The Baxter Trust

was so furious with me. He said I was insane to hire a lawyer I knew nothing about to handle a murder case. So he made it his business to find out.”
    Steve said nothing. He sat and waited.
    “It seems you haven’t always been a lawyer. You used to be an actor. The only trouble was, you couldn’t get any work. You know why? Because you’re a pain in the ass. Because you’re too much trouble. You’re like the actor in that movie—who was it?—Dustin Hoffman, who was such a pain in the ass no one would hire him so he had to dress up like a woman to get any work. You wouldn’t take direction. You thought you knew everything. You fought with directors and writers. You had opinions about everything, and you didn’t know how to shut up.”
    She paused and looked at him. “Who would have thought it of you?” she said.
    “So,” she went on, “you alienated everyone. You were determined not to take shit from anyone, so the result was you took shit from everyone. You were your own worst enemy, and you fucked yourself every chance you got.
    “It got to a point where no one would work with you anymore. So you gave up. You quit acting, and you worked your way through law school. You just got out a year ago. You went to work for the law firm of Wilson and Doyle. You handled one case for them. They fired you. You haven’t worked since.”
    She stopped talking and just looked at him.
    He sighed. “I see.”
    “Is it true?”
    “Yeah. It’s true. They fired me. You wanna know why?”
    “No, but I know you’re dying to tell me.”
    “Shit.”
    “Go on. Tell me.”
    “Forget it.”
    “No. I’m sorry. Tell me.”
    “Okay.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. “Well, it was my first case. A hit-and-run. An elderly man struck down at a crosswalk. The man accused of driving the car was our client. I wasn’t handling the case. I was just assigned to get experience. My job was to coordinate information for the real lawyer. Mainly to answer the phone and fetch coffee. I wasn’t supposed to do anything.
    “Well, I found out the victim had regained consciousness and the police were going to drag our client up to the hospital to see if he could identify him. Well, you know what that means. Or maybe you don’t. But anyway, in a hit-and-run, nine times out of ten the victim never even saw the car coming. At best, he just caught a glimpse while trying to dive out of the way. But the police go to him and tell him they got the guy who hit him, but they want him to take a look to make sure. So when they drag the guy in there the victim usually identifies him without even stopping to think about it. After that, your client doesn’t stand a chance.”
    He paused. “So?”
    “So, I got a guy about our client’s age and description and rushed him down to the hospital before the police got there. Sure enough, the victim took one look at him and said, That’s the guy. So, when the police showed up fifteen minutes later with our client, the victim said, ‘Naw, that can’t be the guy. I just saw the guy who hit me and it wasn’t him.’“
    She was looking at him with genuine interest. “So they fired you?”
    He shrugged. “The police were pretty mad. They came down on Wilson and Doyle hard. Well, they should have backed me up—what I’d done might have been sharp practice, but it was perfectly legal. But they didn’t want to stand the flack, so they fired me. The irony is, because of what I’d done our client beat the rap.”
    “Was he innocent?”
    “How the hell should I know?” Steve said. “I’m a lawyer, not a judge and jury. My job is to present my client’s case in the best possible light. I do everything I can to prove him innocent. The prosecution does everything it can to prove him guilty. The jury decides. The minute I start trying to decide if a client’s innocent or guilty I’m violating that client’s right to a trial by jury.”
    Sheila, quietly undercutting him, said, “Was he guilty?”
    “He ... uh ... yeah, he was guilty, guilty as hell,” Steve said. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead.
    She sat watching him. She was intrigued. She’d scored with the question, “Was he guilty?” She’d really gotten to him. She’d expected to get to him with the news she knew he’d been fired, but she hadn’t. It had bothered him, but not badly. Not like this. It was unexpected, and it was interesting.
    “Did you know it?” she asked.
    He looked at her.