The Simple Truth by David Baldacci Read Free Book Online Page A

the hell out of me to hear from you. But I guess it got my curiosity up too.”
    “You look good. The years have been kind to you.”
    Rider had to laugh.
“I lost all my hair and put on fifty pounds, but thank you anyway.”
    “I won’t waste your time. I got something I want you to file in court for me.”
    Rider’s astonishment was clear.
“What court?”
    Harms spoke in even lower tones, despite the cover of the music.
“Biggest one there is. Supreme Court.”
    Rider’s jaw went slack.
“You got to be kidding.”
The look in Harms’s eyes would not brook such a conclusion.
“Okay, what exactly do you want me to file?”
    With smooth increments of motion, despite the restraints of the manacles, Harms slid an envelope out of his shirt and held it up. In an instant, the guard stepped across and snatched it from his hand.
    Rider protested immediately.
“Private, that is a confidential attorney-client communication.”
    “Let him read it, Samuel, I got nothing to hide,”
Harms said evenly, eyes staring off.
    The guard opened the envelope and scanned the contents of the letter. Satisfied, he returned it to Harms and resumed his post across the room.
    Harms handed the envelope and letter across to Rider, who looked down at the material. When he looked back up, Harms was leaning even closer to him, and he spoke for at least ten minutes. Several times Rider’s eyes widened as Harms’s words spilled over him. Finished, the prisoner sat back and looked at him.
    “You going to help me, ain’t you?”
    Rider could not answer, apparently still digesting all that he had heard. If the waist chain had not prevented such a movement, Harms would have reached out and put his hand over Rider’s, not in a threatening manner, but as a tangible plea for help from a man who had experienced none for almost thirty years.
“Ain’t you, Samuel?”
    Finally, Rider nodded.
“I’ll help you, Rufus.”
    Harms rose and headed for the door.
    Rider put the paper back in the envelope and tucked it and the radio away in his briefcase. The lawyer had no way of knowing that on the other side of a large mirror that hung on the wall of the visitors’room, someone had watched the entire exchange between prisoner and attorney. This person now rubbed his chin, lost in deep, troubled thought.
     

CHAPTER SIX
    At ten A.M., the marshal of the Supreme Court, Richard Perkins, dressed in charcoal-gray tails, the traditional Supreme Court dress of lawyers from the Solicitor General’s Office as well, stood up at one end of the massive bench, behind which sat nine high-backed leather chairs of various styles and sizes, and pounded his gavel. The packed courtroom grew silent.
“The Honorable, the Chief Justice, and the Associate Justices of the United States,”
Perkins announced.
    The long burgundy-colored curtain behind the bench parted at nine different places, and there appeared a like number of justices looking stiff and uncomfortable in their black robes, as though startled awake and discovering a crowd next to their beds. As they took their seats, Perkins continued.
“Oyez, oyez, oyez. All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable Court.”
    Perkins sat down and looked out over a courtroom with the square footage of a mansion. Its forty-four-foot ceiling made the eye look for drifting clouds. After some preliminary business and the ceremonial swearing in of new Supreme Court Bar members, the first of the day’s two morning cases would be called. On this day, a Wednesday, only two cases during the morning would be heard, afternoon sessions being held only on Monday and Tuesday. No oral arguments were held on Thursday and Friday. On it would go, three days a week every two weeks, until the end of April, approximately one hundred and fifty oral argument sessions later, the