Page 123 of The Devil's Advocate

‘Excuse me,’ said the bartender. He threw up the counter top, walked out of the bar. The receptionist took hold of him and marched him right out the front door.

Francis watched them go, then blew out his cheeks, and let his head hit the rest behind him. Then he had another phone in his hand. Different from the smartphone he held before. This was old model. A Nokia maybe, with a small display.

Harry’s cell phone rang. It was Eddie.

‘Get Kate, Andy and Patricia and get out of the hotel right now. I’m only a few blocks away.’

‘What’s happening?’ asked Harry.

‘It’s Francis Edwards. He was the target of this whole plan. They killed his daughter and his wife to break him. Then they gave him an enemy. He’s in a truck with enough propylene to blow up half the town. I don’t want to give him a target, so we’ve got to—’

‘He’s out front. In the truck. Right now,’ said Harry.

‘What? Get Kate, the clients, and get the hell out !’

‘You need to call Kate,’ said Harry. ‘She’s in her room.’

‘Harry, whatever you’re thinking of doing, just put it out of your mind. Get Kate and—’

Harry ended the call.

He hung his head for a moment, thought about his jacket, draped over the seat behind him, and the Colt 1911 in the inside pocket of that jacket.

Life certainly has its moments. In some ways a life can be defined by the decisions taken in a single heartbeat. Harry had already had his fair share. At fifteen years old, he lied about his age on an application form for the US Army. Heeding the advice from his night school tutor who suggested he take a law degree at college, which the Army paid for. And the moment he invited a young con artist for lunch after watching him argue his way out of liability for a car accident.

Harry drained his glass, got up off his seat and went behind the bar. He helped himself to the bottle of bourbon and nipped two glasses with the fingers of that same hand and came back around.

He left the jacket where it was, the gun still in the pocket, walked out of the lounge, through the empty reception and onto the street. Francis didn’t seem to notice Harry ; he was too busy staring at the little black phone. Harry opened the passenger door of the truck and got inside without saying a word.

‘The hell you think you’re doing?’ said Francis.

There were tears mingling with the sweat on his face. His eyes were red and wet. On the little phone Harry saw a number displayed. It was the type of handset with a keypad, and a green phone symbol to make a call, and a red one to hang up. Francis had his thumb resting on the call button. Harry knew there was another burner phone somewhere on the truck, which would act as a triggering mechanism as soon as it received a call. It would make a circuit and cause an explosion big enough to rupture the tank and ignite the contents.

Harry closed the door, dropped one glass into his lap and began pouring the bourbon into the other. It was a double, at least. He put the half-filled glass on the dashboard, poured out another. This one he put in the middle of the dash.

‘Will you join me?’ asked Harry.

‘You’re one of those goddamn New York lawyers, here to set free the man who killed my daughter. I don’t drink with the likes of you.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Harry, swallowing the shot in one.

‘You have no idea what’s happening,’ said Francis. ‘Maybe it’s good that you’re in here with me.’

‘I know this whole truck is now a bomb,’ said Harry. He glanced down and in the space between his feet and Francis’s was a large briefcase. Probably packed with explosive, not enough to cause major damage on its own, but enough to rupture the tank and ignite its contents, which would do more damage than Harry wanted to imagine.

‘I know you can trigger the device at our feet by pushing that call button. I know I left a gun in the bar, in my jacket. A Colt 1911. My old service weapon. I made a choice tonight. I knew what you were doing, and I could’ve put a round through your eye from the lounge of the hotel. But I didn’t. I came here with a bottle, and I don’t intend to drink it all on my own.’

From the look on his face, Francis didn’t know quite what to say.

Harry poured another, said, ‘You know, I can see that you’re hurting real bad. I’m very deeply sorry about what happened to your daughter and your wife. From what I’ve read about your daughter, she strikes me as a special person. A good person. That doesn’t come from nowhere. I think you’re a good man, and your wife was a good woman too. Pain, grief, injustice – it can change people.’

Breathing hard, Francis said, ‘The whole system is stacked against us. Us whites. I was too blind to see it before.’

‘You know that’s not true. The people who put this idea in your head. The people who gave you this case, that phone – they don’t care about you. They live off hate. It’s all they’ve got. I can’t believe there was hate in your house when Skylar was growing up. People don’t start off hating one another. It has to be taught. It’s learned. You didn’t teach this shit to your daughter. She was friends with Andy, and his color didn’t matter to her. It shouldn’t matter to you.’

‘What matters is he killed her, and you’re helping him,’ he said.

Harry poured another drink, said, ‘You were in court the other day and I’m sure the DA, the newspapers and TV news have been keeping you up to date. Now you know there are a lot of questions about the night of Skylar’s murder, which the prosecutor can’t answer. Skylar didn’t die in that lot ; someone would’ve heard the struggle. And Lomax scratched Andy’s back. His nail clippings that were analyzed for Andy’s blood, not Skylar’s—’