55
YOU WANTED to see me?” Duncan said.
Blake didn’t look up from his computer monitor as Duncan came in and sat down in his office. Duncan had lost his comfort level with his boss: Blake had always been brusque—virtually all of the firm’s partners were; it was an inevitable outgrowth of a life spent billing in six-minute increments—but before, Duncan had always been confident that he was on the man’s good side. Lately that felt far from clear.
When Blake finally spoke, it was without shifting his gaze from the screen. “The murder case,” he said. “We can’t keep it.”
Duncan thought he must have misunderstood. “What do you mean?”
Blake finally looked over, already seeming hostile. “A positional conflict has arisen with an existing client. We can’t represent the guy on the murder anymore.”
Duncan just sat there for a second, his mind scrambling, completely at a loss. “This is Roth pulling us off?” he finally said.
Blake frowned. “Are you under the impression I have to explain myself to you?”
Duncan shook his head but made no effort to hide his frustration. “It’s not that simple, though. Rafael’s indigent, for one thing, there’s a trial date on the judge’s calendar. We’ll need the judge’s permission to stop—”
“So we’ll get the judge’s permission,” Blake interrupted. “I’ll handle it.”
“But the case is going really well,” Duncan couldn’t stop himself from saying, though he already realized that there was no point in arguing with Blake about it.
“So you’ll pass on what you have to the kid’s new lawyer, and he’ll go from there. You’re not irreplaceable, Duncan. We’re off the case, and this is not a debate.”
NOT KNOWING who else to talk to about it, Duncan went to Lily, going up to her office and closing her door behind him.
Lily looked up at him with a smile. “Again with the closed door?” she said. “Isn’t it a little late in the day to get rumors started about us?”
“Blake’s taking me off the Nazario case,” Duncan said. “The firm is dropping it, saying we have a positional conflict. I don’t even know what that f*cking means.”
“I think it just means that while there’s not a conventional conflict, in the sense of two clients being on opposite sides of a case, the position we would take for one client conflicts with positions we’re taking for another. Though how that connects to a murder …”
Duncan had a pretty good idea of how it might relate to the murder, but Lily didn’t need to know that. “It’s something to do with Roth, obviously. Blake won’t even confirm that.”
“I thought Roth signed off on your taking the case?”
Duncan hesitated, wondering how far in he wanted to bring Lily. “I think the plan was that we’d plead it out quickly.”
Lily frowned at that. She started to say something but thought better of it. Duncan didn’t blame her for stopping to think about whether she wanted to know the answer before she asked a question. “I’m not sure I’m following,” was all she said.
“The point is, they wanted it to go away. When I started to break apart the DA’s case, then all of a sudden there was a conflict. So what the hell do I do about it?”
Lily looked at him quizzically. “What can you possibly do about it?”
“I could resign,” Duncan said, partly just to hear himself say it, see how it sounded.
Lily looked incredulous; then she smiled. “And do what, open up a solo criminal defense practice down on Pine Street? With your one nonpaying client? Your protest is duly noted, but let’s be serious.”
Duncan shrugged, acknowledging the absurdity of it. Lily was right, of course: he wasn’t going to resign. “Don’t I have some kind of obligation here, though?”
“Duncan Riley trying to do the right thing,” Lily mused. “How long have I slept?”
“This guy’s my client, and I was getting it done for him. Am I really supposed to just turn that off on command?”
“If you’ve got another choice,” Lily said, “I’m not seeing what it is.”
Duncan went back to his office, if anything more frustrated. Out of nowhere the thought occurred to him that he was never going to speak to his mother again, that she was no longer alive. Not that he would’ve asked her for advice at a moment like this anyway, but if he could there was no doubt she would tell him that he had to do something.
“WHAT’S SO urgent?” Leah asked as she showed Duncan into her office.
Duncan understood the risk of coming here, knew he’d back out of doing so if he gave himself too much time to think. He owed this to Rafael; he owed this to his own sense of self.
“The Nazario case,” Duncan said. “Suddenly Blake’s telling me we’re off it.”
“And you’re coming to me about this why?”
“You closed it down, didn’t you?”
Leah smiled thinly, letting him see her ebbing patience. “If I’d felt the need to discuss this with you, don’t you think I would have?”
She had sat down behind her desk while Duncan was still standing. He decided to sit across from her, hoping that would maybe cool the dynamics a little. “You guys knew I represented Rafael,” he said, speaking slowly and softly. “I thought you wanted me to.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Leah said, her voice also going soft, though it only made her sound more threatening.
Duncan knew he was on a tightrope but tried to go forward. “I just mean it surprised me when I was allowed to keep Rafael’s murder case at the start. I figured you guys wouldn’t want us anywhere near it. And then the clear message I got from Blake was to plead it out right away. I assumed that message was actually coming from your family.”
“I think we’re having a misunderstanding of what’s an appropriate way for you to interact with me,” Leah said.
“I don’t like being manipulated. Even by a client. Even by you.”
Leah sighed and looked over at her computer, signaling her lack of interest in continuing the conversation. “Why are you so involved in this kid’s case, anyway? If you’d wanted to be defending murderers, you wouldn’t be working for Blake.”
“I don’t want to be defending murderers. But Rafael’s my client. Look, it’s easy to get lost doing this job. Fighting for my clients—no matter who they are, no matter what they’ve done—is what being a lawyer is. If I compromise that, then it’s like it never really meant anything.”
Leah considered Duncan carefully. “It’s not your decision to make.”
“I’m not starry-eyed. I’m not looking to draw some big line in the sand here. But no one will even explain to me what’s really going on.”
“What if it turns out you don’t actually want to know what’s really going on? You can’t press ‘undo’ when it comes to finding things out.”
“I understand that,” Duncan said, wondering if he fully did.
“All I can say is that Fowler’s murder had the potential to embarrass our business. We preferred that it be handled quietly. But that’s not what you’ve been doing.”
“You mean I’ve been doing too good a job,” Duncan said. “But how does that embarrass your family?”
“I’m not going to draw you a map.”
“He’s innocent, Leah. I’m not trying to hurt your family or anyone else. I’m trying to get an innocent man out of jail.”
Leah looked away, Duncan thinking maybe he was getting somewhere. “Did you know that back in the 1930s the rule of thumb on skyscraper construction was that one worker would die for each floor built?” Leah said after a moment. “Think of that the next time you walk past the Empire State Building.”
“So you’re saying what—Rafael’s a broken egg needed for your omelet? I don’t have a responsibility to help everyone, but I do have a responsibility to help him.”
“Don’t be naive, Duncan; it doesn’t suit you. I’m saying any large building in New York has got some bloodstains hidden beneath its foundations. That’s the reality of doing something on the scale we work on. I’m not being cavalier about the cost; I’m just being realistic about it. You can be on our side, or you can be on Rafael’s side, but you can’t be on both. It’s your choice, but I would imagine it to be a very easy one.”
Duncan, feeling helpless, shook his head. “I don’t want to be a part of this, Leah.”
“You already are,” Leah replied.