3

Manny was the Goldfarb of Grantham, Glume, Wattly, and Goldfarb, one of the three biggest law offices in the city. The largest was owned by a New York firm, with branches in Los Angeles, Houston, and Washington, D.C. GGW&G was said to be the most profitable. They rolled over billable hours like an electric meter counting watts. Most of their work was corporate. Manny did crime because he had a taste for it.

“So, who do you have?” I asked.

“Ahmad Nazami,” he said.

“Manny,” I said, “you’re not normally the saint of lost causes.”

“Do you have a problem working on it?”

“Why should I?”

“I know you’re a member of Plowright’s cathedral, and he’s been on a tear about it, and sometimes people get funny around religion and God.”

“Manny, Sunday I give to God, Saturday I give to my wife, five days a week, I belong to Mr. Green.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said.

“Is what I hear in the news true?” I asked him.

“Is what you hear in the news ever true? Come on, it’s been wakeup time for ten years now. Whaddaya mean ‘is what I hear in the news true?’”

“I mean I hear it’s a slam dunk for the prosecution. That the suspect confessed. I also hear that he’s a foreign kid, no money, some kind of Islamist, that it’s a terrorist thing, won’t even happen in court, national security and all that, he’s going to be whisked away to one of those tribunals.”

Manny slammed his fist down on the desk. He was wearing a shirt that cost $300, $350. A $150 tie, wide and straight, pimp my neck. The jacket of his $2,400 suit hung over the back of his chair. The view out his window made it the priciest real estate in the city. Manny loved money, and Manny made money. But here he was, slamming his fist down on the desk so hard his coffee mug took a little hop and clack. “Not if I can fuckin’ help it.”

The way he looked at me, I was afraid that he was going to ask me to cut my rate or even work for nothing. Grantham, Glume, Wattly, and Goldfarb was one of the places that I always walked into happy because it was one of the few law firms where, pardon the expression, they never tried to Jew me down. “This isn’t some pro bono thing?” I asked. The problem was that if Manny asked me to cut my rate or throw him a freebie, I would. He was a good client, and you have to do extras for a good client, like your favorite breakfast place gives you free refills. But on top of that, because we were friends.

“You know what, Carl, it wouldn’t hurt you to work for the good once in a while. Wouldn’t hurt me either. It wouldn’t hurt at all.”

“Pro bono, Manny?” I asked in disbelief.

He turned his back on me and gimped over to the window. He tries to cover it up with his clothes and a lift in one shoe, but his left leg is crooked, skinny, scarred, and shorter than the right. He looked out on the river and the city that had grown along its banks, every year growing richer and growing faster.

Whatever he saw there, he said, “You gotta believe in something.”

“Yes,” I said neutrally. Maybe he was going to spin some argument about giving back. About tithing, in a secular way.

“A man has a right to confront his accusers.” He said it fiercely, like a losing lawyer in front of a hanging judge. “He has a right to see the evidence on which he is charged. He has a right to a trial. A right to a defense.”

“He’s a terrorist,” I said, shrugging it off. “A Muslim terrorist. He blew a guy away.”

“Get the fuck out of here!” he snapped.

“Fine,” I said, rising.

“Wait,” he said.

“What’s going on, Manny?”

“You always think it can’t happen here, right? Alright, maybe they do it in Afghanistan, Iraq: there’s a sweep, they pick up Ali and Abdul, and they throw ’em in Abu Ghraib. Or grab some guy, funny name and mustache at the border, and put him on a plane to Syria.

“The kid’s an American. As American as my parents were, damn it. His parents sent him over here nine, ten years ago, escaping the ayatollahs and the Pasdaran. He’s over here on his own, trying hard. Learned to speak English like he was born here. Applied for citizenship and just got it a few months ago. He’s at the university on a hardship scholarship. Plus, he works. He’s an okay student. So what are we doing here? Tribunals? Secret trials? Come on, Carl, is there anything you believe in?”

“Yes, Manny, there are things I believe in. I believe in God Almighty, that Jesus Christ is my personal savior, and in truth, justice, and the American way. But you’re not being real clear about what you’re doing and what you want, which is unlike you. You’re a lawyer, Mr. Goldfarb, one of the best, and usually you’re very, very good at saying exactly what you mean.”

“Alright, Carl, here’s what I’m saying. First of all, there’s money.”

“All you had to do was say so.”

“Second of all,” he said, holding up his hand, telling me to wait, “there’s pressure. You’re right, they want to take this kid away and disappear him. Take him to Guantánamo or rendition him or something. There’s big pressure. So, I gotta ask you, are you prepared to stand up to it?” He pointed an accusing finger at me and said in quotes, “‘Working to free terrorists!’ ‘Working against America!’—whatever the hell they’re going to say. They’ll even say ‘traitor!’”

“As long as they don’t call me a Liberal,” I said, trying to lighten this up.

“Well, they might,” Manny said. “They might do more.”

“You don’t make it sound real attractive.”

“I promise you this at least: if you get charged with anything, this firm will defend you. At no cost to you. You have my word on it.”

“Now you’re scaring me. Maybe I should take a pass.”

“Carl, wait.”

“What?”

“Meet the kid. Talk to him. Tell me what you think. Will you do that?”

“Sure, alright. When?”

“Now. Come out to the prison with me.”

I nodded.

He took the fancy suit jacket off the back of his chair and slipped it on. It was a beautiful piece of tailoring.

“I got a question for you,” I said. A capital crime, a slam dunk, an Arab killing an American—before it was done this would be a sevenfigure defense bill. “Who’s putting up the big bucks for his defense?”

“You know what, Carl,” he said, charging past me with his funny swinging gait and leading the way out to the long, carpeted hall, “we’re gonna have fun with this one. They’re gonna throw everything they have at it. It’ll be a dog fight—there’ll be press conferences, demonstrations, and death threats. It’s gonna be a blast.”