Pleading Guilty Read Online Free PDF Page B

this?" Brushy asked. She always had a better sense than me for the value of a confidence. "Probably not," I admitted. "Call it attorney-client." Privileged, I meant. Forever secret. Another of those witless jokes lawyers make about the law. Brushy wasn't really my lawyer here; I wasn't really her client. "Besides, I need to ask you something about Bert."
    She was still pondering the situation. She said again she couldn't believe it.
    "It's a nice idea, nest-ce pus? Fill your pocket with some new I.D. 's and several million dollars and jet off to be someone else for the rest of your life." I made a sound. "It gives me the shivers just to think of it."
    "What kind of new I.D. 's?" she asked.
    "Oh, he seems to be using some screwy alias. You ever hear him call himself Kam Roberts for any reason--even just kidding around?"
    Never. I told her a little about my visit to the Russian Bath, watching these guys built like refrigerators flail each other with oak branches and soap.
    "Weird," she said.
    "That's how it struck me. Here's the thing, Brush. These birds around there seem to think Bert has gone off with some man. He ever mention anyone named Archie?"
    "Nope." She eyed me through the smoke. She already knew I was up to something.
    "It made me think, you know. It's been years since I saw Bert with a woman." When Bert got here more than a decade ago , he was still squiring Doreen, his high-school honey, to firm functions. He'd made vague promises to marry this woman, a sweet schoolteacher, and in the years she waited she turned into a kind of sports-bar bimbo, with a drinking problem like mine and skirts the size of handkerchiefs and blond hair so ravaged by chemicals that it stuck out from her head like raffia. One day at lunch Bert announced she was marrying her principal. No further comment. Ever. And no replacement.
    Always live to nuance, Brushy had perked up. "Are you asking what I think?"
    You mean something dirty and indiscreet? Right. I'm not asking you to speculate. I just thought you might be able to contribute pertinent information." I sort of scratched my ear lamely but it wasn't fooling her a bit. Pugnacious, you would call her look. She's not big--short, broad, and but for tireless health-club hours tending to the stout--but her jaw was set meanly.
    "Who are you now? The Public Health Service?"
    "Spare me the details. Yes or no will do to start.
    "No.
    I wasn't sure she was answering. Brushy is touchy about personal lives, since hers is always the subject of sniggering. Every office deserves a Brushy, a stalwartly single, sexually predatory female. She subscribes to a feminism of her own vision, which seems to be inspired by piracy on the high seas, regarding it as an achievement to board every passing male ship. She does not recognize any common boundary: marital status, age, social class. When she decides on a 'flan, either for the position he occupies, the promise he radiates, or the good looks that stimulate other females to mere fancy, she is unambiguous in making her desires known. Over the years she has been seen in the company of judges and politicians, journalists, opponents, guys from the file room, a couple of former jurors--and many of her partners, including, should you lie wondering, for one fitful afternoon , me. Big and good-looking, Bert had undoubtedly fallen within the circled sights of Brushy's up-periscope.
    "It's not prurient interest, Brush. It's professional. Just give me a wink. I need your opinion: Is it he's or she's when Bert dances the hokey-pokey?"
    "I don't believe you," she said and looked off with a sour scowl. In her pursuits, Brushy, in her own way, is discreet. She generally wouldn't talk under torture, and her advances, while relentless, always recognize the proprieties of the workplace. But for her sexual follies, Brushy still pays a heavy price. Her commitment to appetites that most of us are busy trying to suppress leads folks to regard her as odd, even dangerous; other females