Close to the Bone Read Online Free PDF Page B

a living. The first bullet through the eyeball, then one behind the ear. That’s his signature. By all rights, he should be doing life in Cedar Junction now. Instead the DA has pretty much given up going for a retrial. So Eddie Vaccaro’s a free man. Back doing what he does best, I presume. Shooting people in the eye. Thanks to me.”
    “The thrill of victory,” I said.
    “Bullshit. I felt like I’d murdered that guy in the restaurant myself, just like bargaining Victor Benton down to community service made me feel like it was me who’d been sodomizing little kids. All the time I’m interrogating witnesses on the stand and challenging evidence and manipulating procedure, I’m thinking, Man, I wish I was prosecuting these miserable pricks instead of defending them. I wish I was putting them away rather than getting them off.”
    “Somebody—”
    “Oh, yeah,” he said quickly. “Somebody’s got to do it. It’s their right to counsel. Sure. You know, there are times I wish I wasn’t so damn good at it. There are times it almost makes me cry to see an inept, inexperienced, overworked prosecutor up there trying to get my client convicted. I’m practically screaming to myself, ‘No, you dumb schmuck. Don’t put that witness up there. I’m gonna have to destroy that witness.’ You know what I mean?”
    I nodded.
    He took a sip of beer. “God help me, Brady, sometimes I find myself rooting for the other side. There are times I almost wish I’d lose.”
    “Maybe you should go back to prosecuting.”
    “Yup, I think of that. Olivia and I could sell the house and sell the boat and sell her new Saab and sell most of our furniture and go back to the little apartment on Memorial Drive. Maybe after ten or fifteen years I could run for DA and stick my thumb into the political pie and make television statements and never have to go into a courtroom again until I lost an election.”
    I smiled and nodded. “Alex and I are talking about moving out West.”
    “Really?”
    I shrugged. “I doubt it’ll ever happen. But thinking about it sometimes makes it seem real, and that makes me feel better for a little while. It’s an option. It makes me feel that there’s a way out if it ever gets intolerable.”
    Paul looked up. Skeeter was standing by our booth. “ ’Scuse me, men,” he said, “but I wondered if you wanted a burger tonight? Or a refill?”
    I glanced at Paul, and he nodded. “Burgers, Skeets,” I said. “You know how we like ’em. And I’m ready for coffee.”
    “Coffee for me, too,” said Paul.
    Skeeter grinned and ambled away.
    “I don’t feel that way,” said Paul after a minute. “I don’t feel like I’ve got any options. Tarlin and Overton pays me a shitload of money, which they should considering how much I make for them. I like my house and I like my boat and I like my wife. I just…”
    He shook his head, and I said, “You just what?”
    He smiled quickly. “I guess I just don’t like myself very much. Brady, God help me, I want to lose this case. I want Glen Falconer to spend ten years in prison. I want six big guys with tattoos all over their fat hairy bellies to ream his butt in the showers. And I want that sanctimonious old shit to spend the rest of his miserable life regretting the way he raised his son, and I want your Alex to drag the Falconer name through all the puke and slime she can find. That’s what I want.”
    “If you feel that way, you should quit the case.”
    “The thing is,” he said, “I can win. I expect to win. And I don’t have it in me not to do my best to win.”
    “So that makes you the best lawyer for the case.”
    He nodded. “That’s the problem.”
    “Just as I promised Glen.”
    “Sure. And all my vows and training forbid me from quitting just because I don’t like the Falconers and don’t like defending them. Nope. I’ve gotta see it through.”
    “I guess I don’t know what to say, Paul.”
    “I didn’t expect you to say