The Attorney

by Steve Martini

  As to be expected, Mary is on edge. She is reading every message, looking for hope in the expressions of strangers as they scurry about their chores in the busy hospital. A young man in hospital greens goes by the open door at a clip. Mary takes solace in the fact that he is at least running. “They wouldn’t be running if he were dead,” she says.

  There are probably two dozen patients in the ICU, and the kid in greens may have been called to clean out bedpans in another unit, but Harry and I don’t say this.

  For the moment we are in a small waiting room, next to the ICU, intensive care, bathed in antiseptic bright light from overhead fluorescents, waiting for some word.

  I am told that Jonah never regained consciousness in the ambulance, but that there were vital signs: pulse and blood pressure. They had him on oxygen within minutes. Fortunately, a team of paramedics was just down the courthouse corridor, waiting to testify in their own defense, a civil case involving negligence that had spilled over from the Hall of Justice due to limited space.

  Mary was not allowed to travel with him, so Harry whisked her to the hospital, nearly beating the ambulance.

  For long moments we sit in silence until a woman joins us, a friend of Mary’s, a neighbor, one of the few who didn’t sign the petition asking her to move. She has heard the news on TV. Harry and I take the opportunity to leave them for a moment, and step out into the hallway.

  “Did you see him when they brought him in?” I ask.

  Harry shakes his head. “They came in through the emergency entrance,” he says. “Apparently they worked on him down in the ER for a while.”

  It is possible to read something into the fact that they moved him to the ICU, though perhaps only to put him on life support.

  I am looking over Harry’s shoulder, down the long corridor, when I see Susan at the far end, rounding a corner, moving at a clip. There are three little shadows behind her, Sarah and Susan’s two girls. The expression on Susan’s face is one of angst.

  She speaks before she reaches us. “How is he?” Children in her wake, trailing behind.

  “We don’t know.”

  “I heard it on the radio,” she says. “I picked up the girls from school.”

  Sarah snuggles in close up against my side for a hug. I give her a kiss on the top of her head, and she smiles. I have not seen my own daughter in nearly a week. I am feeling incredible guilt for this.

  “I miss you,” she says.

  Hugging my daughter is the best therapy I have had in weeks. It seems that all the misfortune, anxiety, and mistakes of the trial slip away in this single, simple act of holding the child I love.

  As we talk, the hum of whispers, another figure is closing in on our small group.

  The look in her eyes tells me she’s not walking by. A physician, green cap on, green pants and top, an African-American woman, she looks me in the eye. “Are you Mr. Hale’s family?”

  “His wife is inside.” I nod toward Mary.

  She’s up off the sofa like a bullet, hands wringing, fingers suddenly interwoven as if in prayer.

  “He is stable,” says the doctor. “Out of danger.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see him?” she says.

  “In a moment. And just for a few seconds. He’s had a heart attack. We don’t know how much damage has been done at this point. But he’s going to be in the hospital for a while.”

  “Then he can’t be in court on Monday?” says Harry.

  “Absolutely not.” The physician turns on him as if Harry’s asking for her blessing to take her patient back to court.

  Instead Harry smiles, gives me an elbow. Time to talk to Peltro about a continuance. A mistrial could be in the offing. The judge is not going to be comfortable with a jury on the loose for any extended period, state’s case in their mind with nothing to contest it, and publicity running wild. It is a prescription for appeal, and Peltro knows it. The question now is how long Jonah is going to be laid up.

  With this on my mind, Susan leans up close and under her breath, in my ear, whispers, “How about you and I go to Mexico?” she says.

  Now is not the time. I give her a look, as if I’m chastising.

  She cups a hand around the nape of my neck, presses her lips to the lobe of my ear, and whispers: “We’ve found Jessica.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  * * *

  The drive in from the airport at Los Cabos seems to take longer than the flight from San Diego. The road is dusty and punctuated by potholes. The old GMC van, what passes for a taxi in these parts, has no springs left, and no air-conditioning.

  Harry is watching Sarah, taking her to school and picking her up. Susan’s former husband has her two girls.

  “So you combing town here to fish?” The taxi driver has one hand on the wheel as he looks at us over the back of the front seat.

  The windows are all open to give us some air. Susan and I are getting facefuls of heat like a million-watt hair dryer.

  “No.” I have to shout above the roar of the wind.

  “Bacation?” he says.

  “You could call it that.” He can call it whatever he wants, as long as he watches the road and keeps one hand on the wheel.

  “You’re taking us to Cabo San Lucas, right?” says Susan.

  “Oh, sí.”

  “How much farther?”

  “Ah. Little bit,” he says. “Where you from?”

  “Up north,” she tells him.

  “Oh.” He gets the message: We’re not in the mood for conversation.

  He’s doing seventy, bald tires sliding on the sandy surface of the road, showing us with his one free hand where the highway washed out in the last hurricane, as if the gully we just bounced over does not convey this. Every once in a while he hits the horn and waves to some other fool passing us at light speed in the other direction, another taxi with its load of norteamericanos headed for the airport. Speed in Cabo is a measure of machismo.

  Ten minutes later we pull into the driveway leading to the Pueblo Bonita Blanca, one of the high-rises on the water looking out at Land’s End.

  The resort itself is composed of luxury condos, time-shares. At the airport, sales pitches for these are so aggressive that those who come here regularly call it “running the gauntlet.” If you’re not careful coming off a plane, you may think you ordered a taxi and instead find yourself hustled off to a time-share for a weekend with a salesman from hell. The condos are sold mostly to rich Americans and rented out to other tourists.

  This resort has white stucco walls that rise several stories like the ramparts of some Moorish fortress, with blue-tiled domes every so often for architectural flair. The interior courtyard faces the beach and surrounds a free-form pool larger than a football field. This feeds down some stairs to the beach, where the ocean water is a deep blue, except near the shore where it has a copper patina, turned light by the crystalline white quartz of the sand.

  Susan and I check into the room and punch on the air conditioner. This requires the insertion of one of the room cardkeys into the power box on the wall near the door.

  The room is hot and stuffy. The resort is nearly empty. Summer on the Mexican Riviera is not the high season.

  We leave my key in the power box to allow the room to cool and take Susan’s while we head for the open-air restaurant down by the pool.

  Here there are paddle fans on the ceiling, cool breezes off the water, and a roof to shade us. There are a number of yachts anchored off the beach, and a large naval vessel that looks like a destroyer. The navy no doubt is hanging out at the bars downtown. Cabo has been called one large tavern. There isn’t much to do here except bake in the sun and drink.

  I have been here only once before, with Nikki when we were first married. It is a pl
ace staked out by the ugly American. Though the Mexican government might disagree, the medium of exchange is the U.S. dollar. Everywhere there are American males edging on forty trying to repeat their adolescence, engaging in the same bravado and bullshit they did the first time around, letting down what little hair they have left, getting stone drunk in Cabo at night, staggering back to their resorts at three in the morning to wake up with headaches and dry heaves, bragging about how they got rolled and beat up in town. A real adventure. They hang around the pools by day bellowing to one another on the balconies like sated bulls, wearing their Rolexes and always with the obligatory bottle of Dos Equis in their hands.

  There are American women in their twenties and thirties basting themselves in the sun with emollients and lotions, some of them with young children. It would not be difficult for Jessica Hale to lose herself in a place like this.

  Susan has not said much since our meeting at the hospital. I have asked her how she found Jessica. She has avoided an answer, and given the whipping she has taken in court I have not felt free to press the issue. If Ryan were to discover that we were down here looking, he would no doubt try to reopen his case, put Susan back on the stand and turn her on the spit one more time.

  My suspicion is that she has two reasons for involving herself further, the first being by far the most compelling. If she can do anything to extricate Jonah’s grandchild from a bad situation, she will do it. The other is that Susan no longer has anything to lose. She hasn’t stated it in so many words, but from her demeanor I am assuming she is finished with the county. Ryan and his boss will be working the board of supervisors relentlessly, the inference being that Susan tried to acquire Brower’s cigar in order to destroy evidence, and that she was not forthcoming with Jonah’s death threats. In their eyes she has demonstrated that she is not part of the law enforcement team, but the enemy.

  She orders a drink, some tequila to settle her nerves, a margarita.

  “So I take it we find Amanda today?” I say.

  The waiter wants to know if I want something to drink. I wave him off. Right now I’m looking for answers from Susan.

  “She is here in town?”

  Susan nods. “We’ll need a car.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “I have an address. We’ll have to find it.”

  “How did you get the address?”

  “That I can’t tell you,” she says.

  I am assuming that Susan is protecting her staff, that she may have used her authority one final time, probably to flog one of her investigators, put him on a plane and ship him south. Whoever it was got lucky, or else Jessica got careless. This latter gives me pause for concern.

  “If you were able to find her, Ontaveroz can, too,” I tell her.

  “We can’t rush into this,” she says. “We’re only going to get one chance. If we lose her, we’ll never find her again.”

  It is Susan who settles me down. For someone who is taking the ultimate career plunge, cliff-dive onto the rocks, she is amazingly cool. She is all business. Strangely with all that has fallen on her, the roasting by Ryan on the stand, she does not seem to blame me for this. It is just that her actions are now more measured, less trusting. I think she sees herself as the unavoidable victim in all that has happened.

  “She probably won’t come back with us.” Susan is talking about Jessica Hale. “Are you prepared to accept that?”

  “I could use her testimony,” I tell her. Jessica could provide the vital link between Ontaveroz and Suade. The fact that Jessica knew him, had lived with him, might give me the evidence I need to satisfy Peltro and open up the defense.

  “Our goal is the child,” says Susan. “I think we have to start with the assumption that Jessica is not coming. She’s here for a reason. She’s running.”

  “She’s running because of the child.”

  “Yes. And she may follow if we take Amanda back.

  But to try to take them both through the airport, through immigration and customs, would be a big mistake. If Jessica makes a scene, it’s all for nothing.”

  As much as I don’t like it, Susan is right. The child we might be able to convince, keep her in check. An adult, especially someone as volatile as Jessica, there’s no way.

  “Agreed.”

  “Good.” Susan’s drink comes. She starts to sip through the thin straw.

  “We’re going to need some identification for the girl,” she says. “That means a passport, something with a picture on it. It’s possible that Suade provided some false identification. When we find the apartment, one of our tasks is going to be to find this. Search their luggage, look in drawers. We’re going to need it to get out.”

  I nod. I am amazed at how carefully she has thought this all out.

  “If worse comes to worst, if all else fails, we take her to the American consulate in town. I’ve checked. There is one here,” she says. Susan opens her purse on the table. She removes an envelope and passes it to me. It’s a certified copy of the court order of custody in Jonah and Mary’s name.

  “That and my county credentials,” she says, “should at least cause them to slow down and hold the child for a while, until we can straighten it out. Get whatever authority we need to take Amanda back to the States.

  “When we find the place, one of us should go to the front door. Maybe that should be me,” she says. “A woman would be less threatening.”

  “And what are you going to tell her?”

  “I don’t know. Just occupy her time. Tell her something. That the landlord sent me to look at the place. That I’m getting ready to rent one just like it. Anything to get in the door.”

  “And what am I supposed to do?”

  “See if there’s a back way in.” According to Susan this would prevent Jessica from running, and presumably it would allow us to keep the child between us.

  “And what do we do with Jessica?”

  “Leave that to me,” she says.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “If we have to, we subdue Jessica.” It is clear that Susan is prepared to go the whole nine yards, risk a Mexican jail if necessary.

  “And what if there’s someone else in the house?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I don’t want to rush in. We should watch the place for a little while. Right after lunch,” she says.

  We change to shorts, cooler clothes, dark glasses. I rent a small Wrangler, a Jeep, something I’m used to driving that can handle dirt roads and maneuver on narrow back streets.

  In all our planning, there is one vast assumption: that the child will come with us willingly, that if we mention Jonah’s name or Mary’s, tell her that we are working for her grandparents, that Amanda Hale will walk out the door and get into the car.

  According to Susan this would be preferable, but she tells me that in any event, Amanda will be leaving with us, even if we have to use force.

  We stop at a market off the main drag downtown. I sit in the parking lot as Susan goes inside. Five minutes later she comes out carrying a single plastic bag. She climbs into the passenger seat and closes the door. Inside the bag is a fifty-foot coil of quarter-inch cotton rope, the kind you might use for a clothesline, and a roll of duct tape.

  “One more stop. Lady inside says it’s just up the hill.”

  I drive and Susan looks for signs. Two blocks up she finds it. The pharmacia. This time it takes her less than two minutes, and when she comes out she’s carrying a pint-sized metal can with a screw-on lid. She gets it.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ether.”

  It’s now clear how Susan is planning on dealing with Jessica: some sleeping juice on a rag, tie her up and tape her mouth. By the time they find her, we’ll be in San Diego or L.A. or wherever the next plane for the States out of L
os Cabos is bound.

  We find the American consulate on a small tourist map. It is over near the harbor. We drive by it several times from different directions to get our bearings. The problem is that many of the streets are not only narrow, but one-way.

  Within an hour we realize that our hotel doesn’t work. It is too far from downtown. It also has the disadvantage that the police station is situated between us and the consulate should we have to retreat to the room with the child for any reason.

  We spend an hour moving to another hotel, a place more centrally located. The Hotel Plaza Las Glorias backs up onto the marina, and is only two blocks from the consulate.

  Several times, navigating from the passenger seat with a map in her lap, Susan directs me past the tourist area of Cabo. We miss a turn and end up in front of our hotel across the street.

  This part of town is mostly a strip of bars and T-shirt shops, discos and dives. It is a traffic nightmare, even in the off-season. The population swells with each cruise ship that pulls into the harbor. Two of them are sitting like floating hotels a mile out from the beach today. Motor launches ferry the passengers to the marina, where they clog the streets looking for deals from the vendors and wander in and out of the small shops.

  It takes us ten minutes to find our way back out.

  Susan takes another shot at the map, new directions. We backtrack, and this time we get it right, the main drag toward town, but we stay to the right when we get to the light in front of the market.

  Here the street is one-way, narrowing as we head uphill, just enough room for two cars to travel side by side. Toward the top, Susan tells me to look for a place to park. Here some of the curbs are four feet high, with stairs to climb as you proceed up the sidewalk. The shops are thinning out, mostly small businesses. I find an opening and pull in.

  Susan studies the map. The detail on it is not great, one of those tourist maps provided by the car-rental agency. The streets seem to disappear in the area where the hotel concierge told us the address was located.

  “It should be two blocks up,” she says.