The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [107]
“Wh…what?”
“Go think about it. I’ve got hearings until noon. You come back then—but only if you’re ready to be her lawyer. If you don’t show, I’ll substitute Herrin and postpone the trial.”
Outside, Bobby and Ray were waiting.
“What’s up?” Bobby said.
Scott shook his head. “Personal.” Then he addressed Ray Burns. “You’re being a prick, Ray.”
“Yeah, Scott, a prick with a career. A death penalty gets me an office in D.C.”
“How do you sleep with yourself?”
Ray laughed. “Uh-oh, a born-again lawyer. Eleven years you spend every waking minute billing hours, making boatloads of money, living in a mansion, driving a Ferrari—how much did that cost your clients? Then you get fired and suddenly you see the light like a dying man: I wanna do good, Lord! Bullshit, Scott. You don’t give a flying fuck about her. She’s just a nigger, right? Two months ago, you were trying to bail on her faster than you can spit, now you’re gonna be her hero? Tell it to Oprah. Oh, and I don’t sleep by myself, Scott, I sleep with a gorgeous redhead from accounting. Who you sleeping with? Not your wife; she’s sleeping with her golf pro.”
Scott lunged for Ray, but Bobby jumped in between them.
“Hell, Scott,” Ray said with a little laugh, “don’t worry. The bitch probably won’t live through withdrawal.”
In one quick movement, Bobby released Scott and punched Ray in the mouth. Ray fell back against the wall.
Bobby said, “I told you, Ray.”
“I’m real worried about her, Mr. Fenney,” Ron the guard said. “I’m thinking maybe I made a mistake, taking her H.”
They were standing outside Shawanda’s cell. Inside, she was lying on her bed facing the far wall, curled up in a ball, her entire body shivering uncontrollably. She was groaning as if she were dying, her skin glistened with sweat, and her legs kicked involuntarily.
“That’s why they call it kicking the habit,” Bobby said. “Right now, she’d give everything she has in life for one fix.”
Bobby was rubbing his right fist. “Hitting someone hurts.”
“I’m proud of you, Bobby.” Scott pointed the Jetta toward Highland Park and said, “You know what pisses me off the most?”
“The Ferrari?”
“No, about Burns.”
“What?”
“The prick’s right. About me.”
Bobby worked his hand and said, “What did Buford want?”
“He wanted to take me off the case. Said he was going to appoint you.”
“You still want out?”
“No. I told Buford that, but he told me to think about it, come back at noon, tell him if I’m ready to be her lawyer.”
They were silent until they exited downtown. Then Bobby said softly: “I can’t try this case, Scotty. I’m not good enough. She needs you.”
An hour later, Scott left the house by the back door and ran west on Beverly Drive. It was exactly eleven A.M.; he had sixty minutes to make the biggest decision of his life.
Scott turned south on Lakeside Drive and ran past the stately old mansions that had stood for almost as long as Highland Park had existed. The homes sat higher than the street and looked down on a little park and Turtle Creek, where Scott often took Boo to skip rocks across the water.
Scott headed west on Armstrong Parkway a short distance, then turned north on Preston Road and ran up the sidewalk, the road to his left and to his right the massive wall that shielded the grand estates of Trammell Crow and Jerry Jones and Mack McCall and—
Tom Dibrell.
Scott had damn near run right into the long silver Mercedes as Tom exited his estate and stopped to check for traffic, blocking the sidewalk. They stared at each other across a distance of just a few feet, Tom wearing a suit and tie but cool in the air-conditioned luxury of a German sedan, Scott wearing only shorts and running shoes and sweating profusely in the hundred-degree heat. For eleven years they had talked daily; they had traveled the country, negotiating deals, making deals,