The Hidden Man Read Free Page A

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 with 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