Failed State

by Christopher Brown

  “I’m sorry, Donny,” said Thelen. “I remember you telling me about your collection. But we deal with more liquid assets. I have an idea.”

  Thelen leaned forward.

  “You have this real estate you own out in Plano, right?” he said.

  “Oh, man,” said Donny. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “Let me remind you who is fucking who in this particular situation, Donny. That’s you, the guy who hasn’t made his payments, mistreating my boss and my company, who were generous enough to set you up in a tough situation even though they knew you were a high credit risk, relying on your good word. Which has now run out.”

  Donny remembered a takedown Joyce once riffed on the debtor economy and the whole idea of the time value of money. Then he remembered what she said when he got her free with the loan that was now past due.

  “Thelen, that’s my grandma’s house,” said Donny. “She’s retired. With nowhere else to go.”

  “We understand that, Donny. But she won’t need to go anywhere, right? Because you are going to make this all happen.”

  “What are you proposing, exactly?”

  “You are going to give us the property in escrow. You deliver by the end of next week, we’re all set, all is forgiven. She won’t even need to know. You screw up, it’s ours, we sell it to cover what you owe us, and Grandma can come stay with you in that sweet apartment I heard you have in Houston.”

  “That house is worth a lot more than what I owe.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a premium for this kind of risk. Come on, Donny. Buzz here is also one of our paralegals, and he has the papers for you to sign.”

  Donny turned to look at the bodyguard, who had the tablet and stylus out. He could tell it wasn’t an option, even before he let Donny see the gun.

  10

  Looking back on it, Donny wished he had known at the time he bought Joyce’s freedom that in just a few months the country would break out in revolution, and all the political prisoners would be freed. He also wondered if it would have made any difference in the decisions he made.

  It wasn’t the first time he had sprung Joyce from jail. It was the third, not counting the time they both got picked up together for driving while high, back before the coup. But it was definitely the most expensive.

  That he was able to buy her freedom revealed just how corrupt the administration was in the later years. Corrupt in many layers, like some kind of rotting meat pie, every official focused on using their office to their own personal benefit. It was a sign of the imminent end, he now realized. But at the time, he took it as a sign of permanence. The natural endpoint of a society founded on appetite, self-interest, money, and mirrors.

  It wasn’t Donny’s responsibility to obtain Joyce’s freedom. She was in a mess of her own making, the radical academic turned public agitator turned expat talking head, on TV and in her open letters from abroad, pushing for regime change and a radical reinvention of the American model. But somehow, he felt like it was his fault. That if he hadn’t bailed on her when they were supposed to leave the country together the day of the coup, she would never have been picked up the first time, and would have taken a different path after she crossed the border. They could have forgotten it all, in a permanent buzz on some Mexican beach. But Donny got the idea in his head that he needed to stay in Texas, and fight the power. A decidedly quixotic path that had its wins, as long as you radically recalibrated your victory conditions.

  His old client Ward Walker was the one who hooked him up with the loan. That was the easy part, at least if you had Donny’s gift for willfully ignoring the future. He was on his own when it came to finding a public official to help, though a few friends pointed him in the right direction.

  He had to go to Washington to seal the deal, carrying all that cash in his briefcase, five times the amount of cash it was legal to carry. Not just to Washington, but all the way to the Capitol Building, where his contact arranged the meet-up. He wasn’t even an executive branch official. He was a fucking Senate staffer. Wesley O’Brien, deputy staff director of the Committee on Motherland Affairs, working for Senator Grinsley, the guy from Georgia who had been a big opponent of the president in his first term and then switched parties when he saw the writing on the wall.

  O’Brien had Donny wait for him there in Statuary Hall next to the marble likeness of Vice President Tower, watching the pols give their stand-ups. About five minutes after he was supposed to show up, he called Donny from a secure line and gave him an address on New Jersey Ave., S.E. That turned out to be seven blocks away, a townhouse on the House side that belonged to an outfit called the Foundation for American Freedom. A lobbying shop, which was really just a back door for the collection of political contributions, most of which you could smell were bribes like the one Donny came to pay.

  In person, O’Brien looked the part: extra-white version of a white guy, mid-thirties, bit of a baby face, kind of a dorky jacket-and-chinos combo, necktie striped with the colors of a regiment he had never been in. A hall runner who had found his way to the most lucrative hall there was to run.

  They called him “The Bundler.” The deal was, he only kept 20 percent. The rest went to others in the chain of custody, as it were. People whose names Donny didn’t need to know. He even gave Donny a receipt, for the 10 percent portion that was allocated to the campaign fund. A surprise that annoyed Donny more than anything because he would show up on the public list of contributors. That, and the realization that federal detention had now become little more than a high-dollar kidnapping racket run by well-educated goons with nice suits and maybe even MBAs.

  Where do I get my money back if you don’t deliver, asked Donny, as they sat there in O’Brien’s little office with a view of the freeway. There was a picture on the wall behind O’Brien, of the General and the President laughing together on the golf course, like a still from a commercial, or a freeze-frame from the end of a heist movie where they celebrate what they just got away with.

  No refunds, said O’Brien. But you don’t need to worry.

  Donny considered power-vomiting on the guy there in his office. He definitely had it in him at the moment. The photo was bad enough, before he smelled the cologne. But he didn’t do it. He didn’t even lay any snark.

  The worst thing was, he didn’t even find out they had released her five days later until he heard it from friends. She was on a plane to Managua before he even figured out how to reach her. And that’s why she didn’t even know that he was the one who hooked it up.

  But he knew that was how it was meant to be.

  Even still, when the revolution came, he made sure to tell his insurgent clients about the Foundation for American Freedom.

  Slider was the one who collected the refund from O’Brien, but he spent the money on other things they needed at the time.

  11

  Thelen’s visit should have helped Donny focus, but it mostly had the opposite effect.

  After Thelen left, the first thing Donny did was try to tally up his available assets. He had less than twelve grand in cash on hand, most of that fees recently collected from clients and deposited in his business account. More pathetic was that he only had another seventeen in his 401(k). At one point it had been close to four times that, when he’d had a nice chunk of the fee on a case he shared with Miles and Percy, but it only took a few months before Donny started dipping into it. That some of the dipping was to advance loans to clients did not persuade the IRS auditors that Donny should be released from the excise tax, especially since loaning money to clients was also against the rules—and since they figured out that Donny had spent three grand of the money on clothes. “Business attire.” Including the suit he had worn to court that morning, and was still wearing, a suit that had started to fray, just like the suits it had replaced a few years earlier. It might have been a good investment if it had helped him make money. But the time and effort he had invested in his caseload was proving to be the worst investment of all,
judging from his balance sheet, and the dismissal that morning of the one case into which he had sunk it all.

  Donny had one car back home, but it wasn’t his to sell. It was the vintage Lincoln Town Car Miles had bequeathed him, which Miles had inherited from his dad. Everything else he rented or borrowed, including his apartment and his offices. He had his books, but they weren’t worth much to anyone but him.

  What he did have was the bling. Most of the watches and jewelry were in Houston, but he had a decent stash right there in the locked cabinet in his office.

  He opened the cabinet. There wasn’t as much as he thought, and he already knew what the pawnshops were willing to pay.

  There was no choice: he would have to lawyer his way out of this one.

  He dug back into his case files on Harrison II, looking for alternate plaintiffs. He had begun a list of possibles months earlier, mostly compiled from the message boards where the families shared information. So he sat down and made a new list of missing persons on those lists who had Texas residences associated with their names, until he had a dozen names. Then he looked for the names and contact information of family members. The message boards operated by the detention survivors networks were good for that, because the bereaved usually left complete details on where they could be reached with information about their missing kid, sibling, partner, or parent. When he was done with that, Donny had two phone numbers, three messaging handles, and one mailing address.

  He drafted a letter on firm letterhead, explaining the case and why he was contacting them, and then sent tailored versions out to each of the four, three electronically and one in an envelope he would drop at the courier in the morning. He looked at the clock on the wall. Then he dialed the first of the numbers anyway. He didn’t have time to worry about the time.

  The first number went to voicemail. He left a message. A long message.

  The second number, he got an answer.

  “Hello,” said a man’s voice.

  “Is this Mario Walsh?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “My name is Donald Kimoe. I’m a lawyer, investigating the case of Clarissa Walsh.”

  “Clarissa is gone. Please leave us alone.”

  “I understand, Mr. Walsh. Clarissa and a lot of other people. That’s why I sued AMR, and all their execs, to prove what they did, what really happened on the farms. And I think I have them by the balls. Now I just need the people who were most affected to help me make the case.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Kimoe. Donald Kimoe.”

  “You’re calling me at eleven at night so you can make a buck off the death of my daughter, you fucking shyster? I remember you now. I just looked you up. You’re the one who used to be on TV all the time, helping out the idiots who got us into this mess. Led my daughter and a lot of other kids down the Yellow Brick Road to nowhere.”

  “I’m trying to get justice, Mr. Walsh.”

  “Go fuck yourself, you parasite. Justice is what will happen if I ever meet one of those bastards on a dark street or an empty road. And maybe what will happen after I report your sleazy ass to the state bar.”

  “Mr. Walsh, please, let me just—”

  Click.

  As Donny looked at the phone, wondering if it felt as dirty as he did, he considered trying to recall the other messages he had sent. He tried to convince himself he really was doing the right thing, and one of them would understand. Maybe he could even get Mario Walsh to reconsider.

  Instead, he found himself reconsidering a lot of his own choices, aided by what was left in the bottle of cheap mezcal he found in the drawer. It tasted like Clorox for the brain, but felt better than that sounds.

  He was already on the waiting-room couch by the time he got to the worm, and when he finished swallowing it, he lay back and tried to forget his worries. Instead, they rushed him, all at once, at the edge of sleep, the ghosts of the dead and the ghosts of the living.

  When he finally started to get some ideas about how to solve his problems, he nodded off.

  He dreamed about raccoons in suits. When the raccoons started talking, Donny realized they were in court. And they were arguing against him. When he got up to object, he woke up.

  It was still dark in the office, the room pulsing with the glow of Donny’s screen saver in the next room. Five after midnight, but he was wide-awake.

  He realized that in the dream, the courtroom the raccoons were in was the one in New Orleans. A real courthouse Donny had been in, back when it housed the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and that now was used for the truth and reconciliation tribunals they called the Tributary. The main difference, other than the talking raccoons, was that in the dream the courtroom looked like the one in the old Perry Mason TV show, complete with the gallery full of 1950s Americans in black and white. But the case they were arguing was a real one. It was Heather’s case.

  He got up, made some fresh coffee, and looked the case up.

  It was too late to call when the idea really took root and he got the nerve to try it, even though he knew it was probably a bad idea, the kind of idea that a brain in a corner comes up with in a reckless effort to save itself. So he sent a message instead, to an old friend who was a different sort of victim from the ones he had been calling earlier.

  To his surprise, he got an answer, just as he was getting ready to lie back down.

  Can u talk now?

  12

  When he heard the voice, he realized how long it had been since he last heard it.

  “Lou?”

  “Hello, Donny.”

  In the long pause that followed, Donny remembered the rest of the story. Not all of it, but most of it. The details they mostly kept out of the news.

  “I didn’t expect to hear back from you right away,” said Donny.

  “Well, I was up working. And you said you had information about my daughter.”

  Donny already felt guilty for doing that. Even though it worked.

  “What’s got you working this late?”

  “I’m in Washington. Advising the Texas delegation to the Constitutional Convention.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Slowly. I’m stuck in this working-group session right now that promises to go all night.”

  “Jesus, it’s two in the morning there.”

  “No shit. We’re up against a deadline, but we’re deadlocked, about what the threshold will be for calling a national referendum. These direct-democracy people drive me up the wall. They have no idea what a mess this will be.”

  “I’m surprised you’re able to work,” said Donny.

  “Keeps my mind off it. And we need to get this done, so the country can get back to work.”

  “Sounds like you never stopped. I should have figured you’d only get busier the more messed up the country got.”

  “I’m fortunate to have clients who keep me busy. Mostly with work like this. More lobbying than lawyering, figuring out what the new rules are going to be. Surprisingly rewarding, in fact. A chance at a fresh start.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “Am I happy? What kind of stupid fucking question is that?” Queens still came through strong in Lou’s voice, even after a couple of decades in Texas.

  “I mean, is this the life you wanted?”

  “Not since your motherfucking clients seized the golf courses.”

  “Come on,” said Donny. “You know what I mean.”

  “We’re lawyers, Donny. We’re not supposed to be happy.”

  Donny laughed. “Now I remember why I never talk to you—because you’re always so uncomfortably right.”

  “Last time I talked to you, you gave me a twenty-minute, expletive-laden screed about how I was a ‘house pet for kleptocrats’ with blood on my hands. Now you tell me you have news about my kid, and then you give me this bullshit. I guess you must want something.”

  Donny remembered that argument. It wasn’t long after Lou helped
Donny pay the bribe that had freed Joyce. Donny had waited to vent until Joyce was actually free. He could tell from Lou’s voice now that the bridge between them had been successfully burned. They had been colleagues, once. But now it was like two guys who had fought in the same unit, only to realize they had been on different sides in the war.

  “I’m sorry about Heather, Lou. But I think I can help.”

  “Don’t patronize me, you snake. What’s your game, Donny? You’re their number-one lawyer, for Christ’s sake.”

  The bitterness in his voice was real, and raw. Drawing it out was a shitty thing to do. But it seemed to be working.

  “Not lately,” said Donny. “If ever. My most famous client kind of messed that up.”

  “Whatever. I know who your other clients are. Some of the big ones. The real nasty ones. So don’t try to tell me you care.”

  “Come on, Lou. You know it’s not that simple. You never bought into the propaganda. You just went where the money is. Since I guess marrying the dirty money wasn’t enough.”

  The last part of that didn’t come out quite as Donny intended. He wished his phone had the seven-second censor delay they used to have in the counterinsurgency courts.

  “Sorry,” said Donny, before Lou could reply, or hang up. “None of those people were my clients.”

  “They could have been.”

  That was true. And the truth was, one of the terrorists was one of Donny’s clients. But Lou didn’t need to know that.

  Donny had remembered the incident vividly even before he read up on it again that evening. He had seen the news clips when it happened. He meant to send Lou a note, but couldn’t get past his own lingering animus over everything else that had gone down.

  It happened the autumn before the uprising. The rest of Lou’s family was at the Aransas Club, a former national wildlife refuge south of Galveston that had been turned into a private resort for the superrich. Water, sun, and fun, and wildlife to kill all year round, surf or turf. While Lou was back in Houston working a case, leaving his wife and daughter with his brother and family in their lodge, the club got raided by insurgents. Frogmen who came up out of the water in the night, but not like the ones in the propaganda movies. Angry class warriors who said they were there to free the refuge and its rightful inhabitants, by which they meant the animals. Lou’s brother was back in the administration then, working as a deputy secretary in the Commerce Department responsible for economic recovery in the blighted heartland, which made him a high-value target. That he was with his sister-in-law, heiress to the Promethean Resources fortune and the main backer of Tripto Labs, was an unanticipated bonus.