“Will they let me out today?”

“Do you understand what I said?”

“Yes. I understand. I was in the same damn Criminal Law class as you, Victor. Will they let me out of jail today?”

“You were running away. You had sixty thousand dollars and a passport. They’re going to charge you with murder. No judge, even a suburban judge, is going to grant you bail. You’re in till your trial.”

“I am so cooked.”

“Yes you are.”

“Will you represent me?”

I turned to stare at him.

“I’m desperate,” he said. “I need someone I trust. At least for now. I need someone who understands. Victor, I’m begging you. Will you represent me?”

It didn’t take me a moment to make up my mind, it didn’t take me a moment to run through the implications and make up my mind. “Yes. I’ll represent you.”

He gave me a wan smile.

I returned it along with a chuck on the shoulder. “Now there’s something I need to do, all right? So do as I say, and I’ll see you at the arraignment.”

I waited as one of the uniforms shut the car door and another climbed behind the wheel. With the lights still on, they drove Guy away, into the dying night. I suppressed a smile and headed over to Breger, who was continuing to search through the Beemer.

“You might want to know, Detective, that Guy Forrest just asked me to represent him on more than a temporary basis, and I agreed.”

“Bully. You get a retainer?”

“I was hoping it was in that envelope you found.”

“That envelope, along with its contents, is evidence. Evidence, as you well know, stays in our custody all the way through appeal.”

“Too bad,” I said as I reached into my pocket. “It would have looked nice in piles on my desk. Still, we’ll see what the judge has to say about it. But I have something for you. I can’t tell you how I got this, attorney-client privilege now in full force and effect, but I believe I’m obligated as an officer of the court to turn it over, as it may be material to your investigation.”

I pulled my hand out of my coat pocket and offered what was in its grasp to Detective Breger. The detective’s eyes bulged.

“Is that…?”

“You have tests to identify it, don’t you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Well, then.”

He took the bag with the gun and hefted it in his hand, and something suddenly went out of me, something ugly and hard. It was as if a brutal rod of steel had been extracted from my spine.

“I might have been rude back there,” said Breger, still gazing at the gun.

“Are you trying to apologize for your manner, Detective?”

“I want you to know that I am sorry if I was rude. I should not have been rude. You’re a guy just trying to do your job. It has been noted that you went after him when you discovered he sneaked out of your place. It has been noted that you tried to stop him from running and he knocked you down with his suitcase. It has now been noted that you turned over what might prove to be the murder weapon. The law says you need to turn it over, I know, but still, nine out of ten would have buried it. So all of that has been noted, and I am sorry if I was rude back there.”

“Okay,” I said.

He nodded and, without saying another word, headed off to show his shiny new prize to his partner.

I stayed at the scene until all the police, car by car, had left, until the dawn had fully broken through and the morning stretched and twittered and came alive. I thought about what had happened that night, what I had lost, what I had just done, what I had just set about to do. I felt my weary sadness turn to determination. I was glad the gun was gone. It was all wrong for me, a gun, like boxing gloves on a poet. But that didn’t mean it was over, that didn’t mean I was through.

How can you defend a man you know is guilty?

No matter where I was, at a bar or a ball game, whenever my profession was discovered, the inevitable question was raised. And never yet had I found an adequate answer.

Oh, I knew the Constitution, I could cite the Sixth Amendment backward and forward, the case law, too, but still the question always gave me pause. Where in the Constitution did it provide that every participant in a criminal trial was duty bound to seek the ends of justice with the sole exception of the attorney for the defense? Where in the Constitution did it say that assistance of counsel meant assistance in escaping the just consequences of your merciless crime? I had been asked the question dozens of times, and now, here, with my lover dead on a mattress on the floor, I finally had my answer: I can’t, I won’t. And it wasn’t enough to refuse the case, let someone else do the dirty work. This was no time to punt. A decision had been made to discover the truth and be certain it was served. A decision had been made, and I would follow it through. I had discovered the truth that very night, in my apartment when Guy lied so shamelessly and later, on the street, when he whacked me with his suitcase as he was about to make good his escape from justice. The second part, I was sure, would be a snap.

Yes indeed, I’d represent that son of a bitch. What better way to keep my pledge? What better way to remember Hailey Prouix?

6

SHE SITS across from me, leaning away from me, arms crossed, legs crossed. She leans away from me, but her bright red lips are curved and challenging. She raises her cigarette to her mouth. Her blue eyes, framed dramatically by the dark rails of her glasses, squint from the smoke. Her narrowed gaze rakes across my face, down my throat. I look at her and forget to breathe.

“Victor,” says Guy Forrest, sitting beside her at the table, “I’d like to you to meet Hailey Prouix.”

“So pleased,” I say, and I am.

We are in a Spanish restaurant on Twelfth Street, modern, cruelly lit, cold stone tables for the hot paella. You want comfort, stay in bed. Guy had called and asked me to meet him, and here I am, forgetting to breathe, and I feel a love surging inside me. Love, not for her, because she is nothing yet but possibilities, instead love for my dear friend Guy, who thought well enough of me to introduce me to her, to set up this setup. Was ever a friend dearer?

But they are sitting side by side. That should have been my clue.

We order drinks, we chat. I smile and do my best to be charming. I am jolly, I am self-deprecating, I am wry. Oh, am I wry. Guy tells me Hailey is also a lawyer. I make a joke. He tells Hailey that he and I went to law school together. She asks what kind of law I do.

“Mostly criminal defense, but I also pursue the intentional torts that flow out of crime. Fraud, assault, the occasional wrongful death.”

“Lucrative?”

“Sometimes, sometimes not, but it keeps me busy. Though not as busy as they keep Guy at Dawson, Cricket. How’s the sweatshop, Guy?”

“Fine, I suppose, but I’m not going to be there much longer.”

I stare at him blankly. I hadn’t heard through the legal grapevine that he had been in trouble at his firm.

“I’m taking a page from your book,” says Guy. “I’m going to try it on my own.”

“You’re six months from partnership.”

“I want something new.”

“What does Leila say?”

“She doesn’t have a say,” he says as he puts an arm around Hailey. “I’m leaving her, too.”

Ah, so there it is. My charming smile freezes on my face, the love I had felt for a loyal friend withers. This isn’t a setup, this is an announcement. I turn my head to look at her. Her lovely lips are pursed, as if she were examining me for some reason, as if there were something she might want from me. She smashes out her cigarette and excuses herself. Guy scrambles to stand as she slides out of her seat, and we both watch while she walks down the aisle. She walks as if she knows what she is doing, as if she has been walking near all her life.