Chapter 30

I guess Irving was right, I still have some fire in me after all.

It’s a thirty-thousand-year-old injustice, give or take, but Hugo’s story gets me worked up anyway, just like the other injustices I read about in school—Dreyfus, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Rosenbergs, McCarthy’s victims, on and on. That’s what I went into criminal law for, I remind myself. I’m even working out strategies in my mind for defending Hugo’s poor stutterer before I shake my­self out of it.

And it took a caveman to show me!

I do need to get back to the law. And I will. Hugo and Irving are right, and my God how weird is it to think of them in the same breath, as it were. But each one in his way said the same thing.

And when I look at it objectively, as I haven’t been able to until now, I agree with them. That jackass Peterson told me I was responsible for putting the asshole back on the street, and I was so upset I bought into it. I still can’t completely absolve myself; I damn well have to get more critical about my judgments.

But really I didn’t do it, Peterson did, the fuckhead. Nobody forced him to piss his case away. I didn’t do anything spectacular, like Cochrane did with O.J. or Darrow with Leopold and Loeb, all I did was run a solid defense and not let him get away with sloppy prep. And Pete, who I guess had come in thinking he had a walkover, got rattled when the rookie didn’t stumble over her own panties and botched it still more.

I still hate the result, given what I know. But Irving’s right, it’s just that sometimes the system doesn’t work. I have to focus on the majority of the time when it does, and be there for people like Hugo’s stutterer.

Not yet, though. I can’t practice law and teach Hugo all the stuff he needs to know at the same time, and I know which has to come first. I keep thinking of Hugo as a caveman, but whenever he was born he’s probably the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. I mean, he’s the one who showed me my way again! And Christ, it’s unreal how far he’s come in the, what, just three months he’s been here. Now. He’s speaking good English, he’s learning to read for God’s sake, the whole thing is hard to believe. Harder than hard.

I absolutely refuse to consign him to some anonymous mediocrity. One way or another I’ll help him find a place here. A real place. I’ll be damned if I let him wind up in the scrapheap of commonality, not if I can help it. And for that I need time, as much as I can manage.

Still, I need to phone Irving back. I haven’t spoken to him since that one call, he’s probably given up on me, but he did say give him first crack if I changed my mind and that’s obvious­ly my best bet when I run out of money.

The call to Irving is even more difficult than I’d imagined, because of course I can’t confide in him.

“What the hell, Linda?” he demands. “Another year, even more? You want to tell me what’s up?”

“No, Irving,” I say as apologetically as I can. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Just that it’s very important to me.”

“So important that you’ll jeopardize your future here?”

“Yes, that important,” I tell him. “I’m not demanding, I’m just asking. But I can tell you that you were right, the fire’s still there. If you’ll give me the time, I’ll be worth waiting for.”

“Goddammit, girl, this isn’t part-time work. You know the drill for associates, we dump you in the deep end, wring you out and hang you on the line to dry, and if you don’t come out too wrinkled we may, only may, offer you a partnership. That’s the way of it, it’s your apprenticeship, and only the very best make it through.”