Last Man Standing

16

Early on a Saturday morning, Scott Wingo navigated his wheelchair up the ramp and unlocked the door to a four-story nineteenth-century brick building that housed his law office. Divorced, with grown children, Wingo had a thriving criminal defense practice in Richmond, the city of his birth, where he had remained his whole life. Saturdays were a time for him to go into the office and not be bothered by pealing phones, clacking keyboards, harassed associates and demanding clients. Those pleasantries were left for during the week. He went inside, made a pot of coffee, spiked it with his favorite Gentleman Jim bourbon and rolled his way to his office. Scott Wingo and Associates, Counselors at Law, had been a Richmond institution for almost thirty years. During that time Wingo had gone from being a sole practitioner working out of an office the size of a closet, basically defending anyone with enough cash to pay him, to head of a firm with six associates, a full-time PI and a support staff of eight. As the sole shareholder of the firm Wingo pulled down seven figures in a good year, and even mid-six money in bad times. His clients had also grown more substantial. For years he had resisted taking on the drug people, but the cash flow was undeniable and Wingo had wearied of seeing far inferior attorneys drawing down those dollars. He comforted himself with the knowledge that anyone, regardless of what heinous thing he had done, deserved a competent—even inspired—defense.

Wingo had considerable skills as a courtroom lawyer, and his presence before a jury had not been diminished one iota by his confinement two years ago to a wheelchair because of ongoing diabetes and kidney and liver ailments. In some ways, he felt his ability to reach out to a jury had been enhanced by his physical predicament. And many a member of the state bar envied Wingo’s string of victories. He was also loathed by those who felt he was simply a means for rich criminals to avoid the rightful consequences of their terrible misdeeds. Wingo naturally didn’t see it that way, but he had long ago stopped trying to win that argument because it was one of the very few issues he had ever come upon that didn’t seem worth arguing about.

He lived in a substantial home in Windsor Farms, a very affluent and coveted area of Richmond; drove a specially configured Jag sedan to accommodate his disability; took luxurious trips overseas when he wanted to; was good to his children and generous and on good terms with his ex-wife, who still lived in their old home. But mostly he worked. At age fifty-nine Wingo had outlived many predictions of his premature death. Those had come either because of his various medical conditions or because of threats from disgruntled clients or folks on the other side of a crime who felt justice had not been served largely through Wingo doing what he did best, which was finding reasonable doubt in twelve peers of the defendant. Yet he knew that his time was running out. He could feel it in his tired organs, in his poor circulation, his general fatigue. He figured he would work until he died; it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.

He took a sip of coffee and Gentleman Jim and picked up the phone. He liked to work the phones, even on the weekends, particularly in calling back people he didn’t want to talk with. Rarely would they be in on Saturday morning and he’d leave a polite message telling them he was sorry to have missed them. He did ten of these and felt like he was being very productive. His mouth was growing very dry, probably from all the talking, and he took another shot of the whiskey coffee. He turned to a brief he was working on that would, if granted, suppress evidence in a burglary ring matter he was involved in. Most people didn’t realize that trials were often won before anyone stepped foot inside a courtroom. In this case if the motion were granted there would be no trial because the prosecution would have no case.

After several hours of work and more phone calls, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The damn diabetes was wreaking havoc with just about every part of him and he had found out last week that he had glaucoma. Maybe the Lord was getting him back for the work he was doing here on earth.

He thought he heard a door open somewhere and figured one of his overpaid associates might have wandered in to actually perform some weekend labor. The young folks these days, they just didn’t have the same work ethic of Wingo’s generation, even though they made outrageous sums. When had he not worked a weekend for the first fifteen years of his practice? The kids today grumbled about working past six. Damn if his eyes weren’t killing him. He finished the cup of coffee, but his thirst returned just as bad. He popped open a desk drawer and drank from the bottle of water he kept there. Now his head was throbbing. And his back was aching. He put a finger on his wrist and counted. Well, hell, his pulse was out of whack too; yet that happened just about every day. He had already taken his insulin and wouldn’t need another shot for a while; still, he wondered about speeding up the schedule. Maybe his blood sugar had plummeted somehow. He was always adjusting his insulin, because he could never get the damn right dosage. His doctor had told him to stop drinking, but that was just not going to happen, Wingo knew. For him, bourbon was a necessity, not a luxury.

He was sure he heard the door that time. “Hello,” he called out.

“Is that you, Missy?” Missy, he thought, Missy was his damn dog that had died ten years ago. Where the hell had that come from? He tried to focus on the brief, but his vision was now so badly blurred and his body was doing such funny things that Wingo finally started to get scared. Hell, maybe he was having a coronary, though he felt no pain in his chest, no dull throb in his left shoulder and arm.

He looked at the clock but couldn’t make out the time. Okay, he needed to do something here. “Hello,” he called out again. “I need some help here.” He thought he heard approaching footsteps, but then no one ever came. Okay, damn it, he thought. “Sons of bitches,” he yelled. He picked up the phone and managed to guide his hand to the nine and then twice on the one. He waited, but no one came on the line. That was our tax dollars at work. You dial 911 and get jack. “I need some help here,” he called into the phone. And then he noted there was no dial tone. He hung up and lifted the receiver again. No dial tone. Well, shit. He slammed the phone down and missed the cradle and the receiver fell to the floor. He pulled at his shirt collar because it was getting hard to breathe. He’d been meaning to get one of those cell phones but never had gotten around to it. “Is anybody out there, damn it?” Now he could hear the footsteps. His breathing was becoming impossible, like something was wedged down his gullet. Sweat was pouring off him. He looked up at the doorway. Through his clouded vision he could see the door opening. The person came in.

“Mother?” Damn if it wasn’t his mother, and she would be dead twenty years this November. “Mother, I need some help, I’m not feeling too good.”

There was no one there, of course. Wingo was just hallucinating.

Wingo slid to the floor now, because he couldn’t keep himself up in the chair any longer. He crawled along the floor to her, gasping and wheezing as he did so. “Mother,” he said hoarsely to the vision he was experiencing. “You got to help your boy, he ain’t doing too good.” He got to her and then she just disappeared on him, just like that, right when he needed her. Wingo put his head on the floor and slowly closed his eyes.

“Anybody out there? I need help,” he said one last time.