“All right, all right. Let’s get to a meeting.”
“I can’t right now. I have a closing on Monday. I have to focus.”
“You can’t if you’re feeling this way. Meet me at my place.”
“Later. Work first. I just needed to hear your voice. I need you to tell me you’ll slap me around if I even think about getting high.”
“Are you thinking about it now?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Okay. Listen to me. I am going to slap you. I am going to slap you hard. Right now. Smack! Did you feel it?”
“Ouch,” Steve said.
“Good,” Gincy said. “Now come to my place and—”
“I’ll call you later. Maybe you can do that thing you do.”
“What thing?”
“Pray,” Steve said.
“Always,” Gincy said.
7
Steve got back to his office around one. Blasting a little R.E.M. on the way helped push out thoughts of what had happened at Fenton. Also got his juices flowing, so maybe he could really get ready for the fight on Monday morning. Spin some closing argument gold out of the lousy legal straw he had to work with.
He walked into his office and found it immaculate.
Sienna Ciccone was at the metal filing cabinet, putting some folders away.
“Hi,” she said.
Like it was the most understandable thing in the world. “How’d you even get in here?”
“New locks, remember? New keys? I took one.”
“Why?”
“You hired me. I wanted to—”
“No,” Steve said. “I told you I couldn’t hire you, remember? No funds.”
“What happened to that ten thousand dollar client?”
She wore tan slacks and a casual white blouse. It was more than a little strange to be sharing a small space with a woman again, even if she was just a law student. Suddenly Steve felt shy.
He put his briefcase on the front desk. “Sienna, I appreciate what you’ve done. But it’s Saturday. You shouldn’t be—”
“I don’t mind.”
“Listen. I’m not going to be getting any ten thousand.”
“What’s up with that?”
“The guy, LaSalle, he just wanted to mess with me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, what’d he say?”
“It was just a big joke.”
“Tell me.”
“Why should I tell you anything?” Steve’s shyness turned to heat. It came on like a flash and he didn’t care to cool down. “I didn’t ask you to do this, to be here.”
“Hey, I thought I helped get you the gig. I thought maybe I’d like to hear about it.”
“Well think again.”
She nodded at him, tight lipped, then grabbed her purse and started out.
“Wait a second,” Steve said.
“Why?”
“Just hold on.” He sighed to gather his thoughts. “I’m sorry. Look, sit down a minute. I guess I owe you an explanation. In addition to the money.”
She hesitated, then sat in the chair behind the front desk. Steve took a deep breath. He hadn’t told anyone the story in years. He didn’t know why he should tell her. Other than that he didn’t want her to go.
“When I was a kid my brother got kidnapped. I was five. Two men came in our room and took him.”
Her stunned expression didn’t need words.
“A couple weeks later they tracked one of the guys. He was some sort of a religious wacko, had a small following. He was living in a shack in the mountains, had Robert with him. That was my brother’s name, Robert. When they closed in he set fire to the place rather than get taken. They found two bodies in there, had to ID them by dental records. It was Robert and this guy, a guy named Cole.”
“How awful for you.”
“The night he was taken, one of the kidnappers told me if I said anything or made a noise, they’d kill Robert. And me. I believed him. But because I didn’t say anything, they had plenty of time to get away. My dad never forgave me. He ended up shooting himself.”
Sienna looked down.
“So this guy at the prison, LaSalle, finds out about me, has me come all the way out there, and get this, tells me he’s my brother.”
“Why would he do that?”
“You tell me. Maybe it’s a way for some ex-client of mine to get back at me. You know about me?”
“Other than what?”
“You know I was suspended for a cocaine addiction?”
“I didn’t know,” she said evenly.
“So now you do. And I’m going to sit here today and shake and try to prepare a closing argument. And maybe in my dreams it’ll come to me why some slime in state prison wants to jerk me around and say he’s my brother.”
Sienna leaned forward. “Is it possible he might be your brother?”
“No.”
“Wilder things have happened.”
“Not this wild. I looked at him. I—” Suddenly he wasn’t sure. And he was angry about it. What was this law school irritant doing by suggesting the impossible? “Why don’t you run along. I’ll get you your money—”
“Maybe we should research this a little.”
Steve slapped the table. “It’s just digging up what I want buried.”
“But—”
“Just go, will you? Just get out of here.”
“Won’t you please—”
“Get out. You’re . . . fired.”
“I was never hired, sir.” Sienna looped her purse over her shoulder and started to leave. She stopped, reached into her purse, and took something out. She tossed it on the glass-topped desk, where it pinged to rest. It was a key.
She left without another word.
Steve picked up the key, looked at it. Then threw it as hard as he could at the far wall. It made a mark, one he could see from all the way across the office. That’s what you’re good at, boy. Throwing stuff, making marks on walls and people. Keep it up.
He saw the face of Johnny LaSalle in his mind and wished he could throw something at it to make it go away.
8
Monday morning Steve gave his closing argument in the case of People v. Carlos Mendez.
Moira Hanson preceded him, laying out the devastating facts that made Mendez out to be the proverbial toast. Steve had to admit she was good. Poised and professional. A little cold perhaps, but a DDA could get away with that.
Not so the defense lawyer. As Steve got ready to make his argument he kept thinking about the old saying, supposedly uttered by Abraham Lincoln. When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, pound the table and shout for justice!
Facing the jury, Steve thought Honest Abe knew what he was talking about. As he had no facts or law on his side to speak of, he was going to have to do some table pounding. Anything to persuade the jury.
That was the lawyer’s bottom line, after all. You persuaded, you did the best with what you had. As his crim-law prof had said that first year, if you find a nit you pick it. And that was how you “make a noise like a lawyer.”