Even the Wicked

"It might surprise you to know I've had some second thoughts about that case. But that's neither here nor there. I defended the Ellsworth boy the best I knew how, and even so I didn't get him off. The jury convicted the little son of a bitch. He's upstate serving fifteen-to-twenty-five, but that's nothing to the sentence our friend Will has imposed. He says he's going to kill me."

I said, "I assume McGraw went straight to the cops."

"With the briefest pause to ring me up and then fax me the thing.

As a matter of fact he made a Xerox copy and faxed that. He didn't want to screw up any physical evidence by running the original through his fax machine. Then he called the cops, and then I heard from them. I had two detectives over here for an hour, and I can call them idiots without regard to the possibility that they're friends of yours. Did I have any enemies? Were there clients who were bitter about my efforts on their behalf? For Christ's sake, the only embittered clients I've got are the ones behind bars, where nobody has to worry about them, least of all myself."

"They have to ask."

"I suppose so," he said, "but isn't it fairly obvious that this isn't a guy with a personal motive? He's already killed four people, and he nailed the first one because Marty McGraw told him to. I don't know what earned me a place on his shit list, but it's not because he thought I charged him too much for keeping him out of jail."

"Did they offer you protection?"

"They talked about posting a guard in my outer office. I can't see what good that's going to do."

"It couldn't hurt."

"No, but it couldn't help all that much either. I need to know what to do, Matt. I've got no experience in this area. Nobody ever tried to kill me. The closest I've come to this was five or six years ago when a man named Paul Masland offered to punch me in the nose."

"A disaffected client?"

"Uh-uh. A stockbroker with a snootful. He accused me of fucking his wife. Jesus, I was one of the few men in westernConnecticut who hadn't had a shot at her."

"What happened?"

"He swung and missed, and a couple of guys grabbed his arms, and I said the hell with it and went home. The next time I ran into him we both acted like nothing had ever happened. Or maybe he wasn't acting, because he'd been pretty drunk that night. It's possible he didn't remember a thing. You think I should have told the two detectives about Paul?"

"If you think there's a chance he could have written that letter."

"It'd be a neat trick," he said, "because the poor bastard's been dead for a year and a half. A stroke or a heart attack, I forget which, but he went in a minute, whichever it was. Son of a bitch never knew what hit him. Not like our friend Will. He's a fucking rattlesnake, isn't he?

Warning you first, letting you know what's coming. Matt, tell me what I should do."

"What you should do? You should leave the country."

"You're not serious, are you? Even if you are it's out of the question."

That didn't surprise me. I said, "Where are you? At your office?"

"No, I got out of there once I got rid of the cops. I'm at my apartment. You've never been here, have you? We always met downtown. I live at… Jesus, I was wondering if I should say it over the phone. But if he's got the phone tapped he'd have to know where it's installed, wouldn't you say?"

Early on, he'd asked if his voice was shaky. It hadn't been and it still wasn't, but his anxiety was apparent

in the way his conversation was becoming increasingly disjointed.

He told me the address and I copied it down. "Don't go anywhere,"

I said. "Call your doorman and tell him you're expecting a visitor named Matthew Scudder, and not to let me up until after I've shown him photo ID. And tell him I'm the only visitor you're expecting, and not to let anybody else up. And tell him that includes the police."

"All right."

"Let your machine screen your phone calls. Don't pick up unless you recognize the caller. I'll be right over."

* * *

By the time I was off the phone there were two different fighters in the ring, a pair of sluggish heavyweights. I asked how the other bout had turned out.

"Went the distance," TJ said. "Check it out—for a minute or two I thought I knew how to speak Spanish."

"How's that?"

"The ring announcer. He's talkin' away, and I'm understandin'

every word, and I'm thinkin' it's a miracle and next time you gonna see me's on 'Un-solved Mysteries.' "

"The fight's being held inMississippi ," I said. "The ring announcer was speaking English."

"Yeah, well, I knows that. It slipped my mind is all, hearing all that Spanish from the announcers. And then when I did hear the English, I just thought it was Spanish and I was understandin' it." He shrugged.

"Young dude got the decision."

"It figured."

"These two don't look to be in a hurry. They just takin' their time."

"They'll have to do it without me," I said. "I have to go out for a while."

"Some kind of business?"

"Some kind."

"Want me to tag along, maybe watch your back?"

"Not tonight."