The Hidden Law by Michael Nava

Author:Michael Nava [Nava, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781453297728
Published: 2013-01-07T23:39:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I LEFT SANTA BARBARA early Monday morning and drove directly to Raymond Reynolds’s office in Beverly Hills for my eight o’clock appointment. The tranquility I had felt at the ranch evaporated somewhere between Oxnard and Rodeo Drive. By the time I spotted the first Armani-clad studio executive in his BMW it was as if I had never left town. I was relieved to step into Reynolds’s quiet brain cell of an office.

As I did, I again felt that there was something familiar about it from my past; then it occurred to me: each time I entered his office, I had the same sensation I’d felt when, as a boy, I entered the confessional. It was that feeling that I was going to come clean. I sat down on his squeaky couch and tried to make sense of my moment at the ridge of the canyon.

“What kind of change in your life do you think you have to make, Henry?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “That wasn’t part of what I felt up there. It was more like a memory than a premonition.”

“A memory of what?”

“A memory of what it felt like when I was eighteen,” I told him. “The incredible sense of freedom at having finally got out from beneath my father’s thumb, and how, for the first time in my life, I felt truly alive. There were so many choices, so much to experience, and I really believed that I could do it all. That lasted until he died. After that, the choices seemed to narrow. It wasn’t that anyone said to me, ‘The fun’s over, decide what you’re going to do for the rest of your life.’ I just began to see things differently.”

He rocked forward in his armchair. “How?”

“You know, Raymond, it was as if, once he died, the weight of his life descended on my shoulders and I—”

The phone rang. “My machine will take the call,” he said.

I started to speak, but the phone rang again.

“I’m sorry, Henry, but I’d better take this.” He answered the phone, listened for a moment, then said, “It’s your secretary. She says it’s urgent.”

I got up and went over to his desk, taking the phone from him. “Yes, Emma.”

“Henry, Mrs. Rosen called. The police have arrested Michael Ruiz. She’s at SafeHouse and she says it’s urgent that you go there right away.”

“Call her back and tell her I’m on my way.” I hung up and told Reynolds, “I’m sorry, Raymond, I have to go.”

“What about freedom?” he asked gently.

“I’m really sorry.”

Just as I pulled up at SafeHouse a TV station van was pulling away. Inside, there was a loud, crowded meeting being held in the dayroom. I made my way to Edith Rosen’s office where I found her briskly cramming file folders into a floppy shoulder bag.

“Edith, what’s going on?”

She stopped what she was doing. “I’ve been fired.” Then she collapsed into her chair, muttering, “What a morning.”

“What’s going on out there?” I asked, pointing toward the day-room where someone was shouting invective at someone else.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.