Small Town

“I’m giving him a show in the fall, and you’ll get to see it ahead of time, and we’ll pick out the best piece together. Unless you don’t like the work, but I think you will.”

“You generally know what I like.”

She squeezed his hand. “It’ll be late October or early November. And don’t worry, I know I’ve got jury duty the beginning of October. Maybe I’ll be on your jury.”

“My jury?”

“Your new client.”

He shook his head. “We won’t go to trial until the spring,” he said. “Maybe later than that. And you couldn’t be on the jury anyway.”

“Because I’m smart and chic and in the arts?”

“Because you knew the deceased, because you’ve already formed an opinion about the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and because you’ve enjoyed an intimate relationship with defense counsel.”

“Enjoyed is the word, all right. Also intimate. Maury? Do you think a blow job is more intimate or less intimate than fucking?”

“I think that’s your cab,” he said, and stepped to the curb and hailed it.

“If he could run for reelection tomorrow,” Avery Davis said of the current mayor, “he’d win in a walk. But a lot can happen in three and a half years. Everybody’s been waiting for him to step on his dick.”

“He hasn’t so far,” Saft pointed out.

“No, he’s handled himself well, which doesn’t surprise me, I must say. He’s the mayor now, not the head of a private corporation, and he’s bright enough to know the difference and behave accordingly.”

Boasberg said, “ ‘Yes, I tried marijuana. And I enjoyed it.’ ”

“So? That makes a refreshing change from I never inhaled. But it’s all moot, because he’s not going to run again in 2005. Either he’ll decide he’s had enough fun in politics, or he’ll try for Albany in oh-six. Pataki’s going to win this year, everybody knows that, and four years later his second term’ll be up and why wouldn’t Mike want to trade up?”

But wouldn’t he first run for reelection and use that as a springboard for Albany?

“He’ll have to pledge that he’s going to serve a full term. If he waffles it’ll hurt him during the campaign, and if he reneges on his promise that’ll hurt him, too. But, as we’ve been saying all evening, it’s all a long ways off.”

Everyone agreed that it was.

“Now the big question,” Irv Boasberg said. “Mets or Yankees?”

Buckram laughed, and they joined him. “Naturally, I support all the local teams. It’s my private opinion that anyone over the age of sixteen who still cares deeply about the outcome of a sports event more than half an hour after it’s over is a pretty clear case of arrested development. Unless he’s on the team, of course. Or owns it.”

“You read my mind,” Boasberg said. “I was just thinking of a particular club owner, and you can probably guess which one. But he is a case of arrested development, so the hell with him.”

“I agree all across the board,” Saft said, “except when it comes to the Knicks. That’s different.”

Someone told a sports story, and that led to another. A few minutes later Avery Davis looked up from signing the check and said, “Well, I think this was a good meeting, Fran. We’ll walk away from it with a better sense of who you are, and hopefully you’ll know us a little better as well.”

Outside, Davis held up a hand, and half a block away a limousine blinked its lights in acknowledgment. “I’m going to run these bozos home,” he said. “How about you, Fran? Can we drop you anywhere?” He said thanks, but he thought he’d like to walk off some of his dinner. “Which is one more reason why you haven’t put on weight,” Davis said.

The two other men got into the limo, and Davis drew Buckram aside. “You made a good impression,” he said. “It’s early days, but, just so you know, if the time comes that you decide to take your shot, I think you’ll find the support you need.”

“That’s very good to know,” he said.

“It’s always a consideration.”

It was, he thought. But first he’d have to figure out if he really wanted the job.

five

John Blair Creighton looked at his attorney, standing there with his thumbs hooked under his suspenders and his stomach pushing forcefully against his shirtfront, and decided the man looked like Clarence Darrow — or, more accurately, like the actor playing Darrow in Inherit the Wind. Well, he thought, if the man had to imitate someone, he could do worse. Darrow, as he recalled, generally won.

“Your Honor,” Winters was saying. “Your Honor, you can see how little regard Ms. Fabrizzio has for her own case. Her office is trying to imprison my client before trial because they realize it’s the only chance they’ll get.”

“Ah, Mr. Winters,” the judge said. “I suppose you feel the best way to demonstrate confidence in the prosecution’s case would be to release your client on his own recognizance.”