not going to suddenly plunge back into his life and he had to adjust to that. He had spent the night turning every possible scenario over in his head, most wildly unrealistic. He shrugged. Things like this happened to men and women every day in every country in the world. Things sometimes did not work out. Even if you wanted them to more than anything else. You couldn’t will someone to love you back. You had to move on. He had plenty to move on to. Maybe it was time for him to enjoy the future he knew he did have.

He sat down at his desk and methodically moved through two more projects, a joint venture for which he was doing low-level, no-brain grunt work, and a project for the only client he had other than Baldwin, Tarr Crimson.

Crimson owned a small audiovisual company, was a genius with computer-generated graphics and images, and made a very good living running AV conferences for companies at area hotels. He also rode a motorcycle, dressed in cut-off jeans, smoked everything including an occasional cigarette, and looked like the biggest burnt-out druggie in the world.

Jack and he had met when a friend of Jack’s had prosecuted Tarr for drunk and disorderly, and lost. Tarr had come in dressed in a three-piece suit, briefcase and neatly trimmed hair and beard, and argued persuasively that the officer’s testimony was biased because the bust was outside a Grateful Dead concert, that the field test was inadmissible because the cop had not given the proper verbal warnings and lastly because an improperly functioning piece of equipment had been used to administer the test.

The judge, burdened with over a hundred D&Ds from the concert, had dismissed the case after admonishing the officer to adhere strictly to the rules in the future. Jack had watched the entire affair in amazement. Impressed, Jack walked out of the courtroom with Tarr, had a beer with him that night, and they quickly became friends.

Except for occasional, relatively innocuous brushes with the law, Crimson was a good, if unwelcome, client to the halls of Patton, Shaw. It had been part of Jack’s deal that Tarr, who had fired his last attorney, would be allowed to follow Jack to Patton, Shaw as if the firm would have actually said no to their new four-million-dollar man.

He put down his pen and moved once again to the window as his thoughts drifted back to Kate Whitney. An idea lumbered across the forefront of his mind. When Kate had left him originally, Jack had gone to see Luther. The old man had had no words of wisdom, no instant solution to Jack’s dilemma. Indeed, Luther Whitney was the unlikeliest person in the world to have the answer that would reach to his daughter’s heart. And yet Jack had always been able to talk to Luther. About anything. The man listened. He really listened. He didn’t merely wait for you to pause with your own story so he could plunge in with his own troubles. Jack wasn’t sure what he was going to say to the man. But whatever it was he was certain Luther would listen. And that was probably going to have to be good enough.