A Certain Justice

'Naturally, Mark doesn't crack a book and somehow is law review and clerking with the majors and I'm living at the library pulling Bs. This story too long?'

'No.'

'So after law school he gets on the partner track here in the city starting in the high thirties. This is '75 or so, remember, and that was a ton of money then. I hang up a shingle and start hauling it in in the large hundreds doing low-rung criminal stuff. But that's okay. It's Mark and me, it's who we are. No sweat. We're still best friends. We've got kids the same age – baseball and soccer – we play bridge with our wives and the families do stuff together all the time. It's like we're all one family. My kids call him Uncle Mark and I'm Uncle Wes. It was nice, it was perfect, like everything with Mark. We both eventually wind up back here in the city, and even if he's in St. Francis Wood and we're up the Richmond – so what? We're all happy, what's the problem?'

'So what happened?'

'Well, wait, there's one other thing.' Wes stood, stretched, went to the salon's small refrigerator and took out two bottles. He twisted the top off a Mickey's Big Mouth and gave it to Melanie, who took it without thought. She couldn't remember any time she'd had beer in the afternoon. Well, first time for everything…

Wes was back down, half-turned to her, one bare foot curled under him. 'There was the law. I don't think it's the law as you or Kevin think of it. Or too many other people. Maybe only me.'

'And Mark?'

He chuckled, and it seemed to her both brittle and bitter. 'And Mark, of course. You work in it long enough and I suppose it gets like anything else. You burn out, get cynical. But Mark and I… and this goes back to early high school, maybe before that… I don't know what started it, but we got into this, this attitude. It was like a deal between us.' He sipped his beer, taking a minute, then added, 'No, that's not nearly it. It was more a sacred pact.'

'What was it?'

'It was that we wouldn't lose faith. That sounds stupid-'

'No, it doesn't.'

'Yes, it does, believe me. We saw it happening with everybody around us in the law – how the hours would eat you up, the clients who lied or who were just plain guilty, the crap you had to put up with to survive.

'But Mark and I stuck to our pact. He had this… this vision… don't laugh… that life had to mean something. That that's what made people successful – not what they did but how they did it, how they felt about it, that they didn't stop trying. And we're not just talking monetary success here – no, this was Mark Dooher, this was Life Success, What It Was All About, The Big Picture. So twice, three times a year, I don't know, one of us would get down on the whole thing and we'd take this retreat – go fishing, whatever – reaffirm, get back to What Counted…'

Melanie was sitting forward, entranced. 'Everybody should do that.'

'You're right. It was great. It worked.'

'So?'

Wes let out a long breath. 'So one night three years ago – both of our youngest kids had just moved out – a burglar breaks into Mark's house, rapes his wife and stabs her to death.'

Melanie's beer stopped halfway to her open mouth.

'And after about four months, Mark is charged with the murder.'

The bottle, untouched, was back in her lap. She was tempted to ask if Wes was kidding her. It seemed the only thing possible. But she knew he was not. This had happened, and as the truth and portent of it began to sink in, she muttered, 'Oh my God.'

'No kidding.'

'He didn't do it, did he?'

'Get real. This is Mark Dooher, senior partner in his law firm, major philanthropist, dedicated family man. Give me a break. But he got charged. It was, I thought, an extremely weak case, all circumstantial. His fingerprints were on the knife – but he was the cook in the family, of course his fingerprints are on the knife. Could be his blood type from the sperm samples – right, him and a thousand other guys. But no solid alibi – he'd been out late driving golf balls at Lincoln. Mark and Sheila had just raised their insurance, stuff like that. And he asked me to defend him. And of course I did.'

'And?'

'And I won. Fight of my life, case of my life. And I won it. Got out of the trenches. Mark was mega-high profile, put me on the map. Got two murder referrals in the next year and it looked like I was going to start making some money.'

Melanie nodded. 'But he did it, didn't he?'

He blinked back the dim shine in his eyes. His voice thick, he had to begin twice. 'The… the son of a bitch… the son of a bitch told me, said he didn't want the fact that he had killed his wife to get between us, we were still…' He wiped a hand over one eye, swore.

'So that's why,' she said finally.

He nodded. 'Yeah, that's why.'

37

After the speech and its aftermath – the supervisors unanimously recommended the two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for Kevin Shea – Mayor Aiken thought his post-lunch meeting with Philip Mohandas would be smooth sailing, a photo op. Black leader, white leader, solidarity, ya, ya, ya.

He was wrong.

Mohandas, accompanied by his bodyguards Allicey Tobain and Jonas N'doum, was lounging in his outer office, having either intimidated or flattered Donald to get in. So at the outset, to Aiken, there was an odd dynamic – his natural turf had been usurped. Wondering where Donald had gone, he stopped in his doorway.

'Mr Mohandas.' Recovering, smiling, striding forward, his hand outstretched. 'Good to meet you in person at last.'

Aiken's eyes took in Mohandas's two aides, but they stayed seated, apparently awaiting instructions. Mohandas was not here to be friends. He got right down to it. 'Mr Mayor, I'm here speaking to you only because our mutual friend, Senator Wager, asked me to be. I'm frankly appalled at this city's official response to the situation we're now all facing.'

Aiken, moving around behind his desk, felt the heat rising in his face. 'Well, sir, we've just gone a long way toward addressing that. The city's official response so far, besides trying to keep itself from burning down, has been to raise the reward on Kevin Shea. No doubt you've heard…'

'No doubt you've heard, Jerohm Reese is back in jail, and Kevin Shea isn't. That's the reality I'm seeing. I'm seeing a white man, a murderer, walking the streets and an i

'Kevin Shea isn't exactly walking the streets-'

'How do you know that?'

Aiken didn't, of course. These were bad cards and he didn't want to play them. 'In any event, Jerohm Reese is not an i

'He's no more guilty than five hundred people you let go with tickets-'

'Which doesn't mean he isn't guilty, does it?'

'We're all guilty of something, Mr Mayor. What it seems is that Jerohm is not getting the same treatment as white folk. It means you got a bigot acting now as DA and he saw his chance-'

'Art Drysdale's no bigot.'

Mohandas took that for a beat, turned on a heel and spoke to Allicey and Jonas over his shoulder. 'This man don't want to help.' His people rising, Mohandas was halfway to the doorway, and Aiken was half-tempted to let him go.

But if he didn't it would be worse.

'Mr Mohandas. Wait a minute.' He came around the desk. Mohandas stood impatiently by the door. 'What would help? I don't want to argue small points with you, I want to help. I thought I'd done something very helpful this morning with the supervisors. Perhaps it wasn't enough. You tell me.'

There was a quick gleam of triumph in Allicey's eyes, just as quickly quashed. Mohandas saw it, though, and let go of the doorknob. 'Alan Reston,' he said.