The Good Lawyer: A Novel (10 page)

A much younger but dispassionate voice said, “It’s Kerres, K-E-R-R-E-S. Not Karras, like the priest in that awful movie.”

“I actually thought the movie was pretty good.”

“If you’re a movie critic it was. If you’re a priest, the subject matter, and the ending especially, were quite disturbing. Particularly if you’re a priest with a similar sounding name, and like the character in the film, a psychiatrist as well.”

“You’re giving me the creeps,” I said jokingly, “although a part of me is disappointed. I could use a good exorcism.”

I figured by the sound of his voice and by calculating his age via Guevara’s encounter with him as an adolescent orphan, he must have been in his early to mid thirties; so I expected the young priest to joke back, throw a witty retort my way. But none came.

And as time passed I came to realize that this was a man who either had no sense of humor, or had lost it somewhere. I’d met people like this before, and almost always disliked them. Self-righteous, self-serving, self-pitying souls who had little excuse for their malcontent other than the selfish, unsatisfying lives they chose for themselves. But as a Roman Catholic myself, how could I feel this way about a priest?

To a child attending grades one through eight at Brooklyn’s Saint Francis of Assisi there was no one else on earth closer to God. It didn’t have to be taught. It was understood. It was the priest who put
the body of Christ
in our mouths.
Amen
. Mexican bandits may burn, rape, pillage and plunder, but in the end, spare the priest, whose life was its own sanctuary. Nuns were special—pure, good, trustworthy. But priests were Godlike. I revered them—and feared them.

“You called me about Peter Guevara,” I said.

He didn’t react.

“Have you known him long?”

“A dozen or so years.”

“Then you must have met him while he was an orphan at Saint Joseph’s?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

A slew of follow-up questions raced through my mind, all concerning the attempted gang rape of Guevara, and Kerres’ nick-of-time rescue. But asking them would have been too much, too soon, and Kerres seemed far from pleased with the course of our conversation.

“You’ve obviously gained Peter’s trust, and rather quickly. You must be a very good lawyer.”

There was a purpose to Kerres’ flattery, but it got past me. Why did Kerres care about what I knew?

“Thank you, but it’s hard work that rarely bears fruit. If we could meet in person I would really appreciate it.”

Kerres offered to stop by and see me later in the week. My office was on his way to Yankee Stadium. It was his turn to pick up season tickets he shared with three other priests. Since we had a common love for baseball (not necessarily the Yankees, though), I was hopeful we would get along, if not famously, at least enough to be allies in the defense of Peter Guevara.

I could use all the allies I could get.

I called Eleanor. Her secretary, Jo, answered. Before I could utter a sound she rattled on about how wonderful it was that Eleanor and I could get away from “all this court crap and have a great weekend”. I was dumb struck when she mentioned the Garden City Hotel where Eleanor and I spent Saturday night, but was relieved that she had the impression it was my treat. It wasn’t. Not at two hundred a night. I could barely afford Dario’s on my Legal Aid salary.

After Eleanor got on the line and teased me about getting my own place, she relayed some news via Peachtree Heights, Georgia. Her baby brother was getting married. The wedding would be held in Atlanta on the last Saturday in April, just six weeks away.

“Where they going to elope?” I asked. “How do you plan a wedding in six weeks?”

“It’s been planned for over six months. I’m in the wedding party.”

“Great. When were you going to tell me?”

“Listen. You know about what’s-his-name?” She was referring to her ex-fiancé. I suspect she was alternately relieved and bothered that I never asked about him.

“Now that you mention it—no. I don’t even know what what’s-his-name’s name is. And I don’t care. Don’t tell me you were going to the wedding with him?”

“Not since I broke off the engagement, of course not.” She took a breath. “I can see you’re getting the wrong idea. I wanted you to be happy about this, not angry.”

“I’m not angry, just confused.”

“Then come over for dinner tonight, and I’ll un-confuse you.”

“I’ll be there at seven.”

“Fine.” She then whispered: “I love you, stupid.”

As I hung up, Tom Miller popped into my office bouncing a nerf basketball on the front and back of his right hand. I hadn’t seen him since the Guevara arraignment, and I wanted to know if he got any supervisory flack over my taking the case.

“If you get good results, most of the time the bosses will leave you alone,” he cracked, bouncing the nerf ball higher and higher. “C’mon let’s shoot some hoops.”

Through a narrow maze of corridors we arrived at Tom’s office where a small plastic basketball hoop hung atop the inside of his door. Acting like awkward fools (dribbling optional) we took turns shooting the nerf from all angles until we broke a sweat and stopped.

And for those few minutes, as my adrenaline pumped and I struggled to catch my breath, I felt like a kid again, lost in innocent play—oblivious to evil’s frenetic pace in the world.

Chapter 19

T
he FDR Drive moved at a crawl as I headed south on my way to Sutton Place. It was just after 6 P.M. and the heart of rush hour. After listening to about a half dozen tunes on the radio I exited on East 58th Street and faced the greatest challenge of my life since leaving the office—finding a parking space on the East Side of midtown Manhattan.

Twenty-minutes later the search ended and with briefcase in hand I began a four-block trek to Eleanor’s building. A grand Bulova clock atop a nearby billboard flashed the temperature and time. It was thirty degrees, and windy to a howl.

My ears were hard and numb and I was convinced I had frostbite; yet in the streets, crowds of pedestrian commuters seemed unfazed by the freezing cold.

I passed under the canopied entrance to Eleanor’s building and the concierge buzzed me in.

I took the elevator to the seventh floor and hit the pop-in bell on apartment 7C.

“It’s open!” Eleanor sung out.

Annoyed, I entered to find Eleanor in her bare feet by the stove, peach blouse untucked and hanging over a brown skirt. She stepped around a counter that separated the kitchen from the dinette and living room. We hugged. I was still holding my briefcase at my side. The two top buttons on her blouse were open and I could feel the swell of her breasts against my chest. We gave each other a few short kisses, each a bit longer than the last.

“It’s hamburgers, fries and Coca-Cola. I’m doing a fifties thing.”

I set my briefcase down next to the couch at the edge of a red tasseled area rug. “You know if you really loved me you’d make sauce.”

She smiled and walked into the kitchen. “Because I love you I won’t make sauce. Trust me. I’d poison you.” She headed for the bedroom. “Give me a minute.”

“Eleanor, what’s with the unlocked door? This is New York City for God’s sake!” I took my jacket and tie off and draped them over the sofa arm.

“I know! I work here!” she yelled back. “Freddie buzzed me that you were coming up. I won’t live in fear, Nick!”

“Just promise me you won’t do that again. I don’t care who you’re expecting.”

She emerged from the bedroom wearing jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt. “I promise.”

She had gone to Brown, then N.Y.U. Law.
What’s with the Harvard sweatshirt?

Perceptive as always, she said, “I got this a few years ago in Boston. My father insisted I attend a meeting with him at Fidelity Investments regarding some trust money.”

Relief poured over me. At least it wasn’t the ex-fiancé’s, who probably had a background, educational and otherwise, that made mine pale by comparison. And I wanted no reminders.

Eleanor grabbed a tray of burgers, fries and two eight-ounce bottles of Coke, and brought them to a small table by a window with a view of the river. I sat down and poured soda into two glasses packed with ice. Eleanor went back into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Heinz ketchup, and sat down across from me. “Nick, we have to talk.”

In the time it took me to clean my plate and finish my Coke and some of hers too, she told me everything she wanted me to know about the ex-fiancé, their relationship, and their break-up.

I gave her my undivided attention, while trying to conceal the knot in my stomach as she told me about their high school sweetheart days and relationship through college, though she had gone to Brown, and he Georgetown. They got engaged during her first year at NYU Law, right after he was appointed vice president of his father’s publishing company, the second largest in the country. They planned to marry after she graduated. Hating New York City, he’d visited her only once, and was incensed when she took the job as an assistant District Attorney. Their parents counseled them in the hope of keeping them together.

They broke up anyway.

“Aside from a
Moon River
dance with a really nice guy I met at Cardozo Law, I never cheated on him, or wanted to.” She tilted her head, and smiled that smile—the one that had just the right dose of reassuring love and attention I needed at that moment.

“And when I took the job downtown, I ended it. He readily agreed, and I suppose that hurt a bit. But then again, there was this new friend of mine, a little cocky, a bit conceited, who looked at me like no one ever has. But then you flunked the bar and I thought for sure you would turn into this horrible person.” Eleanor caressed my knee with her hand. “But you didn’t.” She looked out at the river. “And, of course, there was the bar-hopping with pal Joey. So I asked myself: is this a man who could be faithful? But when you asked me out and kissed me for the first time, I figured you’d turned out all right.”

“Just all right, huh?”

“More than all right. I love you, Nick, more than I have ever have or will love. So don’t give me any crap over why I didn’t invite you to my brother’s wedding sooner.” She reached for my hand, squeezed it, and asked tenderly: “Do you feel better now?”

“Yeah I do.”

We kissed…then fell onto the floor—Eleanor, chair, and me. Entwined, we rolled over and over on the rug, wrestling each other’s clothes off.

“Nick? I think I’m catching a cold.”

We were completely naked, the tender curves of her body pulsing against mine. “It doesn’t matter.” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Just after the eleven o’clock news I saw Eleanor to bed with two aspirins and a cup of tea. Then I did something this mama’s boy had never done before—I washed all the dinner dishes, glasses and pans. I used Brillo on everything. Afterward, I borrowed her Harvard sweatshirt and a scarf, bundled up, and headed home.

Soaring along the Long Island Expressway, her words of love softly repeated in my head, along with visions of sailing the open seas with her—and never returning.

Chapter 20

A
s I left for work, late as usual, the headline in
Newsday
, wrapped in a thin plastic bag on the porch steps, caught my eye.
Spiderman Rapist Kills #5 In Bronx.

When I arrived at Executive Towers Vinny was chatting with Frances at reception, who was sitting at her desk like a bank teller behind a bulletproof partition. She was goo-goo eyed as Vinny in a wide collar shirt, sports jacket and dress pants made the dashing figure. With his Casanova look and American style I was sure he’d abandon the free press and land in network news by the time he was thirty. He followed me into the elevator, and waited until we were behind the closed door of my office before revealing the purpose of his visit.

“They caught him!”

“The Spiderman?”

“He’s a janitor in the same building victim number five lived. He killed this time!”

“But why?”

“She put up one hell of a struggle. The police figure he couldn’t get it up. So after he tied her hands behind her back, he strangled her.” I shook my head in disgust. “It gets worse. She’s the ex-wife of a Brooklyn cop—Italian guy, lives in Sheepshead Bay. Every paper and TV station across the country is expected to pick up the story.”

“This janitor had better be guilty. He’s going to hang on even the flimsiest evidence.” I envisioned the hordes of press and camera crews mobbing the arraignment along with thousands of cops thirsting for vengeance.

“My detective buddy in the 50th says there was a baby, a girl, ten months old, in a crib next to the bed. He made me swear not to tell. I’m the only reporter who knows so far.” Vinny paused. He was breathing hard. “The bastard suffocated her with her own pillow.” His face flushed red. “The father had to be restrained when he found out.” Vinny sat down. I felt the blood rush to my feet as I leaned back on my desk.

I folded my arms across my belly, forcing my eyes not to close, even to blink, for fear I would never rid my mind of the mental picture of a dead baby. “Can they connect the janitor to the other rapes?”