Hills and has paid you a hundred dollars for a
confidential, legal consultation. A lot of money in
those days.
“Emma’s story is a sad one, though no doubt you
think of it as third-rate melodrama. Finding herself
trapped in a loveless marriage she’d sought comfort
in the arms of another man. A man who made her
feel things she’d never imagined possible. The affair
had been heavenly, true refuge. ,Until .she became
pregnant by her lover. Panicked,, she hid the
fact for as long as possible and when she started
showing, told her husband the child was his. The
cuckold had been ecstatic, ready to celebrate, and
when he uncorked the champagne she nearly, died
of guilt.
“She’d considered an abortion but had been too
scared to go through with it, She prayed for a miscarriage
but none came. You ask her if she’s told
her lover about the problem and she says no, horri-
BIX)OD TE- -331
fled at the thought, He’s a pillar of the community,
a deputy sheriff charged with upholding the !aw. On
top of that, he’s married, with a pregnant wife of
his own. Why-destroy two families? Besides he
hasn’t called tn a long ‘tune, confirming her suspicions
that for him the relationship had been primarily
carnal all along. Does she fel .abandoned?
No. She’s sinned and now shers paying for it.
“As the ferns grows tn her womb so does the
burden of her secret. She lives the lie for eight and
a half months until she can’t take it any longer. On
a day when her husband is out of town she gets on
the bus and heads’ north, to Beverly Hills.
“Now she sits tn Your big glossy office, so out of
her ‘element, just weeks from delivery, confused
and terrified. She’s considered her options for plenty
of. Sleepless nights and has finally come to a decision.
She wants out. A divorce, quick and easy,
wi no explanation. She’ll leave town, have the
baby in solitude, maxbe tn Mexico, .put it up for
adoption, and start a new life far aayfro. ‘tim
site of her
the pages-of a
you’re the man for the job. ‘
“As you listen to her
easy is out of the question. Thecase would’be a
messy one. That by itself wouldn’t-have stopped
you from talcing it on, because the messy cases
bring ‘m the pounds ttest. iees. But Emma Swope wasn’t
your type of client. Drab and unglamorous and
strictly smafl town. Most important, she didn’t smell
of money. –
“You took her hundred, and discouraged her from
engaging your services. Gave her a line about doing
better with a .local attorney. She left red-eyed and
heavy-bellied and you flied it away and forgot about
it.
“Years later you get shot in the head and decide
to make a career switch, yOU’ve built up lots of
connections with the big money people, which in
L.A. includes the dope trade. I don’t ‘know who
suggested it first, you or one of them, but you decide
to go for megabucks as a coke and smack middleman.
The fact that it’s illegal adds to the appeal
because you see yourself as a victim, as having been
failed by the system you’d served faithfully. ,Dealing
dope is your way of saying fuck the system. The
money and poweraren’t too shabby, either.
“For the enterprise to be successful you’ll need a
place dose to the Mexican border and a good cover.
Your new partners suggest one of the small agricultural
towns south of San Diego. La Vista. iThey
know of anold monastery for sale just outsidethe
town limits. Secluded and quiet. They’ve been considering
it for a while but need a way of keeping
the locals from prying. You look at a map and something
flashes. The bullet-didn,t destroy the old
memory. Back into the files. How am I doing so
far?”
“Ke!talking.” His palm was wet and greenfrom
compressing the torn grass into a ball.
“You do a little research and find out that Emma
Swope never did get another lawyer. Her visit to
you had been a single burst of initiative in an otherwise
timid existence. She reverted to type, swallowed