Outside Counsel

7. Turkey Ticket

"Which courtroom is Judge Champagne in?" I asked the secretary stationed outside of the huge hallway with doors to different courtrooms scattered about.

The man with giant built in a uniform spared a glance at me from his typing "Which case?"

"State versus Russell."

"Check for yourself." He said and slid over a thick stack of paper marked CHAMPAGNE. I took the stack whilst wondering why he ever bothered to ask which case if he was just going to let me look for myself.

I flipped until it was the right date and went on to look for my client's last name. I found it slightly in the middle of the list, with 06 marked beside it. Not bad. There was no time next to each case because different cases with different lawyers took different time. Some had strategies where they dragged on the time to make the other side impatient and restless. But most judges took it upon themselves to make sure things moved smoothly and speedily in their courtroom.

"Thanks, Mr.Woz." I said as I placed the stack beside him, careful not to touch his skin and set off a volcano eruption.

He frowned at my attempt to be friendly by saying his name. "It's Waz."

"Sorry." I muttered and slid past him and into the corridor. I tried to make a good impression with people in the courthouse. Made things easier. But sometimes it just didn't work.

As I walked toward Court 06, a number of colleagues, mostly defense lawyers either exiting a courtroom or waiting outside of one, nodded at me. Some I was definitely friends with and would have a drink or two with occasionally. Others were familiar faces I'd never known the name to. But most of them knew my name, not because of me, but because of my father, Mickey Haller Sr.

My father was a defense lawyer himself. He had defended some of the most high-profiled cases and had, against all odds, won more than what people had expected. That made him a famous, almost celebrity-like attorney, which resulted in two published books and more than two one-night-stands as a married man. It was rumored that I had half brothers and sisters littered throughout the country. I was one of the lucky ones that got to experience life with my father. I was even beside him when he took his last breath, not having even met all his children.

"Mickey!" A voice broke my train of thoughts, a voice as familiar as my own. I couldn't help but smile, feeling like it'd been forever since I'd last heard that voice.

"Maggie! What are you doing here?" I asked despite already knowing the answer. My ex-wife was a prosecutor, and her office was just upstairs.

"Just finished a case with Bruce." She said with a shrug. "Going back to the office now."

Although she phrased it with Bruce, I knew she meant against Bruce, the defense lawyer I'd befriended during one drunken night in FourGreenFields. "Did you kick his ass?"

She laughed, "Four times and still counting."

I leaned in to kiss her on the cheek in a congratulatory way, but she ducked whilst smiling "We're divorced, remember?"

My heart sank at that reminder, "Right."

She must have seem the hopelessness on my face, because she touched my cheek slightly, "One step at a time, Mickey."

"One step at a time." I echoed and nodded, still engulfed by the feeling of her finger against my cheek.

"Don't you have Judge Champagne to tend to?"

The mention of work snapped me out of my daze, "Right. Um- I'll see you and Hailey this Friday, yeh?"

"Yes." Maggie replied and then with a quieter voice "Don't let her hope up for nothing again, Haller."