kind of fantasy that lasts as long as your shower. He told Brand what he'd told him before, that if he could run for anything, it would be for judge.
"I have a twenty-one-month-old," Tommy said. "I need a job I can keep for fifteen years."
"And another one on the way," said Brand.
Tommy smiled. He felt his heart open. He had a good life. He had worked hard and done right. He would never say it out loud, but what Brand said was true. He deserved it. He deserved to be known as someone who had followed his conscience.
"And another on the way," Tommy said.
CHAPTER 40
Nat, June 26, 2009
Something is wrong.
When I arrive at the Sterns' offices on Friday morning, my dad is in a do not disturb conference with Marta and Sandy in Stern's office. After I spend forty-five minutes in the reception area among the steakhouse furnishings, Sandy's assistant emerges to suggest I go over to the courthouse, where the defense team will join me shortly.
When I get there, the PAs have not arrived either. I send a text to Anna from my seat in the front row: "Something is wrong. Sandy sicker????? Very mysterious."
Marta finally comes in but bustles straight through the courtroom to go back to Judge Yee's chambers. When she reemerges, she stops with me for just a second.
"We're talking to the prosecutors down the hall," she says.
"What's up?"
Her expression is too confused to connote anything very clear.
A few minutes later, Judge Yee peeks into the courtroom to check on things. Without his robe on, he's like a child at the door, hoping not to be observed, and when he catches sight of me, he motions me in his direction.
"Coffee?" he asks when I arrive in the rear corridor.
"Sure," I say.
We go back to the chambers, where I spend a few moments inspecting the framed sheet music on the walls. One, I realize, is signed by Vivaldi.
"We gotta wait for these guys," the judge tells me without further explanation. I am locked in witness land, where I cannot ask any questions, of the judge least of all. "So what you think?" he asks when he has brought in coffee for each of us. The judge has pulled out a drawer on the big desk and is using it as a footrest. "You think you gonna be a trial lawyer like Dad?"
"I don't think so, Judge. I don't think I have the nerves for it."
"Oh yeah," he says. "Hard on the nerves for everybody. Lotsa drunks. Court make lotsa drunks."
"I suppose I should worry about that, but I meant I don't really have the personality for it. I don't actually like it very much when people are paying attention to me. I'm not cut out for it."
"You can never tell," he says. "Me? How I talk? Everybody like, That no job for you. They all laugh--even my mama. And she don't speak three words English."
"So what happened?"
"I got an idea. You know? I was boy. Watchin Perry Mason, on TV. Oh, love Perry Mason. In high school, I got a job with newspaper. Not a reporter. Sell the paper. Tribune from here. Tribune want more subscriber downstate. So I go knock on door. Most people, very nice, but all them, every one hate the city. Don't want city newspaper. All very nice to me. 'No, Basil. Like you but not that paper.' Except this one guy. Big guy. Six three. Three hundred pound. White hair. Crazy, crazy eyes. And he see me and he come out the door like he gonna kill me. 'Get off my property. Japs kill three my buddies. Get off.' And I try to explain. Japanese kill my grandfather, too. But he not listenin. Don't wanna listen.
"So I go home. My mama, my daddy, they like, 'Man like that. He won't listen. How people are.' But I think, No, I can make him understand. If he have to listen, I can make him understand. So I remember Perry Mason. And the jury. They gotta listen. That their job. To listen. And okay, I don't speak English good. Tried and tried. I write like professor. Straight A in English all through school. But when I talk, I cannot think. Really. Like machine get stuck. But I say to myself, People can understand. If they have to listen. PA at home--Morris Loomis--I know him since grade school. His son, Mike, and me, good friend. So after law school, Morris say, 'Okay, Basil. I let you