The Advocate's Devil by Alan M. Dershowitz

of advising a client to stop taking his medicine? He might
     kill himself.”
    “There are different rules on death row. This is about saving life,
not
covering our asses. We’ve got to take some risks here.”
    Charlie was even more frightened now. “You don’t know what it feels like to be crazy. When I stop taking the medicine, I’m
     really out of control. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just want to die. I don’t want to feel like that.”
    “It must be terrible,” Abe agreed. “Sadly, we’ve got no choice. You’ve got to stop taking the pills if you want to stay alive.”
    Charlie looked at Abe tearfully. “I think I understand. If I don’t want
them
to kill me,” he said, pointing to the guard who was standing outside, “then I have to want to kill
myself
.”
    Charlie understood. So did Abe and Justin—to the extent anyone could understand this theater of the absurd. It was a bizarre
     twist in the macabre dance of death row justice.
    Soon enough the interview was over. Before the guards took Charlie away, he gave Abe a thumbs-up sign. “You’re my man. Do
     right by me, Mr. Ringel.”
    “I’ll try, Charlie. I sure to God will try,” Abe said as he looked back at the man he had just condemned to a potentially
     suicidal insanity.

Chapter Six
    Back in the parking lot of the prison, Abe retrieved his portable cellular phone and called the office.
    “Am I glad you called, Abe,” Gayle said, her voice crackling through the static. “Rendi is desperate to reach you
before
you see Joe.”
    “Where is she?” Abe asked. Rendi, in addition to being Abe’s on-again-off-again lover, was also a top-notch investigator who
     was working with them on the Campbell case.
    “She’s waiting for you in front of Campbell’s apartment building. Figured she couldn’t miss you that way.”
    “What does she have?”
    “She doesn’t want me to talk about it on the cellular phone.”
    “I thought we bought one of those secure ones—the kind that scramble.”
    “We did. But still…”
    “That good?”
    “Or bad!”
    “Which one?”
    “I don’t know. She’ll explain.”
    “What’s up?” Justin asked as Abe pocketed his Motorola flip-top.
    “We’re meeting Rendi in New York City.”
    Justin could barely squelch a groan. “She couldn’t tell you what it was over the phone?” He hated when Abe included Rendi—a
     nonlawyer—in their legal strategy, believing that it reflected Abe’s lack of faith in him. However, that wasn’t true in this
     instance. Abe knew that his always hyper investigator had a feel for the hot buttons in any case. Whatever made her rush to
     New York was guaranteed to be important. Rendi didn’t usually overreact.
    “You know how I feel about Rendi’s instincts, Justin. We’ve been over this before.”
    Justin closed his car window and sighed. “I know, I know, she’s an intuitive genius.”
    “It’s true. Look, I don’t use her for legal maneuvers. That’s what I count on you for. But when it comes to understanding
     people, Rendi is the best. The fact is Rendi can walk into a roomful of partying strangers and in seconds figure out who’s
     having an affair with whom, who hates whom, who’s sucking up to whom, and who’s stabbing whom in the back. That’s intuition.
     You can’t learn that in law school.”
    “Listen, Abe, if we need mental CAT scans, I suggest we call Mass. General.”
    Abe pinched Justin’s cheek playfully. “Come on, boychick, smile. We’ve got the hottest case in the country right now, and
     we can’t lose it. So what have we got to worry about?”
    “She just gets to me—”
    “That’s Rendi’s stock in trade. That’s what we hire her for.”
    Rendi was waiting for them, her jeans and pullover blending perfectly with the merchandise showcased in the window of the
     Gap store that occupied the ground floor of Campbell’s apartment building. As Abe looked at Rendi from inside the car, he
     reflected on the woman who had