“Now Victor has spent the day looking through Pete McCrae’s files and the materials provided us by the U.S. Attorney’s office,” said Prescott, “and he assures me that he can be ready for trial in two weeks.”
“What a stunning surprise,” barked Chuckie Lamb. “The mannequin is ready to pose.”
“That’s enough,” said Concannon softly, and Chuckie Lamb quieted immediately.
“Victor’s readiness,” said Prescott, “means we won’t require the continuance the government so desperately wants us to have.”
“I haven’t looked at everything yet,” I said, glancing at Chuckie Lamb for a moment. “But it shouldn’t take me too long to get up to speed.”
There were smiles from all the bright young successes and I smiled back. I was an actor playing the part of a competent and experienced lawyer and doing quite well, I thought. And if they all didn’t believe in what I was presenting they were acting quite well themselves, all except for Chuckie.
“Terrific,” said Prescott. “But maybe, before we proceed any further, Victor should spend a few minutes alone with Chester.” He raised his eyebrows at me, giving me my cue.
“I guess we should see if you really want to hire me,” I said to Concannon with my most ingratiating smile. Chuckie Lamb laughed in my face.
Concannon and I were escorted to an open office. On my way there, without letting anyone notice, I checked my tie. Chuckie had not been lying, a glob of tuna had crusted on the edge. I rubbed it off, leaving a dark oily patch, streaked larger by my thumb.
I closed the door behind us and gestured for Concannon to sit in one of the chairs arrayed expectantly before some Talbott partner’s desk. I sat on the tabletop. Behind the desk was a collection of swords and sabers and battle-axes, the metal edges gleaming. Another litigator’s office.
“Mr. Concannon,” I started, “I thought we should talk a bit before you agreed to hire me or I agreed to represent you.”
“That’s fine, Mr. Carl.”
“Call me Victor,” I said.
“Victor or Vic?”
“Victor. I never liked Vic. It makes me sound too disposable, like a throwaway lighter or a ballpoint pen.”
He laughed at my old joke, which was good. He seemed a charming enough man, Chet Concannon, quiet and very polite. I told him I was sorry about what happened to Pete McCrae. I told him a little about myself, my experience, the highlights of my career, just a little about myself because there was only a little to tell. Then it was time for the defense attorney’s lecture, so I paused, took a breath, and began. I gave him the talk about lawyer-client confidentiality, about how my job was not to find the truth but to defend him, and how if I learned the truth I was duty-bound to stop him from saying anything other than the truth on the stand.
“You mean stop me from lying,” he said, obviously amused.
“I know you might want to confess, the urge is understandable,” I said. “And whatever you say remains with me, but you have to be aware that any such confession could have consequences as to our defense.”
There was more to it than that, of course. I could have gone on speaking for a good ten minutes, but after talking about his undoubted need to confess and seeing him sitting there, calm, composed, his face lacking the slightest indicia of an urgency to tell me anything, I stopped.
“I guess you’ve heard all this before,” I said.
“I guess,” he replied.
“Good,” I said, though I started to sweat a little. There was something about his composure that was unnerving. “Now just a few questions. Have you ever been arrested before?”
“Yes,” he said without a wince. “Before I met Jimmy I was involved with drugs and drug sellers. I was arrested often.”
“Were you convicted of anything?”
“Once of possession with intent to distribute a banned substance, to wit, cocaine, and twice of forgery. I supported my habit by check,” he said with a smile. “Except the checks weren’t always mine. None of this is a secret. I’m one of Jimmy’s success stories, one of his saved souls. He likes to be able to point at us to show what is possible with drug rehabilitation.”
“Still, you probably won’t be testifying,” I said. “Forgery is just the kind of prior conviction that a prosecutor would use to show your lack of honesty or trustworthiness.”
“That’s what Mr. McCrae said too.”
“Did you know Zack Bissonette?”
“Sure,” he said. “Nice guy, lousy ballplayer.”
“Assuming you didn’t do it, any idea who would have beaten that nice guy into a coma?”
“I heard it was the mob.”
“Is that what you heard?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Is that what he’s going to say when he wakes up?”
“What I also heard, Victor,” he said, his hands laying still, one atop the other on his lap, “is that he’s on the edge of never waking up.”
“And then you’d only be up for murder.”
There was a crack in the calm facade at that moment, a lowering of the guard, and what I saw was not the confident insider but a child, scared and lonely, the kid at the edge of the playground, the kid never passed to in the basketball games, who only received two valentines while his classmates took home sacks full. The peek inside didn’t last long, quick as a politician’s lie the facade was back, but I had a glimpse of what he was feeling and how much he was hiding and it all touched me in a strangely personal way. And suddenly my playacting the role of a hard-boiled criminal defense attorney didn’t seem quite so clever.
“Are you sure you don’t want someone more experienced?” I asked.
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “Jimmy said you’ll do fine.”
I thought about it for a moment. “If we both agree that I will represent you,” I said, “we also are going to have to agree on a strategy. What line of defense was Mr. McCrae going to follow?”
“He was going to follow Prescott completely,” he said.
I tried to smile reassuringly. “From what I’ve seen, that looks like your best bet,” I said. “But that decision is up to you.”
“I know,” he said. “And that’s the way Jimmy still wants it to go.”
“You know, Chester,” I said, speaking very slowly, very carefully, wanting to phrase what I was required to say just right. “With co-defendants there is always a potential conflict between defenses. One defendant could always point the finger at the other and say I didn’t do it, he did it.”
“There is no conflict here,” he said quickly, without hesitation.
“Do you trust the councilman with your life?”
“Absolutely.”
“Rushing to trial like we are, I might not be able to help you if things go wrong.”
“I appreciate you wanting to be in a position to help me, Victor,” he said, without putting even a touch of patronization in his voice, which was pretty impressive. “I really do. But there’s always been someone reaching out to help me, someone with a clipboard from the city or the state or the federal government, and all they’ve ever done is dig my hole a little deeper. Only one man ever reached out a hand and really, truly helped.”
“And who was that?”
“Jimmy Moore,” he said. “Jimmy’s been called a lot of things by a lot of people and he’s everything they say. But he’s been the best friend I ever had. He told me to hire you, so you’re hired. He told me to follow Mr. Prescott’s lead, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Then your explicit instructions are not to interfere with Prescott.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at him carefully. He was a smart man, I could see that, and he trusted Jimmy Moore completely. Who was I to get in the way? This had been easier than ever I had thought. I slapped my knee and stood up. “Good,” I said. “Then that’s settled.”