Falls the Shadow

by William Lashner

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Follow me,” I said.

  “Where to?”

  “Just follow.”

  I climbed down the steps, pushed through the front door. Isabel hesitated a moment before following.

  At the corner Horace was leaning against the brick wall of the bar, a chessboard and box in his hand. I walked by him without so much as a nod. I knew where I was going, I had already traced the route on a map in my office. I turned right, turned left at the next intersection.

  These were all row houses now, more in disrepair than those on the commercial street, cracked porches, peeling paint, trees shriveling in the little plots of land between the cement of the sidewalk and the asphalt of the street.

  And there it was, a quiet house on a quiet block, shades drawn, lights out, nothing.

  “Go on up and knock,” I said to Isabel.

  “Who’s in there?”

  “Go on up and see.”

  She gave me a look, as if I had grown antennae, as if I had transformed before her very eyes into a different species, and then headed up the stoop. This time I followed her. From inside we could hear a television going.

  Isabel rang the buzzer, waited a bit, then rapped her knuckles gently on the door. She looked at me, I showed her a fist, she gave the door a bang.

  A woman answered, T-shirt and jeans, short dark hair, dark eyes, a crying baby on her hip. With the door opened, she shouted into the house, “Turn down the damn TV,” before turning her attention to us. “What you want?” she said angrily, and then grew quiet when she took in exactly who was there before her, Isabel with her suit and briefcase and me standing beside her.

  “Hello, Julia,” said Isabel.

  “Crap,” said Julia Rose.

  23

  Daniel Rose slumped on a couch in the living room, his fists balled, his features impassive, his stare intent on the cartoon playing on the television set. He was a stocky, towheaded kid with pale skin and slip-on sneakers, and he was doing his best to ignore me, which is pretty much par for the course with my clients.

  In the kitchen Julia Rose and Isabel were having a face-to-face. Isabel was not too pleased with Julia or her explanations. Julia’s friend had to run an errand, and so Julia had been forced to watch her baby daughter, which was why she hadn’t been at her apartment that day or the other times Isabel had tried to visit. Julia had no way to get to the parenting sessions she had promised Isabel she would attend because she couldn’t find the bus schedules. Julia had missed her appointment with the doctor because Daniel was too sick to go out.

  There was a technical legal term for what Julia Rose was shoveling to Isabel. The whole scene was enough to weary a saint, and I wasn’t a saint, so instead of letting her toss shovelfuls onto me, I’d left the kitchen and sat myself beside Daniel on the couch.

  “Daniel,” I said, trying to speak over the sound of the television, “do you know what a lawyer is?”

  Daniel stared at the screen and said nothing. I was tempted to switch the TV off so he’d give me his full attention, but if I switched it off and he ran away screaming, that would end my chance to speak to him that day. And I didn’t mind that the sound of the television was keeping our conversation private from Julia in the kitchen. So I waited for him to respond to my question. When he didn’t, I answered it for him.

  “A lawyer is someone who helps people who might be in trouble. I’m a lawyer.”

  No response, no reaction, but he did chuckle at a pratfall on the screen.

  “Today, Daniel, the person I’m here to help is you.”

  I waited. No response. I hadn’t had much real experience with children, and I wondered if a four-year-old kid could understand anything I was saying. Probably not. I was about to give it up and go back to Isabel’s conversation with Julia when Daniel, still staring at the television, finally spoke.

  “You talk funny.”

  “Well, you look funny.”

  I thought he’d laugh at that, or smile at least, but he didn’t. He tightened his lips and kept his gaze glued to the television. I licked the scab in my mouth. How do you talk to kids anyway?

  “The reason I talk funny,” I said, “is that I lost a tooth. You want to see?”

  He nodded.

  I opened my mouth, pulled down the edge of my lower lip so the gap was clear. He turned to look at it, nodded, turned back to the television.

  “Did it hurt?” he said.

  “Not really.”

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Anything, son. You didn’t do anything, and I know that.”

  “So I’m not in trouble.”

  “But you still might need a lawyer, and that’s why a nice judge lady hired me to help you. How does your mother treat you?”

  “Good.”

  “Well. She treats you well. That’s good to hear. Does she give you enough food?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she give you baths?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Does she read to you?”

  He shrugged, twisted up his fingers.

  “Does she ever hit you?” I said.

  “When I’m bad.”

  “How often are you bad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does it hurt when she hits you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Do you like watching TV?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you watch a lot?”

  “My mother lets me.”

  “Do you ever play with friends?”

  “I don’t know. I’m watching.”

  “So am I, but we can still talk.”

  “I can’t hear.”

  “Sure you can, Daniel. Do you have many friends?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who are some of your friends?”

  “Can we be quiet now?”

  “Not yet. Do you ever go to the park?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “The big slide.”

  “Who watches you in the park?”

  “My mom.”

  “Does your mom have a boyfriend?”

  He waited a moment without saying anything and then picked up the remote control, increased the volume.

  “What’s his name, your mother’s friend?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Randy.”

  “Randy. Good. How does Randy treat you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he play with you much?”

  “No.”

  “Does he read to you?”

  “No.”

  “Does he give you baths?”

  “No.”

  “Does he ever hit you?”

  He picked up the remote, raised the volume again.

  “Turn it down in there,” shouted Julia Rose from the kitchen.

  Daniel lowered the volume. He was pretty good with the remote, was Daniel Rose. I didn’t know if he was good with LEGOs, with puzzles, I didn’t know if he liked to turn the pages of picture books, but he was pretty damn good with the remote.

  “Hey, Daniel, would it be all right if someday, with your mom’s permission, I took you to the park?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I could buy you some ice cream. What kind of ice cream do you like?”

  “Chocolate.”

  “Okay. Good. Do you like sprinkles?”

  “Yeah. The pretty ones.”

  “All the different colors? Okay, chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. Just do me one favor, Daniel. Can you smile for me? A big smile? Give me a smile to let me know we’re friends and I’ll leave you to watch the television all alone.”

  He turned his head and faked a big smile and then turned back to the cartoon, and my throat tightened on me.

  “Julia has agreed to go to the parenting classes,” said Isabel when I returned to the kitchen, where the two women
were sitting. Isabel was now holding the neighbor’s baby. “No excuses, right, Julia?”

  “That’s right. I promise.”

  “I’m going to make sure the judge keeps you to that,” said Isabel. “And the doctor’s appointment. You can’t miss that. You understand, Julia, that this is getting serious? If these things don’t happen, if you don’t appear before the judge at your next hearing and follow all her recommendations, then we might be forced to take your son away and put him in foster care.”

  “You won’t do that,” said Julia. “Promise me. You won’t.”

  “We will do what we have to do to protect Daniel.”

  “I’m going to follow all the things you told me to follow. And the doctor’s visit you set up. I will, I promise.”

  “And you know how to get to the courthouse?”

  “The bus is expensive,” she said. “That’s why I missed it last time. I wanted to show up, but the bus is, like, a couple bucks each way, and they make me pay for the baby.”

  “How about if I pick you up and drive you to the hearing?” I said. “Would that work?”

  “Okay. Yeah.”

  “I’ll pick you up at your apartment, you and Daniel and Randy.”

  Her head snapped, her eyes widened. “What? No. Not Randy. He can’t make the hearing. He works.”

  “Where?” I said.

  “I don’t want to talk about him. What does he have to do with Daniel?”

  “Doesn’t he live in your room above the bar?”

  “Not really. Not no more. He left. He’s gone.”

  “He’s out of your life?”

  “Yeah, out of it. Good riddance, the creep. Just don’t bring him in it, okay?” There was a fear in her eyes that I didn’t like. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, but he don’t want to be involved in my mess.”

  Isabel looked at me. I shrugged.

  “Okay for now,” said Isabel. “Let’s see how you do before your next court hearing. If everything’s going well, we’ll create a new action plan then. Do you have anything else to add, Victor?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said. “What’s up with Daniel’s teeth?”

  24

  “How did you know she’d be there?” said Isabel as we made our way back to her car.

  “I have my sources.”

  “So you’re not just showing up.”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “That he’s your client. But I’m not sure what that means?”

  “Why’d you become a social worker?”

  “To help families in trouble. To make a difference, I suppose.”

  “See, that’s where we diverge. I’m not out to save the whales, or save the planet, or save the children. Frankly, I don’t want to make a difference in the world, because I’d probably just screw it up. I’m only a lawyer trying to do his best for his clients. Daniel Rose is a client, four years old or not, and so he gets everything I’ve got. It’s that simple.”

  “Even if the file was dumped on your desk and you’re not getting paid?”

  “That’s the part that sucks.”

  “I don’t know if I find you admirable or appalling.”

  “When you figure it out, let me know. So what do you think about my client?”

  “I think he’s a little kid living with a mother who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.”

  “But do you think he’s in danger?”

  “Of getting messed up by his mother? Sure, like every other kid in America.”

  “I could tell you stories about my childhood that would leave you weeping,” I said.

  “But I don’t see any reason to pull the mother and son apart. You do that, there are always scars, and good foster homes are scarce. But I want to keep an eye on her and the boy. It seems like a fragile situation. And you’re right, those teeth are a problem. We’ll have to get a dentist involved.”

  “Which is always bad news,” I said. “And the boyfriend still troubles me.”

  “Julia said they broke up.”

  “Yes, she did, and she was so truthful about everything else there’s no reason to believe she wouldn’t be truthful about her boyfriend.”

  “Did Daniel say anything about him?”

  “He seemed like he was too scared to talk.”

  “You’re going to have to learn more about him,” she said.

  “How?”

  “He’s your client,” she said. “You figure it out.”

  Figure it out indeed. I thought about the boy, the mother, the boyfriend, Randy, thought how I could find what I needed to find out, when Isabel let out a gruff “Hrumph.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “That’s all right, Victor. I’ve heard a belch before.”

  “I didn’t belch. You said something.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  I stopped, looked around, saw the front brim of a black porkpie hat peeking over the railing of a porch.

  “Why don’t you go on ahead,” I said to Isabel. “I need to make a call.”

  When she was far enough down the block, I took out my phone, wandered over to the edge of the porch, leaned against the brick, pretended to make a call.

  “Was that you clearing your throat,” I said into the dead phone, “or was someone plunging a stopped-up toilet?”

  “Watch your mouth afore I smack it closed,” said Horace T. Grant from behind me. “Although it sounds like someone else done that already. I see you found the place. How was your visit?”

  “Fine.”

  “Twenty minutes is all you give it and you come out saying, ‘Fine.’ You on a tight schedule, boy? Got you a pedicure appointment you don’t want to miss?”

  “We were there for an hour,” I said calmly. “We set up parenting sessions and a doctor’s appointment, and I’m going to personally drive Julia and Daniel to the next court hearing. Does that meet with your approval?”

  “It’s not up to me to approve, which is about the only reason you still breathing, other than a nose that could fit on Mount Rushmore.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “She knows we’re all looking over her shoulder,” I said. “That should help things from here on in. Though there might be something else of concern. What do you know about the boyfriend? His name is Randy.”

  “I know his name, fool. Which is more than I want to know.”

  “That bad.”

  “Like a bunion on the foot on the face of the world.”

  “I get the idea. They’re still together, Randy and Julia?”

  “Like shit and Shinola.”

  “What does that mean, actually, not knowing shit from Shinola?”

  “It means you’re a lawyer.”

  “Horace, your wit is surpassed only by your pleasant manner. You know where this Randy works?”

  “What am I, the Yellow Pages? You were inside for a so-called hour, why didn’t you ask that woman?”

  “She wasn’t so willing to discuss her boyfriend.”

  “Then maybe I’m not so willing neither. You mention my name in there?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good.”

  “Okay, I understand.”

  “What do you understand? You understand less than a bloodworm on a hook, wiggling yourself free even as the largemouth bass comes looking for dinner. You understand? A thumb in my eye, you understand. I bet you didn’t even find out nothing about the daughter.”

  “The daughter?”

  “There you go, see? You’re like a jalopy without an engine, ugly and rusting on the outside, empty on the inside. What good are you?”

  “Julia has a daughter?”

  “You so lost, how you fall out of bed and don’t hit the ceiling is beyond me.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Now you’re getting to the root of it, boy. Now you starting to ask some questions.”

  “You don’t know where she is?”

  �
�You stupid sumbitch. If I knew where the hell she was, would I be dealing with the likes of you?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I don’t think you would.”

  “First sensible thing you said all day. Now, get on going, there’s work to be done.”

  I pushed myself from off the porch railing, started walking toward Isabel without looking back. He was such a pleasure to deal with, Horace T. Grant, and unfortunately, from what I could tell, he was almost always right, which meant there was more work to be done. So Julia Rose had a daughter somewhere, my client Daniel had a sister somewhere, and no one knew enough to even search for her. Which meant that I might have to.

  If I had a dog, I would have kicked it just then. I was falling deeper into something that I didn’t understand, that I wasn’t qualified to handle, and that wasn’t going to pay me a cent.

  Pro bono blows.

  25

  This is how I ended up flat on my back, mewing in agony, reaching for the white light in the distance.

  We had gotten François his new trial, now it was time to devise some devious way to win it. The best route, I figured, was to ride François’s Gallic charm as if it were a surfboard on a six-foot swell. But to do that he’d have to testify, so it was time for him to finally answer our questions. It was hot in the prison interview room, Beth was quiet, I was sweating, and all the time François was answering, his eyes were saying, How can you doubt me, Victor? How could I? Because his tongue was moving. But it wasn’t the lying so much that got to me, I’m used to clients lying—what would I ever do with a client who told me the truth?—more it was the insouciance with which he told his lies, as if he was so charming he didn’t have to try too hard. It was all enough to send me sucking on my scab.

  “Tell us where you met your wife,” I said.

  “There is a place called Marrakech owned by Geoffrey Sunshine.”

  “The guy whose name is always in the papers?”

  “That is him, yes,” said François. “The second floor of the building was a club. It was fun, this club, a spectacle. There was a restaurant, too, and Geoffrey was a friend of sorts. He was always trying to get me to cook for his restaurant, which was why I was often there. He would invite me to the club, introduce me to the girls. Quite nice. One of the girls he introduced me to was Leesa. She had a bit of a reputation, but there was something in her that I admired. A spark of freedom, I think, and a sweetness. At first it was just, you know, playing around. But after a while it became something else, if you understand.”