The Architect by Keith Ablow Read Free Book Online

up.
    “We’re in a jam, huh?”
    Billy closed his eyes.
    “Mind if I come in?”
    He shrugged.
    Clevenger looked back at Leone, who unlocked the door, let him in, and locked it behind him.
    Clevenger wasn’t sure what to do next—to sit beside Billy or not, touch him or not, scream at him or not. The father in him was paralyzing the psychiatristin him, and vice versa. So he backed up against the wall and waited, trying to picture what his son’s eye looked like under all that gauze, wishing he had been there when the doctor told Billy he might never see out of it again.
    Nearly half a minute passed before Billy broke the silence. “Fm gonna need a lawyer,” he said, glancing at Clevenger.
    “They’ll give you one,” Clevenger said. He knew that wasn’t what Billy wanted to hear. He wanted to hear Clevenger would hire Tony Traini or Joe Balliro or John Haggerty or one of the other high-powered criminal attorneys he counted as friends.
    “What about baiir
    A lawyer and bail. He sounded like a thug. Clevenger felt himself getting angry, but tried to stay in control. Billy was more comfortable with confrontation than anything else. Transmuting sadness into rage was his game. Clevenger didn’t want to play it. He forced himself to picture Billy as a six-year-old, cowering on his bed, bruised and bleeding, waiting for the next lash from his father’s strap. “C’mon, Billy,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
    “She set me up to lose it That’s what happened.”
    The six-year-old evaporated. Clevenger felt his anger rising again.
    “She kept coming at me about why wasn’t I doing this and that—yelling, making Jake cry,” Billy said. He shook his head. “I just wanted her to shut up. I told her, ‘Shut up. Please. Just shut up.” But she wouldn’t She kept going on and on and on.”
    “It might have been easier to hear her out without the alcohol on board—not to mention whatever else you were using.”
    “I didn’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it now. I gave her Jake, and now she wants ... I don’t know what the hell she wants.”
    That sounded like an echo of the truth. Maybe Billy really didn’t know how to deliver what Casey was asking him for—to be a real father to his son. Maybe the best he thought he could do was help bring a child into the world. Maybe the rest was too scary for him, treading too close to the scorched earth of his own childhood. “She wants Jake to have better memories of you than you have of your father,” Clevenger said. He paused. “That’s going to be harder to deliver now. We have a lot to deal with here.”
    Billy turned toward the wall. “Then get me out, or at least get me a lawyer.”
    “I need time to set up drug testing through the probation office, psychotherapy at the court clinic, AA, the whole nine yards. You might as well get in a few meetings with your lawyer while you’re here.”
    Billy chewed his lower lip. “How long?”
    “I don’t know. A couple of weeks, anyhow.”
    He shook his head. “No fucking way.”
    “You don’t have a lot of choices right now, partner.”
    No response.
    “What did they tell you at Mass General about your eye?” Clevenger asked.
    Billy shrugged.
    Clevenger walked over to him, sat at the edge of the bed. He wanted to hold him, but nothing about Billy’sbody language or expression suggested he was welcome to. He put a hand on his arm. “We’ll figure everything out, okay?”
    Billy’s lip began to quiver. He yanked his arm away. “I can figure things out for myself,” he said.
    “I don’t know if you can,” Clevenger said. “But I know you don’t need to.”
    “Can I please be alone?”
    “Billy...”
    His jaw tightened. “Please?”
    Clevenger felt a lump rising in his throat. He stood up and motioned Dave Leone to unlock the door.
    Leone walked over, opened it.
    “Why don’t I come by tomorrow?” Clevenger said to Billy. When he got nothing back, he turned and