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hard and become a competent
lawyer or doctor or businessman; such success is the stuff of hard work, not
the stuff of God-given genius. Football success also requires hard work; but
no matter how hard you work, if you're not big, strong, and fast you will fail
as a football player.
    Hard
work won't make you six-five, two-thirty-five, and fast.
    Frank
Tucker's life was not wrapped up in a leather ball. Or in his son's football
heroics. He did not need his son to resolve his father's football failures.
Or to make his father's dreams come true. But, like other men, he watched
great athletes and wondered what it felt like to hit a home run to win the
World Series or score a touchdown to win the Super Bowl or hit a four-iron
stiff to win the Open. Few humans will ever experience that feeling. And
those who will cannot explain it to those who won't. Consequently, Frank stood
among a dozen other fathers, and like them, he watched his twelve-year-old son
running down the field and wondered what it felt like to be William Tucker.
    William
Tucker felt like that lion in the film they had watched in natural science
class. The lion had stalked an antelope then chased it across the African
savannah, pounced on it, bit into its neck, and then ripped it apart. It was
gross, sure, but it was exciting to see that lion let the beast out. Did the
lion think about what it was doing? No. It was just doing what came
naturally. He had watched the film and thought, That's me. That's what I
do on a football field. What comes naturally . On the field, he let the
beast out. And it felt good. Really. Really. Really. Good.
    "Frank,
I've got another client for you."
    The
game had ended, and Brian Anderson had walked up. He was an IPO lawyer in a
large Houston corporate firm. Three years before, when the dot-com bubble had
burst, the Feds had brought securities fraud cases against insiders who had
cashed out their stock before the crash. When the market goes up and investors
get rich on paper profits, everyone's happy and the economy hums along; when
the market goes down and investors' profits become losses, they are unhappy and
the economy stumbles. In order to distract the people, the government puts
people in prison. Brian referred his clients to Frank. They had been indicted
on technicalities in the securities laws, traps for the unwary or politically
unconnected. They were twenty-something whiz kids who had dreamt up the next
big thing; they became political sacrifices in a capitalist society like pagans
sacrificing lambs to the sun god. After a three-week trial, the jury acquitted
them.
    "Who?"
    "CEO.
Dumped his shares right before a bad quarterly report."
    "That's
called insider trading."
    "Not
if he was a member of Congress."
    Congress
routinely exempted itself from the laws it imposes on the citizens, much as the
ruling parties in Russia and China do. Consequently, the five hundred
thirty-five members of Congress could freely and legally trade stocks on inside
information whereas the other three hundred million Americans could not. Frank
disagreed with the law, but it was still the law.
    "Is
he guilty?"
    Brian
shrugged. "He can pay."
    "Sorry,
Brian."
    Brian
turned his palms up and laughed. "My God, how do you make any money, not
representing guilty people?"
    Criminal
defense lawyers must make their peace with one harsh fact of life: most of
their clients are guilty. They will devote their professional careers not to
defending the innocent but instead the guilty: rapists, murderers,
gangbangers, drug dealers, conmen, scammers, fraud artists, embezzlers,
thieves, cheats, and liars.
    Frank
Tucker had never made his peace. He only defended the innocent. In Texas,
there was no shortage of clients, of innocent defendants wrongfully accused by
overzealous or misguided or politically ambitious prosecutors. Many such
defendants now resided in the state penitentiary. Unless they were defended by
Frank Tucker. He had never lost a case.
    Of
course, he had no