Lion Plays Rough (23 page)

Later I took her deposition in the civil case I filed on behalf of Debra Walker and Tamara. After Lavinia's testimony, I was able to negotiate a two-million-dollar settlement with the city. A third was payable to me as attorney's fees, a third to Debra Walker, and a third to Tamara. Blood money, people say, hush money. Who cares what they call it.

Still, they're right.

Teddy is dripping wet, his umbrella tucked under his arm. He remembered to bring it but must have forgotten to use it between the bus stop and my office.

We go upstairs, I pour him a coffee, and he produces an offering from the pouch pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, a sheaf of paper curled with damp. He thumps it down on the desk.

“Produce the body.”

“What?”

“Produce the body.
Habeas corpus
.”

At first I think he's telling me something macabre; I think of Lucas's body up on the hill. Then I see the caption of the document on the desk. It's a brief to the Superior Court of San Francisco.

“You drafted this?”

The pride on his face is my answer. “I had a start on it from before . . .”

He and Tamara have a little house in South Berkeley, within walking distance to the grocery and the bus line. They married a few months ago, the swelling of her belly telling the world that Teddy wasn't just in it for her money.

Later, when I read the brief, I will see that it is a competent piece of legal reasoning, painstakingly assembled from scraps of ideas. Somehow, out of his fragmentary thought processes, he has managed to connect the pieces into a coherent whole. He will never again address a jury, but against all odds, my brother is still a lawyer, and the first task he has set himself in his phoenix-like career is to overturn my father's conviction and obtain his release from prison.

He has an affidavit for me to sign, attesting to his fitness to practice law. I put my signature down.

maxwell and associates
, the new sign outside my office says, although I have no associates, not even a secretary.

maxwell and maxwell
, it will need to say.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Gail Hochman for sticking with me, reading and rereading until we got it right, and to Otto Penzler for taking the big chance. Michele Slung's fine editorial eye helped me avoid many mistakes I would otherwise have made the second time around, and I'm proud to be part of the team led by Jason Pinter and the editorial staff at Grove/At
lantic. Nothing would be possible without the love and support of my wife and first reader, Sarah Moody, and our families and parents.