The Client

Reggie Love is a supporting character in The Client. She is the defense attorney hired by Mark to help him and his family navigate the challenging position of being cornered by the mob and FBI. The title of the novel itself indicates Reggie’s close proximity to the heart of the book: while Mark is the titular character and protagonist, he is the client of Reggie and her law practice. Reggie is a woman in her fifties with short grey hair who insists on everybody calling her by her first name. She typically takes on child abuse and neglect cases but agrees to help Mark in his peculiar case because she identifies that he is a scared child in dire need of help. She only charges Mark a $1 dollar retainer so that his family can afford her expert defense.

Reggie herself comes from a traumatic background. Previously married to a rich doctor, she caught her husband cheating on her with a younger woman. Her husband dragged Reggie through an expensive public divorce that cost Reggie custody of her children and her mental health. Driven to suicidal thoughts by her experience, she was institutionalized several times. She also developed addictions to drugs and alcohol as a result of losing her children. While her divorce caused her to drop out of law school, she returned with a vengeance after going to rehab and has since devoted her life to using her expertise to help broken families and traumatized children.

Her personal background and experience with broken families informs Reggie’s interest in Mark’s case. Reggie is indeed critical to Mark’s success in the novel. She not only provides his legal defense, but also helps Mark feel nurtured and supported in ways he has perhaps never experienced before. For instance, taking Mark to her mother, Mama Love, giving him a wide spread of homemade food, and letting him sleep in a large, cozy house are luxuries beyond Mark’s typical lifestyle. She also provides emotional support to Mark, properly treating him as a child (as opposed to Mark’s relationship with his mother, where he is treated as if he were an adult). Immense trust grows between Mark and Reggie as a result. While Mark has successfully escaped the grips of both the mob and FBI, his success essentially comes at the cost of losing his second “mother,” as he must leave her behind in Memphis.

Barry “the Blade” Muldanno is the primary antagonist of The Client. A prominent member of the New Orleans mob family, he murdered Senator Boyette, who threatened to halt Barry’s illegal toxic waste site he kept secret in the Louisiana swamplands. He hid Boyette’s body on the property of his attorney, Jerome Clifford. Barry’s actions caused Romey to kill himself in front of the Sway boys, thus triggering the events of the novel.

Barry is an anxious man whose paranoia increases over the course of the novel. He is concerned that Boyette’s body will be discovered. Without a body, his conviction for the murder is almost impossible. As a result, he is willing to do anything to keep the body hidden. He has Mark tracked and considers killing the boy; he even plans to murder Reggie once she becomes connected to Mark. While ruthless, he is also reckless and impulsive. His mob family boss, Johnny Sulari, routinely insults Barry for making stupid decisions that put the mob in danger of being targeted by the government.

A prideful man, Barry’s state of mind is reflected in his appearance. At the beginning of the novel, he is described as flashy—though, not gaudy—dresser, who loves attention. As the novel progresses and Barry grows increasingly trapped by his actions, both his state of mind and appearance begin to deteriorate. In one of his last scenes where he meets with Johnny Sulari for help in moving Senator Boyette’s body, all of his elaborate visual trappings are stripped away. He no longer wears his earrings, his expensive clothing, or his intimidating expression. This state of distress and dishevelment stands in stark contrast to his introduction and represents his decline through the novel. The Client ends before the conclusion of the Muldanno trial; indeed, readers do not even know if Muldanno will be successfully arrested for the murder of Boyette by the end of the book. The conclusion to Muldanno’s character arc is thus left ambiguous.

The Honorable Roy J. Foltrigg is the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Louisiana. He is a secondary antagonist in the novel. Foltrigg works in New Orleans, sharing the city with Muldanno and his mob family. He is nicknamed “the Reverend” for his oratory skills and tendency to give long, didactic speeches to the press. He finds out about Mark when Romey’s suicide site is investigated, and it is discovered that a boy was in the car with the mob lawyer. Foltrigg suspects Mark knows the location of Senator Boyette’s body, which is the coveted piece of information the US Attorney feels will secure the conviction of Muldanno. While Mark wants to stay silent and not reveal the information to keep his family safe, Foltrigg wants to force Mark to talk to win the conviction of Muldanno. Foltrigg can thus be considered another antagonist of the novel, agitating Mark’s life and causing him significant difficulty in his overall mission to keep his family safe.

Foltrigg is not motivated purely by justice. He wants to convict Muldanno because he believes it will skyrocket his career from US Attorney to Senator in the future. At one point, Foltrigg is described as a “pious US Attorney with obnoxious political aspirations and a thunderous opinion about everything. He had his very own press agent” (28). In this way, he is a foil to Reggie Love’s character, who rejects notions of fame and superiority. Whereas Reggie insists on being called by her first name instead of a title of “attorney” or “counselor,” Foltrigg consistently flexes his title of United States Attorney for the Southern District of Louisiana. Further, Reggie refuses to advertise in the Yellow Pages and avoids press, whereas Foltrigg has his own press room in his office and constantly chases headlines. Reggie is unconcerned with profit and takes Mark’s case for merely $1. By contrast, Foltrigg is intent on convicting Muldanno purely for career gain. Reggie and Foltrigg’s oppositional characterizations—in addition to Foltrigg’s position as an antagonist, despite his position as a US Attorney—inform The Client’s theme exploring who truly fights for justice. Foltrigg’s character encourages readers to think critically on the American government and the nation’s criminal justice system at large.

Eight-year-old Ricky is Mark’s younger brother. He is with Mark in Chapter 1 when Romey dies by suicide in the woods. He is naïve and looks up to Mark not only as a brother but as a father figure. He lacks Mark’s strong survival instinct and is more prone to letting fear get to him. The experience of seeing his older brother assaulted by Romey, on top of seeing the lawyer shoot himself, traumatizes the young Ricky so thoroughly that he is in a catatonic state through most of the novel. At one point he does get well enough to begin speaking, but he devolves back into his catatonic episode once he sees Mark taken into custody of the Juvenile Court for his own protection.

Even though Ricky is a static character as a result of his withdrawn, silent state, he is still an important factor in the course of the novel’s events. Ricky’s safety is at the forefront of Mark’s mind constantly, and the image of Ricky laying in the hospital haunts Mark and drives him to do whatever is in his power to protect his family from the mob. Ricky’s state is also a primary concern of Dianne throughout the novel. It is only when the government assures her that Ricky has a place in a quality children’s hospital that she agrees to the witness protection deal. Ricky thus drives many of The Client’s main plot points, even though he himself is not making the decisions.

Dianne Sway is the mother to Mark and Ricky Sway. Her ex-husband was verbally and physically abusive, and she endured a very traumatic marriage before finally divorcing him after a violent confrontation where he hit her and stripped her naked and Mark came to her rescue, hitting his father with a baseball bat. Since then, she and Mark have been very close. However, she treats her oldest son more like an adult than a child, confiding in him and regularly asking him for advice. As a result, even though she and Mark have a close relationship, it is hardly a typical mother-son relationship.

Dianne works hard and long hours to provide for her boys. She is rarely home, meaning that while she loves her children deeply, she is largely absent from their lives. Her long hours make her incapable of providing the parental guidance Mark and Ricky need. When her boys have their traumatic encounter in the woods and Ricky slips into a catatonic state because of his post-traumatic stress, Dianne is forced to leave work behind and is more present in her boys’ lives than she ever has been before. Even still, Mark is more of an adult in their relationship than Dianne. Dianne follows Mark’s lead and trusts Reggie as their attorney. Mark counsels Dianne on how to handle the insurance claim when the mob burns their trailer down. Indeed, it is Mark who is burdened with strategizing a way to deal with the FBI, finding Boyette’s body, and negotiating the best deal possible for his family’s safety. In the final chapters, Dianne merely follows Mark’s lead and agrees to the witness protection deal once she realizes it is the only safe option.

The Honorable Harry Roosevelt is the judge of the Shelby County Juvenile Court in Memphis, Tennessee. He has been the Shelby County Juvenile judge for 22 years and enjoys his work, even though it is not the best paid or flashiest position for a judge to work in. Harry takes his work with troubled children very seriously, as he had his own difficult childhood characterized by poverty and hunger. Judge Roosevelt has a tough reputation in Memphis as a firm judge who prioritizes justice. He does not hesitate to lend out firm sentences to those who deserve it. He is good friends with Reggie Love because Reggie’s cases are frequently tried in Judge Roosevelt’s court. Roosevelt enters The Client in Part 2 of the novel and ends up as the judge who presides over Foltrigg’s petition attempting to compel Mark to reveal what he knows in relation to the Muldanno case.

Foltrigg’s team expects it to be easy to meld Judge Roosevelt to the federal government’s wishes, but they are met with a commanding presence in the courtroom. Judge Roosevelt refuses to suffer the fool that is Foltrigg, and he regularly confronts Foltrigg’s attempts to exploit his privileged title of US Attorney. In his opposition to Foltrigg, Roosevelt is the only member of the legal system in the novel who aligns with Reggie’s genuine quest for justice in The Client. Both characters reject the trappings of fame, publicity, and profit to protect children using their legal expertise. Even though Judge Roosevelt does hold Mark in contempt for Mark’s refusal to reveal what he knows, Roosevelt is indeed on Mark’s side and only jails him because he believes it is the only way to protect the boy from Muldanno. Judge Roosevelt does not like to keep Mark in his custody, but he believes it is the only way to keep the boy safe and considers this his foremost responsibility as a Juvenile Court judge.

Jerome “Romey” Clifford is the defense attorney for Barry Muldanno. Romey was a mob lawyer for 15 years, and he was friends with Muldanno before the mobster murdered Senator Boyette. He was known for being corrupt, regularly bribing jurors, police, and judges to win cases. After Boyette’s murder and upon learning that Muldanno hid the Senator’s body on Romey’s property, Romey changed. He became anxious, distant, and was always drinking alcohol. Feeling trapped by his business with the mob and his links to Senator Boyette’s murder, Romey drives to Memphis—his city of birth—to die by al.

Before Romey kills himself, he tells Mark the location of the Senator’s body, making the choice to pass along the highly desired knowledge to someone before he dies. Though he kills himself at the end of the first chapter, Romey’s actions catapult the plot forward. His decision to kill himself in Memphis and tell Mark the body’s location brings the FBI and the mob’s conflict to a head in Tennessee, with Mark in the middle of the battle. Romey thus initiates the intersection between all of these previously unrelated characters. As a result, even though he is only in one chapter, Romey can be considered a major player in The Client.