The Guilty Read Online Free Page B

over the prone, slack-mouthed figure and shook it none too gently.
    “Hey, Yanni, wake up! You’re drooling all over my sofa.”
    Kalouderis snorted, opened his eyes and looked up blearily at his disturber, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. His expression was one of vague recognition, like he was searching his memory to put a name to a face that he hadn’t seen in a long time. He quickly gave up trying to remember and turned back onto his stomach, burying his face into the sofa.
    “Fuck off, malaka ! Get your own bed,” he mumbled.
    Bratt threw his mail onto the pile of sweaty hair that was stuck to the back of his friend’s head, but got no reaction. Exasperated, he dropped into the chair behind his desk. Kalouderis’s vulgarity, as well as his indifference to Bratt’s arrival, irked him.
    “I mean it, John. It’s well after nine and I’ve got work to do.”
    “Go right ahead,” replied Kalouderis, “you won’t bother me.”
    “Look, John, I’m damn tired myself and I don’t find this the least bit amusing, so MOVE IT!”     
    That last exhortation finally led to some movement on Kalouderis’s part. He began getting up slowly, gingerly putting his stockinged feet onto the floor as if he expected to find shards of broken glass there.
    Bratt asked, “Did you spend the night here or did you crawl in drunk this morning?”
    Kalouderis scratched his head at the question and tried to keep his gaze level at Bratt while answering. “Both, I guess. I got in about five o’clock, and I’ve been stretched-out here ever since.”
    Bratt rested his head on the back of his chair and sighed. Every now and then Kalouderis and a group of his favorite cousins would hit the town and attempt to commit collective suicide by alcohol. This time he looked like he had almost succeeded. Bratt was concerned that his friend was going to embarrass himself publicly one day, which would, of course, embarrass the firm. Still, there was a part of Bratt that felt envy, wishing he could be as irresponsible with his own health and career. But he had too much to lose, in his personal and professional lives, to risk it for a night of uncontrolled drinking.
    Kalouderis began awkwardly fishing around with his hands under the sofa, looking for his shoes. Finally retrieving them, he burped and struggled to his feet, a loafer in each hand. Bratt watched the proceedings with a sense of irritation, tapping his fingers on his desk in barely repressed impatience. 
    Kalouderis swayed slightly where he stood and breathed in deeply through his nose. “Geez, I reek. Mind if I use your shower?”
    “As a matter of fact, I insist on it,” Bratt replied, thinking of the staff and clientele who would come into contact with Kalouderis during the day.
    Once his friend had shuffled off to the partners’ private shower area, Bratt turned his attention to his day’s work. He had a number of phone calls to make before drafting his final arguments for the Hall trial. Brenton would probably spend all of tomorrow pleading, so Bratt wouldn’t have to plead until Thursday morning. 
    He remembered that Nate Morris was testifying in his rape trial that morning. The jury would probably start deliberating some time tomorrow, and Bratt’s experience told him they probably wouldn’t have to deliberate very long. If, or when, they acquitted Morris, Bratt suspected that he would be having another heated discussion with Jeannie. He would get as much work as he could done now while his mind was still free from the aggravation that awaited him.
    Bratt was less than an hour into reviewing his trial notes when J.P. Leblanc opened his office door without knocking. He walked in and, with an audible grunt, sat down heavily on the sofa that had so recently served as Kalouderis’s bed. Leblanc was more than eighty pounds overweight and a heavy smoker. Whenever he sat, it was always heavily. Grunting was optional.
    “Who the hell made a mess in the