Free Death on a High Floor by Charles Rosenberg Page B

desk.
    Early in my career, I favored sitting next to a client or a guest on a couch. But I had long ago dropped that egalitarian hangover from the seventies. If you put yourself behind the desk and leave the client “out there,” it immediately establishes an implicit and important hierarchy. One that works especially well if the client is some powerful captain of industry accustomed to being in charge.
    Facing Oscar and Jenna, I needed every inch of hierarchy I could muster. For the very first time in my life I was the client, not the lawyer. I sat down in what I hoped was an authoritative, take-charge sit.
    “Okay, Oscar. Let’s get down to business.”
    But Oscar was himself apparently not unskilled in the dominance ritual that takes place on first meeting. He did not make the fatal mistake of sitting back down on the couch. That would have acknowledged my trump and my triumph. Instead, he put his hands behind his back and began to pace in front of my desk, at first saying nothing. It was a move that said, “Sit where you will, I own the room.”
    Then he double-trumped me by sitting smack on the corner of my desk, left foot planted on the floor, butt firmly on the corner, bodyweight on his right hand, leaning in toward me. I actually shrank back.
    “Robert, I’m not gonna give you VIP treatment. I’m not gonna treat you with kid gloves. That’s the way VIPs get hosed in this business. I’m just going to ask you the same first question I’ve asked every murder suspect I’ve ever represented.”
    “Which is?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to hear it.
    “Did you kill him?”
    I did not expect that question. For one thing, I had always heard that criminal defense lawyers prefer not to know whether or not you are guilty. For another, it was too direct a question on such short acquaintance. There’s something enormously intimate about being asked if you have killed another human being. Maybe it would have seemed an okay question later, after Oscar and I had gotten reacquainted some. After all, it hadn’t bothered me when Gwen asked. Or Harry. But Oscar was still almost a complete stranger.
    I looked over at Jenna for guidance. She remained stock-still on the couch. Despite the snappy outfit, she did not look at all well. She was not going to be of help.
    “I’m innocent,” I said.
    “If only,” Oscar said, “that were an answer to the question I asked. Look, you could be innocent even if you killed him. Not all killings are crimes.”
    He was still sitting on my desk. “So why don’t you just answer the question I actually asked you?”
    I was apparently on trial with my own lawyer. He was going to listen to what I said and judge me. How, I wondered, are you supposed to declare your innocence? With anger? Calmly? Slowly, each word distinctly separated from the other for effect? I chose calmly.
    “I didn’t kill him,” I said.
    “Good,” Oscar said. “Now, ask me why I want to know.”
    “Is this a game?”
    “Not at all. Ask me the question.”
    “Okay, why do you want to know?” Physically, I was still behind my desk. Mentally, I had begun to float somewhere out in the room. Was I really having a conversation about whether I killed Simon Rafer?
    “Let me try it with a hypothetical,” he said. He slid off my desk, walked over to the window, and stood looking at the view, hands behind his back.
    “Suppose,” he said, still facing the window, “you were to change your mind and tell me, ‘yes, I killed that schmuck.’ What do you think we’d need to do then?” He turned to hear my answer.
    “But I didn’t kill him,” I said.
    “Well, my friend, as our now mostly departed profs used to say to us in law school, oh so long ago, ‘It’s my hypo.’ And since it’s my hypo right now, you have to play along and say, ‘I killed him.’”
    “Okay,” I said, “let’s suppose I killed him.” Like every lawyer, I am easy prey for an absurd hypothetical.
    Oscar put his hands in his