Temporary Perfections Read Online Free Page A

Technically, this is known as extortion, and it’s a pretty serious crime. The financial police had conducted a search of the engineer’s office, and now he was in a state of complete panic, convinced—not without reason—that a warrant would be issued for his arrest any minute. The second appointment was with the wife of an old client ofmine, a professional burglar, who had been arrested for what seemed like the thousandth time. My last appointment of the day was with my fellow lawyer Sabino Fornelli and his clients, to discuss the case that he had been unwilling to tell me about over the phone.
    I met with the surveying engineer and then the burglar’s wife, with Consuelo in attendance. Every time I introduce her, my clients look a little baffled.
    “This is my colleague, Consuelo Favia, who will be handling this case with me.”
    Colleague?
    Every client’s face asks the same question. So I spell it out for them, saying, “
Counselor
Consuelo Favia, a lawyer who’s been working with me for several months now. We’ll be handling your case together.”
    Their astonishment is understandable, and it’s not racism, per se. It’s just that in Bari, and in Italy in general, people still don’t expect a young woman with dark brown skin and Andean features to be a lawyer.
    The surveying engineer wore a watch that he could never have afforded on his salary and a charcoal gray suit over a black t-shirt, like a playboy running out the clock, and he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He kept saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that at the very most he’d accepted a few tips and small gifts. They were given spontaneously, he insisted. Come on, who turns down a gift? Was he to be arrested for that? He wasn’t going to be arrested, was he?
    Now, I want to point out here that I despise criminals like this surveying engineer. I defend them because that’s how I earn my living, but frankly, if it were up to me, I’d be happy to throw them all into a big comfortable prison celland arrange to lose the key permanently. After letting him ramble on for twenty minutes or so, I was obliged to resist the urge to encourage his fear rather than offering words of reassurance. I told him that before I could express an opinion, we would need to examine the search-and-seizure warrant, and that we might need to contest it before the special arraignment court. Then we could decide whether to request a meeting with the prosecutor. I suggested that he avoid having any potentially compromising conversations over the phone or in the offices that the financial police had searched; they could easily have been bugged. Finally, Consuelo coolly informed him that we’d be in touch in a few days’ time, and that in the meantime he should speak to the secretary on his way out to pay our retainer.
    I love her when she absolves me of the unpleasant responsibility of talking about money with my clients.
    The burglar’s wife, Signora Carlone, was much less agitated. Talking with a criminal lawyer about her husband’s latest legal problems wasn’t a new experience for her, even though this case was much more serious than usual. A police investigative team had been looking into a worrisome epidemic of break-ins and had wiretapped a number of phones, followed suspects, and taken fingerprints in the apartments of the victims. In the end, they’d arrested Signore Carlone and five of his friends, who were now charged with multiple counts of aggravated theft, running a burglary ring, and criminal conspiracy. Carlone had a lengthy criminal record (which made for especially dull reading, because he’d committed the same crime, burglary, over and over), so when his wife asked about the only thing that mattered to her—when she could expect her husband to be released from jail—we told her that it wouldn’t happensoon, and we weren’t certain it would happen at all. For now, we could contest the court order for preventive detention before the