Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving Page A

her. And I knew that Carter was a wild man, not crazy enough to be put away in a loony bin, but crazy enough to curse at cops and steal from our house. Still, that didn’t account for Amy wanting to leave him for the rest of her life. He was her dad. And when I saw him with Amy, in her hospital room, he was all over her with kindness. He encouraged her to read, called her his brave little girl.
    “Does Carter ever hit you?”
    “He’s mean,” she said. “I need help. I told you, I have no money. And I don’t know where to go.”
    I made up my mind quickly. It was my reckless streak.
    “I’ll help you,” I said.
    “How?”
    “I have to work that out,” I said.
    “How will you work it out?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Do you have an idea?”
    “I can do it, Amy. There’s a way. Just give me time. I promise I’ll do it. Give me your hand.”
    She put it out and I shook it.
    “A golden handshake,” I said. “That’s a promise I swear to keep.”
    I already had the plan in my mind. It flew in like a swift bird and nested there. I just had to keep it caged there, so it didn’t slip away in the night as so many things do, and study it more before I told Amy about it and then put it to a family vote.
    On a windy late October weekend my dad asked me to come into the den. He sat behind his oak desk, in warm lamplight, facing me across the room as if I were a client in his office. Mozart played at low volume in the background.
    “Here’s the deal, son. You’re eleven years old, and a minor can’t make a binding written contract. Your mother and I can do it for you, but of course, practically and morally, we need your approval. Is that clear?”
    “Clear.”
    He had gone to what he called “the Intellectual Property person” in his law firm. That person advised the setting up of an irrevocable trust, with Iphigenia as one of its two assets and the income from all commercial ventures as the other. The income from the trust would be payable when I started college and each year thereafter until I turned twenty one, at which time I’d receive the principal. My dad would be the unpaid trustee, and he could “invade” the trust, as he put it, only in order to benefit my specific interests.
    “How much money are we talking about, Dad?”
    “The final figure is one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is not too shabby for a day’s work. I confess I did some hard negotiating. And they’ll pay a small residual fee every time the commercial is aired. If they want you to do any more commercials, they pay extra for each one. Those numbers haven’t been settled yet.”
    “Wow.” I hadn’t dreamed it would be that much money. All I’d wanted was to pay for the carpet and the piano repair. I didn’t think those two items could cost anywhere near a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
    “If you agree,” my dad said, “we intend that the income be used to help finance your college education. And we’d like to suggest that any interest or profit on principal that’s left over be put toward Simon’s college. It’s not that we need that money, we just think it would be a brotherly thing to do. A bonding act. You understand?”
    He seemed proud of that last idea. He knew that Simon and I were lacking in the bonding department.
    I said okay to everything. “And you agree that I pay for what happened to the carpet.”
    “No, I’ve thought about that. It wasn’t your fault the dogs got into the house and peed on it.”
    “It wasn’t your fault, either. Why should you get stuck with the bill? The dog should pay for it. But the dog has no money. Neither does the dog’s stupid owner.”
    “Billy, don’t argue.”
    “Dad, that’s not a fair way to end a discussion, when one person says, ‘Don’t argue,’ or ‘That’s it,’ or ‘That’s final.’ Don’t I have the right to spend some of that money in a way that I like? I’m doing the work. I have to have some rights.”
    He sighed. It must