A Long Line of Dead Men

"Well, I have an edge. I know them all and you don't." A rope of gray curls had fallen across his forehead. He brushed it back with his hand and said, "I think the club ought to convene. And I don't think we can afford to wait until next May. I'm going to make some calls, get as many of us here as I can."

"Now?"

"No, of course not. Monday? No, I may not be able to reach some of them until Monday. This time of year people get away for the weekend. Tuesday, say Tuesday afternoon. If I have appointments I can clear them. How about you? Can you be here Tuesday afternoon, let's see, say three o'clock?"

"Here?"

"Why not? It's better than my office. Plenty of room for fifteen people, and we'll be lucky to get half that number here on such short notice. But even if you just have five or six of us all here in one room-"

"Yes," I said. "It would be useful from my perspective."

"And from ours," he said. "All of us ought to know just what's going on. If we're in danger, if somebody's stalking us, we damn well ought to be aware of it."

"Is there a phone I can use? Let me see if I can sell this to my client."

"In the kitchen. On the wall, you'll see it. And Matt? Let me talk to him when you're done."

"Hildebrand went for it," I told Elaine. "He seemed relieved."

"So you've still got a client."

"I did as of a couple of hours ago."

"What did you think of Gruliow?"

"I liked him," I said.

"You didn't expect to."

"No, I brought the usual cop prejudices into his house with me. But he's a very disarming guy. He's manipulative, and he's got an ego the size of Texas, and his client list adds up to a powerful argument for capital punishment."

"But you liked him anyhow."

"Uh-huh. I thought he might turn ugly with drink, but it never happened."

"Did his drinking bother you?"

"He asked me that himself. I told him my best friend drinks the same brand of whiskey he does, and drinks a lot more of it. And when it comes to killing people, I said, his score is somewhere between Warren Madison and the Black Death."

"That's a good line," she said, "but it doesn't really answer the question."

"You're right, it doesn't. If I was going to take his inventory-"

"Which of course you're far too spiritually advanced to do."

"- I'd have to say he's a drunk. I'd say he knows it, too. He controls it, and obviously he can keep it together enough so that his life still works. He gets the big cases and he wins them. Incidentally, I learned something. I always wondered how he made a living representing clients who haven't got any money."

"And?"

"The money's in the books and lectures. The defense work's almost entirely pro bono. But there's a lot of self-interest operating, because by getting the hot cases he's hyping the book sales and goosing the fees for his public appearances."

"That's interesting."

"Isn't it? I asked him if there was anyone he wouldn't represent. Mafia dons, he said. White-collar sharpies, like the Wall Street insider-trading guys and the savings-and-loan swindlers. Not that they were necessarily the worst human beings in the world, but he had no affinity for them. I asked him if he'd represent a Ku Kluxer."

"What did he say?"

"He said probably not, if it was your basic Dixie segregationist or some White Power type from the Midwest. Then he said it might be interesting defending those skinheads they arrested in Los Angeles, the ones who wanted to start a race war by killing Rodney King and shooting up the AME church. I forget how he got there, but he had them all established as disenfranchised outsiders. 'But,' he said, 'they probably wouldn't want a lawyer named Gruliow.' I still haven't answered your question, have I? No, his drinking didn't bother me. He didn't get sloppy or nasty, and once we'd eaten he didn't even show the effects of the booze. On the other hand, I'd been planning to drop in on Mick at Grogan's tonight, and I think I'll put that off until tomorrow or Saturday."

"Because you've been around enough booze for one day."

"Right."

"I never met him myself," she said thoughtfully, "but I could have."

"Oh?"

"He's a big john, or at least he used to be. All that New Left rhetoric, well, he was certainly a staunch supporter of the working girl. You know who had a whole string of dates with him? Connie Cooperman."

"Of blessed memory."

"She said he was a real nice guy, fun to be with. Kind of kinky."

"I thought call girls never talked about their famous clients."

"That's right, darling. And if you put your tooth under your pillow, the Tooth Fairy will come and leave you a quarter."

"I think I'd rather keep the tooth."

"Well, you're just an old bear," she said. "Anyway, he liked leather, and he liked to be tied up."

"We tried that."

"And you fell asleep."

"Because I felt safe in your presence. Look, I'm sure it's interesting that Ray Gruliow's a bondage queen, but-"

"Not to mention golden showers."

"Golden showers?"

"I told you not to mention them. I bet he'd take a girl to Marilyn's Chamber."

"Huh?"