The Gentlemen's Hour

100

One question a defense attorney will never ask his or her client:

“Did you do it?”

Most clients are going to answer “no,” but if the client answers “yes,” the attorney is in a bad jam. He can’t violate the attorney-client privilege, but, as an officer of the court, he can’t go into a trial and commit or suborn perjury.

In Alan Burke’s case, though, he already has an answer in the form of Corey Blasingame’s confession. Now he spends long moments pretending to peruse it as Corey shifts around anxiously in his seat.

Boone sits back and watches as Alan reads out loud,

“‘We were outside the bar waiting because we were pissed that they threw us out of there earlier. So I saw the guy coming out of the bar and decided to mess him up. I walked up to him and hit him with a Superman Punch. I saw his lights go out before he hit the ground. Other than that, I have nothing to say.’”

He looks up at Corey and raises an eyebrow.

“What?” Corey asks.

“What, ‘What’?” Alan answers back. “You want to say something about this?”

“No.”

“Jill Thompson didn’t really see you throw the punch,” Alan says. “Did you know that?”

“No.”

“But the cops told you she did, right?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“We don’t think the cabdriver saw you throw it, either,” Alan says. “But again, the cops told you that he did?”

“I guess.”

Alan nods.

Corey quickly says, “But Trev and Billy and Dean all saw me hit him.”

“That’s what they say.”

“They wouldn’t lie.”

“They wouldn’t?” Alan asks. “They’re about to close a deal that would put them in jail for eighteen months. That bargain is based on them testifying that you threw the punch that killed Kelly.”

“Okay . . .”

“Okay if they’re telling the truth,” Alan says. “Not so okay if they’re lying.”

Christ, kid, Boone thinks, he’s holding the door wide open. Walk through it, Corey. Take one single step on your own behalf.

Not happening.

Alan Burke didn’t get where he is in life by giving up easily. So now he asks, “Is it possible, Corey, is it just possible that in all the chaos . . . remember, you’d been drinking . . . someone else threw that punch and you just got confused when you talked to the police?”

Corey looks at the floor, looks at his shoes, the wall, his hands.

“Is that possible?” Alan asks.

No answer.

“Possible or probable?” Alan asks, almost as if he were cross-examining him on the stand, nudging him toward the edge of the cliff.

Corey won’t go.

Instead, he straightens up and announces, “I have nothing to say.”

“White supremacist garbage you picked up from Mike Boyd?” Boone asks. “You’re just going to take the pipe because you finally found something so shitty even

you

could belong to it?”

Petra warns, “Boone—”

Boone ignores her. “You couldn’t deliver a pitch or a pizza, you couldn’t really surf, and you couldn’t really fight, but you could sign on to this filth, and when you finally thought you’d succeeded at something, you killed a ‘nigger,’ you just hold on to it because that’s all you have. A stupid, dirty slogan, ‘I have nothing to say.’”

“For God’s sake—” Petra says.

“I don’t think you threw that punch,” Boone says. “I think Trevor did. Except he’s too smart to take the weight, so he lays it on you. I hope you

do

keep your mouth shut, Corey, I hope they do give you the needle, so maybe you can finally

be

something. Maybe some other racist piece of shit will tattoo your name on his wrist and—”

“I don’t know, all right?” Corey yells. “I don’t fucking remember what happened, okay!”

He slams his fists on the table, then raises them and starts hitting his own head as he repeats, “I don’t fucking know! I don’t fucking know! I don’t—”

The guard rushes in and grabs him in a bear hug, pinning his arms.

“I don’t fucking know. . . . I don’t—”

He breaks down into sobs.

Alan turns to the guard.

“Can you get DA Baker down here.

Now

?”