BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

“That’s crap.”

“It’s not crap, damn it. You ask Henry about the duty of an attorney.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“He’s your father for Christ’s sake.”

“What, you’re saying he’s in on this?”

“Course he’s not in on this. Knows nothing about it. What I’m saying’s, we didn’t get you into the company on his say-so. We didn’t put you through school because we’re holding his dough in class A preferred stock. We did it because you’re cut from his hide. You’re family. If anyone should understand this, it’s you.”

“What, he’s a crook, so I must be a crook? Like father, like son. That it?”

“No, that’s not it. But I tell you, he sure needs to straighten you out about a thing or two.”

“Yeah, well you fucked up on that too. He won’t be doing any straightening. We’re not exactly close.”

“Not what he says. You know he’s done everything he could.”

“Everything he could? Everything he could? You think walking out when I was five years old was doing everything he could?”

“Yeah, well that shit happens all over in families. Least he stayed in touch and watched out for your interests. He tried to be a father. Not like some.”

Ben swayed against the wall. “Tried to be a father? Oh, yeah? Sure. Never heard from him once. Not once in twenty years.”

Hoffman stalled. What crap was all this? The fuck was he talking about now? “Said you talked every week or so. Week or two never passed without you talking.”

“Just goes to prove what fucking liars we are. Like father, like son. You’re right.”

“He didn’t come see you?”

“He didn’t come see me.”

“You didn’t talk on the phone?”

“We didn’t talk on the phone.”

“Shit. Goddamn.” Hoffman punched his own palm. “Must have meant you used to talk in his head.”

BEN’S HEAD throbbed. It felt as ready to split as a hydrant hit by a truck. He leaned against the wall. His right ear was bleeding. He breathed hot air. His body hurt. His brain was shorting, his heart losing power. He wanted to pass out. He was fucked.

Hoffman stood silent. Doctorjee skulked distant. Doc Mayr sat unmoving in the Sentra. There was just this throbbing by a piss-stained wall, one hundred miles north of San Francisco.

Now he heard talking, up close, near his ear. The Black Bill Clinton’s shoulder pressed. “Now all I’m saying’s, you don’t go judging. Judging’s not for folks like us.”

Ben choked up. “Yeah, join biotech for a life of crime. Thank you so very much my fucking father.”

“Now don’t you disrespect.” Hoffman pulled away. “He’s always loved you. Loved his boy. I know that.”

“Hah, yeah right. Probably never loved anyone. Probably wouldn’t know how.”

“Who’d you get that from? Suzy? Where else? Okay, if you want your mother’s rap on all that, you can believe it if you want. But I know Henry Louviere, know the man.”

“Evidently not.”

Hoffman leaned, straight-armed, against the wall. “Yeah? So, how’s the Gibson? It is a Gibson? That so? With the sunburst finish?”

“The fuck you talking about?”

“What you reckon that cost then, new?”

“What’s that to do with anything? My mom got it me.”

“Huh. You think some Bible-beating night nurse at Northwestern Memorial paid for that? Two thousand bucks. And wrong again.”

He couldn’t take this. His father bought the Gibson? He felt himself sinking to the asphalt. His back scraped the wall, dragging his shirt from his pants. His bones met the pavement. Hard.

He clutched his knees, pulled them to his chest. An illusion, a dream, a dance.

Hoffman loomed over him. “Stand up like a man. Don’t crawl on the ground like a worm.” Henry’s buddy reached down, grabbed hold of Ben’s arms, and hauled him back to his feet. “I’ll ask him about this. Said he saw you all the time. Used to see you play softball. Used to stop by your school. So proud when they called you ‘Pudge.’”

“Proves what perfect liars we are.”

“Oh, he wasn’t lying. I know when he’s lying. What you know about your father anyhow?”

“I know what I know. I know enough.”

“Diddly-squat by the sound of it. Probably that Sun-Times crap, or some weather girl spouting outside the courthouse.”

“Well, what he did was wrong. It was wrong, what he did. Ask anyone. What he did was a crime.”

“Let me tell you this, kid. You talk about crime? Huh? You want to talk about the cause of crime.”

“He didn’t have to do it. He had choices.”

“So, you know why yourself? You’re the man with all the answers? Go ahead. You tell it to me.”

Ben’s head throbbed. The dog kept barking. He was fucked. “Don’t know. Don’t care. So shut the fuck up. It’s nothing to do with anything.”

“See, now kid—scrub that—Ben, you take this vaccine. Huh? Perfect example of how it all works. The cause of the crime is the crime scene itself. It’s AIDS. It’s not that motherfucker. He’s attending to the crime. He’s a crime fighter. The cause of the crime is the injustice.”

“Bullshit. You just made that up.” Ben hardly felt strength left to speak.

“It’s injustice. You hear me? That’s the story of this life. The cause of crime is injustice. That’s you, me, Henry. That’s America. The cause of crime is injustice.”

No reply.

Hoffman spoke again, now soft and deep. “Please don’t think you can sit in that car there, razoring right from wrong, thinking how everyone else here’s a crook, or a sucker. You don’t know how this’ll turn out. You don’t, I don’t, he don’t, she don’t.”

“Yeah, well if you or that psycho have anything to do with it, what’ll turn out’ll be wrong. That’s fucking obvious. It’s obvious.”

“Obvious, you say? Not much in this life’s obvious, I can tell you.” A cloud dulled the light of the moon. “Okay, let me think of something… An example… Okay… Okay… Here, you take Richard Nixon when he lost out to Jack Kennedy now. Nineteen sixty. They say your man in Chicago fixed the poll. But, let me tell you, what lost it for Nixon was whacking his knee