Unfit to Practice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “Good luck,” Nina said. “To you and your children.”

  Bashing all around. Jack bashed Paul, Paul bashed Jack, and Bob had a birthday bash.

  He was fourteen tonight, and since they were stuck in San Francisco, Paul had suggested the spinning Equinox restaurant for the celebration, based on Wish’s rave review. The view, spectacular at sunset, had turned foggy and now swirled romantic and ambiguous in gray, black, and white. Of course, the place lacked kid-pizzazz. Bob was the only person under thirty here, Nina thought, unless you counted how childish Jack and Paul were acting. They had traded bad jokes from the moment they met at the entrance to the restaurant. For men who collided as often as they did, they sure had fun together.

  Fortunately, Bob seemed not to mind the company of adults or his recent exile. Since Nina had dragged him back with her to San Francisco to sleep in the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street, he had amused himself exploring the city. Incapable of hanging around a hotel room doing schoolwork, so far he had spent his birthday riding around on the cable cars by himself for hours at a time while Nina sat in the court. He planned to take the ferry to Sausalito the next day. As a result, his face rubbed red by the wind, flush with health and fresh local lore, he couldn’t stop talking.

  Although Jack had offered to put him up, Nina knew stranding him in Bernal Heights would just cause trouble. Downtown he could find so many things to do, and now that he was six feet tall, she didn’t worry as much about him in this city he knew well. Also, although she considered it, she couldn’t make herself go back to Jack’s condo, not with her memories of what had gone on in the past between her and Jack, and her fantasies of what had come after. That phase of her life had ended.

  A waiter came by to take their orders, shutting Bob up while he pored over the menu. First, they chose drinks all around, with Bob deciding on root beer while the others dived into the harder choices. Paul and Jack engaged in a hot contest over dinner wine, then settled for one red and one white. The men picked food quickly, Paul ordering prime rib, Jack the pork tenderloin. Bob vacillated lengthily between penne pasta and salmon, driving the waiter to erase two orders before the pasta scored the winning vote. Nina went with the evocatively named lemongrass-skewered sea scallops.

  The Bay Bridge tiptoed nearer, inching toward them like a virtual property tour as the floor spun, making a full revolution every forty minutes. Bob, gulping his root beer, stared out the window, fascinated by the misty scene. Rain began drizzling down the window and fought the fog.

  “You going back to Carmel tonight?” Jack asked Paul.

  “What? And miss the ongoing human drama happening right down there on Howard Street?” After a brief foray into the events of the day, they declared a moratorium on court talk. They all felt hopeful; they all felt like they needed to forget it all for an hour or two. Then Bob started talking about his favorite piece in a recent MAD magazine, an article about phrases you really don’t want to read in news articles about yourself.

  “Helpless bystander,” Paul said.

  “Hail of bullets,” Jack contributed.

  “Horrified onlookers,” Nina said.

  “Identified by dental records,” Bob said, winning the competition for the biggest laugh.

  Tiring of that game, they small-talked about the big view outside. Nina tried to point out landmarks, but Bob knew them all and in the end, he proved to have the superior knowledge.

  This was Bob’s fourteenth birthday and Nina wanted to celebrate him, his life, his importance to her. She raised a toast to him, recounting the story of his birth, which she always tried to do on his birthday. Bob listened happily. Paul and Jack made messy, funny follow-up toasts, harking back to themselves at fourteen, promising Nina Bob would not behave at all like they had behaved at his age, not to worry, while Bob assured her he planned to do exactly that.

  While she smiled at the horsing around, she found her mind drifting away, in spite of her resolution, from Bob to tomorrow’s testimony on the Kevin Cruz count. What could motivate him to file that gigantic lie of a complaint? What would it take to get him to abandon it? Listening to the chat with half an ear, she pondered these questions until she noticed Bob watching her. She ruffled his hair, ashamed of herself. She was missing yet another milestone moment.

  Still, she had an idea, and the idea turned in her mind like a windmill.

  When the food came, the men attacked theirs. Bob twiddled his fork in the pasta and ate a few bites, and Nina tasted the shellfish and decided she was very hungry. The waiter brought cupcakes with candles, as she had arranged, and they all sang “Happy Birthday,” Jack hoarsely, Paul self-consciously, and Nina too loud, to make up for their small number. Afterward, Bob opened presents. Jack gave him a scrimshaw-handled penknife he had bought in the Caribbean. “Carved by a pirate,” he said with a wink. Paul gave him a certificate for karate lessons.

  A knife and an education in how to fight, Nina thought, adding to the pile her own gift, the newest video-game system, a true gift of guilt. Now he could fight for real and for fake. All violent bases were officially covered.

  His eyes opened very wide. “Mom, I can’t believe this!”

  Neither could Paul or Jack, who had listened to her rail against video and computer games for years, but for once they must have agreed. Neither said a word as Bob opened two more boxes, with games that had names that made Nina cringe and Bob glow.

  A few other small gifts from family and friends and a major contribution to his college fund from his grandpa rounded off the collection. Last, he opened his present from his father.

  “How weird,” he said. “A Swedish dictionary.”

  Everyone found the gift very mysterious, and the note accompanying the present even more suggestive: “Did you know the North Sea is warm enough to swim in?”

  “I thought Kurt lived in Germany,” Jack said.

  “He does. I’m just as mystified as you are,” Nina said. They bagged up the presents in a green garbage bag and left the restaurant.

  Paul and Jack indulged in a final jousting match over who could drive her and Bob back to the hotel, which Paul won, asking Nina to join him for a nightcap in the bar downstairs. She promised to meet him in a few minutes.

  Back in their room, Bob flopped on the bed. “This is the best birthday. This is the best city in the entire universe. Mom, thank you so much.”

  She hugged him.

  “Is it okay if I call my dad to thank him for the dictionary?” Bob yelled through the door as she washed her hands in the bathroom.

  “Isn’t it the middle of the night for him?”

  “He says call anytime. He says he doesn’t like to sleep much anyway.”

  “Okay, then.”

  When she came back into the room, Bob was deep in conversation. He waved her out, so she went downstairs to meet Paul.

  Paul had switched to tonic water, but Nina had another glass of wine. “One more can’t possibly make a difference.”

  “Drink water with it, then, like the Italians do. We don’t want the judge to get the wrong impression of our upright young do-gooder tomorrow morning, rolling her bloodshot eyes at him.”

  “I think Bob loved his birthday party. Thanks for coming. The guest list would have been awfully sparse otherwise. It probably isn’t your favorite kind of thing.”

  “I had a great time. Bob’s a good kid. It was nice to relax and remember there is life outside the courtroom, and it’s a pretty good life.” He paused. “Isn’t it, Nina?”

  But she was distracted. “I keep thinking I’ve handled things badly. I didn’t push you to investigate more over the last six months-even though you nagged me about that more than once.”

  “I do not nag.”

  “I wanted to believe things would magically resolve.”

  “Entirely natural. You didn’t want to face trouble, so you ignored it. Everybody does that.”

  “Don’t defend me,” she said. “I get enough of that in court from Jack.”


  They laughed together.

  She took a breath. “Paul, it’s been hard. I’ve had doubts…”

  “Big surprise.”

  “No, hear me out. Almost everyone in my life tells me this job is destructive. But I’ve thought it through. Law’s part of me. It isn’t everything, but I believe, when it all shakes down, I’ve helped these people, in spite of it all. I stood up for them.”

  “Yes, you have,” he said.

  “But here’s what I’m facing right now. These people I tried to help are trying to ruin me. It’s demoralizing.”

  Paul took her hand. “Get up.” He got the waiter to come over. “Save the table? We’ll be back in five,” he said, slipping him a bill. The waiter nodded and left.

  He put a finger to his lips, took her by the arm, and led her straight out of the hotel and onto Sutter Street.

  Neon shivered in the puddles. A man in a torn sweatshirt staggered by, hit Paul up for a buck, and moved on. A taxi careened around the corner, loaded with laughing passengers. Way up the hill, a cable car clanged, beginning its precarious descent through a riot of traffic.

  “Yikes,” Nina said. “Kind of a contrast to the piano bar.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it great?” Paul said.

  “It’s so clear after rain here. You can even see the stars.”

  “Orion,” Paul said, pointing. “The one constellation I’m sure about.” He pulled her tight to keep her warm. “See what’s happening? Mad dashing to and fro. Chaos on the street. Stars exploding.”

  “Guys peeing,” Nina said, watching one. “Ugh.”

  Paul laughed. “You want life neat. It isn’t.”

  “They’re saying I’m unfit to do my job.”

  “You’re so much more than your job.”

  They stood for a long time on the street. When they went back inside, Nina felt recharged, plugged into a power source. They warmed up again at their table. “I hate having the state bar after me. They’re my colleagues.”

  “The bar court only operates based on the information it’s given-in this case, complaints that look perfectly legit. There’s a hidden agenda here, but it isn’t the California State Bar’s.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We come back to that. My enemy.” She tinkled a spoon against her glass, took a sip, and tinkled it again. “Oh, Paul! Here’s an idea I had while we were celebrating with Bob.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s about Mrs. Gleb. You know, after she testified she practically begged us to find something else for her to do.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t want Jack to know about this, okay? I don’t want him to get into trouble.”

  “Then I’m your man.”

  She hesitated for a moment. “It involves Mrs. Gleb, and it involves you, and it involves some pretty shady stuff.”

  “I’m liking this.”

  She explained what she had in mind. Paul took out a pocket notebook. They took turns writing in it, erasing, and adding for several minutes.

  Nina said, “I believe Kevin wouldn’t have lied about our relationship on his own. He had nothing to gain. It’s my theory he is being manipulated by someone smarter and more powerful. Lately I’ve been thinking maybe he and Lisa are in cahoots.”

  “What a wild thought,” Paul said. “So she put him up to hiring you and then accusing you of the harassment for some kind of sick revenge? Boy, that’s damned nefarious. She didn’t strike me as that smart. I can see her better taking a bat to your car.”

  “Maybe she offered him a better deal on the custody?”

  “I guess that would be her bargaining chip,” Paul said.

  “Anyway, for the moment, Lisa’s out of the picture because she’s in Tahoe. But Kevin’s here.”

  “So we put Officer Scholl and Jeffrey Riesner on the short list,” Paul said.

  Nina nodded. “Now, Scholl was Kevin Cruz’s associate in the past. She worked closely with him on the case that got him his first promotion. She hates me. Maybe she’s blackmailing Cruz into doing this. Maybe she knows something about that drug seizure that would get him kicked off the force.”

  “He planted the drugs on those college students?”

  “Could be. Everyone said it was a strange bust.”

  “Hey, how come he isn’t fired already, considering Ali, the underaged wood chopper?”

  “I hear he got himself a good attorney for a change,” Nina said with a straight face.

  They cracked up.

  “Okay, let’s move on to the subject of Jeffrey Riesner,” Paul said.

  “Okay. He loathes me. He knows that Sandy and I know about past activities regarding a will that was rewritten in his favor that could cost him his job. Even though we’ve kept our mouths shut, he has to be worried.”

  “Then there are the clients you stole.”

  “And the way I mortified him in front of the big gaming guys. Oh,” she said. “Those were good times.”

  “But we have to consider what his connection is to Kevin,” Paul said.

  “Right. Well, the only thing that connects them is the custody fight. Riesner represents Kevin’s wife. This presents a real problem. What in the world could Jeffrey Riesner do to benefit Kevin in any way?”

  “How about-he promised to throw Lisa to the dogs. Maybe he told Kevin he knew something that would definitely assure that Kevin would win his kids in the permanent-custody hearing.”

  Nina shook her head. “No. Riesner would never intentionally lose a case. Ten angels couldn’t persuade him to do that. Maybe a million bucks would, but Kevin doesn’t have a million bucks.”

  “Has the permanent-custody hearing come up yet?”

  “I believe it’s set in two weeks. There have been some delays,” Nina said.

  “Because of Riesner?”

  “Why, yes, now that you mention it. Paul, I think you might be on to something. Maybe I’m just collateral damage in a fierce divorce fight. Kevin cares more about his children than he cares about me. He sacrifices my reputation to get his kids. Kevin is a fool if that’s it, because Riesner won’t come through with his end of the deal.” She thought hard about that. “He’s got the timing worked out so that Kevin’s final custody hearing comes up after this hearing. He can get me, then double-cross Kevin later.”

  “Kevin’s a cop. He’s not that stupid.”

  “He is stupid, Paul. Stupid with desperation. I think he’d consider suicide if he lost permanent custody. I think he might fall for it.”

  “You’re actually saying that Jeffrey Riesner stole your truck?”

  “Seems incredible, but-Riesner could have picked up my key that Thursday at court. I just don’t know. On the whole, I’d say Jean Scholl is the better suspect. It’s nothing for her to rip off a car and take the files at her leisure. And she makes sure there’s no forensic evidence to discuss. And she knows forgers, if it comes down to that.”

  “I always thought that was a squirrelly investigation she ran. So tonight we arrange for further information about the clandestine activities of one unscrupulous manipulator,” Paul said, putting the pencil to paper. “Who’s the big, bad wolf? Kevin Cruz, Officer Scholl, or Jeffrey Riesner?”

  “Or if it’s not them, we’ll learn that, too. We’ll try to use Kevin to flush out the wolf.”

  “Keep thinking about Lisa Cruz, even if she isn’t around at the moment.”

  They wrote for a long time, drafting and redrafting.

  “I won’t be forced out,” she announced when they were satisfied with their work. She drank an entire glass of water, set it down, and stood up. “I’ll run up to tell Bob we’ll be a few more minutes and pick up some samples we can give Mrs. Gleb. You wait here.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  They took a cab to the Marriott and located Mrs. Gleb on the fifth floor.

  Mrs. Gleb answered in a red silk robe. Pink silk mules with delicate heels flopped on her feet as she moved to invite them inside. They sat down in two chairs next
to a table stacked with books. Mrs. Gleb perched on the bed, tucking her legs comfortably beneath her.

  “I expected you,” she said after Nina introduced Paul.

  “You did?” Nina asked. “Why?”

  “‘Truth is on the march and nothing can stop it.’ ”

  Nina shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t know that expression.”

  “I am reading Zola tonight. You have the same passion for life, struggle, and intensity. You refuse to lose, isn’t that so?”

  “In this case, that’s so.”

  “And you need me,” she said smugly.

  “Mrs. Gleb,” Paul said. “You know all about forgery, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Ever tried your hand at it?”

  “Darling, I’m very, very good. You saw me on the stand. I tell the truth.”

  “It’s not exactly truth we’ve got in mind here,” Paul said. “In fact, the opposite.”

  “‘Noble lies to persuade the city,’ ” said Mrs. Gleb.

  “Ignoble, noble, whatever,” Nina said. “Let’s get cracking.”

  First thing, back at the Galleria Park, after a long good-bye at the door with Paul, Nina hit the bathroom, drank some more water, and gargled. Then she asked Bob how things went with his dad.

  “Mystery solved,” he said. “Say, Mom, what do you think about me taking a little trip this summer?”

  “To visit Kurt?” To keep her voice calm, she turned away from him. Couldn’t she get through tonight without another challenge? She had organized a last-minute party. She had bought Bob presents he loved that she hated. She rummaged in her suitcase for pajamas and a robe. How she would love a bath. She checked her watch. Not too late yet. Maybe Bob would give this up, give her until morning when she would be fresh-

  “He misses me. And I never get to see him.” While Bob pressured her, he also watched the muted television.

  “Of course you miss each other,” she said automatically. There were so many times, now, raising his son, when Kurt was recalled by a bend in Bob’s earlobe or a certain quality in his changing voice. He played a peculiar role in their lives, dipping in like a seagull to snatch fish now and then, otherwise flying around far away. She was not ready to deal with Kurt’s sudden interference or yet another need of Bob’s. She needed to sleep and gather up vibes that would give her strength for tomorrow. “I don’t know.”