The Common Lawyer

TWENTY-THREE

Andy stashed the Slammer in the barn then went into the house. His mother wouldn't be home for a few hours yet. They had lunch, then his father took Jessie down to the creek for a fishing lesson. Andy and Frankie followed, but Andy needed to talk to her alone; she needed a cigarette.

"You dyed your hair black."

She took a drag on her cigarette and nodded.

"Your hair is really red."

Another nod.

"Red hair is recessive."

"Which means?"

"It means Jessie isn't Russell Reeves' daughter. He lied to me."

"I'm glad you finally believe me."

"I don't. You're lying to me, too."

"We'll leave."

"No, Frankie, you don't need to leave. I'm just trying to figure out why you can't tell me the truth."

She didn't tell him now. They walked down to the creek and found his father and Jessie fishing from the rock outcropping. Jessie squealed at the sight of a small fish hooked on her cane pole.

"I always wanted Jessie to grow up in a place like this, maybe have some horses."

"You can stay here as long as you want."

"Or until Reeves finds me. And he will."

Max was barking.

"I see them, boy," Paul Prescott said.

They had followed Jean Prescott home. A black Mercedes-Benz sedan now sat just outside the front gate. A dozen ostriches had gathered at the gate like palace guards; at four hundred pounds each, they presented quite an obstacle. Andy's father was sitting in a rocker on the front porch with the shotgun in his lap, an even bigger obstacle for a trespasser.

"Paul, are they coming for us?" Jessie asked.

"Honey, they'll have to get through the birds first, then this double-aught buckshot."

"Is that a no?"

His father smiled. "That's a no. They're not coming through that gate."

Not yet, anyway. But they might. So Andy called Russell Reeves.

"Hello, Andy."

"Your men chased me all over town."

"You ran."

"Are they okay, your guys that crashed?"

"They're fine. German cars."

"There's another German car parked outside our gate-what do you want, Russell?"

"I want to talk to Frankie."

"No."

"The DNA matched, Andy."

"It matched Frankie."

"Then tell her to get in the car. They'll bring her to me."

"No."

"I'll have you arrested for stealing my money."

"I'll tell them you're trying to kidnap Frankie."

"The privilege, Andy. My secrets are safe with you. You're my lawyer."

"Not anymore."

"You go public, you'll lose your law license. Besides, no one will believe you. Your word against mine."

"That's true, Russell, but you can't get your money back."

"I can sue you. I can file a complaint with the bar association, have you disbarred for stealing trust funds."

"No, you can't."

"Why not?"

"Because there's an exception to the attorney-client privilege. If the client sues the attorney or files an ethics complaint, the client is deemed to have waived the privilege."

"Which means?"

"Which means I can spill my guts, tell the world everything I know about you. Your secrets won't be safe."

"Who the hell made that up?"

"Lawyers. We make the rules to protect ourselves."

A deep sigh on the phone.

"I hate lawyers."

"Russell, I wired the money to Frankie's bank account."

"I know. Nine hundred forty-eight thousand and three dollars."

"You owe her that much."

"I'll pay her more, if she'll come in."

"Why?"

"Ask her, Andy. Ask her to tell you the truth."

Andy disconnected and went over to Frankie at the window.

"We've got to leave, Andy. Before they start shooting."

"They're not going to shoot. Russell wants you alive."

"What'd he say?"

"He said you know the truth."

"It doesn't involve you, Andy."

Andy pointed at the sedan out front.

"It sure as hell does, Frankie. I've been chased all over Austin and the Hill Country by Russell's men because he wants you. Because of you, those men are parked outside my parents' home."

"Because of you, those men found me."

She was right.

"We can't get out the front gate," he said, "and your car won't make it through the pasture to the back gate."

"Can your motorcycle ride the three of us?"

"You like camping out?"

They were in the barn loading the Slammer. Andy had packed a sleeping bag for Jessie. His mother gave Andy a hug and said, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Mom. They would've found her sooner or later."

She hugged Frankie and Jessie like they were her own children.

"Paul," Jessie said, "I want us to live here with you and Jean."

His father squeezed her shoulders.

"Honey, this is your home anytime you want to come back."

"We can't come back," Frankie said.

His father's eyes watered up.

"Andy, I can still shoot."

"Thanks, Dad, but it's best we leave."

Andy strapped the pack to the front handlebars and fired up the Slammer. Frankie and Jessie climbed on behind him. Andy drove out of the barn and down the trail leading to the back gate. They were invisible to the men at the front gate.

"I know a campground. Nice place, with cabins and a shower."

Andy circled back around town and headed west into the sunset. Twenty minutes later, they rode into the Blanco town square. Four blocks south of the square was the Blanco State Park, straddling the Blanco River. Andy stopped at the park store and paid for a cabin down by the river. They bought food and supplies for the night then drove down to the river and found their cabin. Andy unpacked their gear; Frankie and Jessie went to gather river rocks for the fire ring. When they returned fifteen minutes later, Jessie was giggling and Frankie was soaking wet and covered in mud.

"I fell in."

She went inside the cabin and returned wearing only a towel; she had nice legs. She hung her wet clothes over the railing of the cabin porch and sat down by the campfire. Andy was roasting hot dogs on wire hangers. She took a hanger, laid her underwear over it, and held it over the fire.

"I don't like wet undies."

They were black.

It was early November, and the park was vacant even though the temperature wouldn't drop below forty that night. Winter didn't come to Texas until January. They ate the dogs then Frankie stood.

"I need a shower."

She grabbed her undies-"All dry"-and the bar of soap and shampoo they had bought at the park store and walked over to the showers on the other side of the cabin. Andy watched her then turned to Jessie.

"You want another hot dog?"

"I'm stuffed."

"Why'd you pick 'Jessie James'?"

"Because we're outlaws on the run."

Andy impaled a wiener on the wire hanger and dangled it over the fire.

"You like camping out?"

"This is my first time."

"Really? I love sleeping outdoors."

"I never have."

"I got the cabin for you and your mom."

"Can I sleep out here?"

"If your mom says it's okay. But it's damp, so pull your sleeping bag close to the fire, so you don't catch a cold."

"I won't."

"That a girl."

"I heard you tell my mom I might have a cancer gene."

"Oh, honey, look, I was just worried and-"

"Don't worry. I don't have cancer. I never get sick."

"You're lucky."

She pulled up the right leg of her jeans.

"I can't get sick."

Andy nodded. "Just like trail biking. It's a mental game. You gotta believe you can't crash or you will for sure."

"No, I mean I can't get sick. Ever."

"You've never been sick?"

"No."

"You're eight?"

"Unh-huh. Ouch."

Her leg had a nasty bit of road rash.

"I fell at recess last week, scraped my leg. It's scabbing up now."

"So you've never been to a doctor?"

"Oh, I've been to lots of doctors."

She was picking at the scab.

"If you pick at it, it'll bleed."

"It is bleeding."

"So you were sick?"

"No, I was at a hospital."

She reached to her neck and held up a pendant on a silver chain. Andy's twelve years of Catholic school qualified him to identify it.

"Saint Aloysius, the patron saint of children."

"That was the name of the hospital."

"So you were really sick?"

"No, I wasn't sick."

"Then what were you doing in a hospital?"

"They were experimenting on me."

"Were those doctors called 'psychiatrists'?"

"I'm not crazy, Andy."

She was now digging in her mother's purse.

"But you weren't sick?"

"No."

"So why'd they put you in a hospital?"

"To study me."

"Why?"

"Because I can't get sick."

"You mean, like research?"

"Unh-huh. It was a research hospital."

She pulled something from the purse.

"And what did they find out?"

"I'm immune."

"To what?"

She secured a big Band-Aid over her scab-the same kind of Band-Aid Andy had found in their trash-then she looked up at him.

"Everything."

Andy yanked open the wood door to the shower. Frankie was wet and naked. She didn't flinch or try to cover up. She just stood there in the steam.

"That blood on the Band-Aid, it was hers. Russell's not after you. He's after her."

She turned off the water.

"My towel."

Andy tossed the towel to her.

"Why'd you lie, about the Band-Aid?"

"So you'd tell Reeves and he wouldn't take her."

"Why does he want her?"

"To save his son."

She dried off.

"How can she save his son?"

"Because she's immune to all known illnesses."

"She can't die?"

"No, she can die-of old age, or a crime, or a car accident, or if you kill us on your motorcycle. But she won't die of cancer or AIDS or the flu. She's Baby X… and I'm the Virgin Mary."

"The Virgin Mary?"

"The mother of the savior."

"The savior of what?"

"Mankind. They thought her stem cells would be the cure."

"For what?"

"Everything. Every disease known to man. They wanted to clone her, make a guinea pig out of her. I wanted her to live a normal life… be a regular kid."

"Russell thinks her stem cells can save Zach."

She nodded and pointed.

"My undies."

He tossed the black underwear at her, took once last look, and walked out.

"I was worried about her. I mean, she was five and had never been sick. Kids are supposed to get sick, right?"

Andy tossed another dry branch onto the fire. Jessie was sound asleep in the sleeping bag. Frankie was smoking a cigarette.

"One time, all her friends got strep throat, but not her. Then half her class went out with the flu, but not her. I started wondering if something was wrong with her."

"She's never been sick?"

"Not even a cold. So I took her to the pediatrician. He said he'd never had a five-year-old patient who'd never been sick, not an ear infection or pink eye or a runny nose. He asked if he could take blood samples, send them off to a friend, an immunologist at a research hospital in upstate New York. I said okay. I wish I hadn't."

"So what happened?"

"A few months later, the doctor called and asked me to bring her in. His friend was there."

"Mr. Doyle, Mrs. Doyle, this is Dr. Tony Falco."

They shook hands and sat around a small table, like when they had gone to the lawyer's office to sign their wills. Dr. Falco smiled at them.

"I'd like to study your daughter."

"Why?" Frankie said.

"Because she might be an anomaly."

"You mean a freak of nature?"

Mickey Doyle laughed. "Like Shaq, only smaller."

"Mr. Doyle, your daughter is far more special than any athlete. She could save the world."

"What are you talking about?" Frankie said.

"I'm talking about a perfect immune system. I'm talking about stem cells that might cure every disease. I'm talking about changing the world."

"You're talking about making her a guinea pig."

"No, ma'am. We just need to study her. And both of you. Have you ever been sick, Mrs. Doyle?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Doyle?"

"Hung over." He chuckled. "Yeah, I been sick."

"And after you test us… her, then what?"

"If she's what I think she is, we would use her stem cells to create a new line-"

"You mean, clone her?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Mrs. Doyle, the curative properties of her stem cells might be unlimited."

"But you don't really know? It's all just an experiment?"

"So was going to the moon, until we did it. Mrs. Doyle, imagine a world without disease. Without young children dying of leukemia and other childhood diseases. Without children in Africa dying of AIDS. Without pharmaceutical companies controlling who lives or dies. Your daughter can change all that."

"Will there be enough stem cells for everyone?"

"No."

"Who will decide who lives or dies? You?"

"Yes."

"And what happens to her when all this becomes public?"

"It won't. It will all be anonymous. I guarantee it."

Frankie shook her head.

"No one can keep that kind of secret. It'll get out. And when it does, the media will descend on her. She'll be turned into a freak show. She'll never live a normal life. She'll never go to college or get married or have children. She'll always be a freak."

"Mrs. Doyle, I'll be the only person at the hospital who knows her real name. I'll admit her as 'Baby X.' Her name will not be on any hospital record or in the computer. I can keep a secret."

"And you won't want to tell the world? Write about your great discovery? Of course you will. You'll want to share it with the world. You'll want the credit. The glory."

A faint smile. "I've already thought about that. I'll write up the research as if you're the patient. Patient X, not Baby X. Twenty-five to thirty-five-year-old woman. No one will know the patient is really a child."

"They'll know you're the author."

"I'll write the research anonymously."

"They'll find you. And when they find you, they find her."

"We can pay."

Frankie looked up from the fire.

"So we did it."

"Why?"

"We owed thirty thousand to the IRS-Mickey played games with the shop's taxes. They were threatening to take our home and Mickey's shop."

"How much did Falco pay you?"

"Fifty thousand. To start."

"That's a lot of money."

"Not with Mickey spending it. We paid off the taxes, Mickey gambled the rest away. Drinking, gambling, fighting-you marry the wrong man, it's like a bad dream you never wake up from."

"So you took her to the hospital?"

She nodded. "In Ithaca. She was so scared. I knew it was wrong. Mickey went back home, I stayed with her. They ran tests on her every day, confirmed that she was 'the cure.' That's what they called her. They wanted us to move, live there so they could study her the rest of her life. She'd be like an animal in a zoo. I said, What about school? They said, No, she can't go back to school. She's too important to take that risk. The world needed her. They'd have tutors for her at the hospital. Scientists from all over the world would come there to study her. Baby X."

Andy looked over at Jessie.

"She cried every day, begged me to stop the tests. She wanted to go home. Mickey wanted the money."

"What'd you do?"

"I knew it would never end as long as they were paying Mickey. They said there would be lots of money for us once we moved there-a house, cars, everything we needed or wanted. Of course, Mickey, he was all for it. Said it was like she had won American Idol. So I had to get Mickey out of her life. I went home and when Mickey got drunk, I taunted him until he hit me. He beat me up pretty good. I called the cops and pressed charges, filed for divorce. He'd been convicted twice before for assault, bar fights, so this time he would go to prison. Three strikes. To stay out of prison, he agreed to give up his parental rights. Then I took her from the hospital and we vanished."

"Why couldn't you just check her out of the hospital? She's your kid."

"We signed something, they paid us. They wouldn't just let her walk out the door. She was too important. They knew about her, and others would, too. I knew we had to escape and change our identities. That was the only way she'd be safe."

"What've you been living on?"

"The second payment. Another fifty thousand. I kept it from Mickey."

"Smart. How'd you learn to change your identity?"

"The Internet. At libraries."

"So you've been running for three years but never knew if anyone was actually chasing you?"

"I knew it was just a matter of time."

"Why?"

"Because she has what everyone wants."

"Which is?"

"Immortality. Or as close as we can get to immortality. Think about it, Andy. With her stem cells, you wouldn't die of cancer. Guaranteed. Live to be a hundred, disease-free. What would you pay for that? What's Russell Reeves willing to pay for that?"

"For his son."

"He wants to save his son. The next rich guy will want to save himself."

She tossed another branch into the fire.

"What are we going to do, Andy?"

Russell Reeves sat in a chair next to his son's bed; he was holding Zach's hand. The girl was his only hope. The cell phone rang. Russell looked at the caller ID and answered.

"Andy, where are you?"

"Frankie told me the truth, Russell. I know it's the girl you want. And why. How'd you find out about her?"

"My scientists searched the world for a stem cell match for Zach. One of them said, If only they could get stem cells from Patient X, supposedly a woman. The others laughed because most scientists thought Patient X was just a hoax. I decided to find out if Patient X was real or a hoax."

"How?"

"We found a source at the New York shop that printed the medical journals with the Patient X articles. He gave us Falco's name."

"Is that what Laurence Smith was doing for you in New York?"

"Yes."

"And now he's dead."

"Random crime, Andy. It happens here, too."

"And Mickey?"

"It happens in Boston, too."

"And then what?"

"We found Falco in China, at a stem cell research facility. He refused to give us Patient X's name. So we went to the last U.S. hospital he worked at-St. Aloysius Children's Research Hospital in Ithaca. The administrator was agreeable to an arrangement."

"A bribe?"

"A donation. He didn't have her name, but a hundred million got us three items: One, there was no ' Patient X.' There was 'Baby X.' Not a woman, but a child. Two, a list of the women whose children were in Falco's research program back then; he ran tests on the mothers, too. And three, Baby X's DNA sample."

"That's why you needed her DNA."

"Yes. To confirm it was really her. And it was her DNA, wasn't it?"

"Yes. So all those women…?"

"Mothers of children in the research wing of the hospital at the same time as Baby X. The children were anonymous, but not their parents. We just didn't know which mother's child was Baby X."

"I wasn't searching for the women. I was searching for their children."

"For one child. Baby X."

"That's why all the other kids were sick."

"Yes."

"Why'd you give them money, those other women?"

"Because their children are sick."

"And you knew the sick kids couldn't be Baby X?"

"Yes. We were looking for the one child who wasn't sick. You found her."

"And when you're finished with her?"

"I'll give her mother ten million dollars. Or twenty. Or fifty. I don't care how much. If she'll save Zach. I'll set them up with new names, money, everything. Somewhere they'll be safe."

"Safe from whom?"

"Andy, there'll always be someone looking for Baby X. Her secrets will never be safe."

"I don't think she'll sell her child."

"I don't want to buy her, Andy. I just want to buy her stem cells. Zach needs them."

"And you'd kidnap her to get them? What was your plan, Russell?"

"Try to buy her stem cells. If that failed, then kidnap them, sedate them, extract her stem cells, and release them… with ten million in their bank account, wired from an offshore account untraceable to me."

"The perfect crime."

"A necessary crime."

"Every crime has a victim."

"What would you do, Andy, to save your son?"

"I wouldn't kidnap a kid."

"Are you sure about that? If she meant life or death for your child? If you had the money-the power-to do that, to kidnap a child for a short time, just to extract her stem cells, would you just watch your son die? Because her mother doesn't want to share the girl's gift?"

"It's wrong, Russell."

"How can it be wrong to save your son?"

"When it hurts someone else."

"I didn't hurt anyone, Andy. I tried to buy a longer life for my son. Why is that wrong? Zach will die without her stem cells. Do you want that?"

"No."

"Then bring her in."

"I can't make them, Russell."

"Andy, talk to her, please. I'll pay whatever she wants."

"You hired me for the SoCo projects so I'd already be your lawyer when you got her name and needed someone to find her."

"Yes. We thought we were close to getting the name. Instead, we got seventeen names."

"Why me?"

"C student, Andy. You wouldn't ask too many questions… or know the questions to ask. And you needed money. You wouldn't risk losing the fees. You were perfect."

"I was stupid."

"You were human. You needed money. I needed the girl. Will you talk to Frankie? For me?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you're my lawyer."

"I was your lawyer."

"Because I can help you."

"I don't need your help."

"Your father does."

"How can you help him?"

"I can get him a new liver."

"How?"

"A phone call."

"You can do that?"

"Yes, Andy, I can do that. Fifteen billion dollars still means something in this world. I can make a call and move your father to the top of the waiting list. I can buy your father a longer life-if the girl will save Zach's life."

Frankie said, "What did Reeves say?"

Andy told her. When he finished, she said, "So if he gets Jessie's stem cells, he'll get a liver for Paul?"

"That's what he said."

"Do you believe him?"

Andy nodded. "He's not a bad person, Frankie. He's just desperate. His son is going to die."

"I'll talk to Jessie in the morning. It's her decision."

Jessie rolled over and sat up.

"I'll do it. I'll do it to save the little boy. And Paul."

"She'll do it, Russell," Andy said into the cell phone. "It's too late to come in tonight. Send Darrell and the limo out here in the morning. We're at the Blanco State Park. We'll meet him at the park store."

"He'll be there at dawn. I'll have the doctors standing by. Thanks, Andy."

"Russell, make the call. For my dad."

They hung up.

"He'll save Paul?" Frankie said.

Andy nodded. He lay back in the warmth of the fire and stared at the stars above. Was it right to use Russell Reeves' money and power to save his father? To move him up the waiting list ahead of others who ranked higher? Was his father more deserving to live than the others? Was it cheating? Was it right? Or wrong? What would he do if he had Russell's money and could buy his father a longer life? What were the rules when it came to saving your father's life?

Or your son's life?