The Client (57 page)

Mark sat in his mother’s lap, and Reggie, the lawyer, sat behind the desk. Clint stood by the door.

“I’m glad you came,” Reggie said to Dianne.

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“You do now. You can change your mind if you want. You can ask me anything.”

“Do you realize how fast all this is happening, Reggie? Six days ago, I came home and found Ricky curled in his bed sucking his thumb. Then Mark and the cop showed up. Now I’m being asked to become someone else and run away to another world. My God.”

“I understand,” Reggie said. “But we can’t stop things.”

“Are you mad at me, Mom?” he asked.

“Yeah. No cookies for a week.” She stroked his hair. There was a long pause.

“How’s Ricky?” Reggie asked.

“About the same. Dr. Greenway is trying to bring him around so he can enjoy the plane ride. But they had to drug him slightly when we left the hospital.”

“I’m not going back to Memphis, Mom,” Mark said.

“The FBI has contacted a children’s psychiatric hospital in Phoenix, and they’re waiting for you now,” Reggie explained. “It’s a good one. Clint checked it out Friday. It’s been highly recommended.”

“So we’re going to live in Phoenix?” Dianne asked.

“Only until Ricky is released. Then you go wherever you want. Canada. Australia. New Zealand. It’s up to you. Or you can stay in Phoenix.”

“Let’s go to Australia, Mom. They still have real cowboys down there. Saw it in a movie once.”

“No more movies for you, Mark,” Dianne said, still rubbing his head. “We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t watched so many movies.”

“What about TV?”

“No. From now on, you’ll do nothing but read books.”

The office was silent for a long time. Reggie had nothing else to say. Clint was dead tired and about to fall asleep on his feet. Dianne’s mind was moving clearly now, for the first time in a week. Frightened as she was, she had escaped the dungeon at St. Peter’s. She had seen sunlight and smelled real air. She was holding her lost son, and the other one would improve. All these people were trying to help. The lamp factory was history. Employment was now a thing of the past. No
more cheap trailers. No more worries about past due child support and unpaid bills. She could watch the boys grow up. She could join the PTA. She could buy some clothes and do her nails. Good gosh, she was only thirty years old. With a little effort and a little money, she could be attractive again. There were men out there.

As dark and treacherous as the future seemed, it could not be as horrible as the past six days. Something had to give. She was due a break. Have a little faith, baby.

“I guess we’d better get to Phoenix,” she said.

Reggie grinned with relief. She pulled the agreement from a briefcase Clint brought with him. It had been signed by Harry and McThune. Reggie added her signature, and handed the pen to Dianne. Mark, now bored with hugs and tears, walked to the wall and admired a series of framed color photos of jets. “On second thought, I might be a pilot,” he said to Clint.

Reggie took the agreement. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, opening the door and closing it behind her.

Trumann jumped when it opened. Hot coffee splashed from his trembling cup and burned his right hand. He cursed, and slung at the floor, then wiped it on his pants.

“Relax, Larry,” Reggie said. “Everything’s fine. Sign here.” She stuck the agreement in his face, and Trumann scrawled his name. K.O. did the same.

“Get the plane ready,” Reggie said. “They’re going to Phoenix.”

K.O. turned and flashed a hand signal at the agents by the hangar entry. McThune jogged toward them
with more instructions. Reggie returned to the office and closed the door.

K.O. and Trumann shook hands and smiled goofily. They stared at the door to the office.

“What now?” Trumann mumbled.

“She’s a lawyer,” K.O. said. “Nothing’s ever easy with lawyers.”

McThune walked to Trumann and handed him an envelope. “It’s a subpoena for the Reverend Roy Foltrigg,” he said with a smile. “Judge Roosevelt issued it this morning.”

“On Sunday morning?” Trumann asked, taking the envelope.

“Yeah. He called his clerk, and they met at his office. He’s very excited about seeing Foltrigg back in Memphis.”

The three chuckled at this. “It’ll be served upon the reverend this morning,” Trumann said.

After a minute, the door opened. Clint, Dianne, Mark, then Reggie filed out and headed for the tarmac. The engines were started. Agents scurried about. Trumann and Lewis escorted them to the hangar doors, and stopped.

K.O., ever the diplomat, offered his hand to Dianne, and said, “Good luck, Ms. Sway. Jason McThune will escort you to Phoenix, and handle things once you get there. You are completely safe. And if we can do anything to help, please let us know.”

Dianne gave a sweet smile and shook his hand. Mark offered his, and said, “Thanks, K.O. You’ve been a real pain in the ass.” But he was smiling, and it struck everyone as being funny.

K.O. laughed. “Good luck to you, Mark, and I assure you, son, you’ve been a bigger pain.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry about all this.” He shook hands with Trumann, and walked away with his mother and McThune. Reggie and Clint remained by the hangar door.

At some point, about halfway to the jet, Mark stopped. As if suddenly scared, he froze in place and watched as Dianne climbed the steps to the plane. At no time during the past twenty-four hours had it occurred to him that Reggie would be left behind. He had simply assumed, for whatever reason, that she would stay with them until this ordeal was over. She would fly off with them, and hang around the new hospital until they were safe. And as he stood there, a tiny figure on the vast tarmac, motionless and stunned, he realized she was not beside him. She was back there with Clint and the FBI.

He turned slowly, and stared at her in terror as this reality sunk in. He took two steps toward her, then stopped. Reggie left her small group and walked to him. She knelt on the tarmac, and looked into his panicked eyes.

He bit his lip. “You can’t come with us, can you?” he asked slowly in a frightened voice. Though they had talked for hours, this subject was never touched.

She shook her head as her eyes watered.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. The FBI agents were close by, but not watching. For once in his life, he was not ashamed to cry in public. “But I want you to go,” he said.

“I can’t, Mark.” She leaned forward, took both of his shoulders, and hugged him gently. “I can’t go.”

Tears flooded his cheeks. “I’m sorry about all this. You didn’t deserve it.”

“But if it hadn’t happened, Mark, I never
would’ve met you.” She kissed him on the cheek, and held his shoulders tight. “I love you, Mark. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll never see you again, will I?” His lip quivered and tears dripped off his chin. His voice was frail.

She gritted her teeth and shook her head. “No, Mark.”

Reggie took a deep breath, and stood. She wanted to grab him, and take him home to Momma Love. He could have the bedroom upstairs, and all the spaghetti and ice cream he could eat.

Instead, she nodded at the plane where Dianne was standing in the door, waiting patiently. He wiped his cheeks again. “I’ll never see you again,” he said, almost to himself. He turned, and made a feeble attempt to straighten his shoulders, but he couldn’t. He walked slowly to the steps, and glanced back for one last look.

     42     

MINUTES LATER, AS THE PLANE TAXIED TO THE END OF the runway, Clint eased to her side and took her hand. They watched silently as it took off and finally disappeared in the clouds.

She wiped tears from both cheeks. “I think I’ll become a real estate lawyer,” she said. “I can’t take any more of this.”

“He’s quite a kid,” Clint said.

“It hurts, Clint.”

He squeezed her hand harder. “I know.”

Trumann appeared quietly beside her, and the three of them looked at the sky. She noticed him, and pulled the micro-cassette tape from her pocket. “It’s yours,” she said. He took it.

“The body is in the garage behind Jerome Clifford’s house,” she said, still wiping tears, “886 East Brookline.”

Trumann turned to his left and stuck a radio to his mouth. The agents bolted for their cars. Reggie and Clint did not move.

“Thanks, Reggie,” Trumann said, now suddenly eager to leave.

She nodded at the distant clouds. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Thank Mark.”

For Ty and Shea

Books by John Grisham

A TIME TO KILL
THE FIRM
THE PELICAN BRIEF
THE CLIENT
THE CHAMBER
THE RAINMAKER
THE RUNAWAY JURY
THE PARTNER
THE STREET LAWYER
THE TESTAMENT
THE BRETHREN
A PAINTED HOUSE
SKIPPING CHRISTMAS
THE SUMMONS
THE KING OF TORTS
BLEACHERS
THE LAST JUROR
THE BROKER
THE INNOCENT MAN
PLAYING FOR PIZZA
THE APPEAL
THE ASSOCIATE
FORD COUNTY: STORIES

JOHN GRISHAM has written twenty-one novels, including the recent #1
New York Times
bestsellers
The Associate
and
The Appeal
, as well as one work of nonfiction,
The Innocent Man
. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi. His new book from Doubleday is
Ford County: Stories
.

www.jgrisham.com

Read on for an excerpt of

The

Litigators

A Novel

by John Grisham

Published by Bantam Books

CHAPTER 1

The law firm of Finley & Figg referred to itself as a “boutique firm.” This misnomer was inserted as often as possible into routine conversations, and it even appeared in print in some of the various schemes hatched by the partners to solicit business. When used properly, it implied that Finley & Figg was something above your average two-bit operation. Boutique, as in small, gifted, and expert in one specialized area. Boutique, as in pretty cool and chic, right down to the Frenchness of the word itself. Boutique, as in thoroughly happy to be small, selective, and prosperous.

Except for its size, it was none of these things. Finley & Figg’s scam was hustling injury cases, a daily grind that required little skill or creativity and would never be considered cool or sexy. Profits were as elusive as status. The firm was small because it couldn’t afford to grow. It was selective only because no one wanted to work there, including the two men who owned it. Even its location suggested a monotonous life out in the bush leagues. With a Vietnamese massage parlor to its left and a lawn mower repair shop to its right, it was clear at a casual glance that Finley & Figg was not prospering. There was another boutique firm directly across the street—hated rivals—and more lawyers around the corner. In fact, the neighborhood was teeming with lawyers, some working alone, others in small firms, others still in versions of their own little boutiques.

F&F’s address was on Preston Avenue, a busy street filled with old bungalows now converted and used for all manner of commercial activity. There was retail (liquor, cleaners, massages) and professional (legal, dental, lawn mower repair) and culinary (enchiladas, baklava, and pizza to go). Oscar Finley had won the building in a lawsuit twenty years earlier. What the address lacked in prestige it sort of made up for in location. Two doors away was the intersection of Preston, Beech, and Thirty-eighth, a chaotic convergence of asphalt and traffic that guaranteed at least one good car wreck a week, and often more. F&F’s annual overhead was covered by collisions that happened less than one hundred yards away. Other law firms, boutique and otherwise, were often prowling the area in hopes of finding an available, cheap bungalow from which their hungry lawyers could hear the actual squeal of tires and crunching of metal.

With only two attorneys/partners, it was of course mandatory that one be declared the senior and the other the junior. The senior partner was Oscar Finley, age sixty-two, a thirty-year survivor of the bareknuckle brand of law found on the tough streets of southwest Chicago. Oscar had once been a beat cop but got himself terminated for cracking skulls. He almost went to jail but instead had an awakening and went to college, then law school. When no firms would hire him, he hung out his own little shingle and started suing anyone who came near. Thirty-two years later, he found it hard to believe that for thirty-two years he’d wasted his career suing for past-due accounts receivable, fender benders, slip-and-falls, and quickie divorces. He was still married to his first wife, a terrifying woman he wanted to sue every day for his own divorce. But he couldn’t afford it. After thirty-two years of lawyering, Oscar Finley couldn’t afford much of anything.

His junior partner—and Oscar was prone to say things like, “I’ll get my junior partner to handle it,” when trying to impress judges and other lawyers and especially prospective clients—was Wally Figg, age forty-five. Wally fancied himself a hardball litigator, and his blustery ads promised all kinds of aggressive behavior. “We Fight for Your Rights!” and “Insurance Companies Fear Us!” and “We Mean Business!” Such ads could be seen on park benches, city transit buses, cabs, high school football programs, even telephone poles, though this violated several ordinances. The ads were not seen in two crucial markets—television and billboards. Wally and Oscar were still fighting over these. Oscar refused to spend the money—both types were horribly expensive—and Wally was still scheming. His dream was to see his smiling face and slick head on television saying dreadful things about insurance companies while promising huge settlements to injured folks wise enough to call his toll-free number.

But Oscar wouldn’t even pay for a billboard. Wally had one picked out. Six blocks from the office, at the corner of Beech and Thirty-second, high above the swarming traffic, on top of a four-story tenement house, there was the most perfect billboard in all of metropolitan Chicago. Currently hawking cheap lingerie (with a comely ad, Wally had to admit), the billboard had his name and face written all over it. But Oscar still refused.