The Last Goodbye (7 page)

I turned, feeling something behind me; there was a round of applause, and then the seas parted. Sonnier and Ralston entered the room like royalty. Ralston was tall, at just over six feet, with a lean, athletic build. A slight peppering of gray in the hair was the only clue to his age; I had heard he was in his early fifties, but he looked considerably younger. His skin was dark but smooth, a gift from spending most of his life indoors. His wife, however, had been transformed. The tragic figure of Romeo had revealed herself to be an absolutely gorgeous woman who was ignoring the dress code with sublime indifference. She was dressed in the ersatz-ghetto fashion favored by twenty-something designers looking to make a name for themselves: in other words, in two thousand dollars' worth of clothes designed to look like twenty. Surrounded by tails and evening gowns, Sonnier appeared in the ballroom of the Four Seasons in tight, low-rider black pants, a tight-fitted tangerine top cut low to show a modest but perfectly formed cleavage, bare arms, and a thin slice of midriff. Her hips were encircled by a silver chain belt, each link carefully given an aged, dull patina. Her belly button was pierced, and her left ear had three small hoop earrings, all the same distressed silver as the belt. The effect was edgy, but she pulled it off with so much insouciant confidence that everyone else in the room seemed overdressed, as if she alone had read the invitation correctly. And her skin: my impressions from her photographs at Townsend's place had been right. She was chocolate and luminous in the lights of the ballroom. Standing on black platform shoes, she couldn't have made more of an entrance if she had ridden into the Four Seasons on a Harley.

Ralston was instantly waylaid by a bunch of suits; the money in the room was the hungry variety, always ready to attach itself to a rising tide. Ralston shook hands with a vaguely interested expression, clearly aware of his position. This was the new black elite: the wife, nonconformist and artsy, the husband, impeccably dressed in Armani, playing the white games to perfection.

The couple separated quickly: a handler led Michele into the crowd, while Ralston headed in the opposite direction. The crowd near her fell on her in that polite way rich people have who are in awe of artists, especially when they've paid two hundred and fifty bucks for the chance to demonstrate they have good enough taste to deserve being wealthy. I let Ralston go; I was there for Sonnier. I followed from a distance, watching her greet people who were loving her safe, calculated funkiness.

Of course, from my perspective, that of the Fulton County Criminal Court system, Michele Sonnier was about as street as Girl Scout cookies. Nobody who sings opera is going to carjack you, if you see what I mean. And being black, I figured she knew that as well as I did. Which made me figure that what I was watching was a little bit like opera itself. She could have broken out into song right where she stood, something about liberal white guilt and a mule and forty acres. But instead, she just worked the room, letting her new best friends tell her how great she was.

I watched her for a while, wondering about Doug Townsend and his obsession. In her shoes she seemed tall, but I estimated she was only about five-six without them, with slender but well-defined arms. She had fine features, delicate and precise, with dark brown eyes, and spectacular hair—brunette, with reddish-auburn highlights—swept back into a ponytail.
My God
, I thought.
Poor Doug never had a chance.
Finally, she made it around to where I was standing, and she stopped in front of me. Her handler was speaking to someone a few yards away; for the moment, we were alone. She put out a beautiful, smooth hand. I took it and introduced myself. “Jack Hammond.”

“Hello, Mr. Hammond.” Her voice was cultured, educated.

“Quite a soiree they put on for you.”

She smiled. “I hate all this fuss.”

“At least it's in your honor.”

Her smile softened. “I suppose.”

“So how do you like playing a man?”

“A challenge, but well worth it in this case.”

“Because of the music?”

She shrugged. “The music's alright.”

That was a little bit of a surprise. “Just all right?”

Sonnier leaned forward. I couldn't place her scent; it was citrus, subtle and clean. “I'll let you in on a secret, if you promise not to tell,” she said.

“I think I can manage that.”

“This particular opera's not one of my favorites. I do it for another reason.”

“What's that?”

“The rather delicious irony, obviously.”

“I'm a little new to the opera thing,” I said. “Maybe you could paint me a picture.”

She leaned closer. She was being confidential as hell. I had to remember to ask Blu what that scent was. “That surprises me, Mr. Hammond,” she said. “You have the air of an expert.”

I smiled, I was also slightly annoyed, because even though I knew she was playing me, I couldn't help falling for it. She knew that I knew, too, and it didn't make any difference. Really beautiful women get to break all the rules. I couldn't take my eyes off her glossy, soft mouth. She was actually starting to piss me off, until I realized it was Charles Ralston I was hating, simply for being the guy who got to kiss her. “In Shakespeare's time,” she said, “Juliet was played by a man. All the roles were. Women weren't allowed on stage.”

“Yeah, I'd heard that. So that balcony scene . . .”

“Two Englishmen pretending to be Italians making love.”

“Right.”

“So naturally Bellini, who really was Italian, evened the score. He wrote Romeo played by a woman.”

“You're saying it was some kind of art-world revenge?”

Sonnier laughed, and the pure loveliness of her voice sent a shiver up my spine. She leaned closer and whispered, “Mr. Hammond, if you're going to understand anything about opera, there's something you should remember. No matter what else is going on, the theme is always revenge.”

Before I could respond, her handler appeared. He took her arm and started to lead her away. It was now or never as far as Doug Townsend was concerned, so I put out my hand and stopped her. For a second, she was suspended between the two of us, an arm extended in each direction. “Yes, Mr. Hammond?” she asked.

“I was just wondering if you had heard the news about a mutual friend of ours.”

She looked surprised. “Who's that?”

I knew this was it. If the name didn't register, it was back to the office with nothing to show for my five hundred bucks but some crab cakes, a night of Italian music, and my first crush on a black woman. I looked her in the eyes and said, “Doug Townsend.”

Nothing altered in her face. Not a muscle moved. Her smile was just as inviting as ever. “I don't believe I know anyone by that name,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“No, that's okay,” I answered. “Actually, it's a good thing.”

The guy pulled on her again, but I could feel the muscle in her arm tighten. It was subtle, but it's the kind of thing you pick up on when you're surrounded by liars every night and day. At least for the moment, she wasn't going anywhere. “And why would that be?”

“Because he's the former Doug Townsend,” I answered. “Sort of a messy drug overdose, four days ago.”

Her smile, which one second earlier had been warm flesh and blood, was set instantly in concrete, freeze-framed into a pleasant deadness. She knew him, alright. The great Michele Sonnier knew Doug Townsend just like I did.

AFTER TWO YEARS IN
Judge Thomas Odom's court, I can state one thing with utter certainty: people do not lie to hear themselves talk. They lie because there's something they don't want you to know badly enough to trade a little bit of their integrity to keep you from finding that thing out. So when I showed up at work the next day, the central question on my mind was what that thing was for Michele Sonnier, and exactly how much of her integrity was she willing to exchange to keep it private. Of course I hit an immediate wall, namely, that Doug's life and Michele Sonnier's were separated by an insurmountable cultural and financial gulf. She spent her time with European-born conductors who spoke four languages, and Doug spent his living next door to hell, trying to avoid jail. But the fact remained that more than twenty times he had crossed that gulf with plane tickets, each one paid for in cash. That, combined with my absolute certainty that Sonnier had lied about knowing him, was more than I could ignore.

Wanting to unravel the connection between Sonnier and Doug would not, however, find me the money I needed to pay Blu's salary at the end of the month. So in spite of how much I wanted to spend time finding out what happened to Doug, the fact was I was grateful to head to the office to get ready for court. Thanks to the largesse of Sammy Liston, I had two cases on Judge Odom's docket that morning.

As usual, I met both clients shortly before trial. The first, a second offense for simple possession, earned the girl—twenty years old, pretty, with the nearly ubiquitous sad eyes of most of my clients—time served and a stern lecture from Odom, which consisted of such classic lines as “I don't want to see you in my courtroom again, Miss Harmon” and “If I hear that you've missed one of your drug tests, I'm going to have to send you away.” All sleepwalking stuff.

It was an indication of the sheer repetitiveness of my practice that I looked forward to representing Michael Harrod, my second case of the day. His crime was utterly forgettable—petty larceny, otherwise known as shoplifting—but for once, it wasn't about drugs.

His appearance caused a bit of a stir, which is an accomplishment, considering who gets dragged through Odom's court. Harrod had spiky hair, like Joseph's famous coat: a haircut of many colors. Piercings were numerous and painful-looking. His T-shirt, emblazoned with the logo of the band Nine Inch Nails, was badly in need of washing. But in spite of all this, he was about as scary as an altar boy. At five foot six and 130 pounds, the T-shirt covered a nearly concave chest. His skin, having apparently been deprived of sunlight for the last several years, was as pasty-white as unbaked bread. He looked nervous, like a sharp noise would lift him off the ground. I met him outside the courtroom about an hour before his trial.

“Jack Hammond,” I said, introducing myself. He looked at me warily, not returning my handshake. “You're Michael Harrod, correct?”

“Call me Nightmare,” he said.

I laughed. I didn't mean to, but the comic effect of combining his name and his appearance was irresistible. “Is that Mr. Nightmare?” I asked. “Or is Night your first name and Mare your last?”

Harrod gave me a narrow, suspicious look that was, I suppose, what he could muster up for arrogance. “Look,” he said, “what do I have to do to get out of this? That's what we're here for, right?”

I have nearly infinite patience with smart-ass clients. I simply remind myself that most of them have never had a father, and that they are minutes away from meeting Daddy. Daddy, in this case, is Judge Thomas Odom. The judge is a decent man but he can turn on the gruff act when appropriate, and coming as it does from a man with the power to send you to hell, it's usually fairly effective. It usually takes about two minutes for a first-timer's expression to be transformed from detached asshole to abject, whimpering baby. They crawl back through time, past their victimized adolescence, right back to the moment when a real father would have smacked their butts a little bit and put an end to their insolence problem. “Well, Nightmare,” I said, “even though I personally find you charming, you might start off with a little attitude adjustment. Judge Odom likes his victims a little more contrite.”

Nightmare looked me over again, thinking. I could see him putting some things together. “I can smile,” he said. “I can bow and scrape for the man.”

“In that case,” I said, “now would be the time.” I opened up his folder. “I've been looking over your file. Apparently you got confused about the correct time to pay for some items in a Radio Shack.”

Nightmare shrugged. “I needed ‘em,” he said. “They weren't worth much.”

“Then why not pay?”

“I didn't have it. Anyway, that's old economy.”

“Old economy?”

Nightmare gave me a tired look. “Look, you're old economy. You're a dinosaur.” He gestured around him at the walls of the courthouse. “This whole system is.”

“Dinosaurs, are we?” I was starting to seriously dislike this kid.

“All of this, governments, court systems, armies, wars. It's all old economy. It's dying, and you don't even know it.”

“I guess not paying for things, that's new economy?”

“Do you have any concept of how fast the world is moving? You think I should shut down my whole world over five bucks' worth of electronic parts?”

I looked down at the folder. “That's what this is about? Five dollars?”

“Yeah. Five bucks' worth of connectors for an autodialer.”

“What's an autodialer?”

“It dials. Automatically.”

“Computers, you mean.”

“Maybe,” he said.

At that moment I realized that Nightmare was really just a thief, the only difference being that his breaking and entering was electronic. Ten seconds after that, a little plan hatched in my head, most of which entailed getting him as far into my debt as possible. After last night, the particular expertise I suspected he possessed I needed very badly. Since he didn't look like the type of kid who would do me any favors, I would have to make him owe me. I figured that would take about five minutes.

I looked across the hall at the assistant district attorney assigned to the case, who was talking to an overweight, dark-haired man of about thirty-five. I watched them for a couple of minutes, thinking. I stood up, and Nightmare flinched back about six inches from the sudden motion. I stared down at him, thinking about how many times he must have had his ass kicked in grade school. But I had no doubt that he was as dangerous with a computer as a prizefighter was with his fists. As much as I hated to admit it, the kid was right; the world
was
changing, and little pissed-off Nightmares like him were about to inherit the keys to the kingdom. But not quite yet, and in the meantime, I needed a favor from him. “Listen to me,” I said. “I'm sure I'm going to love the world you and your techno-anarchist buddies are building. But right now, the old economy is going to put your spindly little butt in jail if you don't do exactly—and I mean exactly—what I tell you to do.”