The Brethren

Then the briefcase was opened and Link made a pretense of looking through it. He did this without touching a thing. Trevor removed a large manila envelope which was sealed and marked in bold "Legal Papers." Link took it and squeezed it to make sure it held only papers and not a gun or a bottle of pills, then he gave it back. They’d done this dozens of times.

Trumble regulations required a guard to be present in the room when all papers were removed and all envelopes were opened. But the two twenties got Link outside where he posted himself at the door because there was simply nothing else to guard at the moment. He knew letters were being passed back and forth, and he didn’t care. As long as Trevor didn’t traffic in weapons or drugs, Link wouldn’t get involved. The place had so many silly regulations anyway. He leaned on the door, with his back to it, arid before long was drifting into one of his many horse naps, one leg stiff, the other bent at the knee.

In the lawyers’ room, little legal work was being done. Spicer was still absorbed in point spreads. Most inmates welcomed their guests. Spicer only tolerated his.

"Got a call last night from the brother of Jeff .Daggett ;" Trevor said. "The kid from Coral Gables."

"I know him," Spicer said; finally lowering his newspaper because money was on the horizon. "He got twelve years in a drug conspiracy."

"Yep. His brother says that there’s this ex-federal judge inside Trumble who’s looked over his papers and thinks he might be able to knock off a few years. This judge wants a fee, so Daggett calls his brother, who calls me." Trevor removed his rumpled blue seersucker jacket and flung it on a chair. Spicer hated his bow tie.

"How much can they pay?"

"Have you guys quoted a fee?"Trevor asked.

"Beech may have, I don’t know. We try to get five thousand for a two-two-five-five reduction." Spicer said this as if he had practiced criminal law in the federal courts for years. Truth was, the only time he’d actually seen a federal courtroom was the day he was sentenced.

"I know," Trevor said. "I’m not sure they can pay five thousand. The kid had a public defender for a lawyer."

"Then squeeze whatever you can, but get at least a thousand up front. He’s not a bad kid."

"You’re getting soft, Joe Roy."

"No. I’m getting meaner."

And in fact he was. Joe Roy was. the managing partner of the Brethren. Yarber and Beech had the talent and the training, but they’d been too humiliated by their fall to have any ambition. Spicer, with no training and little talent, possessed enough manipulative skills to keep his colleagues on track. While they brooded, he dreamed of his comeback.

Joe Roy opened a file and withdrew a check. "Here’s a thousand bucks to deposit. Came from a pen pal in Texas named Curtis."

"What’s his potential?"

"Very good, I think. We’re ready to bust Quince in Iowa." Joe Roy withdrew a pretty lavender envelope, tightly sealed and addressed to Quince Garbe in Bakers, Iowa.

"How much?"Trevor asked, taking the envelope.

,:A hundred thousand." Wow"

"He’s got it, and he’ll pay it. I’ve given him the wiring instructions. Alert the bank."

In twenty-three years of practicing law, Trevor had never earned a fee anywhere close to $33,000. Suddenly, he could see it, touch it, and, though he tried not to, he began spending it $33,000 for doing nothing but shuttling mail.

"You really think this will work?" he asked, mentally paying off the tab at Pete’s Bar and telling MasterCard to take this check and shove it. He’d keep the same car, his beloved Beetle, but he might spring for an air conditioner.

"Of course it will," Spicer said, without a trace of doubt.

He had two more letters, both written by justice Yarber posing as young Percy in rehab. Trevor took them with anticipation.

"Arkansas is at Kentucky tonight," Spicer said, returning to his newspaper. "The line is fourteen. Whatta you think?"

"Much closer than that. Kentucky is very tough at home."

"Are you in?"

"Are you"

Trevor had a bookie at Pete’s Bar, and though he gambled little he had learned to follow the lead of justice Spicer.

"I’ll put a hundred on Arkansas," Spicer said.

"I think I will too."

They played blackjack for half an hour, with Link occasionally glancing in and frowning his disapproval. Cards were prohibited during visitation, but who cared? Joe Roy played the game hard because he was training for his next career. Poker and gin rummy were the favorites in the rec room, and Spicer often had trouble finding a blackjack opponent.

Trevor wasn’t particularly good, but he was always willing to play. It was, in Spicer’s opinion, his only redeeming quality.

Chapter Five

The announcement had the festive air of a victory party, with red, white, and blue banners and bunting draped from the ceiling and parade music blasting through the hangar. Every D-L Trilling employee was required to be present, all four thousand of them, and to heighten their spirits they had been promised a full day of extra vacation. Eight hours paid, at an average wage. of $22.40, but management didn’t care because they had found their man. The hastily built stage was also covered in banners and packed with every suit in the company, all smiling broadly and clapping wildly as the music whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Three days earlier no one had heard of Aaron Lake. Now he was their savior.

He certainly looked like a candidate, with a new slightly trimmer haircut suggested by one consultant and a dark brown suit suggested by another. Only Reagan had been able to wear brown suits, and he’d won two landslides.

When Lake finally appeared, and strode purposefully across the stage, shaking vigorously the hands ofcorporate honchos he’d never see again, the laborers went wild. The music was carefully ratcheted up a couple of notches by a sound consultant who was a member of a sound team Lake’s people had hired for $24,000 for the event. Money was of little concern.

Balloons fell like manna. Some were popped by workers who’d been asked to pop them, so for a few seconds the hangar sounded like the first wave of a ground attack. Get ready for it. Get ready for war. Lake Before It’s Too Late.

The Trilling CEO clutched him as if they were fraternity brothers, when in fact they’d met two hours earlier. The CEO then took the podium and waited for the noise to subside. Working with notes he’d been faxed the day before, he began a long-winded and quite generous introduction of Aaron Lake, future President. On cue, the applause interrupted him five times before he finished.

Lake waved like a conquering hero and waited behind the microphone, then with perfect timing stepped forward and said, "My name is Aaron Lake, and I am now running for President." More .roaring applause. More piped-in parade music. More balloons drifting downward.

When he’d had enough, he launched into his speech. The theme, the platform, the only reason for running was national security, and Lake hammered out the-appalling statistics proving just how thoroughly the current Administration had depleted our military. No other issues were really that important, he said bluntly. Lure us into a war we can’t win, and we’ll forget about the tired old quarrels over abortion, race, guns,affirmative action, taxes. Concerned about family values? Start losing our sons and daughters in combat and you’d see some families with real problems.

Lake was very good. The speech had been written by him, edited by consultants, polished by other professionals, and the night before he’d delivered it to Teddy Maynard, alone, deep inside Langley. Teddy had approved, with minor changes.