TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-THREE

IF ONLY I KNEW fifteen years ago what I know now. If only the partner I worked for, Howard Shimkus, hadn't been so busy with other cases.

You don't have to go alone, Howard told me in his spacious partner's office as paralegals and assistants packed his trial bags. Really, Marcie. Silas can wait until this trial's over, and then I'll go with you. The trial should be over in three weeks.

The feds had just made their formal plea offer to Silas in return for testifying against mob boss Michael Cagnina, and normally Howard and I would have delivered that plea offer to Silas personally. No phone calls or emails were allowed — those were traceable forms of communication, and the government was determined to keep Silas's whereabouts a secret. Only clandestine in-person visits were permitted. But Howard, in demand as a high-profile defense lawyer, had a fraud trial about to start in federal court in southern Illinois, so he couldn't afford the full day it took to visit Silas — two-hour blind drives to and from the undisclosed location where Silas was held, plus the visit itself.

Howard sensed it, I knew — sensed that Silas had gotten under my skin the first time, the only time we'd met up to that point. But the last thing a young associate like me wanted to do was confirm as much, make the senior partner think I couldn't handle my stint in the big leagues.

No problem, I assured Howard. I can handle it solo.

Sitting in the windowless rear compartment of the van, driven by federal marshals, I didn't even know which direction we were traveling in. All I knew was that it had to be far from downtown Chicago. I had nothing to do for two hours but occupy myself with work, reviewing Silas's file and the plea offer.

Thirty-two kills, he'd told me the first and only time I'd met him. Suspected in fourteen murders, but the real number was more than twice that.

By the time I was out of the van, two hours later, I was nauseated, motion sick. I tried to enjoy a few seconds of fresh air between the van and the fortified entrance to the building where the feds held my client.

Or maybe I was just feeling nerves.

I walked past the barriers, the automated doors, the bulletproof glass, through the maze of hallways, reaching my chair placed in the hallway outside his holding cell.

"Hello, Marcie Dietrich."

Through the slot in the metal door, Silas's deep blue eyes. The bionic voice, with the voice scrambler he used. I tried to picture him but couldn't; nobody had photographs of him. He had managed to obscure his identity entirely. If the feds had photos of him, they didn't share them with us. Anyway, Silas had helped himself to substantial plastic surgery before he surrendered to the authorities, so however he used to look would bear little resemblance to his current appearance, even if I had the X-ray vision to penetrate the metal door.

"Mr. Renfrow, Howard sends his —"

"I told you last time to call me Silas, Marcie. And yes, I know Howard couldn't make it. He is very much in demand, that one."

"He is," I said, feeling the tension in my voice. I straightened my posture and took a deep breath.

"You'd like to be like Howard, I assume? An attorney everyone wants to hire? Prominent and wealthy?"

I'd never thought about it that way. I wanted out, I knew that much — out of Hemingway Grove, on to a challenging career in the law in the big city. Where it would lead I hadn't forecasted.

"It could be you're taking a job with a big law firm just to pay off your law-school debt. Many people in your position do that. Or maybe you want the acclaim of working for a prestigious firm like Millard Halloway. A tremendous stepping stone, if nothing else. A stamp of approval."

I raised a shoulder. "I suppose I'm just trying to learn as much as I can for right now. What comes down the road, I don't —"

"No, no, no," he said. "Marcie, you undoubtedly had several offers out of law school. The top of your class from University of Chicago? Any number of law firms would have taken you and put you in some department representing the large corporations that pay those princely legal fees. One robber baron suing another. But you didn't choose them. You joined a firm with a substantial criminal-defense practice. You wanted to work for Howard Shimkus. Why criminal law, Marcie? Of all the things available to you?"

I sat back in my chair, feeling stripped bare. A simple question, one that I'd never really asked myself. He was right. I was drawn to criminal law. I'd lived a prim and proper life. I'd followed the rules. I was the high school valedictorian who dated the varsity quarterback, the sorority girl and honor student, the editor of the law review at U of C, always serious and straight. Little Miss Perfect.

I'd stayed right down the middle, and I wanted to explore the extremes. I wanted to represent the people who broke the rules, who took incalculable risks, who spat in the face of convention, who did things I'd never have dreamed of doing myself.

"You want to live vicariously through people like me," Silas said. "Take a walk on the wild side without getting too wild."

I'd spent all of one hour with this man, and he was dissecting me.

"So how do you like it?" he asked. "You know what I've done. All the people I've killed. Do you simply tolerate representing me? Or do you enjoy it?"

"I look at it professionally," I said. "I don't judge my clients."

"Of course you do, Marcie. You may be too polished to say so. But you either enjoy it or you don't. And you certainly judge me. You wouldn't be human if you didn't."

"Mr. Renfrow, I think our time would be —"

"If I'm making you uncomfortable, Marcie, I'll stop. I didn't mean to rattle a nice young lady like you —"

"You didn't rattle me —"

"I realize how intimidated you must be."

I looked down. He was baiting me, trying to piss me off. It was working.

I looked back up at him.

"I think you're a monster," I said.

The hallway went quiet. Silas kept his eyes on me. I kept mine on him. I considered the possibility that I had just committed career suicide.

His eyes narrowed, which again made me think he was smiling. But he waited me out. Probably wondering if I would fill in the silence with a profuse apology. But I was playing his game now. I wasn't going to back down.

"And yet you're representing me," he said.

"Yes."

"The thought of representing me thrills you, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"If I decided to go to trial, you'd represent me to your fullest, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"You think you could actually win, don't —"

"I know I could."

The sound of Silas chuckling through voice alteration sounded like something from a movie, like a hideous robotic monster, Darth Vader on laughing gas.

"Now we're getting somewhere, Marcie," he said.