Brain Storm (48 page)

He had secured a major strategic victory using nothing but the
mighty keyboard. A definite high, but if he tried to call Sandra on the outside chance that she might share some small part of his giddy triumph, R.J. or his mother-in-law might answer instead. So he grabbed a piece of his new stationery and tried to write a version of the sentiments that had swept through his brain after the departure of Alpha and Beta: “Honey! Darling! YOU WERE RIGHT! I have endangered myself, my career, my home, my children. I am going back to Stern, Pale on my hands and knees. I temporarily lost my mind …”

He read that one over and threw it away. Then he took a new piece of stationery and wrote: “I love you. I miss you. Joe.”

Better, he thought. A genuine, noble sentiment, sufficiently ill-defined to satisfy the lawyer in him, containing nothing that would get him into trouble during a subsequent argument.

When he tried to reach Rachel for some celebratory cheer, he had to make do with a voice-mail greeting. He pressed 0 for operator and paged her. No luck. She was probably deep inside a rat brain and unable to make it to the phone. Brain surgery on his client? Nice of her to call and seek permission. From the sounds of it, Whitlow had consented to anything and everything on the promise of being kept out of Des Peres County jail.

He left her a voice-mail message demanding an explanation for the rush to surgery. What he got for an answer was another impersonal E-mail:

The Eighth Circuit had put the case on a fast track. Briefs due in ten days; oral arguments five days later. An expedited, interlocutory appeal. The schedule suited Watson, because he’d already researched the law to the ends of the on-line services and had written the brief four or five times in his head, not to mention his pretrial motions on essentially the same subjects.

Briefs would not be a problem. But what about oral arguments in the federal court of appeals? One rung below the United States Supreme Court? “This ain’t moot court, Maynard,” as Myrna had so aptly put it. He would be representing appellee Whitlow in a fight to the theoretical death on the battlefields of constitutional law against the appellant, the People of the United States of America. Sword, word, and foul play. May the best casuist and subtle slipper win. “Never mind the truth, Counselor, please square it with precedent. We want to hear how your proposed ruling is safe, does not disturb precedent, and jibes with everything else we’ve let pass in the carnival of human depravity we preside over every day.”

Harper and Frank Donahue would be assailing Judge Stang and his rulings, and Watson would be defending him. Whitlow would fade into the background, so that Watson could proudly display his new client, the District Court, and its well-reasoned opinions, which the other side would be assailing for purely personal gain and base motives. According to his appellate advocacy instructors, you couldn’t say it, but if you could, it would sound like this: “May it please the Court. I am here on behalf of my client, it’s true, but more important, I am here on behalf of the United States District Court and its well-crafted order and judgment rendered below.” Being Whitlow’s lawyer would daunt and test the mettle of any lawyer, but then throw Judge Stang in to boot—the silver-back male in the primate hierarchy of the St. Louis bar. Would Judge Stang be forced to suffer the insult and judicial ignominy of having Donahue bring his publicity stunts back to his courtroom? Or would the mighty judge’s handpicked young lawyer serve him well, defend his reputation, preserve his authority to run his own courtroom?

Before he could finish the job of exaggerating his own importance in the world, his phone rang once, meaning it was Myrna calling from next door. If he didn’t answer, she would come over and knock on his door.

“What?” he said.

“Joe,” she said in the polite tone she used only when clients were present, “if you have a minute, Mrs. Whitlow is here to see us.”

“Mary Whitlow!” said Watson. “She’s here? In your office? We can talk to her?” he asked, still stuck in his civil litigation mentality. “I mean, she can talk to us?”

“I’m talking to her right now,” said Myrna. “If you come on over, we can all talk. It’s called the freedom of association. You may have read about it in law school.”

Myrna was blatantly untrustworthy, but what could be done about that? The case, his client’s fate, and Watson’s present circumstances seemed inextricably bound up with a crass, shifty, five-foot-tall orange-headed criminal lawyer. Sure, he could manage the appeal. He’d written lots of briefs and done practice arguments in moot court. But even if he won in the Eighth Circuit, the case would be remanded for trial. And then what? Maybe Myrna was no good for Joe, but she would certainly do a better job at trial for his client. Hadn’t he worked with duplicitous assholes before? Sure, in a firm with four hundred lawyers, one must learn to get along with duplicitous assholes. Wasn’t that what lawyering was all about? She was an improvement over Arthur. If she’d used him, was it because she was acting like a lawyer, and he was acting like a gullible dupe?

Maybe Myrna was in cahoots with Buck, Mary Whitlow, Harper, Palmquist, Arthur? And his job in this hierarchy of professional, unprofessional, and nonprofessional villains and competing egos was to go off and be Bartleby the Scrivener for the powers that be. Do some research and writing to keep Judge Stang happy, while the real lawyers decided the defendant’s fate.

Watson put on his sport coat and found a lawyerly-looking folder to accompany him. During the short walk into the next room, he braced himself for a confrontation with his client’s mortal adversary by conjuring memories of the various villainesses he’d met in print over the years—Madame Defarge, Lady Macbeth, Blanche DuBois, Morgan le Fay. But instead of finding a calculating virago and literary prototype with key-cold eyes, he opened Myrna’s door and found a frightened, overweight woman in nappy black polyester slacks and a blue smock with
ACROBAT PRINTING
&
GRAPHICS
stitched into the lapel. Her hair was brown, limp, straight, clinging like a greasy silk scarf to her fat head. Her eyes looked like black marbles pushed into the swollen features of her face.

Suddenly Watson could think only about how his client had given this woman—his wife!—a venereal disease, or so it appeared from the
medical reports. She was a definite two-bagger. Had she let herself go? Or had Whitlow married her because she’d had something else he needed? A car? A place to stay? The thought of Whitlow … infecting this unsightly woman while he whispered lies into her unwashed ears made the procreation of the entire race seem a sordid, bestial business, indeed.

And what moral promontory afforded him this disdainful view of the family Whitlow’s dirty deeds? He’d come pretty close to breaching the domestic antiviral firewalls himself. Maybe Sandra was meeting with a different sort of lawyer right now, taking a look at family law options? Maybe she was down talking to Drath Bludsole at Stern, Pale.
“Conflict, Mrs. Watson? What conflict? He doesn’t work here anymore, remember?”
Maybe she was getting the sort of domestic relations advice he imagined himself giving in answer to Whitlow’s incessant “What would you do?”
“Number one: Do nothing to betray your knowledge of the affair. Number two: Hire a private investigator with a telephoto and get some pics of him and Dr. Stone Fox desecrating your conjugal bliss …”

Instead of shaking Watson’s hand, Mary extended damp, pudgy fingers and let him grasp them. She didn’t look at him when he said, “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Whitlow”—a mannered contrivance he regretted the instant it left his lips. Her fingers felt like raw breadstick dough when he squeezed them.

“I can’t be talking to you-all,” she said, fetching a pack of Kents from the side pocket of her smock. She apprehended Joe in a single suspicious glance, then turned back to Myrna and showed her the unlit cigarette, which quivered slightly in her trembling fingers. “I got one thing to say.”

Myrna put her hand on the skull lighter, then thought better of it, opened her desk, retrieved a book of matches, and handed them to Mary Whitlow.

“The government is after me,” she said, “and they ain’t the onliest ones after me. I don’t know what all Jimmy told you.” She looked at both of them for a reading and received only blank looks.

“What a client tells his lawyer is privileged,” said Myrna politely, “but—”

“You mean secret,” interrupted Mary. “OK, I got my own secrets, and I ain’t telling them.” Her voice shook. She lifted her head and mustered a look of defiance, which was quickly deranged by twitching facial muscles. “Maybe he don’t care if he dies,” she said, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. “But I got a deaf boy to look after.”

“So does he,” interjected Watson.

“Maybe if you told us what it is you need to get back,” said Myrna soothingly. She rose out of her chair and walked slowly around the desk. “And who is threatening you. Maybe that would help us explain things to your husband. We can’t talk to him just now because the government is doing some remedial brain surgery on him.”

“I ain’t telling shit,” Mary said in a quavering voice. She looked away from Myrna and glanced at Joe, as if daring him to ask her something. “Every time I talk, things gets worse. And what I say gets twisted around to help whoever get whatever.”

“Because you’ve been talking to the government,” said Myrna. Her voice sounded compassionate, respectful, tender—in short, utterly foreign. “Maybe the government lawyers have been putting words in your mouth, doctoring your testimony, cajoling you into seeing things their way. I know how they do that. And when that happens sometimes people don’t know where to turn, who or what to believe. They live their whole lives trusting the government. And then? They get arrested or questioned and find out what the government is all about.”

“That ain’t me,” Mary snapped. “I know what the government’s about. I still ain’t tellin’ shit. Because I know what you’re about, too. And him,” with a jerk of her head in Watson’s direction. “And them.”

She breathed faster and resettled herself in the chair.

“But eventually,” purred Myrna, “you’ll tell everybody, won’t you? The judge, the jury, the press, because you are going to testify in federal court. Twelve jurors are gonna stare at you and ask themselves, ‘Is she lying? Is she telling the truth?’ The government may act like your friend now, but eventually they’ll come after you, too. Then you will get a promotion, from witness to defendant.”

“For what?” she snapped and braced herself. “I didn’t kill Elvin Brawley. James Whitlow done that.” Her lips trembled, and she covered her face with hands that had been stained by toner cartridges and print ribbons.

“Pretend he did kill Elvin,” said Myrna. “Then things look bad for him, right? Which I guess could be good or bad for you.”

“Oh,” said Mary sarcastically, “another lawyer gonna explain good and bad to me? I had the devil’s own time telling them apart, so I give it up. Now I do for everybody what they done for me—nothin’.” She leaned forward and spit the word from her mouth. “How ’bout what
that bastard dickhead done to me?” she asked. “But that ain’t your business, is it?”

“My business is to keep the government honest,” said Myrna. “I make sure they don’t abuse power and take advantage of regular people like you and me.”

Myrna watched Mary exhale and then reached for her Gitanes.

“So what is it you want us to tell your husband?”

“I get my half back and maybe things change for him,” she blurted. She stuck the cigarette in her lips with shaky fingers and looked as if she’d regretted even this sudden communication. “Maybe I go away.”

“Joe,” said Myrna, “let’s write this down and make sure we get it right.”

“Don’t write nothing down!” she shouted. “I didn’t say nothing anyways. You tell him what you maybe heard me say.” She rose abruptly. “I’m gone.”

“Least now we got a pretty good idea she ain’t wearin’ a wire,” said Myrna.

“I ain’t here for the government,” Mary yelled.

“Good, then sit down,” said Myrna. “Unless you want us to tell Jimmy your message is ‘Nothin’.’ ”

Mary warily sat back in the chair and regarded Myrna with hatred in one eye and fear in the other.

“A trial is nothing but stories,” said Myrna. “Lots of different stories told to an audience in a big room that feels a lot like a church. Your problem is you got a bad story, ma’am. You can explain the parts that don’t make sense to me, or I can just call the Assistant U.S. Attorney. He runs a little thing called a grand jury, where he can maybe ask you what was in them briefcases everybody is looking for.”

Mary glanced at the drooping ash on her cigarette and tried to steady her hand. Myrna looked in her eyes, then stared at her shaking fingers.

“How ’bout an ashtray?” Myrna asked, taking a puff on her own cigarette, “before you shake that loose?”

“I got nothin’ to say about briefcases,” said Mary.

“ ‘Nothing’ would be great,” said Myrna, “if you could get away with it. But when you take the witness stand, saying ‘nothing’ ain’t gonna wash.”

“I’ll tell it the way it happened,” said Mary bravely.

“No shit?” asked Myrna. “The whole story? You gonna tell the court about the Order of the Eagles? And how you are Militia Momma? What
are you this year? The secretary? The treasurer?—I forget. You gonna tell them how you handle all the printing of the newspapers, newsletters, mailers? All the shit that gets sent out to the four corners of the world? You gonna tell them all that?”