The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [19]
“Unh-huh.” She gave him another look. “You just tell me what you want me to know, don’t you?”
He gave her a smile. “Yep.”
She frowned. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“I’m stuck here all day while Mother meets her lady friends for lunch and plays golf and you go to your office and do your lawyer work. Mother comes home and wants to tell me all about her day, but I want to know about your day, and you won’t tell me. It’s not fair.”
Scott sat on the edge of Boo’s bed and looked at his daughter, her cute little face contorted into a frown. He knew she wasn’t really mad, but it still bothered him. So he thought through his day again and decided he could tell her one thing.
“Okay, I’ll tell you something about my day. I got appointed to represent a criminal defendant, the woman who murdered Senator McCall’s son.”
Her face brightened and all was well again.
“You’re not a criminal lawyer.”
“Some people say all lawyers are criminal.”
Boo smiled. “You know what I mean.”
“Well, I’m hoping there won’t be a trial, that she’ll cop a plea.”
“What’s cop a plea?”
“Say she’s guilty.”
“Is she?”
“Probably.”
“Are you gonna ask her?”
“Maybe…I mean, yeah, sure.”
“Why do you want her to cop a plea? I thought you make more money when a case goes to trial.”
“Not this trial. I’m doing it for free.”
“Why?”
“Judge Buford’s making me.”
“He can do that?”
“Yeah. I practice in federal court, so he can do that. It’s a rule.”
“Support his opponent in the next election.”
He had taught her well.
“Judge Buford’s a federal judge, appointed for life.”
“Shit.”
“Boo, don’t cuss.”
“Mother does.”
“Well, she shouldn’t. And you shouldn’t either. It makes you sound trashy.”
“They cuss in the movies, even the PGs. And all the other kids cuss.”
“That doesn’t make it right. Don’t be a follower, Boo. Don’t do the wrong thing just because everyone else does. Do the right thing.”
“I don’t say the F-word.”
Scott smiled. “Well, that’s good.”
“I don’t even know what it means.”
“I hope not.”
“Sally down the street, she says her dad says the F-word all the time when he thinks she’s not around. And sometimes even when she is. You don’t say the F-word when I’m not around, do you?”
“No, of course not.”
A small lie.
“So she doesn’t have any money to pay you?”
“Who, the defendant? No.”
“Doesn’t she have a job?”
“She’s a, uh…”
“Prostitute. I heard it on TV. And a drug addict. What’s a prostitute?”
When Boo asked him questions like that, Scott was never quite sure how to answer. She always seemed to know when he wasn’t telling the whole truth, but, even though she was born twenty-five years old, he was reluctant to always tell the truth. So he answered like a lawyer. He fudged the truth.
“A personal escort.”
“What’s that?”
“She entertains men.”
“Like you entertain clients?”
A closer analogy than she knew. “Well, sort of.”
“Do you have any clients like her?”
“No, Boo, I don’t represent prostitutes and drug addicts.”
“I mean, black clients?”
“Oh. No, I’ve never had a black client.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because I represent corporations, not people.”
“What about those people who call you all the time?”
“My clients are corporations, but my contacts are executives at the corporations.”
Boo screwed her mouth up. She was thinking.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you represent corporations instead of people?”
“Because people can’t afford me. Heck, Boo, I couldn’t afford to hire myself, not at three-fifty an hour.”
Her eyes got big. “You charge three dollars and fifty cents an hour?”
Scott chuckled. “No.