John Grisham
The King of Torts

1

   The shots that fired the bullets that entered Pumpkin’s head were heard by no less than eight people. Three instinctively closed their windows, checked their door locks, and withdrew to the safety, or at least the seclusion, of their small apartments. Two others, each with experience in such matters, ran from the vicinity as fast if not faster than the gunman himself. Another, the neighborhood recycling fanatic, was digging through some garbage in search of aluminum cans when he heard the sharp sounds of the daily skirmish, very nearby. He jumped behind a pile of cardboard boxes until the shelling stopped, then eased into the alley where he saw what was left of Pumpkin.
   And two saw almost everything. They were sitting on plastic milk crates, at the corner of Georgia and Lamont in front of a liquor store, partially hidden by a parked car so that the gunman, who glanced around briefly before following Pumpkin into the alley, didn’t see them. Both would tell the police that they saw the boy with the gun reach into his pocket and pull it out; they saw the gun for sure, a small black pistol. A second later they heard the shots, though they did not actually see Pumpkin take them in the head. Another second and the boy with the gun darted from the alley and, for some reason, ran straight in their direction. He ran bent at the waist, like a scared dog, guilty as hell. He wore red-and-yellow basketball shoes that seemed five sizes too big and slapped the pavement as he made his getaway.
   When he ran by them he was still holding the gun, probably a.38, and he flinched just for an instant when he saw them and realized they had seen too much. For one terrifying second, he seemed to raise the gun as if to eliminate the witnesses, both of whom managed to flip backward from their plastic milk crates and scramble off in a mad flurry of arms and legs. Then he was gone.
   One of them opened the door to the liquor store and yelled for someone to call the police, there had been a shooting.
   Thirty minutes later, the police received a call that a young man matching the description of the one who had wasted Pumpkin had been seen twice on Ninth Street carrying a gun in open view and acting stranger than most of the people on Ninth. He had tried to lure at least one person into an abandoned lot, but the intended victim had escaped and reported the incident.
   The police found their man an hour later. His name was Tequila Watson, black male, age twenty, with the usual drug-related police record. No family to speak of. No address. The last place he’d been sleeping was a rehab unit on W Street. He’d managed to ditch the gun somewhere, and if he’d robbed Pumpkin then he’d also thrown away the cash or drugs or whatever the booty was. His pockets were clean, as were his eyes. The cops were certain Tequila was not under the influence of anything when he was arrested. A quick and rough interrogation took place on the street, then he was handcuffed and shoved into the rear seat of a D.C. police car.
   They drove him back to Lamont Street, where they arranged an impromptu encounter with the two witnesses. Tequila was led into the alley where he’d left Pumpkin. “Ever been here before?” a cop asked.
   Tequila said nothing, just gawked at the puddle of fresh blood on the dirty concrete. The two witnesses were eased into the alley, then led quietly to a spot near Tequila.
   “That’s him,” both said at the same time.
   “He’s wearing the same clothes, same basketball shoes, everything but the gun.”
   “That’s him.”
   “No doubt about it.”
   Tequila was shoved into the car once again and taken to jail. He was booked for murder and locked away with no immediate chance of bail. Whether through experience or just fear, Tequila never said a word to the cops as they pried and cajoled and even threatened. Nothing incriminating, nothing helpful. No indication of why he would murder Pumpkin. No clue as to their history, if one existed at all. A veteran detective made a brief note in the file that the killing appeared a bit more random than was customary.
   No phone call was requested. No mention of a lawyer or a bail bondsman. Tequila seemed dazed but content to sit in a crowded cell and stare at the floor.

   Pumpkin had no traceable father but his mother worked as a security guard in the basement of a large office building on New York Avenue. It took three hours for the police to determine her son’s real name—Ramon Pumphrey—to locate his address, and to find a neighbor willing to tell them if he had a mother.
   Adelfa Pumphrey was sitting behind a desk just inside the basement entrance, supposedly watching a bank of monitors. She was a large thick woman in a tight khaki uniform, a gun on her waist, a look of complete disinterest on her face. The cops who approached her had done so a hundred times. They broke the news, then found her supervisor.
   In a city where young people killed each other every day, the slaughter had thickened skins and hardened hearts, and every mother knew many others who’d lost their children. Each loss brought death a step closer, and every mother knew that any day could be the last. The mothers had watched the others survive the horror. As Adelfa Pumphrey sat at her desk with her face in her hands, she thought of her son and his lifeless body lying somewhere in the city at that moment, being inspected by strangers.
   She swore revenge on whoever killed him.
   She cursed his father for abandoning the child.
   She cried for her baby.
   And she knew she would survive. Somehow, she would survive.

   Adelfa went to court to watch the arraignment. The police told her the punk who’d killed her son was scheduled to make his first appearance, a quick and routine matter in which he would plead not guilty and ask for a lawyer. She was in the back row with her brother on one side and a neighbor on the other, her eyes leaking tears into a damp handkerchief. She wanted to see the boy. She also wanted to ask him why, but she knew she would never get the chance.
   They herded the criminals through like cattle at an auction. All were black, all wore orange coveralls and handcuffs, all were young. Such waste.
   In addition to his handcuffs, Tequila was adorned with wrist and ankle chains since his crime was especially violent, though he looked fairly harmless when he was shuffled into the courtroom with the next wave of offenders. He glanced around quickly at the crowd to see if he recognized anyone, to see if just maybe someone was out there for him. He was seated in a row of chairs, and for good measure one of the armed bailiffs leaned down and said, “That boy you killed. That’s his mother back there in the blue dress.”
   With his head low, Tequila slowly turned and looked directly into the wet and puffy eyes of Pumpkin’s mother, but only for a second. Adelfa stared at the skinny boy in the oversized coveralls and wondered where his mother was and how she’d raised him and if he had a father, and, most important, how and why his path had crossed that of her boy’s. The two were about the same age as the rest of them, late teens or early twenties. The cops had told her that it appeared, at least initially, that drugs were not involved in the killing. But she knew better. Drugs were involved in every layer of street life. Adelfa knew it all too well. Pumpkin had used pot and crack and he’d been arrested once, for simple possession, but he had never been violent. The cops were saying it looked like a random killing. All street killings were random, her brother had said, but they all had a reason.
   On one side of the courtroom was a table around which the authorities gathered. The cops whispered to the prosecutors, who flipped through files and reports and tried valiantly to keep the paperwork ahead of the criminals. On the other side was a table where the defense lawyers came and went as the assembly line sputtered along. Drug charges were rattled off by the Judge, an armed robbery, some vague sexual attack, more drugs, lots of parole violations. When their names were called, the defendants were led forward to the bench, where they stood in silence. Paperwork was shuffled, then they were hauled off again, back to jail.
   “Tequila Watson,” a bailiff announced.
   He was helped to his feet by another bailiff. He stutter-stepped forward, chains rattling.
   “Mr. Watson, you are charged with murder,” the Judge announced loudly. “How old are you?”
   “Twenty,” Tequila said, looking down.
   The murder charge had echoed through the courtroom and brought a temporary stillness. The other criminals in orange looked on with admiration. The lawyers and cops were curious.
   “Can you afford a lawyer?”
   “No.”
   “Didn’t think so,” the Judge mumbled and glanced at the defense table. The fertile fields of the D.C. Superior Court Criminal Division, Felony Branch, were worked on a daily basis by the Office of the Public Defender, the safety net for all indigent defendants. Seventy percent of the docket was handled by court-appointed counsel, and at any time there were usually half a dozen PDs milling around in cheap suits and battered loafers with files sticking out of their briefcases. At that precise moment, however, only one PD was present, the Honorable Clay Carter II, who had stopped by to check on two much lesser felonies, and now found himself all alone and wanting to bolt from the courtroom. He glanced to his right and to his left and realized that His Honor was looking at him. Where had all the other PDs gone?
   A week earlier, Mr. Carter had finished a murder case, one that had lasted for almost three years and had finally been closed with his client being sent away to a prison from which he would never leave, at least not officially. Clay Carter was quite happy his client was now locked up, and he was relieved that he, at that moment, had no murder files on his desk.
   That, evidently, was about to change.
   “Mr. Carter?” the Judge said. It was not an order, but an invitation to step forward to do what every PD was expected to do—defend the indigent, regardless of the case. Mr. Carter could not show weakness, especially with the cops and prosecutors watching. He swallowed hard, refused to flinch, and walked to the bench as if he just might demand a jury trial right there and then. He took the file from the Judge, quickly skimmed its rather thin contents while ignoring the pleading look of Tequila Watson, then said, “We’ll enter a plea of not guilty, Your Honor.”
   “Thank you, Mr. Carter. And we’ll show you as counsel of record?”
   “For now, yes.” Mr. Carter was already plotting excuses to unload this case on someone else at OPD.
   “Very well. Thank you,” the Judge said, already reaching for the next file.
   Lawyer and client huddled at the defense table for a few minutes. Carter took as much information as Tequila was willing to give, which was very little. He promised to stop by the jail the next day for a longer interview. As they whispered, the table was suddenly crowded with young lawyers from the PD’s office, colleagues of Carter’s who seemed to materialize from nowhere.
   Was this a setup? Carter asked himself. Had they disappeared knowing a murder defendant was in the room? In the past five years, he’d pulled such stunts himself. Ducking the nasty ones was an art form at OPD.
   He grabbed his briefcase and hurried away, down the center aisle, past rows of worried relatives, past Adelfa Pumphrey and her little support group, into the hallway crammed with many more criminals and their mommas and girlfriends and lawyers. There were those in OPD who swore they lived for the chaos of the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse—the pressure of trials, the hint of danger from people sharing the same space with so many violent men, the painful conflict between victims and their assailants, the hopelessly overcrowded dockets, the calling to protect the poor and ensure fair treatment by the cops and the system.
   If Clay Carter had ever been attracted to a career in OPD, he could not now remember why. In one week the fifth anniversary of his employment there would come and go, without celebration, and, hopefully, without anyone knowing it. Clay was burned out at the age of thirty-one, stuck in an office he was ashamed to show his friends, looking for an exit with no place to go, and now saddled with another senseless murder case that was growing heavier by the minute.
   In the elevator he cursed himself for getting nailed with a murder. It was a rookie’s mistake; he’d been around much too long to step into the trap, especially one set on such familiar turf. I’m quitting, he promised himself; the same vow he had uttered almost every day for the past year.
   There were two others in the elevator. One was a court clerk of some variety, with her arms full of files.
   The other was a fortyish gentleman dressed in designer black—jeans, T-shirt, jacket, alligator boots. He held a newspaper and appeared to be reading it through small glasses perched on the tip of his rather long and elegant nose; in fact, he was studying Clay, who was oblivious. Why would someone pay any attention to anyone else on this elevator in this building?
   If Clay Carter had been alert instead of brooding, he would have noticed that the gentleman was too well dressed to be a defendant, but too casual to be a lawyer. He carried nothing but a newspaper, which was somewhat odd because the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse was not known as a place for reading. He did not appear to be a judge, a clerk, a victim, or a defendant, but Clay never noticed him.

2

   In a city of 76,000 lawyers, many of them clustered in megafirms within rifle shot of the U.S. Capitol—rich and powerful firms where the brightest associates were given obscene signing bonuses and the dullest ex-Congressmen were given lucrative lobbying deals and the hottest litigators came with their own agents—the Office of the Public Defender was far down in the minor leagues. Low A.
   Some OPD lawyers were zealously committed to defending the poor and oppressed, and for them the job was not a stepping-stone to another career. Regardless of how little they earned or how tight their budgets were, they thrived on the lonely independence of their work and the satisfaction of protecting the underdog.
   Other PDs told themselves that the job was transitory, just the nitty-gritty training they needed to get launched into more promising careers. Learn the ropes the hard way, get your hands dirty, see and do things no big-firm associate would ever get near, and someday some firm with real vision will reward the effort. Unlimited trial experience, a vast knowledge of the judges and the clerks and the cops, workload management, skills in handling the most difficult of clients—these were just a few of the advantages PDs had to offer after only a few years on the job.

   OPD had eighty lawyers, all working in two cramped and suffocating floors of the District of Columbia Public Services Building, a pale, square, concrete structure known as The Cube, on Mass Avenue near Thomas Circle. There were about forty low paid secretaries and three dozen paralegals scattered through the maze of cubbyhole offices. The Director was a woman named Glenda who spent most of her time locked in her office because she felt safe in there.
   The beginning salary for an OPD lawyer was $36,000. Raises were minuscule and slow in coming. The most senior lawyer, a frazzled old man of forty-three, earned $57,600 and had been threatening to quit for nineteen years. The workloads were staggering because the city was losing its own war on crime. The supply of indigent criminals was endless. Every year for the past eight Glenda had submitted a budget requesting ten more lawyers and a dozen more paralegals. In each of the last four budgets she had received less money than the year before. Her quandary at the moment was which paralegals to terminate and which lawyers to force into part-time work.
   Like most of the other PDs, Clay Carter had not entered law school with the plan of a career, or even a brief stint, defending indigent criminals. No way. Back when Clay was in college and then law school at Georgetown his father had a firm in D.C. Clay had worked there part-time for years, and had his own office. The dreams had been boundless back then, father and son litigating together as the money poured in.
   But the firm collapsed during Clay’s last year of law school, and his father left town. That was another story. Clay became a public defender because there were no other last-second jobs to grab.
   It took him three years to jockey and connive his way into getting his own office, not one shared with another lawyer or paralegal. About the size of a modest suburban utility closet, it had no windows and a desk that consumed half the floor space. His office in his father’s old firm had been four times larger with views of the Washington Monument, and though he tried to forget those views he couldn’t erase them from his memory. Five years later, he still sat at his desk at times and stared at the walls, which seemed to get closer each month, and asked himself how, exactly, did he fall from one office to the other?
   He tossed the Tequila Watson file on his very clean and very neat desk and took off his jacket. It would have been easy, in the midst of such dismal surroundings, to let the place go, to let the files and papers pile up, to clutter his office and blame it on being overworked and understaffed. But his father had believed that an organized desk was a sign of an organized mind. If you couldn’t find something in thirty seconds, you were losing money, his father always said. Return phone calls immediately was another rule Clay had been taught to obey.
   So he was fastidious about his desk and office, much to the amusement of his harried colleagues. His Georgetown Law School diploma hung in a handsome frame in the center of a wall. For the first two years at OPD he had refused to display the diploma for fear that the other lawyers would wonder why someone from Georgetown was working for minimum wages. For the experience, he told himself, I’m here for the experience. A trial every month—tough trials against tough prosecutors in front of tough juries. For the down-in-the-gutter, bareknuckle training that no big firm could provide. The money would come later, when he was a battle-hardened litigator at a very young age.
   He stared at the thin Watson file in the center of his desk and wondered how he might unload it on someone else. He was tired of the tough cases and the superb training and all the other crap that he put up with as an underpaid PD.
   There were six pink phone message slips on his desk; five related to business, one from Rebecca, his longtime girlfriend. He called her first.
   “I’m very busy,” she informed him after the required initial pleasantries.
   “You called me,” Clay said.
   “Yes, I can only talk a minute or so.” Rebecca worked as an assistant to a low-ranking Congressman who was the chairman of some useless subcommittee. But because he was the chairman he had an additional office he was required to staff with people like Rebecca who was in a frenzy all day preparing for the next round of hearings that no one would attend. Her father had pulled strings to get her the job.
   “I’m kinda swamped too,” Clay said. “Just picked up another murder case.” He managed to add a measure of pride to this, as if he were honored to be the attorney for Tequila Watson.
   It was a game they played: Who was the busiest? Who was the most important? Who worked the hardest? Who had the most pressure?
   “Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday,” she said, pausing slightly as if Clay was supposed to know this. He did not. He cared not. He didn’t like her mother. “They’ve invited us to dinner at the club.”
   A bad day just got worse. The only response he could possibly give was, “Sure.” And a quick one at that.
   “Around seven. Coat and tie.”
   “Of course.” I’d rather have dinner with Tequila Watson at the jail, he thought to himself.
   “I gotta run,” she said. “See you then. Love you.”
   “Love you.”
   It was a typical conversation between the two, just a few quick lines before rushing off to save the world. He looked at her photo on his desk. Their romance came with enough complications to sink ten marriages. His father had once sued her father, and who won and who lost would never be clear. Her family claimed origins in old Alexandria society; he’d been an Army brat. They were right-wing Republicans, he was not. Her father was known as Bennett the Bulldozer for his relentless slash-and-burn development in the Northern Virginia suburbs around D.C. Clay hated the sprawl of Northern Virginia and quietly paid his dues to two environmental groups fighting the developers. Her mother was an aggressive social climber who wanted her two daughters to marry serious money. Clay had not seen his mother in eleven years. He had no social ambitions whatsoever. He had no money.
   For almost four years, the romance had survived a monthly brawl, the majority of them engineered by her mother. It clung to life by love and lust and a determination to succeed regardless of the odds against it. But Clay sensed a fatigue on Rebecca’s part, a creeping weariness brought on by age and constant family pressure. She was twenty-eight. She did not want a career. She wanted a husband and a family and long days spent at the country club spoiling the children, playing tennis, doing lunch with her mother.
   Paulette Tullos appeared from thin air and startled him. “Got nailed, didn’t you?” she said with a smirk. “A new murder case.”
   “You were there?” Clay asked.
   “Saw it all. Saw it coming, saw it happen, couldn’t save you, pal.”
   “Thanks. I owe you one.”
   He would have offered her a seat, but there were no others in his office. There was no room for chairs and besides they were not needed because all of his clients were in jail. Sitting and chatting were not part of the daily routine at OPD.
   “What are my chances of getting rid of it?” he said.
   “Slim to impossible. Who you gonna dump it on?”
   “I was thinking of you.”
   “Sorry. I got two murder cases already. Glenda won’t move it for you.”
   Paulette was his closest friend inside the OPD. A product of a rough section of the city, she had scratched her way through college and law school at night and had seemed destined for the middle classes until she met an older Greek gentleman with a fondness for young black women. He married her and set her up comfortably in North West Washington, then eventually returned to Europe, where he preferred to live. Paulette suspected he had a wife or two over there, but she wasn’t particularly concerned about it. She was well-off and seldom alone. After ten years, the arrangement was working fine.
   “I heard the prosecutors talking,” she said. “Another street killing, but questionable motive.”
   “Not exactly the first one in the history of D.C.”
   “But no apparent motive.”
   “There’s always a motive—cash, drugs, sex, a new pair of Nikes.”
   “But the kid was pretty tame, no history of violence?”
   “First impressions are seldom true, Paulette, you know that.”
   “Jermaine got one very similar two days ago. No apparent motive.”
   “I hadn’t heard.”
   “You might try him. He’s new and ambitious and, who knows, you might dump it on him.”
   “I’ll do it right now.”
   Jermaine wasn’t in but Glenda’s door, for some reason, was slightly open. Clay rapped it with his knuckles while walking through it. “Got a minute?” he said, knowing that Glenda hated sparing a minute with anyone on her staff. She did a passable job running the office, managing the caseloads, holding the budget together, and, most important, playing the politics at City Hall. But she did not like people. She preferred to do her work behind a locked door.
   “Sure,” she said abruptly, with no conviction whatsoever. It was clear she did not appreciate the intrusion, which was exactly the reception Clay had expected.
   “I happened to be in the Criminal Division this morning at the wrong time, got nailed with a murder case, one I’d rather pass on. I just finished the Traxel case, which, as you know, lasted for almost three years. I need a break from murder. How about one of the younger guys?”
   “You beggin’ off, Mr. Carter?” she said, eyebrows arched.
   “Absolutely. Load up the dope and burglaries for a few months. That’s all I’m asking.”
   “And who do you suggest should handle the, uh, what’s the case?”
   “Tequila Watson.”
   “Tequila Watson. Who should get him, Mr. Carter?”
   “I don’t really care. I just need a break.”
   She leaned back in her chair, like some wise old chairman of the board, and began chewing on the end of a pen. “Don’t we all, Mr. Carter? We’d all love a break, wouldn’t we?”
   “Yes or no?”
   “We have eighty lawyers here, Mr. Carter, about half of whom are qualified to handle murder cases. Everybody has at least two. Move it if you can, but I’m not going to reassign it.”
   As he was leaving, Clay said, “I could sure use a raise if you wanted to work on it.”
   “Next year, Mr. Carter. Next year.”
   “And a paralegal.”
   “Next year.”
   The Tequila Watson file remained in the very neat and organized office of Jarrett Clay Carter II, Attorney-at-Law.

3

   The building was, after all, a jail. Though it was of recent vintage and upon its grand opening had been the source of great pride for a handful of city leaders, it was still a jail. Designed by cutting-edge urban defense consultants and adorned with high-tech security gadgetry, it was still a jail. Efficient, safe, humane, and, though built for the next century, it was overbooked the day it opened. From the outside it resembled a large red cinderblock resting on one end, windowless, hopeless, filled with criminals and the countless people who guarded them. To make someone feel better it had been labeled a Criminal Justice Center, a modern euphemism employed widely by the architects of such projects. It was a jail.
   And it was very much a part of Clay Carter’s turf. He met almost all of his clients there, after they were arrested and before they were released on bond, if they were able to post it. Many were not. Many were arrested for nonviolent crimes, and whether guilty or innocent, they were kept locked away until their final court appearances. Tigger Banks had spent almost eight months in the jail for a burglary he did not commit. He lost both of his part-time jobs. He lost his apartment. He lost his dignity. Clay’s last phone call from Tigger had been a gut-wrenching plea from the kid for money. He was on crack again, on the streets and headed for trouble.
   Every criminal lawyer in the city had a Tigger Banks story, all with unhappy endings and nothing to be done about them. It cost $41,000 a year to house an inmate. Why was the system so anxious to burn the money?
   Clay was tired of those questions, and tired of the Tiggers of his career, and tired of the jail and the same surly guards who greeted him at the basement entrance used by most lawyers. And he was tired of the smell of the place, and the idiotic little procedures put in place by pencil pushers who read manuals on how to keep jails safe. It was 9 A.M., a Wednesday, though for Clay every day was the same. He went to a sliding window under a sign for ATTORNEYS, and after the clerk was certain that he had waited long enough, she opened the window and said nothing. Nothing needed to be said, since she and Clay had been scowling at each other without greetings for almost five years now. He signed a register, handed it back, and she closed the window, no doubt a bulletproof one to protect her from rampaging lawyers.
   Glenda had spent two years trying to implement a simple call-ahead method whereby OPD lawyers, and everyone else for that matter, could telephone an hour before they arrived and their clients would be somewhere in the vicinity of the attorney conference room. It was a simple request, and its simplicity had no doubt led to its demise in bureaucratic hell.
   There was a row of chairs against a wall where the lawyers were expected to wait while their requests were sent along at a snail’s pace to someone upstairs. By 9 A.M. there were always a few lawyers sitting there, fidgeting with files, whispering on cell phones, ignoring one another. At one point early in his young career Clay had brought along thick law books to read and highlight in yellow and thus impress the other lawyers with his intensity. Now he pulled out the Post and read the sports section. As always, he glanced at his watch to see how much time would be wasted waiting for Tequila Watson.
   Twenty-four minutes. Not bad.
   A guard led him down the hall to a long room divided by a thick sheet of Plexiglas. The guard pointed to the fourth booth from the end, and Clay took a seat. Through the glass, he could see that the oilier half of the booth was empty. More waiting. He pulled papers from his briefcase and began thinking of questions for Tequila. The booth to his right was occupied by a lawyer in the midst of a tense, but muted, conversation with his client, a person Clay could not see.
   The guard returned and whispered to Clay, as if such conversations were illegal. “Your boy had a bad night,” he said, crouching and glancing up at the security cameras.
   “Okay,” Clay said. “He jumped on a kid around two this morning, beat the hell out of him, caused a pretty good brawl. Took six of our guys to break it up. He’s a mess.”
   “Tequila?”
   “Watson, that’s him. Put the other boy in the hospital. Expect some additional charges.”
   “Are you sure?” Clay asked, looking over his shoulder.
   “It’s all on video.” End of conversation.
   They looked up as Tequila was brought to his seat by two guards, each with an elbow secured. He was handcuffed, and though the inmates were customarily set free to chat with their lawyers, Tequila’s handcuffs were not coming off. He sat down. The guards moved away but remained close.
   His left eye was swollen shut, with dried blood in both corners. The right one was open and the pupil was bright red. There was tape and gauze in the center of his forehead, and a butterfly Band-Aid on his chin. Both lips and both jaws were puffy and oversized to the point that Clay wasn’t sure he had the right client. Someone somewhere had just beaten the hell out of the guy sitting three feet away through the Plexiglas.
   Clay picked up the black phone receiver and motioned for Tequila to do likewise. He cradled it awkwardly with both hands.
   “You are Tequila Watson?” Clay said with as much eye contact as possible.
   He nodded yes, very slowly, as if loose bones were shifting throughout his head.
   “Have you seen a doctor?”
   A nod, yes.
   “Did the cops do this to you?”
   Without hesitation he shook his head. No.
   “The other guys in the cell do it?”
   A nod, yes.
   “The cops tell me you started the fight, beat up some kid, put him in the hospital. Is that true?” A nod, yes. It was hard to imagine Tequila Watson, all 150 pounds of him, bullying people in a crowded cell in the D.C. jail. “Did you know the kid?” Lateral movement. No. So far his receiver had not been needed, and Clay was tired of the sign language. “Why, exactly, did you beat up this kid?”
   With great effort the swollen lips finally parted. “I don’t know,” he managed to grunt, the words slow and painful.
   “That’s great, Tequila. That gives me something to work with. How about self-defense? Did the kid come after you? Throw the first punch?”
   “No.”
   “Was he stoned or drunk?”
   “No.”
   “Was he trash-talking, making threats, that kind of stuff?” “He was asleep.” “Asleep?” “Yeah.” “Was he snoring too loud? Forget it.”
   Eye contact was broken by the lawyer, who suddenly needed to write something on his yellow legal pad. Clay scribbled the date, time, place, client’s name, then ran out of important facts to take note of. He had a hundred questions filed away in his memory, and after that a hundred more. They rarely varied in these initial interviews; just the basics of his client’s miserable life and how they came to meet. The truth was guarded like rare gems to be passed through the Plexiglas only when the client wasn’t threatened. Questions about family and school and jobs and friends were usually answered with a good measure of honesty. But questions related to the crime were subject to gamesmanship. Every criminal lawyer knew not to dwell too much on the crime during the first interviews. Dig for details elsewhere. Investigate without guidance from the client. The truth might come later.
   Tequila, however, seemed quite different. So far, he had no fear of the truth. Clay decided to save many, many hours of his precious time. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “They say you killed a boy, shot him five times in the head.”
   The swollen head nodded slightly.
   “A Ramon Pumphrey, also known as Pumpkin. Did you know this guy?”
   A nod, yes.
   “Did you shoot him?” Clay’s voice was almost a whisper. The guards were asleep but the question was still one that lawyers did not ask, not at the jail anyway.
   “I did,” Tequila said softly.
   “Five times?”
   “Thought it was six.”
   Oh well, so much for a trial. I’ll have this file closed in sixty days, Clay thought to himself. A quick plea bargain. A guilty plea in return for life in prison.
   “A drug deal?” he asked.
   “No.”
   “Did you rob him?”
   “No.”
   “Help me here, Tequila. You had a reason, didn’t you?”
   “I knew him.”
   “That’s it? You knew him? That’s your best excuse?”
   He nodded but said nothing.
   “A girl, right? You caught him with your girlfriend? You have a girlfriend, don’t you?”
   He shook his head. No.
   “Did the shooting have anything to do with sex?”
   No.
   “Talk to me, Tequila, I’m your lawyer. I’m the only person on the planet who’s working right now to help you. Give me something to work with here.”
   “I used to buy drugs from Pumpkin.”
   “Now you’re talking. How long ago?”
   “Couple of years.”
   “Okay. Did he owe you some money or some drugs? Did you owe him something?”
   “No.”
   Clay took a deep breath and for the first time noticed Tequila’s hands. They were nicked with small cuts and swollen so badly that none of the knuckles could be seen. “You fight a lot?”
   Maybe a nod, maybe a shake. “Not anymore.”
   “You once did?”
   “Kid stuff. I fought Pumpkin once.”
   Finally. Clay took another deep breath and raised his pen. “Thank you, sir, for your help. When, exactly, did you have a fight with Pumpkin?” “Long time ago.” “How old were you?” A shrug, one in response to a stupid question. Clay knew from experience that his clients had no concept of time. They got robbed yesterday or they got arrested last month, but probe beyond thirty days and all history melted together. Street life was a struggle to survive today, with no time to reminisce and nothing in the past to get nostalgic over. There was no future so that point of reference was likewise unknown.
   “Kids,” Tequila said, sticking with the one-word answer, probably a habit with or without broken jaws. “How old were you?” “Maybe twelve.” “Were you in school?” “Playing basketball.” “Was it a nasty fight, cuts and broken bones and such?” “No. Big dudes broke it up.”
   Clay laid the receiver down for a moment and summarized his defense. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client shot Mr. Pumphrey (who was unarmed) five or six times at point-blank range in a dirty alley with a stolen gun for two reasons; first, he recognized him, and second, they had a playground shoving match about eight years ago. May not sound like much, ladies and gentlemen, but all of us know that in Washington, D.C., those two reasons are as good as any.
   Into the receiver again, he asked, “Did you see Pumpkin often?”
   “No.”
   “When was the last time you saw him before he got shot?”
   A shrug. Back to the time problem.
   “Did you see him once a week?”
   “No.”
   “Once a month?”
   “No.”
   “Twice a year?”
   “Maybe.”
   “When you saw him two days ago, did you argue with him? Help me here, Tequila, I’m working too hard for details.”
   “We didn’t argue.”
   “Why did you go into the alley?”
   Tequila laid down the receiver and began moving his head back I and forth, very slowly, to work out some kinks. He was obviously in pain. The handcuffs appeared to be cutting into his skin. When he picked up the receiver again he said, “I’ll tell you the truth. I had a gun, and I wanted to shoot somebody. Anybody, it didn’t matter. I left the Camp and just started walking, going nowhere, looking for somebody to shoot. I almost got a Korean dude outside his store, but there were too many people around. I saw Pumpkin. I knew him. We talked for a minute. I said I had some rock if he wanted a hit. We went to the alley. I shot the boy. I don’t know why. I just wanted to kill somebody.”
   When it was clear the narrative was over, Clay asked, “What is the Camp?” “Rehab place. That’s where I was staying.” “How long had you been there?” Time again. But the answer was a great surprise.
   “Hundred and fifteen days.” “You had been clean for a hundred and fifteen days?” “Yep.” “Were you clean when you shot Pumpkin?” “Yep. Still am. Hundred and sixteen days.” “You ever shot anybody before?” “No.” “Where’d you get the gun?” “Stole it from my cousin’s house.” “Is the Camp a lockdown place?” “Yes.” “Did you escape?” “I was getting two hours. After a hundred days, you can go out for two hours, then go back in.”
   “So you walked out of the Camp, went to your cousin’s house, stole a gun, then began walking the streets looking for someone to shoot, and you found Pumpkin?”
   Tequila was nodding by the end of the sentence. “That’s what happened. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
   There was possibly some moisture in the red right eye of Tequila, perhaps brought on by guilt and remorse, but Clay could not be certain. He pulled some papers out of his briefcase and slid them through the opening. “Sign these by the red check marks. I’ll come back in a couple of days.”
   Tequila ignored the papers. “What’s gonna happen to me?” he asked.
   “Well talk about it later.”
   “When can I get out?”
   “It might be a long time.”

4

   The people who ran Deliverance Camp saw no need to hide from the problems. They made no effort to get away from the war zone from which they took their casualties. No quiet facility in the country. No secluded clinic in a better part of town. Their campers came from the streets and they would go back to the streets.
   The Camp faced W Street in N.W., within view of a row of boarded-up duplexes that were sometimes used by crack dealers. Within plain sight was the notorious empty lot of an old gas station. Here drug peddlers met their wholesalers and did their exchanges regardless of who might be looking. According to unofficial police records, the lot had produced more bullet-laden corpses than any other piece of turf in D.C.
   Clay drove slowly down W Street, doors locked, hands clutching the wheel, eyes cutting in all directions, ears awaiting the inevitable sound of gunfire. A white boy in this ghetto was an irresistible target, regardless of the time of day.
   D Camp was an ancient warehouse, long abandoned by whoever last used it for storage, condemned by the city, then auctioned off for a few dollars to a nonprofit that somehow saw potential. It was a hulking structure, the red brick spray-painted maroon from sidewalk to roof, with the lower levels repainted by the neighborhood graffiti specialists. It rambled down the street then back an entire city block. All the doors and windows along the sides had been cemented shut and painted, so that fencing and razor wire were not needed. Anyone wishing to escape would need a hammer, a chisel, and a hard day of uninterrupted labor.
   Clay parked his Honda Accord directly in front of the building and debated whether to race away or get out. There was a small sign above a set of thick double doors:


Deliverance Camp.
Private

   No trespassing. As if someone could wander inside, or want to. There was the usual collection of street characters loitering about: some young toughs no doubt hauling drugs and enough assault weapons to hold off the police, a couple of winos staggering in tandem, what appeared to be family members waiting to visit those inside D Camp. His job had led him to most of the undesirable places in D.C., and he had grown proficient at acting as though he had no fear. I’m a lawyer. I’m here on business. Get out of my way. Don’t speak to me. In nearly five years with OPD, he had yet to be shot at.
   He locked the Accord and left it at the curb. While doing so he sadly admitted to himself that few if any of the thugs on this street would be attracted to his little car. It was twelve years old and pushing two hundred thousand miles. Take it, he said.
   He held his breath and ignored the curious stares from the sidewalk gang. There’s not another white face within two miles of here, he thought. He pushed a button by the doors and a voice cracked through the intercom. “Who is it?”
   “My name is Clay Carter. I’m a lawyer. I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Talmadge X.” He said the name clearly, still certain that it was a mistake. On the phone he had asked the secretary how to spell Mr. X’s last name, and she said, quite rudely, that it was not a last name at all. What was it? It was an X. Take it or leave it. It wasn’t about to change.
   “Just a minute,” the voice said, and Clay began to wait. He stared at the doors, trying desperately to ignore everything around him. He was aware of movement off to his left side, something close.
   “Say, man, you a lawyer?” came the question, a high-pitched young black male voice, loud enough for everyone to hear.
   Clay turned and looked into the funky sunshades of his tormentor. “Yep,” he said, as coolly as possible.
   “You ain’t no lawyer,” the young man said. A small gang was forming behind him, all gawking.
   “Afraid so,” Clay said.
   “Can’t be no lawyer, man.”
   “No way,” said one of the gang.
   “You sure you’re a lawyer?”
   “Yep,” Clay said, playing along.
   “If you a lawyer, why you drivin’ a shit car like that?”
   Clay wasn’t sure which hurt more—the laughter from the sidewalk or the truth of the statement. He made matters worse.
   “My wife drives the Mercedes,” he said, a bad attempt at humor.
   “You ain’t got no wife. You ain’t got no wedding ring.”
   What else have they noticed? Clay asked himself. They were still laughing when one of the doors clicked and opened. He managed to step casually inside instead of diving for safety. The reception area was a bunker with a concrete floor, cinderblock walls, metal doors, no windows, low ceiling, a few lights, everything but sandbags and weapons. Behind a long government-issue table was a receptionist answering two phones. Without looking up she said, “He’ll be just a minute.”
   Talmadge X was a wiry, intense man of about fifty, not an ounce of fat on his narrow frame, not a hint of a smile on his wrinkled and aged face. His eyes were large and wounded, scarred by decades on the streets. He was very black and his clothes were very white—heavily starched cotton shirt and dungarees. Black combat boots shined to perfection. His head was shined too, not a trace of hair.
   He pointed to the only chair in his makeshift office, and he closed the door. “You got paperwork?” he asked abruptly. Evidently, small talk was not one of his talents.
   Clay handed over the necessary documents, all bearing the indecipherable handcuffed scrawl of Tequila Watson. Talmadge X read every word on every page. Clay noticed he did not wear a watch, nor did he like clocks. Time had been left at the front door.
   “When did he sign these?”
   “They’re dated today. I saw him about two hours ago at the jail.”
   “And you’re his counsel of record?” Talmadge X asked. “Officially?”
   The man had been through the criminal justice system more than once. “Yes. Appointed by the court, assigned by the Office of the Public Defender.”
   “Glenda still there?”
   “Yes.”
   “We go way back.” It was as close to chitchat as they would get.
   “Did you know about the shooting?” Clay asked, taking a legal pad to write on from his briefcase.
   “Not until you called an hour ago. We knew he left Tuesday and didn’t come back, knew something was wrong, but then we expect things to go wrong.” His words were slow and precise, his eyes blinked often but never strayed. “Tell me what happened.”
   “This is all confidential, right?” Clay said.
   “I’m his counselor. I’m also his minister. You’re his lawyer. Everything said in this room stays in this room. Deal?”
   “Right.”
   Clay gave the details he’d collected so far, including Tequila’s version of events. Technically, ethically, he was not supposed to reveal to anyone statements made to him by his client. But who would really care? Talmadge X knew far more about Tequila Watson than Clay would ever learn.
   As the narrative went on and the events unfolded in front of Talmadge X, his stare finally broke and he closed his eyes. He tilted his head upward, to the ceiling, as if he wanted to ask God why this happened. He drifted away, deep in thought and deeply troubled.
   When Clay finished, Talmadge X said, “What can I do?”
   “I’d like to see his file. He’s given me authorization.”
   The file was lying squarely on the desk in front of Talmadge X. “Later,” he said. “But let’s talk first. What do you want to know?”
   “Let’s start with Tequila. Where’d he come from?”
   The stare was back, Talmadge was ready to help. “The streets, same place they all come from. He was referred by Social Service, because he was a hopeless case. No family to speak of. Never knew his father. Mother died of AIDS when he was three. Raised by an aunt or two, passed around the family, foster homes here and there, in and out of court and juvenile homes. Dropped out of school. Typical case for us. Are you familiar with D Camp?”
   “No.”
   “We get the hard cases, the permanent junkies. We lock ‘em down for months, give ‘em a boot camp environment. There are eight of us here, eight counselors, and we’re all addicts, once an addict always an addict, but you must know that. Four of us are now ministers. I served thirteen years for drugs and robbery, then I found Jesus. Anyway, we specialize in the young crack addicts nobody else can help.”
   “Only crack?”
   “Crack’s the drug, man. Cheap, plentiful, takes your mind off life for a few minutes. Once you start it you can’t quit.”
   “He couldn’t tell me much about his criminal record.”
   Talmadge X opened the file and flipped pages. “That’s probably because he doesn’t remember much. Tequila was stoned for years. Here it is; bunch of petty stuff when he was a juvenile, robbery, stolen cars, the usual stuff we all did so we could buy drugs. At eighteen he did four months for shoplifting. Got him for possession last year, three months there. Not a bad record for one of us. Nothing violent.”
   “How many felonies?”
   “I don’t see one.”
   “I guess that’ll help,” Clay said. “In some way.”
   “Sounds like nothing will help.”
   “I’m told there were at least two eyewitnesses. I’m not optimistic.”
   “Has he confessed to the cops?”
   “No. They’ve told me that he clammed up when they caught him and has said nothing.”
   “That’s rare.”
   “It is,” Clay said.
   “Sounds like life with no parole,” said Talmadge X, the voice of experience.
   “You got it.”
   “That’s not the end of the world for us, you know, Mr. Carter. In many ways, life in prison is better than life on these streets. I got lots of pals who prefer it. Sad thing is, Tequila was one of the few who could’ve made it.”
   “Why is that?”
   “Kid’s got a brain. Once we got him cleaned up and healthy, he felt so good about himself. For the first time in his adult life, he was sober. He couldn’t read so we taught him. He liked to draw so we encouraged art. We never get excited around here, but Tequila made us proud. He was even thinking about changing his name, for obvious reasons.”
   “You never get excited?”
   “We lose sixty-six percent, Mr. Carter. Two thirds. We get ‘em in here, sick as dogs, stoned, their bodies and brains cooked on crack, malnourished, even starving, skin rashes, hair falling out, the sickest junkies D.C. can produce, and we fatten ‘em up, dry ‘em out, lock ‘em down in basic training where they’re up at six A.M. scrubbing their rooms and waiting on inspection, breakfast at six-thirty, then nonstop brainwashing from a tough group of counselors who’ve all been exactly where they’ve been, no bullshit, pardon my language, don’t even try to con us because we’re all cons ourselves. After a month they’re clean and they’re very proud. They don’t miss the outside world because there’s nothing good waiting for them—no jobs, no families, nobody loves them. They’re easy to brainwash, and we are relentless. After three months we might, depending on the patient, start easing them back onto the street for an hour or two a day. Nine out of ten return, anxious to get back into their little rooms. We keep them for a year, Mr. Carter. Twelve months, not a day less. We try to educate them some, maybe a little job training with computers. We work hard at finding them jobs. They graduate, we all have a good cry. They leave, and within a year two thirds of them are doing crack again and headed for the gutter.”
   “Do you take them back?”
   “Rarely. If they know they can come back, then they’re more likely to screw up.”
   “What happens to the other third?”
   “That’s why we’re here, Mr. Carter. That’s why I’m a counselor. Those folks, like me, survive in the world, and they do it with a toughness no one else understands. We’ve been to hell and back and it’s an ugly road. Many of our survivors work with other addicts.”
   “How many people can you house at one time?”
   “We have eighty beds, all full. We have room for twice that many, but there’s never enough money.”
   “Who funds you?”
   “Eighty percent federal grants, and there’s no guarantee from year to year. The rest we beg from private foundations. We’re too busy to raise a lot of money.”
   Clay turned a page and made a note. “There’s not a single family member I can talk to?”
   Talmadge X shuffled through the file, shaking his head. “Maybe an aunt somewhere, but don’t expect much. Even if you found one, how could she help you?”
   “She can’t. But it’s nice to have a family member to contact.”
   Talmadge X kept flipping through the file as if he had something in mind. Clay suspected he was looking for notes or entries to be removed before it was handed over.
   “When can I see that?” Clay asked.
   “How about tomorrow? I’d like to review it first.”
   Clay shrugged. If Talmadge X said tomorrow, then it would be tomorrow. “All right, Mr. Carter, I don’t get his motive. Tell me why.”
   “I can’t. You tell me. You’ve known him for almost four months. No history of violence or guns. No propensity for fighting. Sounds like he was the model patient. You’ve seen it all. You tell me why.”
   “I’ve seen everything,” Talmadge X said, his eyes even sadder than before. “But I’ve never seen this. The boy was afraid of violence. We don’t tolerate fighting in here, but boys will be boys, and there are always the little rituals of intimidation. Tequila was one of the weak ones. There’s no way he would leave here, steal a gun, pick a random victim, and kill him. And there’s no way he would jump on a guy in jail and send him to the hospital. I just don’t believe it.”
   “So what do I tell the jury?”
   “What jury? This is a guilty plea and you know it. He’s gone, off to prison for the rest of his life. I’m sure he knows plenty of folk there.”
   There was a long gap in the conversation, a break that seemed not to bother Talmadge X in the least. He closed the file and shoved it away. The meeting was about to be over. But Clay was the visitor. It was time to leave.
   “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “What time?”
   “After ten o’clock,” Talmadge X said. “I’ll walk you out.”
   “It’s not necessary,” Clay said, delighted with the escort.
   The gang had grown and appeared to be waiting for the lawyer to exit D Camp. They were sitting and leaning on the Accord, which was still there and still in one piece. Whatever fun they’d planned was quickly forgotten at the sight of Talmadge X. With a quick jerk of his head he scattered the gang, and Clay sped away, untouched and dreading his return the next day.
   He drove eight blocks and found Lamont Street, then the corner of Georgia Avenue, where he stopped for a moment for a quick look around. There was no shortage of alleys in which one might shoot someone, and he was not about to go looking for blood. The neighborhood was as desolate as the one he’d just left. He’d come back later with Rodney, a black paralegal who knew the streets, and they’d poke around and ask questions.

5

   The Potomac Country Club in McLean, Virginia, was established a hundred years earlier by some wealthy people who’d been snubbed by the other country clubs. Rich folks can tolerate almost anything, but not rejection. The outcasts pumped their considerable resources into Potomac and built the finest club in the D.C. area. They picked off a few Senators from rival clubs and enticed other trophy members, and before long Potomac had bought respectability. Once it had enough members to sustain itself, it began the obligatory practice of excluding others. Though it was still known as a new country club, it looked and felt and acted like all the rest.
   It did, however, differ in one significant way. Potomac had never denied the fact that its memberships could be bought outright if a person had enough money. Forget waiting lists and screening committees and secret votes by the admissions board. If you were new to D.C., or if you suddenly struck it rich, then status and prestige could be obtained overnight if your check was large enough. As a result, Potomac had the nicest golf course, tennis facilities, pools, clubhouses, dining room, everything an ambitious country club could want.
   As far as Clay could tell, Bennett Van Horn had written the big check. Regardless of which cloud of smoke he was blowing at the moment, Clay’s parents did not have money and certainly would not have been accepted at Potomac. His father had sued Bennett eighteen years earlier over a bad real estate deal in Alexandria. At the time, Bennett was a big-talking Realtor with lots of debts and very few unencumbered assets. He was not a member of the Potomac Country Club then, though he now acted as if he’d been born there.
   Bennett the Bulldozer struck gold in the late eighties when he invaded the rolling hills of the Virginia countryside. Deals fell into place. Partners were found. He didn’t invent the slash-and-burn style of suburban development, but he certainly perfected it. On pristine hills he built malls. Near a hallowed battleground, he built a subdivision. He leveled an entire village for one of his planned developments—apartments, condos, big houses, small houses, a park in the center with a shallow muddy pond and two tennis courts, a quaint little shopping district that looked nice in the architect’s office but never got built. Ironically, though irony was lost on Bennett, he named his cookie-cutter projects after the landscape he was destroying—Rolling Meadows, Whispering Oaks, Forest Hills, etcetera. He joined other sprawl artists and lobbied the state legislature in Richmond for more money for more roads so more subdivisions could be thrown up and more traffic created. In doing so, he became a figure in the political game, and his ego swelled.
   In the early nineties, his BVH Group grew rapidly, with revenues increasing at a slightly faster rate than loan payments. He and his wife, Barb, bought a home in a prestigious section of McLean. They joined the Potomac Country Club and became fixtures. They worked hard at creating the illusion that they had always had money.
   In 1994, according to the SEC filings that Clay had studied diligently and kept copies of, Bennett decided to take his company public and raise $200 million. He planned to use the money to retire some debt, but, more important, to ”... invest in the unlimited future of Northern Virginia.” In other words, more bulldozers, more slash-and-burn developments. The thought of Bennett Van Horn with that kind of cash no doubt thrilled the local Caterpillar dealers. And it should have horrified the local governments, but they were asleep.
   With a blue-chip investment banker leading the way, BVHG stock roared out of the blocks at $10 a share and peaked at $16.50, not a bad run but far short of what its founder and CEO had predicted. A week before the public offering he had boasted in the Daily Profit, a local business tabloid, that ”... the boys on Wall Street are sure it’ll hit forty bucks a share.” In the Over the Counter market, the stock floated back to earth and landed with a thud in the $6.00 range. Bennett had unwisely refused to dump some stock like all good entrepreneurs do. He held on to all of his four million shares and watched as his market value went from sixty-six million to almost nothing.
   Every weekday morning, just for the sheer fun of it, Clay checked the price of one stock and one stock only. BVHG was currently trading at $0.87 per share.
   “How’s your stock doing?” was the great slap-in-the-face Clay’d never had the nerve to use.
   “Maybe tonight,” he mumbled to himself as he drove into the entrance of the Potomac Country Club. Since there was a potential marriage in the near future, Clay’s shortcomings were fair game around the dinner table. But not Mr. Van Horn’s. “Hey, congratulations, Bennett, the stock has moved up twelve cents in the past two months,” he said out loud. “Kicking ass, aren’t you, old boy! Time for another Mercedes?” All the things he wanted to say.
   To avoid the tip associated with valet parking, Clay hid his Accord in a distant lot behind some tennis courts. As he hiked to the clubhouse he straightened his tie and continued his mumbling. He hated the place—hated it for all the assholes who were members, hated it because he could not join, hated it because it was the Van Horns’ turf and they wanted him to feel like a trespasser. For the hundredth time that day, as every day, he asked himself why he’d fallen in love with a girl whose parents were so insufferable. If he had a plan, it was to elope with Rebecca and move to New Zealand, far from the Office of the Public Defender, and as far away as possible from her family.
   The gaze from the frosty hostess told him, I know you are not a member, but I’ll take you to your table anyway. “Follow me,” she said with the slight makings of a fake smile. Clay said nothing. He swallowed hard, looked straight ahead, and tried to ignore the heavy knot in his stomach. How was he supposed to enjoy a meal in such surroundings? He and Rebecca had eaten there twice—once with Mr. and Mrs. Van Horn, once without. The food was expensive and quite good, but then Clay lived on processed turkey so his standards were low and he knew it.
   Bennett was absent. Clay gently hugged Mrs. Van Horn, a ritual both of them disliked, then offered a rather pathetic, “Happy Birthday.” He pecked Rebecca on the cheek. It was a good table, one with a sweeping view of the eighteenth green, a very prestigious spot to eat because one could watch the geezers wallow in the sand traps and miss their two-foot putts.
   “Where’s Mr. Van Horn?” Clay asked, hoping he was stuck out of town, or better yet, hospitalized with some grave ailment.
   “He’s on his way,” Rebecca said.
   “He spent the day in Richmond, meeting with the Governor,” added Mrs. Van Horn, for good measure. They were relentless. Clay wanted to say, “You win! You win! You’re more important than I am!”
   “What’s he working on?” he asked politely, once again astounded at his ability to sound sincere. Clay knew exactly why the Bulldozer was in Richmond. The state was broke and could not afford to build new roads in Northern Virginia, where Bennett and his ilk demanded that they be built. The votes were in Northern Virginia. The legislature was considering a local referendum on sales taxes so the cities and counties around D.C. could build their own highways. More roads, more condos, more malls, more traffic, more money for an ailing BVHG.
   “Political stuff,” Barb said. In truth, she probably didn’t know what her husband and the Governor were discussing. Clay doubted if she knew the current price of BVHG stock. She knew the days her bridge club met and she knew how little money Clay earned, but most other details were left to Bennett.
   “How was your day?” Rebecca asked, gently but quickly steering the conversation away from politics. Clay had used the word sprawl two or three times when debating issues with her parents and things had become tense.
   “The usual,” he said. “And you?”
   “We have hearings tomorrow, so the office was hopping today.”
   “Rebecca tells me you have another murder case,” Barb said.
   “Yes, that’s true,” Clay said, wondering what other aspects of his job as a public defender they had been talking about. Each had a glass of white wine sitting before her. Each glass was at least half-empty. He had walked in on a discussion, probably about him. Or was he being unduly sensitive? Perhaps.
   “Who’s your client?” Barb asked.
   “A kid from the streets.”
   “Who did he kill?”
   “The victim was another kid from the streets.”
   This relieved her somewhat. Blacks killing blacks. Who cared if they all killed each other? “Did he do it?” she asked.
   “As of now he is presumed to be innocent. That’s the way it works.”
   “In other words, he did it.”
   “It sort of looks that way.”
   “How can you defend people like that? If you know they’re guilty, how can you work so hard trying to get them off?”
   Rebecca took a large gulp of wine and decided to sit this one out. She had been coming to his rescue less and less in recent months. A nagging thought was that, while life would be magical with her, it would be a nightmare with them. The nightmares were winning.
   “Our Constitution guarantees everyone a lawyer and a fair trial,” he said condescendingly, as if every fool should know this. “I’m just doing my job.”
   Barb rolled her new eyes and looked at the eighteenth green. Many of the ladies at Potomac had been using a plastic surgeon whose specialty, evidently, was the Asian look. After the second session the eyes strained backward at the corners, and, while wrinkle-free, were grossly artificial. Ol’ Barb had been nipped and tucked and Botoxed without a long-range plan, and the transition simply was not working.
   Rebecca took another long pull on the wine. The first time they had eaten there with her parents she had kicked off a shoe under the table and run her toes up and down his leg, as if to say, “Let’s blow this joint and hop in the sack.” But not tonight. She was icy and seemed preoccupied. Clay knew she wasn’t worrying about whatever meaningless hearings she would suffer through tomorrow. There were issues here, just under the surface, and he wondered if this dinner might be a showdown, a powwow with the future on the line.
   Bennett arrived in a rush, full of bogus apologies for being late. He slapped Clay on the back as if they were fraternity brothers, and kissed his girls on the cheeks.
   “How’s the Governor?” Barb asked, loud enough for the diners across the room to hear.
   “Great. He sends his best. The President of Korea is in town next week. The Guv has invited us to a black-tie gala at the mansion.” This too was offered at full volume.
   “Oh really!” Barb gushed, her redone face erupting into a contortion of delight.
   Should feel right at home with the Koreans, Clay thought.
   “Should be a blast,” Bennett said as he pulled a collection of cell phones from his pocket and lined them up on the table. A few seconds behind him came a waiter with a double Scotch, Chivas with a little ice, the usual.
   Clay ordered an ice tea.
   “How’s my Congressman?” Bennett yelled across the table to Rebecca, then cut his eyes to the right to make sure the couple at the next table had heard him. I have my very own Congressman!
   “He’s fine, Daddy. He sends his regards. He’s very busy.”
   “You look tired, honey, a tough day?”
   “Not bad.”
   The three Van Horns took a sip. Rebecca’s fatigue was a favorite topic between her parents. They felt she worked too hard. They felt she shouldn’t work at all. She was pushing thirty and it was time to marry a fine young man with a well-paying job and a bright future so she could bear their grandchildren and spend the rest of her life at the Potomac Country Club.
   Clay would not have been too concerned with whatever the hell they wanted, except that Rebecca had the same dreams. She had once talked of a career in public service, but after four years on the Hill she was fed up with bureaucracies. She wanted a husband and babies and a large home in the suburbs.
   Menus were passed around. Bennett got a call and rudely handled it at the table. Some deal was falling through. The future of America’s financial freedom hung in the balance.
   “What should I wear?” Barb asked Rebecca as Clay hid behind his menu.
   “Something new,” Rebecca said.
   “You’re right,” Barb readily agreed. “Let’s go shopping Saturday.”
   “Good idea.”
   Bennett saved the deal, and they ordered. He graced them with the details of the phone call—a bank was not moving fast enough, he had to light a fire, blah, blah. This went on until the salads arrived.
   After a few bites, Bennett said, with his mouth full, as usual, “While I was down in Richmond, I had lunch with my close friend Ian Ludkin, Speaker of the House. You’d really like this guy, Clay, a real prince of a man. A perfect Virginia gentleman.”
   Clay chewed and nodded as if he couldn’t wait to meet all of Bennett’s good friends.
   “Anyway, Ian owes me some favors, most of them do down there, and so I just popped the question.”
   It took Clay a second to realize that the women had stopped eating. Their forks were at rest as they watched and listened with anticipation.
   “What question?” Clay asked because it seemed that they were expecting him to say something.
   “Well, I told him about you, Clay. Bright young lawyer, sharp as a tack, hard worker, Georgetown Law School, handsome young man with real character, and he said he was always looking for new talent. God knows it’s hard to find. Said he has an opening for a staff attorney. I said I had no idea if you’d be interested, but I’d be happy to run it by you. Whatta you think?”
   I think I’m being ambushed, Clay almost blurted.
   Rebecca was staring at him, watching closely for the first reaction.
   According to the script, Barb said, “That sounds wonderful.”
   Talented, bright, hardworking, well educated, even handsome. Clay was amazed at how fast his stock had risen. “That’s interesting,” he said, somewhat truthfully. Every aspect of it was interesting.
   Bennett was ready to pounce. He, of course, held the advantage of surprise. “It’s a great position. Fascinating work. You’ll meet the real movers and shakers down there. Never a dull moment. Lots of long hours, though, at least when the legislature is in session, but I told Ian that you had broad shoulders. Pile on the responsibilities.”
   “What, exactly, would I be doing?” Clay managed to get out.
   “Oh, I don’t know all that lawyer stuff. But, if you’re interested, Ian said he’d be happy to arrange an interview. It’s a hot ticket, though. He said the resumes were flooding in. Gotta move quick.”
   “Richmond’s not that far away,” Barb said.
   It’s a helluva lot closer than New Zealand, Clay thought. Barb was already planning the wedding. He couldn’t read Rebecca. At times she felt strangled by her parents, but rarely showed any desire to get away from them. Bennett used his money, if indeed he had any left, as a carrot to keep both daughters close to home.
   “Well, uh, thanks, I guess,” Clay said, collapsing under the weight of his newly bestowed broad shoulders.
   “Starting salary is ninety-four thousand a year,” Bennett said, an octave or two lower so the other diners couldn’t hear.
   Ninety-four thousand dollars was more than twice as much as Clay was currently earning, and he assumed that everyone at the table knew it. The Van Horns worshiped money and were obsessed with salaries and net worths.
   “Wow,” Barb said, on cue.
   “That’s a nice salary,” Clay admitted.
   “Not a bad start,” Bennett said. “Ian says you’ll meet the big lawyers in town. Contacts are everything. Do it a few years, and you’ll be able to write your own ticket in corporate law. That’s where the big money is, you know.”
   It was not comforting to know that Bennett Van Horn had suddenly taken an interest in planning the rest of Clay’s life. The planning, of course, had nothing to do with Clay, and everything to do with Rebecca.
   “How can you say no?” Barb said, prodding with two left feet.
   “Don’t push, Mother,” Rebecca said.
   “It’s just such a wonderful opportunity,” Barb said, as if Clay couldn’t see the obvious.
   “Kick it around, sleep on it,” Bennett said. The gift had been delivered. Let’s see if the boy is smart enough to take it.
   Clay was devouring his salad with a new purpose. He nodded as if he couldn’t speak. The second Scotch arrived and broke up the moment. Bennett then shared the latest gossip from Richmond about the possibility of a new professional baseball franchise for the D.C. area, one of his favorite topics. He was on the fringes of one of three investment groups jockeying for the franchise, if and when one was ever approved, and he thrived on knowing the latest developments.
   According to a recent article in the Post, Bennett’s group was in third place and losing ground by the month. Their finances were unclear, downright shaky, according to one unnamed source, and throughout the article the name of Bennett Van Horn was never mentioned. Clay knew he had enormous debts. Several of his developments had been stalled by environmental groups trying to preserve whatever land was left in Northern Virginia. He had lawsuits raging against former partners. His stock was practically worthless. Yet there he sat slugging down Scotch and yapping away about a new stadium for $400 million and a franchise fee of $200 million and a payroll of at least $100 million.
   Their steaks arrived just when the salads were finished, thus sparing Clay another tortured moment of conversation with nothing to stuff in his mouth. Rebecca was ignoring him and he was certainly ignoring her. The fight would come very soon.
   There were stories about the Guv, a close personal friend who was putting his machine in place to run for the Senate and of course he wanted Bennett in the middle of things. A couple of his hottest deals were revealed. There was talk of a new airplane, but this had been going on for some time and Bennett just couldn’t find the one he wanted. The meal seemed to last for two hours, but only ninety minutes had passed when they declined dessert and started wrapping things up.
   Clay thanked Bennett and Barb for the food and promised again to move quickly on the job down in Richmond. “The chance of a lifetime,” Bennett said gravely. “Don’t screw it up.”
   When Clay was certain they were gone, he asked Rebecca to step into the bar for a minute. They waited for their drinks to arrive before either spoke. When things were tense both had the tendency to wait for the other to fire first.
   “I didn’t know about the job in Richmond,” she began.
   “I find that hard to believe. Seems like the entire family was in on the deal. Your mother certainly knew about it.”
   “My father is just concerned about you, that’s all.”
   Your father is an idiot, he wanted to say. “No, he’s concerned about you. Can’t have you marrying a guy with no future, so he’ll just manage the future for us. Don’t you think it’s presumptuous to decide he doesn’t like my job so he’ll find me another one?”
   “Maybe he’s just trying to help. He loves the favors game.”
   “But why does he assume I need help?”
   “Maybe you do.”
   “I see. Finally the truth.”
   “You can’t work there forever, Clay. You’re good at what you do and you care about your clients, but maybe it’s time to move on. Five years at OPD is a long time. You’ve said so yourself.”
   “Maybe I don’t want to live in Richmond. Perhaps I’ve never thought about leaving D.C. What if I don’t want to work under one of your father’s cronies? Suppose the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of local politicians does not appeal to me? I’m a lawyer, Rebecca, not a paper pusher.”
   “Fine. Whatever.”
   “Is this job an ultimatum?”
   “In what way?”
   “In every way. What if I say no?”
   “I think you’ve already said no, which, by the way, is pretty typical. A snap decision.”
   “Snap decisions are easy when the choice is obvious. I’ll find my own jobs, and I certainly didn’t ask your father to call in a favor. But what happens if I say no?”
   “Oh, I’m sure the sun will come up.”
   “And your parents?”
   “I’m sure they’ll be disappointed.”
   “And you?”
   She shrugged and sipped her drink. Marriage had been discussed on several occasions but no agreement had been reached. There was no engagement, certainly no timetable. If one wanted out, there was sufficient wiggle room, though it would be a tight squeeze. But after four years of (1) dating no one else, and (2) continually reaffirming their love for each other, and (3) having sex at least five times a week, the relationship was headed toward permanent status.
   However, she was not willing to admit the truth that she wanted a break from her career, and a husband and a family and then maybe no career at all. They were still competing, still playing the game of who was more important. She could not admit that she wanted a husband to support her.
   “I don’t care, Clay,” she said. “It’s just a job offer, not a Cabinet appointment. Say no if you want to.”
   “Thank you.” And suddenly he felt like a jerk. What if Bennett had simply been trying to help? He disliked her parents so much that everything they did irked him. That was his problem, wasn’t it? They had the right to be worried about their daughter’s future mate, the father of their grandchildren.
   And, Clay grudgingly admitted, who wouldn’t be worried about him as a son-in-law?
   “I’d like to go,” she said.
   “Sure.”
   He followed her out of the club and watched her from the rear, almost suggesting that he had time to run by her apartment for a quick session. But her mood said no, and, given the tone of the evening, she would thoroughly enjoy a flat rejection. Then he would feel like a fool who couldn’t control himself, which was exactly what he was at these times. So he dug deep, clenched his jaws together, and let the moment pass.
   As he helped her into her BMW, she whispered, “Why don’t you stop by for a few minutes?”
   Clay sprinted to his car.

6

   He felt somewhat safer with Rodney, plus 9 A.M. was too early for the dangerous types on Lamont Street. They were still sleeping off whatever poison they had consumed the night before. The merchants were slowly coming to life. Clay parked near the alley.
   Rodney was a career paralegal with OPD. He’d been enrolled in night law school off and on for a decade and still talked of one day getting his degree and passing the bar. But with four teenagers at home both money and time were scarce. Because he came from the streets of D.C. he knew them well. Part of his daily routine was a request from an OPD lawyer, usually one who was white and frightened and not very experienced, to accompany him or her into the war zones to investigate some heinous crime. He was a paralegal, not an investigator, and he declined as often as he said yes.
   But he never said no to Clay. The two had worked closely together on many cases. They found the spot in the alley where Ramon had fallen and inspected the surrounding area carefully, with full knowledge that the police had already combed the place several times. They shot a roll of film, then went looking for witnesses.
   There were none, and this was not surprising. By the time Clay and Rodney had been on the scene for fifteen minutes, word had spread. Strangers were on-site, prying into the latest killing, so lock the doors and say nothing. The liquor store-milk crate witnesses, both men who spent many hours every day in the same spot sipping cheap wine and missing nothing, were long gone and no one had ever known them. The merchants seemed surprised that there had been a shooting at all. “Around here?” one asked, as if crime had yet to reach his ghetto.
   After an hour, they left and headed for D Camp. As Clay drove, Rodney sipped cold coffee from a tall paper cup. Bad coffee, from the look on his face. “Jermaine got a similar case a few days ago,” he said. “Kid in rehab, locked down for a few months, got out somehow, don’t know if he escaped or was released, but within twenty-four hours he’d picked up a gun and shot two people, one died.”
   “At random?”
   “What’s random around here? Two guys in cars with no insurance have a fender bender and they start shooting at each other. Is that random, or is it justified?”
   “Was it drugs, robbery, self-defense?”
   “Random, I think.”
   “Where was the rehab place?” Clay asked.
   “It wasn’t D Camp. Some joint near Howard, I think. I haven’t seen the file. You know how slow Jermaine is.”
   “So you’re not working the file?”
   “No. Heard it through the grapevine.”
   Rodney controlled the grapevine rumors and gossip and knew more about OPD lawyers and their caseloads than Glenda, the Director. As they turned on W Street, Clay said, “You been to D Camp before?”
   “Once or twice. It’s for the hard cases, the last stop before the cemetery. Tough place, run by tough guys.”
   “You know a gentleman by the name of Talmadge X?”
   “No.”
   There was no sidewalk circus to wade through. Clay parked in front of the building and they hurried inside. Talmadge X was not in, some emergency had taken him to a hospital. A colleague named Noland introduced himself pleasantly and said he was the head counselor. In his office, at a small table, he showed them Tequila Watson’s file and invited them to look through it. Clay thanked him, certain that it had been purged and cleaned up for his benefit.
   “Our policy is that I stay in the room while you look through the file,” Noland explained. “If you want copies, they’re twenty-five cents each.”
   “Well, sure,” Clay said. The policy was not going to be negotiated. And if he wanted the entire file he could snatch it at any time with a subpoena. Noland took his place behind his desk, where an impressive stack of paperwork was waiting. Clay began leafing through the file. Rodney took notes.
   Tequila’s background was sad and predictable. He had been admitted in January, referred from Social Services after being rescued from an overdose of something. He weighed 121 pounds and was five feet ten inches tall. His medical exam had been conducted at D Camp. He had a slight fever, chills, headaches, not unusual for a junkie. Other than malnourishment, a slight case of the flu, and a body ravaged by drugs, there was nothing else remarkable, according to the doctor. Like all patients, he had been locked down for the first thirty days and fed continually.
   According to entries made by TX, Tequila began his slide at the age of eight when he and his brother stole a case of beer off a delivery truck. They drank half and sold half, and with the proceeds bought a gallon of cheap wine. He’d been kicked out of various schools and somewhere around the age of twelve, about the time he discovered crack, he’d dropped out altogether. Stealing became a way of survival.
   His memory worked until the crack use began, so the last few years were a blur. TX had followed up on the details and there were letters and e-mails confirming some of the official stops along the miserable trail. When he was fourteen, Tequila had spent a month in a substance abuse unit of the D.C. Youth Detention Center. Upon his release, he went straight to a dealer and bargained for crack. Two months in Orchard House, a notorious lockdown facility for teens on crack, did little good. Tequila admitted to TX that he consumed as many drugs inside “OH” as he had on the outside. At sixteen, he was admitted to Clean Streets, a no-nonsense abuse facility very similar to D Camp. A stellar performance there lasted for fifty-three days, then he walked away without a word. TX’s note said ”... was high on crack within 2 hrs. of leaving.” The juvenile court ordered him to a summer boot camp for troubled teens when he was seventeen, but security was leaky and he actually made money selling drugs to his fellow campers. The final effort at sobriety, before D Camp, had been a program at Grayson Church, under the direction of Reverend Jolley, a well-known drug counselor. Jolley sent a letter to Talmadge X in which he expressed the opinion that Tequila was one of those tragic cases that was “probably hopeless.”
   As depressing as the history was, there was a remarkable absence of violence in it. Tequila had been arrested and convicted five times for burglary, once for shoplifting, and twice for misdemeanor possession. Tequila had never used a weapon to commit a crime, at least not one that he had been nabbed for. This had not gone unnoticed by TX, who, in one entry on Day 39 said, ”... has a tendency to avoid even the slightest threat of physical conflict. Seems truly afraid of the bigger ones, and most of the small ones too.”
   On Day 45, he was examined by a physician. His weight was a healthy 138. His skin was clear of ”... abrasions and lesions.” There were notes about his progress in learning to read, and his interest in art. As the days passed, the notes became much shorter. Life inside D Camp was simple and grew to be mundane. Some days passed with no entries at all.
   The entry on Day 80 was different: “He realizes he needs spiritual guidance from above to stay clean. He can’t do it alone. Says he wants to stay in D Camp forever.”
   Day 100: “We celebrated the hundredth day with brownies and ice cream. Tequila made a short speech. He cried. He was awarded a two-hour pass.”
   Day 104: “Two-hour pass. He left, returned in twenty minutes with a popsicle.”
   Day 107: “Sent to the post office, gone almost an hour, returned.”
   Day 110: “Two-hour pass, returned, no problem.”
   The final entry was Day 115: “Two-hour pass, no return.”
   Noland was watching as they neared the end of the file. “Any questions?” he asked, as if they had consumed enough of his time.
   “It’s pretty sad,” Clay said, closing the file with a deep breath. He had lots of questions but none that Noland could, or would, answer.
   “In a world of misery, Mr. Carter, this indeed is one of the saddest. I am rarely moved to tears, but Tequila has made me cry.” Noland was rising to his feet. “Would you like to copy anything?” The meeting was over.
   “Maybe later,” Clay said. They thanked him for his time and followed him to the reception area.
   In the car, Rodney fastened his seat belt and glanced around the neighborhood. Very calmly he said, “Okay, pal, we got us a new friend.”
   Clay was watching the fuel gauge and hoping there was enough gas to get back to the office. “What kinda friend?”
   “See that burgundy Jeep down there, half a block, other side of the street?”
   Clay looked and said, “So what?”
   “There’s a black dude behind the wheel, big guy, wearing a Redskins cap, I think. He’s watching us.”
   Clay strained and could barely see the shape of a driver, race and cap indistinguishable to him. “How do you know he’s watching us?”
   “He was on Lamont Street when we were there, I saw him twice, both times easing by, looking at us but not looking. When we parked here to go in, I saw the Jeep three blocks back that way. Now he’s over there.”
   “How do you know it’s the same Jeep?”
   “Burgundy’s an odd color. See that dent in the front fender, right side?”
   “Yeah, maybe.”
   “Same Jeep, no doubt about it. Let’s go that way, get a closer look.”
   Clay pulled onto the street and drove past the burgundy Jeep. A newspaper flew up in front of the driver. Rodney scribbled down the license plate number.
   “Why would anyone follow us?” Clay asked.
   “Drugs. Always drugs. Maybe Tequila was dealing. Maybe the kid he killed had some nasty friends. Who knows?”
   “I’d like to find out.”
   “Let’s not dig too deep right now. You drive, and I’ll watch our rear.”
   They headed south along Puerto Rico Avenue for thirty minutes and stopped at a gas station near the Anacostia River. Rodney watched every car as Clay pumped fuel. “The tail’s off,” Rodney said when they were moving again. “Let’s go to the office.”
   “Why would they stop following us?” Clay asked. He would have believed any explanation.
   “I’m not sure,” Rodney said, still checking his side mirror. “Could be that they were only curious as to whether we went to D Camp. Or maybe they know that we saw them. Just watch your tail for a while.”
   “This is great. I’ve never been followed before.”
   “Just pray they don’t decide to catch you.”

   Jermaine Vance shared an office with another unseasoned lawyer who happened to be out at the moment, so Clay was offered his vacant chair. They compared notes on their most recent murder defendants.
   Jermaine’s client was a twenty-four-year-old career criminal named Washad Porter, who, unlike Tequila, had a long and frightening history of violence. As a member of D.C.’s largest gang, Washad had been severely wounded twice in gun battles and had been convicted once of attempted murder. Seven of his twenty-four years had been spent behind bars. He had shown little interest in getting cleaned up; the only attempt at rehab had been in prison and had been clearly unsuccessful. He was accused of shooting two people four days before the Ramon Pumphrey killing. One of the two was killed instantly, the other was barely clinging to life.
   Washad had spent six months at Clean Streets, locked down and evidently surviving the rigorous program there. Jermaine had talked to the counselor, and the conversation was very similar to the one Clay had had with Talmadge X. Washad had cleaned up, was a model patient, was in good health, and gathering self-esteem every day. The only bump in the road had been an episode early on when he sneaked out, got stoned, but came back and begged for forgiveness. Then he went almost four months with virtually no problems.
   He was released from Clean Streets in April, and the next day he shot two men with a stolen gun. His victims appeared to have been selected at random. The first was a produce deliveryman going about his business near Walter Reed Hospital. There were words, then some pushing and shoving, then four shots to the head, and Washad was seen running away. The deliveryman was still in a coma. An hour later, six blocks away, Washad used his last two bullets on a petty drug dealer with whom he had a history. He was tackled by friends of the dealer who, instead of killing him themselves, held him for the police.
   Jermaine had talked to Washad once, very briefly, in the courtroom during his initial appearance. “He was in denial,” Jermaine said. “Had this blank look on his face and kept telling me that he couldn’t believe he’d shot anybody. He said that was the old Washad, not the new one.”

7

   Clay could think of only one other occasion in the past four years on which he called, or tried to call, Bennett the Bulldozer. That effort had ended dismally when he’d been unable to penetrate the layers of importance surrounding the great man. Mr. BVH wanted folks to think he spent his time “on the job,” which for him meant out among the earth-moving machinery where he could direct matters and smell up close the unlimited potential of Northern Virginia. In the family’s home there were large photos of him “on the job,” wearing his own custom-made and monogrammed hard hat, pointing here and there as land got leveled and more malls and shopping centers got built. He said he was too busy for idle chatter and claimed to hate telephones, yet always had a supply nearby to take care of business.
   Truth was, Bennett played a lot of golf, and played it badly, according to the father of one of Clay’s law school classmates. Rebecca had let it slip more than once that her father played at least four rounds a week at Potomac, and his secret dream was to win the club championship.
   Mr. Van Horn was a man of action with no patience for life behind a desk. He spent little time there, he claimed. The pit bull who answered “BVH Group” reluctantly agreed to forward Clay on to another secretary deeper inside the company. “Development” the second girl said rudely, as if the company had unlimited divisions. It took at least five minutes to get Bennett’s personal secretary on the phone. “He’s out of the office,” she said.
   “How can I reach him?” Clay asked.
   “He’s on the job.”
   “Yes, I figured that. How can I reach him?”
   “Leave a number and I’ll put it with the rest of his messages,” she said.
   “Oh thank you,” Clay said, and left his office number.
   Thirty minutes later Bennett returned the call. He sounded indoors, perhaps in the Men’s Lounge at the Potomac Country Club, double Scotch in hand, big cigar, a game of gin rummy in progress with the boys. “Clay, how in the world are you?” he asked, as if they hadn’t seen each other in months.
   “Fine, Mr. Van Horn, and you?”
   “Great. Enjoyed dinner last night.” Clay heard no roaring diesel engines in the background, no blasting.
   “Oh yes, it was really nice. Always a pleasure,” Clay lied.
   “What can I do for you, son?”
   “Well, I want you to understand that I really appreciate your efforts to get me that job down in Richmond. I didn’t expect it, and you were very kind to intervene like that.” A pause as Clay swallowed hard. “But truthfully, Mr. Van Horn, I don’t see a move to Richmond in the near future. I’ve always lived in D.C. and this is home.”
   Clay had many reasons to reject the offer. Staying in D.C. was mid-list. The overwhelming motive was toavoid having his life planned by Bennett Van Horn and getting locked into his debt.
   “You can’t be serious,” Van Horn said.
   “Yes, I’m very serious. Thanks, but no thanks.” The last thing Clay planned to do was to take any crap off this jerk. He loved the telephone at these moments; such a wonderful equalizer.
   “A big mistake, son,” Van Horn said. “You just don’t see the big picture, do you?”
   “Maybe I don’t. But I’m not so sure you do either.”
   “You have a lot of pride, Clay, I like that. But you’re also very wet behind the ears. You gotta learn that life is a game of favors, and when someone tries to help you, then you take the favor. One day maybe you’ll get the chance to repay it. You’re making a mistake, here, Clay, one that I’m afraid could have serious consequences.”
   “What kinds of consequences?”
   “This could really affect your future.”
   “Well, it’s my future, not yours. I’ll pick the next job, and the one after that. Right now I’m happy where I am.” “How can you be happy defending criminals all day long? I just don’t get it.” This was not a new conversation, and, if it followed the usual course, things would deteriorate quickly. “I believe you’ve asked that question before. Let’s not go there.”
   “We’re talking about a huge increase in salary, Clay. More money, better work, you’ll be spending your time with solid folks, not a bunch of street punks. Wake up, boy!” There were voices in the background. Wherever Bennett was, he was playing for an audience.
   Clay gritted his teeth and let the “boy” pass. “I’m not going to argue, Mr. Van Horn. I called to say no.”
   “You’d better reconsider.”
   “I’ve already reconsidered. No thanks.”
   “You’re a loser, Clay, you know that. I’ve known it for some time. This just reaffirms it. You’re turning down a promising job so you can stay in a rut and work for minimum wage. You have no ambition, no guts, no vision.”
   “Last night I was a hard worker—had broad shoulders, lots of talent, and I was as sharp as a tack.”
   “I take it back. You’re a loser.”
   “And I was well educated and even handsome.”
   “I was lying. You’re a loser.”
   Clay hung up first. He slammed the phone down with a smile, quite proud that he had so irritated the great Bennett Van Horn. He’d held his ground and sent a clear message that he would not be shoved around by those people.
   He would deal with Rebecca later, and it would not be pleasant.

   Clay’s third and final visit to D Camp was more dramatic than the first two. With Jermaine in the front seat and Rodney in the back, Clay followed a D.C. police car and parked again directly in front of the building. Two cops, both young and black and bored with subpoena work, negotiated their entrance. Within minutes they were in the midst of a tense confrontation with Talmadge X, Noland, and another counselor, a hothead named Samuel.
   Partially because he had the only white face in the crowd, but primarily because he was the lawyer who’d obtained the subpoena, the three counselors focused their wrath on Clay. He could not have cared less. He would never see these people again.
   “You saw the file, man!” Noland yelled at Clay.
   “I saw the file that you wanted me to see,” Clay shot back. “Now I get the rest of it.”
   “What’re you talking about?” Talmadge X asked.
   “I want everything here with Tequila’s name written on it.”
   “You can’t do that.”
   Clay turned to the cop holding the papers and said, “Would you please read the subpoena?”
   The cop held it high for all to see, and read: “All files pertaining to the admission, medical evaluation, medical treatment, substance abatement, substance abuse counseling, rehabilitation, and discharge of Tequila Watson. As ordered by the Honorable F. Floyd Sackman, D.C. Superior Court Criminal Division.”
   “When did he sign it?” Samuel asked.
   “‘Bout three hours ago.”
   “We showed you everything,” Noland said to Clay.
   “I doubt that. I can tell when a file has been rearranged.”
   “Much too neat,” Jermaine added helpfully, finally.
   “We ain’t fighting,” said the larger of the two cops, leaving little doubt that a good fight would be welcome. “Where do we start?”
   “His medical evaluations are confidential,” Samuel said. “The doctor-patient privilege, I believe.”
   It was an excellent point, but slightly off the mark. “The doctor’s files are confidential,” Clay explained. “But not the patient’s. I have a release and waiver signed by Tequila Watson allowing me to see all of his files, including the medicals.”
   They began in a windowless room with mismatched filing cabinets lining the walls. After a few minutes, Talmadge X and Samuel disappeared and the tension began to ease. The cops pulled up chairs and accepted the coffee offered by the receptionist. She did not offer any to the gentlemen from the Office of the Public Defender.
   After an hour of digging, nothing useful had been found. Clay and Jermaine left Rodney to continue the search. They had more cops to meet.
   The raid on Clean Streets was very similar. The two lawyers marched into the front office with two policemen behind them. The Director was dragged out of a meeting. As she read the subpoena she mumbled something about knowing Judge Sackman and dealing with him later. She was very irritated, but the document spoke for itself. The same language—all files and papers relating to Washad Porter.
   “This was not necessary,” she said to Clay. “We always cooperate with attorneys.”
   “That’s not what I hear,” Jermaine said. Indeed, Clean Streets had a reputation for contesting even the most benign requests from OPD.
   When she finished reading the subpoena for the second time, one of the cops said, “We’re not going to wait all day.”
   She led them to a large office and fetched an assistant who began hauling in files. “When do we get these back?” she asked.
   “When we’re finished with them,” Jermaine said.
   “And who keeps them?”
   “The Office of the Public Defender, under lock and key.”

   The romance had begun at Abe’s Place. Rebecca had been in a booth with two girlfriends when Clay walked by en route to the men’s room. Their eyes met, and he actually paused for a second, unsure of exactly what to do next. The girlfriends soon got lost. Clay ditched his drinking pals. They sat together at the bar for two hours and talked nonstop. The first date was the next night. Sex within a week. She kept him away from her parents for two months.
   Now, four years later, things were stale and she was under pressure to move on. It seemed fitting that they would end things at Abe’s Place.
   Clay arrived first and stood at the bar in a crowd of Hill Rats draining their glasses, talking loud and fast and all at once about the crucial issues they had just spent long hours dealing with. He loved D.C., and he hated D.C. He loved its history and energy and importance. And he despised the countless minions who chased themselves in a frenetic game of who was more important. The nearest discussion was a passionate argument about wastewater treatment laws in the Central Plains.
   Abe’s Place was nothing but a watering hole, strategically placed near Capitol Hill to catch the thirsty crowd headed for the suburbs. Great-looking women. Well dressed. Many of them on the prowl. Clay caught a few looks.
   Rebecca was subdued, determined, and cold. They sneaked into a booth and both ordered strong drinks for the ride ahead. He asked some pointless questions about the subcommittee hearings that had begun, amid no fanfare, at least according to the Post. The drinks arrived and they dived in.
   “I talked to my father,” she began.
   “So did I.”
   “Why didn’t you tell me you were not taking the job in Richmond?”
   “Why didn’t you tell me your father was pulling strings to get me a job in Richmond?”
   “You should’ve told me.”
   “I made it clear.”
   “Nothing is clear with you.”
   Both took a drink.
   “Your father called me a loser. Is that the prevailing mood in your family?”
   “At the moment, yes.”
   “Shared by you?”
   “I have my doubts. Someone has to be realistic here.”
   There had been one serious intermission in the romance, a miserable failure at best. About a year earlier they had decided to let things cool off, to remain close friends, but to have a look around, perhaps play the field, make sure there was no one else out there. Barb had engineered the separation because, as Clay found out later, a very rich young man at the Potomac Country Club had just lost his wife to ovarian cancer. Bennett was a close personal friend of the family, etcetera, etcetera. He and Barb laid the trap, but the widower smelled the bait. One month on the fringes of the Van Horn family and the guy bought a place in Wyoming.
   This, however, was a much more severe breakup. This was almost certainly the end. Clay took another drink and promised himself that whatever else was said, he would not, under any circumstances, say something that would hurt her. She could hit below the belt if she wanted. He would not.
   “What do you want, Rebecca?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “Yes you do. Do you want out?”
   “I think so,” she said, and her eyes were instantly wet. < “Is there someone else?”
   “No.”
   Not yet anyway. Just give Barb and Bennett a few days.
   “It’s just that you’re going nowhere, Clay,” she said. “You’re smart and talented, but you have no ambition.”
   “Gee, it’s nice to know I’m smart and talented again. A few hours ago I was a loser.”
   “Are you trying to be funny?”
   “Why not, Rebecca? Why not have a laugh? It’s over, let’s face it. We love each other, but I’m a loser who’s going nowhere. That’s your problem. My problem is your parents. They’ll chew up the poor guy you marry.”
   “The poor guy?”
   “That’s right. I pity the poor guy you marry because your parents are insufferable. And you know it.”
   “The poor guy I marry?” Her eyes were no longer wet. They were flashing now.
   “Take it easy.”
   “The poor guy I marry?”
   “Look, I’ll make you an offer. Let’s get married right now. We quit our jobs, do a quickie wedding with no one present, sell everything we own, and fly to, say, Seattle or Portland, somewhere far away from here, and live on love for a while.”
   “You won’t go to Richmond but you’ll go to Seattle?”
   “Richmond is too damned close to your parents, okay?”
   “Then what?”
   “Then we’ll find jobs.”
   “What kinds of jobs? Is there a shortage of lawyers out West?”
   “You’re forgetting something. Remember, from last night, that I’m smart, talented, well educated, sharp as a tack, and even handsome. Big law firms will chase me all over the place. I’ll make partner in eighteen months. We’ll have babies.”
   “Then my parents will come.”
   “No, because we won’t tell them where we are. And if they find us, we’ll change our names and move to Canada.”
   Two more drinks arrived and they wasted no time shoving the old ones aside.
   The light moment passed, and quickly. But it reminded both of why they loved each other and of how much they enjoyed their time together. There had been much more laughter than sadness, though things were changing. Fewer laughs. More senseless spats. More influence from her family.
   “I don’t like the West Coast,” she said, finally.
   “Then pick a spot,” Clay said, finishing the adventure. Her spot had been chosen for her, and she wasn’t getting too far from Mommy and Daddy.
   Whatever she had brought to the meeting finally had to be said. A long pull on the drink, then she leaned forward and stared him directly in the eyes. “Clay, I really need a break.”
   “Make it easy on yourself, Rebecca. We’ll do whatever you want.”
   “Thank you.”
   “How long a break?”
   “I’m not negotiating, Clay.”
   “A month?”
   “Longer than that.”
   “No, I won’t agree to it. Let’s go thirty days without a phone call, okay? Today is the seventh of May. Let’s meet here on June the sixth, right here at this very table, and we’ll talk about an extension.”
   “An extension?”
   “Call it whatever you want.”
   “Thank you. I’m calling it a breakup, Clay. The big bang. Splitsville. You go your way, I go mine. We’ll chat in a month, but I don’t expect a change. Things haven’t changed much in the past year.”
   “If I’d said yes to that awful job in Richmond, would we be doing this split thing?”
   “Probably not.”
   “Does that mean something other than no?”
   “No.”
   “So, it was all a setup, wasn’t it? The job, the ultimatum? Last night was just what I thought it was, an ambush. Take this job, boy, or else.”
   She would not deny it. Instead, she said, “Clay, I’m tired of fighting, okay? Don’t call me for thirty days.”
   She grabbed her purse and jumped to her feet. On the way out of the booth, she somehow managed to plant a dry and meaningless kiss near his right temple, but he did not acknowledge it. He did not watch her leave.
   She did not look back.

8

   Clay’s apartment was in an aging complex in Arlington. When he’d leased it four years earlier he had never heard of BVH Group. Later, he would learn that the company had built the place in the early eighties in one of Bennett’s first ventures. The venture went bankrupt, the complex got bought and sold several times, and none of Clay’s rent went to Mr. Van Horn. In fact, no member of that family knew Clay was living in something they’d built. Not even Rebecca.
   He shared a two-bedroom unit with Jonah, an old pal from law school who’d flunked the bar exam four times before passing it and now sold computers. He sold them part-time and still earned more money than Clay, a fact that was always just under the surface.
   The morning after the breakup, Clay fetched the Post from outside his door and settled down at the kitchen table with the first cup of coffee. As always, he went straight to the financial page for a quick and rewarding perusal of the dismal performance of BVHG. The stock barely traded and the few misguided investors who owned it were now willing to unload it for a mere $0.75 a share.
   Who was the loser here?
   There was not a single word about Rebecca’s crucial subcommittee hearings.
   When he was finished with his little witch hunts, he went to the sports section and told himself it was time to forget the Van Horns. All of them.
   At twenty minutes after seven, a time when he was usually eating a bowl of cereal, the phone rang. He smiled and thought, It’s her. Back already.
   No one else would call so early. No one except the boyfriend or husband of whatever lady might be upstairs sleeping off a hangover with Jonah. Clay had taken several such calls over the years. Jonah adored women, especially those already committed to someone else. They were more challenging, he said.
   But it wasn’t Rebecca and it wasn’t a boyfriend or a husband.
   “Mr. Clay Carter,” a strange male voice said.
   “Speaking.”
   “Mr. Carter, my name is Max Pace. I’m a recruiter for law firms in Washington and New York. Your name has caught our attention, and I have two very attractive positions that might interest you. Could we have lunch today?”
   Completely speechless, Clay would remember later, in the shower, that the thought of a nice lunch was, oddly, the first thing that crossed his mind.
   “Uh, sure,” he managed to get out. Headhunters were part of the legal business, same as every other profession. But they rarely spent their time bottom-feeding in the Office of the Public Defender.
   “Good. Let’s meet in the lobby of the Willard Hotel, say, noon?”
   “Noon’s fine,” Clay said, his eyes focusing on a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Yes, this was real. It was not a dream.
   “Thanks, I’ll see you then. Mr. Carter, I promise it will be worth your time.”
   “Uh, sure.”
   Max Pace hung up quickly, and for a moment Clay held the receiver, looked at the dirty dishes, and wondered who from his law school class was behind this practical joke. Or could it be Bennett the Bulldozer getting one last bit of revenge?
   He had no phone number for Max Pace. He did not even have the presence of mind to get the name of his company.
   Nor did he have a clean suit. He owned two, both gray, one thick and one thin, both very old and well used. His trial wardrobe. Fortunately, OPD had no office dress code, so Clay usually wore khakis and a navy blazer. If he was going to court, he would put on a tie and take it off as soon as he returned to the office.
   In the shower, he decided that his attire did not matter. Max Pace knew where he worked and had a rough idea of how little he earned. If Clay showed up for the interview in frayed khakis, then he could demand more money.
   Sitting in traffic on the Arlington Memorial Bridge, he decided it was his father. The old guy had been banished from D.C. but still had contacts. He’d finally hit the right button, called in one last favor, found his son a decent job. When Jarrett Carter’s high-profile legal career ended in a long and colorful flameout, he pushed his son toward the Office of the Public Defender. Now that apprenticeship was over. Five years in the trenches, and it was time for a real job.
   What kinds of firms would be looking for him? He was intrigued by the mystery. His father hated the large corporate and lobbying outfits that were packed along Connecticut and Massachusetts Avenues. And he had no use for the small-timers who advertised on buses and billboards and clogged up the system with frivolous cases. Jarrett’s old firm had ten lawyers, ten courtroom brawlers who won verdicts and were in demand.
   “That’s where I’m headed,” Clay mumbled to himself as he glanced at the Potomac River beneath him.

   After suffering through the most unproductive morning of his career, Clay left at eleven-thirty and took his time driving to the Willard, now officially known as the Willard InterContinental Hotel. He was immediately met in the lobby by a muscled young man who looked vaguely familiar. “Mr. Pace is upstairs,” he explained. “He’d like to meet with you up there, if that’s all right.” They were walking toward the elevators.
   “Sure,” Clay said. How he’d been recognized so easily he was not certain.
   They ignored each other on the ride up. They stepped onto the ninth floor and Clay’s escort knocked on the door of the Theodore Roosevelt Suite. It opened quickly and Max Pace said hello with a businesslike smile. He was in his mid-forties, dark wavy hair, dark mustache, dark everything. Black denim jeans, black T-shirt, black pointed-toe boots. Hollywood at the Willard. Not exactly the corporate look Clay had been expecting. As they shook hands he had the first hint that things were not what they seemed.
   With a quick glance, the bodyguard was sent away.
   “Thanks for coming,” Max said as they walked into an oval-shaped room laden with marble.
   “Sure.” Clay was absorbing the suite; luxurious leathers and fabrics, rooms branching off in all directions. “Nice place.”
   “It’s mine for a few more days. I thought we could eat up here, order some room service, that way we can talk with complete privacy.”
   “Fine with me.” A question came to mind, the first of many. What was a Washington headhunter doing renting a horribly expensive hotel suite? Why didn’t he have an office nearby? Did he really need a bodyguard?
   “Anything in particular to eat?”
   “I’m easy.”
   “They do a great capellini and salmon dish. I had it yesterday. Superb.”
   “I’ll try it.” At that moment Clay would have tried anything; he was starving.
   Max went to the phone while Clay admired the view of Pennsylvania Avenue below. When lunch was ordered, they sat near the window and quickly got past the weather, the Orioles latest losing streak, and the lousy state of the economy. Pace was glib and seemed at ease talking about anything for as long as Clay wanted. He was a serious weight lifter who wanted folks to know it. His shirt stuck to his chest and arms and he liked to pick at his mustache. Whenever he did so, his biceps flexed and bulged.
   A stuntman maybe, but not a headhunter in the big leagues. Ten minutes into the chatter, and Clay said, “These two firms, why don’t you tell me a little about them?” “They don’t exist,” Max said. “I admit I lied to you.
   And I promise it’s the only time I will ever lie to you.” “You’re not a headhunter, are you?” “No.” “Then what?” “I’m a fireman.” “Thanks, that really clears things up.” “Let me talk for a moment. I have some explaining to do, and when I’m finished I promise you’ll be pleased.” “I suggest you talk real fast, Max, or I’m outta here.” “Relax, Mr. Carter. Can I call you Clay?” “Not yet.” “Very well. I’m an agent, a contractor, a freelancer with a specialty. I get hired by big companies to put out fires. They screw up, they realize their mistakes before the lawyers do, so they hire me to quietly enter the picture, tidy up their mess, and, hopefully, save them a bunch of money. My services are in great demand. My name may be Max Pace and it may be something else. It doesn’t matter. Who I am and where I come from are irrelevant. What’s important here is that I have been hired by a large company to put out a fire. Questions?”
   “Too numerous to ask right now.”
   “Hang on. I cannot tell you the name of my client now, perhaps never. If we reach an agreement, then I can tell you much more.
   Here’s the story: My client is a multinational that manufactures pharmaceuticals. You’ll recognize the name. It makes a wide range of products, from common household remedies that are in your medicine cabinet right now to complex drugs that will fight cancer and obesity. An old, established blue-chip company with a stellar reputation. About two years ago, it came up with a drug that might cure addiction to opium– and cocaine-based narcotics. Much more advanced than methadone, which, though it helps many addicts, is addictive itself and is widely abused. Let’s call this wonder drug Tarvan—that was its nickname for a while. It was discovered by mistake and was quickly used on every laboratory animal available. The results were outstanding, but then it’s hard to duplicate crack addiction in a bunch of rats.”
   “They needed humans,” Clay said.
   Pace picked his mustache as his biceps rippled. “Yes. The potential for Tarvan was enough to keep the big suits awake at night. Imagine, take one pill a day for ninety days and you’re clean. Your craving for the drugs is gone. You’ve kicked cocaine, heroin, crack—just like that. After you’re clean, take a Tarvan every other day and you’re free for life. Almost an instant cure, for millions of addicts. Think of the profits—charge whatever you want for the drug because somebody somewhere will gladly pay for it. Think of the lives to be saved, the crimes that would not be committed, the families held together, the billions not spent trying to rehab addicts. The more the suits thought about how great Tarvan could be, the faster they wanted it on the market. But, as you say, they still needed humans.”
   A pause, a sip of coffee. The T-shirt trembled with fitness. He continued.
   “So they began making mistakes. They picked three places—Mexico City, Singapore, and Belgrade—places far outside the jurisdiction of the FDA. Under the guise of some vague international relief outfit, they built rehab clinics, really nice lockdown facilities where the addicts could be completely controlled. They picked the worst junkies they could find, got ‘em in, cleaned ‘em up, began using Tarvan, though the addicts had no idea. They really didn’t care—everything was free.”
   “Human laboratories,” Clay said. The tale so far was fascinating, and Max the fireman had a flair for the narrative.
   “Nothing but human laboratories. Far away from the American tort system. And the American press. And the American regulators. It was a brilliant plan. And the drug performed beautifully. After thirty days, Tarvan blunted the cravings for drugs. After sixty days, the addicts seemed quite happy to be clean, and after ninety days they had no fear of returning to the streets. Everything was monitored—diet, exercise, therapy, even conversations. My client had at least one employee per patient, and these clinics had a hundred beds each. After three months, the patients were turned loose, with the agreement that they would return to the clinic every other day for their Tarvan. Ninety percent stayed on the drug, and stayed clean. Ninety percent! Only two percent relapsed into addiction.”
   “And the other eight percent?”
   “They would become the problem, but my client didn’t know how serious it would be. Anyway, they kept the beds full, and over eighteen months about a thousand addicts were treated with Tarvan. The results were off the charts. My client could smell billions in profits. And there was no competition. No other company was in serious R&D for an anti-addiction drug. Most pharmaceuticals gave up years ago.”
   “And the next mistake?”
   Max paused for a second, then said, “There were so many.” A buzzer sounded, lunch had arrived. A waiter rolled it in on a cart and spent five minutes fussing with the setup. Clay stood in front of the window, staring at the top of the Washington Monument, but too deep in thought to see anything. Max tipped the guy and finally got him out of the room. “You hungry?” he asked. “No. Keep talking,” Clay took off his jacket and sat in the chair. “I think you’re getting to the good part.”
   “Good, bad, depends on how you look at it. The next mistake was to bring the show here. This is where it starts to get real ugly. My client had deliberately looked at the globe and picked one spot for Caucasians, one spot for Hispanics, and one spot for Asians. Some Africans were needed.”
   “We have plenty in D.C.”
   “So thought my client.”
   “You’re lying, aren’t you? Tell me you’re lying.”
   “I’ve lied to you once, Mr. Carter. And I’ve promised not to do it again.”
   Clay slowly got to his feet and walked around his chair to the window again. Max watched him closely. The lunch was getting cold, but neither seemed to care. Time had been suspended.
   Clay turned around and said, “Tequila?”
   Max nodded and said, “Yes.”
   “And Washad Porter?”
   “Yes.”
   A minute passed. Clay crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, facing Max, who was straightening his mustache. “Go ahead,” Clay said.
   “In about eight percent of the patients, something goes wrong,” Max said. “My client has no idea what or how or even who might be at risk. But Tarvan makes them kill. Plain and simple. After about a hundred days, something turns somewhere in the brain, and they feel an irresistible impulse to draw blood. It makes no difference if they have a violent history. Age, race, sex, nothing distinguishes the killers.”
   “That’s eighty dead people?”
   “At least. But information is difficult to obtain in the slums of Mexico City.”
   “How many here, in D.C.?”
   It was the first question that made Max squirm, and he dodged it. “I’ll answer that in a few minutes. Let me finish my story. Would you sit down, please? I don’t like to look up when I talk.”
   Clay took his seat, as directed.
   “The next mistake was to circumvent the FDA.”
   “Of course.”
   “My client has many big friends in this town. It’s an old pro at buying the politicians through PAC money, and hiring their wives and girlfriends and former assistants, the usual crap that big money does here. A dirty deal was cut. It included big shots from the White House, the State Department, the DEA, the FBI, and a couple of other agencies, none of whom put anything in writing. No money changed hands; there were no bribes. My client did a nice job of convincing enough people that Tarvan might just save the world if it could perform in one more laboratory. Since the FDA would take two to three years for approval, and since it has few friends in the White House anyway, the deal was cut. These big people, names now forever lost, found a way to smuggle Tarvan into a few, selected, federally funded rehab clinics in D.C. If it worked here, then the White House and the big folks would put relentless pressure on the FDA for quick approval.”
   “When this deal was being cut, did your client know about the eight percent?”
   “I don’t know. My client has not told me everything and never will. Nor do I ask a lot of questions. My job lies elsewhere. However, I suspect that my client did not know about the eight percent. Otherwise, the risks would have been too great to experiment here. This has all happened very fast, Mr. Carter.”
   “You can call me Clay now.”
   “Thanks, Clay.”
   “Don’t mention it.”
   “I said there were no bribes. Again, this is what my client has told me. But let’s be realistic. The initial estimate of profits over the next ten years from Tarvan was thirty billion dollars. Profits, not sales. The initial estimate of tax dollars saved by Tarvan was about a hundred billion over the same period of time. Obviously, some money was going to change hands along the line.”
   “But all that’s history?”
   “Oh yes. The drug was pulled six days ago. Those wonderful clinics in Mexico City, Singapore, and Belgrade closed up in the middle of the night and all those nice counselors disappeared like ghosts. All experiments have been forgotten. All papers have been shredded. My client has never heard of Tarvan. We’d like to keep it that way.”
   “I get the feeling that I’m entering the picture at this point.”
   “Only if you want to. If you decline, then I am prepared to meet with another lawyer.”
   “Decline what?”
   “The deal, Clay, the deal. As of now, there have been five people in D.C. killed by addicts on Tarvan. One poor guy is in a coma, probably not going to make it. Washad Porter’s first victim. That’s a total of six. We know who they are, how they died, who killed them, everything. We want you to represent their families. You sign them up, we pay the money, everything is wrapped up quickly, quietly, with no lawsuits, no publicity, not the slightest fingerprint anywhere.”
   “Why would they hire me?”
   “Because they don’t have a clue that they have a case. As far as they know, their loved ones were victims of random street violence. It’s a way of life here. Your kid gets shot by a street punk, you bury him, the punk gets arrested, you go to the trial, and you hope he goes to prison for the rest of his life. But you never think about a lawsuit. You gonna sue the street punk? Not even the hungriest lawyer would take that case. They’ll hire you because you will go to them, tell them that they have a case, and say you can get four million bucks in a very quick, very confidential settlement.”
   “Four million bucks,” Clay repeated, uncertain if it was too much or too little.
   “Here’s our risk, Clay. If Tarvan is discovered by some lawyer, and, frankly, you’re the first one who picked up even a whiff of a scent, then there could be a trial. Let’s say the lawyer is a trial stud who picks him an all-black jury here in D.C.”
   “Easy enough.”
   “Of course it’s easy. And let’s say this lawyer somehow gets the right evidence. Maybe some documents that didn’t get shredded. More likely someone working for my client, a whistle-blower. Anyway, the trial plays beautifully for the family of the deceased. There could be a huge verdict. Worse yet, at least for my client, the negative publicity would be horrendous. The stock price could collapse. Imagine the worst, Clay, paint your own nightmare, and believe me, these guys see it too. They did something bad. They know it, and they want to correct it. But they’re also trying to limit their damages here.”
   “Four million is a bargain.”
   “It is, and it isn’t. Take Ramon Pumphrey. Age twenty-two, working part-time, earning six thousand dollars a year. With a normal life expectancy of fifty-three more years, and assuming annual earnings of twice the minimum wage, the economic value of his life, discounted in today’s dollars, is about a half a million dollars. That’s what he’s worth.”
   “Punitive damages would be easy.”
   “Depends. This case would be very hard to prove, Clay, because there’s no paperwork. Those files you snatched yesterday will reveal nothing. The counselors at D Camp and Clean Streets had no idea what kind of drugs they were dispensing. The FDA never heard of Tar-van. My client would spend a billion on lawyers and experts and whoever else they need to protect them. Litigation would be a war because my client is so guilty!”
   “Six times four is twenty-four million.”
   “Add ten for the lawyer.”
   “Ten million?”
   “Yes, that’s the deal, Clay. Ten million for you.”
   “You must be kidding.”
   “Dead serious. Thirty-four total. And I can write the checks right now.”
   “I need to go for a walk.”
   “How about lunch?”
   “No, thanks.”

9

   Drifting now, on foot in front of the White House. Lost for a moment in a pack of Dutch tourists taking pictures and waiting for the President to give them a wave, then a stroll through Lafayette Park where the homeless vanished during the day, then to a bench in Farragut Square where he ate a cold sandwich without tasting anything. All senses were dull, all thoughts were slow and confused. It was May but the air was not clear. The humidity did little to help him think.
   He saw twelve black faces sitting in the box, angry folks who’d spent a week hearing the shocking history of Tarvan. He addressed them in his final summation: “They needed black lab rats, ladies and gentlemen, preferably Americans because this is where the money is. So they brought their miraculous Tarvan to our city.” The twelve faces hung on every word and nodded in agreement, anxious to retire and dispense justice.
   What was the largest verdict in the history of the world? Did the Guinness Book keep tabs on such? Whatever it was, it would be his for the asking. “Just fill in the blank, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.”
   The case would never go to trial; no jury would hear it. Whoever made Tarvan would spend a helluva lot more than thirty-four million to bury the truth. And they would hire all manner of thugs to break legs and steal documents and wire phones and burn offices, whatever it took to keep their secret away from those twelve angry faces.
   He thought of Rebecca. What a different girl she would be wrapped in the luxury of his money. How quickly she would leave the worries of Capitol Hill and retire to a life of motherhood. She would marry him in three months, or as soon as Barb could get things planned.
   He thought of the Van Horns, but, oddly, not as people he still knew. They were out of his life; he was trying to forget about them. He was free of those people, after four years of bondage. They would never again torment him.
   He was about to be free of a lot of things.
   An hour passed. He found himself at DuPont Circle, staring in the windows of the small shops facing Massachusetts Avenue; rare books, rare dishes, rare costumes; rare people everywhere. There was a mirror in one storefront, and he looked himself squarely in the eyes and wondered aloud if Max the fireman was real or a fraud or a ghost. He walked along the sidewalk, sick with the thought that a respected company could prey on the weakest people it could find, then seconds later thrilled with the prospect of more money than he ever dreamed of. He needed his father. Jarrett Carter would know exactly what to do.
   Another hour passed. He was expected at the office, a weekly staff meeting of some variety. “Fire me,” he mumbled with a smile.
   He browsed for a while in Kramerbooks, his favorite bookstore in D.C. Perhaps soon he could move from the paperback section to the hardbacks. He could fill his new walls with rows of books.
   At exactly 3 P.M., on schedule, he walked into the rear of Kramer’s, into the cafe, and there was Max Pace, sitting alone, drinking lemonade, waiting. He was obviously pleased to see Clay again.
   “Did you follow me?” Clay asked, sitting down and stuffing his hands in his pants pockets.
   “Of course. Would you like something to drink?”
   “No. What if I filed suit tomorrow, on behalf of the family of Ramon Pumphrey? That one case could be worth more than what you’re offering for all six.”
   The question seemed to have been anticipated. Max had an answer ready. “You’d have a long list of problems. Let me give you the top three. First, you don’t know who to sue. You don’t know who made Tarvan, and there’s a chance no one will ever know. Second, you don’t have the money to fight with my client. It would take at least ten million dollars to mount a sustainable attack. Third, you’d lose the opportunity to represent all known plaintiffs. If you don’t say yes quickly, I’m prepared to go to the next lawyer on my list with the same offer. My goal is to have this wrapped up in thirty days.”
   “I could go to a big tort firm.”
   “Yes, and that would present more problems. First, you’d give away at least half of your fee. Second, it would take five years to reach an outcome, maybe longer. Third, the biggest tort firm in the country could easily lose this case. The truth here, Clay, may never be known.”
   “It should be known.”
   “Maybe, but I don’t care one way or the other. My job is to silence this thing; to adequately compensate the victims, then to bury it forever. Don’t be foolish, my friend.”
   “We’re hardly friends.”
   “True, but we’re making progress.”
   “You have a list of lawyers?”
   “Yes, I have two more names, both very similar to you.” “In other words, hungry.” “Yes, you’re hungry. But you’re also bright.” “So I’ve been told. And I have broad shoulders. The other two are here in the city?”
   “Yes, but let’s not worry about them. Today is Thursday. I need an answer by Monday, at noon. Otherwise, I’ll go to the next guy.”
   “Was Tarvan used in any other U.S. city?”
   “No, just D.C.”
   “And how many people were treated with it?”
   “A hundred, give or take.”
   Clay took a drink of the ice water a waiter had placed near him. “So there are a few more killers out there?” “Quite possibly. Needless to say, we’re waiting and watching with great anxiety.”
   “Can’t you stop them?”
   “Stop street killings in D.C.? No one could predict Tequila Watson would walk away from D Camp and within two hours kill a person. Nor Washad Porter. Tarvan gives no clue as to who might snap, nor when they might do so. There is some evidence that after ten days without the drug a person becomes harmless again. But it’s all speculative.”
   “So the killings should stop in just a few days?”
   “We’re counting on it. I’m hoping we can survive the weekend.”
   “Your client should go to jail.”
   “My client is a corporation.”
   “Corporations can be held criminally responsible.”
   “Let’s not argue that, okay? It gets us nowhere. We need to focus on you and whether or not you are up to the challenge.”
   “I’m sure you have a plan.”
   “Yes, a very detailed one.”
   “I quit my present job, then what?”
   Pace pushed the lemonade aside and leaned lower, as if the good stuff was about to be delivered. “You establish your own law firm. Rent space, furnish it nicely, and so on. You’ve got to sell this thing, Clay, and the only way to do so is to look and act like a very successful trial lawyer. Your potential clients will be brought into your office. They need to be impressed. You’ll need a staff and other lawyers working for you.
   Perception is everything here. Trust me. I was a lawyer once. Clients want nice offices. They want to see success. You will be telling these people that you can obtain settlements of four million dollars.”
   “Four is much too cheap.”
   “Later, okay? You have to look successful; that’s my point.”
   “I get the point. I grew up in a very successful law firm.”
   “We know. That’s one of the things we like about you.”
   “How tight is office space right now?”
   “We’ve leased some footage on Connecticut Avenue. Would you like to see it?”
   They left Kramer’s through the rear entrance and ambled along the sidewalk as if they were two old friends out for a stroll. “Am I still being followed?” Clay asked.
   “Why?”
   “Oh, I don’t know. Just curious. Doesn’t happen every day. I’d just like to know whether I’d get shot if I broke and ran.”
   Pace actually chuckled at this. “It is rather absurd, isn’t it?”
   “Damned silly.”
   “My client is very nervous, Clay.”
   “With good reason.”
   “They have dozens of people in the city right now, watching, waiting, praying there are no more killings.
   And they’re hoping you’ll be the man to deliver the deal.”
   “What about the ethical problems?”
   “Which one?”
   “I can think of two—conflict of interest and solicitation of litigation?”
   “Solicitation is a joke. Just look at the billboards.”
   They stopped at an intersection. “Right now I represent the defendant,” Clay said as they waited. “How do I cross the street and represent his victim?”
   “You just do it. We’ve researched the canons of ethics. It’s sticky, but there are no violations. Once you resign from OPD, you are free to open your own office and start accepting cases.”
   “That’s the easy part. What about Tequila Watson? I know why he committed murder. I can’t hide that knowledge from him, or his next lawyer.”
   “Being drunk or under the influence of drugs is not a defense to a crime. He’s guilty. Ramon Pumphrey is dead. You have to forget about Tequila.” They were walking again.
   “I don’t like that answer,” Clay said.
   “It’s the best I have. If you say no to me and continue to represent your client, it will be virtually impossible for you to prove he ever took a drug called Tarvan. You’ll know it, but you won’t be able to prove it. You’ll look foolish using that as a defense.”
   “It may not be a defense, but it could be a mitigating circumstance.”
   “Only if you can prove it, Clay. Here.” They were on Connecticut Avenue, in front of a long modern building with a three-story glass-and-bronze entrance.
   Clay looked up and said, “The high-rent district.”
   “Come on. You’re on the fourth floor, a corner office with a fantastic view.”
   In the vast marble foyer, a directory listed a who’s who of D.C. law. “This is not exactly my turf,” Clay said as he read the names of the firms.
   “It can be,” Max said.
   “What if I don’t want to be here?”
   “It’s up to you. We just happen to have some space. We’ll sublease it to you at a very favorable rent.”
   “When did you lease it?”
   “Don’t ask too many questions, Clay. We’re on the same team.”
   “Not yet.”
   Carpet was being laid and walls painted in Clay’s section of the fourth floor. Expensive carpet. They stood at the window of a large empty office and watched the traffic on Connecticut Avenue below. There were a thousand things to do to open a new firm, and he could only think of a hundred. He had a hunch that Max had all the answers.
   “What do you think?” Max said.
   “I’m not thinking too well right now. Everything’s a blur.”
   “Don’t blow this opportunity, Clay. It will never come again. And the clock is ticking.”
   “It’s surreal.”
   “You can do your firm’s charter online, takes about an hour. Pick a bank, open the accounts. Letterhead and such can be done overnight. The office can be complete and furnished in a matter of days. By next Wednesday you can be sitting here behind a fancy desk running your own show.”
   “How do I sign up the other cases?”
   “Your friends Rodney and Paulette. They know the city and its people. Hire them, triple their salaries, give them nice offices down the hall. They can talk to the families. We’ll help.”
   “You’ve thought of everything.”
   “Yes. Absolutely everything. I’m running a very efficient machine, one that’s in a near-panic mode. We’re working around the clock, Clay. We just need a point man.”
   On the way down, the elevator stopped at the third floor. Three men and a woman stepped in, all nicely tailored and manicured and carrying thick expensive leather briefcases, along with the incurable air of importance inbred in big-firm lawyers. Max was so engrossed in his details that he did not see them. But Clay absorbed them—their manners, their guarded speech, their seriousness, their arrogance. These were big lawyers, important lawyers, and they did not acknowledge his existence. Of course, in old khakis and scuffed loafers he did not exactly project the image of a fellow member of the D.C. Bar.
   That could change overnight, couldn’t it?
   He said good-bye to Max and went for another long walk, this one in the general direction of his office. When he finally arrived, there were no urgent notes on his desk. The meeting he’d missed had evidently been missed by many others. No one asked where he had been. No one seemed to notice that he had been absent during the afternoon.
   His office was suddenly much smaller, and dingier, and the furnishings were unbearably bleak. There was a stack of files on his desk, cases he could not now bring himself to think about. All of his clients were criminals anyway.
   OPD policy required thirty days’ notice before quitting. The rule, however, was not enforced because it could not be enforced. People quit all the time with short notice or none whatsoever. Glenda would write a threatening letter. He would write a pleasant one back, and the matter would end.
   The best secretary in the office was Miss Glick, a seasoned warrior who might just jump at the chance to double her salary and leave behind the dreariness of OPD. His office would be a fun place to work, he had already decided. Salaries and benefits and long vacations and maybe even profit-sharing.
   He spent the last hour of the workday behind a locked door, plotting, stealing employees, debating which lawyers and which paralegals might fit.

   He met Max Pace for the third time that day, for dinner, at the Old Ebbitt Grille, on Fifteenth Street, two blocks behind the Willard. To his surprise, Max began with a martini, and this loosened him up considerably. The pressure of the situation began melting under the assault of the gin, and Max became a real person. He had once been a trial lawyer in California, before something unfortunate ended his career out there. Through contacts he found his niche in the litigation marketplace as a fireman. A fixer. A highly paid agent who sneaked in, cleaned up the mess, and sneaked out without a trace. During the steaks and after the first bottle of Bordeaux, Max said there was something else waiting for Clay after Tarvan. “Something much bigger,” Max said, and he actually glanced around the restaurant to see if spies were listening.
   “What?” Clay said after a long wait.
   Another quick search for eavesdroppers, then, “My client has a competitor who’s put a bad drug on the market. No one knows it yet. Their drug is outperforming our drug. But my client now has reliable proof that the bad drug causes tumors. My client has been waiting for the perfect moment to attack.”
   “Attack?”
   “Yes, as in a class-action suit brought by a young aggressive attorney who possesses the right evidence.”
   “You’re offering me another case?”
   “Yes. You take the Tarvan deal, wrap things up in thirty days, then we’ll hand you a file that will be worth millions.”
   “More than Tarvan?”
   “Much more.”
   Clay had thus far managed to choke down half his filet mignon without tasting anything. The other half would remain untouched. He was starving but had no appetite. “Why me?” he asked, more to himself than to his new friend.
   “That’s the same question lottery winners ask. You’ve won the lottery, Clay. The lawyer’s lottery. You were smart enough to pick up the scent of Tarvan, and at the same time we were searching desperately for a young lawyer we could trust. We found each other, Clay, and we have this one brief moment in time in which you make a decision that will alter the course of your life. Say yes, and you will become a very big lawyer. Say no, and you lose the lottery.”
   “I get the message. I need some time to think, to clear my head.”
   “You have the weekend.”
   “Thanks. Look, I’m taking a quick trip, leaving in the morning, coming back Sunday night. I really don’t think you guys need to follow me.”
   “May I ask where?”
   “Abaco, in the Bahamas.”
   “To see your father?”
   Clay was surprised, but then he should not have been. “Yes,” he said.
   “For what purpose?”
   “None of your business. Fishing.”
   “Sorry, but we’re very nervous. I hope you understand.”
   “Not really. I’ll give you my flights, just don’t follow me, okay?”
   “You have my word.”

10

   Great abaco island is a long narrow strip of land at the northern edge of the Bahamas, about a hundred miles east of Florida. Clay had been there once before, four years earlier when he’d scraped together enough money for the airfare. That trip had been a long weekend, one in which Clay had planned to discuss serious issues with his father and discard some baggage. It didn’t happen. Jarrett Carter was still too close to his disgrace and concerned primarily with drinking rum punch from noon on. He was willing to talk about anything but the law and lawyers. This visit would be different.
   Clay arrived late in the afternoon on a very warm and very crowded Coconut Air turboprop. The gentleman at Customs glanced at his passport and waved him through. The taxi ride into Marsh Harbor took five minutes, on the wrong side of the road. The driver liked loud gospel music and Clay was not in the mood to argue. Nor was he in the mood to tip. He got out of the car at the harbor and went looking for his father.

   Jarrett carter had once filed suit against the President of the United States, and though he lost the case, the experience taught him that every subsequent defendant was an easier target. He feared no one, in court or out. His reputation had been secured with one great victory—a large malpractice verdict against the President of the American Medical Association, a fine doctor who’d made a mistake in surgery. A pitiless jury in a conservative county had returned the verdict, and Jarrett Carter was suddenly a trial lawyer in demand. He picked the toughest cases, won most of them, and by the age of forty was a litigator with a wide reputation. He built a firm known for its bare-knuckle ways in the courtroom. Clay never doubted he would follow his father and spend his career in trials.
   The wheels came off when Clay was in college. There was an ugly divorce that cost Jarrett dearly. His firm began to split with, typically, all partners suing each other. Distracted, Jarrett went two years without winning a trial, and his reputation suffered greatly. He made his biggest mistake when he and his accountant began cooking the books—hiding income, overstating expenses. When they got caught, the accountant killed himself but Jarrett did not. He was devastated though, and prison looked likely. Luckily, an old pal from law school was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the prosecution.
   The details of their agreement would forever remain a dark secret. There was never an indictment, just an unofficial deal whereby Jarrett quietly closed his office, surrendered his license to practice law, and left the country. He fled with nothing, though those close to the affair felt he’d stashed something off-shore. Clay had seen no indication of any such loot.
   So the great Jarrett Carter became a fishing boat captain in the Bahamas, which to some would sound like a wonderful life. Clay found him on the boat, a sixty-foot Wavedancer wedged into a slip in the crowded marina. Other charters were returning from a long day at sea. Sunburned fishermen were admiring their catches. Cameras were flashing. Bahamian deckhands scurried about unloading coolers of iced-down grouper and tuna. They hauled away bags of empty bottles and beer cans.
   Jarrett was on the bow with a water hose in one hand and a sponge in the other. Clay watched him for a moment, not wanting to interrupt a man at work. His father certainly looked the part of the expatriate on the run—barefoot with dark leathery skin, a gray Hemingway beard, silver chains around his neck, long-billed fishing cap, ancient white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his biceps. If not for a slight beer belly, Jarrett would have looked quite fit.
   “Well, I’ll be damned!” he yelled when he saw his son.
   “Nice boat,” Clay said, stepping aboard. There was a firm handshake, but nothing more. Jarrett was not the affectionate type, at least not with his son. Several former secretaries had told different stories. He smelled of dried perspiration, salt water, stale beer—a long day at sea. His shorts and white shirt were dirty.
   “Yeah, owned by a doctor in Boca. You’re looking good.”
   “You too.”
   “I’m healthy, that’s all that matters. Grab a beer.” Jarrett pointed to a cooler on the deck.
   They popped tops and sat in the canvas chairs while a group of fishermen staggered along the pier. The boat rocked gently. “Busy day, huh?” Clay said.
   “We left at sunrise, had a father and his two sons, big strong boys, all of them serious weight lifters. From someplace in New Jersey. I’ve never seen so many muscles on one boat. They were yanking hundred-pound sailfish out of the ocean like they were trout.”
   Two women in their forties walked by, carrying small backpacks and fishing supplies. They had the same weary, sunburned look as all other fishermen. One was a little heavy, the other was not, but Jarrett observed them equally until they were out of sight. His gawking was almost embarrassing.
   “Do you still have your condo?” Clay asked. The condo he’d seen four years earlier had been a run-down two-room apartment on the back side of Marsh Harbor.
   “Yeah, but I live on the boat now. The owner doesn’t come over much, so I just stay here. There’s a sofa in the cabin for you.”
   “You live on this boat?”
   “Sure, it’s air-conditioned, plenty of room. It’s just me, you know, most of the time.”
   They sipped beer and watched another group of fishermen stumble by.
   “I’ve got a charter tomorrow,” Jarrett said. “You along for the ride?”
   “What else would I do around here?”
   “Got some clowns from Wall Street who want to leave at seven in the morning.”
   “Sounds like fun.”
   “I’m hungry,” Jarrett said, jumping to his feet and tossing the beer can in the trash. “Let’s go.”
   They walked along the pier, past dozens of boats of all varieties. Small dinners were underway on the sailboats. The fishing captains were drinking beer and relaxing. All of them yelled something to Jarrett, who had a quick retort for each one. He was still barefoot. Clay walked a step behind him and thought to himself, That’s my father, the great Jarrett Carter, now a barefoot beach bum in faded shorts and an unbuttoned shirt, the king of Marsh Harbor. And a very unhappy man.
   The Blue Fin bar was crowded and loud. Jarrett seemed to know everyone. Before they could find two stools together the bartender had tall glasses of rum punch waiting for them. “Cheers,” Jarrett said, touching his glass to Clay’s, then draining half of it. Serious fishing talk then followed with another captain and for a while Clay was ignored, which was fine with him. Jarrett finished the first rum punch and yelled for another. Then another.
   A feast was getting organized at a large round table in one corner. Platters of lobster, crab, and shrimp were laid in the center of it. Jarrett motioned for Clay to follow, and they took seats at the table with a half dozen others. The music was loud, the conversation louder. Everyone around the table was working hard to get drunk, with Jarrett leading the charge.
   The sailor to Clay’s right was an aging hippie who claimed to have dodged Vietnam and burned his draft card. He’d rejected all democratic ideas, including employment and income taxes. “Been bouncing around the Caribbean for thirty years,” he boasted with a mouthful of shrimp. “Feds don’t even know I exist.”
   Clay suspected the Feds had little interest in whether the man existed, and the same was true of the rest of the misfits he was now dining with. Sailors, boat captains, full-time fishermen, all running from something—alimony, taxes, indictments, bad business deals. They fancied themselves as rebels, nonconformists, free spirits—modern-day pirates, much too independent to be constricted by the normal rules of society.
   A hurricane had hit Abaco hard the summer before, and Captain Floyd, the loudest mouth at the table, was at war with an insurance company. This prompted a round of hurricane stories, which, of course, required another round of rum punch. Clay stopped drinking; his father did not. Jarrett became louder and drunker, as did everyone else at the table.
   After two hours the food was gone but the rum punch kept coming. The waiter was hauling it over by the pitcher now, and Clay decided to make a quick exit. He left the table without being noticed and sneaked out of the Blue Fin.
   So much for a quiet dinner with Dad.

   He awoke in the dark to the sounds of his father stomping around the cabin below, whistling loudly, even singing a tune that remotely sounded like something from Bob Marley. “Wake up!” Jarrett yelled. The boat was rocking, but not so much from the water as from Jarrett’s noisy attack on the day.
   Clay stayed on the short and narrow sofa for a moment, trying to get his bearings, and he recalled the legend of Jarrett Carter. He was always in the office before 6 A.M., often by five and sometimes by four. Six days a week, often seven. He missed most of Clay’s baseball and football games because he was simply too busy. He was never home before dark, and many times he didn’t come home at all. When Clay was older and worked in the law firm, Jarrett was famous for crushing young associates with piles of work. As his marriage deteriorated, he slept in his office, sometimes alone. Regardless of his bad habits, Jarrett always answered the bell, and always before anyone else. He had flirted with alcoholism, but managed to stop when the booze interfered with the work.
   He didn’t need sleep in the glory days, and evidently some habits refused to die. He roared past the sofa singing loudly and smelling of a fresh shower and cheap aftershave. “Let’s go!” he shouted.
   Breakfast was never discussed. Clay managed a quick, cold bird-bath in the tiny space called the shower. He was not claustrophobic, but the notion of living in the cramped confines of the boat made him dizzy. Outside the clouds were thick and the air was already warm. Jarrett was on the bridge, listening to the radio, frowning at the sky. “Bad news,” he said.
   “What is it?”
   “A big storm is moving in. They’re calling for heavy rain all day.”
   “What time is it?”
   “Six-thirty.”
   “What time did you come in last night?”
   “You sound like your mother. Coffee’s over there.” Clay poured strong coffee into a cup and sat by the wheel.
   Jarrett’s face was covered by thick sunglasses, his beard, and the bill of his cap. Clay suspected the eyes would betray a nasty hangover, but no one would ever know it. The radio was alive with weather alerts and storm warnings from larger boats at sea. Jarrett and the other charter captains yelled back and forth to each other, relaying reports, making predictions, shaking their heads at the clouds. A half hour passed. No one was leaving the harbor.
   “Dammit,” Jarrett said at one point. “A wasted day.”
   Four young Wall Street honchos arrived, all in white tennis shorts, new running shoes, and new fishing hats. Jarrett saw them coming and met them at the stern. Before they could hop into the boat, he said, “Sorry, guys, no fishing today. Storm warnings.”
   All four heads jerked upward to inspect the sky. A quick scan of the clouds led all four to the conclusion that weather forecasters were wrong. “You’re kidding,” one said.
   “Just a little rain,” said another.
   “Let’s give it a try,” said another.
   “The answer is no,” Jarrett said. “Ain’t nobody fishing today.” “But we’ve paid for the charter,” “You’ll get your money back.” They reexamined the clouds, which were getting darker by the minute. Then thunder erupted, like distant cannons. “Sorry, fellas,” Jarrett said. “How about tomorrow?” one asked. “I’m booked. Sorry.” They shuffled away, certain that they’d been cheated out of their trophy marlins.
   Now that the issue of labor had been resolved, Jarrett went to the cooler and grabbed a beer. “Want one?” he asked Clay.
   “What time is it?”
   “Time for a beer, I guess.”
   “I haven’t finished my coffee yet.”
   They sat in the fishing chairs on the deck and listened as the thunder grew louder. The marina was bustling as captains and deckhands secured their boats and unhappy fishermen hurried back down the piers, hauling coolers and bags filled with suntan oil and cameras. The wind was slowly picking up.
   “Have you talked to your mother?” Jarrett asked.
   “No.”
   The Carter family history was a nightmare, and both knew better than to explore it. “You still with OPD?”
   Jarrett asked. “Yes, and I want to talk to you about that.” “How’s Rebecca?” “History, I think.” “Is that good or bad?” “Right now it’s just painful.” “How old are you now?” “Twenty-four years younger than you. Thirty-one.” “Right. You’re too young to get married.” “Thanks, Dad.” Captain Floyd came rushing along the pier and stopped at their boat. “Gunter’s here. Poker in ten minutes. Let’s go!” Jarrett jumped to his feet, suddenly a kid on Christmas morning. “Are you in?” he said to Clay. “In for what?” “Poker.” “I don’t play poker. Who’s Gunter?” Jarrett stretched and pointed. “See that yacht over there, a hundred-footer. It’s Gunter’s. He’s an old German fart with a billion bucks and a boatload of girls. Believe me, it’s a better place to ride out the storm.”
   “Let’s go!” Captain Floyd yelled, walking away. Jarrett was climbing out of the boat, onto the pier. “Are you coming?” he snapped at Clay.
   “I’ll pass.”
   “Don’t be silly. It’ll be much more fun than sitting around here all day.” Jarrett was walking away, following Captain Floyd.
   Clay waved him off. “I’ll read a book.”
   “Whatever.”
   They hopped in a dinghy with another rogue and splashed through the harbor until they disappeared behind the yachts. It was the last time Clay would see his father for several months. So much for advice. He was on his own.