The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [2]
McCall was sixty; Jean was forty. He had been a senator for two decades now, and she had been his aide since she graduated from law school fifteen years ago. She was a savvy, articulate, and photogenic asset to his political career. They had been married ten years now, long enough for the messy divorce not to be a negative in his polls.
She had no children and wanted none. He had a son, Clark, from his first marriage—the consummate ne’er-do-well offspring of wealth, a thirty-year-old adolescent. Six months ago, thinking a steady job might bring maturity to the boy’s life, and to get him out of Dallas, McCall had pulled some strings and got Clark appointed chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But the boy kept sneaking back home to do God knows what with God knows whom in their Dallas mansion. His son was not a political asset.
“Senator?”
Bradford, the butler, appeared in the arched entry to the living room, holding a portable phone and wearing a dazed expression.
“It’s Clark, sir.”
McCall waved him off. “Tell him I’m busy.”
“No, sir, it’s the FBI, from Dallas, calling about Clark.”
“The FBI? Jesus Christ, what the hell did he do this time?”
“Nothing, sir. He’s dead.”
ONE
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE between a rattlesnake lying dead in the middle of a highway and a lawyer lying dead in the middle of a highway?” He paused. “There are skid marks in front of the snake.”
His bar association audience responded with polite laughter and diplomatic smiles.
“Why did New Jersey get all the toxic waste dumps and California get all the lawyers?” He paused again. “Because New Jersey had first choice.”
Less laughter, fewer smiles, a scattering of nervous coughs: diplomacy was failing fast.
“What do lawyers and sperm have in common?” He did not pause this time. “Both have a one-in-a-million chance of turning out human.”
All efforts at diplomacy had ended. His audience had fallen deathly silent; a sea of stone faces stared back at him. The lawyers on the dais focused on their lunches, embarrassed by their guest speaker’s ill-advised attempt at humor. He looked around the crowded room, as if stunned. He turned his palms up.
“Why aren’t you laughing? Aren’t those jokes funny? The public sure thinks those jokes are funny, damn funny. I can’t go to a cocktail party or the country club without someone telling me a stupid lawyer joke. My friends, we are the butt of America’s favorite jokes!”
He adjusted the microphone so his deep sigh was audible, but he maintained steady eye contact with the audience.
“I don’t think those jokes are funny, either. I didn’t go to law school to be the butt of cruel jokes. I went to law school to be another Atticus Finch. To Kill a Mockingbird was my mother’s favorite book and my bedtime story. She’d read a chapter each night, and when we came to the end, she’d go back to the beginning and start over. ‘Scotty,’ she’d say, ‘be like Atticus. Be a lawyer. Do good.’
“And that, my fellow members of the bar, is the fundamental question we must ask ourselves: Are we really doing good, or are we just doing really well? Are we noble guardians of the rule of law fighting for justice in America, or are we just greedy parasites using the law to suck every last dollar from society like leeches on a dying man? Are we making the world a better place, or are we just making ourselves filthy rich?
“We must ask ourselves these questions, my friends, because the public is asking the same questions of us. They’re questioning us, they’re pointing their fingers at us, they’re blaming us. Well, I’ve asked myself these questions, and I have answers, for myself, for you, and for the public: Yes, we are doing good! Yes, we are fighting for justice!