Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction Read Online Free PDF Page A

black, people still care as much as they did when they were white?”
    “We only care if they win,” Sarah observes, looking to me for my response. My daughter is at the age where she challenges almost every utterance out of my mouth.
    My relationships with other women, the way I practice law, and my treatment of Rainey (who sometimes seems more like a saint than a woman to my daughter) are all put under a microscope and rarely seem to pass inspection.
    I sip at a goblet of Cabernet red wine I picked up at Warehouse Liquor. Ever since “60 Minutes” aired that piece about how the French develop relatively little heart disease, I have religiously drunk a couple of glasses for dinner and have escaped criticism from the two women in my life. Knowing I will get Rainey’s goat, I say, “If they win, we don’t care what color they are. That’s what makes this country great. Winning is everything.”
    Rainey, dainty as the first time I had lunch with her at Wendy’s (she had a salad that day as well), dabs at her mouth with a cloth napkin she insists is ecologically correct, despite the energy expended to clean it.
    “We’re great all right,” she says sourly.
    “All the wealth in this country, and millions of people don’t even have health insurance. With the cuts in Medicaid, I wonder how people live as long as they do.”
    Content to be a white American middle-class male, I savor the taste on my tongue. God, wine tastes good with a meal. If the French weren’t such snobs, they could still civilize us.
    “Genetics,” I say, undercutting my excuse to guzzle more booze.
    “I’m beginning to think your body gets a certain number of years no matter what you do to it.”
    “You don’t believe that!” Rainey practically snorts, shaking her head.
    “That would sound too much like fate.”
    The truth is, I don’t. Life will continue to be one random accident until, sooner or later, we peel a little too much off the ozone layer.
    “Did you tell Sarah I’m working with Chet Bracken on the Wallace case?” I ask her, moving the subject along. She is spooning her soup the way my mother taught me forty years ago in eastern Arkansas: move the spoon through the soup away from you as if it were a Feris wheel and then bring it to your mouth. You don’t look so greedy that way. Manners. An overrated virtue to people who don’t have any.
    “I would rather you breach your client’s confidentiality Rainey says dryly.
    Sarah puts down her fork, and says in a high voice, “You told me once that Chet Bracken was a brilliant thug.”
    I look at my daughter and remember that is exactly what I said. What goes around comes around.
    “I meant some attorneys believe that about him,” I backtrack, “but there’s never been any proof he’s ever done one thing unethical.” Losing ground with Sarah, I turn to Rainey.
    “Did you know he’s a member of your new church?”
    Rainey sips her tea.
    “There’re only five thousand members at Christian Life,” she says, giving me an un usual deadpan expression.
    “I haven’t met them all in the last four months.”
    I managed to keep Bracken’s secret that he has cancer a total of two hours before I told Rainey, which is probably a record for me. I deposit information with my girlfriend faster than a squirrel stores nuts for winter.
    Rainey keeps her mouth shut, which is more than I can say for myself.
    Sarah has consumed about an ounce of soup. She’d rather have red meat any day. She moves the spoon around in the bowl.
    “What case?”
    I explain briefly about the Wallace murder and my client’s connection with Christian Life.
    “I figured Rainey could fill me in, since she’s started going to her church.”
    No longer feigning even polite interest in her food, my daughter pushes back from the table.
    “That’s my dad,” she says to Rainey.
    “What’s a person for except for him to use to help win a case? And you’re even fixing dinner for him!”
    I raise my