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Apollo returned to the hospital alone. It was dangerously near the end of visiting hours but the nurse at reception took in his flushed face, the sweat running from his forehead, dripping off the tip of his nose and sliding down his neck to spread damply under his collar, and interpreted the numbers on the clock generous. He thanked her, trying not to gasp for breath (although he surely had no dignity left to preserve) and headed to the private recovery wing at a brisk walk that probably looked as ridiculous as outright running would.
The soles of Apollo's shoes squeaked in the lonely hallway. Cheerful signs made with clipart told him to wash his hands, wear a mask if he had a cough, keep his voice down out of consideration for others. In case he was more likely to listen to a poorly-resized cartoon owl than hospital staff.
At the door of Apollo's destination, there was no longer a uniformed police officer sullenly guarding the room's occupant.
Why, Apollo wondered, had he spent so much of his time since being called to the bar in hospitals? It felt like he'd seen the sad-clean walls and smelled the disinfected stale air more times in the past seven months (only seven months, somehow, not a lifetime?) than he had in the rough decade of his LA childhood and adolescence. Hospitals felt like they belonged in the realm of personal injury and medical malpractice specialists or lawyers with slick suits in slicker cars on permanent retainer with insurance companies, not a small (as in office, thanks apparently every out of work comedian in the city) defense attorney without a driver's license living in a one-room walk-up.
(The box of an apartment was temporary. Less apartment than post office box with a hot plate, it had been somewhere to store his clothes and have his mail delivered while his waking hours [and no small measure of his sleeping hours] were spent in the law library, unless he was in class or at Clay's. The plan had been: after a year working at Gavin Law Offices and dedicating his salary to the tea tin under his futon that was his savings account, he and Clay would pool their money for the deposit on a real apartment. Clay, still in school, would be able to move out of his father's house and Apollo could live somewhere with, if not an elevator, then at least stairs he did not regularly put his foot through. The plan -- the dream -- was now little more than the latest resident of his memory graveyard.)
Hospitals also brought to mind the matter of wills, powers of attorney, last minute estate planning decisions on life support or just before surgery. That sort of work was the death-marinated bones of a lawyer's practice in a small community and at twenty-two the idea of that life felt more alien than Clay's dreams of space travel. No one studied law at Ivy University (or anywhere else) thinking of moving back to the country or their small hometown and running the mom-and-pop equivalent of a law practice. You went there as part of a dream to become your true self, a bigger version of past you, someone separate from the past in one way (every way) or another.
Especially if there was nothing to fill in the blank space left after 'moving back to'.
Apollo shook his head and inhaled deeply, fingers digging into the straps of his bag. He held the astringent air in his lungs until he could let it out in controlled silence and walk into the room like a real young professional.
Vera Misham, his latest client (she'd been declared innocent and the trial was over, though, so did that make her an ex-client? former client? when did the relationship end? when he got paid? [would he get paid?]), looked up at his entrance and an embarrassingly loud squeak from his shoes. Her eyes were dark, widening fractionally at his presence (which was likely expressive surprise from her). Her hair was loose, curling around her shoulders. Someone had brought her an extra blanket (ugly, grey-green, much-bleached, hospital issue) and draped it across her shoulders like a shawl. Some of her hair was still caught under it. Maybe by LA standards the October weather was cold or maybe Vera was the sort of person who was always slightly chilled.
Maybe, after nearly dying from severe poisoning, a blanket over the shoulders was as close to comfort as the young woman, alone in the world, could get.
Apollo felt a painful stab of recognition and pushed it reflexively into a mental box with the ease of experience. Closed it. Labeled it.
Do not disturb. Do not open. Warning. Danger.
Fragile.
"Um," said Apollo as Vera continued to look at him. She was silent, barely blinking, a statue by a sculptor who had yet to put the finishing touches of life on her face. "Sorry to bother you again."
Vera reached for a sketchbook at the side of her bed and flipped it open. With impossible speed, her pencil flew across the page before she turned the book to show Apollo a drawing of a smiling face.
Cautiously, Apollo sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair by Vera's bed. "I wanted to see how you were," he said, which was true.
Vera lifted her sketchbook again, indicating the smiling face.
There were flowers by the bed. The flowers he and Trucy had brought (carefully arranged by Trucy with an eye to hide their meager quantity and quality when Apollo had refused to let her pilfer the contents of someone's window box) were prominently displayed. Behind them were tall purple irises with shaggy white eyes, colourful but with an uneven quality and an excess of broken green stems and leaves that suggested less cultivation and more happy accident in a protected corner behind a building. Off to the side was a sleek black vase, almost like a flower itself, holding tall plants that erupted into small, fine feathers of orange and red at the apex. There was even a neat card next to it, dark purple with silver edging and glitter, a signature that was easy to read without opening the card. Did rockstars not default to roses when flowers were required?
"Those are nice," Apollo said, nodding at the flowers. He felt more anxious than the sheltered Vera (barely recovered from poisoning, only just exonerated from patricide) seemed as she followed his gaze.
Reaching to pull the black vase closer, Vera gently touched one of the red flowers. "Paintbrushes," she said in her ghost of a voice with the memory of a smile on her lips.
Apollo supposed he could see the resemblance. If he squinted.
Thoughtful. Poetic. Sincere, not flashy.
"Prosecutor Gavin visited?" Apollo stopped himself before he could ask if Vera was okay; the evidence of his own eyes told him she had survived the encounter.
Vera nodded.
Apollo's eyes flickered to the clock then down to his bag. He did not have the time to drag this out. Hospital staff would start making the rounds soon and remind him to leave. Guilt and embarrassment would work together to prevent him from making a second attempt. "Could I see what you were drawing when I came in?"
There was a moment of hesitation and the faintest colouring in Vera's cheeks before she passed Apollo the drawing she had been absorbed in before his interruption, one of a sheaf of papers spread over the surface of the moveable shelf attached to the bed. It was probably meant for meals but Vera had repurposed it into a drawing desk.
Thick lines laid out a series of rectangles. Rolling hills with sparse trees and a road with visible dust and rocks as it got nearer the camera of the rectangle. On the horizon, past the hills, was the outline of a futuristic cityscape, high twisting towers with satellite flourishes around their smooth rocket shapes. There was detail and care evident even in the small scale of Vera's drawings. In the foreground were two figures; a small horned man (so not exactly a man) wearing a serious expression with the heavy sleeves of his robe pushed back to show one wrist encircled by a heavy metal band and a small woman (or maybe a girl) wearing a wide straw hat and carrying some kind of bladed walking stick (or maybe it was a magic staff, since her feet were clearly not touching the ground [but upon closer inspection, Apollo could see that what he had taken to be traditional sandals had little booster rockets on the soles -- jet sandals -- and he gave up trying to draw any conclusions about the woman-girl)].
"Oh, it's a comic!" Curiosity and enthusiasm sparked in Apollo's breast, even as he tried to keep the purpose of the visit at the forefront of his mind. "That's really cool!"
Vera drew the comic page closer to her, back with the rest of the papers on the pseudo-desk, whether overcome with self-consciousness or protectiveness on behalf of her art Apollo could not tell.
"Do you like comics? Like, Superman or Astro Boy or Dragon B --" Apollo caught himself, his face heating. What did girls like? "Tintin?" Maybe. "Card Captor?" Yes! But not the subject he was supposed to be broaching. Focus, Justice.
Vera shook her head and picked up her pencil again. A fresh sketchbook page. Mr. Wright, complete with slouching hat and stubble. A DVD case. A robot (was it a robot? Trucy would destroy him if she knew of his ignorance) with a topknot and long spear.
"Oh! Mr. Wright'll be happy you watched them. You liked them, huh?"
Vera nodded, hugging the sketchbook to her chest.
Well, it was none of Apollo's business what his client/ex-client enjoyed or how she enjoyed it. Vera enjoying anything was a victory for her (and, in this specific instance, he would grudgingly allow, also a win for Mr. Wright).
"Your comic -- drawing -- thing." Someday, Apollo would have a client who was not a traumatized or oblivious minor (or Mr. Wright) and he hoped when that impossible day arrived, he sounded less like a last minute replacement in a freshman debate club (he'd even settle for not tripping over basic word choice). "It's really good. Different from the --" Don't say evidence! "-- paintings I saw. Or, um, the other things you've made." His tongue felt thicker as he got closer to the purpose of his visit, roundabout though the path was, his lips stiff and inflexible around the words.
Vera's steady gaze gave no indication that she was picking up the hints that Apollo was dropping without finesse.
"The forgeries." Apollo chewed at his lower lip. The numbness was all in his head. "You know there's probably going to be some trouble about the other ones, right? Not like the trial just now!" he was quick to add. "Just, there might be an investigation, um, or some charges or -- I don't know. It depends on the stuff you did for your dad. Has anyone talked to you about that?" It was possible, although not likely, that Vera was already under arrest again. The police guard was gone, but a different level of policing would not be unexpected when comparing murder charges with Vera's white collar crimes; he found it hard to believe there was pressure to grind the gears of the less deadly areas of the judicial system with the speed and turnover given to the cases he'd dealt with personally, but the gaps between his legal education and the actual legal world had been surprising him even before he'd abruptly been no-longer-employed at Gavin Law Offices.
Apollo gave Vera a minute to consider the question, but he was still surprised when she began to nod.
"The police?"
Vera shook her head and reached not for her pencil but among the flowers on the bedside table. She passed Apollo the purple and silver card, a bit of glitter sticking to one fingernail.
Operating on automatic, Apollo opened Prosecutor Gavin's card. The handwriting was neat and uniform, not unlike Mr. Gavin's familiar hand. The younger exerted more pressure on his pen (standard office ballpoint, friendly blue) versus the elder's light and hair-thin script (fountain pen, ultimatum black).
From one artist to another. May your recovery be full and swift. It would be my pleasure and duty to help you with any future legal difficulties, pro bono. Klavier.
Gently, Apollo closed the card and handed it back to Vera. Conflicted emotions churned in his stomach; faint jealousy that Prosecutor Gavin had been thinking ahead, relief there was no legal need of Vera's that he might be tempted to pull at, anger at himself for the relief being present at all.
If Apollo could not live a life of complete truth and openness, at least he could strive to stay clear of some examples set by his erstwhile mentor.
As vulnerable as that might leave his own position.
"That's great. If any problems come up, I know he'll be able to help you. He's a trustworthy guy." Glitter stuck to Apollo's fingertips where he had handled the card and to his sweaty palms. He resisted the urge to wipe his hands on the seam of his pants or touch his face. "So. You can make perfect copies of pretty much anything?"
Vera nodded, her eyes fixed on Apollo's.
"Not just paintings but documents -- I mean, obviously, that's what the whole thing with the journal page was -- real documents, though, like, government documents? Like birth certificates?" Apollo rubbed the back of his neck. In his lap, the weight of the bag felt like it would crush his legs.
Vera nodded again. Her eyes were a brown so dark it was difficult to distinguish pupil from iris. She didn't frown. She said, "ID?" so quietly it could have been a trick of Apollo's ears.
"Or stuff like that," Apollo said. He tried to sound nonchalant and knew he didn't. He wondered what sheltered Vera's point of reference was. It didn't seem likely that she'd ever been asked to make fake IDs for teens to get into bars or buy beer but beyond that, Apollo couldn't think of any reasons to forge government documents. Identity theft seemed like a strictly solo operation.
Were situations like Apollo's identity theft or just a kind of in-between crime, existing in a country without truly existing? Maybe it wasn't even really a crime, until it was given under oath. His bracelet felt hot on his wrist, like he'd been out in the sun for too long. His skin chafed beneath it, itchy, sweaty, sore.
Vera stared at Apollo, silent, waiting.
Falsifying government documents was no in-between crime.
(In-between crime wasn't a thing. That was some kind of legal fairy tale you told to yourself when you started finding ways to follow to the letter of the law while desecrating the spirit.)
Apollo put his fingers on the clasp of his bag.
The Steel Samurai inspired comic page Vera had been fully absorbed in creating was upside down but still eye-catching. Dynamic. Detailed. Beautiful. The girl-woman on the page was floating at least a foot off the ground, creating the illusion that she was taller than her companion. She looked like Trucy.
The flowers by Vera's bed caught the rays of the lowering sun. A nurse probably should have been there ten minutes ago to tell him visiting hours were over. The red and orange of the paintbrush flowers looked like glowing flames. The shadows in the folds of the irises were deeper. In the mix of flowers Apollo and Trucy had brought, a yellow carnation was already starting to wrinkle and brown at the edges. A drooping daisy had lost two petals. The orchid, a startling blue not-quite at the centre of the bouquet, was still pristine.
Because, Apollo realized, it was artificial, snuck in by Trucy to further bolster the flowers he had bought (after silent, grim mental budgeting and staring at florist displays, lost in his own thoughts and fears made heavier and more palpable by the simple act of pulling out his wallet). There were others: something pink and fluffy that might have had no relation to any known flower, a spotted orange lily, and a curling novelty straw with a cartoon frog.
The frog had a little beret and paintbrush.
How had he not noticed?
It wasn't even a flower.
It was a perfectly Trucy touch.
Had Vera noticed? She was an artist with an uncanny attention to detail. How could she not have noticed there was a plastic anthropomorphic frog nesting in a bouquet of flowers, nearly at eyelevel? She hadn't removed it, though, or any of the fake flowers. Or the drooping flowers, for that matter.
If there were any legal snags for Vera's post-forgery life, Prosecutor Gavin would help her with them. Of that, Apollo had no doubt. Perhaps there would be none to be dealt with; she'd been a minor. She wasn't now, of course. What kind of man would ask her to endanger herself when she had an opportunity for a clean break, because of his own fears and the mistakes of his own past?
Not, it seemed, Apollo Justice. The realization was a surprise. He appreciated the personal revelation, but it would have been nice to have it before the sweaty bike ride from the office to the hospital.
Apollo got up, smoothing sweat-dampened hair back away from his face. He slung his bag over his shoulder and mustered up a firm smile for Vera. "Sorry. Just stray lawyer thoughts. We can't stop picking at things, even when we're off the clock. I better go before I get you in trouble with a nurse or something."
Vera's head tilted to the side by a sliver of an angle.
"You should show that comic thing to Trucy and Mr. Wright. I bet they'd like it."
Swiftly, Apollo made his way out of the hospital to where he'd left his bike. The churning anxiety within him had already subsided to a ripple. Hopefully, by the time he got home and had shoved the contents of his bag to the back and bottom of his dresser once again, it would fade to nonexistence, safe, boxed away, and thought about as much as the blood running through his veins.
Another layer of lies wasn't going to fix anything, no matter how pretty and professional they looked.