69
RIKERS STILL had Duncan listed as one of Rafael’s lawyers, so he was able to schedule an attorney-client visit. He felt furtive as he was processed through, half expecting someone to stop him. But he made his way to an interview room without incident. About ten minutes later Rafael was brought in, stopping in surprise upon seeing Duncan.
“What’re you doing here?” Rafael said as he sat down. “Thought you fired me.”
Duncan smiled at this, though Rafael didn’t. “I certainly didn’t fire you, Rafael. It was never my decision to drop your case.”
“But you did. So what you want now?”
“I heard you were going to take a plea,” Duncan said.
“What do you care what I’m doing?”
“Of course I care. I know you didn’t shoot Sean Fowler, Rafael.”
Rafael shrugged, not making eye contact. “My new lawyer got me this deal. Says I’ll have to do fifteen years, but if I go to trial I could get life, no chance to get out.”
“But if you didn’t do it—”
“Nobody gives a shit whether I done it or not,” Rafael interrupted, his voice harsh with anger. “Took me a while to figure that out is all. You didn’t give a shit neither, quitting on me.”
Duncan shook his head, feeling defensive and embarrassed. “That’s not what happened.”
“Whatever. I don’t feel like arguing with you about it.”
“I understand you’re angry with me, Rafael. But the reason I’m here is that I’d like to be your lawyer again.”
This at least got Rafael’s full attention. He cocked his head at Duncan, puzzled. “You just got done quitting on me.”
“That was my firm, not me,” Duncan said. He didn’t know quite how to explain recent events. “Long story short, I don’t work there anymore, so the conflict is gone. It may be a little complicated, but I’d like to help you keep fighting this. I’ve got a better idea now what actually happened.”
“You going to promise me you can get me out?” Rafael challenged.
Duncan looked away, uncomfortable. “You know I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do everything in my power. You really want to spend years in prison for something you didn’t do?”
“Course not. But I don’t want to spend my whole life up in here neither.”
“I don’t understand what’s changed,” Duncan said. “You wanted to go to war on this.”
“That was back when I thought I could have a fair fight,” Rafael said, his eyes dark and wrathful. “Look around you; see where you are. Fair got nothing to do with this place.”
Duncan decided to offer a simple plea. “I’d like to help you, Rafael, if you’ll let me. All that’s left of the DA’s case is the one eyewitness, and I have a good angle of attack on him. What do you say?”
Rafael was clearly unmoved. “Look, I liked you, Mr. R, and I don’t want to get in a big thing with you now. But I trusted you and you dumped me, and now I don’t trust you no more. You’re part of the system, same as the rest of them. I know you say you’re not, but you are.”
“I can’t even tell you how much I’m not,” Duncan said, scrambling for a way around Rafael’s defenses.
“I’m keeping my head down, doing the time. I can’t take the chance of spending the rest of my life in here.”
“Fifteen years in prison. A real prison upstate—Sing Sing or Green Haven. You realize what that’ll be?”
Rafael waved his hand dismissively. “For a white boy like you, sure. But I got people in here. I’ll be protected.”
Duncan wondered if bringing up his racial background might create a bridge to Rafael, but this didn’t feel like the time. “Your people in a maximum-security prison won’t be people like you. This is everything you’ve managed to avoid becoming—don’t give in to it now.”
Duncan’s words backfired; he could see the anger overtaking Rafael. “Man, f*ck you. What do you know about me, what I’ve been through? You don’t know shit about none of it, so quit talking like you do.”
Rafael stood abruptly and turned to the bars. Duncan didn’t know what he’d done to lose him, but he could see he had. “I really think I can take the case against you apart if you give me the chance,” he said, offering one last try.
But Rafael didn’t turn. “Guard,” he called instead. “We done in here.”