Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 02 - FINAL ARGUMENT - a Legal Thriller Read Online Free Page A

be there with him, under fire. I shook Beldon Ruth’s hard hand, and I took the job he offered me. When I passed the bar exam I married Toba, and we moved into an apartment on Neptune Beach, forty minutes from the courthouse in downtown Jacksonville.
    Five years later, in a panic to ensure his getting the black vote in the next election, the governor over in Tallahassee called Beldon and asked him if he wanted to be state attorney for Duval County and the Fourth District: that was Jacksonville. The current incumbent had been elected to the state senate.
    Beldon replied—so the legend went—”Governor, would a two- ton hog make a lot of bacon?”
    He considered me his brightest young prosecutor and appointed me to take his place as chief assistant. And that’s who I was on the night my wife and I strolled the moonlit lawn at the Zides’ party and I told her I had a better offer from a Sarasota firm.
    “This firm,” I said, “represents a string of Solly Zide’s luxury condos over on the Gulf. The litigating partner accepted a judgeship. They need an experienced trial lawyer. Someone really good.”
    I wasn’t modest about my skills; when I went to trial I had a ninety-eight-percent conviction rate. My peers had named me Florida Prosecutor of the Year in 1970 and for two years in a row after that kept me as president of the statewide association.
    “Sarasota’s lovely,” Toba said. “But it ain’t cheap, my lad.”
    “The firm’s offered me a draw of eighty-five grand a year against fifteen percent of the profit.”
    Toba’s eyes widened, just as mine had; that was more than double my current salary. But my wife wasn’t an impetuous woman. “You think it would be good for the kids?”
    Alan was eight, a dreamy boy who had trouble paying attention in class. Cathy was ten, a straight-A student. Sometimes it seemed that there weren’t enough books in the Jacksonville library system or local bookstores to satisfy Cathy’s lust to read.
    Toba plucked a fresh glass of champagne from a silver tray. She answered her own question. “Well, maybe. God knows there’s no decent safe high school here in Jacksonville. Not even out at the Beach. You know just what I mean.”
    “Too black is what you mean,” I said.
    “I hate to say things like that. Or even think them. But yes, that’s what I mean. Black means more violence. More drugs.”
    “It would definitely be whiter and safer in Sarasota.”
    We heard the musicians warming up beneath the peppermint- striped tent: first the French horn, then the deep moan of the bassoon, like the wail of a stricken mythical beast.
    “Ted, what do you want to do?”
    I hadn’t lost all my youthful idealism; I still wanted to be involved, to be proud of what I did. But beyond that, I wanted wines smoother to the palate than Gallo. I wanted a little sailboat of my own, and a car for my wife that didn’t break down every other season. I wanted my kids to go to a decent college without my having to pinch pennies and give up the trip to the Soviet Union and the East African safari that Toba and I had talked about for years.
    However mundane all that seemed, I was tired of making small sacrifices. I wanted to be comfortable—maybe quite a bit more than comfortable.
    When I told all that to Toba, she smiled. Her dark eyes were luminous from the wine, and perhaps also because prospects of more gracious living had opened to her.
    “It’s no crime, darling. You say it as if you’re ashamed of it. That’s what everyone wants.”
    “I used to think I wasn’t like everyone else,” I admitted. “That seems to have turned out to be an illusion.”
    “I love you, Ted,” she said.
    I fingered her thick black hair. “So let’s think about it, although not for too long. They need an answer by Christmas.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Connie Zide dancing on the grass to the beat of a steel drum. I thought of her naked, of how her heels beat a wild tattoo on that September