Neon Dragon (34 page)

I talked for a long time. I told him about the business with Abdul and the drug ring at Harvard. I told him about my meeting with Loring and everything that went into his signed statement about the “association” and the jury fix in the Dolson case that was now in the hands of both the federal and state prosecutors.

Then I told him every detail that led up to the dismissal of the indictment against Anthony Bradley. The punch line was that his tactic had worked.

He had his head back on the pillow. He was Mount Rushmore with his eyes focused on something on the ceiling, but I could tell from the
silence that he was drinking in every word. When I finished, there was more silence.

I let it lie for a minute, until it became awkward.

“That was one serious gamble, Mr. Devlin. That early trial date nearly blew me away.”

“It was the only way. If we let them have time to pass around the word about that surprise witness, the boys in Chinatown could have come up with a dozen other trumped-up witnesses. If there was a chance Bradley was innocent, we had to ambush them.”

“Did you believe Bradley was innocent?”

He shook his head. “I didn't care. If he was innocent, our best shot at getting Mrs. Lee to tell the truth was that young lady. If he was guilty, Mrs. Lee would have held up as a witness against him. Either way, justice would have been done.”

I smiled. I was still on the side of playing hunches about the client's innocence. And he knew it. That's what makes horse racing.

“I'll give you this, Mr. Devlin. Your instincts about tactics were everything I've heard about.”

There was no answer. I didn't understand why at the time. He took the free hand, the right one, the one with no tubes running into it, and he moved it slowly across his eyes. I could have sworn I heard the sound of an almost impenetrable wall crumbling. When he spoke, it was with a voice I had never heard before.

“Tactics are one thing. The talent to bring it off is what makes a lawyer.”

He held out his hand, and I took it. I held it until I needed it back to get something wet out of my own eye.

He lifted up the paper open to Mike Loftus's column.

“Have you read it?”

I nodded. “Mike writes a good column. He had good material.”

He laughed, and the paper rested on his chest. Then he stopped smiling.

“I don't think … I could ever put into words …”

“No need. I know.”

He shook his head. “No, you don't. No one'll ever know what you did for this old man.”

I looked up. “What old man? Who's the old man?”

His head came off the pillow.

“Damn! You're right. There's no old man around here. I've got to get out of here. I've got things to do.”

“Whoa.” I settled him back. “Soon enough. You'll be back soon enough terrorizing prosecutors and scaring the pants off the associates at Bilson, Dawes.”

He rested back against the pillow.

“You're half-right. I'll be back. I can feel the years coming back to me. But not at Bilson, Dawes. I'm going to go back to doing what I should have been doing for the last ten years.”

“Bravo! You're going to go it on your own?”

“Well, I suppose. Unless I can find some punk of a young attorney with enough salt and starch to run with me.”

I caught his drift, and it sent my cranial cells racing. One on one for the rest of my foreseeable days with the crustiest, most cantankerous old battle-horse in any trial bar. If the Bradley case was any test, I'd probably never again have a pulse below a hundred or a stomach that didn't generate enough acid to melt diamonds. Was this what any sane human would want for a life? The answer was easy. Yes, more than any life I could imagine. Who ever said I was sane?

He looked over.

“What about you? What are you going to do? Are you back at the Bilson shop tomorrow morning?”

I shook my head. “No. After this I can't go back to running errands for Whitney Caster.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“There's a tough old lion I hear is going to go into business stirring up trouble for prosecutors. I think he may be looking for an associate.”

“Not me, sonny. No, I don't like associates. They're too damned independent.
I have to nurse them along, and then they do what they damn well please anyway.”

He looked over for a shocked reaction—which he didn't get. I was getting to know him; at least I thought I was.

“No, sonny, I'm thinking more along the lines of a junior partner.”

This time he got the shocked reaction. I couldn't hold it in.

“I think you and I could make some trouble out there, son. What do you think?”

The grin on my face said it all.

“You know how partnerships are made, don't you, son?”

He held out his hand. I took it, and the firm of Devlin & Knight drew its first breath.

“You might be interested to know, Mr. Devlin, we have a client at the door before we have a door.”

“Oh?”

“Anthony Bradley wants us to handle his case when they charge him with the drug dealing at Harvard. I think we've got a shot at a good plea bargain. He was getting out of that business on his own. As a matter of fact, Kip Liu called him in for a last meeting at the restaurant on Chinese New Year's. He told Anthony he was letting him out. It turned out he just wanted him in Chinatown to frame him for the murder. I talked to Anthony. He'll help the DA prosecute the heart out of the tong.”

“Not a bad case for an opener.”

I got up to go.

“Well, Mr. Devlin, the day's running out, and I've got three things to do.”

“Such as?”

“The first thing I'm going to do is call a friend of mine in immigration. I'm going to start the process to get Mei-Li citizenship. Then I'm going to hand in my resignation at Bilson, Dawes.”

“Sounds like a good start. What's three?”

“That's the best part. I'm going to pick up a certain gal who's been
in this hospital for the last few days because she was crazy enough to go on a date with me. She's ready to go home. I'm going to see if I can make it up to her. Maybe for the rest of our lives. Who knows?”

His head was back on the pillow and he nodded. He had a sort of a smile that I don't think was for me. I think it was for someone who had filled his life and then left it ten years earlier.

I started to leave, and then turned around.

“Could I ask my new senior partner a favor?”

“Ask.”

“Do you suppose you could call me ‘Michael,' or maybe ‘Mike'?”

He hunched up on his elbows.

“I'll never call you ‘Mike.' It's too small. A name is something you earn. Nobody gives it to you. You've earned a proud name. You'll be ‘Michael' to me from now on.”

I started to say, “Thank you, Mr. Devlin,” but something crawled up in my throat. I just held up a hand to him on the way out the door.

When I got to the corridor, I looked back. Some things you get to keep forever. I'll take to my grave the look on his face. He was rereading Mike Loftus's column.