The White Road

I intercepted Rhine on the courtroom steps.

“Mr. Rhine?”

He paused, and something like worry flashed across his face. As a public defender, he encountered some of the lowest forms of life and was sometimes forced to try to defend the indefensible. I didn’t doubt that, on occasion, his clients’ victims took things personally.

“Yes?” Up close he looked even younger. He hadn’t started to gray yet and his blue eyes were shielded by long, soft lashes. I flashed him my license. He glanced at it and gave a nod.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Parker? You mind if we talk while we walk? I promised my wife I’d take her out to di

I fell into step alongside him.

“I’m working with Elliot Norton on the Atys Jones case, Mr. Rhine.”

His steps faltered for a moment, as though he had briefly lost his bearings, then resumed at a slightly faster speed. I accelerated to keep up.

“I’m no longer involved in that case, Mr. Parker.”

“Since Atys is dead, there isn’t much of a case, period.”

“I heard. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure. I have some questions for you.”

“I’m not sure that I can answer any questions. Maybe you should ask Mr. Norton.”

“You know, I would, except Elliot isn’t around, and my questions are kind of delicate.”

He stopped at the corner of Broad as the light changed to red. He gave the offending signal a look that suggested he was taking its interference in the course of his life kind of personally.

“Like I said, I don’t know that I can help you.”

“I’d like to know why you gave up the case.”

“I have a lot of cases.”

“Not like this one.”

“My caseload doesn’t allow me to pick and choose, Mr. Parker. I was handed the Jones case. It was going to take up a lot of my time. I could have cleared ten cases in the time it took me just to go through the files. I wasn’t sorry to see it go.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a young public defender. You’re probably ambitious and from what I saw of your work today you have good reason to be. A high-profile case like the murder of Maria

The lights had changed again, and we were jostled slightly as people crossed ahead of us. Still, Rhine didn’t move.

“Whose side are you on in this, Mr. Parker?”

“I haven’t decided yet. In the end, though, I guess I’m on the side of a dead woman and a dead man, for what it’s worth.”

“And Elliot Norton?”

“A friend. He asked me to come down here. I came.”

Rhine turned to face me.

“I was asked to pass the case on to him,” he said.

“By Elliot?”

“No. He never approached me. It was another man.”

“You know who he was?”

“He said his name was Kittim. He had something wrong with his face. He came to my office and told me that I should let Elliot Norton defend Atys Jones.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that I couldn’t do that. There was no reason to. He made me an offer.”

I waited.

“We all have skeletons in our closet, Mr. Parker. Suffice it to say that he gave me a glimpse of mine. I have a wife and a young daughter. I made mistakes early in my marriage, but I haven’t repeated them. I wasn’t pla

“When were you approached?”

“About three weeks ago.”

Three weeks ago: about the time that Grady Truett had been killed. By then, James Foster and Maria

“Is that all, Mr. Parker?” asked Rhine. “I’m not happy about what I did. I don’t really want to go over it again.”

“That’s pretty much it,” I said.

“I really am sorry about Atys,” he said.

“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to him,” I replied.

I returned to my hotel. There was a message from Louis, confirming that he would be arriving the next morning, a little later than expected. My spirits lifted slightly.

That night, I stood at the window of my hotel, drawn by the steady, repeated hooting of a car horn. Across the street, in front of the cash machine, the black Coupe de Ville with the shattered windshield idled by the curb. As I watched, the rear driver’s side door opened, and the child emerged. She stood by the open door and beckoned to me, her lips moving soundlessly.

I got a place we can go

Her hips moved, shimmying to music only she could hear. She lifted her skirt, and she was naked yet sexless beneath, the skin smooth as a child’s doll. Her tongue moved over her lips.

Come down

Her hand moved over the smoothness of herself.

I got a place

She thrust herself at me once more before she climbed back into the car and it began to pull away, spiders spilling from its half-closed door. I awoke rubbing gossamer from my face and hair and had to shower to banish the sensation of creatures moving across my body.

21

I WAS AWAKENED BY a knock at my door shortly after 9 A.M. Instinctively, I felt myself reaching for a gun that was no longer there. I wrapped a towel around my waist, then padded softly to the door and peered through the peephole.

Six feet six inches of attitude, razor-sharp dress sense, and gay Republican pride looked me square in the eye.

“I could see you looking out,” said Louis as I opened the door. “Shit, don’t you ever go to the movies? Guy knocks, ski

“You smell like a French whore,” I told him.

“I was a French whore, you couldn’t afford me. By the way, you maybe could use a little makeup yourself.”

I paused, saw myself in the mirror by the door, and looked away again. He was right. I was pale, and there were dark smudges under my eyes. My lips were cracked and dry, and I could taste something metallic in my mouth.

“I picked up something,” I said.

“No shit. The fuck you pick up, the plague? They bury people look better than you.”

“What have you got, Tourette’s? You have to swear all the time?”

He raised his hands in a backing-off gesture. “Hey, glad I came. Nice to be appreciated.”

I apologized. “You checked in?”

“Uh-huh, ’cept some motherfucker-sorry, but, shit, he was a motherfucker-try to hand me his bags at the door.”

“What did you do?”

“Took them, put them in the trunk of a cab, gave the guy fifty bucks, and told him to take them to the charity store.”

“Classy.”

“I like to think so.”

I left him watching television while I showered and dressed, then we headed down to Diana’s on Meeting for coffee and a bite to eat. I ate half a bagel, then pushed it away.

“You got to eat.”

I shook my head. “It’ll pass.”

“It’ll pass and you be dead. So how we doin’?”

“Same as usual: dead people, a mystery, more dead people.”

“Who we lost?”

“The boy. His guardians. Maybe Elliot Norton.”

“Shit, don’t sound like we got anybody left. Anyone hires you better leave you your fee in their will.”

I filled him in on all that had occurred, leaving out only the black car. That I didn’t need to burden him with.

“So what you go

“Push a stick into the beehive and rustle up some bees. The Larousses are hosting a party today. I think we should avail ourselves of their hospitality.”