by John Decure
“I think it is so cool,” Fiona said. “I don’t care what they say about her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Fiona looked at me as if I was remarkably hardheaded. “She’s the boy’s mother. It’s so dramatic. I love it! She’s gonna fight for him!” The girl was rooting for Sue Ellen, which I took as a refreshing change.
“That is, if they don’t scare her into bailing,” Jackie said. I nodded in agreement.
Fiona shook her head no. “They won’t, mon ami. You two don’t know all there is to know about a woman, do you? She’ll be there. Celui qui veut, peut—where there’s a will, there’s a way.” She slid onto Jackie’s lap and let him enfold her in his arms, the blanket dropping to the floor.
“Teach me more about women, baby,” he said, flicking his tongue into her ear.
I left court after three on Monday and took surface streets through the barrio south of Cybil Brand women’s prison. Dark-haired kids in school uniforms scurried like ants down the wide, sun-scorched sidewalks. I flipped on the radio to Bad Company’s signature tune. Bad company, I can’t deny; bad, bad company, ’til the day I die.
Sue Ellen’s visit with Nathan was scheduled to commence in half an hour, but the lot outside the department’s East L.A. office was already teeming with kooks and picketers. A girl in pigtails and braces stalked the sidewalk, hoisting a sign that read HELL NO! NATHAN WON’T GO! Another sign I saw said YOUR STORY’S SMELLIN’, SUE ELLEN! I strode forward as if I had life-and-death business and couldn’t be bothered by distractions of any kind. An old man in a straw hat waved a huge American flag in front of me, then turned his back, quoting Scripture through an electric bullhorn as his helper, a Latino who looked like a reformed gang-banger, passed out tiny pamphlets heralding the End Time. Holly Dupree’s orange hairdo floated above the crowd; she was deep in their midst, interviewing some suitably enraged man-on-the-street whose spit was flying as he ranted.
“Fuckin’-A—It’s her lawyer!” Someone shouted as if grieved at the sight of me. Quite a different reception from the one I got that first morning outside Foley’s court. “What’s he want here?” the same voice shouted.
“Let’s send him packing!” yelled another.
Fuckin’-A indeed, I thought. I’m not going to hang around out here. I barreled toward the glass double doors, but a huge man with a bad haircut stepped in front of me. “You’re scum,” he said, angrily poking a finger into my chest. The others crowded in like hungry dogs.
“Back off,” I said into a group of faces I’d never seen. They stared back at me, indignant and mean.
Sue Ellen wasn’t even here and the situation was already well out of hand. Someone pushed me from behind.
“Look at him! Fancy pants lawyer!”
The crowd was beginning to scare me, so I turned loose a little temper on the man standing before me, grabbing the top of the hand that was in my chest and pushing his middle finger up and backward. He winced, his eyes popping.
“Move it, fatty, or I’ll break your finger,” I said, giving him the benefit of full eye contact. He backpedaled, creating a small opening in the crowd. I shot through without looking back, and turned the dead bolt in the glass door as soon as I got inside the department office.
“What happened?” I could hear Holly say to a TV crewman through the glass just outside. “What’d I miss?”
Inside, a woman sat behind a high desk, watching a dormant switchboard panel and doing her best to act as if she didn’t see me come in. The reception room was small and shabby, four greasy walls with tilted portraits of county supervisors hanging in a row along one side and a single security door that led to the workplace.
“Who’s the head of this office?” I said.
She shook her head as if to prohibit my entry. “Sir, that door must remain unlocked during normal business hours. Those are the rules.”
I withered the woman with a look of pure contempt. “Yeah, right,” I said. “And which rules apply to parking lot riots?”
She didn’t push the point, and after some minor hassling I got her to call someone in charge. The man who emerged from the inner office to meet me five minutes later was not the slick bureaucrat I expected but a tiny guy named Harold something-or-other with glasses, a pencil moustache and a soggy handshake, a regular Walter Mitty. “What can I do for you?” he mumbled.
I glanced through the pane glass behind us at the mob. “I’m Sue Ellen Randall’s attorney. She has a visit scheduled with her son Nathan in a few minutes.”
Harold concurred. “Yes, I know.” His lack of further acknowledgment told me he was not prepared to do a damn thing to address the situation outside.
I blinked with disbelief. “These people outside are here to cause trouble. Get them out of here.”
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s a public place.” He shrugged as if innocent.
“Listen, friend,” I said, straining to maintain my cool, “these visits are court-ordered, and if you’ve ever met Judge Duane Foley, you know he takes it very seriously when someone defies him.”
“Oh?” he said, still playing the game. “Who’s defying him? Certainly not me.”
I regarded the mob through the front-door glass. This was ridiculous, and the department and this little worm named Harold knew it. I could feel my anger taking over.
“You got a card?” I said. “What’s your last name again, Harold? I need it for the subpoena I’m going to send you. You see, in this case, these visits are a bit of a sticking point. You’ll get to tell the judge in person why you decided to take a shit on his visitation order.”
He raised his hands to calm me. “All right, all right,” he said, “there’s no need for that. What do you want?” The man was a true civil servant: he may have agreed to comply, but he was certainly not going to innovate.
“You can start by getting me a security guard,” I said.
He looked at the receptionist. “Dottie, call Joe Phipps. Tell him to come up front, now”
Joe Phipps turned out to be even more insubstantial a presence than Harold. White-haired and hunched over, he was downright elderly—way past retirement age—and terribly thin. He shook my hand with the grip of a sickly child. Harold stood by, enjoying my predicament.
“How can I help you, young fella?” Phipps said.
“Use your authority to disperse this mob,” I said, pointing through the glass. “I’m afraid they might harm my client when she arrives.”
“Oh, my,” he said, studying the confusion outside. “They look upset, don’t they? My goodness.”
“Just make the announcement,” I said. “Wait here. I’ll get you what you need.”
I went out again, but no one was looking my way, as they were all focused on Sue Ellen’s imminent arrival at the other end of the facility. I found the flag-waving Christian man with the bullhorn.
“Unto every one that hath shall be given,” he squawked, “and he shall have abundance! But from he that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath!”
I opened my wallet and took out two tens. “Brother,” I beseeched the man, “the Lord is wise and wonderful.”
“Say amen!”
I handed him a ten-spot. “Amen!”
He pocketed the money. “Amen, halleluiah, brother!”
I grabbed the bullhorn. “I need to borrow this, just for a minute.” But he wouldn’t let go. “Come on, brother,” I said, “give, and it shall be given unto you!” I handed him another ten and he let go.
“Praise Jesus,” he said as he folded the second bill into his shirt pocket. “But I want it back.”
Joe Phipps was sucking on a throat lozenge when I gave him the bullhorn and asked him to clear everyone out. He spit the half-dissolved disc back into its foil wrapper and coughed hard. “Ready to go,” he said, his eyes watering. I thought he must be joking.
We geared up and rushed outside, but the throng was suddenly racing to the parking lot. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and
girls,” I heard Phipps announce as I ran toward Sue Ellen. “Say, Harold, is this thing on?”
Sue Ellen was alone in Ty’s old pickup truck; she’d pulled halfway into an empty spot but had seen the rush of faces and had tried to back up. The truck was now stalled in the middle of two rows of cars. Holly Dupree was there already, camped outside the driver’s window, trying to talk Sue Ellen into rolling it down for a friendly chat. People were thumping the truck’s fenders and hood with their hands, making a thundering racket. I came around the passenger side and rapped on the glass until Sue Ellen saw me and let me in.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” she cried. “Get me out of here!”
“Move over,” I yelled. I slid past her and got behind the wheel. She’d flooded the engine—her specialty. People were shaking the truck from side to side now. Holly pleaded with me through the glass with muffled words I didn’t care to hear anyway. In the rearview mirror, I saw the fat man who’d called me scum mount the rear bumper and begin bouncing with all his considerable ballast, jeering at us as he gripped the tailgate.
“Bunch o’ lunatics!” Sue Ellen shouted.
“This is nuts!” I shouted back. “Move it!”
Sue Ellen had calmed down a little since I’d jumped into the cab. “What about my visit? What are you gonna do?”
“Don’t worry about the visit,” I said. “I’m gonna pop it into gear, so hold on.” I laid on the horn, but no one backed away from the truck.
“Careful, it’s a V-8. You could run somebody over.”
My head was getting dizzy from the constant rocking. “Well, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke,” I said.
I let off the emergency brake, honked one last time and found second gear just as the engine clicked over. The truck lurched ahead, clearing an instant path before us and launching the fat man off the bumper and into space. I gunned up into the lot until it ran out near the building, then jumped the tires over a curb and cut across the brown lawn that fronted the office until I was at the entrance. We were a mere few seconds ahead of the closing throng.
“Hang on,” I said. We slid out the driver’s side and I locked the truck and threw my arm around Sue Ellen. Joe Phipps was still fooling with the volume control on the bullhorn when we reached the door. It was locked. The mob encircled us. “Get back!” I shouted, trying to sound fearless. But I was scared.
“Baby seller!” they shouted at Sue Ellen. “Trailer trash!”
Harold unlocked the door and got us inside with a look of feigned relief. Sue Ellen was gripping herself “Well,” Harold said to her after we had caught our breaths, “ready for your visit?” Sue Ellen nodded. “Dottie, have the Danforths checked in?”
Sue Ellen stared at them. “You mean they’re not even here?”
“They left a message for you, sir, twenty minutes ago,” Dottie said, a tiny smile crossing her lips. “Corwin junior has a cold. They wanted to know if the visit could be rescheduled until tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Harold the supervisor said.
We’d been suckered. Harold just stood there, enjoying the day. Sue Ellen began to sob. For what felt like the ten-thousandth time, I was reminded how it felt for a client to be overmatched by an uncaring institution that held every advantage. It felt like losing.
I stepped up into Harold until my breath was on his face. “I want your card right now. You can expect a subpoena in the morning. Judge Foley’s going to hear about this directly from you. I’ll walk the case onto his calendar myself. See you in court.”
Harold’s face was white. “You, you can’t do that. I’m a supervisor.”
“I think I can,” I said. “You’re within L.A. County, which is the court’s jurisdiction, so you’re gonna get tapped.” I took a pen out of my jacket pocket. “Who’s your boss, Harold? He’ll get a special invite, too.”
He looked ready to cave. “Okay, okay, what do you want?”
“This was supposed to be a neutral site,” I said. “The visits were to be confidential. Obviously someone in your office doesn’t care about that. Call the Danforths. Tell them we’ve got a new arrangement. From now on, we’ll call you on the morning of the visit and set the time with you.” I glanced at the mob through the glass door. “If we get the welcome wagon, I’ll know you’re to blame. So will the judge.”
Harold thought about my demands. “But the Danforths will know,” he said. “What if they tell the press?”
“You’d be wise to persuade them not to,” I said. “You’re the one supervising the neutral site. From here on out, it’s your call.” I shook my head. “Man, this is really going to put a crimp in Judge Foley’s jockey shorts. His calendar’s already maxed out.”
“Now calm down,” Harold said. “We can work this out.” He was not about to face an angry judge over someone else’s crummy visits. “Dottie, get the Danforths for me, please,” he told the receptionist.
Harold made arrangements for me to take Sue Ellen to the Danforth home for another visit. The nanny would be there to meet us. No Nelson Gilbride. Sue Ellen was still crying, but she reached out and squeezed my hand so firmly I nearly lost my balance. “Thank you,” she said, “thank you so very much.” She looked deeply into my eyes.
“It’s all right,” I said, wishing she’d release my hand. “It’s my job.” A little gratitude was one thing, but this kind of display was far from all right with me.
Old Joe Phipps was inside, now; he’d used a key to let himself in while I was confronting Harold. “Everything’s under control,” he told us. The crowd was still outside, and in force. Less than intimidated by Joe’s authority. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to move that truck,” he told me.
“You got it,” I said. Sue Ellen was still holding my hand tightly. “How about an escort, Joe?”
Joe nodded and stood before the glass, preparing to unlock the door again. He studied the bullhorn before tucking it under his arm. “Nice noisemaker you’ve got here,” he said.
“Hey Joe,” I said, “could you give it back to the guy waving the American flag once you get us out of here? It’s his.”
“But I saw you pay for it,” he said. “I was watching you from right here.”
“Things aren’t always the way they look,” I told him.
I could feel Sue Ellen’s gaze on the side of my face. “You believe me,” she said. “I knew it.”
“Fuckin’-A,” I said to no one in particular. I kept my eyes straight ahead until Joe rattled the door open.
Eleven
Carmen Manriquez was in significant demand when I dropped by the Las Palomas office with my mother’s old letters from Miluca. A pair of dolled-up girls in white ruffles danced up and down the corridor outside the door, just out of reach of a battered young Mexican couple who strained to hear Carmen’s directions above the laughter and play. A black man in a disjointed cream polyester suit paced the tiles opposite the doorway, opening his court order to read it aloud one more time, then folding it up as if he’d confronted an evil curse. My business in Foley’s court done, I decided to wait.
The black man peeked at the order and looked up and saw me checking him. “Parenting skills!” he shouted at me. “They think I need skills at bein’ a parent! Now ain’t that a mu-tha-fuck-a fo’ ya! I raised them kids since theys knee high to a grasshopper! No one gonna tell me how to be a parent!”
The family cleared out of Carmen’s office and the hyperventilating black man pushed in fast. “Child, you the one gonna teach me how to be a parent?” he said to Carmen. I couldn’t see her face from where I waited, but I heard her fluid tone roll out. Within a minute the man was agreeing, then apologizing, explaining himself as he related his frustrations. “That’s right. Like, I’m damned if ah do and damned if ah don’t!” His sweating face relaxed, then he stood up to go. “Well all right, then, honey, you take care ya-self. And ah thank ye kindly.” A new man.
“What did you do,” I said to Carmen, “rip up the guy’s order?”
Carmen wore a pale pink ribbed cotton dress with her hair loosely pulled into a casual bun. “A new technique I’ve been using,” she said, “and it really works. It’s called listening.” She folded her arms and smiled as if my visit was a small surprise.
I was glad to see her. “I’ll have to try it.”
“Did you come for a Spanish lesson?”
“Actually, no.” I sat down and hefted my briefcase onto my lap, opened it and put the brittle stack of letters on the desk.
“Quite a collection,” she said. “What are they?”
My dilemma was obvious. She had to have some context for dealing with the text of the letters, but if I told her too much and my delivery got shaky, I’d impress her as damaged goods. Better to let my past unfold slowly, and in pieces.
“The first time we met, when I came up for an interpreter, what you said made sense. I thought about it a lot. Then I found these in my attic.” I removed the rubber band and fanned the letters like a hand of cards across the edge of her desk blotter.
“Who’s Marielena Shepard?”
“My mother. She left home when I was almost seventeen, back in nineteen seventy-nine. I’ve never known why. I thought these might tell me.”
Carmen inspected the envelopes. “May I?” I nodded. She removed a letter and ran her eyes over a few lines. “Small handwriting, but pretty clean. Good Spanish. The writer was educated.”
“Can you translate them for me?” I said too eagerly. Easy does it, I told myself. Carmen Manriquez had a way about her, a radiance and poise I’d not before glimpsed in these miserable hallways. My heartbeat quickened. “I can pay you,” I said.
“This is important to you,” she said. I silently assented.
An enormously pregnant woman pushing an infant in a stroller edged inside the door. Her expression was hurried but aimless—headed nowhere fast. Her heavy breasts showed right through a white tee that advertised a popular American brand of oil filters. A twisted, unhooked bra underlined her tits; she’d forgotten to hook up after baby’s last feeding. The stroller’s frame was mildly tweaked, and I noticed one of the front wheels didn’t quite reach the floor.
