The Hidden Man

by David Ellis

  “Where the hell is Manny?”

  Sammy glanced at the complaining man, standing in the next grocery line over, wearing a starched white shirt and a name tag that indicated some authority. Top grocery guy. He grabbed a plastic bag and began packing groceries that were piling up in the area past the register.

  “Griffin,” the man said. “Griffin!”

  Sammy felt his body go cold.

  “—your change, mister.”

  Sammy looked down at the green bills and silver coins placed into his hands. Then back up, at a man who entered his sight line, approaching the grocery store manager. The man was small, hunched, with small green eyes and cropped hair, grayed at the sides but mostly a dark red.

  “Work this aisle, Griffin. Where is Manny?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sammy bristled at hearing the voice. He’d never heard the man speak. Never even laid eyes on the man. He’d been so young.

  Griffin.

  And surely there were other people with the name, however unusual it may be.

  But he looked the part. Sammy had served with some of them, the ones who liked little kids. You could spot them from a mile away. Meek and squirrelly. Like they carried an inner shame that never left them.

  Yes. This was the man that had killed his sister twenty-six years ago.

  Sammy felt himself move, his focus on the grocery clerk named Griffin shifting from front to profile.

  “Don’t forget your groceries, mister.”

  Sammy’s trembling hand reached out. His grip closed over the plastic handle of the bag.

  “Don’t worry,” he said slowly. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  ONE YEAR LATER OCTOBER 2007

  4

  HE CALLED an hour ahead for an appointment, and he called himself Mr. Smith. Over the phone to my assistant, he didn’t specify the reason for the visit other than saying he had a “legal matter,” which distinguished him from absolutely no one else who entered my law office.

  From the moment my assistant Marie showed him in, he felt wrong. He presented, frankly, better than most potential clients. He was thin, precisely dressed in an Italian wool suit, a deep dimple in his shiny blue tie, gray hair immaculately combed. It was clear that whatever he wanted from me, he’d be able to afford the freight. So far, so good.

  But still—wrong. His hand was moist when I shook it, and he didn’t make eye contact. As I retreated behind my desk, he closed the office door behind him. It wasn’t uncommon for visitors to want discretion with their lawyer, but still—it was my office, not his. It was a power move, establishment of control.

  “Mr. Smith,” I said, wondering if that was his real name. I was assuming this was a criminal matter, and I like to guess the crime before the client tells me. A slick guy like him made me think of financial crimes or pedophilia. If it was the latter, this was going to be a very short conversation.

  Smith didn’t seem too impressed with the surroundings. I wasn’t, either. I had a couple of diplomas on the walls and some pieces of art picked up at an estate sale and some bookcases filled with law books I never use. My brother had given me a couch that I put near the back of my office, though I wasn’t sure if that made the place look too cramped.

  In his thousand-dollar suit, Smith looked like a fish out of water. He had one of those pocket squares that matched his tie. I never owned a pocket square in my life. I hate pocket squares.

  “We’ll require your services, Mr. Kolarich. Can you tell me your hourly fee?”

  In my recent reincarnation as a solo practitioner, I find that I have three categories of clients. Category one is a flat fee to handle a small criminal matter, like a DUI or misdemeanor. Category two pays me by the hour, with an up-front retainer. Category three is the client who promises to pay but stiffs me instead.

  My hourly fee, where applicable, is usually a buck fifty. But I decided, then and there, that it was time to have an escalating fee schedule, depending on whether my client wears a pocket square.

  “Three hundred,” I answered. It felt nice just saying it.

  Smith seemed amused. Well-bred as he was—or was trying to appear—he stifled any comment. He was getting a mark-up, and he wanted me to know that he knew.

  It usually took me a full half hour to dislike someone, but this guy was narrowing that window considerably.

  “Three hundred an hour would be acceptable,” said he.

  Then again, maybe I was being too hard on the guy.

  “You’re young,” Smith said to me. “Young for a case like this.”

  “Mozart composed a symphony before the age of ten.”

  “I see.” I didn’t get the impression that Smith was placing me in the same category as the prodigy Amadeus.

  “You came to me, friend,” I reminded him.

  He didn’t offer a response, but I could see that he wasn’t here by choice. Why, then, was he here?

  “The man you’ll be representing is charged with first-degree murder, Mr. Kolarich.”

  That sounded like something important, so I reached for my pen and notepad. I wrote, pocket square = big fee.

  “The man he killed was a sexual predator,” Smith told me.

  My would-be client killed a pedophile? Well, if you’re going to pick a victim, there’s none better.

  “And who are you to this guy?” I asked Smith.

  He thought about that for a while. It didn’t seem like a hard question to me.

  Typically, if it’s not the defendant himself reaching out for counsel, it’s a family member on his behalf. I didn’t get the sense that Smith fell into that category.

  “As you can imagine,” Smith finally said, “sex offenders usually count their victims in the multiple, not the singular.”

  Right, but he was being vague. Talking around the subject. I do that all the time, but I don’t trust people who remind me of myself.

  It didn’t feel like Smith, or someone he loved, had been victimized by this pedophile, which was what he was suggesting. He wasn’t carrying that emotion. I like to think I can read a guy, and his face wasn’t registering that kind of pain. I was getting disdain, though it seemed to be directed more at me than anything else.

  “You’ll take the case at three hundred dollars an hour,” he informed me. “Or someone else will gladly handle it.”

  With that, Smith pushed himself out of the chair and remained standing before me. I’m not a big fan of ultimatums, unless I’m the one giving them. It’s been said that I have a problem with people telling me what to do. I think I was the one who said that.

  Smith checked his watch. He’d obviously figured that I would jump at the chance for a case like this, but I hadn’t. In his mind, I was either stubborn or stupid.

  But, I noted, he hadn’t walked away. He didn’t like bidding against himself, but for some reason he was set on hiring me for this case, and he knew he needed to give me more.

  “When was he arrested?” I asked.

  “September,” he said. “Of last year.”

  “September—of ’06?” If this were a single-defendant case, as it seemed to be, that meant the trial couldn’t be far away.

  “Four weeks from today,” Smith informed me.

  “Well.” I waved a hand. “We’ll have to get the trial date kicked.”

  “That won’t work.”

  Sometimes I smile when I’m getting really annoyed with someone. I smile and count to ten. After reaching the count of six, I said, “We need to be clear on a few things, Smith. If you want to pay me, that’s fine. I don’t care who’s doing the paying as long as the money is there. Right? But you don’t decide what will work. My client and I make those decisions. You’re not my client, nor are you even related to this client. So you have no say. You’re an ATM machine to me and nothing more. And I’m not taking a first-degree on one-month’s notice.”

  Smith nodded at me, but he wasn’t agreeing with me. Kind of like how I smile when I’m pissed off. “You’ll consult wi
th your client on that,” he said.

  “I’ll tell this client what I just told you, and if he doesn’t like it, he won’t be my client.”

  Smith considered me. I wanted to wipe the smug expression off his face. Maybe I’d use his pocket square to do it. Finally, the briefest hint of a smile appeared.

  “The client is an old friend of yours,” he said. “The client is Sam Cutler.”

  Sammy. It came at me at once, a tidal wave of images, sights and sounds and smells from so long ago. So this was why Smith had picked me.

  “Audrey,” I said. “Sammy killed the pedophile who killed his sister, Audrey?”

  “Correct.” Smith nodded. “Griffin Perlini, you’ll recall.”

  Even now, I physically shuddered at the name. The bogeyman to a seven-year-old. I could attribute many sleepless nights, and many burned-out lightbulbs, to that name. The man who single-handedly laid wreck to the Cutler family.

  “There are those of us who believe that Mr. Cutler should not be punished for that act,” Smith said.

  Of all the images that might stick, for some reason it was this: Audrey Cutler, a year and a half old, staggering around on a toddler’s legs in the grass backyard, Sammy hovering behind her to catch her fall. One of the other kids made a joke about how Audrey walked—she looks retarded or something like that. Sammy didn’t say anything at the time; he only looked at me. When Sammy’s mother called for Audrey to come in, Sammy carried her inside. By the time he returned to the backyard a few minutes later, I was already holding the kid down, and Sammy and I made sure he never had anything but compliments about Audrey’s walking ability in the future.

  I didn’t know how to feel about all of this. Since Talia and Emily, most of my emotions had atrophied. I felt tension and panic begin to flex their muscles.

  Sammy, obviously, had asked for me. That stood to reason, I guess. I wondered how closely he had followed the course of my life. I hadn’t spoken to Sammy Cutler in almost twenty years. I had no idea what had become of him, which made me feel uneasy with myself.

  “The money will not be a problem,” Smith informed me. “I will have a healthy retainer delivered to you no later than tomorrow. I trust you’ll have time in your schedule to visit Mr. Cutler this afternoon?”

  I nodded absently, as the wave of memories poured forth, a young boy who’d lost his sister, a devastated mother, the picture of an open window into Audrey Cutler’s bedroom on a haunted summer night.

  5

  TALIA PUSHES OUR DAUGHTER, Emily, in the stroller through the city’s zoo, stopping at the sea lion pool as Emily squeals with delight. Emily wants out. Talia lifts her in her arms and approaches the gate, where the sea lions pop out of the water to the delight of the children, proudly thrusting their black snouts in the air.

  “Seals,” Emily says.

  “Sea lions.” Not that Talia knows the difference. She smiles at her daughter.

  Talia always loved the city. The daughter of Italian immigrants, she was born and raised out east but moved to the city for college and never left. She loves the vitality, the pace, the diversity, the theater and dining and culture. She wants Emily to grow up here.

  “Seals,” Emily says. But after ten minutes, her attention span is spent, and she is saying, “Hippos.”

  “Okay, sweetheart.” Talia musses Em’s hair and kisses her forehead. Emily doesn’t want the stroller and she doesn’t want to walk, leaving Talia to carry our daughter while pushing the stroller.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Emily asks.

  “He has that case he’s working on, honey.” But Emily has already moved on, distracted as they pass by the next exhibit, otters. She forgets her question and struggles with the word. “Ott-oh,” she manages, clapping her hands in self-applause.

  Talia’s face lights up, as it always does when our daughter is happy. Funny how those tiny details can make such a difference.

  Talia kisses the top of Emily’s head. “I love you, sweetheart,” she says.

  I love you, too. I love you both.

  I WAS A LITTLE EARLY to the detention center where Sammy Cutler was held. The center, next to the criminal courthouse, was shiny new, but with the new construction came additional security as well. It no longer mattered if you had a bar card; attorney or not, they ran you through the metal detector and inspected your bag. I didn’t mind because I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t ready to concentrate on what Sammy would tell me. I was thinking about Emily, the first time she reached out to grab my nose, though her little wrinkled hand couldn’t yet form a fist. I remembered that baby smell, the feel of that warm, tiny body in the cradle of my forearm, those wondrous, innocent eyes—

  I took a ridiculously long drink from the water fountain, used the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. I was always in a foul mood after lunch, but still I kept that daily appointment, notwithstanding the fierce come-down, the growing resentment with each passing day, wondering when it would get better, if it would get better, why it would get better.

  The only thing I knew was I was still a mess, still mired in a combination of self-pity, bitterness, and hopelessness. I was a lawyer, but I would be of no use to Sammy Cutler.

  Sammy. Many different snapshots filtered through: The skinny little kid with the big ears and flyaway hair, scampering through the rushing water of an open fire hydrant. The ten-year-old with a buzz cut, a growing solemnity in his expression. The teenager, hardened, solving problems with his fists. Differing portraits as time moved forward, I realized now more than I had as a child.

  I didn’t notice him until he approached the door with the security escort. We made eye contact, an awkward moment, as we appraised each other with the mild surprise that accompanies any encounter following decades of separation, no matter how you try to make adjustments for maturity, for hard breaks along the way. I’d done that time-adjusted analysis and come up short, way off. He wasn’t what I expected. He looked, in fact, much more like the clients I’d been defending for the last six weeks.

  Sammy was thick in the torso with meaty arms, a blotchy complexion, oily hair pulled back in a ponytail. His nose was crooked, with dried, crusty skin around his nostrils. His eyes were the only sign of life, large blue eyes that searched me with the hope I’ve seen many times from clients.

  So many things came back so quickly, but seeing him in manacles brought back the most logical, the most obvious vision. Age sixteen, Sammy in handcuffs, his head down inside the police interview room.

  Better me than you, he’d said to me then.

  “You don’t need to do that,” I told the prison guard, who had seated Sammy in the chair and was locking his handcuffs to a metal clip on the table. The guard locked him down anyway, before leaving attorney and client to their own devices.

  Sammy smiled nervously, almost apologetically. From his perspective, this had to be incredibly difficult, a reunion while in a prison jumpsuit. With some effort, given the manacles connecting his hands, he fished out cigarettes and lit up.

  We were eleven when we first did that, stole a smoke from his mother and ran to the park, vainly attempting to light the damn thing by striking a match on a rock, then coughing as the smoke burned our throats and chests. Sammy never really stopped after that time, and neither did I until the day Coach Fox realized that I had some speed and could catch a football.

  “Jason,” he said.

  Even that simple greeting felt wrong, painful. I don’t recall Sammy ever addressing me by my first name. It was never Jason. It was Koke, short for Koka-Kolarich, a play off my last name.

  “Some place for a reunion, huh?” he added.

  Right, and one of those awkward ones where nobody wants to talk about their past. Most reunions would start with a rundown on immediate family. There wouldn’t be much of that here. For starters, his sister, Audrey, was abducted when Sammy was seven.

  His father, Frank Cutler, a plumber who drank more often than he worked, left only a few wee
ks later. Way I heard it, Sammy’s mother had allowed no shortage of blame for Audrey’s abduction to fall on Frank, who had been out on a bender that evening.

  Sammy’s mother, Mary, died about nine years later from kidney failure, some rare genetic thing, leaving him with no immediate family. By then, Sammy was already serving time in a juvenile detention facility. When he got out, he had no mother, father, or sister.

  I knew, only from reading the file Smith had given me, that Sammy later did two stints in the penitentiary, one for possession with intent, the other for aggravated battery. The truth was, I’d barely spoken to Sammy after that day the cops had taken him away.

  Better me than you, he’d said to me then. Better me than you.

  “So you’re like a big-time lawyer, huh?” He said it like he approved. That was how I remembered Sammy. He was rough around the edges, but he never intended anyone harm. “Saw you on TV a while back about some big case.”

  That was back at my old firm. I’d second-chaired the defense of a state senator on federal corruption charges. It was a fourteen-week trial, in which the feds had prosecuted a sitting state senator, Hector Almundo, on eleven counts, running the gamut from taking bribes to extortion. The trial began exactly two weeks after Talia gave birth to Emily.

  “That seemed like a pretty big deal,” Sammy said.

  It was, especially for me. I had joined Shaker, Riley and Flemming only about a year earlier, after being a county prosecutor. The pay jump was tremendous, and Paul Riley’s law firm was the place to be. When Paul tapped me to assist on the Almundo defense, and then we somehow managed to pull out a not-guilty, I was established. I was in. I was set, at the finest litigation shop in the city.

  My family was a different story. Talia had had a rough pregnancy, especially near the end, and then delivered Emily as we were on the cusp of trial. Talia wasn’t deaf to my need to establish myself in my career, but still, it was hard to sell the trial to a first-time mother trying to care for a newborn by herself day and night.