Page 42 of Pro Bono

His brother-in-law had just bullied him into bringing fifteen thousand dollars in cash to a meeting with criminals. No, it was worse than that. Pat had manipulated him into paying thugs to physically harm innocent people—to kill them, if that was the way it worked out.

18

At six o’clock Vesper said, “Let me take you out to dinner to celebrate your victory over Great Oceana this afternoon.” Charlie said, “I’m afraid this isn’t the time to be out in a public place. That guy today didn’t threaten to shoot me. He shot me. If he had aimed anywhere but center mass, I could be dead right now. I’ve been thinking it might be time to hide you someplace where those people won’t find you.”

“They know where I live,” she said. “I don’t have a relative in this part of the country anymore who could put me up, and I wouldn’t ask a friend to take that kind of risk. A hotel is a very public place full of strangers. I’d rather be here for another day. The parking lot has iron bars, the windows are too high to climb in, and I won’t be alone.”

“I’ll call in a dinner order.”

The food was delivered from Bernardine, and came in two large bags. He set the table with a set of plates that was formal and ornate, and heavy silverware. She looked at it and said, “What young, unmarried man has a set of dishes like this?”

“The answer is probably zero,” he said. “They’re the ones my mother and father got when they were married about forty years ago. Now she’sliving in a small rented place in Hawaii, so she made me store them. I’ve never used more than about a quarter of the set.”

When he took the plastic containers of food from the bags, Vesper said, “This is shocking. I’m sure you don’t eat this way, and I certainly don’t.”

“It’s a special occasion. I read somewhere that you should stop to celebrate good things that happen. I forget why, since having good things happen ought to be enough. Anyway, this is the best we can do without taking risks. I also haven’t done any grocery shopping since before you came to my office that day. If you need a third reason, I’ll dream one up.”

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t need to be coaxed any more than that, and just being near this food has made me really hungry.”

He came around the table and pulled out her chair for her, and then sat down across from her. They ate some of the food and drank some wine and talked. The talk continued as they put away the rest and loaded the dishwasher, then drifted into the living room with their glasses and the rest of the bottle.

She told him about growing up with her mother, who based her system of values on being what she called “useful.” “It always seemed to me to be a modernization of some leftover ancient worldview, but I never identified it exactly. A mother’s ideas always seem to be the norm to children until they’re proven either false or too constraining. My father was older. He was a doctor who worked at the UCLA hospital for nearly fifty years.”

She said, “They were a good match, and good people. They raised me and my sister as though that was all they had to do, and nothing else mattered. It’s kind of extra sad, because neither of us ever had kids, so we didn’t get to pass any of that on.”

“Is your sister older or younger?”

“She died of cancer a few years ago. She was older, but now I’ve passed her, so she’s younger too, in a way. You’re an only child, right?”

“Yes.”

“You know how I could tell?”

“No.”

“You can be funny, even say goofy things when you want to, but your first language is grown-up. That’s what you’re most comfortable speaking. Slang terms and bad grammar don’t seem to occur to you except as afterthoughts. It’s because in your earliest years there weren’t other kids in the house, so most of the speakers you heard were adults.”

“It’s a good theory,” he said. “I’ll have to try it out on a few other subjects. But lawyers spend all day talking like people centuries older than their parents.”

“I want to thank you for it,” she said. “You’ve been wonderful.”

“I’m pretty sure you did, right after I told you Great Oceana had agreed with us. You’re welcome. But we still have to deal with Founding Fathers Vested. I haven’t heard from them yet.”

They said “good night” at eleven and were both asleep by eleven thirty.

The sounds were very faint and weren’t continuous, so when Warren opened his eyes, it took a moment before he realized he had been hearing them for a while. They sounded familiar but out of place, like an electric toothbrush running, then stopping for a time, then starting again. His first thought was that maybe that was what it was. He reached to the side table and picked up his phone so the screen would glow.

He stood, found his pants and his shoes in the dim light of the phone screen, put them on, and went to the closet. He saw his golf bag, pulled out the nine iron because of the weight and pitch of its head, and steppeddown the hall to listen. He followed the noise, kind of a buzz from a small, probably battery-operated, electric motor. There was a subtler background sound, like “err-err, err-err,” as though something was moving back and forth. He moved toward the sound.

Warren stepped slowly around the living room in the direction of the door, trying to verify that was where the sound was coming from. He leaned close to the door and put his ear to the surface. The sound came again, and with his ear against the wood it sounded louder and higher pitched, like a dentist’s drill. He put his hand on the doorknob. This time when the sound came, he could feel the vibration on the knob.

He needed to wake Vesper up, but how close were these people to having drilled the lock? He didn’t want to leave the door if they were about to open it and charge inside. He used his phone to text her number the messageGET UP. DANGER. BE SILENT. From his post at the front door, her phone’s text sound in her bedroom was inaudible, but he hoped it would wake her. He pocketed his phone.

The drilling sound stopped. He put his back to the wall on the lock side of the door. If these were going to be the sort of experienced people he expected, they would look for trouble to come from the hinge side. He waited and listened for voices, or at least movements, but now he heard nothing. The window made the room slightly lighter than the bedroom had been with its blackout curtains, but he knew from experience that was still very dark for a person coming in from the lighted hallway. That might give him a few seconds of advantage.

He made final decisions. He was not going to let them get far enough into the condo to reach Vesper, and he would not stop fighting while he was alive.

He raised the golf club above his head and waited. He knew they must be listening too on the other side of the door, no more than a couple feetfrom him. He kept his breathing slow and deep, his eyes focused on the doorknob.

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