by Dave Daren
“I guess we’ll find out when we get our results in nine weeks,” another voice replied.
“Wait,” Vicki hissed. “Did that dude just say nine weeks?”
“Ugh,” I said, “I thought it would tell us instantly, like in California.” Passing the bar didn’t get me anything unless the bar association acknowledged it and issued me a license. I had to wait for them to send in my results, in California we had gotten our results almost instantly, it didn’t occur to me that they wouldn’t be using the most up to date grading system in Arizona.
“Crap,” Vicki uttered mournfully. “I don’t suppose the judge on Harmony’s case will give you nine more weeks for discovery?”
“I have two days before I have to turn my findings in,” I complained. “There has to be someone I can call who will get our results faster.” I scrambled through ideas in my head as I tried to find something I could do to fix this.
“I’ll look it up online,” Vicki said, “I’m sure there is--”
“Hey, LA lawyer guy,” I heard a strangely familiar voice chime in to my right, and both Vicki and I looked over.
The voice belonged to Horace, the tall mean-looking guy from Slinger’s who had initiated the bar fight. He didn’t look any kinder outside the context of a bar named after gunfighters. His thick, dark mustache still perched over his mouth, emphasizing his deep frown, and he was still covered in distasteful tattoos of poorly drawn pin-up girls in various states of undress.
“Horace?” I asked with complete surprise. “You’re taking the bar exam?” After I said his name Vicki seemed to remember our conversation about him from the night before and took a small step backward.
“Nah, I been waitin’ out here all day for you, because I know you got yourself an issue,” he told me.
“You… followed us here?” Vicki squeaked.
“Not you,” he chuckled, and then he pointed at me. “Mr. Hollywood. You think I’m lettin’ you off the hook so easy?”
“Off the hook?” I asked.
“I think I got a solution to your predicament,” Horace said as his mouth spread into a dangerous looking grin.
“A solution to how quickly we hear back about our bar results and get sworn in?” Vicki asked with a doubtful frown.
“I know some folks who know some other folks,” he explained vaguely.
“They’re not in the Russian mob, are they?” Vicki glanced at me.
“Nope,” Horace denied as if this was a completely sensible misconception. “I come from an old Arizona family, not one of these transplants. All the old families know all the other old families… including the cousins in high places. I know the people you need to get what you want.”
“This is the corrupt good-old-boys network I’ve heard so much about!” Vicki exclaimed as she took a step to the side so that she was no longer hiding behind me. “This is the authentic country experience.”
“Ma’am,” he nodded to Vicki, “that’s just how business gets done out here. One hand washes the other, and everyone treats everyone with mutual respect.”
“As kind of an offer as this is, I feel like you probably want something in return,” I interjected to avoid Horace getting insulted by Vicki not so subtly calling him a corrupt bumpkin.
“You’d be right about that,” Horace nodded somberly. “I can talk to a few people about rushing this grading process along, get it done in a few days, if you’ll do something very important to me.”
“He’s totally about to ask you to hide a body,” Vicki whispered to me. I wanted to laugh, but I knew exactly what he was about to ask for, and it made my stomach sink.
“Go on,” I responded to Horace hesitantly.
“I want you to act in my play at the theater,” he revealed.
“You what?” Vicki exclaimed, and I let out a long sigh and rubbed my forehead.
“Like I told you the other night, I know your folks. I know you were supposed to go to Julliard,” he explained. “I’ve put a lot into this play. I want an actor who knows how to command the stage to take on my material.”
“I’m not really a trained actor,” I said quickly. “I never actually went to Julliard. I went to law school instead, hence me being in this bar exam situation.”
“I brought the script.” Horace shoved the thick script into my arms, as though he didn’t seem to have heard me. “Please know your lines before opening night.”
“This is not what I do,” I reemphasized. “In fact, I have made it a point in my life to absolutely not do this.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you not want to be your sister’s lawyer?” he glared.
“Yes, I do want to do that. But--”
“Then you have to do this,” he interrupted. “I know how to get you what you want, but you need to get me something I want. It’s only fair.”
“Just a second.” I took a breath to slow things down. “How did you know we were taking this test and how did you know I was trying to become my sister’s lawyer?”
“Sedona ain’t a big place, Hank,” he said somewhat angrily. “It ain’t no secret to nobody what you’re up to.”
“Did he just call you ‘Hank?’” Vicki whispered as she tried not to laugh.
“Look, how do I know for sure you’ll help me?” I asked.
“You’re gonna have to trust me,” the big man said with a slow nod. “Like I’m trusting you to do my play justice, Mr. Hollywood-big-time Lawyer.”
“Just to be clear, your getting-us-what-we-want process is totally on the up-and-up, right?” Vicki cut in. “Like, you’re not holding someone off a skyscraper by their collar or anything?”
“Of course not,” he scoffed. “I just know a guy who can speed the process along.”
“I still don’t like how vague that is,” Vicki frowned.
“It’s legal,” he reassured us. “Do I look like some sort of criminal?”
We took in his many tattoos of scantily clad women, the muscle mass that was probably capable of crushing a man’s skull, and pistol he carried openly on his hip, but we both deemed it wise not to answer that question. The silence was a tad awkward though.
“I’m kin to a guy high up at the bar association,” Horace promised. “He’s from Cottonwood and we’re cousins. Ain’t no big deal. Just memorize your lines and meet at the theater tomorrow at seven. Deal?”
I thought there would be some sort of instinct inside me urging me not to accept this vague and shady offer, but I didn’t get any distinctly shady vibes from this deal, actually. If Horace could ask the right people to move my exam to the top of the grading stack, and then urge those same people to send off my results sooner than they would have, I didn’t see any harm in it. He wasn’t asking them to falsify the results or do anything illegal. In fact, it was the only way we could do what we need to do for Harmony.
The only downside, really, was having to act in a community level theater and memorize lines when I should be focusing on Harmony’s case and perform with the conviction and sincerity that Horace expected from an almost-Julliard-educated actor.
“He’ll start looking over his lines immediately,” Vicki answered for me before I could accept the deal. I turned to look at her, and the smile on her face, and the sparkle in her eye told me that she was beyond excited for the chance to watch me act in a play.
“Good,” Horace nodded, and he seemed satisfied. “I’ll get started on my task while you get started on yours.” He extended his hand out to shake, and I reached out and took it into mine. I wasn’t one to be intimidated, so I gave him my best grip and nodded back to him.
“Well, well, well,” Vicki said with a smirk as she watched Horace disappear. “Looks like you’re about to make your theatrical and judicial debut in Arizona.”
“As ‘Barry McGoodGuy,’ Attorney at Law,” I added after I opened up the first page of the script, saw my character’s name, and let out an audible sigh.
Chapter 13
Later that day, Vicki and I were back home in the
treehouse looking over the script. I was trying to memorize my lines, but it was near impossible when the pretty Asian woman kept yanking it out of my hands every few seconds so that she could read ahead.
“Wait, wait, listen to this part,” Vicki tried to contain her laughter and struggled to wipe all the tears from her eyes as she leaned against the wall of the backyard treehouse. Then she puffed her chest out and adjusted her posture as she took on the persona of Barry McGoodGuy. “McGoodGuy might be the name that my father and my father’s father passed down to me, but I did nothing to deserve it. Nowadays, I think my name ought to be…” She paused dramatically to take in the fixed attention of a make-believe audience, and I gave her a disinterested stare. “...Very McBadGuy.”
She fell into fits of laughter again, and I took the script back from her as she struggled to breathe through her episodes of mirth. I looked down and sure enough, this was not a decently funny practical joke. That was the actual line Horace had written for me to say. In public. In front of people.
“Oh, that’s very McBad.” I sighed defeatedly.
“I think that’s the crucial point in your character arc,” Vicki choked out through her hysterics. “You’ve really turned a corner at that point.”
“As long as my family never finds out I’m doing this, I can get through it,” I decided. Just then, my mother’s face popped into view in the treehouse as she balanced on the rope ladder.
“Henry!” She grinned broadly in a way that was already setting off doomsday alarms in my brain. I hadn’t seen her this happy since I was fifteen. “I just heard that you’re starring in one of Horace’s plays!”
My stomach dropped.
“How did you hear that?” I asked with the hope that I could plausibly deny it.
“Oh, it’s all over town.” She grinned. “The theater just put up new flyers. Everyone and their mother is going to come see you!”
She placed a flyer on the floor of the treehouse and slid it toward me. The flyer included a blurry picture of me likely ripped from my firm’s website. My eyebrows were exaggeratedly downturned, I supposed to make me look like the hardened, rough-around-the-edges lead character. It might have been more effective if the eyebrows hadn’t been added with what was clearly some basic desktop paint tool like a cartoon villains.
“That includes my own mother too, I imagine,” I stated more than asked.
“Of course!” she squealed with delight. “I’m so glad my son is returning to his roots!”
“My roots?” I frowned. “Mom--”
“And of course your father and siblings are excited to come as well,” she said without having let me finish. “Now, don’t let me keep you from practicing!” She dipped out of view, but left behind the flyer and the threat of my oncoming public humiliation.
“Come on, it won’t be that bad,” Vicki comforted. “You’re doing a thing you’re good at in front of people who are supporting you. It could be a lot worse.”
“It’s a waste of time,” I scowled. “There are bigger things going on.”
“Of course,” she recalled. “This helps us get to that. In a weird, slightly embarrassing, roundabout way, but it still helps.”
I sighed and looked down at the angry version of me on the flyer, but then my phone went off in my pocket. I expected some sort of breakthrough from AJ, but I didn’t recognize the caller ID. It was a local Sedona area code.
“Hello?” I answered hesitantly.
“It’s Horace,” a now familiar voice said. “It’s done. You should have your bar license in the morning by FedEx. See you on opening night.”
“How were--”
“I hope you break an arm!” he said, and his tone was a mixture of joy and grizzled growls.
“Uhh, it’s actually ‘break a leg,’ and--”
“Whatever,” he interrupted me. “I’m going to need you to get to the theatre a few minutes early so we can put your costume on.”
“My costume? Uhh, what does that--”
“Nothing serious,” Horace interrupted again. “Just be there early.”
“But what about blocking?” I asked with a heavy sigh.
“Blocking?”
“Yeah, it’s the direction the actors are supposed to take on stage. Like where they stand when they deliver their lines.”
“Ohhh!” Horace laughed. “So that’s what that’s called.”
“Yeah, so I should probably come in today or--”
“Naw, just come in like fifteen minutes ahead,” Horace said, “and I’ll tell you where to stand on stage.”
“That’s not quite how it--”
“It will be fine,” he coughed. “You are a great actor, you’ll get what I want done perfectly. Don’t be late.”
He hung up without waiting for me to finish my reply, and I almost groaned with frustration. It didn’t matter though. Working with Horace was a small price to pay to ensure I could represent my sister. Tomorrow morning, Harmony could fire Toby, hire me to be her lawyer, and I would fire off subpoenas.
It was all coming together.
“Is everything alright?” Vicki asked, and I saw her lips struggle to hold back her smirk.
“Better than alright,” I replied with a huge grin. “Horace says FedEx will be delivering our licenses tomorrow morning. Congratulations, Vicki, you’re a lawyer.”
Without missing a beat, she tackled me with a monster hug, and I landed on one of the mattresses as she fell on top of me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. This never would have happened without you, Henry,” she exclaimed.
“No, thank you,” I responded calmly. “This certainly wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gotten the crazy idea to come out here after me. Your initiative is going to be what makes proving my sister’s innocence possible.”
I looked into her eyes, and they were welling up with tears. I smiled at her and began to pull her in for a hug, but instead, she gave me a hungry look, put her right hand behind my head, and pulled herself up even to my face. We stared at each other for only a moment before we exchanged a passionate kiss. After our lips parted, I reached over to turn off the Christmas lights that illuminated the treehouse.
“We could read more lines, if you want,” she said with her face nuzzled up to my neck, her left hand on my chest as it played with the collar of my shirt.
“I think we’ve rehearsed enough for one night,” I said as I flipped the switch to kill the lights and fill the treehouse with darkness.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she replied a moment before she kissed me again.
The next morning, my alarm went off before sunrise, and I carefully pulled myself out from under the blanket without waking Vicki. I took a quick glance back at her before I descended the treehouse ladder in my pajamas. Even sound asleep she was gorgeous, and her sleeping form made my heart skip a beat. Last night was… impulsive, but it also felt right. I guessed that there was some arcane provision against sleeping with your paralegal in the California bar that we violated, and I knew for a fact that this act violated my employment contract with Sanchez. But none of that mattered at the moment, and I didn’t think it mattered now, either. Sanchez be damned, he could fire me if he wanted to and California could disbar me if it wanted to for all I cared.
I turned toward the rising sun and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long day, and I wanted an early start, so I grabbed my laptop, crawled down the ladder, and went into the house.
I took a quick shower and then got a good half hour of work in as I prepared the subpoenas that I needed so I could start deposing the cast of characters involved with this case. I also prepared a motion to extend discovery since my forensics specialist hadn’t had enough time to get any results yet. I expected Judge Rose would have no problem with that since it appeared to be the most critical piece of evidence in the case. Not to mention, the expert Barry recommended in Phoenix was the most respected guy in the state, and Judge Rose would know he wasn’t playing any games.
“Hey Phoenix, long night?” I asked.
“Hey bro,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse. “Me and my collective were rehearsing most of the night.”
“Collective? Is that like a band?”
“Nah, bands are too commercial and have too many rules,” he explained. “A collective can perform no matter who shows up or not. We’re a hive. We’re a sonic virus.”
“Where is your practice space?” I asked because I wondered who in the ‘collective’ was paying rent.
He laid down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. “We practice wherever we assemble, and last night we assembled in the produce department of the Walmart in Cottonwood to protest living wages for the migrant farm workers.
“Very cool, man,” I responded. “What instrument do you play?”
“We don’t bring instruments,” he began to explain. “We use whatever objects are available in our environment that can make sounds. It’s more authentic that way.”
“Uhhh, yeah,” I said as I tried to sound supportive.
“We don’t want anyone to be defined by the instrument they play,” he pointed out with a lazy gesture of his finger.
“And how did you channel your authenticity last night?” I wondered.
“Well, before the Sheriff's deputies kicked us out, I was resonating on a spectral level with three different sized watermelons,” he declared proudly. “The timbre they had was amazing.”
Just then, my email beeped, and I saw the results of the background checks for Gerard and Udinova from AJ. As I waited for the pdf files to open, I turned to ask Phoenix another question, but he had already fallen asleep with a happy smile on his face.
Udinova’s background check opened, and I was floored by his rap sheet. Starting from age eighteen, he’d worked his way up from violent street crime and drug dealing to small-time racketeering and loan sharking. By his thirtieth birthday, he was successful enough to have graduated to a charge of tax evasion that the IRS somehow dropped, and he’d had a clean record since.
