Against the Wind (34 page)

So far, I’ve drawn a blank. Judge Martinez did a first-rate job. We couldn’t have asked for a fairer judge. Some of the time you catch them on the instructions to the jury, about how to weigh the evidence or what can’t be used. None of that here. Everything was proper, as kosher as a Jerusalem rabbi. In the years ahead I’m going to be filing reams of motions revolving around Martinez’s decisions, but I won’t win a one. All I’ll do is buy some time.

If I ever pull this off, if I ever get this nest of vipers reversed, it’ll be through a hole the state’s provided for me. Robertson and Moseby. Some fuckup of theirs, something royal. I don’t know what that is yet; I don’t even know if it exists; but I do know that for these four men doing their time on Death Row it’s the only avenue out.

Anyway. Lone Wolf knows all this. He knows the odds of pulling a Perry Mason, of finding new evidence the court will accept, or turning a witness, that kind of theatrical stuff, is a one in a thousand chance. He and the others fight to accept that, because they have to live in dual worlds: the real one, life in prison, and the one they want, the free world.

Knowing all this, he still asks anyway.

“Nothing?” he asks again. “Shit, man, there’s got to be something.”

“I’m looking,” I tell him. “I can’t invent what isn’t there.”

“Why not?” he says. He’s still got a sense of humor, a macabre one. It’s keeping him alive.

“Because if they caught me I’d be in here with you,” I say. “Then where would we be?”

We make small talk for awhile. I bring him news of his friends. Other than me, he isn’t allowed visitors except for immediate family, and since he isn’t married and his only family is his brother, who helped put him in here, he doesn’t see anyone else. Especially the other three. They’re here on this floor with him but the segregation is complete, none of them have laid eyes on any of the others for one second since they’ve been inside.

“What about the cunt?” he asks. “You find head or tail of that lying bitch?”

“No.”

Rita Gomez. The state’s star songbird. Star liar. We shaked her but we didn’t break her. What I realized in hindsight, going over things, was that she was smart enough to spin a convincing yarn but too dumb to break. It didn’t matter what was asked, she had her answer and she stuck to it. Catching her in lies didn’t do any good, she merely incorporated them, swallowed them up, made them another appendage to the story. Even at the end, when she had more barnacles on her than Moby Dick, she didn’t succumb. Too goddam stupid.

Or … too scared. She was coached well, very well. That’s fine, everyone coaches their witnesses, but with her it felt almost beyond that, that she was telling their story for them. It’s something you want to believe but you can’t, because if you do, there’s no safety net. If the state sends men to their death on perjured testimony we’re back to fighting with sticks and rocks.

I looked for her after the trial, but she was gone. Vanished, without leaving a trace. It wouldn’t have mattered, once a trial is over you can’t open it up again and put a witness back on the stand, unless, of course, they’ve flat-out lied, and we know that wasn’t the case here, she was with them, and they did rape her, and she did know the victim, and all that jazz. But there were things missing, I knew it, we all did. I wanted to put them to rest. And maybe find some technical grounds in the way the cops coached her that would’ve given me a fingerhold.

I checked, hard, but the trail was cold. Rita Gomez no longer resides in the state of New Mexico. The odds we’ll see her again are about as long as my guys finding a way out. The best we can hope for right now is that they keep their noses so clean that the governor, whoever it is when their number finally comes up, commutes them to life.

I don’t tell them that, of course. It’s too cruel, hope has to spring eternal in the human breast. So we talk, we bullshit for the allotted hour.

Time to go. We stand, placing our hands on the Plexiglas, palms to palms, fingers to fingers, the closest to another human touch this poor bastard will feel for a long, long time.

MY NEW OFFICE ISN’T
physically very far from my old office, only a couple blocks, but it’s light years away in prestige. It’s an old run-down adobe, once a mansion, now converted to little rabbit warrens, where fringe type lawyers like me, who can’t afford the normal goodies—law libraries, secretaries, and copying machines—hang their shingles. It’s got a half-time receptionist, a woefully inadequate library, a copier that’s usually out of order, and a coffee machine. Period. Two-room front office-back office suites, the secretary in front, the principal in back. Probably no less personal than a big New York firm, where the senior partners don’t even know half the lawyers in their office, but a far cry from where I used to put up my boots.

These first couple months have been tough: I’d been following the same routine for a dozen years. Even when they forced the leave of absence on me, I’d used my old office. I was like an old dog there, I could have navigated the place blind. What with the separations and divorces I’ve gone through, my office was more of a home to me than most of the places I’ve called home.

You can get used to anything, though, and I’m slowly getting comfortable here. I’ve always been a kind of solo bird anyway. The other habitués are a good lot by and large, a mixed bag. There are some young turks recently removed from law school who can’t stomach the bureaucracy of government work, defense or prosecution, and unable as yet to connect with the bigger, prestigious firms. (Like Alexander, Hite, and Portillo, now doing business as Hite and Portillo. The week after they booted me out they took a quarter-page ad in the Santa Fe
New Mexican
to make sure everyone knew. Big men, my old partners. It was strange seeing it, but surprisingly it didn’t hurt. Maybe by then I was numb.)

The rest of the building is two and three-person firms, several of them women, and older singles, not like me, I’m still a force in this town, men more like Paul, my associate from the trial. Lawyers who need a place to hang their hat, get out of the house, even if there are days, maybe most days, where nobody crosses the threshold. A place to be professional.

Speaking of Paul, I haven’t seen him since the trial ended. We wrapped things up, promised to keep in touch, and promptly fell off each other’s phone fist. It’s inevitable; we all have our own dreams to chase. I doubt that he’d go out of his way to meet up with me; my jumping him on the ‘hot knives’ incident drove a wedge between us that’s too basic to paper over. And I’m sure that deep down that hurts him, that he was the one to do it.

Tommy I see with regularity. He approached me after I was shown the door, asked if I was looking for someone to partner with. It was tempting; he’s going to be a force to contend with down the line. But I turned him down, although I left the door open for possibly later, if we both wanted to. My relationship with him is a variation on the theme I played out with Mary Lou: a part of my past I have to put some distance between for now. And like her, when I want to get together again he won’t be available.

He’s a good soul, Tommy, he goes down to the pen to see Goose every month without fail. He isn’t Goose’s lawyer anymore, we all agreed as there was no conflict in their cases I’d take on the appeal for all of them, it was mine at the start and it’ll be mine until the bitter end. Even so, Tommy’s there for the old biker, like a dutiful son. It means everything to Goose, it probably keeps him alive. Unlike the others, who are younger and might see a light at the end of the tunnel years from now, Goose is resigned that if he isn’t executed he’s going to die in prison. It would make some men homicidal; with him it’s probably more likely to be suicide. Either way, the state’ll get its pound of flesh.

In brief, my life is getting back to some sort of normalcy. I get up, I go to the office, I meet with clients, file briefs, go to court, the usual stuff. I joined a gym, go three days a week after work. Nautilus, aerobics, swim. I’m getting into shape. I’m not drinking as much; it isn’t as attractive right now, as necessary. A scotch or a glass of wine seems to satisfy me. Maybe it’s the reflection Patricia held up to me.

Aside from my monthly visits to the pen, the most constant reminders I have of my clients are the crank confessions that still come into the office, periodically floating to the surface like dead carp. Anytime there’s a sensational crime the nuts come out of the woodwork, looking for their moment in the spotlight. Either they did it, and can prove they did it, or they know who did it and can prove that. It’s a sick psychological phenomenon we have to put up with in the legal profession. Even though you know they’re phonies you have to check them out, which is time out of your job and money out of your client’s pocket. After a while, when the case has been’ over as long as this one, you do as little as possible to verify that it’s a fake; but you have to do it. The one time in a million you don’t will be the one time it’s the genuine article.

So far, seventeen of these claims have come to us. All bogus, as they always are. Within the next few months they should finally stop, only to revive when the next sensational case comes along.

The biggest change in my life is that I haven’t been laid since I got back from Seattle. The odd chance drifts by, but it doesn’t connect. I haven’t jacked off this much since high school. I think about Mary Lou, wonder how she’s doing, but except for a Happy New Year’s call we haven’t spoken. Sometimes I fuck her in my less-than-sweet dreams.

Most of the time, except when I’m doing business, I keep to myself. I went out for lunch one day, about a month ago, and saw Andy sitting in the restaurant. The sight of him froze me; I didn’t want him to see me, my ego wasn’t strong enough. It hit me like a thunderbolt, I didn’t know that feeling was there until the moment it happened. I actually felt myself shaking.

His back was to me. I turned to my companion, a young lawyer from the office next door, and made some feeble excuse about having to get back, I forgot an important phone call was coming in.

Out on the street I broke into a sweat. I started walking back to the office, trying not to run.

“Hey, Will.”

Andy had spotted me after all. Slowly, I’d turned and walked back towards him.

“Hello, Andy,” I said, forcing a casualness I most certainly didn’t feel.

He looked at me.

“How are you?” he said. The tone of his voice was not throwaway conversational.

“Getting by,” I replied.

He looked me over more carefully.

“What’s that on your shirt?” he asked, pointing to a stain my tie couldn’t cover.

“I spilled some coffee this morning,” I answered defensively. “Normally I’d have changed but I don’t have any appointments this afternoon …” I heard my wimpishness even as I found myself unable to stop explaining. Why did I feel I needed to justify myself to this man?

He ran a thumb and forefinger down the placket.

“Doing your own laundry these days?” he asked, half-joshing.

“The occasional shirt,” I admitted sheepishly.

“If you’re going to do your own washing you’d better learn how to iron,” he said. “That shirt looks like you slept in it.”

“I don’t sleep in my clothes,” I said, “and what difference is it to you what I look like? I’m not with the firm anymore, I can’t embarrass you.”

“You’re an embarrassment to yourself, Will,” he said bluntly.

“So go to hell yourself.” I started away. He put his hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

“You’re still fucking up, Will,” he said. “Worse than ever.”

“Like hell I am,” I told him. He had me on the run and I didn’t like it. “And anyway what’s it to you?”

“You’re a friend, that’s what. And I still give a shit about you, even if you don’t give one about yourself.”

“Save the sermons for the courtroom.”

He looked at me with a combination of pity and disgust.

“You’re falling off the edge, Will,” he said. “And you’re closer than you think.”

He turned and walked away, leaving me shaking.

Since then I’ve had Susan bring me in a sandwich from the deli, or I go to places I know he and Fred don’t frequent.

That incident scared me; it showed me that under all my jive independence I do care about how others see me, and how they do see me isn’t very pretty. I’ve got to work on it, either stop being a victim of my ego, or stop giving a shit about how others see me, or both. The funny thing is, I thought I was that person. I was working with a safety net then; when the net’s taken away you’re not as brave as you thought.

It’s disquieting, feeling vulnerable. It’s a feeling I’ve never known. Scratch that, it isn’t true; what’s true is it’s not a feeling I’ve ever
admitted to.

I’m doing penance for all the years I’ve been bullshitting myself. I hope there’s a payoff to it.

“HELLO, STRANGER.”

“Hello your own self.”

I didn’t know she was behind me.

“You look good, Will. Fit. Trim.” She punches my bicep. She packs a good, strong punch.

“I’ve lost a few pounds,” I tell her, flexing my arm. I didn’t know she was so strong. “About ten, actually. Been working out.”

“It looks good on you. Not that there was anything wrong with the old look,” she adds.

“You look good, too, Mary Lou.”

“Thank you, kind sir. So where are you headed?”

“Denver. I’ve got a deposition,” I say. Goddam, does she look good. All dressed up in her power-lawyer’s clothes. Unlike Patricia, on her it looks natural. Probably just a case of different expectations. She smells good, too; she’s right on top of me, it’s a crowded line, I can’t help it, the combination of perfume and her own bodily essence is unmistakable even though it’s early in the morning and she showered a couple hours ago.

“What about you?” I ask.

We’re in the United ticket line at the Albuquerque airport. Besides her briefcase she has a small suitcase and a carry-on garment bag.

“Same place,” she says.

“Denver too? What for?” Shit.

“Mini-seminar. Products liability. Today and tomorrow.”