Unfit to Practice (36 page)

“Why didn't you tell the police who did this?”

“Because my husband said no. In our country a girl who lied to her parents and saw a boy alone is considered not a good person for a marriage. She dishonored our family. My husband almost died because of this dishonor. Better to try to handle it ourselves. So we made our daughter stay home from school, and my husband wanted to take her back to Laos.”

“But then there was a second robbery.”

“I believe the brothers came back to the store again to kill Mr. Vang, not to rob. Because still he would not allow the marriage. Their family—they had lost face. They came in and I was watching. And Song said, ‘You fool!' to my husband. He had a gun. And Kao Vang reached under the counter and shot Song and killed him. Moua ran away.”

She spoke with the despair of a person telling the truth.

Judge Brock had awakened and pricked his ears. Nolan had stopped writing and gripped the side of the table as though she wanted to jump up.

“Then came the fire,” Jack said.

“My husband and I were having great trouble. He was very bitter that our daughter had brought all this harm to us. He insisted that she go back to Laos. I couldn't let that happen. It is no good for women in Laos. She would have a terrible life. I thought, we must take our chances here. And so, after the fire, I left my husband and I took my daughter and son. I could not have done that at home. But in this country, women are free.”

“Are we just going to let this witness rattle on forever with her stories?” Nolan said.

Judge Brock said, “I want to hear this.”

“And did you ever see this Moua after your husband shot his brother?”

“We were still working at the store. He came in and threatened us again. He said Kao owed him revenge money because Kao killed his brother. I told him I would call the police. He ran away again. But the next night—then the fire. All was lost.”

“Mrs. Vang,” Jack said, “why didn't you tell the police this time about Moua?”

“What is the use? What could they prove? My husband said, we are trying to get a settlement for losing our store and then we are going back to Laos right away and away from this country. I helped him. But I was unhappy and frightened. I will never go back to Laos. My daughter and son will be citizens. I left my husband and took my children. I am staying here.”

“Do you know where Moua is now?” Jack said.

“I hear his family moved to New York when an investigator showed up asking many questions one day some months ago. He won't come back. He is afraid of the police coming now.”

So Paul had scared Moua Thoj away by asking all those questions back in September, Nina thought, and made things safer for the Vangs, a ramble in the dark that resulted in inadvertent good.

“And your daughter is where?”

“She is with me. She works at the same store as me.”

Jack gave Nina a look that said, anything else?

“We have suffered,” Mrs. Vang said. “But here there is hope.”

“I have nothing further,” Jack said.

Recess for the day. They marched out. Mrs. Vang and Dr. Mai came over to shake hands.

“We'll get you your money,” Jack told her. “We're going to win.”

“Good luck,” Nina said. “To you and your children.”

Bashing all around. Jack bashed Paul, Paul bashed Jack, and Bob had a birthday bash.

He was fourteen tonight, and since they were stuck in San Francisco, Paul had suggested the spinning Equinox restaurant for the celebration, based on Wish's rave review. The view, spectacular at sunset, had turned foggy and now swirled romantic and ambiguous in gray, black, and white. Of course, the place lacked kid-pizzazz. Bob was the only person under thirty here, Nina thought, unless you counted how childish Jack and Paul were acting. They had traded bad jokes from the moment they met at the entrance to the restaurant. For men who collided as often as they did, they sure had fun together.

Fortunately, Bob seemed not to mind the company of adults or his recent exile. Since Nina had dragged him back with her to San Francisco to sleep in the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street, he had amused himself exploring the city. Incapable of hanging around a hotel room doing schoolwork, so far he had spent his birthday riding around on the cable cars by himself for hours at a time while Nina sat in the court. He planned to take the ferry to Sausalito the next day. As a result, his face rubbed red by the wind, flush with health and fresh local lore, he couldn't stop talking.

Although Jack had offered to put him up, Nina knew stranding him in Bernal Heights would just cause trouble. Downtown he could find so many things to do, and now that he was six feet tall, she didn't worry as much about him in this city he knew well. Also, although she considered it, she couldn't make herself go back to Jack's condo, not with her memories of what had gone on in the past between her and Jack, and her fantasies of what had come after. That phase of her life had ended.

A waiter came by to take their orders, shutting Bob up while he pored over the menu. First, they chose drinks all around, with Bob deciding on root beer while the others dived into the harder choices. Paul and Jack engaged in a hot contest over dinner wine, then settled for one red and one white. The men picked food quickly, Paul ordering prime rib, Jack the pork tenderloin. Bob vacillated lengthily between penne pasta and salmon, driving the waiter to erase two orders before the pasta scored the winning vote. Nina went with the evocatively named lemongrass-skewered sea scallops.

The Bay Bridge tiptoed nearer, inching toward them like a virtual property tour as the floor spun, making a full revolution every forty minutes. Bob, gulping his root beer, stared out the window, fascinated by the misty scene. Rain began drizzling down the window and fought the fog.

“You going back to Carmel tonight?” Jack asked Paul.

“What? And miss the ongoing human drama happening right down there on Howard Street?” After a brief foray into the events of the day, they declared a moratorium on court talk. They all felt hopeful; they all felt like they needed to forget it all for an hour or two. Then Bob started talking about his favorite piece in a recent
MAD
magazine, an article about phrases you really don't want to read in news articles about yourself.

“
Helpless bystander,
” Paul said.

“
Hail of bullets,
” Jack contributed.

“
Horrified onlookers,
” Nina said.

“
Identified by dental records,
” Bob said, winning the competition for the biggest laugh.

Tiring of that game, they small-talked about the big view outside. Nina tried to point out landmarks, but Bob knew them all and in the end, he proved to have the superior knowledge.

This was Bob's fourteenth birthday and Nina wanted to celebrate him, his life, his importance to her. She raised a toast to him, recounting the story of his birth, which she always tried to do on his birthday. Bob listened happily. Paul and Jack made messy, funny follow-up toasts, harking back to themselves at fourteen, promising Nina Bob would not behave at all like they had behaved at his age, not to worry, while Bob assured her he planned to do exactly that.

While she smiled at the horsing around, she found her mind drifting away, in spite of her resolution, from Bob to tomorrow's testimony on the Kevin Cruz count. What could motivate him to file that gigantic lie of a complaint? What would it take to get him to abandon it? Listening to the chat with half an ear, she pondered these questions until she noticed Bob watching her. She ruffled his hair, ashamed of herself. She was missing yet another milestone moment.

Still, she had an idea, and the idea turned in her mind like a windmill.

When the food came, the men attacked theirs. Bob twiddled his fork in the pasta and ate a few bites, and Nina tasted the shellfish and decided she was very hungry. The waiter brought cupcakes with candles, as she had arranged, and they all sang “Happy Birthday,” Jack hoarsely, Paul self-consciously, and Nina too loud, to make up for their small number. Afterward, Bob opened presents. Jack gave him a scrimshaw-handled penknife he had bought in the Caribbean. “Carved by a pirate,” he said with a wink. Paul gave him a certificate for karate lessons.

A knife and an education in how to fight, Nina thought, adding to the pile her own gift, the newest video-game system, a true gift of guilt. Now he could fight for real and for fake. All violent bases were officially covered.

His eyes opened very wide. “Mom, I can't believe this!”

Neither could Paul or Jack, who had listened to her rail against video and computer games for years, but for once they must have agreed. Neither said a word as Bob opened two more boxes, with games that had names that made Nina cringe and Bob glow.

A few other small gifts from family and friends and a major contribution to his college fund from his grandpa rounded off the collection. Last, he opened his present from his father.

“How weird,” he said. “A Swedish dictionary.”

Everyone found the gift very mysterious, and the note accompanying the present even more suggestive: “Did you know the North Sea is warm enough to swim in?”

“I thought Kurt lived in Germany,” Jack said.

“He does. I'm just as mystified as you are,” Nina said. They bagged up the presents in a green garbage bag and left the restaurant.

Paul and Jack indulged in a final jousting match over who could drive her and Bob back to the hotel, which Paul won, asking Nina to join him for a nightcap in the bar downstairs. She promised to meet him in a few minutes.

Back in their room, Bob flopped on the bed. “This is the best birthday. This is the best city in the entire universe. Mom, thank you so much.”

She hugged him.

“Is it okay if I call my dad to thank him for the dictionary?” Bob yelled through the door as she washed her hands in the bathroom.

“Isn't it the middle of the night for him?”

“He says call anytime. He says he doesn't like to sleep much anyway.”

“Okay, then.”

When she came back into the room, Bob was deep in conversation. He waved her out, so she went downstairs to meet Paul.

Paul had switched to tonic water, but Nina had another glass of wine. “One more can't possibly make a difference.”

“Drink water with it, then, like the Italians do. We don't want the judge to get the wrong impression of our upright young do-gooder tomorrow morning, rolling her bloodshot eyes at him.”

“I think Bob loved his birthday party. Thanks for coming. The guest list would have been awfully sparse otherwise. It probably isn't your favorite kind of thing.”

“I had a great time. Bob's a good kid. It was nice to relax and remember there is life outside the courtroom, and it's a pretty good life.” He paused. “Isn't it, Nina?”

But she was distracted. “I keep thinking I've handled things badly. I didn't push you to investigate more over the last six months—even though you nagged me about that more than once.”

“I do not nag.”

“I wanted to believe things would magically resolve.”

“Entirely natural. You didn't want to face trouble, so you ignored it. Everybody does that.”

“Don't defend me,” she said. “I get enough of that in court from Jack.”

They laughed together.

She took a breath. “Paul, it's been hard. I've had doubts. . . .”

“Big surprise.”

“No, hear me out. Almost everyone in my life tells me this job is destructive. But I've thought it through. Law's part of me. It isn't everything, but I believe, when it all shakes down, I've helped these people, in spite of it all. I stood up for them.”

“Yes, you have,” he said.

“But here's what I'm facing right now. These people I tried to help are trying to ruin me. It's demoralizing.”

Paul took her hand. “Get up.” He got the waiter to come over. “Save the table? We'll be back in five,” he said, slipping him a bill. The waiter nodded and left.

He put a finger to his lips, took her by the arm, and led her straight out of the hotel and onto Sutter Street.

Neon shivered in the puddles. A man in a torn sweatshirt staggered by, hit Paul up for a buck, and moved on. A taxi careened around the corner, loaded with laughing passengers. Way up the hill, a cable car clanged, beginning its precarious descent through a riot of traffic.

“Yikes,” Nina said. “Kind of a contrast to the piano bar.”

“Yeah, isn't it great?” Paul said.

“It's so clear after rain here. You can even see the stars.”

“Orion,” Paul said, pointing. “The one constellation I'm sure about.” He pulled her tight to keep her warm. “See what's happening? Mad dashing to and fro. Chaos on the street. Stars exploding.”

“Guys peeing,” Nina said, watching one. “Ugh.”

Paul laughed. “You want life neat. It isn't.”

“They're saying I'm unfit to do my job.”

“You're so much more than your job.”

They stood for a long time on the street. When they went back inside, Nina felt recharged, plugged into a power source. They warmed up again at their table. “I hate having the state bar after me. They're my colleagues.”

“The bar court only operates based on the information it's given—in this case, complaints that look perfectly legit. There's a hidden agenda here, but it isn't the California State Bar's.”

“Yes,” she said. “We come back to that. My enemy.” She tinkled a spoon against her glass, took a sip, and tinkled it again. “Oh, Paul! Here's an idea I had while we were celebrating with Bob.”

“Oh?”

“It's about Mrs. Gleb. You know, after she testified she practically begged us to find something else for her to do.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don't want Jack to know about this, okay? I don't want him to get into trouble.”

“Then I'm your man.”

She hesitated for a moment. “It involves Mrs. Gleb, and it involves you, and it involves some pretty shady stuff.”

“I'm liking this.”

She explained what she had in mind. Paul took out a pocket notebook. They took turns writing in it, erasing, and adding for several minutes.