Free No Way Out by David Kessler Page B

from when he was an angry and embittered young man.”
    “I don’t deny that Claymore’s got a problem,” she conceded, shifting uncomfortably. “But trying to solve his image problem by asking me to sit next to him and make him look harmless is like… like trying to use my body to sell a product.”
    “What product ? We’re talking about a man’s reputation.”
    “Then sell it like a reputation, with reasoned argument – not with head of bottled blonde hair and a pair of silicone-enhanced tits.”
    Alex was about to argue, but again he fell silent as his face melted into a smile. He realized that there was an element of self-satire in Andi’s description of herself. Finally, he spoke again.
    “Okay, you’ve nailed me. We’ve got to use Madison Avenue techniques. But you know what? We’re doing it in a worthy cause.”
    “What you’re proposing goes way beyond Madison Avenue… more like Sunset Boulevard or Old Moulin Rouge.”
    “All right Ms Phoenix,” said Sherman. “Let me lay it on the line for you. You’re an employee of Levine and Webster and I’m pulling rank.”
    “Pulling rank?”
    “Yes,” he said stiffly.
    Alex said nothing. They were playing the old good cop / bad cop routine, and now it was Sherman’s turn.
    “You seem to think you’ve got something to back it up with.”
    “How about your future at this law firm?”
    “My future?” she echoed, more amazed than afraid, more puzzled than angry. “I have a contract.”
    “That cuts both ways. You’re refusing to work for one of our biggest clients.”
    “Elias Claymore?” she asked incredulously.
    “His insurance company.”
    “Well if it comes down to it, I have a valid reason for not representing Claymore.”
    “What reason?” asked Sherman.
    “A conflict of interest.”
    “ What conflict of interest?”
    “My… partner… she works at the Say no to Violence Rape Crisis Center. She might even be assigned to the victim in this case.”
    “She could agree to hand over to another member of staff.”
    “She may have had some contact with the victim already.”
    “We can cross that bridge when we come to it. We can cite the defendant’s right to the representation of his choosing. You can agree not to talk to you partner about the case.”
    “It’ll… put us under… strain.”
    Alex noticed that she had mellowed in her objections: the tone of her refusal was no longer outright. But he also realized that things had been slipping away. And Paul Sherman wasn’t exactly gifted with tact. Alex knew that if he waited any longer, they’d lose her completely.
    “Okay,” Alex cut in. “Try this.”
    He half-turned and grabbed a couple of newspapers from a nearby shelf and threw them on the table.
    “What are you doing?” asked Andi, her tone betraying her confusion.
    “Wait!” he said, thumbing through the papers. “Just listen.”
    Elias Claymore is the kind of man who expects people to believe he’s right whatever side he takes and whatever he says or does. When he was raping white women and calling it a revolutionary, political act, he expected us to think of him as a freedom fighter, not a criminal. When he fled to Libya and started preaching Islam, he expected to be thought of as a religious scholar. Then he ‘saw the light’ and found Jesus – as well as capitalism – and expected us to welcome him back to the fold with open arms. And like fools, we did. Now he’s accused of rape once again and, having come full circle, he asks us to believe that he’s an innocent man who is being victimized because of his outspoken political comments in the recent past.
    “So what? Of course he’s going to get some hostile press.”
    Alex wasn’t finished yet.
    “Okay that’s the mainstream press. And it’s typical of the rest. Trust me, I’ve read through them all.” He pointed to a stack of newspapers on the cherry wood trolley beside the table. Now let’s see what black radical journals are saying.”
    He