Unfit to Practice

His hands flew up and he tumbled on top of her. She wriggled away and by some miracle did not fall. Jumping off the metal grid, she threw herself back to the safe floor of the corridor.

The empty can dropped into the void beyond the railing. When she hit him, Riesner had slipped close to the edge, and as he squirmed around, his body suddenly went over. He managed to grab for, and catch, the edge. Both hands held on. His eye bled.

Without climbing back onto the grid, Nina could not reach him. She lifted a leg up over the balcony wall, heaved herself up, wedged her legs in the gaps between the bars, and grabbed for his wrist, trying to pull him back up. Impossible. He was too large, and she too small. Calling out for help, and seeing no one nearby, she strained to hold on, she sweated, she pulled, and all the while he shouted at her, terrified words of pleading, of fear, of wrath.

Way down in the restaurant below, faces turned up toward them, pulled invisibly by the gravity of the situation. Once the people saw the dangling man, they shouted and cried out, chairs creaking, footsteps ru

Nina cried out.

The man dropped his hand towel and ran toward her, his bare feet slapping along the rug.

He was too far away! She could feel every tendon, muscle, and bone in her arms stretched to the breaking point; through her pain she could feel them snapping, separating, and through her fingers she felt the rapid-fire beating of Jeffrey Riesner’s heart in his wrist. She looked into his face, the open mouth saying things she could no longer hear, the eyes stained red. A moment passed between them.

He forgave nothing.

Suddenly from behind her, a hand thrust forward, grabbing for the wrist Nina was holding with both hands. Paul! His fully extended arm could barely reach to the edge of the safety grid. She let go and jumped off the grid and back to the floor as he climbed up over the wall toward Riesner, listening to his labored breathing as he lay down on the grid, pulling with one hand, both hands, and all his strength.

The barefoot man arrived behind Nina, wet hair dribbling down his neck, panting with fear. “What’s going on?” he asked, frantic. “Can I help?”

But he could not reach Riesner, who was dangling too far away, hanging by one arm now, held aloft by Paul and nothing else. Too busy straining the muscles in his arms, his mouth stretched into a grimace of effort, Paul said nothing.

Nina shook her head. “Stay back,” she told the barefoot man.

Slowly, methodically, rhythmic as a man bringing up a bucket from a well, hand over hand, Paul pulled him up. Riesner’s foot scrabbled against the rails. One time, two times, three times he lifted his slick leather shoe, trying to find a toehold. Suddenly, his foot stopped on the thin metal edge. Then, more scraping while a second foot looked for and found its place.

Paul helped him up. Suddenly, shockingly safe, Riesner looked through the safety grid into the vast open space of the atrium. A hush cloaked them all in woolen quiet, a hush filled with breathless anticipation as a hundred people watched what was happening above them. Riesner looked at the people below, their frightened faces, watching his shame.

Horrified onlookers.

He looked at Paul and Nina.

Paul broke the silence, his voice holding a fury Nina had never heard before. “I should have smacked you harder in that bathroom a couple years ago. Maybe it would have wised you up.”

“So it was you,” Riesner sputtered. A fleck of foam coagulated on the side of his mouth. He wiped blood out of his eyes. “You son of a bitch!”

Paul whispered to him, “You’re history, punk.”

Riesner moved suddenly, striking like a snake. In a last desperate motion, he grabbed Paul by the neck and tried to take him along into the abyss. He managed to get him over the ledge. They toppled onto the grid together, Riesner twisting Paul around so that he lost his balance. Paul’s foot slipped and he began to go over.

“Paul!” screamed Nina. She flung her entire body over the railing and grabbed his jacket, slowing his momentum just slightly.

Paul looked up at Nina and smiled. In a long moment, an eternal moment that hovered somewhere between life and death, he said, “Love you.”

“No! Paul! Don’t leave me, please don’t. I love you!” Nina screamed.

And slowly, imperceptibly, Paul stopped falling. His fingers tightened on the metal edge. His arms whitened as he began to straighten himself up with brute strength, even with Riesner still clutching him in a crude headlock, even with both his legs hanging into space. Riesner’s right hand clutched at Paul’s throat, grasping for his windpipe, clawing at him.

Nina saw a strange change come over Paul’s countenance-strong, certain, terrifying.

Once he made it back up on the ladder platform, Paul’s hand shot out. He took Riesner’s hand into his and began to squeeze, increasing the pressure until Riesner began to scream. The bones in his fingers began to pop, then his hand, and then with one violent twist, Paul shattered Riesner’s arm and dumped him back on the corridor walkway in a heap. The lawyer shrieked in pain.

“Loser,” Paul said, breathing hard.

Riesner rolled over, cradling his useless arm, faceup, contorted. Nina and Paul stood over him, looking down.

Tears started up and rolled down Riesner’s face. He stood up slowly, brushing himself off with his good hand. Casting one quick glance into the eyes of his conquerors, he examined the faces of the onlookers below. How they ogled.

Nina had no trouble reading his face. His humiliation was complete. No one would ever respect him again.

Whirling around, fast as a gust of wind, he jumped over the balcony rail and hurled himself headlong into space.

Screaming all the way, he fell sixteen stories, down past the pretty green plants and white linen tabletops gleaming with glassware to the pretty concentric circular patterns on the atrium floor.

They heard him land.

Epilogue

AFTER THE CALIFORNIA STATE BAR CASE against Nina fizzled, Nina left Tahoe and moved to Carmel to be with Paul.

But that did not mean her tangled life tied up neatly with a big red bow.

Three days after Jeffrey Riesner’s death, the hearing before the California State Bar Court on Howard Street resumed. Officer Scholl testified about Riesner’s campaign to ruin Nina, which he had outlined in extensive, vituperative diaries, obtained from his home with a search warrant. No carvings of Nina were mentioned, however, although she would always wonder. Scholl explained in full, honest detail her mistake in letting Riesner out of her sight. In spite of her embarrassment, she was steady and firm in her testimony, blaming no one but herself.

She outlined the plot to bring Nina down. “He’d been looking for an opening for months, then one rainy day, he saw her car key lying on the table in court. That was the start. He said he went to her house late that night just because he wanted to see what he might find. It was his luck that she left her files in there.” He was good enough with his hands to carry off a crude forgery, then he had blackmailed Kevin Cruz into charging Nina with harassment.

The California State Bar withdrew all charges against Nina Reilly.

Two weeks later, amid public fanfare, Officer Jean Scholl won her promotion to the Detective Unit and the congratulations of the mayor.

Nina had thanked her privately.

“I was just doing my job. Finding the person who stole your vehicle,” she told Nina from behind her mirrored shades.

Lisa Cruz, who agreed to start a new therapy program, got permanent physical custody of the children. The D.A. hadn’t yet decided what charges to file against Kevin. Within a few weeks of his return, the South Lake Tahoe police force kicked him out.