The Client (22 page)

“But you testified.”

“Yeah, for three hours.”

“How’d it go?”

“I was pretty good, really. I just told about the beatings, the bruises, the stitches. I told him how much I hated my father. The judge almost cried.”

“And it worked?”

“Yeah. My father wanted some visitation rights, and I spent a lot of time explaining to the judge that I had no desire to ever see the man again once the trial was over. And, that Ricky was terrified of him. So the judge not only cut off all visitation, but also told my father to stay away from us.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“No. But I will one day. When I grow up, we’ll catch him somewhere, me and Ricky, and we’ll beat the living hell out of him. Bruise for bruise. Stitch for stitch. We talk about it all the time.”

Clint was no longer bored with this little conversation. He listened to every word. The kid was so casual about his plans for beating his father. “You might go to jail.”

“He didn’t go to jail when he beat us. He didn’t go to jail when he stripped my mother naked and threw her in the street with blood all over her. That’s when I hit him with the baseball bat.”

“You what?”

“He was drinking one night at home, and we could tell he was about to get out of hand. We could always tell. Then he left to buy more beer. I ran down the street and borrowed an aluminum T-ball bat from Michael Moss. I hid it under my bed, and I remember praying for a good car wreck so he wouldn’t come home. But he did. Mom was in their bedroom, hoping he would just pass out, which he did all the time. Ricky and I stayed in our room, waiting for the explosion.”

The phone rang again, and Clint quickly took the message and returned to the story.

“About an hour later there was all this yelling and
cussing. The trailer was shaking. We locked the door. Ricky was under the bed, crying. Then Mom started yelling for me. I was seven years old, and Mom wanted me to rescue her. He was just beating the hell out of her, throwing her around, kicking her, ripping her shirt off, calling her a whore and a slut. I didn’t even know what those words meant. I walked to the kitchen. I guess I was too scared to move. He saw me and threw a beer can at me. She tried to run outside, but he caught her and tore her pants off. God, he was hitting her so hard. Then he ripped off her underwear. Her lip was busted and there was blood everywhere. He threw her outside, completely naked, and dragged her into the street where, of course, the neighbors were watching. Then he laughed at her, and left her lying there. It was horrible.”

Clint leaned forward and hung on every word. Mark was speaking in a monotone, showing absolutely no emotion.

“When he came back to the trailer, the door was of course open, and I was waiting. I had pulled a kitchen chair beside the door, and I damned near took his head off with the baseball bat. A perfect shot to his nose. I was crying and scared to death, but I’ll always remember the sound of the bat crunching his face. He fell on the sofa, and I hit him once in the stomach. I was trying to land a good one in the crotch, because I figured that would hurt the most. Know what I mean? I was swinging like crazy. I hit him once more on the ear, and that was all she wrote.”

“What happened?” Clint snapped.

“He got up, slapped me in the face, knocked me down, cussed me, then started kicking me. I remember being so scared I couldn’t fight. His face was a bloody
mess. He smelled awful. He was growling and slapping and tearing my clothes off. I started kicking like crazy when he pulled at my underwear, but he got them off and threw me outside. Not a bit of clothing. I guess he wanted me in the street with my mother, but about that time she made it to the door and fell on me.”

He told it all so calmly, as if he’d done it a hundred times and the script was memorized. No emotion, just the facts in short clipped sentences. He would look at the desk, then stare at the door without missing a word.

“What happened?” Clint asked, almost out of breath.

“One of the neighbors had called the cops. I mean, you can hear everything in the next trailer, so our neighbors had suffered through this with us. And that was not the first fight, not by a long shot. I remember seeing blue lights in the street, and he disappeared somewhere inside the trailer. Me and Mom got up real quick and ran inside and got dressed. Some of the neighbors saw me naked, though. We tried to wash the blood off before the cops came in. My father had settled down quite a bit, and was suddenly real friendly with the cops. Me and Mom waited in the kitchen. His nose was the size of a football, and the cops were more concerned with his face than with me and Mom. He called one of the cops Frankie as if they were buddies. There were two cops, and they got everybody separated. Frankie took him to the bedroom to cool him off. The other cop sat with Mom at the kitchen table. This is what they always did. I went to our room, and got Ricky out from under the bed. Mom told me later that he got real chummy with the cops, said it was just a family fight, nothing serious, and that most of it was
my fault because I, for no reason, had attacked him with a baseball bat. The cops referred to it as just another domestic disturbance, same thing they always said. No charges were filed. They took him to the hospital, where he spent the night. Had to wear this ugly white mask for a while.”

“What’d he do to you?”

“He didn’t drink for a long time after that. He apologized to us, promised it would never happen again. Sometimes he was okay when he wasn’t drinking. But then he got worse. More beatings and all. Mom finally filed for divorce.”

“And he tried to get custody—”

“Yeah. He lied in court, and he was doing a pretty good job of it. He didn’t know I was going to testify, so he denied a bunch of it and said Mom was lying about the rest. He was real cocky and cool in court, and our dumbass lawyer couldn’t do anything with him. But, when I testified and told about the baseball bat and getting my clothes ripped off, that’s when the judge had tears in his eyes. He got real mad at my ex-father, accused him of lying. Said he ought to throw his sorry ass in jail for lying. I told him I thought that’s exactly what he should do.” He paused for a second.

The sentences were a bit slower, and Mark was losing steam. Clint was still mesmerized.

“Of course, Hack took full credit for another brilliant courtroom victory. Then he threatened to sue Mom if she didn’t pay him. She had a bunch of bills, and he was calling twice a week wanting the rest of his fee, so she had to file for bankruptcy. Then she lost her job.”

“So you’ve been through a divorce, and then a bankruptcy?”

“Yeah. The bankruptcy lawyer was a real bozo too.”

“But you like Reggie?”

“Yeah. Reggie’s cool.”

“That’s good to hear.”

The phone rang, and Clint picked it up. A lawyer from Juvenile Court wanted some information on a client, and the conversation dragged on. Mark left to find the hot cocoa. He passed the conference room with pretty books covering the walls. He found the tiny kitchen next to the rest room.

There was a Sprite in the refrigerator, and he unscrewed the top. Clint was amazed by his story, he could tell. He had left out many of the details, but it was all true. He was proud of it, in a way, proud of defending his mother, and the story always amazed people.

Then the tough little kid with the baseball bat remembered the knife attack in the elevator, and the folded photograph of the poor, fatherless family. He thought of his mother at the hospital, all alone and unprotected. He was suddenly scared again.

He tried to open a package of saltines, but his hands shook and the plastic wouldn’t open. The shaking got worse and he couldn’t stop it. He slumped to the floor and spilled the Sprite.

     16     

THE LIGHT RAIN HAD STOPPED IN TIME FOR THE RUSH OF secretaries who moved in hurried groups of three and four along the damp sidewalks in pursuit of lunch. The sky was gray and the streets were wet. Clouds of mist boiled and hissed behind each passing car along Third Street. Reggie and her client turned on Madison. Her briefcase was in her left hand, and with her right she held his hand and guided him through the crowd. She had places to go and walked quickly.

From a generic white Ford van parked almost directly in front of the Sterick Building, Jack Nance watched and radioed ahead. When they turned on Madison and were lost from sight, he listened. Within minutes, Cal Sisson, his partner, had them and was watching as they headed for the hospital, as expected. Five minutes later, they were in the hospital.

Nance locked the van and jaywalked across Third. He entered the Sterick Building, rode the elevator to the second floor, and gently turned the knob of the door with REGGIE LOVE—LAWYER on it. It was unlocked, which was a pleasant surprise. Eleven minutes had
passed since noon. Virtually every lawyer with a nickel and dime solo practice in this city broke for lunch and locked the office. He opened the door and stepped inside as a hideous buzzer went off above his head and announced his arrival. Dammit! He’d hoped to enter through a locked door, something he was very proficient at, and dig through files without being interrupted. It was easy work. Most of these small outfits thought nothing of security. The big firms were a different story, although in the off-hours Nance could enter any one of a thousand law offices in Memphis and find whatever he wanted. He’d done it at least a dozen times. There were two things ham and egg lawyers did not have at their offices—cash and security devices. They locked their doors, and that was it.

A young man appeared from the back, and said, “Yes. Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” Nance said without a smile. All business. Rough day. “I’m with the
Times-Picayune,
you know, the paper in New Orleans. Looking for Reggie Love.”

Clint stopped ten feet away. “She’s not here.”

“When might she return?”

“Don’t know. You have any identification?”

Nance was headed for the door. “You mean, like little white cards you lawyers throw on the sidewalks. No, pal, I don’t carry business cards. I’m a reporter.”

“Fine. What’s your name?”

“Arnie Carpentier. Tell her I’ll catch her later.” He opened the door, the buzzer worked again, and he was gone. Not a productive visit, but he’d met Clint and seen the front room and reception area. The next visit would take longer.

*     *     *

THE RIDE TO THE NINTH FLOOR WAS UNEVENTFUL. REGGIE held his hand, which normally would have irritated him but was rather comforting under the circumstances. He studied his feet as they ascended. He was afraid to look up, afraid of more strangers. He squeezed her hand.

They spilled into the lobby on the ninth floor and had taken no more than ten steps before three people rushed them from the direction of the waiting area. “Ms. Love! Ms. Love,” one of them yelled. Reggie at first was startled, but gripped Mark’s hand tighter and kept walking. One had a microphone, one a notepad, and one a camera. The one with the notepad said, “Ms. Love, just a few quick questions.”

They walked faster toward the nurses’ station. “No comment.”

“Is it true your client is refusing to cooperate with the FBI and the police?”

“No comment,” she said, looking ahead. They followed like bloodhounds. She leaned quickly to Mark, and said, “Don’t look at them and don’t say a word.”

“Is it true the U.S. attorney from New Orleans was in your office this morning?”

“No comment.”

Doctors, nurses, patients, everybody vacated the center of the hallway as Reggie and her famous client raced along, followed by the yelping dogs.

“Did your client talk to Jerome Clifford before he died?”

She squeezed his hand harder and walked faster. “No comment.”

As they neared the end of the hall, the clown with the camera suddenly dashed in front of them, knelt low
as he backpedaled, and managed to get a shot before he landed on his ass. The nurses laughed. A security guard stepped forward at the nurses’ station and raised his hands at the yelpers. They had met him before.

As Reggie and Mark rounded a bend in the hall, one called out, “Is it true your client knows where Boyette is buried?”

There was a slight hesitation in her step. The shoulders jumped and the back arched, then she was over it and she and her client were gone.

Two overweight security guards in uniform sat in folding chairs by Ricky’s door. They had pistols on their hips, and Mark noticed the pistols before anything else. One had a newspaper, which he promptly lowered as they approached. The other stood to greet them. “Can I help you?” he asked Reggie.

“Yes. I’m the attorney for the family, and this is Mark Sway, the patient’s brother.” She spoke in a professional whisper as if she had a right to be there and they didn’t, so be quick with the questions because she had things to do. “Dr. Greenway is expecting us,” she said as she walked to the door and knocked. Mark stood behind her, staring at the pistol, which was remarkably similar to the one poor Romey had used.

The security guard returned to his seat and his partner returned to his paper. Greenway opened the door and stepped outside, followed by Dianne, who had been crying. She hugged Mark and placed her arm on his shoulder.

“He’s asleep,” Greenway said quietly to Reggie and Mark. “Doing much better, but very tired.”

“He was asking about you,” Dianne whispered to Mark.

He looked at the moist eyes and asked, “What’s the matter, Mom?”

“Nothing. We’ll talk about it later.”

“What’s happened?”

Dianne looked at Greenway, then at Reggie, then at Mark. “It’s nothing,” she said.

“Your mother was fired this morning, Mark,” Greenway said. He looked at Reggie. “These people sent a letter by courier informing her she’d been fired. Can you believe it? Had it delivered to the nurses here on the ninth floor, and one of them delivered it about an hour ago.”

“Let me see the letter,” Reggie said. Dianne pulled it from a pocket. Reggie unfolded it and read slowly. Dianne hugged Mark, and said, “It’ll be all right, Mark. We’ve managed before. I’ll find another job.”