In Self-Defense

by A. W. Gray

  Black winced visibly. “These two youngsters,” he said, then cleared his throat and said, “These two youngsters busted into the Rathermores’ bedroom in the middle of the night, and beat him to death with a tire tool. Right in front of his wife. She got away by locking herself in the bathroom while they were poundin’ on him. Typical of the DA in this fair county, they’ve made deals with the two bloody little bastards to testify against Midge. One of ’em’s seventeen and the other fifteen. The seventeen-year-old signed up with ’em to do twenty years, he’ll be in about three, and they’re not even goin’ after the younger kid as an adult.” Black snorted. “Bad as the DA wants Midge Rathermore, those two kids should have held out. Might have gotten probation, the both of ’em.”

  Sharon pursed her lips. “With that kind of case, Midge’s certification is automatic. We can make some noise in the hearing, but they’ll try her as an adult. I’m missing something here, Russ. After what happened, her mother’s paying her legal fee?”

  “Her natural mother. The woman in the bedroom, the witness—you don’t know about Bill Rathermore’s second wife?”

  Imaginary fingers snapped in Sharon’s head. “Of course. Linda Haymon, the TV newswoman. Big headline affair, nasty divorce.”

  Black stood away from the doorjamb and once more looked at his watch. “Nasty as they come. Listen, we got to get a move on. Hell, I don’t even know what questions to ask in this hearin’. If you get any brilliant ideas, let me know.” He started to leave, then paused. “Oh, and hey. Turn that volume up some. No reason I can’t enjoy some shitkicker music, same as you. I’ll get my gear.” He headed across the corridor toward his own office.

  Sharon went to the door and watched Black go, his gait leisurely and confident, big hands swinging beside narrow hips. Less than an hour on the job, and already her emotions had gone up and down like a berserk yo-yo. Praise from him one minute, a real dressing-down the next. Well, at least it isn’t going to be boring, Sharon thought. She dug into the Oreo cookie box, located her briefcase, and set about stuffing a few papers inside. She didn’t have the slightest idea what she needed, but thought she should go to court armed with an overflowing attaché case. Looked more like a real-live attorney that way.

  3

  Two blocks down the street from Russell Black’s office, in a ground-floor converted pawnshop with display windows in front, Howard Saw was having trouble convincing Richard Waite that he should lower his fee for handling Wilfred Donello’s appeal. “Fuck, Dicky,” Saw said into the phone, “it’s a walk in the park. Plain vanilla. Just the usual insufficient-evidence motions and one deal where the judge admitted some things our man said to a detective. Hell, Donello wasn’t even under arrest at the time. He wasn’t entitled to any Miranda warning out of custody, you know that. You’ll never even have to argue the case. The First Court of Appeals will turn us down quicker’n God can get a weather report, and that’ll be the end of it. Donello can’t afford to appeal it any further.” Howard Saw was short, fat, and bald, with puffy rolls hanging down from his throat to overlap his starched collar. He was seated at his desk with the receiver cradled between his neck and shoulder, and he was cleaning his nails with the sharp end of a file. Ten feet above him, twin ceiling fans whirled at medium speed.

  There was a brief pause before Waite said, “Ten thousand, Howard. Not a penny less.” His words were slightly slurred as if he’d been sleeping.

  “Christ,” Saw said. “You’re wanting to make more off the appeal than I got for representing the guy in a jury trial.” Wilfred Donello’s file lay open before the pudgy lawyer, weighed down by his forearms as he cleaned his nails. Saw squinted at a row of pen-and-ink figures on the file’s inside cover, then shifted his attention briefly to the standard contract, which both Saw and Wilfred Donello had signed. The contract required Saw to handle Donello’s appeal at no additional fee. I must have been crazy, signing this sonofabitch, Saw thought.

  “Howard,” Waite said. “How long have we known each other?”

  “Way back a lot of years,” Saw said. He pictured Dicky Waite, short and wiry with a pencil mustache. At the moment Waite would be looking at the old law school frat picture which hung in his office, and which featured Saw and Waite with their arms around each other’s shoulders in a palsy-walsy posture. Lots of sentimental bullshit, Saw thought. He loosened the knot on his tie by pulling downward with a forefinger. His collar was open, his coat hanging on a hall tree in one corner of his office.

  “Right,” Waite said. “A lot of years. You didn’t touch the Donello case for a penny less than fifty grand, up front. You told the client originally it’d be a hundred, then when he squawked about it you told him that since you believed in him, you’d do it for fifty. Am I right or not?”

  “Fifty grand, that’s a helluva lot of money,” Saw said. “Times are hard.” Outside his office in the reception area, a bell dinged as the glass-paneled street door opened, then closed. Saw glanced at his digital clock. Twelve forty-five, the secretary was still at lunch. Saw had no appointments that he knew of, but his sign read, HOWARD SAW, LAWYER, with “abogado” underneath, and the Spanish word attracted a lot of drop-in business. Saw craned his neck, had a glimpse of ice cream white britches and a loud Hawaiian shirt. Saw covered the mouthpiece with the palm of his hand. “Be with you in a minute, huh?”

  Dicky Waite was saying over the phone, “Right, Howard, times are hard, and fifty grand is a lot of money for normal people. For Donello, selling all that kid pornography, it’s pocket change. So he even bitched about the fifty, and you told him, Hey, if you get convicted I’ll handle your appeal at no extra charge. Now he’s sitting down at the county and you don’t want to fuck with the appeal because it would get in the way of you hustling money from somebody else. Okay, that’s your bag. But don’t try to jew me down on my fee, Howard. Jesus, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. Ten grand, and that’s final. Oh, and, yeah, it’ll cost you even more if we got to bond the guy out while he’s appealing.”

  Saw shuddered slightly as he pictured Donello, sneering as they locked him in the holding cell behind the courtroom, Donello threatening his lawyer with a concrete overcoat. “Uh, I don’t think there’s going to be any bond,” Saw said. The chubby lawyer continued to peer into the reception room, squinting for a full view of his visitor. Strange clicking noises emitted from outside Saw’s office door. “You drive a hard bargain, Dicky,” Saw said. “Listen, I got somebody here.”

  “Yeah, right. You send the file over with a cashier’s check for ten grand. A cashier’s check, Howard. Let’s see, Sharon Hays prosecuted your boy, so the state’s case will be up to snuff. Say, you think it’s true what they’re saying? About how Sharon quit because Milton Breyer was hot to get in her pants?”

  “How should I know, Dicky? I’m trying to keep you from getting in my pants. I told you already, I got a guy here.”

  “Ha, ha, Howard. Ten grand.” There was a sharp click as Waite disconnected.

  Saw hung up and, frowning, entered ten thousand dollars in the minus column on the inside front cover of Donello’s file. As he wrote, clutching the ballpoint in a death grip, he said loudly, “Yeah, come on in.” And then blinked as a quick, blinding light filled the room. What the fuck was going on here?

  Framed in the doorway was a pipe stem–thin man in a loud shirt and white pants who peered at Saw through a camera’s viewfinder. The newcomer had a pasty complexion and a face like a hatchet blade, and wore dark sunglasses. Saw pointed a thick finger. “If you’re from the newspapers, I’ll break that fucking camera.”

  The light flashed again, accompanied by a sharp click. A lingering red haze clouded Saw’s vision. The man lowered the camera and grinned, showing wide-gapped front teeth. “No newsman me, no sirree. Get ’em natural, that’s my motto. Posed pictures look phony as hell.”

  “Well, how ’bout posing your ass outside in the street?” Saw sa
id. “I’m busy.”

  The man took two steps toward Saw’s desk. “Bradford Brie, photographer. Freelance. I’m putting an album together on downtown Dallas. Famed attorney hard at work. Great shot.”

  “I’ll give you a shot,” Saw said. “Out.”

  “’Course, I don’t know how famous you are right now,” Brie said, inching even closer, raising the camera, adjusting the dial on the lens. “But man, once this album comes out …”

  Saw had to admit he could use some publicity. Thirty-seven trials lost in succession wasn’t exactly dragging in the business. “I really got a lot to do,” Saw said.

  “Being busy, that’s the mark of success,” Brie said. “We all got our marks, you know? See, I even got one.” He abruptly set his camera on the desk and yanked up his shirtsleeve.

  As the red haze faded from his vision, Saw looked closely at the photographer’s upper arm. There was a large tattoo on the bicep, a block T with a smaller s looped around the T’s base. Saw knew the mark: Texas Syndicate, next to the Aryan Brotherhood the largest, and next to none the most dangerous, organization in the pen. A chill rippled down Saw’s backbone. “So you—you done some time,” he said.

  Brie lowered his sleeve. “It ain’t so bad. These days they damn near got more people in the joint than out of it, hey? So, hey”—spreading his palms, his grin broadening—“what’s wrong with a man doing a little honest work? Come on, just a couple of shots.”

  Saw reached inside his middle drawer, found a pack of Winstons, fumbled for a cigarette. “Well, I guess I could spare a few minutes.”

  “That’s the ticket,” Brie said, reaching slowly behind him, raising the hem of his shirt, digging now in his back pocket. “And, hey, if you want to—”

  Saw’s gaze was riveted on Brie’s elbow and the bony forearm extended behind the photographer as Brie reached into his pocket. The lawyer’s eyes widened. His lips parted.

  Brie froze. “Oh. Hey, no problem, I get used to that. Once you been to prison, people think you’re always fixing to rob them or something. What I was saying is …” He brought his hand out, holding a glossy color photo. “Maybe you’d like to see some of my work.” He dropped the picture in front of Saw.

  Saw heaved a sigh of relief. The unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, he picked up the photo and turned it around. His throat constricted.

  There was a naked girl in the picture, spread-eagled on a tilted board, her wrists and ankles in shackles, her expression one of terror. She couldn’t have been over eleven or twelve, and had no pubic hair. A man in the photo was violating the girl with a frank which was clutched in his fist. Jesus, Saw thought, a weinie, and at the same time he felt a quick tightening in his crotch. The man in the picture wore shorts and a T-shirt, his complexion dark, his face turned toward the camera. Saw’s hard-on wilted in a flash. The man was Wilfred Donello.

  Saw was able to choke out, “What the fuck … ?”

  There was a rustling noise as Bradford Brie parted his shirttails in front, a soft, sliding sound as Brie took off his belt and, quick as thought, looped the belt around the lawyer’s puffy neck and yanked it tight. Saw tried to scream, but the tightening leather cut off his wind and he could only croak. He clawed at the skinny man’s unyielding fingers, kicked out his feet, went over backward with Brie on top. Saw’s chair hit the floor with a bang; papers flew and glass tinkled. The photographer’s knees pounded the lawyer’s chest like pistons. The red haze returned to cloud Saw’s vision, grew redder yet, blotted out everything save Brie’s wide-gapped teeth. Saw’s arms were like rubber and his feet were suddenly numb.

  Jesus, Saw thought, I’m just a guy making a living. What did I ever do to anybody? Then, with a final kick of nerveless feet, Howard Saw uttered one last croak and died.

  Bradford Brie couldn’t understand why Wilfred Donello would hire this dumb, fat fuck for a lawyer to begin with, but that was really none of Brie’s business. Doing federal and state time had taught Bradford Brie to keep his nose where it belonged and to let well enough alone. The penitentiary had also taught Bradford Brie what he liked best. Photography. Did Bradford Brie ever love to take pictures.

  He rose from behind Howard Saw’s desk, raising his shirt to thread his belt through the loops, and looked quickly toward the outer office. No one coming. Perfect. Just fucking perfect. Brie cinched up his belt, scooped up the photo of Donello and the girl—one of Brie’s favorites, he’d taken extra time with the shot, timing his shutter-click in between the girl’s screams—and shoved the picture into his back pocket. Then he grabbed up the camera, adjusted the lens, and squinted through the viewfinder.

  Click-flash. “Jesus Christ, what a shot,” Brie said to the lawyer, Saw’s mouth agape, his eyes open and staring at nothing. “Great pose,” Brie said. “Great motherfucking pose, you sleazy …”

  Click-flash.

  He used up the rest of the roll of film taking Saw’s picture, the puffy, fat face, the fleshy protruding tongue. Brie took photos from both sides, directly overhead, and one absolute beauty of an angle from down on his knees, with the lens aimed at the top of the dead lawyer’s head. Perfect, Brie thought, just fucking …

  His job finished, Brie leisurely unloaded the camera, put the used film away, replaced the film with an unexposed roll. Fourteen shots of Howard Saw, two alive, twelve dead, as well as four (five? Brie wasn’t sure) of the absolutely gorgeous lawyer lady. What a day. What a fucking beautiful day. When Donello had told Brie about the lawyer lady, Donello hadn’t done her justice. No justice at all.

  Brie wished that he could have taken more pictures of her, but he could wait. Bradford Brie was a patient man. He’d get more photos of Sharon Hays. One day soon he’d have all the pictures of the lawyer lady that anyone could want. And then some.

  4

  During Sharon Hays’ time with the district attorney’s office, juvenile certification hearings had changed locations. Before completion of the Frank Crowley Courts Building, the facility adjacent to the new county jail, teenager proceedings had taken place in a courtroom beside the county detention home on Harry Hines Boulevard. In those days the trip from cell to court required about five minutes, just long enough to cuff the adolescent prisoner and bring him over. Since the change, however, getting the kids to court on time was quite a rigamarole. Cert hearings now went on in the George Allen Courts Building, just across the street from Russell Black’s office, and juvenile detention officers had to rattle cages around five in the morning, herd the teenagers into vans for the ten-mile trip downtown, then chain-gang the kids upstairs into holding cells behind the courtroom by seven, all to be certain that eight o’clock courthouse arrivals didn’t trip over any prisoners who were hanging around in the halls.

  Sharon understood quite well that the relocation of the hearings didn’t have anything to do with convenience. For years the juvenile judges had bitched and moaned about the court facility near the detention home, claiming that the place was hard to find, that the parking was inadequate, etc., all complaints which Sharon knew to be total bullshit. The long and the short of it was that the Allen Building offered nicer judges’ chambers, complete with private toilets, and that the downtown location afforded the juvenile judges more opportunity to run into lawyers who would buy lunch and kiss the judges’ asses for them.

  Russell Black opened the third-floor Allen Building courtroom door for Sharon and stood aside. She entered. The spectators’ section was about half full. The waiting group consisted mostly of anxious, hand-wringing parents, and interspersed among the crowd were several lawyers in suits who balanced briefcases on their laps. There were also two reporters from the Dallas Morning News present, both of whom Sharon knew: Andy Wade, a slim young man in his middle twenties who wore thick glasses, and who had an absolutely jaw-clenching habit of blowing his nose in the middle of closing arguments, and Rita Paschal, a thick-hipped, thirtyish woman given to oversized blouses
and starving-artist jeans who normally covered the federal courts. Andy Wade’s usual beat was across town at the Crowley Building, and his and Rita Paschal’s presence in juvie court meant that Midge Rathermore’s certification hearing was to get plenty of ink in tomorrow’s edition. Sharon had already noted a Channel 8 minicam operator, halfway asleep on a corridor bench. TV and all, Sharon thought. She had made her way halfway down the aisle to the bullpen gate, with Russell Black close on her heels, when she made sudden eye contact with Milton Breyer. She paused.

  The eye contact wasn’t intentional. Sharon locked gazes with Breyer just as he looked up from the newspaper which he had spread out on the railing surrounding the absent court reporter’s chair. He wore a solid navy blue suit and a red tie with diagonal navy striping. When he spotted Sharon, Breyer reached out to touch Kathleen Fraterno’s arm. Kathleen had been first in line behind Sharon in Breyer’s pecking order, and would now be the superchief prosecutor’s number one gofer. Fraterno looked over her shoulder to regard Sharon calmly, through mildly curious gray eyes. Kathleen had a narrow, ageless face above a trim and compact figure, and Sharon wondered fleetingly whether Breyer had put the moves on Kathleen as yet. If he hasn’t, Sharon thought it won’t be long. She nodded solemnly at Breyer, showed Kathleen a quick smile, and continued on her way through the gate and into the bullpen area. She was surprised at her own coolness; she’d been afraid that the mere sight of Milton Breyer would send her into orbit.