The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [58]
Yes, in every woman’s life, there’s always another woman. But it was different for Rebecca Fenney: the other woman in her life, the woman competing for her lawyer, the woman who was threatening to take everything she had in life—her home, her position, her possessions—was not a twenty-two-year-old blonde with big tits and a tight ass, but a black prostitute accused of murdering a senator’s son.
“I’m gonna be a hooker when I grow up.”
Consuela let out a shriek from the kitchen, Scott almost choked on a mouthful of barbecued brisket left over from the party, and Rebecca glared at him from across the dining table. He turned to Boo, who had just announced her career plan to her family at the dinner table.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah,” she said, chewing on a barbecued rib, “men pay Pajamae’s mother two hundred dollars an hour just to be with her, and if the trick wants her all night, then it’s a thousand.”
Scott looked at Pajamae, who was nodding matter-of-factly.
“Well, Scott,” Rebecca said, “your little social experiment is already making our daughter a more worldly person.”
“Rebecca, she doesn’t understand what she’s saying.” To Boo: “And what does Pajamae’s mom do with her tricks?”
Boo shoveled potato salad into her mouth and said, “Well, mostly they watch TV and eat popcorn, but sometimes the trick wants to fornicate.”
Rebecca dropped her silverware. “Oh, this is just great!”
Calmly: “And what about that?”
Boo said, “Well, that’s okay as long as he wears his rubbers, although if it’s not raining, why the heck would he need rubbers?”
She turned to Pajamae for an answer, but Pajamae only shrugged, shook her head, and bit into a rib.
“Unh-huh. So that’s what your mother told you, Pajamae?”
Pajamae was busy with her food, but she said, “Yeah, that’s what she said. And she said if a president can make ten million dollars for writing a book about getting blow jobs in the White House, she ought to be able to make a hundred dollars for giving one on Harry Hines.” She now looked up from her plate. “Mama talks a lot when she’s sick and takes her medicine…until she falls asleep.”
Boo turned to Pajamae: “What’s a blow job?”
Shawanda sucked the bone dry, then licked her lips. She turned her big brown eyes up to Bobby, smiled, and said, “This here some good cooking.”
Bobby handed her another barbecued rib from Scotty’s party. He had walked out with a dozen ribs, two pints of coleslaw, one pint of baked beans, and two cold beers. He knew he couldn’t get the beers into the federal detention center, so he drank them on the way over. Of course, before Shawanda would eat, he had to tell her all about the pool party and Pajamae, how pretty she looked.
She said, “Mr. Herrin, over last month you bring me food what, five, six time?”
“Seven, but who’s counting. And don’t tell Scotty, okay?”
“Why you come? You sweet on Shawanda?”
Bobby shrugged. “You’re my client…sort of.”
She looked at him like a psychic trying to read his future in his face, then nodded knowingly and said, “You ain’t got no one to eat with, do you?”
Bobby stared down at his paper plate. “No.”
“Well, you awful nice, bring good food for me…’cept that pizza with them little fishes—”
“Anchovies.”
“Yeah, them.” She swallowed some coleslaw, then said, “Mr. Herrin, I’m real sorry.”
“For what?”
“For thinking you ain’t nothin’ but a dud…lawyer.”
Bobby laughed. “That’s okay. I feel that way about myself most of the time.”
“You just poor ’cause you care. You all soft inside for people like me, workin’ for nothin’, that’s why you ain’t a rich lawyer. Can’t make no money givin’ everyone freebies—where I be, I do that? Nope, Mr. Herrin, that just bad business. Mr. Fenney, he rich ’cause he know to only work for rich people.”
“He used to care.”
“So you ain’t mad, me telling the judge I want