Free The Client by John Grisham

they do to him if they caught him lying? Maybe they wouldn’t believe Ricky. Since he’d blanked out and left the world for a while, maybe they would tend to believe Mark instead. This conflict in stories was too awful to think about.
    It’s amazing how lies grow. You start with a small one that seems easy to cover, then you get boxed in and tell another one. Then another. People believe you at first, and they act upon your lies, and you catch yourself wishing you’d simply told the truth. He could have told the truth to the cops and to his mother. He could have explained in great detail everything that Ricky saw. And the secret would still be safe because Ricky didn’t know.
    Things were happening so fast he couldn’t plan. He wanted to get his mother in a room with the door locked and unload all this, just stop it now before it got worse. If he didn’t do something, he might go to jail and Ricky might go to the nuthouse for kids.
    Hardy appeared with a tray covered with french fries and cheeseburgers, two for him and one for Mark. He arranged the food neatly and returned the tray.
    Mark nibbled on a french fry. Hardy launched into a burger.
    “So what happened to your face?” Hardy asked, chomping away.
    Mark rubbed the knot and remembered he hadbeen wounded in the fray. “Oh nothing. Just got in a fight in school.”
    “Who’s the other kid?”
    Dammit! Cops are relentless. Tell one lie to cover another. He was sick of lying. “You don’t know him,” he answered, then bit into his cheeseburger.
    “I might want to talk to him.”
    “Why?”
    “Did you get in trouble for this fight? I mean, did your teacher take you to the principal’s office, or anything like that?”
    “No. It happened when school was out.”
    “I thought you said you got in a fight at school.”
    “Well, it sort of started at school, okay. Me and this guy got into it at lunch, and agreed to meet when school was out.”
    Hardy drew mightily on the tiny straw in his milk shake. He swallowed hard, cleared his mouth, and said, “What’s the other kid’s name?”
    “Why do you want to know?”
    This angered Hardy and he stopped chewing. Mark refused to look into his eyes, and he bent low over his food and stared at the ketchup.
    “I’m a cop, kid. It’s my job to ask questions.”
    “Do I have to answer them?”
    “Of course you do. Unless, of course, you’re hiding something and afraid to answer. At that point, I’ll have to get with your mother and perhaps take the both of you down to the station for more questioning.”
    “Questioning about what? What exactly do you want to know?”
    “Who is the kid you had a fight with today?”
    Mark nibbled forever on the end of a long fry.Hardy picked up the second cheeseburger. A spot of mayonnaise hung from the corner of his mouth.
    “I don’t want to get him in trouble,” Mark said.
    “He won’t get in trouble.”
    “Then why do you want to know his name?”
    “I just want to know. It’s my job, okay?”
    “You think I’m lying, don’t you?” Mark asked, looking pitifully into the bulging face.
    The chomping stopped. “I don’t know, kid. Your story is full of holes.”
    Mark looked even more pitiful. “I can’t remember everything. It happened so fast. You expect me to give every little detail, and I can’t remember it that way.”
    Hardy stuck a wad of fries in his mouth. “Eat your food. We’d better get back.”
    “Thanks for the dinner.”
*     *     *
    RICKY WAS IN A PRIVATE ROOM ON THE NINTH FLOOR. A large sign by the elevator labeled it as the PSYCHIATRIC WING, and it was much quieter. The lights were dimmer, the voices softer, the traffic much slower. The nurses’ station was near the elevator, and those stepping off were scrutinized. A security guard whispered with the nurses and watched the hallways. Down from the elevators, away from the rooms, was a small, dark sitting area with a television, soft drink machines, magazines, and Gideon