Adam's Daughter (11 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Adam drove slowly along Mission Street, searching for the address. He found the number on a door sandwiched between a rundown dry-goods store and a butcher shop. He got out of the yellow Cadillac and looked up at the second floor window with its neatly painted letters: J. HILLMAN, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

Upstairs, he looked for a secretary but there was no one
to be seen. An interior door opened and a young man with glasses looked out.

“Mr. Bryant?” he asked. “Please, come in.”

In contrast to the bare anteroom, the office was crammed with books. It was clean but dimly lit by an old overhead fixture. The young man extended his hand to Adam. “I’m Josh Hillman,” he said. “Please have a seat.”

Adam shook his hand and took quick stock of Hillman: about thirty, with a thatch of sandy brown hair atop an earnest face. His
brown eyes were trained on Adam, also taking stock. Adam saw them flick over his expensive clothes and back to his face.

“I was very surprised when you called me yesterday,” Hillman began. “It’s not every day I get a call from someone like you, someone so well-known.”

“I appreciate your being able to fit me in.”

“That is no problem, I assure you.” Hillman sat down behind his desk. “What is it I can do for you, Mr. Bryant?”

“I need a lawyer. A good one.”

“I would imagine a man like you would have a squadron of them to help you run that newspaper of yours.”

“What I need help with has nothing to do with the
Times.
It’s a personal matter.”

Hillman leaned back in his chair
. “A personal matter,” he said, “one requiring the utmost discretion. Something a little too touchy perhaps for the corporate boys.”

“Yes,” Adam said.

“Well, besides the fact that I’m a nobody, Mr. Bryant, why me? Did you just pull my name out of the phone book?”

“I remembered a case you handled a few years ago. You defended a longshoreman who was accused of attacking a cop during the Battle of Rincon Hill strike. I remembered your defense...brilliant
. But I couldn’t remember your name so I had the clips pulled from the morgue.”

“I lost that case,” Hillman said.

“Everyone wanted the unions broken. You were fighting public sentiment, as well as some very powerful people.”

“Nonetheless, I lost.”

“It was an impressive defeat. Especially considering you were, what, twenty-seven at the time?”

“Twenty-eight. A year out of law school.”
He paused. “What exactly do you want from me, Mr. Bryant?”

“As I said, I need a good lawyer
. You’re right that this is something I can’t allow my usual attorneys to handle.” Adam locked eyes with Hillman. “I don’t know you but when it comes to people I rely on my instincts until I’m proven wrong. I feel like I can trust you, Mr. Hillman.”

Hillman folded his hands in front of his face. “Go on.”

“I want a divorce,” Adam said. “I know my wife won’t agree to it. I want to force the issue, whatever it takes.”

“Why do you want the divorce?”

“So I can marry someone else.” Adam told Hillman briefly about Elizabeth. “I don’t take this lightly,” he said. “I have a son to consider and I want custody because I believe his mother is turning him against me. And I’m Catholic, so I do not like the idea of excommunication. But I will do what I must to get this divorce.”

Over the bridge of his hands, Josh
Hillman stared at the man across from him.

Bryant radiated such power, but it was a hard power with no warmth. This was a man, he decided suddenly, that he could respect, maybe even come to like but never be close to. His thoughts went to the task Bryant was asking him to do. He had always avoided domestic cases, and a contested divorce could be an ugly matter.

As for custody, the courts never went against the mother unless she could be proven unfit. Josh knew something about Bryant’s background. He had heard how he had wrested control of the
Times
away from his wife, the legal will notwithstanding. All things considered this case could make for a truly gruesome public spectacle.

He really didn’t need the hassle right now. He was struggling to build his practice, trying to develop his reputation as a crusader for the common man shut out by the legal system. He didn’t lack for clients. The problem was, he was finding, the common man was commonly broke
.

It had been going on like this for four years now, and he was still heavily in debt from his law school loans. He could barely afford the rent on the office, the phone company was on his back, and he couldn’t even begin to think about paying a secretary.

He sometimes felt guilty about his preoccupation with money. His parents were German Jews who had settled in New York with virtually nothing. They had moved to San Francisco and opened a small tailor shop on Sutter Street. He was oldest of four children, the only one to go to college. When he decided on law, everyone said he was destined to do some good in the world. And he had. But he wished sometimes it were not always such a struggle.

He glanced at the photograph on his desk of his wife Anna. He didn’t long for money for himself. He wanted it for her. She deserved it after supporting him throughout law school. And a family, he wanted to give her that. She had been patient, waiting years to start a family, and now she was pregnant with their first child. He didn’t know how they were going to pay the hospital bill.

“I know this isn’t your usual line of work,” Adam said, interrupting his thoughts. “But I’ll make it worth your while. I intend to be a very important man in this state someday, perhaps in the country. If you help me with this one matter, Mr. Hillman, I promise you that you can be right by my side, as far as you want to go.”

Josh
Hillman stared into Adam Bryant’s cool blue eyes -- not doubting for a second that he would do as he said -- and suddenly he had the strange sense that his life was never going to be the same.

He
held out his hand. “You’ve got yourself an attorney, Mr. Bryant,” he said.

CHAPTER
TEN

The performance of
La Boheme
was magnificent, but Adam barely paid attention. His mind was racing ahead, his nerves were wire taut.

It had been a week since his meeting with Josh Hillman, and the young lawyer had put together everything he needed to proceed with the divorce, including information that could, if necessary, cast shadows on Lilith’s character.
Josh had advised Adam to convince Lilith to settle. Going to court meant an ugly protracted battle that could affect his reputation and Ian’s stability. Adam, realizing he was right, had agreed to talk to Lilith.

When he and Lilith got home,
Adam went straight to the library, took off his tie and poured a brandy. He waited a half hour before he went up to Lilith’s room. She was at her dressing table, wearing only a black silk slip.

“I thought you went to bed,” she said.

“I was waiting to see you.”

“I didn’t think you knew where my bedroom was these days.”

He stood by the bed. “We have to talk, Lilith.”

She began to slowly brush her hair. “I didn’t think you even liked doing that anymore.”

“I want a divorce.”

The brush stopped in midair. Then it resumed.

“Lilith, did you hear me?”

The brush strokes grew more forceful.

“I want a divorce.”

She didn’t tu
rn around, just continued to drag the brush through her hair with quick violent strokes.

“Our marri
age is a joke, Lilith. We don’t love each other anymore —-”

She swung around and hurled the brush at him. It missed and smashed into a lamp, shattering it. “You don’t love me
! That’s what you mean!” she yelled.

“Lilith
—-”

“You’ve never loved me!” She began to cry, great gasping sobs that made her bare shoulders sh
ake. “You never, not for one moment, loved me. Don’t you think I’ve known that?”

Adam watched her, stunned by her outburst.

“You don’t care about my feelings, about what’s important to me,” she said. “You never have!”

Adam had anticipated every reaction except tears. He stood, unable to move toward her to offer comfort. “I never meant to hurt you, Lilith,” he said.

“Then why in the hell did you marry me?” she asked. When he said nothing, she picked up a handkerchief and blotted her eyes. “You married me to get the newspaper,” she said. “You made some sort of deal with my father, didn’t you? That’s all it ever was to you, just a deal.”

There was nothing he could say in his own defense. She was right.

She looked up at him, her face pale, her eyes black smudges. “I could always tell,” she said. “The way you looked through me, never at me. The way you touched me, never with warmth, never because you really wanted to. The way you made love to me. It was a duty to you, and you always held something back. Like you were waiting for something better.” She buried her face in her hands. “God, Adam, don’t you know what it’s been like? You’re so cruel sometimes, so ungiving.”

He had never seen Lilith this way, so vulnerable. It didn’t touch him so much as make him feel sad. All these years, he had assumed she was content with their arrangement. Now, for the first time he saw the pain in her eyes and a reflection of his own emptiness. Theirs had not been a marriage in any sense. It had been a sad, terrible match. Now there was nothing left to do but end it.

Lilith turned back to the mirror. He watched her reflection in the mirror as she struggled to compose herself. “I won’t give you a divorce, Adam,” she said.

The vulnerable Lilith was gone as quickly as she had come, making it suddenly easier for Adam to go on. “Lilith, what’s the point of going on like this
?” he said.

“What’s the point?” She spun around. “The point, my darling husband, is that we are married. That may not mean anything to you anymore but it means everything to me. I will not become some sad pathetic divorcee for everyone to pity. I care about what people think of me
.”

That was the response Adam had been counting on. It was his only way out. “Lilith, I intend to get this divorce,” he said. “If you force me to, I will take you to court and say you have been unfaithful to me.”

She laughed. “Oh, Adam, that’s ridiculous! Everyone in town knows you’ve been going to Sally Stanford’s for years. We’re both guilty on that count.”

“But there’s one difference between you and me, Lilith,” he said. “I don’t care who knows it. I don’t care who knows that I fuck whores. And that my wife fucks everyone from Italian gigolos to Japanese gardeners. And that she had a little
ménage à trois with her girlfriend and a famous opera star last month in an opium house on Grant Street.”

Lilith’s face went white.

“I don’t care who knows any of it,” Adam said. “But you do and I know that you do. If you don’t give me a divorce. I’ll drag you into court and lay out all the ugly details of our marriage for everyone to see. You know how this town loves dirt. It’ll be the best-read story in the newspaper.”

“You bastard,” she
said.

“Don’t make me do it, Lilith,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

As Lilith stared at him he could almost see her mind working, analyzing her position, looking for his weaknesses, sizing up her chances.

“I was going to ask you if there was another woman,” she said
, “then I realized how absurd that is. There’s no room in your life for anyone but you. You’re a robot. You have nothing to offer a woman.” She gave him a final, spiteful look. “Get out of my room,” she said.

“There’s one more thing,” Adam said. “I want Ian.”

She laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding! What do you want with him?”

“He’s my son.”

“Oh, you noticed?”

Adam took a breath. “I don’t like what you’re doing to him. You’re turning him against me, Lilith. I won’t have it.”