Witness for the Persecution by E. J. Copperman

Author:E. J. Copperman [E.J. Copperman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

There?

TWENTY-THREE

‘You have to understand what this business is like,’ Robert Reeves said.

I had been, at the very least, an interested observer of ‘this business’ for more than a year now and, frankly, there wasn’t a lot of it I was eager to understand better. But I let my client begin that way because it would have taken too long to get him to start over again. He was finally in a compliant mood and I wanted him to stay that way until I could get a handle on how to defend him.

Because so far it wasn’t seeming all that possible.

‘What about it?’ I threw him a lifeline.

‘You work for years, from the time you’re in high school, to get to a point where you can make movies that people actually want to see,’ he said. ‘And it takes a long time but that’s OK because you can see the prize at the end.’

‘Desert Siege,’ I said. It slipped out.

But Reeves didn’t catch the irony and luckily Patrick wasn’t there. But I’d seen their film and it was, in a word, silly. Not in a good way. ‘Exactly,’ my client said. ‘An action movie with a big budget and you get to direct those because the people with all the power have come to trust you based on all your years of experience.’

I didn’t see how this woe-is-me diatribe (if that’s what it was) pertained to his having two wives, at least one of them legally wed to him, but I figured he was getting there sooner or later. ‘I understand,’ I lied.

Reeves shook his head; no, I didn’t understand, but he was going to explain it to me in great detail. ‘The problem is this town is obsessed with youth. Oh sure they love Spielberg because he can buy and sell everyone he knows, and they love Scorsese because the critics told them they have to, but they really want the next kid making two-minute videos on TikTok because they think he’ll bring in the eighteen-year-olds and he’ll work cheap.’

Still nothing about any of his numerous wives or whether or not he’d sabotaged the cables that snapped and sent poor Jim Drake to his grisly death. But did I show any impatience? Did I tell the film director to cut to the chase? Did I point out that the next kid making TikTok videos to work their way up might be a she or a they? I did not. I was the very model of restraint.

‘You’re worried you’re aging out of action movies?’ I asked.

Reeves looked at me as if wondering whether he should have let this idiot woman resign from his case after all. ‘No. I am at the peak of my craft right now and my experience leading up to this point in my career is exactly why I should be doing what I’m doing.’

I was trying to follow him but he was blending into the surroundings like a chameleon. ‘So what’s the problem?’ I said, still

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