Beach Lawyer (Beach Lawyer Series)

by Avery Duff

  As he stood to stretch, Philip’s e-mail popped up on his screen:

  Think this will help, Robert. Drafted it before you were born. Ha! See you tomorrow.

  The attached release was drafted before the firm’s archives were digitized. Scanning Philip’s twenty-pager, Robert saw it wasn’t exactly on point but had plenty of usable language. An estate. A nonemployee suing a corporation for bodily injury, and just like that, Robert gained seven or eight hours on his assignment.

  Headed down the firm’s empty hall, he figured he would hit the men’s room and finish up at home. Maybe even get in a workout over at Gold’s Gym. Past reception, he saw that the litigators had cleared out. Not unusual. They rarely stayed late unless working up oral arguments or faced with a court-imposed deadline.

  He took a right into the law library, a closed-off area with multiple rows of shelves and a large reading area. Because several LexisNexis online research terminals had replaced many of the firm’s law books, the reading area was largely vestigial.

  Two more paneled turns would have put him at the men’s-room door, but he heard an angry male voice from a narrow hallway to his left.

  He stopped. That hallway led to Jack’s office. The door was closed, but Jack’s voice still boiled up from behind it, getting louder. Before Robert pulled back into the stacks, the door opened. Gia Marquez walked out the door, her head bowed.

  He waited for what was coming, and there it was: Jack’s office door slammed shut. He decided against a trip to the head. Last thing he wanted was to wind up at a urinal, side by side with a pissed-off Jack Pierce. God knows where that would lead, so he waited several minutes in the reading room before heading back the way he came.

  Then he saw Carlos, a building security guard, outside Gia’s door. That was the drill when you were fired: guard at the door, grab your personals, locks changed, system password changed, and out you went.

  “Carlos,” he said to the guard.

  “Roberto,” Carlos answered.

  Robert peered into her office. Gia was packing her things into a trash bag. “What’s up?” he asked her.

  Her eye caught his—she was crying—then she went back to the task at hand, and he moved on. Headed toward his office, he glanced out into reception and saw Lionel’s daughter, Dorothy, who had married Jack Pierce not long after Oliver Dudley’s death. In a wheelchair sat the grand old man himself: Lionel Brightwell. Both in formal wear, father and daughter were studying that Cy Twombly painting. Robert decided to keep moving.

  Back in his office, he packed his computer and asked himself, What was that? Gia in Jack’s office. Gia fired. Then he forced her out of his mind so he could make damn sure he ran into the firm’s bread and butter on his own way out.

  By the time he hustled into reception, he wore his best game face for the powers that be.

  “Good evening, Ms. Pierce, Mr. Brightwell. I’m Robert Worth.”

  Dorothy brightened and shook his hand. “Certainly, I remember you, Robert, from our firm parties.” She leaned down, spoke into her father’s ear. “Father? Do you remember Robert Worth? He’s been up to the house, remember?” Lionel, pushing ninety hard, kept staring at the Cy Twombly. “Father, say hello to Mr. Worth. He works at the firm with Jack.”

  Before he had a chance to answer, Jack joined them. “Hello, dear,” he said to Dorothy. “Lionel, sorry I kept you both waiting.” He nodded to Robert without a word.

  Lionel rotated his electric wheelchair to face Jack. “When did that painting leave the house?” he asked.

  Dorothy stepped in. “I discussed it with you, Father. Both Jack and I discussed it with you at great length.”

  Lionel thought about it. “Did, huh?” he said.

  “By the way, Jack, Father saw the results of his physical today, and we learned that he is in excellent health.”

  The elevator chimed as Jack leaned down to his father-in-law. “Glad to hear it, Lionel. That’s great news for everyone concerned.”

  That polished elevator door opened. Jack took the wheelchair’s helm and rolled Lionel inside. Dorothy nudged Robert and pointed at the California landscape.

  “That painting, Robert? A much more accessible piece than the Twombly.”

  He nodded. “There’s something about it,” he told her as they stepped into the elevator.

  “Something about it,” she repeated. “There certainly is.”

  The elevator door slid closed, and Dorothy spoke first. “So, Robert, I hope you received our invitation for this year’s get-together?”

  “Sure did, and I’m really looking forward to it. Very much,” he added.

  “A house full of lawyers?” Lionel said. He asked Robert, “Tell me, Worth, what in the name of Christ could be worse than a house full of lawyers?”

  “Plenty of things, sir,” Robert said.

  “Like what?” Lionel asked.

  A beat, then: “I’ll get back to you on that, Mr. Brightwell.”

  Hearing that, Lionel had a good laugh. “What is it you do around here to keep the lights on, Worth?”

  He thought about mentioning the Palmer acquisition, then thought better of it. He doubted the chairman of the board was focused on a relatively minor deal in Tennessee.

  “Whatever the firm needs, sir. Right now, I’m doing some interesting work for Mr. Pierce.”

  “Well, don’t fuck it up or there’ll be hell to pay. Ain’t that right, Jack?”

  “Right as rain, Lionel,” Jack said, actually smiling.

  The elevator door opened. Thirty feet ahead idled the Brightwell’s Maybach. Rodney, their driver, headed over, smiling through his subpar Magnum P.I. ’stache. Jack handed off his father-in-law to Rodney. Then he told Robert, “Remember what my father-in-law said about fucking up.” He said it with a wink, but for some reason, menace laced the remark.

  “Heard him loud and clear, Mr. Pierce.”

  “Good night, Robert,” Dorothy said, shaking his hand. “It’s so wonderful to see you again.”

  “Same here, Ms. Pierce,” he replied. And he meant it.

  Behind them all, a metal stairwell door squealed open. Carlos held it, and Gia exited with her garbage bag of belongings. Dorothy stared at her. Tensing, Robert thought, as she locked Jack’s arm in hers. For his part, Jack looked straight ahead, not at Gia, then escorted Dorothy to the Maybach and opened the back door. Rodney loaded Lionel into the backseat beside his daughter. Jack got in front with Rodney, and the Maybach glided up the ramp into heavy fog.

  Headed for his car one level lower, Robert’s thoughts turned to Lionel Brightwell.

  Ain’t that right, Jack! Robert could still hear the West Texas hardpan and saguaro cactus in Lionel’s voice. He came from the soil, same as Robert’s family. Even though farmers and oilmen have little in common, if they’re smart and lucky, they can sit on a lead and count their chips for decades to come. And Dorothy? A sweetheart. Maybe that had something to do with her mom working blue at Jack Ruby’s Dallas strip club at the time Ruby gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald.

  He heard a car coming up the ramp: Gia’s roadster, a ’63 Austin-Healey 3000 Mark II. Her convertible top was down. He signaled her to stop, but it looked to him like she planned to anyway.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” Gia replied.

  “Bad day?” he asked.

  “Kinda,” she said. “How’d it go this morning with Jack Pierce?”

  “Okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “Not great but okay.”

  A moment of silence before Robert asked, “What the hell? How about you?”

  She dodged the question. “Care for a piece of career advice, Mr. Worth?”

  “What?”

  “Always let him win.”

  “And you wouldn’t, Ms. Marquez?”

  “Let him win, Mr. Worth. Always,” she repeated. “You work harder than anybody at that firm, harder than anyone I know in LA, and I hope things go your way.”

  He knelt by
her window, eye to eye with her. In spite of being upset, she was trying to steer him in the right direction. That quality made him like her more than he already did.

  “Let’s grab a coffee sometime,” he said. “Anywhere, your call, what do you say?”

  She put her hand over his. “Nothing good can come of it. When a job’s over, it’s over. Believe I’ll head to the track this weekend and figure out what comes next.”

  “Supposed to rain,” he said.

  “If you go fast enough,” she replied, shifting into first gear, “you never get wet.”

  Then she peeled three feet of rubber onto the polished concrete floor and that was that.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Brightwell Maybach cruised past Bel-Air’s white, arched entrance and guardhouse, past fairy-light–entwined greenery. As it eased up Bellagio Road, sprinklers sputtered on, misting the manicured lawns and ice-plant–quilted ravines. All around the cloistered canyon, the sharp smell of eucalyptus and cloying lilac mixed with the rotten smell of fertilizer.

  Inside the Maybach, Dorothy mixed a vodka rocks at the minibar and chatted with her husband through the lowered partition.

  “Everything was beautiful. Tony was so happy to have Father and me at his opening.”

  “Guess so,” Jack said. “We were the best customers at his old place.”

  “Among the best, but still. He asked where you were, and I told him how busy you’ve been. Bistro Fresco, it’s his dream. Small, dark, the best wine, best food, everything fresh. He’s past the point where it’s about money anymore.”

  “Ha,” Lionel said. “Charged us for parking, didn’t he?”

  Jack smiled at his father-in-law. “Don’t miss a thing, do you, Lionel?”

  “Not much.” After he said that, he kept looking at Jack. “Miss more than I used to, but I still see.”

  Dorothy said, “Oh, Jack, you’ll love it. We’ll go back this weekend, all right?”

  “Perfect,” Jack said. “Early dinner after tennis, now you’re talking, darling.” He reached in back and took her hand.

  From out of nowhere, Lionel said, “Don’t see why I can’t have a nurse.”

  “Rodney, the glass, please,” Dorothy said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rodney said. Jack pulled his arm away, and the partition rose.

  Dorothy turned to Lionel. “But Rodney can lift you in and out of the car on his own, and besides that, he adores you.”

  “He’s all right but his perfume makes my eyes itch.”

  “Cologne, not perfume.”

  “It’s goddamn perfume. He showed me the bottle from Paris.”

  She laughed. “Well, perfume, then.”

  Lionel said, “All my life, sweetheart, I took the risk, hedged my bets, and raised a fine daughter, one I love so dearly.”

  She said, “I love you, too.”

  “And all I’m asking—is it askin’ too much to see a nice pair of tits before I die?”

  She started laughing. “We’ve already talked about this. You’re not going to die, not for a long, long time.”

  “Is that another no?” he asked, still hoping for the right answer.

  “Look, we’re home,” she said, peering out the window and reaching for a decanter.

  At the top of Stone Canyon, the estate’s gate opened. The Maybach headed up the Tudor mansion’s cobblestone driveway, stopping under the porte cochere. Rodney opened Lionel’s door. Jack did the same for Dorothy, who eased outside with a fresh vodka rocks.

  Jack took her free hand. “Sorry about this, darling, but that call I took in the car.”

  “What call?” she asked.

  “Something’s come up back at the firm, and it requires my immediate attention.”

  Dorothy’s face darkened. “That’s not possible, we were just there.”

  “I know. I’m sorry as I can possibly be, but it’s my name on the door.”

  “You’re having an—Who is she, Jack? What’s her goddamn name?”

  “Don’t talk like that. You know it’s not true. I love you.” Done talking, he kissed her cheek and headed for his Mercedes parked down in the drive.

  Rodney pushed Lionel’s chair till it stopped beside Dorothy. Her eyes never left Jack’s car till it cruised past. Neither did her father’s.

  “Goddamn it!” she screamed and hurled her drink against the house, shattering the crystal.

  “Why didn’t you stay married to the other one?” Lionel asked.

  He meant Oliver Dudley. Clearly, his memory was slipping a little. She turned to him, trying to calm down for his sake.

  “Oliver died. Don’t you remember his funeral? We both miss him but he’s dead.”

  “Sure,” he said, “I remember,” but it wasn’t clear he did.

  Dorothy unlocked the front door, punched the alarm pad, and disappeared inside.

  “Want to watch Million Dollar Listing with me, sir?” Rodney asked Lionel.

  Lionel didn’t answer. As Rodney pushed him up the ramp toward the door, Lionel said, “I don’t care for him.”

  “Pardon, sir?” Rodney asked. “Who?”

  “Bastard,” Lionel said, his eyes focused and clear.

  CHAPTER 6

  Notes on Robert’s laptop screen read:

  Release all other Maxwell heirs, known or unknown.

  Waive Section 1541

  Release Consolidated affiliates, subsidiaries plus officers, directors etc.

  No wrongful death claim brought by estate???

  After showering at home four hours ago, he put Gia’s firing behind him, best he could, and logged into the firm’s system. Alone in his open, raftered living space, he had begun drafting the Maxwell release off Philip’s e-mailed template.

  Finally, he was down to dealing with the last legal issue: why didn’t Jack file a wrongful death claim on Alison’s behalf along with the estate’s claim? Robert knew that California allowed two methods of collecting money on behalf of a wronged dead person: wrongful death claims and survival claims. But Jack’s pleadings—Robert triple-checked—sued only on a survival claim.

  A quick trip to the California code online reminded him of the answer. Something he knew when he passed the bar: parents and children can sue third parties for a child’s or a parent’s wrongful death. That claim compensates them for losing their loved one. Brothers and sisters of the same loved one, someone like Alison, cannot sue for that kind of loss.

  A survival claim, like the one the estate filed, was different. That claim aims to compensate Brian’s estate, not any of his relatives, for the injury done to Brian while he was alive. His own pain and suffering, that kind of thing. Alison would benefit because she was the sole heir to his estate, not for the emotional pain she experienced from losing her brother.

  That left Robert with one question: Should he release Consolidated from wrongful death claims even though they didn’t apply to Brian’s estate or to Alison—and even though Jack never filed one?

  Normally, he would wait for Consolidated to ask that wrongful death claims be released, too—and lawyers being lawyers, they would ask even though it didn’t fit the facts. After some back and forth, he’d go along and get something in return. But this situation wasn’t normal. Jack Pierce had been very clear: I want a friendly document. One I can get them to sign. That warning boiled down to this: draft the release like you’re their lawyer, not hers. He decided to go along with what Jack wanted—avoid the back and forth. Release Consolidated from both types of claims up front.

  A judgment call on his part. If Jack didn’t see it his way, Robert would remove wrongful death from the release in sixty seconds and be done with it.

  A few more hours of cross-checking the case file with his work and he’d be done. He was starting to breathe easy when his phone vibrated, then rang on the desk. It was from the local 310 area code. Not Philip’s cell. He didn’t recognize the number, so he waited for the call to go to voice mail. Could be that actress he stopped seeing months ago.

&n
bsp; “Who’d you sue today?” she’d ask, no matter how often he told her he didn’t try cases. Beautiful—that was true—but she lived for auditions. When they didn’t happen, it was bad. When they happened, it was worse, and if she had been actually hired? He never found out.

  No voice mail off that call. He went into his small kitchen, grabbed an apple. With the window open, he could hear the surf, and smell the salted wind blowing in over the boardwalk.

  Another family picture rested on the counter: Robert and Rosalind, kids in a garlic-curing shed. Eight or nine years old in this one, horsing around beneath braided garlic strands hung from wooden beams.

  That shot of the farm led him to recall the relentless, grinding work there and to recall women he’d dated in LA who never believed he often worked all weekend. And living in a down-and-dirty place near the beach? Not on the beach? Are you really a lawyer? They didn’t grasp that his real payoff would come after years of busting his ass, and he didn’t plan to get serious with a woman who didn’t grasp that.

  “Hard work, Rosalind, am I right?” he asked her photo.

  Midthought, his cell phone vibrated and rang again. In the living area, he checked the caller: the same incoming number. Still no voice mail from the first call. Maybe a real estate agent cold-calling. No, thanks, not with former crack houses going for a million and up. Could it be Chase? Chase finding his number, calling to send him down a rabbit hole of wasted time.

  His phone still rang, and he decided to pick up on the off chance Jack was on the other end.

  So he answered. “Hello?”

  But it wasn’t Jack. It was a woman. And she was crying.

  A cooling teakettle on a gas stove still leaked steam over an unlit burner. Robert found a bottle of water inside a refrigerator and closed the door. This kitchen was even smaller than his own. He took the bottle into the living room. It was small, too. Smaller still given the knocked-over bookshelf and books scattered across the floor. In the far corner, Alison Maxwell sat on the floor in a Hurricanes sweatshirt and jeans, her knees drawn into her chest.

  She wound up there after opening the door for him a minute ago. Only one minute. Seemed a lot longer than that as he knelt down and offered her the bottled water.