Bluff Walk. Charles R. Crawford

The name of the game was wearing down the other side and evaluating your chances before trial with endless discovery requests and pre-trial motions on every conceivable issue. In the eight years I was at the firm, every major case I worked on but two settled before trial, and one of those settled immediately after closing arguments to the jury. The party on the other side got nervous and made a settlement offer, but our client almost beat him to it. We won the other case at the trial level, but the last I heard it was still on appeal.

      Toughness, and even meanness, were virtues, and I aspired to both. By my fourth year, I was traveling around the country taking depositions and interviewing witnesses while bolstering my billable hours with time in cabs and on airplanes. I was making money for myself and even more for the firm, and I was determined to be a partner.

      Looking back, I can’t logically explain my determination. It had a lot to do with trying to live up to Kathleen’s expectations, but it was also just a matter of getting caught up in the race. There was a seven-year partnership track, but I realized early on that making partner didn’t mean you stopped working. The partners, especially those in their thirties and forties, worked just as hard as the associates. They had nicer cars and bigger houses, but they were fatter and balder. All I knew was that I was going to win the race. I didn’t question whether it was worth running.

      Kathleen was running the same race in the corporate world. She quickly became a favorite of her boss, and traveled the world, making presentations and gathering and analyzing data. We had part of most weekends together, but little time else except when we were asleep. Still, I was in love and couldn’t imagine being without her.

      When Kathleen’s boss, a guy in his early forties, was relocated to Los Angeles to head up a Pacific Rim project, we had even less time. The company leased an apartment for her in LA, and she started staying there during the week if she wasn’t traveling to Asia or Australia. At first, she came home most weekends, but pretty soon it was every other weekend at best. I went out there as much as I could, but that wasn’t much.

      On a Thursday morning in early December, three members of the firm’s management committee came into my office and shut the door. It was a year before I was due to make partner, so I thought there wasn’t any reason for them to be there except to fire me. I was wrong. I had made partner a year early, only the second person to fast track in the history of the firm.

      After they left my office, I picked up the phone and started to dial Kathleen. I was full of pride and success, and I couldn’t wait to share it. But then I decided to surprise her. I was supposed to fly out to LA for the weekend on Friday anyway, so I changed my ticket and left that afternoon.

      It was a clear, cool night in California. The taxi dropped me at her place about nine. Her car was out front, so I knew she was home. I used my key and let myself in.

      The front room was dark, but there was a diffused light from a glow in the bedroom. I was halfway across the room before it registered on me that the light was from the candles that Kathleen liked to light before making love.

      Then I heard her voice, saying things she hadn’t said to me in years.

      I should have left then, but I couldn’t help myself. I edged up to the door of the bedroom, and saw her astride her boss, her head thrown back and her breasts in his hands. It was an image I knew I would never get out of my head, but it was what she was saying that tore my heart out.

      They never saw me. I left quietly and took a redeye back to Memphis. I called the next day and said that work would keep me from coming out for the weekend. I never told her I had been there that night. A month later, she asked for a divorce.

      I fell asleep in my chair sometime before midnight, and woke up chilled and shivering at two a.m. I went inside and got in bed without really waking up.

6 _____________________

      Right at dawn, sleeping on my stomach, I woke up to a warm weight on my butt and two strong hands making lazy circles on my back. I lay still, and pretended I was still asleep, till the hands left my back and bare feet slid down the outsides of my legs. Soft breasts with hard nipples pushed against my back, and hair tickled my neck and the side of my face.

      “Wake up, love, and turn over,” a husky voice whispered in my ear.

      I did as I was told, and smiled into blue eyes. She looked down at me. “Have you been awake all this time or do you have to go to the bathroom?”

      “Awake,” I answered.

      “Good,” she said, reaching into my nightstand, “I don’t want to wait any longer.”

      Later, holding an armful of warm Dutch flight attendant, I asked her how long she was in town.

      “Just till day after tomorrow, then back to Amsterdam. I’m too tired to go back to my place. Can I sleep here?”

      “You know you can, but I have to get up,” I said.

      “Not till I go to sleep,” she said, tightening her arm around my chest.

      Mary Arenduyk had been on the Amsterdam to Memphis flight for nine months, and shared an apartment below me with four other attendants, two or three of whom might be in town at the same time. I liked her, and she liked me, and we had agreed that it probably wouldn’t get beyond that, but it was still fun. I didn’t ask her about men in Holland, and she didn’t ask me about other women in Memphis. For me, there weren’t any, but I didn’t see the point of forcing the issue.

      After her breathing slowed and her arm relaxed across my chest, I slipped out of bed and showered. Then I dressed quietly, and had coffee and cereal on the balcony before going into the office.

      I made phone calls for an hour or two on other cases, then turned my attention to Tuggle.

      It was likely that the police had known Thomas was a fence, especially since he had served time, but for some reason they had decided he was also into crack. Maybe he was, but his bondsman thought the idea was ridiculous. Looking at it objectively, I had to agree with Jackson. Thomas had obviously devoted a great deal of time to his stolen garments business, which appeared to be hugely successful. I had practiced law and worked as a PI long enough to know that many courses in life weren’t dictated by good sense, but Thomas’s success indicated he had some sense. A crack dealer’s life was violent and usually short, and not as profitable as Thomas’s venture. Thomas would be in the ideal position to compare the two industries, and I doubted he would choose to diversify into crack.

      I called an acquaintance in the district attorney’s office and explained my situation. She would not confirm my suspicion that the probable cause for Thomas’s arrest came from an informant. She did confirm Jackson’s statement that Thomas did not have an attorney of record, but represented himself at the bail hearing. And she gave me the names of the arresting officers.

      I had to decide where to concentrate my search. I could try to see if Thomas had any associates or friends who might know his whereabouts, but they were even less likely than his mother to be candid. Besides, I felt pretty confident that if Henry Jackson had not heard anything from his clientele, it was unlikely that I would have any better luck.

      The unconfirmed informant was the obvious best potential source of meaningful information, but identifying him or her and then getting them to talk was going to be a challenge. If they even existed. The arresting officers might not even know the name of the informant, and their supervisor probably wouldn’t tell me. The police would have their own investigation into Thomas’s disappearance, but their purpose in finding him would be to arrest a bail jumper, not to ease his mother’s heart. I doubted very much that they would want to give out any information that might let me find him first.

      One possibility was to have Amanda enter an appearance as Thomas’s attorney of record, and ask for the government’s case against him in order to defend it. I didn’t know enough about criminal law to know if this was practical, or if she would even be allowed to represent him without proof that he had hired her. I would ask her about the feasibility of doing it that way, but I didn’t think it would reveal anything fast. In the meantime, I decided to give it a