No Way Out

‘She may have had some contact with the victim already.’

‘We can cite the defendant’s right to his counsel of choice. And you can agree not to talk to your partner about the case.’

‘It’ll…put us under…strain.’

Alex noticed that she had mellowed in her objections: the tone of her refusal was no longer outright. But he also knew that if he waited any longer, they’d lose her completely.

‘Okay,’ Alex cut in. ‘Try this.’

He turned and grabbed a couple of newspapers from a nearby wooden trolley and threw them on the table.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Andi, her tone betraying her confusion.

‘Wait!’ he said, thumbing through the papers. ‘Just listen. “Elias Claymore is the kind of man who expects people to believe he’s right whatever side he takes and whatever he says or does. When he was raping white women and calling it a revolutionary, political act, he expected us to think of him as a freedom fighter, not a criminal. When he fled to Libya and started preaching Islam, he expected to be thought of as a religious scholar. Then he ‘saw the light’ and found Jesus – as well as capitalism – and expected us to welcome him with open arms. And like fools, we did. Now he’s accused of rape once again and, having come full circle, he asks us to believe that he’s an innocent man who is being victimized because of his outspoken political comments in the recent past.’”

‘So what? Of course he’s going to get some hostile press.’

Alex wasn’t finished yet. ‘Okay, that’s the mainstream press. And it’s typical of the rest. Trust me, I’ve read through them all.’

He pointed to a stack of newspapers on the cherrywood trolley beside the table. ‘Now let’s see what black radical journals are saying.’

He grabbed another paper. This one was already open on the right page.

‘“The chickens are coming home to roost for a Judas who betrayed his people for thirty pieces of silver. Elias Claymore, who once stood for the rights of his oppressed brothers, now stands exposed as a hypocrite who places self-indulgence above any cause. This perennial campaigner, who keeps reinventing himself whenever it suits him, has now run out of ideas and has finally reverted to type as a narcissist and egomaniac. Having turned against his own kind and sold his soul to the devil, he has now compounded his crime by bringing his brothers into disrepute.

‘“When Claymore was a respectable figure of the middle-class establishment, he was held up by conservatives as an exception to the rule, the black man who worked within the system and succeeded. The rest of us only had ourselves to blame for our miserable plight because we were lazy and refused to abide by the rules and make use of the system. But now that he has been exposed for what he really is, he will be held up as a typical example of the black everyman and the old stereotype of the black male as sex-driven monster will be resurrected yet again.”

‘Okay. That’s what we’re up against!’

‘And you think…’ She stopped. There was no easy way to brush off an appeal to the fighting spirit within her. Bullying hadn’t worked, but this was quiet persuasion.

‘Well, what do you say?’

‘I say…’ She hesitated again, wondering if Alex could see the civil war raging within her.

Alex and Sherman looked at Andi, inviting her final answer. Ignoring Sherman, she stared back at Alex for a few seconds, breathing heavily. Then, not trusting her voice, she nodded her head in reluctant truce rather than surrender. He smiled gently as if accepting it with good grace.

‘Okay,’ said Sherman. ‘I’ll go now and leave you to start working.’

And with that, Sherman packed his papers into his attaché case and left.

Friday, 12 June 2009 – 18.10 (#ulink_c1b57f98-25c0-5546-b4c7-ceee54f88bb8)

‘The case took a dramatic turn today when it was revealed that Andromeda Phoenix – a civil litigator with Los Angeles law firm Levine and Webster, is to serve as co-counsel with Alex Sedaka.’

Martine Yin’s voice was coming from the television window in the web browser on a computer.

‘Ms Phoenix is in a relationship with Eugenia Vance, a counselor at the Say No to Violence rape crisis center. In order to protect Elias Claymore’s right to the counsel of his choice, the judge issued an injunction against Ms Vance having any contact with the alleged victim.’

Standing outside the courthouse, Martine was wearing her snooker vest, speaking to the camera in a dry, clipped tone. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to depart from her trademark blue jacket, but she had worn the snooker vest a couple of times before and had got a positive response in her mailbag. And she had a particular reason for wanting to emphasize her figure today; the network had been talking about putting her behind a desk in the studio and were evidently getting some funny ideas about parachuting in some ambitious spring chicken to fill her slot.

‘Ms Phoenix’s participation was opposed by the prosecution. But after a long sidebar, the prosecution’s motion was denied. The D.A.’s office declined to say afterwards whether they would file an interim appeal.’

A woman’s hand reached out and paused the news report. Then she returned her attention to the computer in front of her. With a click of a button she launched an e-mail package and started preparing a message to aphoenix@levineandwebster.com.

This would put the fear of God into the bitch.

Friday, 12 June 2009 – 19.45 (#ulink_a9c681fb-6c04-5faa-8ccb-5252037331b4)

‘So how did you manage to overcome her objections?’ asked Martine over her hors d’oeuvre of torchon of duck foie gras with poached Adriatic fig in Muscat wine.

Ten minutes earlier, Martine and Alex had entered the Little Door, one of Martine’s favorite haunts. As they’d stepped through the wooden doors to the patio, it had been like passing through a gateway into another dimension. In an instant, they had left the city behind them and entered a rustic world of bougainvilleas, ferns, a tiled fountain and a Koi pond. A succession of light waves from the wrought-iron candelabra rippled across the lace tablecloth. They could even see the moon through the open skylight.

‘I don’t want this to end up on the evening news,’ said Alex.

‘Strictly off the record,’ Martine assured him.

‘We used a bit of gentle persuasion.’

He didn’t really feel comfortable telling her about the incident. It would probably make him sound like a bully. But the practice of law was a dirty business. They both knew that.

‘We?’ Martine raised her eyebrows with a delicate smile.

‘Paul Sherman and I.’

‘You mean you blackmailed her?’

‘I prefer to call it bribery,’ he said with a guilty smile, after a short pause.

He attacked his own hors d’oeuvre of farmer’s market butter lettuce and steamed spring vegetables, a light starter to allow room for his main course of filet mignon and roasted fingerling potatoes.

‘So what was the carrot?’ she smiled, alluding to the piece of carrot poised at the end of his fork with a smile.

‘I sold it as a fight for a man’s right to a second chance.’

His facial expression was nervous, as if he was expecting a torrent of skeptical laughter or a cutting response. But Martine’s smile was both piercing and bewitching.

‘And what did Sherman use as the stick?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come off it, Alex. You were playing good cop, bad cop.’

He held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness, caught in the glare of Martine’s headlamps.

‘Okay,’ he acknowledged reluctantly. ‘You’ve got me. We did a little arm twisting.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. It must be pretty hard for her, with her lover working at a rape crisis center.’