Client Privilege (2 page)

Now he had been nominated for Federal District Court, and I assumed he wanted to discuss it with me.

I looked around for someplace to drop the ash from my cigarette, and Pops produced a glass ashtray from a drawer in his desk. “You want to talk about the appointment?” I said “That why you summoned me?”

He dropped the cardboard container and the plastic spoon into the wastebasket beside his desk, pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his hands and mouth, and shook his head. “Wanted to show you something,” he said.

He gathered up the sections of newspaper that had served as his tablecloth and dropped them onto the floor. Tucked into the blotter on the desk was a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to me.

It was an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of white paper. Twenty-pound bond. I felt the tiny serrations along the edges with my fingertips. Computer paper. Printed on it in dot matrix was this message:

I KNOW ABOUT KAREN LAVOIE.

There was no signature, no date, nothing else on the piece of paper.

I looked at Pops. “What’s this?” I said.

He shrugged. “Came in the mail three days ago.”

“Who sent it?”

“I’ve got no idea.”

“Who the hell is Karen Lavoie?”

His eyes wandered to the bank of tall narrow windows in his corner room that looked out over the squat flat buildings and chimneys of East Cambridge ten stories below. The Bunker Hill Monument poked up in the distance. Beyond that arched the Tobin Bridge. Sooty smoke and steam rose straight up from the stacks and chimneys into the sullen gray February overcast. Pops didn’t speak for several moments. Finally his eyes swung back to mine. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

I stared at him. “Bullshit,” I said.

“I’m not exactly—shit, okay, so I’m worried. Hell, I want this appointment. Something wrong with that?”

“So who’s Karen Lavoie, Pops?”

“Now don’t get huffy, Brady. Believe me. I know the FBI and all Teddy’s enemies are going to do their damnedest to dig up dirt on me. This does not intimidate me. I’ve promptly paid every parking ticket I ever got. All those times in New Haven, I never put my lips around a stick of cannabis. I spent four celibate years in Southeast Asia. There’s nothing in my bank accounts I haven’t got records of. The only people I owe money to are bankers. I’ve never set foot in a gay bar. My judicial record is, as far as I can see, impeccable. I have managed to avoid pissing off women and blacks and gays. I’ve sent bad guys up for long stretches. I’ve never visited a shrink. I know all about the things that screw up appointments. I’ve been in this racket a long time. Should I be worried?”

I cocked my head and looked at him. Then I tapped the single sheet of paper with the dot-matrix message on it.

“Evidently,” I said.

He gazed down at the top of his desk and smiled. When he looked back up at me, he was no longer smiling. He removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is politics,” he said. “This is big-time politics, now. A federal seat. I want it very badly. I’ve been aiming toward this. I wouldn’t mind, five, ten years from now, maybe they think of old Chester Y. Popowski when one of the nine old men kicks off, either. Be a nice move for some future president, putting a second-generation Pole into the Supreme Court. Best job in the world for a lawyer, Supreme Court Justice. Be pretty nice. A Pole in the Vatican, a Pole on the Court. So, yeah, I’m worried. It’s my nature to worry. I worry about all kinds of stuff. Phyllis gets an F on a French test, I worry she’s gonna get kicked out of Mount Holyoke. Patty goes to the movies with that Tommy kid, the linebacker with that souped up Datsun that’s shaped like a torpedo whose tires squeal around the corner, I worry I’m gonna get a phone call from the cops some night. I worry about bombs when Marilee flies to Sarasota. I worry I screwed up and they nail me on appeals. I worry about cholesterol. I worry I don’t get enough fiber. I worry Marilee’s gonna find a lump in her breast. I worry about her nightly headaches. It’s why I gotta eat cottage cheese and yogurt and have my prostate massaged. Because I worry. It’s also why I’m a good judge. Worrying keeps you sharp. Look for bad stuff. Head it off. So, yeah, you could say I’m worried. I’m always worried.”

“So I repeat. Who the hell is Karen Lavoie? What is this all about, Pops? Come on. This is me, your lawyer here.”

“Okay, just listen for a minute,” he said, holding up his hand. “I got a phone call this morning while I was sitting in the kitchen eating a slice of dry toast and worrying about why the oil burner wouldn’t shut off. Fella who sent me this cryptic message.” He tapped the dot-matrix words on the computer paper. “Wanted to have a conversation.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not.”

“What’d he want to talk about?”

He put his finger on the piece of paper. “Her.”

“Karen Lavoie.”

He nodded.

“And?”

“And I told him he could shove it.”

“Naturally,” I said.

“He wanted to meet me in a bar, for crissake.”

“But you’re not going.”

“He said he’d be there waiting for me. I told him he could wait six weeks for all I cared, see if the groundhog’s prediction turned out to be accurate. He laughed. He said he’d be there, waiting, and if I knew what was good for me I’d be there. Then he hung up on me.”

“You think that’s a good idea, Pops?”

“What?”

“Standing him up?”

“What else could I do? Last thing I need is to be seen in some bar being hassled and threatened by some sleazebag who wants to muck around in my past. Christ, everybody in the city knows me.”

I nodded. “You’re probably right. On the other hand…”

“I know,” he said. “Not going suggests certain problems, too.”

I leaned back and smiled at him. “Pops, why’d you want to see me?”

He shrugged. “You’re my lawyer. I can tell you anything. Our relationship is privileged. You give me good advice. You’re my friend. I’ve got this little problem here.”

“Look,” I said. “I’ve got an idea. Suppose I go.”

“What are you saying, Brady?”

“I’ll go to the bar. I’ll listen to the guy.”

He shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t. I offered.”

“That’s not what lawyers are for.”

I shrugged. “It’s what friends are for, Pops.”

Pops reached across the desk and put his hand on my wrist. “If you could just find out what his agenda is…”

“The guy didn’t introduce himself?”

“No.”

“Didn’t say what he wanted?”

“Just to talk.”

“When?”

“Tonight. Nine o’clock.”

“Where?”

“Skeeter’s.”

“And this guy insisted on a face-to-face meeting?”

“Yes.”

“You figure blackmail, huh?”

He nodded.

“I won’t be party to blackmail, you know,” I said.

“Believe me, I have no intention of paying him a cent. I have no reason to.”

“Okay. I’ll go. But you’ve got to tell me all about this Karen Lavoie.”

He peered at me for a minute. His eyes wandered away, then swung back to meet mine. “Karen…” he began. Then he stopped.

I arched my eyebrows. He nodded slowly.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m disillusioned,” I said.

“Come off it, Brady. This isn’t easy.”

“Sorry. What happened?”

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago. It happened. I’m not proud of it. But it’s got nothing to do with anything.”

“Hey, Pops—”

“Honest, Brady. Leave it there, okay?”

“Like hell.”

He sighed. “Do I have to spell it out?”

“Any reason you shouldn’t?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth. “No, not really. Mainly, it’s embarrassing. A fucking cliché. What do they call it nowadays—the Jennifer Complex? She was young, I wasn’t. What can I say? It lasted, oh, a month, maybe, before I realized what I was doing. It wasn’t easy to live with myself, believe me.”

“If Marilee found out…”

“Hell,” he said, “I knew, and that was bad enough. I ended it. It was a huge relief. I think maybe I’m a better man for it. Showed me my weakness. I’m ashamed to this day.” He shrugged. “And that’s the whole story. The thing is, Brady, there aren’t any juicy details or anything. One of those things that happens.”

“One of those things that gets nominations rejected,” I said.

He bowed his head and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Aside from your prurient interest, there’s nothing for you to know here. Nothing for anybody to know. It happened a long time ago. A moment of weakness. So I’m human. Should that disqualify me?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned. But I’m not responsible for making a federal judge out of you.”

“Brady, it’s an old story, that’s all. It’s embarrassing. My main concern is Marilee and the girls, here, not the appointment. There’s nothing that should disqualify me from being a federal judge. Maybe from being president or something, but not judge. It could, but it shouldn’t. But if this business ever got back to Marilee—well, I don’t need to tell you that the qualifications for being a husband are sometimes more stringent than those for being a judge. Can we leave it at that?”

I shrugged. “Who is she? Where is she? Is there a chance that she’ll come forward, make things embarrassing?”

“She—she was just this girl. I have no idea where she is now, or what’s become of her. Last I heard she got married. I assume she’s got as many reasons as me to keep this quiet. I am very certain that she will confirm nothing about this. It’s over. Ancient history.”

“But somebody seems to think differently.”

“Brady,” said Pops, “listen to me. I want you to tell this guy to stuff it, okay? He’s got nothing to blackmail me for, and I won’t be bluffed. I don’t give a shit what kinds of threats he makes. He thinks he’s got something for the press or for Marilee, tell him to go ahead. He gets nothing out of me. Nothing. Okay? Does that satisfy you?”

I nodded. “Okay. Yes, it does.”

“Well, good.”

“You’re not holding back on me, Pops?”

He held up his right hand, palm out. “Honest to God, Brady. I know better than to hold anything back from my lawyer. It’s just, when your lawyer is your friend, and you value his good opinion of you…”

I nodded. “Okay. I still think you’re a helluva man. So how’ll I recognize this guy?”

He hesitated. His eyes swung away from me for a moment. Then he leaned forward toward me. “You won’t.” He grinned at me. “He’ll recognize you.”

I stared at him. He shrugged. Then I laughed. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I had a hunch you’d offer to go.”

“You knew goddam well I’d offer to go. You set me up.”

“If you hadn’t offered, I would never have asked.”

I shook my head. “Okay, okay. So how will he recognize me, then?”

“I told him you’d be drinking bourbon and smoking Winstons. Told him you’d be the handsome guy alone at the bar.”

“So I better not let any ladies sit with me.”

“At least not until after you finish with our friend.”

“That’s gonna be hard, keeping the ladies at bay.”

“It’s tough work like that I pay you a fat retainer for,” said Pops.

T
HERE WERE TWO WOMEN
at Skeeter’s when I got there a little before nine. They were seated on stools at the end of the bar near the door, as far from the giant-size television down the other end as they could get. One was dark-haired and one was blond. Both wore blazers over silky blouses, with dangling earrings and gold chains at the throat and dark narrow skirts that showed a great deal of sleek thigh. The female yuppie uniform. Both appeared to be in their early thirties. They could have been secretaries or stockbrokers or lawyers or hookers. There was an empty stool between them, and they didn’t appear to be talking with each other. Both were drinking white wine and smoking long, skinny filtered cigarettes and studying the rows of bottles lined up in front of the mirror over the bar.

I took one of the several empty seats in the middle, halfway between the women and the cluster of men around the TV.

The women ignored me completely.

Skeeter’s Infield was a long, narrow tavern at the end of a short alley off State Street within walking distance of my waterfront apartment. The entire length of the left side was taken up by the bar. Along the right wall were ten or a dozen high-backed booths. The walls were hung with posters of old major leaguers—superstars like Yaz and Willie and Mickey, Skeeter’s heroes, and others, too, who had been his friends—José Tartabull, Dalton Jones, and Joe Foy.

Along the back of the bar artifacts of Skeeter’s game were displayed. Bats and gloves, shinguards, baseballs, even the protective cup once worn by a pitcher named Gary Bell, who had the unhappy penchant of stopping hard-hit grounders with it. The cup had a dent in it. Skeeter told me that Bell had been nicknamed “Ding Dong” by his teammates. Skeeter said when you got hit by a ball off the cup it clanged.

Skeeter’s was famous for its half-pound ground sirloin hamburgers and five-alarm chili. Mostly, though, people went there to drink. To drink and talk with Skeeter and maybe rub elbows with a sports celebrity.

Skeeter O’Reilly was a kid from Southie who had actually made it to the big leagues. In the course of his twelve-year major-league career, he played with seven different teams. He was pegged early as a backup infielder—steady glove but limited range, a Punch-and-Judy hitter, a feisty kid who could move a runner over, steal a base, and wasn’t afraid to turn a double play with someone like Don Baylor bearing down on him. He spent one season on the Red Sox bench—1968, the year after they were in the World Series. That was the closest Skeeter O’Reilly ever got to real glory.

When bone chips in his ankle ended his career he came back to Boston and bought the run-down joint in the alley off State Street. He installed indirect lights, lots of glass and brass and leather and dark wood and that five-foot television screen, and himself behind the bar. Skeeter wore the same droopy red mustache he grew when he played ball in the sixties, and a long shag of red hair spilled from under the shapeless old Red Sox cap he always wore when he was tending bar. Only a select few of us knew that under his cap Skeeter’s dome was as hairless as a baseball.