Rogue Lawyer

by John Grisham

  “To where, Swanger?”

  “To me. I want to look you in the eyes and ask you why you told the cops where I buried the girl.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You will.”

  “Why did you lie, Swanger?”

  “It was just a test to see if you can be trusted. Obviously you cannot. I want to know why.”

  “And I want to know why you can’t leave me alone.”

  “Because I need a lawyer, Rudd, plain and simple. What am I supposed to do? Take the elevator up to the fortieth floor and confide in a guy in a black suit who charges a thousand bucks an hour? Or maybe call one of those bozos you see on the billboards begging for bankruptcies and car wrecks? I need a real guy from the streets, Rudd, a real slimeball who knows how to play dirty. Right now you’re the man.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Take the White Bluff exit off the interstate and go east for two miles. There’s an all-night burger joint currently advertising a double-patty melt with real Velveeta cheese. Yum-yum. I’ll watch you go in and take a seat. I’ll make sure you’re alone and nobody’s following you. When I walk in you won’t recognize me at first.”

  “I’ll be packing some heat, Swanger, permit and all, and I know how to use it. Nothing funny, okay?”

  “No need for that, I swear.”

  “Swear all you want to, but I don’t believe a word you say.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  20.

  There is a lack of ventilation and the air is thick with the smell of greasy burgers and fries. I buy a coffee and sit at a table in the center for ten minutes as two drunk teenagers in a booth giggle and talk with their mouths full. In a far corner an obese, elderly couple gorge themselves as if they’ll never see food again. Part of this joint’s marketing brilliance is that the entire menu is half price from midnight to 6:00 a.m. That and the Velveeta.

  A man in a brown UPS uniform enters and does not look around. He buys a soft drink and some fries and is suddenly seated across from me. Behind round frameless glasses I finally recognize Swanger’s eyes. “Glad you could make it,” he says, barely audible.

  “A real pleasure,” I say. “Cute uniform.”

  “It works. Here’s what’s happening, Rudd. Jiliana Kemp is very much alive but I’m sure she wishes she were dead. She had her baby a few months back. They sold it for fifty thousand bucks, on the high end. The range, I’m told, is twenty-five to fifty, for a little Caucasian thing from good stock. The darker ones go cheaper.”

  “Who is they?”

  “We’ll get to it in a minute. Right now she’s working long hours as a stripper and hooker in a sex club a thousand miles away. She’s basically a slave, owned by some nasty types who’ve got her hooked on heroin. That’s why she can’t leave and that’s why she’ll do whatever she’s told. Don’t suppose you’ve ever dealt with human trafficking?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t ask how I got involved. A long sad story.”

  “I really don’t care, Swanger. I’d like to help the girl but I’m not sticking my nose into it. You said you needed a lawyer.”

  He picks up a single fry and examines it as if looking for poison, then slowly puts it into his mouth. He glares at me from behind the fake lenses, and finally says, “She’ll work the clubs for a bit, then they’ll decide to breed her again. They pass her around, you know, and when she gets pregnant they’ll get her off the drugs and lock her away. The baby’s gotta be healthy, you know. She’s one of eight or ten girls on their payroll, mostly white but a few brown ones, all from this country.”

  “All abducted?”

  “Of course. You don’t think they volunteered?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” I hope he’s lying but something tells me he’s not. Either way, the story is so repulsive I can only shake my head. I can’t help but see the images of Roy Kemp and his wife on the news pleading for a safe return of their daughter.

  “Real tragic,” I say. “But I’m losing patience here, Swanger. First, I can’t believe anything you say. Second, you said you needed a lawyer.”

  “Why did you tell the cops where she was buried?”

  “Because they kidnapped my son and forced me to cough up what you’d told me.”

  He likes this story and can’t hold back a smile. “Really? The cops kidnapped your son?”

  “They did. I caved, told them, they raced out to the site, wasted an entire night digging, and when it became apparent you were lying, they released my kid.”

  He crams three fries into his mouth and chomps like he’s working an entire pack of bubble gum. “I was in the woods, watching, laughing my ass off at those clowns. I was also cussing you for telling my secret.”

  “You’re a sicko, Swanger. Why am I here?”

  “Because I need money, Rudd. It ain’t easy living on the run like this. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I have to do to generate cash and I’m sick of it. There’s about 150 grand in reward money sitting in a pot somewhere in the police department. I figure if I can get the girl back to her family, then I should get some of the money.”

  I don’t know why I’m shocked by this. Nothing this idiot says should surprise me. I take a deep breath and say, “Allow me to make some sense of this. You kidnapped the girl a year ago. The good people of our city donated their cash for a reward fund. Now you, the kidnapper, would like to return the girl, and for this act of great humanity you think you should get some of the reward money, the same money now being held to solve the crime you committed. Right, Swanger?”

  “I got no problem with that. It works on all fronts. They get the girl; I get the cash.”

  “More of a ransom deal, I think.”

  “Call it what you like. I don’t care. I just gotta have some cash, Rudd, and I figure a lawyer like you can make it happen.”

  I jump to my feet and say, “What you need is a bullet, Swanger.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Home. And if you call me again I’ll call the cops.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Our volume has increased and the drunk teenagers are staring at us. I walk away and manage to get outside before he catches me and grabs my shoulder. “You think I’m lying about the girl, don’t you, Rudd?”

  I quickly grab the Glock 19 from the holster under my left armpit and grip it with my right hand. I back away as he freezes, staring at the pistol. I say, “I don’t know if you’re lying and I don’t care. You’re a sick puppy, Swanger, and I’m sure you’ll die an awful death. Now leave me alone.”

  He relaxes and smiles. “You ever hear of a town called Lamont, Missouri? No reason to, really. Podunk place of a thousand people, an hour north of Columbia. Three nights ago a twenty-year-old girl, first name of Heather, disappeared. The whole town’s in a panic, everybody’s in on the search, stomping through the woods and looking under bushes. No sign whatsoever. She’s all right, I mean at least she’s alive. She’s living in the same warehouse with Jiliana Kemp, west-central Chicago, getting the same abuse. Check it out online, Rudd, the Columbia paper ran a small story this morning. Just another girl, this one five hundred miles away, but these guys are hard-core traffickers.”

  I grip the pistol even tighter and resist the urge to raise it shoulder high and put a couple into his skull.

  PART SIX

  THE PLEA

  1.

  Jury selection in the trial of Tadeo Zapate begins on Monday. It will be a circus because the press is giddy with anticipation and the courthouse is buzzing. The YouTube video of Tadeo laying waste to the referee Sean King has over sixty million hits. Our fearless Action News! heroes show it repeatedly during the evening and morning broadcasts. Same video, same drivel, same grim shaking of heads as if it just can’t be believed. It seems as though everyone has an opinion and few of them favor my client. On three occasions I have asked the court for a change of venue, and all three requests have been quickly rejected. Tw
o hundred prospective jurors have been summoned for Monday, and it will be fascinating to see how many claim to have no knowledge of the case.

  Right now, though, it’s Friday, around midnight, and I’m lying naked under the sheets with Ms. Naomi Tarrant close by. She is sleeping, purring in long deep breaths, dead to the world. Our second session began around ten, after pizza and beer, and though it lasted for less than half an hour it was nonetheless thrilling and utterly exhausting. We both admit that we’ve been a bit on the inactive side, and we’re having a grand time catching up. I have no idea where this nascent relationship might be headed, and I’m always overcautious—a result no doubt of the permanent damage inflicted by Judith—but as of right now I adore this girl and would like to see her as often as possible, naked or otherwise.

  I wish I could sleep like that. She’s in a coma and I’m lying here wide awake, not aroused—that would be normal—but thinking of so many things other than sex. The trial Monday; Swanger and his tale about the Kemp girl; the bloody bodies of Tubby and Razor, rolled up in old cheap carpet and dumped in the landfill, probably by Miguel Zapate and his gang of drug dealers. I think of Detective Reardon and almost shudder at the idea that he and others in the police department suspect, either slightly or strongly, that I had something to do with the murders of Link’s thugs. I wonder if Link has decided to leave me alone, now that I can snap my fingers and get people whacked.

  So many thoughts, so many problems. I’m tempted to ease out of bed and go find some booze, then I remember that Naomi doesn’t keep the stuff in her apartment. She’s a light drinker and a healthy eater, and she does yoga four days a week to keep things superbly toned. I don’t want to wake her, so I lie still and stare at her back, at the smooth perfect skin that rises and falls over her shoulder blades and lifts again to form the cutest bottom I’ve ever seen. She’s thirty-three years old, recently divorced from a creep she wasted seven years with, childless and seemingly unconcerned by it. She doesn’t talk much about her past but I know she has suffered greatly. Her first love was her college boyfriend who was killed by a drunk driver a month before their wedding date. With moist eyes, she told me she could never love another man that much.

  I’m not really looking for love.

  I cannot shake the thoughts of Jiliana Kemp. She is or was a beautiful girl, like my companion here, and there is a good chance that she is alive and living a life that is indescribable. Arch Swanger is a psychopath, and probably a sociopath, and he would rather lie than tell the truth about anything. But he wasn’t lying about young Heather Farris, late of the village of Lamont, Missouri, a twenty-year-old dropout who was working the graveyard shift at a convenience store when she vanished with no clues. They’re still combing the woods and bringing in bloodhounds and offering rewards but nothing has worked so far. How did Swanger know about her? It’s possible he caught an early news report, but that’s not likely. I went online immediately, found her story, and began following it in the Columbia newspaper. Lamont is over five hundred miles away from here, and, sadly, she’s just another missing girl from a small town. Heather has not made the national news.

  What if Swanger is telling the truth? That Jiliana Kemp and Heather Farris are two girls out of a dozen who’ve been kidnapped by a sex-trafficking ring and forced to strip, screw, and breed while they live on heroin? The fact that I know this, or at least suspect it, makes me feel like an accomplice. I am not Swanger’s lawyer and I made that very clear. Indeed, I felt a real rush of adrenaline when I gripped my Glock and thought about putting him out of his misery. There are no ethical constraints binding me to silence and confidentiality with this scumbag. And even if there were, I would be inclined to ignore them if doing so might save some girls.

  I stopped worrying about ethics a long time ago. In my world, my enemies are ruthless. If I make nice, I get crushed.

  It is now 1:00 a.m. and I’m even wider awake. Naomi rolls over and flings a leg in my direction. I gently stroke her thigh—how can flesh be so smooth—and she whimpers as if somewhere in her deep sleep she likes the touching. I manage to get still and close my eyes.

  My last thought is of Jiliana Kemp, living in our generation’s version of slavery.

  2.

  Partner and I spend most of Saturday in the basement of the law offices of Harry & Harry, poring over juror questionnaires and ponderous reports put together by Cliff, a jury consultant, who, so far, has billed me $30,000. The tally for Tadeo’s defense is just under $70,000, all from my pocket of course, and it will continue to climb. He and I have not discussed the payment of fees because it’s a waste of time. He’s broke, and Miguel and the rest of the drug gang have little interest in my compensation. They figure I made enough money from Tadeo’s brief career. I assume they also think that in the rules of the streets the removal of Tubby and Razor is worth a bundle. Tit for tat. We’re all even.

  Cliff is of the opinion that the defense of Tadeo Zapate has quite a mountain to climb. He and his firm have done their usual work of (1) polling a thousand registered voters in this metropolitan area and asking hypothetical questions; (2) hurriedly researching the backgrounds of all two hundred prospective jurors; and (3) reviewing every news report that mentions the ugly incident in which Sean King was beaten. From the poll, an astonishing 31 percent of those questioned know a little or a lot about the case, and the vast majority of these favor conviction. Eighteen percent have seen the video. In the garden-variety murder case, regardless of how sensational, finding 10 percent who are aware of it is unusual.

  Unlike most consultants, Cliff is known for his bluntness. That’s why I use him. His bottom line: “Chances of an acquittal are slim. Chances of a conviction are high. Cut a deal; negotiate a plea bargain. Run for the hills.”

  When I first read his report, I called him immediately and said, “Come on, Cliff, I’m paying you all this money and your best advice is to run for the hills?”

  He’s a real smart-ass and his reply was “No, actually, I’d sprint for the hills. Your client is toast and the jury will throw the book at him.”

  Cliff will be in the courtroom Monday watching and taking notes. As much as I love the cameras and the attention, I’m not looking forward to it.

  3.

  At 4:00 p.m., Partner and I climb into my sparkling-new customized Ford cargo van, complete with all the usual finery I need for such a splendid mobile office, and head for the university. At Partner’s suggestion, I agreed to tone it down, to move away from conspicuous black to more of a soft bronze exterior color. Painted on both sides, in small block letters, are the words “Smith Contractors,” another nice touch Partner really wanted. He’s convinced that we will now blend in with the world and be harder to spot by the police, Link, my own clients, and all the other bad guys, real and potential, lurking out there.

  He drops me off in front of the university’s aquatic center and leaves in search of a suitable parking place. I drift inside, hear the echoing voices, find the pool, and send a text message to Moss Korgan. Swarms of small, skinny kids are heavily involved in a swim meet. The bleachers are half-packed with noisy parents. A breaststroke race is under way and little girls splash and kick in all eight lanes of the fifty-meter pool.

  Moss replies, “Right side, third section, top row.”

  I look and see no one, but I’m sure he’s watching. I’m wearing a leather jacket with my long hair under the collar, along with jeans and a blue-and-orange Mets cap. This is really not my crowd and I don’t expect to be recognized, but I rarely take chances. Just last week Partner and I were having a sandwich in a café when a jerk walked over and informed me that, in his opinion, my little cage fighter should rot in jail for the rest of his life. I thanked him and asked him to please leave us alone. He called me a crook. Partner stood and the guy got lost.

  As I climb the steps I get a nose full of the smell of chlorine. Starcher once mentioned swimming, but one of his mothers told him the sport was too dangerous because of all the chemicals
they put in the water. I’m surprised they don’t keep the kid in a bubble.

  I sit alone for a moment, far away from anyone else, and watch the action in the pool. The parents yell and the noise gets louder and louder until it suddenly stops and the race is over. The kids pull themselves out of the water as their mothers wait with towels and advice. From here, they appear to be about ten years old.

  Moss rises from a group of parents across the pool and slowly walks around it. He climbs the bleachers in front of me and eventually takes a seat, about three feet away. His body language says it all—he hates where he is and would rather be talking to a serial killer. “This better be good, Rudd,” he says without looking at me.

  “And hello to you too, Moss. Which one is your kid?” Stupid question; there are about a thousand of them down there crawling around the pool.

  “That one,” he says with a slight nod. What a smart-ass, but then I asked for it. “She’s a twelve-year-old freestyler. Won’t get wet for another thirty minutes. Can we get on with this?”