Clownfish Blues

by Tim Dorsey

  But by now, she’d had it with the kind of gilded-edge legal work handed down from skyscrapers.

  She met Jacklyn Lopez at a self-defense class. Lopez was the instructor, holding up a pair of bright red training pads that Brook punched with unbridled ferocity and lean results. They got to talking. Turned out Lopez also had a law degree. Then they got to driving.

  “What about that place?” asked Brook. “There’s a rent sign.”

  Jacklyn shook her head. “Attached to a gyro shop. Once the smell gets in your clothes . . .”

  They turned the corner and wandered into Little Haiti. Block after block of available office space. “Is that guy carrying a chicken?” The pair navigated back to Biscayne and headed north.

  More discussion as they drove slow, and honking traffic whipped around them. At each red light, people on curbs peddled roses, bottled water, redemption. “Pull over,” said Brook.

  They ended up in the part of town called Aventura. A dubious area with a transitional economy. It could go either way. But the neighborhood possessed the one bellwether sign that financial analysts always respect.

  They just opened a Chipotle.

  Brook and Jacklyn stood in the parking lot of an older two-story building. It wasn’t originally designed as a strip mall, but guess what? On the bottom floor resided a nail salon and a beauty salon with just enough overlapping service on the menu that it had become the source of brooding tension between a group of Koreans and another group of Koreans.

  Between the two businesses was a narrow door with a glass window leading to a warped wooden staircase. The two women looked up at a leaf-clogged rain gutter. Then they looked down again at the door—the cliché entrance of a law office. Only the gold lettering was missing. Brook grabbed the rental sign off the mailbox, and they fist-bumped . . .

  . . . That was then, this was now. The new women’s law firm accepted the kind of cases that were less lucrative and more fulfilling. Like the one that began on a recent Wednesday morning.

  Just after nine o’clock, the receptionist looked up. “You may go in now. Last door.”

  An elderly Hispanic woman was helped into Brook’s office by her granddaughter. The attorney rushed around her desk to pull over an additional chair. The old woman didn’t speak a word of English. Her granddaughter spoke better than most Americans, because she was one, although certain other Americans with mangled grammar weren’t entirely convinced.

  Brook opened a folder on her desk. “You mentioned on the phone a landlord dispute. Something about the security deposit and last month’s rent?”

  “That’s right,” said the granddaughter, named Danielle. But she answered to Danny. “They kept it all, citing cleaning and repair costs from excessive wear and tear.”

  “May I see what documentation they provided?”

  “They didn’t give my grandmother anything,” said Danny. “It was all verbal. When I called to request an itemized expense statement, they just laughed and asked if I was joking.”

  Brook sat back. “No paperwork?”

  “This is common in our area,” said Danny. “They expect people who are scraping by to just move on and not challenge it because they have to make ends meet. And an eight-hundred-dollar dispute isn’t worth it to most lawyers. But my grandmother cleans houses for the kind of people who are screwing her, and that money means the world. Which is why I know her apartment was immaculate when she left.”

  “I wish we had photos,” said Brook.

  Danny handed over her cell phone.

  “What’s this?” asked the lawyer.

  “Photos,” said Danny. “I took them when she moved out, just in case.”

  “Prudent.” Brook closed the folder. “You already signed the needed paperwork, so I won’t take up any more of your time.” She stood. “This is straightforward. I’ll be back in touch tomorrow.”

  They thanked her profusely and left.

  Near the end of the day, Brook opened the folder again and dialed a number.

  “Yeah?” Someone chewing on the other end.

  “My name is Brook Campanella, and I’m an attorney representing one of your former tenants.”

  “Who?” A loud TV sound in the background from a sports program.

  “Brook Campanella. Mrs. Dominguez retained me—”

  “You a lawyer?” Chomp, chomp, chomp.

  “Yes, and I think we can quickly clear this up. You kept her security deposit and last month’s rent.”

  “Probably for cleaning and repairs.” Chomp, chomp. “That’s standard.”

  “Actually we can’t be sure,” said Brook. “We have no receipts for any work done.”

  “Christ, do you have any idea the condition these people leave their apartments in?”

  “These people?” asked Brook.

  From the other end of the line, a second voice: “Who is it?”

  The first man’s voice turned away from the phone. “Some ambulance chaser for one of our tenants.”

  “Tell him to eat shit and die.”

  “It’s a chick.”

  “Hand me the nachos.”

  The sports sounds from the television became aggressively violent.

  “Excuse me,” said Brook. “I have photographs of the condition of the apartment. If we could just talk—”

  “Listen, sweetie, since you sound kind of young, I’ll be polite. I got Ultimate Fighting on pay-per-view and you’re costing me money, so if you don’t mind . . .”

  “Actually I do mind,” said Brook. “I always try to avoid escalating legal action. If you could either provide me with a detailed expense sheet . . .”

  The man spoke away from the phone again. “She wants an expense sheet. Can you believe this broad?” Derisive laughter.

  “Or a refund in full,” said Brook. “In that case, I’d be willing to waive my legal fee. It’s really not worth it for you to—”

  Click.

  Chapter 3

  The Apalachicola

  A shiny Corvette Stingray skidded on and off the road as it raced through a section of the national forest known as Tate’s Hell.

  Coleman clutched the passenger-door frame with both hands. “Why are you driving so fast?”

  “Because I can’t wait to see if my breakthrough technique works!”

  The sports car found a parking space in the dirt, and Serge raced around to the trunk. “Coleman! Get out here! I need you to carry some stuff!”

  “Can I rest first? We just got here.”

  “Rest from what? You’ve just been sitting there the whole drive from Tallahassee.”

  “It was tiring.” He reluctantly climbed out. “And why did we have to go all that way just to turn around and come back here?”

  “I had to go to the nearest big city because there’s no place around here that carries what I needed for my X-Treme Gruntinator,” said Serge. “Because nobody’s ever thought of it! . . . Hold this . . . and this . . . and this . . .”

  “It’s getting heavy.”

  Serge slammed the trunk. “Stop complaining and follow me.”

  They marched a few hundred yards to the same spot as the day before. Their stakes were still pounded into the dirt. Serge ignored them and went to work with a posthole digger.

  Coleman sat on the ground and pulled a flask from his pocket. “Where’d you get this idea anyway?”

  “I went on the Internet to study the techniques of bona fide sixth-generation grunters and found all these great video clips.” Serge rammed the digger deep in the hole and dumped out another clod of dirt. “The guys were regular Mozarts. Their secret was a deft touch with the rooping iron that produced a specific-frequency metallic wheezing sound. I realized my quest now required dedication to arduous effort, until I thought: ‘Bullshit on effort. I just want success. That’s America!’”

  Serge dumped a final lump of soil and tossed the digger aside. “Hand me that box.”

  “It’s heavy again.”

  Serge ripped the conta
iner open sideways. “This is the key to the whole operation.” Insulated wires dangled out the tip of a long insulated pole. At the other end was a high-tech oval bulb.

  Coleman grimaced as he knocked back a slug of bottom-shelf bourbon. “What the heck is that thing?”

  “Nature enthusiasts and the U.S. Navy use hydrophones to listen to majestic whales or enemy submarines, depending on which lifestyle they signed up for.” Serge wrapped the bulb in thick Mylar and sank it five feet into the ground. “Most hydrophones today are passive and just listen, but this is an active hydrophone. It puts sound in the water. Like those old war movies where ships ‘ping’ to find subs.”

  “Who wants to do that?”

  “Whoever just up and feels like making the water noisy. Again, another not-thought-of opportunity like gold in the streets that everyone walks by.” Serge filled in the hole around the device. “Basically the same principle as those underwater speakers they use each year in the Keys for their annual scuba diver concert.”

  More boxes were opened. Serge pulled out a hefty battery pack and amplifier. He intricately connected them with a series of cables that led through the leaves to a lawn chair.

  Coleman raised a hand. “But this isn’t water.”

  “Precisely,” said Serge. “Any scientist knows that solids conduct sound even better than liquids.”

  “Really?”

  “Think of those old western movies where Indians put ears to the ground so they could hear the hoofbeats of horses miles away that told them the White Man was about to shit on the whole program.”

  “I get it,” said Coleman. “Like the time when I was with you, and I was like super stoned, and you said that if I put my ear on the rail of some train tracks, I could hear the locomotive coming. So I tried it, and you were right!”

  “Except you don’t do it when you can also see the locomotive.”

  “Good thing those people were there to drag me off the tracks.” Another slug of bourbon. Coleman’s neck suddenly swung sideward. “What the hell was that noise?”

  “Just more rustling in the leaves.” Serge settled into his piece of patio furniture as a familiar pair of men emerged in rubber boots and crusty jeans.

  The locals set down brimming pails. “You fellas havin’ it another try?”

  “I never heard the words ‘give up,’” said Serge.

  “Good for ya.” Then they noticed the scientific pole sticking out of the ground, along with the rest of the equipment and all the wires. One of them tugged at the end of his beard. “Whatcha fixin’ on doin’?”

  “Get ready to witness history.” Serge grabbed the end of the last cable, opened a laptop on his legs and plugged it in.

  The locals glanced at each other and grinned—a computer and a lawn chair?—except it wasn’t condescension, but more like amused reaction to watching a likable child do something silly. “So whatcha got cookin’ there with that fancy thang?”

  “Might want to stand back,” said Serge.

  “It gonna hurt us?”

  “No.” Serge tapped the keyboard. “You might damage the product.”

  And with that, the ground began to come alive like a deep-toned tuning fork.

  Two pairs of rubber boots high-stepped it in reverse. They recognized the sound—just never heard it coming up from beneath. And at such volume. “Lord above! What in the name of creation?”

  Serge continued tapping the keyboard. “I downloaded some high-end equalizer software, plus the worm-grunting Internet videos, then enhanced the audio. Behold . . .”

  “Jesus, Mary and all the saints!”

  The entire forest floor became a living canvas of earthworms. And caterpillars and centipedes and snakes and moles and everything else unmoored from its natural bearings—like during the midday total eclipse that hit the Okeefenokee Swamp straddling the Florida-Georgia line on March 7, 1970. Serge added that last detail. “It was televised. You can look it up.”

  “Take your word for it, mister.”

  Then came the predators: swarms of birds, and smaller mammals as the food chain went into overdrive.

  One of the old grunters pulled a Colt revolver and fired it in the air, scattering the wildlife that threatened Serge’s harvest. “Never thought I’d see so many dad-gum earthworms if I lived to be Methuselah!”

  “Your own pails are already full,” said Serge. “So why don’t you grab a couple of ours?”

  “You brought up the worms,” said Beard number one.

  “They’re rightly yours,” said Beard two.

  Serge shook his head. “We’re visitors, and it’s about respect. This is your home.”

  “But it’s a national forest open to the public.”

  Serge looked over twin appearances that suggested long lives of abiding devotion to the land. He repeated himself with emphasis. “This is your home.”

  “Well then, let’s fill ’em on up before the little buggers change their minds.”

  “He’s Willard,” said the other, bending down for worms. “I’m Jasper. Hope you fellers worked up an appetite, ’cuz you’re gonna have the best meal south of the Mason when we get back to the ’stead.”

  “That’s awfully nice,” said Serge. “But it’s really not necessary.”

  “Won’t take no for an answer,” said Willard. “You folks got a thirst for some mountain dew?”

  “Not really,” said Serge. “Soda’s just empty calories.”

  “Naw!” Jasper laughed. “We’re talkin’ canned heat, John Barleycorn.”

  “You mean the classic album by Traffic?” asked Serge.

  “Sheet, man, I’m talkin’ moonshine.”

  “Hell yeah!” shouted Coleman.

  “Down, boy.” Willard hiked his overalls. “I say that one’s got some spring in his paws.”

  Serge grabbed his own pail. “Wait till later.”

  Miami Women’s Legal Aid Clinic

  Brook glanced at the blank check. She thought about everything that had led to this moment, and the moments soon to come with the irate landlord standing on the other side of her desk.

  He’d hung up on her during that first phone call. So a week later she’d dialed again.

  “What now!” This time hockey play-offs in the background.

  “Mr. Gosling, this is Brook Campanella. By the return-mail receipt I just got, I can see you received my certified letter. Do you understand it?”

  “Yeah, you have mental problems. What’s this thirty-five hundred dollars?”

  “The price now includes mental anguish and my legal fees,” said Brook.

  “Over a measly eight-hundred-dollar deposit?”

  “This is still bargain basement in the legal world,” said Brook. “The elevator’s only going north from here.”

  A semi-intoxicated voice in the background. “Tell her to stick it up her twat.”

  “Mr. Gosling,” said Brook. “You can drop off a check here, or I can come to you. But it has to be this evening. Otherwise tomorrow morning I’ll be forced to go to the courthouse—”

  “And you’ll what, sweetie? Damn! I can always spot one!”

  “One?” asked Brook.

  “Men issues. You seriously need to get laid!”

  Click.

  Another week went by. This time it was Brook’s phone that rang. She checked the caller ID before answering. “I see I’ve gotten your attention.”

  “Fifteen thousand dollars!”

  “My client’s anguish—and my legal costs—grow by the hour,” said Brook.

  “You filed a lawsuit? You’re suing me!”

  “Don’t forget the fine print,” said Brook. “I intend to locate other former tenants of yours with the help of my client’s granddaughter. Then during discovery, I’m going to subpoena your accounting records for the last seven years, and if we find a pattern of bad-faith refusal-to-remit deposits, we’re talking about a class action with treble damages. But there’s a downside for me, too. I’ll have the hassle of finding a
real estate agent to liquidate your apartment buildings, which the court will seize.”

  “Motherf— . . . Do you have any idea the type of person you’re dealing with?”

  “Yes, but you don’t,” said Brook. “Now let me paint by the numbers for you. If a certified check isn’t on my desk by precisely noon tomorrow, everything moves forward and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Feel free to call any lawyer in town. I’m confident they’ll all tell you not to be late.” She set the receiver in its cradle.

  Click.

  So now we’re back up to speed . . .

  Mr. Gosling continued fuming in front of Brook’s desk, then cleared his throat for a big, hocking spit on the floor. “Happy now?”

  “Not yet.” She stood up and handed him a stapled set of pages.

  Gosling looked in his hands. “What’s this?”

  “You just saved me the cost of process delivery.”

  “A what?”

  “Consider yourself officially served,” said Brook. “You voluntarily took possession of those documents.”

  “I’ll deny I got them.”

  “I have a witness.”

  Jacklyn Lopez smiled and waved from a chair in the corner.

  Gosling glanced down again. “You’re still going to sue me? You’re subpoenaing my bank statements?”

  Brook tapped her wristwatch. “You came in at twelve oh four. I said twelve sharp.”

  “Four minutes! You can’t be sane! That’s—that’s—that’s . . . just not fair!”

  Brook looked over her shoulder at Jacklyn. “He said I needed to get laid.”

  Jacklyn shrugged. “Always works for me.”

  Gosling threw out his arms in panic. “Wait, wait, wait! . . . You got a bird in the hand! That’s a fifteen-thousand-dollar check. Don’t you want the money?”

  “Absolutely,” said the attorney. “I intend to deposit it this afternoon.”

  “Well then, okay.” Gosling began to uncoil. “Case over. And very funny bluffing with me like that.”

  “I wasn’t bluffing.” Brook stuck the check in her purse. “The case has only begun.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said the landlord, re-inflating with smugness. “I know a little about the law, too. By cashing that check, you’re releasing me from all liability.” He turned to leave. “I hope you choke on it. Go fuck yourself!”