IN A CITY of 76,000 lawyers, many of them clustered in megafirms within rifle shot of the U.S. Capitol—rich and powerful firms where the brightest associates were given obscene signing bonuses and the dullest ex-Congressmen were given lucrative2 lobbying deals and the hottest litigators came with their own agents—the Office of the Public Defender3 was far down in the minor4 leagues. Low A.
Some OPD lawyers were zealously5 committed to defending the poor and oppressed, and for them the job was not a stepping-stone to another career. Regardless of how little they earned or how tight their budgets were, they thrived on the lonely independence of their work and the satisfaction of protecting the underdog.
Other PDs told themselves that the job was transitory, just the nitty-gritty training they needed to get launched into more promising6 careers. Learn the ropes the hard way, get your hands dirty, see and do things no big-firm associate would ever get near, and someday some firm with real vision will reward the effort. Unlimited7 trial experience, a vast knowledge of the judges and the clerks and the cops, workload8 management, skills in handling the most difficult of clients—these were just a few of the advantages PDs had to offer after only a few years on the job.
OPD had eighty lawyers, all working in two cramped9 and suffocating10 floors of the District of Columbia Public Services Building, a pale, square, concrete structure known as The Cube, on Mass Avenue near Thomas Circle. There were about forty low paid secretaries and three dozen paralegals scattered12 through the maze13 of cubbyhole offices. The Director was a woman named Glenda who spent most of her time locked in her office because she felt safe in there.
The beginning salary for an OPD lawyer was $36,000. Raises were minuscule14 and slow in coming. The most senior lawyer, a frazzled old man of forty-three, earned $57,600 and had been threatening to quit for nineteen years. The workloads15 were staggering because the city was losing its own war on crime. The supply of indigent16 criminals was endless. Every year for the past eight Glenda had submitted a budget requesting ten more lawyers and a dozen more paralegals. In each of the last four budgets she had received less money than the year before. Her quandary17 at the moment was which paralegals to terminate and which lawyers to force into part-time work.
Like most of the other PDs, Clay Carter had not entered law school with the plan of a career, or even a brief stint18, defending indigent criminals. No way. Back when Clay was in college and then law school at Georgetown his father had a firm in D.C. Clay had worked there part-time for years, and had his own office. The dreams had been boundless19 back then, father and son litigating together as the money poured in.
But the firm collapsed20 during Clay's last year of law school, and his father left town. That was another story. Clay became a public defender because there were no other last-second jobs to grab.
It took him three years to jockey and connive21 his way into getting his own office, not one shared with another lawyer or paralegal. About the size of a modest suburban22 utility closet, it had no windows and a desk that consumed half the floor space. His office in his father's old firm had been four times larger with views of the Washington Monument, and though he tried to forget those views he couldn't erase23 them from his memory. Five years later, he still sat at his desk at times and stared at the walls, which seemed to get closer each month, and asked himself how, exactly, did he fall from one office to the other?
He tossed the Tequila Watson file on his very clean and very neat desk and took off his jacket. It would have been easy, in the midst of such dismal24 surroundings, to let the place go, to let the files and papers pile up, to clutter25 his office and blame it on being overworked and understaffed. But his father had believed that an organized desk was a sign of an organized mind. If you couldn't find something in thirty seconds, you were losing money, his father always said. Return phone calls immediately was another rule Clay had been taught to obey.
So he was fastidious about his desk and office, much to the amusement of his harried26 colleagues. His Georgetown Law School diploma hung in a handsome frame in the center of a wall. For the first two years at OPD he had refused to display the diploma for fear that the other lawyers would wonder why someone from Georgetown was working for minimum wages. For the experience, he told himself, I'm here for the experience. A trial every month—tough trials against tough prosecutors27 in front of tough juries. For the down-in-the-gutter, bareknuckle training that no big firm could provide. The money would come later, when he was a battle-hardened litigator at a very young age.
He stared at the thin Watson file in the center of his desk and wondered how he might unload it on someone else. He was tired of the tough cases and the superb training and all the other crap that he put up with as an underpaid PD.
There were six pink phone message slips on his desk; five related to business, one from Rebecca, his longtime girlfriend. He called her first.
"I'm very busy," she informed him after the required initial pleasantries.
"You called me," Clay said.
"Yes, I can only talk a minute or so." Rebecca worked as an assistant to a low-ranking Congressman28 who was the chairman of some useless subcommittee. But because he was the chairman he had an additional office he was required to staff with people like Rebecca who was in a frenzy29 all day preparing for the next round of hearings that no one would attend. Her father had pulled strings30 to get her the job.
"I'm kinda swamped too," Clay said. "Just picked up another murder case." He managed to add a measure of pride to this, as if he were honored to be the attorney for Tequila Watson.
It was a game they played: Who was the busiest? Who was the most important? Who worked the hardest? Who had the most pressure?
"Tomorrow is my mother's birthday," she said, pausing slightly as if Clay was supposed to know this. He did not. He cared not. He didn't like her mother. "They've invited us to dinner at the club."
A bad day just got worse. The only response he could possibly give was, "Sure." And a quick one at that.
"Around seven. Coat and tie."
"Of course." I'd rather have dinner with Tequila Watson at the jail, he thought to himself.
"I gotta run," she said. "See you then. Love you."
"Love you."
It was a typical conversation between the two, just a few quick lines before rushing off to save the world. He looked at her photo on his desk. Their romance came with enough complications to sink ten marriages. His father had once sued her father, and who won and who lost would never be clear. Her family claimed origins in old Alexandria society; he'd been an Army brat31. They were right-wing Republicans, he was not. Her father was known as Bennett the Bulldozer for his relentless32 slash-and-burn development in the Northern Virginia suburbs around D.C. Clay hated the sprawl33 of Northern Virginia and quietly paid his dues to two environmental groups fighting the developers. Her mother was an aggressive social climber who wanted her two daughters to marry serious money. Clay had not seen his mother in eleven years. He had no social ambitions whatsoever34. He had no money.
For almost four years, the romance had survived a monthly brawl35, the majority of them engineered by her mother. It clung to life by love and lust1 and a determination to succeed regardless of the odds36 against it. But Clay sensed a fatigue37 on Rebecca's part, a creeping weariness brought on by age and constant family pressure. She was twenty-eight. She did not want a career. She wanted a husband and a family and long days spent at the country club spoiling the children, playing tennis, doing lunch with her mother.
Paulette Tullos appeared from thin air and startled him. "Got nailed, didn't you?" she said with a smirk38. "A new murder case."
"You were there?" Clay asked.
"Saw it all. Saw it coming, saw it happen, couldn't save you, pal11."
"Thanks. I owe you one."
He would have offered her a seat, but there were no others in his office. There was no room for chairs and besides they were not needed because all of his clients were in jail. Sitting and chatting were not part of the daily routine at OPD.
"What are my chances of getting rid of it?" he said.
"Slim to impossible. Who you gonna dump it on?"
"I was thinking of you."
"Sorry. I got two murder cases already. Glenda won't move it for you."
Paulette was his closest friend inside the OPD. A product of a rough section of the city, she had scratched her way through college and law school at night and had seemed destined39 for the middle classes until she met an older Greek gentleman with a fondness for young black women. He married her and set her up comfortably in North West Washington, then eventually returned to Europe, where he preferred to live. Paulette suspected he had a wife or two over there, but she wasn't particularly concerned about it. She was well-off and seldom alone. After ten years, the arrangement was working fine.
"I heard the prosecutors talking," she said. "Another street killing40, but questionable41 motive42."
"Not exactly the first one in the history of D.C."
"But no apparent motive."
"There's always a motive—cash, drugs, sex, a new pair of Nikes."
"But the kid was pretty tame, no history of violence?"
"First impressions are seldom true, Paulette, you know that."
"Jermaine got one very similar two days ago. No apparent motive."
"I hadn't heard."
"You might try him. He's new and ambitious and, who knows, you might dump it on him."
"I'll do it right now."
Jermaine wasn't in but Glenda's door, for some reason, was slightly open. Clay rapped it with his knuckles43 while walking through it. "Got a minute?" he said, knowing that Glenda hated sparing a minute with anyone on her staff. She did a passable job running the office, managing the caseloads, holding the budget together, and, most important, playing the politics at City Hall. But she did not like people. She preferred to do her work behind a locked door.
"Sure," she said abruptly44, with no conviction whatsoever. It was clear she did not appreciate the intrusion, which was exactly the reception Clay had expected.
"I happened to be in the Criminal Division this morning at the wrong time, got nailed with a murder case, one I'd rather pass on. I just finished the Traxel case, which, as you know, lasted for almost three years. I need a break from murder. How about one of the younger guys?"
"You beggin' off, Mr. Carter?" she said, eyebrows45 arched.
"Absolutely. Load up the dope and burglaries for a few months. That's all I'm asking."
"And who do you suggest should handle the, uh, what's the case?"
"Tequila Watson."
"Tequila Watson. Who should get him, Mr. Carter?"
"I don't really care. I just need a break."
She leaned back in her chair, like some wise old chairman of the board, and began chewing on the end of a pen. "Don't we all, Mr. Carter? We'd all love a break, wouldn't we?"
"Yes or no?"
"We have eighty lawyers here, Mr. Carter, about half of whom are qualified46 to handle murder cases. Everybody has at least two. Move it if you can, but I'm not going to reassign it."
As he was leaving, Clay said, "I could sure use a raise if you wanted to work on it."
"Next year, Mr. Carter. Next year."
"And a paralegal."
"Next year."
The Tequila Watson file remained in the very neat and organized office of Jarrett Clay Carter II, Attorney-at-Law.
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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zealously
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| adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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workload
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| n.作业量，工作量 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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minuscule
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| adj.非常小的；极不重要的 | |
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workloads
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| （某一人或组织）工作量，工作负担( workload的名词复数 ) | |
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indigent
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的 | |
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quandary
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| n.困惑，进迟两难之境 | |
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stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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connive
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| v.纵容；密谋 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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erase
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| v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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clutter
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| n.零乱，杂乱；vt.弄乱，把…弄得杂乱 | |
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harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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prosecutors
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| 检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人 | |
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Congressman
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| n.（美）国会议员 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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sprawl
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| vi.躺卧，扩张，蔓延；vt.使蔓延；n.躺卧，蔓延 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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brawl
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| n.大声争吵，喧嚷；v.吵架，对骂 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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