The Importance of Being Dangerous by David Dante Troutt

He could’ve been you long ago,” he told the old white man in the robe. “Or him,” Griff added, pointing a finger directly at the A.D.A.
    The judge appreciated good lawyers, especially among the overworked court-appointed attorneys who hardly knew their clients. Yet he could not allow himself to be swayed by emotion. “Counsel to the bench again,” he demanded. Griff and the A.D.A. stepped up. The judge looked over his glasses at the young white prosecutor. “Mr. Geiger, after hearing what’s been said today, do you still stand by your original position regarding Mr. Billingsley?”
    Jeffrey Geiger refused to meet Griff’s eyes. He was not much older than Mr. Billingsley, so it seemed, and he looked like he would have been much happier drunk under a beach umbrelladuring spring break. “We do, your honor. Nothing has changed. This is the defendant’s second and third felony offense.”
    â€œWhat is the point?” Griff asked with calm exasperation.
    â€œI don’t need to explain myself to you, ” Geiger said, finding the courage to repeat the words he’d been taught weeks ago in an A.D.A. training workshop. “I need to make a conviction.”
    â€œThat’s not a reason,” Griff went on. “That’s got nothing to do with this young man, his life, or his infant son’s life. There has got to be some point to it. Why are you trying to do this?”
    The A.D.A. looked irritated. Finally he turned to Griff and said, “Because I can.”
    Forgetting the judge, Griff asked, “Well, who the hell are you, young man?”
    The A.D.A. was ready now and looked Griff in the eye. “I’m the state, sir. And you’re not.”
    That’s how Griff’s decision got started. The judge decided that, given the circumstances, Robert Billingsley should be considered an adult and convicted, but would be sentenced to a minimum of two years and a maximum of four. Maybe not for Mr. Billingsley’s infant son, but that was what Griff would call a victory in his line of work.
    That night at home, he lay spent on the living room sofa and hoped for sleep, occasionally interrupted by Belinda’s heated telephone conversation with a colleague from work. Her voice could still echo with monetary ferocity even at midnight. As usual, somebody on one side of a deal was fucking up again, a guy named Brett Goldman she kept calling “Dick” with a vengeance. Some company, “Solutions,” was too heavy to carry such a lightweight executive. The “bitch” was in over his head, she fumed, losing paperwork, not answering his phone, letting investment companies she’d never heard of into the “angel round” of financing before satisfying due diligence requirements. She was storming around the sleepy Griff, back and forth between rooms, cussingand fulminating about details he wished would say good night, when he noticed the glossy papers and thick prospectus on the coffee table in front of him. Griff never paid attention to this clutter before, but tonight the Solutions, Inc. logo caught his eye. He began to read part of a deal memo lying on the couch beside him. Suddenly he realized this stuff was not Greek, that he could make sense of it. It didn’t sound all that different from the deals a few of his “better” clients went to jail for. While Belinda recounted her frustrations to her friend, Griff learned about the Solutions, Inc. conglomerate and the many public businesses it owned chunks of. Not an angel on the list. Prison construction companies. Public school consulting contracts. Welfare reform “intermediaries.” Defense contractors. Third World “conflict assistance” management consultants. All the kinds of activities people like him usually slept through. But he was awake now.
    And that is when Griff made his decision: that till now he had had too much respect for a game