Client Privilege

by William G. Tapply

  “Mrs. Covington is anxious to see you, you know.”

  “You can, I’m certain, soothe her savage and ample breast.”

  Julie sighed. “You’re the boss.”

  “Who are you kidding?”

  She grinned. “I’ll schedule her for next week.”

  “Need me for anything else?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have a nice day, Brady. You planning to go sit on the ice somewhere with Mr. McDevitt or Dr. Adams, drinking bourbon and waiting for those little flags to pop up?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing so exotic. I’m going to Medford.”

  “How exciting.”

  “You can do one thing for me. If I bring you a cup of coffee, one sugar, no cream, will you see if you can get directions to Centralia Street for me?”

  “Centralia Street in Medford?”

  “Please.”

  “I suppose this isn’t a client or something.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s not exactly a vacation trip, but no, it’s not, strictly speaking, business either.”

  She shrugged. “Go get my Java.”

  I went to the coffee urn. She went to her desk. In a moment she was deep in conversation on the telephone. I placed her mug in front of her and she looked up, smiled, and blew me a kiss. I placed both hands flat on my chest and feigned a swoon. Then I poured some coffee for myself and went into my inner office. Before I had finished my first cigarette, Julie came in. She put a piece of paper in front of me. It told me how to get to Centralia Street.

  “It’s not actually very central to anything,” she said.

  I looked it over. Pretty straightforward. I stubbed out my cigarette, took a final slurp of my coffee, and got up. “How do you do things like this?” I said.

  “Like what? Getting directions?”

  “Yes.”

  “The good old NYNEX Yellow Pages. I called a real estate agency in Medford and asked. They told me.”

  “I could’ve done that.”

  She patted my arm. “Sure you could,” she said.

  I retrieved my parka from the coatrack and descended through the building to my car.

  Julie’s directions confused me a little at an intersection outside of Medford Square. When I realized I had taken a wrong turn, I pulled over and reread what she had written. She had it right. I had misread it.

  Mounds of dirty old snow covered the sidewalks along Centralia Street. Empty trash barrels stood in clusters at the ends of short driveways. Cars were lined solidly on the right side of the street. Winter parking regulations were in effect. The houses were large, square, and old. They were crammed close to each other, separated only by the driveways. Multi-family, most of them, with a pair of front doors side by side. Porches jutted off the fronts of all of them, some screened, some open. Most of the porches were cluttered with bicycles and toys and brown Christmas trees.

  I found the street number that the telephone directory had given for John W. Lavoie. I parked on the wrong side of the street, locked the car, and mounted the porch. There were two doors, and two bells by each door. A four-family. John W. Lavoie and his wife, the parents of the elusive Karen Lavoie, lived on the bottom floor of the left side. I rang the bell.

  After a minute or so the door opened. “Yes?” said the man who stood there.

  He was small, compact, perhaps sixty. He was wearing a red plaid shirt buttoned right up to his throat and tucked into a sharply creased pair of brown wool pants. His sparse white hair was slicked back on his skull. His face was pink from a recent shave, and he wore plastic-framed glasses.

  “Mr. Lavoie?” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes. That’s right.” His voice was soft, almost apologetic.

  “I wonder if I might talk with you for a minute.”

  He peered at me through his glasses. His pale blue eyes were magnified through them. “Are you selling something? My wife handles all that.”

  “My name is Coyne, sir. I’m a lawyer.”

  He frowned. “A lawyer?”

  I gave him my best, most reassuring smile. “I need to talk to your daughter.”

  “Karen doesn’t live here. She was married some time ago.”

  I nodded. “I know. But—”

  A woman appeared behind the man. Her long black hair was just beginning to go gray, and she had fine cheekbones and clear, pale eyes. Only the complex cross-hatching of lines on her face betrayed her age. “Who is it, John?” she said, frowning past his shoulder at me. She was a few inches taller than her husband.

  He turned to her. “It’s, um—” He looked back at me. “I’m sorry…”

  “Brady Coyne,” I said to her. “We spoke on the phone.”

  She frowned for an instant, then smiled. She touched her husband on the shoulder. “Well, for heaven’s sake, John, invite the gentleman in. You’re letting out all the heat.” She smiled at me. “Come in out of the cold, sir.”

  John W. Lavoie opened the door wide for me, and I stepped into a small foyer. To the right a flight of stairs led up to the second floor. I blew into my hands. “Chilly out there. Thank you.”

  “Let me take your coat,” said Mrs. Lavoie.

  I slipped out of my parka and handed it to her. She carried it with her into the living room and laid it carefully on a chair. I followed her. Her husband came in behind me.

  “Please, have a seat,” she said. “May I get you some coffee?”

  I nodded. “Please.”

  “How do you like it?”

  “Just black.”

  She disappeared through a doorway that opened into a dining room. Beyond that, I assumed, lay the kitchen.

  The living room was large. Several oversize windows looked out onto the street and to the side of the house next door. Venetian blinds had been folded up to let in the daylight. The furniture was old and threadbare and decorated with crocheted yellowing antimacassars. A twenty-four-inch television squatted in one corner. All of the furniture was aimed at it. Several framed color pictures sat on top of it. The largest and fanciest frame displayed a bride and groom. The bride had dark hair and the same cheekbones I had seen on Mrs. Lavoie. She looked very young and, aside from those cheekbones, quite plain. The groom was a big blond guy. He looked bulky in his tuxedo. He had a large, meandering nose and a wide expressive mouth.

  Karen Lavoie, in her wedding picture, looked grim. Her husband looked frightened.

  There were a half-dozen or so other photos atop the TV. All were of a child in varying states of growing up. All seemed to be of the sort one gets at bargain prices by standing in line in a K mart on a Saturday morning. The child was of the male persuasion. Fair like his father as an infant, but in what appeared to be his most recent photo he had grown into a dark and brooding adolescent. I could almost hear him complaining about being dragged to K mart to stand in line with a bunch of squalling infants to be photographed. The photo failed to hide the acne pits on his cheeks.

  The only other decoration in the room was a framed painting of Jesus Christ hanging from the cross. Beams of light played from behind His emaciated body. Crimson streaks of blood dribbled down His arms. A dried palm frond had been stuck behind the picture.

  The room was tidy and clean. I was struck by the complete absence of reading matter. Just a copy of TV Guide along with the photos on top of the television console.

  I sat on one of the soft chairs. John Lavoie settled on the sofa diagonally across from me. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” I said to him.

  He smiled softly and waved his hand. “It’s no problem. It makes her happy.” He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “She’d invite Jack the Ripper in for coffee,” he added with an impish grin.

  “I hope you can help me,” I said, wondering if he had equated me with a mass murderer.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch your name?”

  “Coyne. Brady Coyne.” I took a business card from my wallet and handed it to him. He glanced at it and dropped it onto th
e coffee table in front of the sofa. I reached toward him with my hand extended. He took it and we shook.

  “John Lavoie,” he said, nodding as if to reassure himself.

  “If you could just tell me how I could reach your daughter…”

  “What’s your business with Karen?”

  “It’s a legal matter.”

  “Has she done something wrong?” He frowned. “Is Karen in trouble?”

  “Oh, no. I have a client who she knew several years ago. There’s a possibility that she can help him.”

  “How?”

  “I’m really not at liberty to say,” I said, working on being agreeable and low-key. “I’m sure you understand.”

  He nodded. “Confidentiality and all.”

  “Yes. That’s it. The problem is, I don’t know Karen’s married name. She knew my client before she was married.”

  “Mr. Coyne, Karen’s my daughter. If there’s some sort of problem—”

  He stopped when his wife entered the room. Mrs. Lavoie carried a tray bearing three cups on saucers, a silver pot, and matching cut-glass containers of sugar and cream. She placed the tray on the coffee table and sat down beside her husband on the sofa. She handed me a paper napkin. Then she poured coffee into the cups and passed one to me.

  I balanced it on my knee. She looked from me to her husband.

  “He’s looking for Karen,” he said to her.

  She returned her gaze to me. She cocked her head. “I know. He called yesterday.”

  I shrugged. “It’s really very important that I contact your daughter.”

  “Yes, you said that before.” She glanced sideways at her husband. He was staring past me, evidently happy to defer the situation to his wife. “Well, Mr. Coyne,” she said, swiveling her head to look directly at me, “I haven’t changed my mind. We are simple people. We mind our own business. It seems to me that much of the trouble in this world comes from people not minding their own business. We mind our business, we like it when other people mind their business. Now, I understand you’ve probably got some kind of job to do, and that’s why you’re here. Doing your job. But we don’t like to get involved in other people’s problems. And neither does Karen. And when a lawyer comes around, it’s pretty obvious there’s some kind of problem. We’ve had nothing but trouble from lawyers. When John got laid off, we talked to a lawyer. It didn’t seem right, what they did to him, a hardworking man all his life, loyal to the company, never out sick. And that lawyer was happy to take a lot of our money. And you see what he did for us. John didn’t get his job back. A hardworking man, a good provider, proud of his family, and now he has to do part-time things, using none of his talents. It’s just not right. That lawyer took our money and nothing changed. Only difference is, now we’re out two thousand dollars, too.”

  I nodded my head. I had nothing to say. I had heard it too many times. Ambulance chasers. Crooked politicians. Sleazy guys in shiny suits on television, advising grinning men with crooked noses and big diamond rings on their pinkies not to answer questions. I remembered what Pops had said many years earlier. Since Nixon, nobody trusted lawyers.

  “Look, Mr. Coyne,” she said. “I’m not blaming you for our problems. And I’m not saying that Karen shouldn’t cooperate with you. But I am saying that we’re not going to be responsible for any problems you might cause her.”

  “I have no intention of causing her a problem, Mrs. Lavoie,” I said, although even as I said it, I recognized that it could be untrue.

  She sipped her coffee. “My husband and I will not help you. I hope you will understand.”

  “Perhaps you’d be willing to answer a few questions?”

  “No,” she said. “No, we would not. I invited you in, offered you coffee. I don’t want to be impolite. But we do not want to help you.”

  “My wife is right,” said John Lavoie.

  “Perhaps you should leave,” she said.

  John Lavoie looked at me, gave me a shrug and a small smile, and nodded.

  “Okay,” I said. I downed the coffee and stood up. I went to the television and picked up Karen’s framed wedding picture. “A pretty girl.”

  Mrs. Lavoie got up and came to me. She gently took the picture from my hand and placed it back on top of the television. “She’s a pretty woman, now. She lives quietly. She likes it that way.”

  “I understand,” I said. I picked up my parka from the chair and slipped into it. I turned and held my hand to the man, who was still seated. He stood up hastily and grasped it. “Thank you for your time, sir,” I said.

  He nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  I went to the door. Mrs. Lavoie followed me. I turned to her. “If you folks should change your mind, I left my business card. Please call me.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Please think about it.”

  “Mr. Coyne,” she said, “I hope you won’t be holding your breath.”

  TWELVE

  WHEN I WALKED INTO Skeeter’s at six-thirty that evening, he was leaning his forearms on the bar deep in conversation with a very attractive woman. Brown, wavy hair cut short. Big expressive dark eyes. Wide mouth, heart-shaped face. She perched elegantly upon the barstool, tall, slender, poised, firm of rump and sleek of thigh, politely attentive to Skeeter’s charm but with a bemused smile gleaming in her eyes.

  I took the stool beside her. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said to the woman, “I wonder if we’ve met.”

  She turned and frowned at me. “I’m afraid not,” she said. She swiveled back to face Skeeter.

  I touched her arm. “I’m sure we know each other from somewhere.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said without looking at me.

  “You’re extremely attractive.”

  “Oh, boy,” she said. But she smiled.

  “Really. Gorgeous.”

  “Mr. Coyne,” said Skeeter, frowning at me. “I don’t think—”

  “It’s okay,” said the woman. “I can handle it.” She turned to me. “So you find me attractive, then?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Extremely.”

  “Would you like to kiss me?”

  “I sure would.”

  I bent to her and pecked her cheek. She turned her head so that I could nuzzle her neck just below her ear. I heard her murmur in her throat. Her hand moved up to touch my face.

  I pulled away from her. “Thank you,” I said.

  She drew her head back and frowned at me. Then she said, “Oh, wow!” and threw both arms around my neck and kissed me on the mouth. We held it for a long moment. The woman’s fingers played at the back of my neck. She made little moaning sounds.

  Skeeter snatched the Red Sox cap off his head and scratched the top of his gleaming skull.

  Finally we broke off the kiss. The woman wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and said, “Oh, boy.”

  I looked at Skeeter. “Evening, Skeets,” I said.

  He shook his head slowly back and forth. He frowned at me. He twisted his Red Sox cap in his hands. Then he shrugged. “Evening, Mr. Coyne. Drink?”

  “What’s the special tonight?” I said.

  He looked at the woman, then back to me. “Ah, a Willie Mays. It’s my Willie Mays. Look—”

  “What’s a Willie Mays?”

  “You take a big scoop of coffee ice cream, Mr. Coyne. One shot of Old Grand-dad, one shot of Tia Maria. Mix it in a blender. Real smooth. Graceful drink. Reminds you of Willie chasing one down in center field or going from first to third on a base hit.” He glanced again at the woman beside me. “It’s really a lady’s drink.”

  “May I buy you one, ma’am?” I said to the woman.

  She touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Anything at all,” she said in a soft, husky voice. “Whatever you want.”

  Skeeter was still absentmindedly holding his Red Sox cap in his hand. “The usual, Mr. Coyne?”

  “I like that Rebel Yell, Skeets.”

  He twisted his cap onto his head and turned to get our d
rinks. “Oh, Skeets,” I said to him.

  He stopped and faced us. “Yeah?”

  “Did Gloria introduce herself?”

  He cocked his head at us. “This your wife, Mr. Coyne?”

  “This ain’t no wife, Skeets. This is a lady.”

  Skeeter wandered away, shaking his head. Gloria put her hand on my shoulder and grinned. “That poor man.”

  I kissed her nose. “You are looking terrific, Gloria.”

  She frowned and smiled softly. “I’m okay.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Really nothing. I’m just a little disappointed. I had an appointment with Life magazine today. They’re doing this feature. ‘The Face of the City,’ they’re calling it. New York, Chicago, L.A., Houston, New Orleans, and, da-dum, Boston. They’re assigning a local free-lance photographer in each city to capture the essence of the place. People, buildings, skylines, everything and anything. It’s a photographer’s dream.” She lifted her chin and gazed at the ceiling for a moment. Then her eyes shifted to my face. “I thought I had a real good shot at it.”

  “You didn’t get it?”

  She shook her head. “I spent about four hours with these guys, going over my portfolio, talking about art, style, sociology, lenses and filters, truth and justice and the American way. They had it narrowed down to, I think, about six of us.”

  “You were a finalist. That’s damn good.”

  “Right. I know. It’s what I keep telling myself. I’m getting there.”

  “It’s true.”

  “The way we were talking, all the time I thought they loved my stuff. Loved me. When they told me—ah, shit, Brady.”

  “You’ve come a long way. I’m proud of you.”

  “Yeah, I’m proud of me, too. Hell, ten years ago…”

  Ten years ago, I thought. Ten years ago Gloria was a tense and unhappy housewife with two prepubescent sons and a barely postpubescent husband, living the suburban nightmare in Wellesley. What had been, before her marriage, a promising career as a photojournalist, had devolved into documenting family birthday parties and vacations.

  Divorce had been difficult for both of us. Difficult for me because I had never stopped loving the woman she had once been, even though marriage to me had transformed her into someone I stopped loving. Difficult for her because it took her a long time to visualize a life any different from the one she had allowed herself to get stuck in. For Gloria, marriage had been more than surrendering her career. She had surrendered a piece of her soul—had surrendered it to me. I had mindlessly accepted it, mistaking it for a gift, and too late realized it could never belong to me. Splitting with Gloria was the only way I knew of forcing it back on her. For a long time she hadn’t wanted it. For a long time I was reluctant to part with it.