I went to work. I knew I didn’t have to. The firm always gave you two weeks, no questions asked, when a family member died. But Kelly had gone to school. She didn’t want to stay inside and brood. The thought of being home alone, picking scabs, didn’t appeal to me either. Action. Activity. It was the only thing. To keep the seconds from turning into hours. To keep from thinking about things. Things that didn’t bear thinking about.
On the way to the office I took a detour to the alley. Maybe it had some secrets it would be willing to give up. To a widower.
The Dumpster was gone. The fire escapes were still there. The metal doors closed tight. Not telling me anything.
No surprise, really. The police surely had already combed every square inch. No secrets left for me to find.
I went over to the metal door on the left side. I stared at it. It wanted to tell me something. I sat down on the broken asphalt. I waited for the door to speak.
The weeds had grown a bit. The rust perhaps had spread a millimeter more. I couldn’t tell.
I lit a cigarette.
I felt like crying.
I held it back.
The door wasn’t talking. I upbraided it.
Talk to me, I said.
It sat in Buddha-like indifference in its rusted frame.
Talk to me, I said. I know you’re hiding something. Sure, you don’t care. You’ll be here long after the rest of us are dust motes in this alley. If we’re lucky. But I care. Come on. Throw me a bone.
The steel door spoke.
Patience, it said.
Patience, I repeated. Okay. I’ll see what I can do.
I sat another minute.
It wasn’t going to give me anything more.
I went around the corner. I walked the three blocks. I rang Jules’s bell. No answer. Nobody home.
I rang again.
No answer.
I waited five minutes.
My cell phone rang. ‘Private number.’ I ignored it.
Patience.
I rang again.
I waited another five minutes. Nothing.
Mission accomplished. Don’t quit your day job.
I went to the office.
I endured the gauntlet of sympathy-wishers. They were surprised to see me. I didn’t feel like explaining. I felt badly that I found no solace in their stilted efforts to help. I knew they meant well.
Dorita came by. She declined to make the usual noises. She just gave me a hug. A good long hug.
We didn’t say a word.
It was enough.
I sat and stared at the wall. No thoughts intruded.
There was a knock on the door. I turned my head. Warwick. It startled me. I couldn’t recall another time he’d come by my office. Normally, you got a call from Cherise, summoning you to His Chambers for an audience.
I’m sorry, he said.
He actually seemed to mean it.
Thanks, I said.
If there’s anything we can do.
No, no. I’m dealing.
You don’t have to be here. Take as much time as you like. We can cover for you.
Thank you, Charles. I appreciate that. But I’d rather be here. Passes the time, you know.
I understand. Well, like I said, anything we can do.
All right, I said. Thanks.
He left.
Hell, maybe he was human after all.
How confusing.
There was a message from Vinnie Price. He wanted to talk about the Futterman case. I had nothing else to do. I called him in.
I gathered Vinnie hadn’t gotten the news. Which was all to the good. He wanted my advice. He’d been working on the Futterman case for six months. High-profile. An honor to be selected. But he’d encountered a thorny ethical issue.
I knew that if he’d come to me about it, and not Uptight Bob Shumaker, Firm Ethics Guru, it was not a run-of-the-mill problem. Not your everyday thing. Not amenable to solution by reference to Shumaker’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Canons of Ethics and the vast and impenetrable body of cases and commentary that adhered to them like leeches on flesh.
Vinnie Price explained the problem. We were representing the wife of a certain high-profile actor, model and sometime disco maven. His wife was rather well known herself, and notoriously high-strung. Now, it seemed that the actor had invited a few people over to his palatial penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side for an evening of fine wine, good food and witty repartee. One of the guests had been a young protege of his, one Michael Millar, an aspiring leading man.
According to Millar’s version of events, as recited in the complaint he later filed in State Court, the actor’s wife, our client, had lured him onto the roof deck of the penthouse, where she suggested it might be pleasant to perform oral sex on him. Millar, anxious to make the right impression on his hosts, acquiesced.
The night then proceeded apace. Much alcohol, and perhaps the odd gram of a Schedule I substance well known to fabulously wealthy overachievers, was consumed by all. There was dancing. Laughter. General frivolity. And all went home in guarded limousines, as a gray dawn descended on Manhattan.
The next day, Millar arrived on the set of a reality-show pilot in which he had been awarded a small but highly visible part, feeling rather good about himself. He had ingratiated himself with the high-powered couple. He’d had a good time too.
Then the police arrived.
After the guests had left the night before, it seemed, the actor had confronted his high-strung wife, our client. Someone had made a salacious comment. He wanted to know the truth. What had transpired on the roof? he asked. At first, the flustered lady had denied any knowledge of the episode. But when confronted with some evidence, consisting of a whitish stain upon the custom-designed calf’s leather settee reposing on the roof deck, eminently susceptible to DNA analysis, she confessed: Millar had forced himself upon her.
The actor then contacted the local constabulary, not forgetting to put in a side call to a prominent politician of his acquaintance, and the wheels of justice were set in motion. Millar was confronted on the set, handcuffed, patted down and shoved into the back of a squad car. At the station, he was read his rights, and told that he was being charged with second-degree sexual assault.
Then the fun really started.
According to Millar’s complaint, three burly officers of New York’s Finest then proceeded to strip-search him, probing orifices that he wasn’t sure he’d known he had, and, most egregiously, making raucous fun of the size of his member. Which, he hastened to explain, right there in the complaint, was merely shrunken to near invisibility by fear and consternation. Under normal conditions, he insisted, it was a healthy size and circumference. But nevertheless.
All of this I had heard before, in more or less detail, but Vinnie had more to say. Our client had devised an imaginative line of attack on Millar’s accusation that she had forced herself on his unsuspecting manhood. Not possible, she’d told Vinnie. Had it been a voluntary act, she averred, she’d have swallowed the evidence. To do otherwise was to risk damaging the exquisite leather covering of the aforementioned settee. Only irrational emotion brought on by the traumatic event of Millar’s forcing himself upon her could have impelled her to eject the dangerously caustic fluid upon its delicate surface.
Although caught up in the excitement of the story, and laughing so hard that I’d almost forgotten that I was actually profoundly depressed and confused, I did not neglect to ask Vinnie what ethical issue had arisen in these circumstances.
The problem is this, he said. Our client keeps telling me how attractive I am.
Well, I said, you can’t blame her.
I don’t blame her, of course. But she’s asking me out. She wants to take me to dinner. Dancing. Meet her girlfriends.
Oh dear.
Yes. I just don’t think that I can keep working on this case, Rick. But I know how important it is to the firm. High-profile and all. We can’t just fire the client. But if I recuse myself-
So to speak.
So to speak. If I recuse myself, I’m afraid that she’s going to do something drastic. She’s a bloody nutcase, Rick.
Well Vinnie, let’s not rush to judgment. She’s been severely traumatized.
He gave me a wry smile.
Anyway, I continued, it’s a great story. But I don’t feel qualified to opine on the ethical problem. Hardly at all. That’s a call that only one man can make.
Oh shut up.
Yes. Bob Shumaker.
Jesus.
Glad I could help, I said.
Vinnie left my office laughing. I was left to ponder whether he had made the whole thing up. Either way, I thought, he’s a good kid. Wish I’d had a son like that.
Wrong thought. Sons. Mothers. Daughters. Wives. My shoulders slumped. My stomach hurt. I worried about Kelly. I had to get home.
But that half-hour with Vinnie had told me one important thing. I’d been right. Action. Activity. Each minute of laughter was powerful enough to erase an hour of self-loathing.
Maybe I could get through this.