John Grisham - The Client

“I’ll think about it.”

“Time is critical, Joe. We must move fast. Evidence disappears. Memories fade. Big corporations move slow.”

“I said I’ll think about it.”

“Can I call you tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Hell, I can’t sleep now for all the damned lawyers calling. I can’t eat a meal without you guys bargin’ in. There are more lawyers around this damned place than doctors.”

Gill was unmoved. “There are a lot of sharks out here, Joe. A lot of really lousy lawyers who’ll screw up your case. Sad but true. The profession is overcrowded, so lawyers are everywhere trying to find business. But don’t make a mistake, Joe. Check me out. Look in the Yellow Pages. There’s a full-page three-color ad for me, Joe. Look up Gill Teal, and you’ll see who’s for real.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Gill came forth with another card and handed it to Joe. He said good-bye and left, never touching the food or coffee on his tray.

Joe was suffering. He grabbed the wheel with his right arm, and slowly rolled himself away. Mark wanted to help, but thought better of asking. Both of Gill’s cards were on the table. He finished his juice, glanced around, and picked up one of the cards.

Mark told Karen, his sweetheart, that he couldn’t sleep and would be watching television if anyone needed him. He sat on the couch in the waiting area and flipped through the phone book while watching Cheers reruns. He sipped another Sprite. Hardy, bless his heart, had given him eight quarters after dinner.

Karen brought him a blanket and tucked it around his legs. She patted his arm with her long, thin hands, and glided away. He watched every step.

Mr. Gill Teal did indeed have a full-page ad in the Attorneys section of the Memphis Yellow Pages, along with a dozen other lawyers. There was a nice picture of him standing casually outside a courthouse with his jacket off and sleeves rolled up. “I FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS!” it said under the photo. In bold red letters across the top, the question HAVE YOU BEEN INJURED? cried out. Thick green print answered just below, IF SO, CALL GILL TEAL — HE’S FOR REAL. Farther down, in blue print, Gill listed all the types of cases he handled, and there were hundreds. Lawn mowers, electrical shock, deformed babies, car wrecks, exploding water heaters. Eighteen years’ experience in all courts. A small map in the corner of the ad directed the world to his office, which was just across the street from the courthouse.

Mark heard a familiar voice, and suddenly there he was, Gill Teal himself, on television standing beside a hospital emergency entrance talking about injured loved ones and crooked insurance companies. Red lights flashed in the background. Paramedics ran behind him. But Gill had the situation under control, and he would take your case for nothing down. No fee unless he recovered.

Small world! In the past two hours, Mark had seen him in person, picked up one of his business cards, was literally looking at his face in the Yellow Pages, and now, here he was speaking to him from the television.

He closed the phone book and laid it on the cluttered coffee table. He pulled the blanket over him and decided to go to sleep.

Tomorrow he might call Gill Teal.

Foltrigg liked to be escorted. He especially enjoyed those priceless moments when the cameras were rolling and waiting for him, and at just the right moment he would stroll majestically through the hall or down the courthouse steps with Wally Boxx in front like a pit bull and Thomas Fink or another assistant by his side, brushing off idiotic questions. He spent many quiet moments watching videos of himself darting in and out of courthouses with a small entourage. His timing was usually perfect. He had the walk perfected. He held his hands up patiently as if he would love to answer questions but, being a man of great importance, he just didn’t have the time. Soon thereafter, Wally would call the reporters in for an orchestrated press conference in which Roy himself would break from his brutal work schedule and spend a few moments in the lights. A small library in the U.S. Attorney’s suite had been converted to a press room, complete with floodlights and a sound system. Roy kept makeup in a locked cabinet.

As he entered the Federal Building on Main Street in Memphis, a few minutes after midnight, he had an escort of sorts with Wally and Fink and agents Trumann and Scherff, but there were no anxious reporters. In fact, not a soul waited for him until he entered the offices of the FBI, where Jason McThune sipped stale coffee with two other weary agents. So much for grand entrances.

Introductions were handled quickly as they walked to McThune’s cramped office. Foltrigg took the only available seat. McThune was a twenty-year man who’d been shipped to Memphis four years earlier against his wishes and was counting the months until he could leave for the Pacific Northwest. He was tired and irritated because it was late. He’d heard of Foltrigg, but never met him. The rumors described him as a pompous ass.

An agent who was unidentified and unintroduced closed the door, and McThune fell into his seat behind the desk. He covered the basics: the finding of the car, the contents of it, the gun, the wound, the time of death, and on and on. “Kid’s name is Mark Sway. He told the Memphis PD he and his younger brother happened upon the body and ran to call the authorities. They live about a half a mile away in a trailer park. The younger kid is in the hospital now suffering from what appears to be traumatic shock. Mark Sway and his mother, Dianne, divorced, are also at the hospital. The father lives here in the city, and has a record of petty stuff. DUIs, fights, and the like. Sophisticated criminal. Low-class white people. Anyway, the kid’s lying.”

“I couldn’t read the note,” Foltrigg interrupted, dying to say something. “The fax was bad.” He said this as if McThune and the Memphis FBI were inept because he, Roy Foltrigg, had received a bad fax in his van.

McThune glanced at Larry Trumann and Skipper Scherff standing against the wall, and continued. “I’ll get to that in a minute. We know the kid’s lying because he says they arrived on the scene after Clifford shot himself. Looks doubtful. First, the kid’s fingerprints are all over the car, inside and out. On the dash, on the door, on the whiskey bottle, on the gun, everywhere. We lifted a print from him about two hours ago, and we’ve had our people all over the car. They’ll finish up tomorrow, but it’s obvious the kid was inside. Doing what, well, we’re not yet certain. We’ve also found prints all around the rear taillights just above the exhaust pipe. And there were also three fresh cigarette butts under a tree near the car. Virginia Slims, the same brand used by Dianne Sway. We figure the kids were being kids, took the cigarettes from their mother, and went for a smoke. They were minding their own business when Clifford appears from nowhere. They hide and watch him — it’s a dense area and hiding is no problem. Maybe they sneak around and pull out the hose, we’re not sure and the kids aren’t telling. The little boy can’t talk right now, and Mark evidently is lying. Anyway, it’s obvious the hose didn’t work. We’re trying to match prints on it, but it’s tedious work. May be impossible. I’ll have photos in the morning to show the location of the hose when the Memphis PD arrived.”

McThune lifted a yellow notepad from the wreckage on his desk. He spoke to it, not to Foltrigg. “Clifford fired at least one shot from inside the car. The bullet exited through the center, almost exactly, of the front passenger window, which cracked but did not shatter. No idea why he did this, and no idea when it was done. The autopsy was finished an hour ago, and Clifford was full of Dalmane, codeine, and Percodan. Plus his blood alcohol content was point two-two, so he was drunk as a skunk, as these people say down here. My point being, not only was he off his rocker enough to kill himself, but he was also drunk and stoned, so there’s no way to figure out a lot of this. We’re not tracking a rational mind.”