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Charles Brown, the defense attorney, was a se zigzagged power tie I secretly wondered if he went by Charlie as a kid and had a dog nairl
We were sitting in ive me a job if I wanted it, and I wanted it I hadn&039;t worked in teeks and was beginning to like it, which made
"Of course you do, Charlie You&039;re a defense attorney You would find cause to think Jack the Ripper was simply a misunderstood artist before his time"
He looked at me as supposed to be a stern face
"The name&039;s Charles," he said
"If you say so"
"I do"
"Glad that&039;s cleared up"
"I heard you could be difficult," he said "Is this you being difficult? If so, then I&039;m disappointed"
I smiled "Maybe you have me confused with my father"
Charlie sat back in my client chair and smiled His do the halogen lighting above His skin appeared wet and viscous, as if his sweat glands were ready to spring into action at a moment&039;s notice
"Your father has quite a reputation in LA I gave his office a call before co here Of course, he&039;s quite busy and could not take on an extra case"
"So you settled on the next best thing"
"If you want to call it that," he said "I&039;ve heard that you&039;ve performed adequately with siive you a shot, although h, and I have another PI waiting in the wings"
"How reassuring," I said
"Yeah, well, he&039;s established You&039;re not"
"But can he pick up a blind side blitz?"
Charlie sers flat on my desk and looked around s and photographs of yours truly Most of the photographs depictthe nu the football, and in others I&039; open the hole for the tailback Or at least I like to think I&039; now, taped or tacked to the wood paneling Maybe someday I&039;ll take them down But not yet
"You beat SC a few years back I can never forgive you for that Two touchdowns in the fourth quarter alone"
"Three," I said "But who&039;s counting?"
He rubbed his chin "Destroyed your leg, if I recall, in the last game of the season Broken in seven different places"
"Nine, but who&039;s counting?"
"Must have been hard to deal with You were on your way to the pros Would have made a hell of a fullback"
That had been hard to deal with, and I didn&039;t feel like talking about it now to Charlie Brown "Why do you believe in your client&039;s innocence?" I asked
He looked at me "I see You don&039;t want to talk about it Sorry I brought it up" He crossed his legs He didn&039;t seely down at his shoes, which had polish on the polish "Because I believe Derrick&039;s story I believe he loved his girlfriend and would never kill her"
"People have been killed for love before Nothing new"
On ht up an article froister The article showed a black teen being led away into a police car He was looking down, his head partially covered by his jacket He was being led away froh school, if I recalled The story was dated three weeks ago, and I recalled reading it back then
I tapped the computer monitor "The police say there&039;s so soht have been a factor"
"Yes," said the attorney "And we think this someone else framed our client"
"I take it you want me to find this man"
"Or person"
"Ah, equality," I said
"We want you to find evidence of our client&039;s innocence, whether or not you find the trueelse I should know?"
"We feel race ht be a factor here He was the only black student in school, and in the neighborhood"
"I believe the preferred term is African-Aards I don&039;t need you to lectureto live up to my difficult name"
"Yeah, well, cool it," he said "Now, no one&039;s talking at the school My client says he orking out late in the school gym, yet no one saw him, not even the janitors"
"Then maybe he wasn&039;t there"
"He was there," said Charlie sih "So do you want the job?"
"Sure"
We discussed a retainer fee and then he wroteout of the office, I could alround
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"He was found with the murder weapon," said Detective Hanson "It was in the backseat of his car That&039;s da evidence"
"That," I said, "and he&039;s black"