Trace Of Innocence. Erica Orloff
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back against a pool table, grabbed a glass and threw it at my face. It missed and shattered to the floor. Next thing I knew, a striped pool ball barely missed my forehead. Chairs were overturned, more glasses broke, and I decided I’d had enough.
I looked around at the escalating fight and knew Tank was the key to it. Whenever the biggest, burliest, nastiest Murphy went down, the other brothers usually fell in line. Blood poured from Tank’s nose, but still he charged like a bull. I took the pool cue as he came at me and instead of swinging at his ribs, I lowered the cue and brought it up, with all my might, between his legs. He immediately collapsed as I connected with my intended pair of targets.
Slowly, surely, the brawl died down from there. The Murphy brothers were bounced out the door by Tony’s three sons—one a muscle-bound bodybuilder the width of my Cadillac. The pub was a mess, but it was no showplace to begin with.
Lewis surveyed the wreckage. “Do y’all know how to throw a party without it ending up like the O.K. Corral?”
“It’s an old feud.”
“Feud? I’d say it’s World War III.”
“Come on.” I kissed my father goodbye and gingerly climbed over the broken glass and chairs, making my way with Lewis outside. When we got out on the sidewalk and started walking to our car, I said, “My brother, Mikey, fell in love with the youngest Murphy sister. They’ve been living together for a year now.”
“Isn’t your brother in prison at the moment?”
“Yeah. He gets out next month. But Marybeth and my brother are still sickeningly in love. Anyway, there’s bad blood with the Murphys. Always has been. My father and old man Murphy used to fight it out over bookmaking territory. And the brothers are really not nice guys. I take it one of them hit a girl tonight. But really, it’s old stuff—mostly having to do with Dad.”
“Your father was involved in illegal activity?” Lewis asked with mock horror.
I punched him in the arm. “Go back to the South, you ass.”
“So these Murphys, they just show up and start brawls?”
“Pretty much.”
“You’re quite handy with that pool cue.”
“Practice. My father and brother have been hustling pool my whole life. Sometimes people don’t take too kindly to losing.”
“I was so close to beating him tonight.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“But I was!”
“Lewis, you’ve improved, but Minnesota Fats doesn’t have to worry.”
We turned a corner, and I immediately stopped in my tracks and put my arm out to halt Lewis, too.
“Wish I’d brought that pool cue,” I muttered. Because there, sitting on the hood of my land tank, was the biggest, most hulking man I’d ever seen in my life. And he was clearly waiting for us.
Chapter 2
“Can I help you?” I asked warily.
The man slid off my hood and stood on the sidewalk, thrusting out his hand, which was the size of a baseball mitt. “Joe Franklin,” he said, smiling.
I didn’t take his hand. “What do you want?”
“A minute of both of your time.”
I turned to look at Lewis, but he had broken out in a huge grin. “Joe Franklin! My God, but I once made a thousand bucks off of you.” He walked to the man and shook his hand.
“You two know each other?” I asked.
“No,” said Lewis. “Never met. But this is Joe Franklin from the New Orleans Saints. Center. Retired. Blew his knee out, home game against Tampa Bay Bucs.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. I was completely confused, but then again, this was Lewis we were talking about. He invites confusion with the wily way he talks sometimes.
Joe Franklin smiled. He had the slightest of gaps between his two front teeth, which gleamed like a toothpaste-commercial smile. “We had a few losing seasons when I was with the Saints. You must have bet against the home team.”
“Naw, not me. I bet the over-under. I would never bet against the Saints. And you were the greatest center in the NFL at the time.”
“Thanks. Nice to be remembered. Well, listen, Mr. LeBarge—”
“Lewis.”
“Well, Lewis…Ms. Quinn—”
“How do you know my name?” I asked suspiciously.
“I’m the founder, with my partner, C.C., of the Justice Foundation.”
Now it all made sense to me. The Justice Foundation was a nonprofit group dedicated to freeing innocent prisoners through the use of DNA evidence.
“I’d like,” he said, “to buy you both a drink and see if maybe you might see it in your hearts to help us.”
I rolled my eyes. Where I come from, we know that if you’re in prison, even if the charge is made-up, chances are you belong there anyway. The guy they originally thought killed my mother was freed when he came up with an alibi. But he was arrested not six months after his release for strangling his stepdaughter.
“I don’t know.” I hesitated.
“Well, I could always use a drink,” Lewis said. “If you promise to regale me with the story of the time y’all beat the Bucs with that Hail Mary pass, I could at least listen to what you have to say.”
“Deal,” said Joe, flashing his megawatt smile. “Margaritas sound okay?”
Lewis nodded. “Man after my own heart. I like a nice tequila myself. Also like a smooth bourbon.”
“He hasn’t met a liquor he doesn’t like,” I muttered. Then I shrugged and sighed, but fell into step with Lewis and Joe. As we walked, I noticed that the massive man next to me was wearing loafers that had easily set him back a grand, and his pants had the crisp cut of an Italian designer. His leather jacket—which had to have been custom-made, given his ex-NFL build—looked butter soft.
“You went to law school after the NFL, right?” Lewis asked.
Joe nodded. “Blew my knee out, but they still had to honor the rest of my contract. I had invested wisely over the five years I played. Owned my place outright, owned my car. Didn’t buy into the flash—except maybe for my clothes.” He grinned, running his hands down the lapel of his jacket. “I drove a nice Mercedes sedan, not a souped-up sports car. I was set for life, as far as I was concerned. Invested in real estate, some solid stocks. My mama taught me very well. ‘Don’t be a flash in the pan, son,’ she used to say. I was restless in retirement. She’d always instilled in me a love of reading and education so I decided to go to law school. After a couple of years with a blue-chip firm, I started my own private practice. I represent a lot of my old NFL buddies. Making almost as much as when I was with the league. But I started the Foundation because I felt that there were too many young African-American men in prison and that DNA might help get some of the innocent ones out. Since then, we’ve freed men of all colors and backgrounds.”
I pulled my jacket tighter around me as a brisk wind whipped down between the tall apartment buildings. The sign for Coyote Canyon was lit in neon, with a giant green cactus sign jutting out over the door. The place used to be a hole-in-the-wall, before Hoboken became a trendy place to live back two decades or so ago. Yuppies started renting anything and everything they could find, hence Coyote Canyon became popular with the suit-and-tie crowd fresh off the commuter trains that hurtled beneath the river to Manhattan.
When we walked in, the hostess recognized Joe and pointed to a table where a woman sat waiting for us. We maneuvered around the women in Manhattan stylish clothes and the