Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion by Grif Stockley

modestly.
    “The Department of Human Services won’t know a thing.”
    I study the cartoons behind Dan’s head. Unlike Clan and myself, the characters, despite their problems, never age.
    “Two hundred dollars,” I bitch, “is all she gave me.”
    Clan smiles benignly as his right hand catches in the almost empty bag.
    “See, she’s just like us—just a little whore.”
    Before I walk out the door to get on the road to Fayetteville, I call Amy.
    “Gilchrist,” I say when she comes on the line, “I was gonna try to play it cool, but I couldn’t wait.” I don’t tell her that I’ve just interviewed a prostitute and started thinking of her.
    “Men are so stupid,” Amy says cheerfully.
    “I practically invite you to move in with me, and you have to think about it.”
    I laugh, trying to picture her in her office. She is in the Kincaid Building two blocks west of the courthouse.
    Mostly a domestic law practice. Women attorneys seem to settle into it, though she knows as much, if not more, criminal law than I do.
    “Can we eat first?” I ask.
    “Are you busy Saturday?”
    “I have to warn you that I’m on a ten-thousand-calorie a day diet,” she says.
    “You might want to check the limits on your Visa card.”
    I think of her trim, compact body. Maybe she’s really fat, and it’s all being held in by a giant safety pin. I don’t think so. She didn’t have that much on last night, and what I saw looked firm.
    “Where do you put it?” I ask admiringly. If I eat a single cookie, I can see the outline of it in my stomach for days.
    “In my mouth,” she says.
    “I’m busy right now. Call me Saturday, okay?”
    “Sure,” I say and hang up, a little disappointed. I had wanted to brag that I was going to Fayetteville to represent Dade Cunningham, but maybe it will impress her more when she reads it in the papers. I stand up and retrieve my briefcase from the top of the filing cabinet, realizing I am abnormally pleased. It’s time to quit thinking Rainey and I will get back together. A part of me is still in love with her, but some things aren’t meant to be. Amy sounds like she’ll be fun. Why have I avoided younger women so religiously since Rosa died? Fear of looking stupid, I guess. Am I worried what Sarah will think? Act your age. Dad. She would like for me to be neutered, I’m sure. Poor baby. In my parents’ day, when nobody got divorced, we didn’t have to worry about our parents humiliating us quite so much. Now we act as crazy as our children. No wonder the country is on the verge of anarchy.
     
    as dade cunningham and I come out of the Washington County courthouse into clear, dazzling October sunlight, I look around for the media, but apparently the word of his release hasn’t gotten around.
    “What happens now?” Dade Cunningham whispers respectfully beside me. He is quite a specimen. Under his T-shirt his shoulders look like slabs of frozen beef. For a wide receiver he is more muscled-up than I would have imagined. His father is much darker, his features more Negroid than his son’s. Dade, I realize, looks remarkably like Jason Kidd, the incredible point guard recruited hard by the Hogs who ended up at California and turned pro after just two years. I wonder about his mother. I can’t imagine she is white, but she can’t be far from it.
    “We’re going to my motel to talk.” I have checked into the Ozark Inn, a dump on College Avenue that actually looks okay on the outside. Inside, it’s better not to look too close. If cleanliness is next to godliness, the Ozark is not exactly on the highway to heaven. But for twenty-five bucks I didn’t expect the Taj Mahal, nor did I get it.
    Dade nods gloomily, but based on our conversation so far, I realize he doesn’t have the slightest idea of the obstacles ahead. He will be arraigned tomorrow afternoon.
    Now all we have to do is get out of here without saying anything to the media that will piss anybody off.
    “If any body asks