The Defense: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

was through letting down my daughter. I made up my mind instantly. Terrorists don’t bump the line. They wait. They want to blend in and look inconspicuous. I decided to be a brash, arrogant dick and be as loud and obnoxious as possible in the hope the fat guard thought I was just a jerk, not a potential bomber.
    People called after me as I moved past them. I heard the reporter mutter, “Asshole.” My heart rate picked up its pace again, faster and faster the closer I got to the head of the line.
    “Hey, Barry. Let me buzz in real quick. I’m late for my big comeback,” I said as I moved through the metal detector, causing a really loud beep . It was probably just as loud for everyone, but it seemed deafening to me. I switched my gaze to the fat guard. He hadn’t moved. He just stared. Edgar, on the other hand, was focused on searching a man at the head of the line.
    “Eddie!” said Barry. He got up out of his seat at the scanner screen and shuffled around the machine. “I need to see you for a second.”
    I quickened my pace and moved for the hall, but the young, blond guard put his hands up to bar my way. He kept his hands there, in a crucifix position, and it took me a second to realize he wanted me to adopt the same position—so he could search me. I kept my hands low.
    The fat guard started forward. Had I been made?
    I thought about making a run for it. Push everyone out of the way and dart back out past the crowd. Behind me, a huge, bearded guy stood in the doorway, blocking out everything including most of the daylight. No way past him. I fought down the urge to run, and my legs started to shake.
    “Hey, kid, usually you have to buy me dinner first,” I said.
    “Just hold up your hands, sir. I need to do a quick search.”
    “Look, kid, I have to go. I’ve never met you before, but trust me, I practically lived here for about ten years. I’m a lawyer. Ask Barry,” I said as I tried to move past him.
    His open palm hovered inches above the butt of his Beretta, and his fingers flexed like a bad actor in an old Western.
    I stopped dead.
    “What? You gonna ask me to draw, cowboy?”
    I could feel people behind me getting out of the way. It was all going to be over in a heartbeat, thanks to a walking doughnut shop and one stupid kid who just wanted to do his job.
    “Hank, let Eddie through,” Barry said, coming to my rescue.
    Hank dropped his arms, rolled his eyes, and stepped to the side. The fat guard stopped and folded his hands across his stomach.
    Barry waved a finger at me, chuckled, and said, “That bastard Saint Christopher will end up earning you a cavity search one of these days.”
    How the hell had I forgotten that? I thought. Popping open an extra button on my shirt, I drew out the silver chain. I laughed nervously before I swung the white-gold Saint Christopher medal at Barry.
    It all came back to me.
    When I first started out in the law and began representing clients in this courthouse, I set off the alarm every day. Barry, Edgar, and others would search me, find nothing, and then send me through the scanner again, only to hear the same beep . That medal had been around my neck since I was a teenager. I never took it off; it was like an extra limb. I didn’t think about it. While the guards asked me if I had a steel plate in my leg and I took off most of my clothes and they scratched their heads in disbelief at why I was still beeping, a line would begin to build up behind me. It was Barry, one wet Wednesday morning, who finally found the chain. He told all the security guards about it. Looking back, I couldn’t remember being searched after that. If I beeped, I walked on, and if a guard bothered to get out of his seat to search me, I would take out my chain and wave it at him as I went by. Even after 9/11 I wasn’t searched. By then I was a known face; I was there every day. Searching me would be like searching the judges. I’d even represented a couple of the guards. They began to