“I thought you might say that,” Shapiro said. “I’ve got another proposition for you, Pat.”
“I didn’t think you were calling to ask me to look up the traffic conditions on the Mass Pike,” McDonough said. “Okay, Ben, shoot.”
“What if he could identify the Israeli soldiers who sank the Coast Guard boats, the ones who fired the grenades and planned the whole thing?” Shapiro asked in a flat voice. “That would be worth something, right?”
“That would be worth something.” McDonough said. “What’s the deal you have in mind, Ben?”
“Simple,” Shapiro said. “Ten or so Israeli soldiers get ID’d, you bring whatever charges you want, you fight the feds for custody, and my guy gets turned over to the feds to be placed in that camp, all state charges against him nolle prossed.”
“You want me to dismiss against him?” McDonough replied. “I can’t go that far.”
“Yes you can. Call it federal preemption or something,” Shapiro said. “You can do it on your own, don’t even need a judge’s approval. You know, Pat, we go to trial and I might walk this guy. He had nothing to do with anything. All he did was jump in the water and not swim fast enough to get away. A jury could walk him.”
“Dream on, Counselor,” the district attorney said. “Not with the mood going around today. Not a good time to be a Jew on trial for murder. You know that. Let me give your proposal some thought. Just so I’m clear, you say you can identify Israeli soldiers, active military personnel, right, who fired rocket-propelled grenades and sank the Coast Guard ships?”
“This is just a theoretical discussion for the moment, Pat,” Shapiro said. “Let’s say that in theory that’s true. You get back to me and tell me what you would do in return for that information.”
“Hold on, Ben. I trust you. I don’t trust the time of day from your client,” McDonough said. “Do you personally have this information?”
“Pat, if I did, it would be privileged. Does it make a difference if it comes from me or him?”
“It could make all the difference in the world, Ben.”
“If it makes a difference in regard to getting my guy out of Charles Street,” Shapiro said, “you can theoretically assume that I can be in a position to share my client’s knowledge.”
“Good. I’ve got to check with the feds first. You’ll be hearing from me, Ben,” McDonough said. “Let’s say that I’m intrigued by your proposal.”
“Can your guy really do that?” Katz asked seconds after the call ended. “I suppose what I mean is, would your client really do that, turn in Israeli soldiers like that?”
“My guy is presently the best girlfriend of at least six very large, very horny men who seem to be very good friends with the corrections officers who are supposed to be looking out for my guy’s safety. He’ll do anything to, quite literally, save his ass.”
They drove on in silence, only to be interrupted by the cell phone ringing. The caller ID was not the district attorney as Shapiro hoped.
“My wife,” he said. “We’re on the outs. It’s a long story, but I don’t think this is a conversation you want to experience. I’ll let it ring. I can always talk to her later.”
Sally was filled with guilt as she sat on the bedroom floor and went through the cardboard banker’s box that held the couple’s “important papers.” Wills and investment statements, old tax returns and the like. She told herself she was not doing anything to feel guilty about. After all, they were her papers as much as they were his. She’d give him copies, or her divorce lawyer would give them to his lawyer.
Her search through the box came to a halt when she opened a well-stuffed manila envelope on which was written, in her handwriting, the words My Famous Husband. The envelope was filled with newspaper clippings—stories about cases Ben had handled over the years. He never saved anything about himself. Without telling him that she did so, Sally saved everything.
Memories flooded her mind as she glanced at the yellowing newsprint. Each story was about a case, a triumph, a defeat, a crusade, a financial windfall, a financial disaster of a loss. She dumped the contents of the envelope on the bedroom carpet and started reading through the articles, holding each one as if it were precious and fragile.
I remember this case, she thought. He sued the state licensing board for race discrimination for that old black man when they wouldn’t give him a barber’s license. The memory of sitting at the dinner table as Ben reenacted his devastating cross-examination of the head of the licensing board, waving a chicken leg in the air for emphasis, brought a smile to her face. When he finished his tale she’d asked him to tell her the rest of the story, the part he always held back. He’d smiled and said, “Did I mention that the guy I’m suing for race discrimination is black, too?”
Another article described a case Ben brought and lost in the state supreme court, representing a single mom who worked at a high-tech startup who was fired when she said she had to leave work to spend time with her son on the weekends. He told me from the start he was going to lose that case, she remembered, but he took it to make a point, to give that mother a chance to fight back.
Sally smiled at that one. What a knight he is, always rushing off to do battle for the little person. I’m so proud of my husband.
That thought hit her like a rock to the forehead. I’m always so proud of my husband. Why am I not proud of him now, now that he is fighting his own fight? She realized—all of a sudden she realized with crystal clarity—that her husband had no choice about this fight. He couldn’t turn his back on a single mother, out of work and living off her unemployment check. He couldn’t turn his back on an elderly man who’d learned barbering from his father, rather than from a trade school.
How can I expect him to turn his back on his own people, his own heritage? He not only won’t do that, she realized, he can’t do that. It isn’t part of the man. And that man is the man I love. I still love.
Sally sat on the floor and carefully replaced each news story in the envelope, then she collected the pile of important documents and put them, one by one, back into the box.
The fist that had clenched her stomach for weeks loosened. Her shoulders lost the slump into which they’d fallen. She stood. Back straight. Head raised. Relieved. She smiled. “I still love him.”
I don’t even know where he’s staying in Washington, she thought, then decided to try calling his office on the chance that he hadn’t left yet. Ben’s secretary seemed surprised to hear from Sally and told her Ben was going to DC directly from home.
Sally felt she could not wait another instant to talk to her husband, to tell him she was sorry for what she’d put him through; to tell him that of course she’d be home when he returned and to tell him she knew how important this fight, of all his fights, was to him; to tell him that she’d be there with him, her and Adam, if he wanted them by his side at a march or a rally or a trial.
Maybe I’ll drive to Washington and surprise him, she thought. Imagine his face when he sees me.
Ben did not usually carry his cell phone, to her frustration, but he enjoyed how the phone connected wirelessly to the voice navigation system in his car. He so loves his toys, she thought, smiling. Smiling.