There was a blond woman seated next to the President, in a suit of her own, but with a more feminine cut and an open collar. She stood up when Donny approached her boss, and when she did you could see how tall she was, and how strong. She had been introduced as the President’s in-house counsel, but you could see she was also his bodyguard, and maybe his paramour.
“It’s okay,” said the President. “Mr. Kimoe and I go way back. Even if we’ve never met in person. And I’m sure he’s right.”
“If you want to wear the flag, wear your uniform,” said Donny. The President was a war hero before he ran for office, a navy pilot who had been shot down in Korea during the war with China, and managed to escape. “Maybe your old one, if it fits, not the commander-in-chief one.”
“I’ll wear whatever you tell me, as long as you’re there.”
Donny poured himself a coffee and sat across from his new client. Who actually wasn’t his client, yet. Donny had wanted to wait until they had this meeting before he formally agreed to the engagement, which technically would be as co-counsel to WWH. What was crazy was how well rested the guy looked. Fit, even. Out of power, but confident and relaxed, the kind of rogue alpha who is already angling what his next gig will be. Not at all the way you would expect someone facing the choice between death by public hanging and three consecutive life sentences would be.
“They say Charles the First was like this,” said Donny.
Not much of a reaction to that.
“He got a cozy house arrest too. Until he tried to escape, at least. But acted regal right up until they lopped off his head and held it up for the crowd.”
“Fortunately you are going to make sure that doesn’t happen in this case,” said Ann, trying to redirect the tone.
“That depends on how this meeting goes,” said Donny.
The other lawyers in the room looked tense. They were on the client’s side without reservation. Pinstriped restorationists who’d be glad to put their own lapel pins back on if they could get this guy back in power.
“I like your analogy,” said the President. The guy had an intense stare, in person. Almost hypnotic. Donny had heard the stories, but never believed them until that moment, when he lived it.
“Yeah?” said Donny. “History is always good, because it lets you see some of the other ways things could have gone. Like if King Charles had negotiated an exile.”
“Real leaders don’t give up the fight,” said the President. “Especially not when the other side is breaking the law. As was the case then, and now.”
“Is this the part where you tell me how you’re still the President?” said Donny.
“Sounds like I don’t have to. Just like you don’t have to tell me you’re on their side. Always have been.”
“I don’t have a side,” said Donny.
“Sure you do. It’s just your own side. Lawyers are all alike. Morally malleable and ethically elusive. At least your clients know where they stand. You’re just here because you know they’re about to drive the economy into the ditch and this may be your last chance at a nice fee. Ann tells me they’re going to pay you more just for putting your name on the briefs than you made in all of your cases last year.”
“That’s wrong too. Because I’m doing this the same as I did a lot of those cases. For free.”
“For free?” said the President. “That’s the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard. Sorry.”
“I don’t want your apology. And I don’t want your money,” said Donny. “That’s stolen property, as far as I’m concerned. I just want to see you rot in jail.”
The President scowled at him, the mask finally falling. When he did, you could see the scars more clearly, little white lines on the left side of his face from the bomb blast that had come close to doing the job, but not close enough.
“Donny, maybe this was a bad idea,” said Ann.
“It was a great idea,” said the President, his glare never leaving Donny. “One of your best. It’s perfect. And it’s totally going to work. The fact that he hates me as much as I hate him and his clients and every filthy thing they stand for means this is going to totally get the result we want. Because for the first time in his life this weasel defender of terrorists is going to stand up for what he actually believes in. I don’t need him to understand what it means to believe in the idea of America. Because I know enough patriots are still out there to keep up the fight. And because he’s going to make sure I live to fight another day.”
“Are you, Donny?” said Ann.
“I’ll argue for what I believe in, like I always do,” said Donny, feeling his own bullshit detector go off as he talked. “In my own words. And that means I will do everything I can to persuade them that this tyrant should serve a lifetime in maximum-security prison for every life he stole. Down in the hole, at the inescapable Supermax he built to lock up the real patriots. The ones who fought for a future we can all live in.”
The president watched Donny with a smile on the edge between sincere and sarcastic, and then he started clapping. A slow clap, a clap of derision and ridicule, but a real one. Except that it was when he started clapping that Donny remembered the left hand was fake, a prosthesis that was another relic of the bombing. And when he clapped with it, it sounded like rubber. Donny looked at the fake hand, and wondered if it was capable of giving him the finger. And then he thought about how in prison, they would not let him keep it.
16
Donny was telling his grandmother that story after his meeting with Lecker, as they sat on her porch and enjoyed the takeout he had brought.
“You want some?” she said, proffering the brownie from which she had just taken a hearty bite.
“No thanks, Carol,” said Donny. “I can never keep up with you.”
“Suit yourself,” said Carol. Carol was Donny’s maternal grandmother. The first lawyer in the family, and the best, and the most ethical. And the most likely to be high, even in her eighties. Especially in her eighties.
Her place was in Plano, an old farmhouse that had somehow survived as suburbia boomed around it. And then outlasted them all, as the diminishing future pushed everyone back downtown. From the back porch where they sat, she had a view of a stretch of abandoned freeway. A surprisingly large herd of deer were gathered at the landscaped pond out in front of the former offices of a telecommunications software company, as the sun began to flash out behind the slowly collapsing shopping mall. When it was backlit like that, but there was still enough light that you could see the mustang vines growing up the sides and poking out through the windows, the modernist concrete blocks of the old JCPenney store looked every bit like a Mayan ruin.
It was a special house—and was now being secretly mortgaged to pay for his mistakes.
“I’m happy to just enjoy the view,” said Donny, trying to defer a difficult conversation. “Hard to believe this was a refugee camp.”
“And you helped shut it down,” said Carol.
“And got a great deal on this place, before that news broke. But I can’t believe how quickly it got ruined.”
“Once the water started to get through, nature took over.”
“Have you been inside?”
“Hell, yes,” said Carol. “It’s pretty dang awesome, if you ask me. Especially in the food court, where they had this big skylight. The exotic plants in the planters have gone all Pleistocene, and some of the local species have gotten in there and joined in the party. A couple are blooming right now. You should spend the night; we can go check it out in the morning. It’s like visiting the future.”
“Are those bats?” asked Donny, looking at a grainy black cloud emerging from the roofline and spreading out against the darkening sky.
“Yep,” said Carol. “Mexican freetails. They moved in a few years ago. You should come check it out while you can.”
“I wish I could, Grandma. But I need to head back to Houston. I’m going to try to catch the night bus. This case I’m supposed to take to tria
l next month is falling apart on me.”
“No wonder you look so wound up. How come you can’t learn not to take the work home with you? Maybe you should try one of these brownies. Get a little perspective.”
“Knowing your brownies I’d be tripping for a couple of days. But I’m already so burned out I can barely muster the energy to keep fighting. Just when I’m this close to closing the damn deal. Real justice, right there, right in my grasp, and I feel like some kid trying to grab the moon.”
“We all know what that feels like.” She took another bite, and watched the hummingbird working its way through the yucca by the door. “What’s the case again?”
“The only good case I have left—against AMR, the private-prison-camp people.”
“I thought you said you had the witnesses you need. What happened?”
“Not so bueno, Granny. I found the names, but most of the witnesses I need seem to have disappeared—or been disappeared. And now my lead plaintiff is dead. Killed on a mission, according to the news.”
“They probably killed him.”
“It’s possible,” conceded Donny. “But if they had done that, you can bet they would have made sure the body showed up, so there would be no doubt.”
“What did the judge say?”
“That she is required to dismiss the case. She gave me a week to come up with a reason to convince her otherwise. But I’m running out of options.”
“She’ll give you more time than that.”
“I’ll tell her you said so when I blow her deadline. It’s in the rules. She doesn’t have any flexibility.”
She didn’t need to know that he’d already blown the deadline that really mattered, because of his own negligence.
Carol took another bite, and watched the cloud of bats slowly disperse into the dimming light.
“Don’t you have people who can help you find him?”
Donny shrugged. “I have people who will know if he can be found. Family and friends, fellow fighters. But I can already tell they don’t know. Especially since none of them are answering my calls.”
“Maybe I can help.”
Donny looked at her. She was serious.
“Grandma, you’re too sick to work on my stupid cases.”
“Might take my mind off the pain,” she said, rubbing her left collarbone. “Focus it on someone else’s pain. Do you know any better lawyers?”
“No.” It was true. There was one who was as good, but that was why they killed him. And when that happened, the only other one he would put on that list gave up the law for politics. He wouldn’t wish either outcome for his grandma. “I wish I could take your help. God knows I have enough on my plate.”
“What else?”
“Well, I’m supposed to be back in federal court in Houston week after next. Hearing on a motion for a new trial. A woman who got locked up before the uprising and should have been released as part of the amnesty.”
“Good luck. They aren’t wasting any time rolling back the clock.”
“Depends on the court. And the judge.”
“Who’d you get?”
“Broyles.”
“Great.”
“He’s actually mellowed.”
“It’s your mother’s influence.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“You always wanted an evil stepfather.”
“Very funny, Grandma.”
“Have you talked to her lately?”
“Not in a long time.”
“She really went all-in, didn’t she?”
Donny nodded. He had seen politics drive people to violence, but somehow losing a loved one over it was harder. That she had shacked up with Donny’s mentor-turned-nemesis Judge Broyles added a layer of uncomfortable weirdness.
“I miss her.”
“So call her.”
“Not yet. I’m too busy to mess with that drama right now.”
Grandma Carol nodded. Then she groaned and rubbed herself along the left side of the ribs. “You’d think with these edibles having been legal this long they could at least figure out a way to get them to kick in earlier.”
“FDA won’t let them.”
“I’m surprised. I heard it’s now the USA’s number-one export. Which kind of makes sense.”
“Marijuana Republic.”
“Exactly. I hear they’re about to tear down that old mall down there and build a brand-new greenhouse. Partly owned by the state.”
“How convenient for you.”
“Right?” she said. “They keep calling wanting to buy this place, but I told them we’re staying.”
Donny sank inside, but evaded the topic. “Maybe if they can get everyone high, we’ll be able to keep the peace for a while.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night and turned on the TV and they had a bunch of Dutch soldiers evacuating from South Carolina, headed home. Blue helmets off, back to orange.”
“I can’t believe they think it’s safe to go.”
“They don’t. They just think they’re starting to get infected with what we’ve got. Especially after the assassination of that French opposition leader. Franz Ferdinand all the way. But bigger. Even the Indians are mobilizing. So our minders are leaving us in our quarantine and locking the doors behind them. And probably half hoping we’ll finish what we started.”
Donny knew what she meant. Carol always knew what side she was on. She’d been on the right side before anyone even knew it was a side.
“Are you helping?” he asked.
“I gave them all my money, and the best advice I could.”
“How did you never get arrested, Grandma? Or at least sanctioned?”
“Some of us know how to be more subtle than you. You get too emotional for a lawyer.”
Donny shrugged. “Only when they really get under my skin.”
“If you say so, sweetie.”
Donny eyed the chunk of brownie she had left uneaten. There was a grackle in the nearby tree who looked like he had the same idea.
“There’s something else, Grandma.”
She looked at him. She could tell, even before he said another word.
“Uh-huh.”
He told her. About Thelen. About the money he owed. About the lien on her house.
“Goddamn you, Donny,” she said. “How could you?”
“I didn’t have a choice, Grandma.”
She sneered at him. “Give me a fucking break. You’d fuck up a two-car funeral, like your great-grandpa used to say.”
“I made enough money to buy you this place, didn’t I? And I did it doing the kind of work you said was work worth doing, for people who need the help. I just didn’t do it legal aid–style like you. I did it in a way where you actually get paid. And you watch me, I’m going to do it again, and make enough money to buy you that whole damn mall so you can pet the bats and feed the butterflies till your dying days.”
“Is that right?” she said. “And how are you going to pull that off?”
“Well, if I can just get myself a plaintiff, I’m pretty sure I can settle this AMR case. I got some great stuff on the record before they pulled the trapdoor on me. If I can come up with some other victims willing to sign on, maybe the judge will make a way to keep it going. But in the meantime, I need to focus on a sure thing. And I think I have a Plan C that will cover our immediate needs.”
“Will you send me the file?”
Donny considered it. “Are you sure?”
“You always were bad at accepting help from people who love you. Like that professor you went out with.”
Thanks for bringing that up, Grandma. He hadn’t told her that was what he had borrowed the money for.
“Well, I’m going to need some help this time, unless I can figure out a way to clone myself. Because now it looks like I need to go back to New Orleans.”
She looked at him, with eyes operating at a higher level of lucidity.
Donny told her the rest of it. His explanation was more
complicated than it needed to be, because he was busy trying to convince himself. When he was done, he could tell he hadn’t convinced her.
“Are you seriously going to help those fuckers?” she said, without pause.
Donny shrugged. “We need the money, Grandma. And I think it might help us keep the peace.”
“First off, you need the money. I was doing just fine, remember? Second, they don’t want peace.”
“Maybe not. But I think I can persuade them.”
“You ate one of these brownies when I was in the bathroom, didn’t you?”
He moved over to her side of the picnic table and pulled her close. She smelled like Grandma always smelled. But there was something else, almost like you could smell the cancer.
“I can’t stand to lose you, too, Grandma. You’re all the family I have left.”
She hugged him back.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “Not unless you fuck this up.”
“No pressure,” said Donny.
“Lots of pressure. This is my house, so in this case, a little pressure is good. Especially if it makes you get some help. So get me the files, and we’ll get to work. See if we can come up with the money the right way. But first you promise me you’re telling me the whole deal.”
“Totally,” he said, which was not really an answer.
“You know I can read your mind, you little shit.”
“Then you know I know what I’m doing,” he said. “Because I learned it from you.”
She stared at him, then ate the rest of the brownie, and then started telling him stories about the revolution that came before. He had heard them all before, but he still liked them. They were good stories, and they were true.
17
On several occasions over Donny’s lifetime, Texas had the opportunity to connect its cities with high-speed rail. It was such an obvious thing to do, especially since the rights of way were already there. Building out the railroads was what had brought the first big money to the state, before Spindletop and the discovery of big oil deposits in the ground. The last proposal was for one of those hypertrains that would make the Houston-to-Dallas run in twenty minutes. But the politics always killed it. Until it was too late. By the time it was no longer economically or ecologically viable to fly people distances that could be driven almost as fast, and then driving your own car was even more expensive, the money wasn’t there to build a better, smarter, greener transportation infrastructure. So most people, including Donny, took the bus.
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