Heaven Is High by Kate Wilhelm Read Free Book Online Page A

their heads. Tawna nodded and left them.
    There was a leather-covered sofa, side chairs, coffee table, and a large desk covered with papers and books. They arranged themselves in the chairs and on the sofa.
    Binnie signed to Martin and he said, “She has copies of all her notes in our room. I made Xeroxes of everything for you. We’ll hand it over before you leave.”
    â€œGood. I have an agreement for you both to look over,” Barbara said, taking it from her briefcase. “It’s an attorney-client agreement recognizing me as your attorney of record in this matter. It allows me to act on your behalf. Binnie, Martin, I have to say this so you’ll understand our relationship. I told you I’m not an expert on immigration matters, and I’ll try to find someone who is but, with your permission, I’d want to use such an attorney as a consultant, not ask anyone else to become your primary attorney. I’d oversee the case.”
    Binnie’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded vigorously, and Martin said huskily, “Barbara, we couldn’t ask for anything better. We’ll be forever in your debt if you handle this for us, however you want to do it.”
    She watched them read the letter, sign two copies, one for them to keep, one for her. “Okay,” she said. “On to a few questions. Who has access to your kitchen at the restaurant?”
    â€œWe’ve been thinking about that,” Martin said. “There’s a new guy making deliveries, he started early last week. Everyone else has been there about as long as we have. A couple who come in the mornings to clean. Guys with deliveries of drinks, things like that, and that’s just about all. On busy nights we have a busboy, a neighborhood kid, but he hasn’t been there for a week.” He gave her names and she made a note of them. He had pegged it, she thought. A new deliveryman whose deliveries included more than just drinks, timed to coincide with when the tip would have been passed to the immigration people.
    â€œNext,” she said. “Martin, did you pay off Domonic Guteriez? Did you pay him anything?”
    â€œNo. I never even heard from him directly. It was the Coast Guard guys who told us there was a kidnapping charge, and there was one short item in the Miami paper, that’s all I knew about it.”
    â€œYou told the first attorney you talked to in Chicago?”
    He nodded.
    â€œHave you mentioned it to anyone else?”
    â€œNo. We haven’t talked about this with anyone until we came to you.”
    â€œHave you asked Tawna and James to keep it quiet that you’re houseguests here?”
    Martin’s look was reproachful. “Barbara,” he said slowly as if taking care with his choice of words, “black folks don’t generally talk about their trouble with the government. Like preaching to the choir, just no point in it. In any case, they know better than to talk about us. The fact that we asked for asylum is enough said about the matter.”
    She brought up Nell and her two children and he shook his head. “Tawna told us about them, but she said they’ve gone over to Bend to spend a week with the kids’ grandparents. Spring break starts tomorrow. The Greshams have a daughter at Juilliard, but she won’t be coming home until summer.”
    She had more questions. Had any of the other football players suspected Binnie was aboard the yacht? He said no, that he kept hanging out with them as usual, and they all took food to their staterooms. No one paid any attention to that. Binnie signed rapidly and he added, “I never touched her on the yacht, Barbara. I think I was scared to death of her, most girls but especially her, so little and afraid and all.”
    Barbara turned to Binnie then. “Did your mother talk about her father? What he was like, anything about him?”
    She signed and Martin said, “A little, not much.