The last letter I had from her was when my oldest boy was six. I guess she had been at Auburn for nine years. I hardly recognized her writing because her hand was so weak. She started by saying that she expected to die soon, but she wasn’t afraid. She knew the next life would be better for her than this one.
She wanted me to know that two things in her life made her happy. The first was reading in my letters how well my family and I were doing. “The other thing I am glad about,” she wrote, “is that I red-dogged George Davis, even if it was an accident. You and I both know that man deserved to die.” Then she asked me to pray for her soul.
I remember looking out my back door with the letter in my hand, not knowing what to think. Here she was writing about that night just as if she’d forgotten the truth of it, that I was the one who had my hand on the revolver when it went off. I wondered if she was reminding me to stick to the story we had agreed on. But over the years I’ve come to see it differently. I think she found comfort in believing that she’d pulled the trigger, that she’d put the bullet in George Davis’s throat.
A CLERK’S LIFE
BY BARBARA PARKER
Payday at Penniman, Wolfe & Mulloy. In the nanosecond they allow us for breaks I go to accounting to pick up my check. Rita sits at her desk, smiling up at me. Ever since we had lunch together at the Cuban diner last week, she gets this look on her face. She wants me to ask her out. Be nice to her. Something.
Rita says, “How’s your mother?” She leans on crossed arms, making cleavage. The buttons strain on her shirt. She is not slender.
I pocket the envelope. “Still recuperating. Thanks for asking.”
“So. Are you going back to school next month?”
“Probably not. Mom… you know.”
“Yeah. That’s too bad.”
“Law school can wait. I don’t mind. It’s only a year.”
Rita sighs. “Not many guys would be that decent.” As I turn to leave, she says, “Warren? Are you busy tonight?”
“Tonight? Why?”
“The Latin Fest is at Bayfront Park. You’re always working. You need to get out! Besides, it’s free.”
I can’t think of an excuse to say no… except for one, sitting in the apartment on Miami Beach. But it’s Friday. What the hell. She’s capable of putting her own dinner in the microwave. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”
Rita actually claps her hands together, a gesture that says more than it should. “Great. You want to meet downstairs at five thirty?”
“Well… let me call you. I have to finish something for Erika Mulloy. If it’s not on her desk this afternoon, she’ll slice out my heart with her fingernails.” Erika’s nails are legendary, the subject of jokes.
Rita giggles. Her supervisor glances over from her computer screen.
Ha-ha, funny man, but I’ve just insulted a name partner, the head of our commercial litigation division. Worse: I’ve blown off an entire five minutes. Erika Mulloy could cause me considerable pain, but I don’t think she would fire me. Technically, I work for the managing partner, Louis Penniman. Erika snatched me to help out on a lawsuit involving shoddy construction of a luxury hotel on the Beach. I am her document-review slave, going through mountains of paper, searching for any scrap that bears on the issue at hand. Thrilling work.
On my way to the elevator I walk past the cubicles on the windowless side of the long, open corridor where the secretaries sit. Most of them are young and pretty. They don’t look up. I am only Warren Kemble.
Rounding a corner, I hear jubilant laughter through the open door of Frank Delgado’s office. I slow to a stop. Frank is a big rainmaker, head of our criminal department. He holds the firm record for most sexual harassment claims against him. He is telling someone about the PR expert he hired in the Talbot murder case, and how they got the client’s parents on Larry King Live, and how Talbot was smart enough from day one not to open his mouth to the police. Just said, I’d like to talk to you, but on advice of my counsel, can’t do it. Jesus Christ, if more of my clients would live by that rule—
A hand appears and pushes the door shut.
Yesterday Talbot was acquitted on charges of beating his girlfriend to death. He did it. We all knew he did it. The baseball bat was his, and he’d sworn to kill her if she left him. I saw the autopsy photos. Her nose was pushed sideways almost to her ear, and her jaw was knocked off her head. I went to the men’s room and threw up.
Do I really want to work for these people? Except for Mr. Penniman, an attorney whose like you don’t see anymore, the lawyers here are soulless phonies. I endure them. What choice do I have?
The elevator door slides open and I step inside. Jack Porter is already there, probably on his way back from court, as he’s carrying his briefcase. Jack Porter is my age, a first-year associate, but he’s got to be making a hundred K a year already. He works for Erika Mulloy. The small overhead lights gleam on his hair and the shoulders of his suit. I myself am wearing a blue shirt and khakis from the Gap.
The button for 14 is already lit, but I press it again and stand beside Porter, facing front. “I guess you heard about the Talbot case. Do you believe that verdict?”
Jack Porter’s face is a fuzzy reflection in the polished wood. “What about it?”
“They bought his story. They thought he was innocent. Delgado totally confused the issues, coached the client how to act, and made the victim out to be a whore. He put the blame on a killer who didn’t exist.”
“And your point?”
“My point? It’s a perversion of justice. All Delgado cared about was polishing his reputation, not to mention paying for another vacation home.”
I see Porter’s reflected smile. “Justice. Okay. Try this on: without lawyers like Frank Delgado, the state would run the accused into the ground. The system needs Delgado to keep it honest. He did his job. Guilty, innocent—that’s not your concern. Your job is to win. If you believe anything else, you need to go into social work, not law.”
This is depressing. Porter is right, but it’s still depressing. I step out of the elevator ahead of him. His office is in the same direction as mine, and he walks a few paces behind me. The corridor slices between the glass walls of the library. One of the secretaries is reaching for a book on the top shelf. Her skirt slides up her thighs, and her blond hair swings. What is it with these girls? They all have the same hairstyle, and they wear the same tight tops and short black skirts. She turns around. I lift my hand and smile, but she looks through me.
I hear a chuckle. “Hey, Kemble. If you’re seen hunting hippos, you’ll never get a shot at the gazelles.” I hear Jack Porter’s voice.
“What?”
“I heard you went out with that fat chick from accounting.”
“We had lunch. And she isn’t fat, she’s—”
“Whatever. Look. In the hunting ground that is this firm, your prey want to get bagged, but only by a hunter who’s on their level. If the beautiful young gazelles think you’re not up for the long, hard chase, they’ll never give you a chance.”
I stare at him.
Porter shrugs. “Hey, man, that’s how the game is played. Keep hanging with Fatty, you’ll see.”
My face burns. At the end of the corridor, we go in separate directions. I want to hate his guts, but I can’t. He has a point, I guess. I find my way to the Pits. To the clerks’ office with a view of another building. To my faux-walnut-veneer desk shoved into the far corner. Two of the other clerks share the space with me. Denise and Mike. They glance up, registering my presence, but they don’t speak. I sit down and log onto my computer.
Penniman, Wolfe & Mulloy employs 316 attorneys in five offices around the state, a branch office in New York, one in Mexico City, and another in London. Here in Miami there are ninety-six lawyers, seventy-two support personnel, and eleven law clerks. I, at twenty-nine, am the oldest of the clerks. I have completed two years at Ohio University Southern College of Law. I also have four years’ experience working
as a paralegal at a law firm in Dayton, Ohio. This means nothing. Denise is a senior at Georgetown; her father is on the D.C. Court of Appeals. Mike just graduated in the top 5 percent from Harvard. The other clerks are either from the Ivies or law-review editors at top state schools. The clients care about such things, thus enabling the firm to bill clerk time at $300 per hour. But Mike’s salary is twice mine. He made sure to let me know about it. My colleagues are experts in theory, but they have never seen the inside of a courtroom; they are shockingly disorganized and ignorant about real life in a law firm. I offer suggestions where I can, but generally the reaction is, Fuck off.
My job, however, is secure. I was hired by Louis Penniman, the founding partner, who served with my father in Vietnam. After my mother’s heart attack in February, I left school and flew down from Ohio to take care of her. She called Penniman to ask about an opening at the firm. My father saved his life, so you could say he owed us. I had expected to return to school for my final year, but now it’s getting on toward August. My mother won’t hear of hiring a nurse. The insurance has run out. This is not a happy situation, but what can I do?
At 5:23 I finish the report for Erika and log off.
____
“WHAT IS THE matter with you, Mr. Kemble?”
“Excuse me?”
“I told you to have this on my desk by five o’clock. Did I not say that?”
“I believe you said ‘before I leave,’ and I assumed—”
“You assumed? I said five o’clock. Five, not five thirty. Do you have shit in your ears?”
I wiggle the tip of my little finger in my ear. “It doesn’t seem so.”
She stares at me. I maintain my composure and smile at her. She lets out a breath and starts flipping through the pages. Her long red nails click against each other. They are like claws. Her mouth compresses. “This is not in the form I asked for. Only three citations from this jurisdiction? And where are the goddamn documents that support the factual stipulations? Did that not occur to you?”
“You’re right. I’ll make the revisions and include the fact stip support. How soon do you need it?”
She flips the folder closed and shoves it across her desk. “Monday. Have it back to me first thing Monday. Let’s make that eight o’clock.”
My weekend is screwed. Oh, wonderful.
When I don’t reply, she says, “Did you hear me?”
“Yes, Erika. Monday. Eight o’clock.”
“That’s Ms. Mulloy. Do not call me by my first name. Clerks are not entitled to call me by my first name.”
“I’m sorry.”
“On time and error-free, Mr. Kemble. If you can’t do that, you need to be in the mail room with Robert.”
Robert is the mentally handicapped man who delivers the mail and cleans the break room. I smile reassuringly. “Don’t worry. The report will be on your desk by eight o’clock Monday.”
“Thank you. And shut the door when you leave.” As the crack narrows, I hear her say, “What I have to put up with.”
Turning, I see the little smirk on her secretary’s face. She flips her long brown hair over her shoulder and goes back to her keyboard. Avoiding the gauntlet of cubicles in the corridor, I head for the stairwell. As I descend, the echo of footsteps comes from below me.
It’s Jack Porter. He notices the folder clenched in my hands. “Hey, is that the report for Erika? I thought you turned it in already.”
“She didn’t like the format. I have to redo it.”
He passes me. “Cunt. I’d put my foot in her ass and kick her down the stairs.”
“What?” A laugh escapes, and I steady myself on the railing. “Don’t say things like that, man. It might get back to her.”
“Who’s going to tell her? You?”
“Hell no.”
“Then don’t worry about it.” He moves on up the stairs and disappears at the landing. The steel door on 15 clicks shut. Jesus. That guy. I laugh again. Like he read my mind.
Rather than return immediately to the Pits, I head for Louis Penniman’s corner office on 16. He has a view of the city and the bay and Miami Beach. He invites me in, and we chat for a few minutes about the Talbot case. I feel that Penniman shares my opinion, but he is oblique. He won’t openly criticize another partner.
The conversation turns to my father, the war, Vietnam, the sniper aiming at Lieutenant Penniman from the jungle, my father taking him out with a burst from his M-16.
I nod soberly. “A brave man.”
“Gone too soon,” Penniman says. “What about you, Warren? You fitting in here? Everything’s good?”
“Yes, sir, absolutely. I’ll be going back to law school in January. If not, then next fall. I’m considering a transfer to the University of Miami.”
“Wonderful. Good luck to you, Warren.” Penniman puts a hand on my shoulder as we walk to his door. “You tell your mother I said hello.”
I admire Penniman. He’s in his sixties, but we have a bond. After I graduate, I think he would take me on. I can’t say I like Miami, but one has to start somewhere.
Back in my office, I notice the time: 6:10 p.m. My cell phone is blinking. A message from Rita. “Shit.” The others have cleared out already. Their computer screens are dark. I call Rita and tell her that Erika Mulloy had me in her office discussing a major litigation case. “It’s big. Looks like I’ll have to work on it all weekend. I really shouldn’t even be going to the concert tonight.”
Rita says she’s already on her way home.
“What about the concert?”
She tells me to have a nice day.
“I’m really sorry,” I say.
____
WITH MY SPIRITS lifted somewhat from my talk with Penniman, I stop by the market and pick up a bacon-wrapped filet mignon and a thirty-dollar bottle of wine.
After my father passed away, my mother decided to move to Miami Beach. She thought it would be glamorous. She bought a condo on Pine Tree Drive, a few miles north of the craziness of Lincoln Road and South Beach. The Pine Villa is from the 1940s, two stories, painted yellow with turquoise doors. A walkway goes from the street to the end of the building where my mother lives. Air conditioners hum in the windows. The yard is overgrown with tropical plants, and a couple of old pie pans with cat food sit under the bushes, a violation of condo regulations. There is a small, discolored swimming pool in the back that nobody uses. The average age here is about seventy.
The sun has set, and the lights have come on. As usual, our next-door neighbor Mr. Perlstein is sitting in his lawn chair, knobby knees in Bermuda shorts, chin on his chest. Their door opens as I go by, and Mrs. Perlstein comes out. She is a short woman with frizzy gray hair.
“Warren, darling, wait a minute.” She clumps down the steps. “How’s Georgette? I haven’t seen her in weeks.”
“She’s doing better, but her doctors want her to rest. Thanks for asking, Mrs. Perlstein.”
Her husband snorts in his sleep and resettles himself. Mrs. Perlstein pulls me closer and says she knows how it is, taking care of an invalid. “Listen, darling, I’d love to come over sometime and keep your mother company. It might cheer us both up, you know?”
“Thanks, Mrs. P., but she’s not really taking visitors yet. I’ll tell her you asked about her.” The truth is, my mother is prejudiced against persons not of her own religion. She says if she’d known there were so many of them in this building, she’d have bought somewhere else, but it’s too late now.
At our door I shift the grocery bag and turn the key. “Ma? I’m home.”
The sound of a TV game show drifts through her door. There is only one bedroom; I sleep on the sofa. I hang my suit coat on the back of a chair. When I knock and go into my mother’s room, she’s sitting in her lounger with her feet up. Her AC is on the arctic setting, but that’s how she likes it, wearing a sweater and two pairs of socks. A contestant on Wheel of Fortunereaches over to turn the wheel. My mother says, “I thought you were going out tonight.”
>
“Well, I decided to stay home with you instead. Are you hungry? I picked up a steak.”
“You told me to eat, so I did. I had a frozen dinner. Where did you get the steak?”
“Epicure Market.”
“Epicure!”
“It was on sale. I make sandwiches or cold cereal every night. Is an occasional steak too much to ask?” She starts to cry. Tears follow the lines in her cheeks. “What now? Come on, Ma, don’t do that.”
“We used to have money. We used to be something in this world. Look at me now. Your father is dead, God rest him, and I’m sick. I never expected my life to be this way.”
“You’ll get better.” I pat her shoulder.
“Go eat your steak.” She aims the remote at the TV, raising the volume.
In the kitchen I slice onions and garlic, and the steady thud of the knife on the cutting board soothes me. After dinner I take some chamomile tea to my mother, along with her pills.
She is contrite. “I love you, Warren. Your sister couldn’t care less. You won’t leave me, will you?”
“I’m not leaving, Ma.”
“When you graduate, we’ll get out of this stinking place and buy a gorgeous condo. You’ll have a sports car like you always wanted. A Porsche!” She laughs like a girl. She asks about my day, and I make things up to please her. I sit on the end of the bed and tell her about Frank Delgado’s case, and I tell her about Jack Porter, and she says Porter isn’t half the lawyer I’m going to be, which I know isn’t true, but I don’t contradict her.
I stand up. “Listen, I need to go back to the office tonight. I’m working on a big project for Ms. Mulloy.” It’s a lie, but I need to get out of here for a while.
“Sure, honey. Don’t work too late. I love you.”
I pull the afghan up and smooth her hair. I don’t like to kiss her. She has a smell, like old shoes in a musty closet. She’s afraid to take baths, afraid she’ll fall. I should hire someone to help her. I can’t do it myself, can’t see my mother’s body like that. I hate myself for saying this, but sometimes I wish they hadn’t revived her.
Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests Page 25
