Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion (34 page)

“Gina’s a good person. She’s crazy about her little girl. She makes me feel alive in a way that I haven’t for years! It isn’t just the sex; the truth is, I’m so scared of getting AIDS from her I don’t even enjoy it. We just have fun together. Brenda hasn’t cracked a smile since I choked and nearly died on a piece of her meatloaf nearly two years ago.”

I shake my head as I visualize the dismal little duplex Gina calls home.

“Have you thought about going to marriage counseling?”

Clan wipes his eyes.

“The last one we went to admitted she had been divorced three times. Brenda said she wouldn’t pay someone to watch us fight. We can do that for free.”

I laugh despite myself.

“You can’t really be thinking about moving in with her.”

“I won’t,” Clan sighs.

“I don’t have the guts. I’m too middle class. As pathetic a human being as I am, I’m still enough of a snob to care about what other people think.

There goes fat Clan. He lives with a whore dog who nearly cooked her baby. Nan, I couldn’t handle that.”

Poor guy. He seems about to cry.

“I couldn’t either,” I say sympathetically.

“Just hang on until January. Things will seem better then.”

With a blank expression on his face, Clan turns and wanders down the hall, and I follow him out, realizing I have a grudging admiration for him. The difference between me and Clan is that I wouldn’t have the integrity to admit that I had fallen in love with a whore. Clan is pitiful, but at least he is honest about it. I ride the elevator down to the street thinking that the evolution of the species may be more of a short-term proposition than scientists think.

I point the Blazer south on 1-30 to Texarkana, and two and a half hours later, after stopping for gas in Arkadelphia, I exit at a service station just before crossing the Texas line to ask for directions. I walk into the office hugging myself and wishing I had brought my overcoat.

A cold front has moved across the state. An attendant wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap points east on a city map, and five minutes later I am shivering in front of Robin’s parents’ ranch-style home, which occupies two lots, and trying to recall what I know about this family. All I remember is that the husband gives or gave a shitload of money to the Razorback scholarship fund and is a conservative Baptist, a profile that could fit any number of Arkansans.

Though I’ve never seen her, I’d know Mrs. Perry any where. An older, more voluptuous version of the daughter, she comes to the door wearing a red knit outfit that suggests they may have dinner plans. It is almost six o’clock, and two cars, a Buick sedan and a Cherokee, sit in the driveway. If they brush me off, there will be nothing I can do except to head back in the other direction.

“Mrs. Perry, I’m Gideon Page, Dade Cunningham’s lawyer,” I begin, as gently as I can.

“I’d like to visit just a very few minutes with you and your husband. I’m sorry to be disturbing you, but it’s important that we talk be fore the hearing.”

There is no effort to conceal the shock that is apparent on her carefully made-up face. It is as if Dade himself had appeared on their doorstep. I look past her to see if I can get a glimpse of Robin, but she is nowhere to be seen. I do not want her to be present for this conversation, if it takes place. They will feel too protective of her if she is sitting there.

“Just a moment,” Mrs. Perry says frostily through the screen door in an accent even more Southern than her daughter’s. She turns and is gone. I feel as though I am a representative of the Mormons, a long way from Utah. At least she didn’t slam the door in my face.

A full three minutes later a tall, athletic-looking man in his early forties opens the door and the screen and says, “Come in.” He does not offer to shake hands, and not wanting to wear out my welcome in the first five seconds, I don’t extend mine. Gerald Perry leads me into a living room, which even to my unobservant eye comes together in an elegant, understated way. Whoever decorated it had a flair for color. Royal blues, golds, and muted reds give the room a regal holiday look. Holly, mistletoe, and a creche crowd together on a mantle above a hearth in which a fire is roaring. A twelve-foot Christmas tree winking with lights, colored balls, and ribbons and surrounded by presents stands in a far corner. Gerald Perry points to the least comfortable-looking chair in the room.

As if I were a child whose baseball had crashed into his picture window, I perch on the edge and wait for him to give me a lecture about dropping in without calling beforehand.

Less formally dressed than his wife, he is wearing a white shirt, no tie, and pleated slacks. This may be about as relaxed as they ever get.

“What do you want?” he asks, sitting down by his wife on an enormous beige sofa.

I look into their faces and realize they must despise me. If I am to succeed here, I must somehow humanize the cause I represent.

“I have a daughter Robin’s age at Fayetteville. Whether you can imagine it or not, I am truly sorry for what I’m putting you through” I tell myself I see the flicker of a response in the father’s eyes, but it is Mrs. Perry who answers.

“If our feelings made any difference to you,” she says, “you wouldn’t have taken the case.”

Though her words come out soft as honeysuckle, her expression is eerie in its sudden ferocity.

“My job is to represent Dade Cunningham, but the last thing I want to do in this case is embarrass you or your daughter,” I say, hoping sincerity counts for something with this couple.

Goaded by his wife’s anger, Mr. Perry says, in a wounded tone, “How can you possibly even imply that Robin isn’t telling the truth? You have no idea what it is costing her to go through this.”

The male is the one I have to approach. He seems more hurt than actively hostile. On the other hand, his wife seems, in her home at least, like a time bomb. I say, “As presumptuous as this may sound, I think I do. Whatever happens, she will bear scars that will never heal, and so will you, and so will Dade Cunningham.”

“I hope your client rots in hell after he dies in prison,” Mrs. Perry says quietly, her feet flat on the carpet as her blue eyes bore into me.

Her fury is making me nervous. I know I must not anger this woman any more than necessary, or she will explode.

“I don’t think I could put my own daughter,” I say, feeling the weight of my words, “through a trial like this one is going to be, Mrs. Perry.”

She answers as I have hoped.

“She’s done it once!” she says, her jaw firm with determination.

“The second time won’t be any worse.”

“It’s going to be much worse,” I reply quickly.

“I don’t have any choice but to try to bring out in court the relationship with her history professor. Right now, it’s just a rumor among a few sorority girls in Fayetteville. If this goes any further, it will be discussed in every house in the state.”

Mrs. Perry’s face flushes crimson.

“He seduced her. I grant you that he isn’t any higher on the human scale than your client. But let me tell you something about my daughter, Mr. Page. She’s not afraid of anything.”

“People underestimate Robin,” Gerald Perry adds, feeling he needs to support his wife.

“They assume that because she’s beautiful she doesn’t have a backbone.

They find out real quick they’re wrong.”

The only way to endure this chair is to sit up straight, and I’m not capable of it. I lean forward with my hands on my knees.

“I know she’ll make an excellent witness,” I say, focusing on Gerald Perry.

“I heard her testify at the university disciplinary hearing. But Joe Hofstra will be fighting for his job. You can bet that he’s going to tell an entirely different story than Robin does about their relationship.”

For the first time Mrs. Perry seems uneasy. Her eyes begin to flutter.

“Robin has told us everything,” she counters.

“You can imagine what kind of picture he will paint of your daughter, Mrs. Perry,” I say, deciding I have to meet her head on.

“He’ll say that Robin started showing up in his office, and though he tried to keep it on a professor student basis, she wouldn’t leave him alone. You can bet the farm that he’ll say and do whatever is necessary to keep it from appearing that he sexually harassed her. Has he contacted you or your daughter?”

“That’s none of your business,” she says, her face reddening.

Mr. Perry is listening. He begins to press the bridge of his broad nose as if what I am saying is finally getting through. He may not be smarter than his wife, but he isn’t slobbering like an attack dog either. If Robin had innerited his looks, we probably wouldn’t be here now.

“The press would write about this anyway if Robin doesn’t go through with it,” he says, but his voice is tentative.

“Reporters won’t know the reason unless Robin tells them,” I say, my eyes on Mrs. Perry’s face.

“Hofstra certainly isn’t going to respond to questions, and they won’t report any gossip for fear of a libel suit.” Blanche Perry seems about to burst, and I speak as fast as I can. I want her husband to hear me even if she doesn’t.

“Assume this goes to trial, and the judge allows evidence of your daughter’s affair with her professor. If we were in a more liberal state, perhaps the prosecutor could get away with characterizing both Dade and Hofstra as rapists who differ only in degree, but even in a best-case scenario for you, what people will remember here twenty years later is your daughter was carrying on with her professor, and somehow got raped by a black football player as a consequence. I know how cruel and unfair that is, but you have to think about the future.”

Gerald Perry is so quiet that I know he has to be thinking about what I have said, but as soon as I have finished, Blanche Perry explodes.

“Get out of my house!” she shouts.

“What gall you have coming here and telling us what people will think in twenty years. I wouldn’t let my daughter give in to somebody like you in a million years.

That nigger you represent is scum, and you’re even worse. My daughter has held up her head, and she’s not about to start hiding now. Now get out!”

Her face is terrible, her features twisted by hatred and rage. I scramble to my feet and head for the door, afraid she might actually try to attack me. I manage to keep my mouth shut, conscious that Gerald is not echoing his wife’s sentiments. I resent the hell out of his wife’s behavior but it won’t do any good to say anything now. As I reach the foyer, I see Robin, who has appeared, obviously in response to her mother’s outburst. Dressed to go out in dark slacks and a white frilly blouse, she has a frightened look on her face. I have no idea whether or not she has been listening the entire time. If her mother can lose it this badly, perhaps on crossexamination Robin will, too. I go through the two doors as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid any further confrontation, and don’t look back until I reach the Blazer. From the door Gerald holds up my briefcase and trots out to the curb with it.

Wordlessly, he hands it to me, but for a fleeting second, I detect the slightest sign of an apology as his eyes meet mine in recognition. Though I have incensed his wife, he does not hate me for what I have done.

I take the briefcase and through the window murmur, “Thanks,” knowing his wife and daughter are at the door watching this final moment of what has turned into a humiliating debacle. He nods, and I pull away slowly, hoping to retain some of my dignity. I begin to settle down by the time I get on the interstate. I am soaked in sweat. I must have been out of my mind to think that I could talk them out of going to court. I can imagine the stories that will make their way back to Fayetteville. Page was in Texarkana trying to intimidate the family and they kicked his ass out. I wonder if I have done anything unethical.

The last thing I need to do is lose my license over this. I get off the interstate in Arkadelphia and order a chocolate milkshake from the drive-through at McDonald’s. I’m glad Sarah wasn’t along. She would have been appalled by what happened. The girl who hands me my change can’t be more than sixteen. She smiles as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. I wish I could trade places with her.

I get back home around eight-thirty to find Woogie hiding in Sarah’s old room and discover he has pissed on the rug in the living room. Poor guy. He couldn’t hold it.

This is the third time in the last month. His bladder is in no better shape than his master’s. He can’t stand being cooped up in the backyard, howling day and night. I have spoiled him beyond belief and now I’m paying for it. I let him outside, and he doesn’t make it out of the yard before he is squatting. He trots back in, thoroughly hacked at me.

“My fault, boy,” I tell him as he watches from the door that leads into the kitchen as I clean up. My eyes water and I start to gag. If I get disbarred, I don’t think I’ll become a nurse.

Christmas morning I receive a call from Gordon Dyson, who tells me that he will put his wife on a plane for New Zealand in two days. Flabbergasted that a client would call me at my home on Christmas, I rack my brain, and it finally comes to me that Dyson is the ex-cop who wants to evict his son. Irritated, I ask, “Couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow?”

Dyson whispers into the phone, “I’m sorry, but this is the only present I’m getting that I’ve ever wanted, and it didn’t seem real unless I called you.”

Good God in heaven! What people will do to make themselves happy on Christmas.

“It’s okay,” I say, managing to remember our plan.

“I’ll prepare a power of attorney for your wife to sign tomorrow morning. You can drop by and pick it up from my secretary and then bring it back after she leaves. We’ll file an unlawful detainer action immediately.”

“If this works,” he says fervently, “I’ll install a security system in your house for free in addition to paying your fee.”

I look around the living room. Most of the furniture is so ratty I couldn’t pay a thief to carry anything off.

“That’d be great.”

After giving me his wife’s name (Dora Lou), Dyson begins to tell me about how his son set a new personal record by sleeping until two in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Fortunately, we are interrupted by the doorbell, and even though Sarah could get it, I take this opportunity to tell Mr. Dyson good-bye.