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Bunny closed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. The old man and the family went back to the magazines they’d been reading, but after a few minutes, the little girl climbed down off her chair and walked over toward where we were sitting. She was wearing a fluffy pink dress and shiny, black Mary Janes. She stopped a few feet in front of us. She didn’t say anything, but she stared intensely at Bunny, examining everything about her. I saw the little girl’s lower lip tremble. She was entranced. She must have thought Bunny looked like someone from a storybook or a dream—someone too perfect and beautiful to be real. I smiled at her, but she didn’t notice me. Her face was set, half in wonder, half in fear. Finally, her mother looked up. “Susie!” she called out. The girl backed off, her eyes still on Bunny, then she turned and scooted away, throwing a long look back over her shoulder. Susie’s mother grabbed her and hissed something into her ear. The girl buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, but, every few minutes, she couldn’t resist peeking out at the wondrous figure across the room.
After half an hour, the door to the inner office opened, and Simon Beach came out, guiding a matronly woman by the arm. He stopped abruptly when he saw Bunny. “Hello, Mrs. Calhoun,” he said.
“It’s Bunny,” said Bunny grimly.
The lawyer glared at his secretary and then went back into his office and closed the door. The woman who’d been with him frowned and marched out. A few seconds later, something buzzed on the secretary’s desk, and she went into the inner office. When she came out, she told the family they could go in. She closed the door behind them and came over to Bunny and me.
“Mr. Beach won’t have time to see you today, Mrs. Calhoun,” she said.
Bunny didn’t move. The secretary displayed her smile again and went back to her desk. I leafed through some terribly boring lawyer magazines. Bunny smoked.
After about an hour, the family left, and we went through the same act. The secretary took the old man into the inner office, then told Bunny it was no use. Bunny just sat there, exhaling smoke. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but I’d seen her in one of these moods before, and I knew there was no use arguing with her or even asking what was going on.
Eventually, the old man left, too. The five o’clock whistle blew down at the KTD, and the secretary straightened her desk. She called goodbye to Mr. Beach, turned out the overhead light, and paused in front of us on the way out. “The door locks automatically, so you can just let yourselves out when you’re ready to go,” she said. She slapped us with that smile again as she left.
The waiting room was warm and filled with a dull, gray light. Clouds of Bunny’s cigarette smoke drifted gently above our heads. For a while, the place was so still I thought Mr. Beach might have left through the back. Finally, I saw a shadowy form moving behind the door to the inner office, and I could just make out a face pressed against the glass. Suddenly, the lawyer flung open the door and strode into the room. “Now, Bunny—”
“Liar! You filthy liar!” Bunny jumped to her feet. “You liar!” Her voice exploded with cracks and pops, she’d been holding it in so long.
Mr. Beach was across the room, but his arms shot up instinctively in defense. “Bunny, my God,” he said weakly. He glanced at me. “What’s this, your daughter? Let’s not involve her.”
Bunny stood with her head forward like an angry bull. “You promised,” she hissed. “You said any time.”
He looked miserably to me for help, then dropped his hands, shrugged, and ushered us into the inner office.
Bunny and I sat in chairs in front of his desk. A window looked down on Parker Street, where the army recruiter’s office is located in an odd little building made of corrugated pipe. In the heat, the recruiters had set up a card table outside, along the sidewalk. The table was covered with piles of brochures, each weighted down with a small stone. Two officers were sitting there alone, and the sidewalk was empty.
“This is Martha,” said Bunny. “She needs a lawyer.”
Mr. Beach smiled at me. “What happened? An accident.”
“This.” Bunny reached in her purse and brought out the paper she’d been given in court. She’d folded it into small squares, and the creases were already getting worn.
“This is a delinquency petition,” he said, after unfolding the paper and looking it over. “It says here she’s been behaving promiscuously.” His eyes shot over toward me.
“I can explain all that,” Bunny said. “But I want a lawyer to do it for me.”
“But this is juvenile court. They don’t use lawyers there.”
“Frankie Moon’s there.”
“He’s just the assistant county attorney. I mean the defendants, the children, don’t have lawyers.”
Bunny turned to me. “Well, that’s not fair,
is it, Martha?”
I shook my head.
“See?” said Bunny. “Martha wants a lawyer.”
“The only way you’ll get a lawyer in juvenile court is to hire your own,” said Mr. Beach.
Bunny stared at him. No one said anything for a few seconds. Mr. Beach swiveled gently, back and forth, in his chair. “Who was Tom’s lawyer, the last time, when he was in criminal court?” he asked.
“Lewis Atwood. I didn’t like him.”
“Was he assigned? Did the county pay for him?”
