“Stop it!” she says. She slams on the brakes, fifteen feet short of the nearest stoplight, leaving the two of them stranded, a stone stuck in the sand against the tide of traffic pulling around them. “Stop talking about her! Just stop!” Jay stares at her across the front seat, not sure which one of them is going to break into tears first. “Why don’t you want to talk about your mother, Ellie?”
“I can’t,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “I can’t do this.”
He takes off his seat belt. “You want me to drive?”
She grips the steering wheel, her eyes watering.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Daddy.”
Tears falling, she appears unsure, literally, of how to go forward. Jay reaches over and touches her right hand on the wheel. “Come on,” he says, telling her to come off the brakes, to start moving slowly. “You can do this, Ellie. Just drive.”
CHAPTER 26
“Here, turn here,” Jay says, gesturing for Ellie to pull into a small parking lot off Bissonnet, worrying too late that the only open space, one of three slots, is too narrow for the Land Cruiser, at least in a novice’s hands. But Ellie does fine, missing the other car in the lot and only barely scraping his front bumper on the concrete barrier between the parking lot and the wooden fence bordering it.
“What are we doing here?” she says, peering past her father.
They are parked in front of a shaded house on a stretch of Bissonnet, between Main Street and Greenbriar, once residential and now a tony spot for art galleries and florists, high-end psychiatrists and, yes, lawyers, cozy bungalows and Craftsman homes made over for the commercial needs of the upper class. This one is a narrow white two-story with black shutters and a flat roof, a line of Japanese maples out front, their plum-colored leaves shivering in the twilight. Hanging from a post just a few feet from Jay’s car is a swinging sign that reads: CHARLIE LUCKMAN, ESQ. Of the dozens of names on the list of PAC donors, his is oddly the only one Jay trusts. Charlie Luckman may be a lot of things, but a liar is not necessarily one of them, at least not where Jay is concerned. A long time ago, Charlie went out on a limb when he didn’t have to, when he and Jay were established adversaries in court, by giving him inside knowledge about Thomas Cole, information that solved a mystery and saved Jay’s ass. Ellie asks to stay in the car, but Jay tells her to follow him. Inside, the carpet is thick, the walls as creamy as churned milk, and there is a smell of cigars and good coffee, a Mexican blend, strong and faintly sweet. The soft light in here is as gentle as a madam’s reassuring touch, letting any virgin souls crossing the threshold know that they’re safe here, that there’s no safer place in the world, actually, than a defense attorney’s office. There’s a wall of Texas license plates going back to the 1930s behind the receptionist’s desk, which itself is empty, with only a small Tiffany lamp on top illuminating open magazines, Cosmopolitan and Glamour. Across the front parlor, above the studded leather couches, there are framed prints, cowboys and ranch scenes, a steer in a stand of prairie grass. “Carla!” Jay can hear Charlie, calling from a back office. He tells Ellie to have a seat on one of the leather sofas.
Following Charlie’s voice, he starts down the nearest hallway.
“Carla, honey, is that you?”
Charlie’s office is a long rectangle along the south side of the building, the desk halfway to the back wall. He’s sitting with his feet up, the heels of his buttery calfskin boots pointing toward the office’s one window; the view is a direct shot into the dance studio next door, a line of women in leotards visible from here. Charlie, seeing Jay, sits up. “Where the hell is Carla?”
“Your receptionist?”
“My wife,” he says, standing and walking to the door, sticking his neck out into the hall, her absence more alarming to him, apparently, than the unexpected presence of Jay Porter in his office.
“Your wife is your receptionist?”
“You know a better way to keep track of her?”
Standing in the doorway a few inches from Jay, Charlie adjusts his necktie. Seeing Ellie on the couch in the reception area, he frowns. “God, is that a client?”
“That’s my daughter.”
Charlie, his black-and-red-striped tie wrenched between his hands, steps back, taking a good look at Jay for the first time, then looking, again, at Ellie. “Where the fuck is Carla?” he barks, walking back to his desk. He picks up the phone, pressing a few buttons. “There a silver Mercedes out there?”
“No.”
“God damn it,” he says, slamming down the phone. “I swear, I can’t keep her ass out of Neiman Marcus to save my life.” Throughout the office, there are photos of Charlie and the wife, a tall, thin brunette with caramel-colored skin, and a shot of the two of them and their twin boys. The office decor also includes dozens of glossy images of Luckman with his celebrity clients over the years: an Oilers quarterback, the anchor of a local morning TV show, and the bassist of a bluegrass band out of Austin. Charlie pours himself a drink from a tray on the leather-and-wood sideboard behind his desk, dropping a spoonful of Carnation milk into his scotch. He offers the same to Jay, who declines. “So, Mr. Smith goes to Washington,” Charlie says, smirking. “How’s politics treating you? I heard you’re riding a sinking ship in Keppler’s courtroom. I’d be down there to take a look for myself, but I don’t really give a shit.” He sips the milky scotch.
Jay lays the copy of the list of PAC donors on Charlie’s desk. “Then why are you donating to Wolcott’s campaign?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”