The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [19]
Illuminated only by a desk lamp, Gold held his hands behind his back and tilted his head toward the window as he looked down at the street below. His clothes were pressed and clean, as if he had just slipped into them. Reggie had always noticed the great care in Gold’s every motion. He did not cross his legs or fold his arms or twist or stretch or bend unnecessarily. When he sat down, he did so in a controlled vertical descent. When his body was at rest, it was always very still. By contrast, when Reggie was in court, he was in constant motion, a preacher of the law. If it was going to be a long day at trial, Reggie might take along three white shirts and a pair of identical suits.
“The buzzer’s broken,” Gold said in reply to an unasked question.
Anxious, Reggie settled into a club chair ten feet from the desk. “It’s a little dicey leaving the front door wide open like that, yeah?”
Gold waved away the suggestion with his big left hand. Taller and broader than Reggie, Gold also carried a slight paunch even after months in county jail. “There are wolves out there, you know that? Here in the city. In the park. Their habitats are being pushed out by all the building in the suburbs. The disappearing woods. Some of the wolves keep moving west. Some go south. But some of them come east. Right down the damn expressway. Toward the water, the tall buildings. The urban forest.”
“Coyotes,” Reggie said. “It’s not wolves that live in the city. It’s coyotes.”
Gold looked at Reggie’s faint reflection in the glass. “I know for a fact that there are wolves in the city.” In his right pocket, Solomon’s hand fidgeted with something nervously, uncharacteristically. Maybe his keys.
Although he knew his client would never allow him to use it in a plea, Reggie believed Gold had been insane from the start—the bloody crime scene and autopsy photos of Erica’s bruised neck and perforated body were evidence of that. She had been stabbed and strangled. Kicked in the head. Her left eye had been gouged with a blunt stick, or maybe the knife handle. Reggie’s entire defense was based on a feeling he hoped for in at least one juror’s mind—that Solomon Gold just wouldn’t have done such a horrible thing—and in the week before closing arguments, Reggie’s worst fear was that his client would start acting in sight of the jury like a guy who really would do horrible things.
In retrospect, maybe that would have been the best thing for everyone.
Looking into the big window, south toward the city, Reggie could see the lights of the Hancock Center tapering skyward. Reflected in the glass, he appeared small, legs crossed in the chair, with Gold and the Hancock looming like twin giants above him.
“Sorry to pull you out like this,” Gold said. “You got other folks to save, I know.”
Reggie’s expression didn’t argue. “Where’s Canada tonight?” He didn’t bother to ask about Solomon’s wife. According to the papers, she had taken possession of their home in Florida in advance of the presumed divorce battle. Canada was still attending the Latin School just down the street, though. Either Elizabeth Gold was still angry with her daughter for standing by her father or she couldn’t find a prep school down south with enough prestige to suit her.
Gold looked surprised. “She had surgery yesterday.” He took a breath. “I’m going to see her later tonight.”
“A little late for visitors.”
“They make exceptions. For exceptional people.” Reggie wondered if he was referring to himself or to Canada.
Gold walked to the front of his desk and retrieved a thick sheaf of oversize paper from the leather portfolio and handed it to Reggie. At the center of each page progressed a long handwritten musical composition, too formal