Part 42 (1/2)
”What?”
”You don't have to go to that job any more. I make more than enough money for us. You can stay home now and take it easy.”
She gave him a strange look. ”Now listen here, Joshua, it isn't your place to be telling me what to do with my life! I've been doing this job for more than twenty-five years. I don't plan on stopping now just because you're a big lawyer or something. Mrs. Sims still needs me.”
”Needs you, for what? All these years you've been telling me how she doesn't need anyone to clean her home. h.e.l.l, you've been joking about how she probably cleans up after you leave.”
”That's none of your business, Joshua!”
”But it is my business, Mama. You're tired; you've been tired for a while now, traipsing out there every day just so we could live, so you could take care of me. Now it's my turn to take care of you.”
She approached him and ran her hand through his hair. ”I'm proud of you, Joshua, prouder than I ever believed I'd be. But you should be thinking of yourself. You should be finding a woman, a proper woman, and having a family of your own. You don't need to be worrying about me; I'll take care of myself just fine.”
He knew there was no use arguing; there never was. She hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, and left. He stood, stunned and helpless, wondering why none of the women in his life ever listened to a word he said.
Connie stampeded into his office, wearing a look that spelled trouble. ”How could you?” she exclaimed.
”How could I what?” He pretended ignorance.
”You turned down the Pilgrim case, without even consulting me!”
”Who told you that?”
”Thompson, that's who! Who did you think?”
”He doesn't waste any time, does he?”
”What's that supposed to mean?”
”It means he's dividing us to manipulate us into taking the case.”
”Oh,” she said, ”he's being manipulative. Thank you for clarifying that.”
”Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was planning to.”
”Planning to tell me!”
He was wordless.
”Listen, Joshua, and listen clearly! If we're partners, then you don't tell me about such things after you've decided. You consult me and we decide together.”
”I'm sorry. You're right. It's just that they needed a decision this morning and...” He stopped himself, realizing he was about to dig a deeper hole.
”And what?”
”And I was going to say that there wasn't time to contact you, but that wasn't true. I just wasn't thinking. I did some pretty dumb things in the last twenty-four hours, and not consulting you was definitely one of them.”
”What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?”
He proceeded to relate his escapades of the previous evening.
”You mean,” she said, ”you actually pretended you were there to see the rabbi? That's a new low, one for the books!”
”Thanks.”
”Only kidding.”
”Not quite. You're still p.i.s.sed.”
”I'll get over it. I'm more worried about you than anything else.”
”Me?”
”You don't sound like you're playing with a full deck lately.”
”That's putting it mildly.”
”She really gets to you.”
He hesitated, then said, ”She does.”
”It'll work out; these things always do.”
”Not for me they don't.”
”Isn't that a double negative or something? Unbecoming for a lawyer of your stature.”
”Life's a double negative.”
”You'll survive.” She started to leave, but stopped at the door. ”About the case, you really think you made the right call?”
”The guy's guilty, Connie. Thompson wants to use us to make it into a racial thing.”
”Can't see as I completely blame him; you used the situation for your racial thing.”
”Touche, counselor.”
She smiled, and left.
He tried to get busy with work, but the events of the past twenty-four hours kept intruding on his mind. Between Connie, Rachel, and his mother, it had been a memorable day. And then there was the biggest shocker, Jerome Williams, right there in his office, after all these years. He wondered about Celeste, where she might be, and was sort of relieved at not knowing. He also wondered if Thompson would actually use that dark chapter of his life against him. Either way, he knew Connie was right: he would recover. He always seemed to, though the costs were building.
He didn't hear much about the Pilgrim case in the following months. Either Thompson hadn't managed to find another sucker, or the media just wasn't biting. He also didn't hear anything about his history with the now Reverend Jerome Williams. That whole thing had merely been a bluff, though he didn't discount the possibility that it might still, one day, come back to haunt him.
Nine months after the murder of Israel Turner, on July 29, 1976, a small paragraph in the back pages of The New York Times reported that Larry Pilgrim had been sentenced the previous day to 25 years to life. Pilgrim was 24 years old at the time, and Turner would have been 55. A waste all around, Joshua thought, as he read the article over his morning coffee.
Suddenly, he realized that time was pa.s.sing much more quickly these days. Nine months in a flash. It was frightening. Things had been moving along nicely, however. Business was booming. He had even had a brief fling with a nice looking paralegal who had been working for an opposing counsel on some civil suit. He'd waited for the case to conclude before calling her, naturally. Her name was Cheryl, and it had been quite pleasant for the two months it had lasted. It was his fault that it had ended; his heart was elsewhere.