"No. And we can't delay much longer. Troy died a month ago. Judge Wycliff is desperate to know the whereabouts of Rachel Lane. Six lawsuits have been filed contesting the will, and there's a lot of pressure behind them. Everything gets reported in the papers. If we give any hint that Rachel plans to decline the bequest, then we lose control. The Phelan heirs and their lawyers go crazy. The Judge suddenly loses interest in upholding Troy's last testament."
"So I'm her lawyer?"
"There's no way around it, Nate. If you're quitting, that's fine, but you have to take one last case. Just sit at the table and protect her interests. We'll do the heavy lifting."
"But there's a conflict. I'm a partner in your firm."
"It's a minor conflict because our interests are the same. We-the estate and Rachel-have the same goal of protecting the will. We sit at the same table. And technically, we can claim you left the firm last August."
"There's a lot of truth in that."
Both acknowledged the sad truth. Josh sipped his tea, his eyes never leaving Nate. "At some point we go to Wycliff and tell him that you found Rachel, that she plans to make no appearance at this time, that she's not sure what to do, but that she wants you to protect her interests."
"Then we'll be lying to the Judge."
"It's a small lie, Nate, and he'll thank us for it later. He's anxious to start proceedings, but he can't until he hears from Rachel. If you're her lawyer, the war begins. I'll do the lying."
"So I'm a one-man office working on my last case."
"Right."
"I'm leaving town, Josh. I'm not staying." Nate said this, then he laughed. "Where would I stay?"
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead."
"I have an idea."
"I'm sure you do."
"Take my cottage on Chesapeake Bay. We don't use it in the wintertime. It's at St. Michaels, two hours away. You can drive in when you're needed, and stay here. Again, Nate, we'll do the work."
Nate studied the bookshelves for a while. Twenty-four hours earlier he'd been eating a sandwich on a park bench, in Corumba, watching the pedestrians and waiting for Rachel to appear. He had vowed to never again voluntarily step into a courtroom.
But he grudgingly admitted that the plan had its strong points. He certainly couldn't imagine a better client. The case would never go to trial. And with the money at stake he could at least earn a living for a few months.
Josh finished his soup and moved to the next item on the list. "I propose a fee of ten thousand dollars a month."
"That's generous, Josh."
"I think we can squeeze it from the old man's estate. With no overhead, it'll get you back on your feet."
"Until,.."
"Right, until we settle with the IRS."
"Any word from the Judge?"
"I call him occasionally. We had lunch last week."
"So he's your buddy?"
"We've known each other for a long time. Forget jail, Nate. The government will settle for a big fine and a five-year suspension of your law license."
"They can have my law license."
"Not yet. We need it for one more case."
"How long will the government wait?"
"A year. It's not a priority."
"Thanks, Josh." Nate was tired again. The all-night flight, the ravages of the jungle, the mental jousting with Josh. He wanted a warm soft bed in a dark room.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A six SUNDAY MORNING, Nate finished another hot shower, his third in twenty-four hours, and began making plans for a quick departure. One night in the city, and he was anxious to leave. The cottage on the bay was calling him. D.C. had been his home for twenty-six years, and since the decision to leave had been made, he was eager to move on.
With no address, moving was easy. He found Josh in the basement, at his desk, on the phone with a client in Thailand. As Nate listened to one-half of the conversation about natural gas deposits, he was quite happy to be leaving the practice of law. Josh was twelve years older, a very rich man, and his idea of fun was to be at his desk at six-thirty on a Sunday morning. Don't let it happen to me, Nate said to himself, but he knew it wouldn't. If he went back to the office, he would return to the grind. Four rehabs meant a fifth was somewhere down the road. He wasn't as strong as Josh. He'd be dead in ten years.
There was an element of excitement in walking away.
Suing doctors was a nasty business, one he could do without. Nor would he miss the stress of a high-powered office. He'd had his career, his triumphs. Success had brought him nothing but misery; he couldn't handle it. Success had thrown him in the gutter.
Now that the horror of jail had been removed, he could enjoy a new life.
He left with a trunkload of clothes, leaving the rest in a box in Josh's garage. The snow had stopped, but the plows were still catching up. The streets were slick, and after two blocks it occurred to Nate that he had not held the wheel of a car in over five months. There was no traffic, though, and he crept along Wisconsin into Chevy Chase, then onto the Beltway where the ice and snow had been cleared.
Alone, in his own fine car, he began to feel like an American again. He thought of Jevy in his loud, dangerous Ford truck, and wondered how long he would last on the Beltway. And he thought of Welly, a kid so poor his family owned no car. Nate planned to write letters in the days to come, and he would send one to his buddies in Corumba.
The phone caught his attention. He picked it up; it appeared to be working. Of course Josh had made sure the bills were paid. He called Sergio at home, and they talked for twenty minutes. He got scolded for not calling sooner. Sergio had been worried. He explained the situation with telephone service in the Pantanal. Things were going in a different direction, there were some unknowns, but his adventure was continuing. He was leaving the profession and avoiding jail.
Sergio never asked about sobriety. Nate certainly sounded clean and strong. He gave him the number at the cottage, and they promised to have lunch soon.
He called his oldest son at Northwestern, in Evans-ton, and left a message on the recorder. Where would a twenty-three-year-old grad student be at 7 A.M. on a Sunday morning? Not at early mass. Nate didn't want to know. Whatever his son was doing, he would never screw up as badly as his father. His daughter was twenty-one, an on-again off-again student at Pitt. Their last conversation had been about tuition, a day before Nate checked into the motel room with a bottle of rum and a sack full of pills.
He couldn't find her phone number.
Their mother had remarried twice since leaving Nate. She was an unpleasant person whom he called only when absolutely necessary. He would wait a couple of days, then ask her for their daughter's phone number.
He was determined to make the painful trip west, to Oregon, to at least see his two youngest children. Their mother had remarried too, remarkably to another lawyer, but one who evidently lived a clean life. He would ask them for forgiveness, and try to establish the frail beginnings of a relationship. He wasn't sure how to do this, but he vowed to try.
In Annapolis, he stopped at a cafe and had breakfast. He listened to the weather predictions from a group of rowdy regulars in a booth, and he mindlessly scanned the Post. From the headlines and late-breaking stories, Nate saw nothing that interested him in the least. The news never changed: trouble in the Middle East, trouble in Ireland; scandals in Congress; the markets were up then down; an oil spill; another AIDS drug; guerrillas killing peasants in Latin America; turmoil in Russia.