The Anonymous Client

identification.”
    “So why didn’t Marilyn have the other half of a dollar? Why you?”
    “She didn’t know I’d done it. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her. The only time we’d spoken was when she called me in the real estate office, and I couldn’t say anything then. She was telling me to meet her with the ten thousand dollars. She didn’t know I’d mailed them to you. Or the half a dollar. And I didn’t see her after that. Not until my wife and I walked in on you and her that night. And by that time she’d already called in Fitzpatrick to act as her lawyer. All right, she’d made her decision. She didn’t need you. But I did. So I kept the half a dollar.”
    Steve Winslow looked at him. “What a great way of handling things,” he said. “Anonymous letters. A half of a dollar bill. Tell me, where did you get that idea?”
    Kemper shifted in his seat. “I read it in a book.”
    “Yeah,” Steve said. “Yeah. I was sure you had.” Steve shook his head. “Tell me something, will you? The hero in the book you read, the book about the half a dollar—did you like him?”
    Kemper stared at him. “What?”
    “Was he sympathetic, a nice guy, someone you’d really root for? I mean, you really wanted him to win, right?”
    Kemper frowned. “Yeah. Why?”
    “That’s what’s wrong here. If you were the hero of that book, it never would have gotten published. The editor would have thrown it back in the author’s face. Because you’re not sympathetic. You’re not the romantic hero. You’re a self-centered egotistical son of a bitch, who’s playing around with a younger, richer woman who happens to be the stepsister of his wife. And then you get involved in a murder, but that doesn’t faze you, because you ripped some idea out of a storybook to hire some poor fucking lawyer to get you out of this mess. Well, I’ve got news for you. There ain’t a hell of a lot I can do. Sheila Benton told you I was good, well good for her. She didn’t get acquitted in court. She got acquitted ’cause there was a break in the case and it had nothing to do with what went on in that courtroom. I had something to do with it, yeah, but that was just luck. I wouldn’t count on it happening here. The problem is, you’re spoiled by books and TV, you think everything has a happy ending. I know what you expect from me. You want a courtroom confession. I’m gonna cross-examine the witnesses, and someone’s gonna break down on the witness stand and say, ‘I did it,’ and you and Marilyn will live happily ever after.
    “Well, I got news for you, it doesn’t happen that way. I can’t get you a courtroom confession. I can’t solve this fucking crime. All I can do is make a showing in court and try to make the jury, one, like you and two, believe you. And we got a big problem there. Because I don’t like you, and I don’t believe you. So how the hell am I gonna make twelve other people do it?”
    Kemper started to flare up again, but it just wasn’t in him anymore. His face contorted, and he wilted in his chair. He looked as if he were about to cry. For the first time, Steve almost felt sorry for him.
    Kemper controlled himself and looked up at Winslow. “You’re saying you won’t be my attorney?”
    Steve Winslow chuckled. “Now there, Mr. Kemper, you bring up an interesting point. Am I your attorney? You’re damn right I am. I happen to be withholding evidence from the police on the grounds that I’m protecting the confidence of a client. You’re the client. So like it or not, I’m stuck with you. So let’s cut out the bullshit, and get down to brass tacks.”

33.
    F ITZPATRICK REGARDED S TEVE W INSLOW WITH superior disdain. “I fail to see what we have to talk about.”
    “That’s because you haven’t had time to think things over. When you do, you’ll see that we have a lot to talk about. I’m afraid I don’t have time for your thought process to catch up with you, so I’m going to fill you in.”
    “Your arrogance is amazing.”
    “Isn’t it? When I find myself painted into a corner, I see no reason to be polite.”
    “You threw me out of your office. Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you out of mine?”
    “I can give you plenty of reasons. You haven’t thought this over yet, but when you do you’re going to find out you’re painted into a corner too.”
    “I fail to see it.”
    “Only one of your many failings, Fitzpatrick. Remember when you came to