Claymore’s past. They’ve already compared him to O.J. Simpson. They’re going to savage his reputation before the case ever gets to trial. That’s what we’re up against.’
‘And how do you think me sitting there next to him is going to refute the negative pre-trial publicity?’
Alex met her eyes, trying to read her.
‘When the jury sees a beautiful young woman sitting next to him, it’ll dissolve their prejudice. It’ll make him look like a normal, everyday human being. It’ll show them that he’s safe, harmless, inoffensive…not the monster that the prosecution is to going to try and make him out to be.’
‘And you say you’re not asking me to prostitute myself?’
She was looking at him hard; she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
‘Look,’ he said after a long pause and a deep breath. ‘Claymore has an image problem with Middle America. Everyone knows about his past, how he raped white women and said it was political. How he broke out of prison and fled to Libya. But he has the right to be judged by the evidence in this case – not his past when he was an angry and embittered young man.’
‘I don’t deny that Claymore’s got a problem,’ she conceded, shifting uncomfortably. ‘But 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 a head of bottle-blonde hair and a pair of silicone-enhanced tits.’
Alex was about to argue, but he fell silent as his face melted into a smile. He realized that there was an element of satire in Andi’s description of herself.
‘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.
‘My…partner…she works at the Say No to Violence rape crisis center. She might even be assigned to 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 cite the defendant’s right to his counsel of choice. And you can agree not to talk to your 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 knew that if he waited any longer, they’d lose her completely.
‘Okay,’ Alex cut in. ‘Try this.’
He turned and grabbed a couple of newspapers from a nearby wooden trolley 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 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 cherrywood trolley beside the table. ‘Now let’s see what black radical journals are saying.’
He grabbed another paper. This one was already open on the right page.
‘“The chickens are coming home to roost for a Judas who betrayed his people for thirty pieces of silver. Elias Claymore, who once stood for the rights of his oppressed brothers, now stands exposed as a hypocrite who places self-indulgence above any cause. This perennial campaigner, who keeps reinventing himself whenever it suits him, has now run out of ideas and has finally reverted to type as a narcissist and egomaniac. Having turned against his own kind and sold his soul to the devil, he has now compounded his crime by bringing his brothers into disrepute.
‘“When Claymore was a respectable figure of the middle-class establishment, he was held up by conservatives as an exception to the rule, the black man who worked within the system and succeeded. The rest of us only had ourselves to blame for our miserable plight because we were lazy and refused to abide by the rules and make use of the system. But now that he has been exposed for what he really is, he will be held up as a typical example of the black everyman and the old stereotype of the black male as sex-driven monster will be resurrected yet again.”
‘Okay. That’s what we’re up against!’
‘And you think…’ She stopped. There was no easy way to brush off an appeal to the fighting spirit within her. Bullying hadn’t worked, but this was quiet persuasion.
‘Well, what do you say?’
‘I say…’ She hesitated again, wondering if Alex could see the civil war raging within her.
Alex and Sherman looked at Andi, inviting her final answer. Ignoring Sherman, she stared back at Alex for a few seconds, breathing heavily. Then, not trusting her voice, she nodded her head in reluctant truce rather than surrender. He smiled gently as if accepting it with good grace.
‘Okay,’ said Sherman. ‘I’ll go now and leave you to start working.’
And with that, Sherman packed his papers into his attaché case and left.
‘The case took a dramatic turn today when it was revealed that Andromeda Phoenix – a civil litigator with Los Angeles law firm Levine and Webster, is to serve as co-counsel with Alex Sedaka.’
Martine Yin’s voice was coming from the television window in the web browser on a computer.
‘Ms