Sixty-Eight

SIXTY-EIGHT

I NO LONGER WANT to represent Rob Jacobson. I have to tell him to his face. It's the right thing to do. So a little before eight o'clock I walk the couple of miles from my house to his rental. I spent hours last night sleeping on the floor next to Rip the dog, so the walk does my stiff back and neck good.

"Are you alone?" I ask Jacobson when he opens his door.

"Not exactly," he says.

Anticipating his reaction to my news, I feel myself smiling.

"But I thought you wanted to pledge your heart to me."

He shrugs, turns his hands palms-up. His eyes are puffy, either with sleep or from drinking, because I know for a fact he's been hitting the bottle hard.

"If you can't be with the one you love…"

"Love everybody you can get to stay still long enough?" I'm already moving past him as I add, "May I come in?"

I don't want to know who he's sleeping with in the upstairs bedroom and don't much care.

He shows me out to the back patio. There's a coffee mug on the table. He asks if I'd like a cup.

"I won't be staying that long," I say, "but we need to have this conversation in person."

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's not."

We take seats across from each other at the table. Over the past several months, I have spent more hours in this man's presence, in court and in jail and in this house and in the much bigger house he still owns in Sagaponack, than I care to count.

"You need to find a new lawyer," I say.

His eyes don't look nearly as sleepy now. But he collects himself quickly, the way he did the day I gave him a good slap.

"I'm a little too tired and a little too hungover for jokes," he says, and sips some coffee, trying to act casual.

"It's no joke. I'm quitting. For good this time."

He stares at me, eyes even bigger and more alert than before.

"You're serious."

Jacobson is shaking his head now, and not just to get rid of the cobwebs.

"I understand this is probably a shock," I say. "You can go back to Howie the Horse."

"Howie's not a horse. He's a jockey."

"Or I can make some recommendations."

"You'll be wasting your time. I don't want another lawyer. I want you."

"I hear you," I say. "I thought that I was still Bring It On Jane. But I'm not. And I can't." I sigh. "So I'm out."

He's still shaking his head. "No," he says. "No… no… no ."

"It's not just one thing," I continue, knowing I'm giving him more information than he needs, or really deserves. "It's my treatments and the trial and putting people I care about in danger."

He reaches underneath the print edition of the Wall Street Journal next to his coffee mug and comes up with a thin silver flask. He pours some of whatever's in it into the mug. Takes a big gulp now.

"This is because of what I told you at lunch about falling in love with you, isn't it? You're just throwing it back in my face."

"What? No, Rob. It might shock you, but this isn't about you. It's about me. I've always told my clients that I'd be willing to fight to the death for them. Well, not anymore."

He snaps then, just like that, pounding his hand down on the table, veins popping in his neck, spilling some of his coffee. Shouting. "It will make me look guilty if you quit!"

"That's not true," I say quietly, trying to dial things down. "And if you want to tell people that you fired me, I'll back your story."

"Nobody will believe me," he says.

"You're the one always telling me that you could sell an oil slick if you had to."

He leans across the table now, trying to get himself under control. Hands clasped in front of him. He even manages a thin smile.

Suddenly he's negotiating with me. It seems to help him get his bearings.

"You want more money?" he says. "Done."

"Rob," I say. "It's not about money." Now I'm the one shaking my head, eyes closed. "You're not listening to me. This is about my life, not yours."

"And you just now arrived at that conclusion?"

He pounds the table again, less forcefully than before.

Voice rising again.

"This isn't fair!"

Like he's a little boy not getting his way.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I really am."

"No," he says, "you're not."

We stare at each other, clearly having reached an impasse. But something has changed in his eyes. A look appears in them that I've seen before, one that's made me think, and more than once, that he could have done it. A weird light in them, the clearing before the storm.

I need to end this.

"I've made up my mind."

"Unmake it."

"You're making this harder than it needs to be."

He barks out an unpleasant-sounding laugh. "Wait. I'm the one making things harder than they need to be?"

I stand up. "I'll call you later and explain the process to you, with the judge and the court and all that."

But as I come around the table, he's standing, too, and grabbing me by the arm.

I look at him, then down at his hand before calmly removing it.

"Don't," I say quietly.

He's still between me and the patio doors. The odd light still in his eyes somehow darkening the color of his pupils.

"Nobody walks away from me," he says before finally getting out of my way.