Hollywood, Los Angeles
Harvey Specter might just be the most articulate man I had ever met.
His words gave away nothing but the information he planned on giving. And his eyes held as little emotion as two very finely constructed hazel beads.
Emphasis on the finely constructed.
He had been talking for the last twenty minutes, and I had been listening intently for that same amount of time.
There was no time for my mind to digest the information being given. He was pacing the pauses between his sentences in a way that allowed me to hear the words, place them in the back of my mind, and hurry back to listening before I could properly consider them.
"-so this all goes back around to whether you have any experience dealing with Fraud charges."
I took a sip of my wine, "Harvey, if this was a usual case, and you were a usual client, I would show you my record, which, dare I say, isn't too bad."
"But?"
"I'm curious if I were to refuse...Who's the next guy?"
Something finally flashed in his eyes, though I couldn't quite catch what it was, at least my words were affecting him. Emotional men were more likely to show, if not tell, the truth. His response was quick, despite the slight hesitation "There's plenty, Mickey." He spread his hands, "And I don't need you to show me your record, I have it right here." He pointed at his phone. "It is impressive, I must tell you. And that is a contributing factor as to why I'm talking to you first."
He said first as if me sitting here with him was a privilege for me. I decided to pause the dance for dominance and focused on what he had been telling me for the last twenty minutes. "Let me see if I've gotten this all right. Your associate, Michael Ross, is being looked into by the D.A for fraud. And you want me to represent him."
"That's about right."
"Who's the D.A?"
"Anita Gibbs." He said the name with clenched teeth.
I nodded, not having heard the name before. But it made sense, my territory was in L.A, and I'd heard of almost all the prosecutors here. But only knew one or two from other states. "Have you got her record?"
"I do."
When he made no motion to retrieve it, I got the sign. He was not going to show me more than what he had just told me lest I get the information but refuse to cooperate. I smiled at his cautiousness.
Now I needed to make a decision. Whether to sign on and board the ship or to shake my head and exit the restaurant.
There was one element that I hadn't heard from him, one that would help my decision. I knew he left that out for a reason, and even if prompted, probably wouldn't tell, but I had to give it a try. "One last question."
"Shoot."
"What is he?"
The question hung in the air, growing bigger and bigger as time dragged on. The phrasing was vague, but he knew what I meant.
Was the man an innocent one that desperately needed defending, or a guilty one trying to bend the laws? Because the laws could be bent, and no one understood it more than a lawyer, even a fraud one.
"Does it matter?" He said, his tone neutral.
That answered everything.
* * * * *
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Rafas had to shout for me to hear when he picked up the phone, "BOSS? YOU'RE DONE ALREADY? GOT THE FISH ON THE HOOK?"
I figured he was in a crowded fast food place enjoying what was probably his third burger of the night and felt a little sorry to interrupt his me-time. "The complete opposite, Rafas. Why don't you finish your dinner and drive the Lincoln home? Take your time. I'm feeling like walking tonight."
"THANKS, BOSS! SORRY ABOUT THE CLIENT. G'NIGHT." Then he hung up, and I shook off the loud noise still ringing and banging around in my head.
I made to put my phone back in my pocket, wanting to enjoy the L.A night wind without the device in my hand, distracting me. But something stopped me, a desire to call someone. A special someone.
So I flipped the phone open again and dialed 1 on speed-dial. I put the phone beside my right ear and listened to the sound of the city with my left. It rang and rang, but no one picked up.
I should probably have known that Maggie Mcfierce would still be working. My first ex-wife was a busy woman, as my daughter Haley put it "Mama is busy putting bad guys away, Dad."
Once Hayley was seven and could understand the content of her parents' job, she started viewing her mother as the good guy and her dad as the good guy's enemy. The guy who stopped the good guys from putting bad guys away.
In other words, a Criminal Defense Attorney.
When I first took this job, which was a good twenty years ago. I had a strong belief that us, the Defense attorneys, was the gear among all the others which kept the justice system moving. That us and the prosecution were two ends of an equation, incomplete without each other. Them putting bad guys away, and us keeping the good guys from getting put away.
But it wasn't that easy.
I walked and I thought, thinking of the number of cases I had successfully won for the defendants...only to find them guilty after the verdict. The many people who had come weeping of the injustice of the justice system, telling me stories of the million ways it had wronged them, only to become the product of the very system...a guilty man walking free.
And then my mind rolled back to Harvey Specter, a lawyer, asking me to defend a guilty man. And ironically, a guilty man who was guilty of pretending to be a lawyer, the so-called defender of justice.
My phone vibrated in my hand, the name Maggie flashing on the screen. I picked it up instantly, not really sure of what to say, but wanting to talk to someone desperately.
"Mickey?" She asked, her voice a little far away. I could tell her mind wasn't on the call, it was busy minding something else. "What's up?"
"Umm..." I wasn't quite sure what to say, what to say to make her understand how I was feeling when even I myself couldn't comprehend what this feeling was.
The ruffling stopped on her side, "Mickey, are you alright?" She had extracted her mind from work and was now solely focused on me.
"I-" I had never thought of myself as a man of no words, but now, words had abandoned me. "Do you really think badly of us?"
The question that came out of my mouth caught me by surprise. It sounded so vulnerable. But I decided to wait for an answer.
"You?" She wondered out loud, also taken by surprise at my sudden, out-of-the-blue question. We'd been divorced for ten years, separated by the mutual hatred between our professions, the difference in beliefs between a prosecutor and a defense attorney. But that didn't stop her from instantly getting what my question was about. "Oh. You mean Defense Lawyers."
