The Color of Law sf-1

by Mark Gimenez

  “What about me, Dan? You gonna run over me, too?”

  Dan sat down in his chair, reached over and buzzed his secretary, then looked back up at Scott and said, “I think I already have.”

  Scott stood in the middle of the office, surrounded by Dan’s trophy heads. Their sad eyes seemed to look down on him, as if they were saying, We’ve saved a place up here for you. And now Scott knew how John Walker and the others had felt standing right here when Dan had fired them without warning. He had chuckled when another lawyer had shown him John’s ad in the TV guide-one day a successful lawyer in a big firm and the next day just another

  shyster trying to sleaze out a living. Now his mind conjured up his own ad, situated between ones for a psychic and an escort service: CAR ACCIDENT? DIVORCE? BANKRUPTCY? CALL A. SCOTT FENNEY, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. WE CARE. E-Z TERMS. SE HABLA ESPANOL.

  This can’t be happening, not to me!

  The door behind Scott opened and two of the three black Dibrell Tower security guards from downstairs were standing there, puzzled looks on their faces.

  It was happening to him.

  “Your personal belongings will be delivered to your house, Scott,” Dan said. “Firm policy.”

  The game was over. Scott Fenney had lost. There was nothing more to do but to walk off the field. The guards parted and Scott walked down the corridors that he had so proudly strutted just days before, A. Scott Fenney, Esq., Tom Dibrell’s lawyer, wired on success. Yesterday, the other lawyers had greeted him like a star; today they averted their eyes as from a patient dying of AIDS. Dead lawyer walking. Scott Fenney’s legal career as he knew it was over.

  He and his escorts walked down the staircase to the sixty-second floor and ran into Missy walking up, looking sexy in a tight knit dress. But she did not wink at Scott Fenney today; she did not act like they were on the brink of an affair; she acted like he had a contagious disease. They continued down to the landing, where Sue stood, holding out his briefcase and 9-iron. Before he reached her, Sid Greenberg walked up to Sue with a stack of documents.

  “Sue, I’m putting these documents on your desk. Copy them and get them up to Dibrell ASAP. Put the originals in Scott’s…I mean, in my office.”

  “Yes, Mr. Greenberg.”

  “Sid?”

  Sid spotted Scott and said, “Oh, hi, Scott. Sorry to hear the news. Good luck.”

  “You’re taking my client, my secretary, my office? I taught you everything you know!”

  “Yeah, Scott, you did. You taught me practicing law is just business. Nothing personal.”

  “I wasn’t talking about me!”

  Sid shrugged lamely and walked off. Scott turned to Sue, her hands extended toward him. Scott took his briefcase and 9-iron from her.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Fenney.”

  “That’s it? Good-bye? Eleven years you’ve been my secretary. Don’t you care?”

  Sue got a look on her face he had never seen and she seemed to grow six inches.

  “For eleven years I’ve fetched your dry cleaning and coffee, run your personal errands, paid your personal bills, shopped for gifts for your wife and child and clients, lied to clients for you…Did you care about me? About my life? You never once asked about my life. Do you know I have a handicapped child and that’s the only reason I’ve put up with you for all these years? Because I needed the money? You didn’t know and you didn’t care. Did you care when Mr. Walker got fired? No. Like every other lawyer here, you care only about yourself.”

  Scott turned from this stranger standing on the marble floor in the lobby, talking to him like that in front of a gathering crowd. Followed by the two guards, he walked to the elevators and pushed the down button. The doors opened and they stepped in. One of the guards said, “What happened, Mr. Fenney?”

  “I got fired.”

  “’Cause of what you did, standing up for that girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know where Mr. Ford parks his Mercedes down in the garage. You want I should flatten his tires?”

  “Yeah.” Then Scott shook his head. “No.”

  The doors started to shut, but at the last second a hand pushed in and the doors receded. Standing there was Sue. She said, “John Walker’s wife died last week.”

  They stepped outside the store and Pajamae froze.

  “Boo, there he is again.”

  “Who?”

  “The bald man in the black car.”

  “Where?”

  Pajamae motioned with her head to the parking lot. Boo turned that way, but Pajamae said, “Don’t look!”

  They turned and faced the store window. In the Village, cars could park in slanted spots right at the sidewalk. Then there was a little one-way road for cars to drive around the center and then two more rows of parking in the middle of the open parking area. The bald man in the black car was parked there, maybe thirty feet away. Boo acted casual and kind of looked around at different things and finally got around to glancing at the bald man in the black car: he was staring straight at them. Boo turned away.

  Pajamae was frantic. “Let’s run, Boo!”

  Boo took Pajamae firmly by the arms. “No. Act normal. He can’t grab both of us, not here. He’s just trying to scare us.”

  “Honey, it’s working!”

  Boo started patting around her pockets.

  “What are you doing?” Pajamae asked.

  “I’m pretending I’m looking for something.” She threw up her hands and pointed inside the store. “Now I’m acting like I left something inside. Come on, we’ll go back in and I’ll call A. Scott. He’ll come for us.”

  “He better get here fast.”

  “He drives a Ferrari.”

  They walked back inside and Boo went directly over to the same saleslady. “Ma’am, may I use a phone? It’s an emergency. I need to call my handsome father.”

  Scott had always enjoyed the ride home at the end of each day, jumping into a $200,000 automobile, exiting the parking garage, saluting Osvaldo like the president saluting the Air Force One attendants, and pointing the Ferrari north toward Highland Park…Driving leisurely through the Uptown area just north of downtown where the singles commingled, young men and gorgeous girls, their heads swiveling his way as he passed by, envy written all over their faces, wondering what it must be like to be living a perfect life like the handsome man in the Ferrari…And finally entering the Town of Highland Park, where the kids are smart, their parents are successful, and everyone is safe and secure.

  But today was different.

  He wasn’t enjoying the ride home. Because at the end of the ride, he would have to tell his wife and daughter that he had been fired, that he was no longer a partner at Ford Stevens, that he would no longer be bringing home money each night, that he had lost the family fortune. That Scott Fenney was now a loser.

  How could he face his wife as a loser? His daughter? His neighbors in Highland Park? Scott hit the right turn signal and braked to turn onto Beverly Drive…but at the last second he changed his mind and accelerated straight through the intersection and continued north past Highland Park Village. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. A few blocks later he turned left and pulled over in front of the Highland Park High School football stadium, where life as he knew it had begun the first day of fall football practice his freshman year.

  Inside a stadium that shamed many college stadiums, this year’s team was practicing on the artificial turf. Scott cut the engine and got out of the Ferrari. He walked over to the fence and watched the boys working out on the field while the cheerleaders went through their routines on the sideline, white boys dreaming of being another Highland Park football legend like Doak Walker or Bobby Layne or Scotty Fenney and white girls dreaming of being another Hollywood starlet from Highland Park like Jayne Mansfield or Angie Harmon, but knowing that if their dreams were not realized they could always fall back on their daddies’ money, fortunes that assured them futures as bright and certain as the blue sky above. And he wondered if he had
fooled himself all these years, thinking he belonged here, that his football heroics were enough to make him one of them. Maybe the son of a construction worker is always the son of a construction worker. Maybe a renter is always a renter. Maybe the poor kid on the block is always the poor kid on the block, even if he lives in a mansion. Maybe you are what you’ve always been.

  His dream had begun right out there, on that very field, twenty-one years ago when he was fifteen. And that dream had ended today. And he found himself wondering, for the first time since that day so long ago, what he would do with the rest of his life.

  He walked back to the Ferrari. Now he would drive home and tell his wife and daughter that he had lost everything, his only consolation being that there was nothing more for Mack McCall and Dan Ford to take, nothing more for Scott Fenney to lose.

  When he opened the car door, his cell phone was ringing.

  A. Scott said he’d be there in less than a minute. He didn’t lie. They were standing on the sidewalk outside the store again when Boo heard the familiar roar of the Ferrari’s engine. She turned and saw the bright red vehicle veer sharply into the Village and accelerate through the parking lot. She held her arms above her head and waved wildly and jumped up and down. And then she pointed directly at the bald man in the black car. He sat up quickly when he saw her pointing; then he saw the Ferrari coming toward him. He started his car and drove out of his parking place and turned left, but another car was backing out of one of the slanted spots by the sidewalk.

  His car was blocked.

  The red Ferrari screeched to a stop behind the bald man’s black car. A. Scott jumped out. He didn’t even shut his door. He ran up to the black car with a golf club in his hand.

  Why did A. Scott have a golf club in the Ferrari?

  Boo’s lawyer-father, wearing one of his starched white shirts and a silk tie flapping over his shoulder, reared back and swung the club at the driver’s window.

  WHACK!

  The glass cracking sounded like an explosion and froze everyone within earshot. A few old people ducked. Ladies from inside the store rushed outside. Now it was the bald man’s turn to be scared. A. Scott yanked on the man’s door, but it was locked. So he stepped forward and swung the golf club again and again at the windshield of the car and screamed words Boo had never heard him say:

  “You’re following my girls, you sonofabitch!”

  WHACK!

  “McCall sent you, didn’t he!”

  WHACK!

  “You come around my girls again, I swear to God I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”

  WHACK!

  The car in front drove off. The bald man gunned the black car and sped away and around the corner. A. Scott stood there in the middle of the Village parking lot, red-faced, breathing hard and sweating, and holding the golf club over his shoulder like an ax. He looked like an action figure. Shoppers were staring, shocked at such a commotion in Highland Park. Boo was grinning: it was great! The same saleslady was standing next to her.

  “God, he’s handsome,” she said.

  Boo Fenney had never been so proud of her father. She ran to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and clutched him tightly. Pajamae joined them.

  “You girls okay?”

  “We are now. Who was that man?”

  “Delroy Lund.”

  Pajamae said, “Mr. Fenney, you’re the man!”

  Boo said, “A. Scott, you said the F-word.”

  “Yeah.” His breathing was calming. “I’m sorry.”

  The adrenaline rush had receded by the time Scott turned the Ferrari into the driveway at 4000 Beverly Drive and drove into the back motor court. The girls were doubled up in the passenger seat.

  Pajamae said, “That’s why Louis walks with me and Mama. No one messes with him, not even in the projects.”

  Scott cut the engine, grabbed his cell phone, and hit a number he had recently added to the speed dial. When a familiar voice answered, he said, “Louis, this is Scott Fenney. I need your help.”

  He hung up and they climbed out of the car. There was still his wife. He still had to tell Rebecca the bad news. They entered the house through the back door. It was quiet.

  “Rebecca?”

  Boo said, “Oh, I forgot. She’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “On a trip.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. She just said she had to leave.”

  Scott took the stairs two steps at a time and ran down the hall to their bedroom. He found Rebecca’s letter on the bed, a handwritten good-bye. He had lost her home, her cars, and her chair of the Cattle Barons’ Ball. In short, he had ruined her life, she said, so they were through, just as she had promised. And since she could no longer hold her head high in Highland Park, she was leaving with the assistant golf pro at the country club. He was going on the PGA tour. She would be a golfer’s groupie.

  “When is she coming back?”

  Scott looked up to Boo standing in the door.

  “She’s not.”

  Boo was crying facedown in bed. Every girl she knew had a mother — even Pajamae! She felt Pajamae’s arms around her, hugging her tightly.

  “Boo, I don’t have a daddy and now you don’t have a mama, maybe your daddy and my mama could get married. We’d be sisters.”

  “Pajamae, A. Scott can’t marry your mother, she’s…”

  Pajamae’s hug went soft. Boo felt her pull away. Boo wiped her face and sat up. Pajamae had a funny look on her face. Her fists were on her hips, like Mother when she got mad.

  “She’s what?”

  Boo shrugged. “She’s twenty-four. That’s way too young for him. He’s really old.”

  Louis arrived an hour after Scott’s call. He pulled his old car around back. Scott met him in the motor court. They shook hands this time.

  “Thanks for coming, Louis.”

  “Ain’t no problem, Mr. Fenney. I been watching over Pajamae most of her life. Been missing her.” He looked around. “Course, you probably don’t get as much shootin’ up here.”

  “Come on inside, Louis, I’ve got a bedroom for you.”

  “Aw, no, sir, Mr. Fenney, I don’t feel right with that.”

  Scott could tell that Louis was uncomfortable with the idea, so he didn’t press him.

  “You can stay in the cabana. Consuela, our maid, lives out there, but she’s gone for a while. INS.”

  “No, sir, that her place. I sleep in my car. In the garage. I can keep a better eye out back here.”

  “It’s air-conditioned, there’s a full bath. I can fix up a bed for you…and I’ll bring out a TV and a recliner.”

  “TV and chair be nice, but not the bed. Back seat of my car work just fine.” Louis smiled. “And, Mr. Fenney, don’t you worry none. Ain’t no one gonna hurt them girls now.”

  Scott would not be spending the rest of his day in his fancy office on the sixty-second floor doing the things lawyers do and eating lunch at the swanky Downtown Club and working out among gorgeous girls at the athletic club. He did not feel special today, sitting in the den at home and staring out the windows at the pool and the professionally landscaped yard. His career was gone, his wife was gone, and his house and cars would soon be gone. Mack McCall had won. And his prize was Scott Fenney’s perfect life.

  For the first time in his life, Scott felt defeated. He didn’t know if he could get up off the ground this time.

  Twice Boo came downstairs and crawled up into his lap and they cried together. The third time Pajamae came with her. The two girls sat on the wide arms of the big leather chair and buried their faces in his broad shoulders and cried until his shirt was wet. They never said a word.

  Scott sat there as the sun’s rays moved slowly from one side of the den to the other. He heard the girls in the kitchen, and Pajamae brought him a scrambled egg sandwich, but he had no appetite. When the sky turned dark, he pushed himself out of the chair, climbed the stairs, and put a brave face on for the girls. He fou
nd them huddled in bed and his chair next to the bed. He sat and they said prayers.

  Then Boo said, “I don’t want to read tonight. I want to talk.”

  Pajamae said, “We want to talk.”

  Scott removed his glasses. “Okay. What about?”

  “We saw you on TV last night,” Boo said, “with Pajamae’s mother. I know I’m not supposed to watch TV at night, but I went downstairs and saw Mother watching you on TV, so I had to, you know that.”

  Scott nodded. “And?”

  “And you have some explaining to do, A. Scott.”

  “Ask your questions.”

  Scott knew better than to launch into a narrative with Boo. He always made her ask the questions. He figured if she asked, she was ready to know.

  “What’s sex?”

  He hadn’t figured on that question. That was a question for a girl to ask her mother, but when her mother runs off with the assistant golf pro, it falls to the father. And now he had two girls facing him, their legs curled under them, hands in their laps, apprehension on their faces, asking about sex.

  “That’s a boy’s thing, right, Mr. Fenney?”

  “A boy’s thing?”

  “You know, a boy’s privates. Like, when I go outside in the projects, some boy’s always saying, ‘C’mon over here, little girl, an’ I shows you my sex.’”

  “Oh. Well, sex is when a boy and a girl…I mean, a man and a woman…when they, uh…”

  “Do the nasty?” Pajamae blurted out. “That’s what the big girls call it. I told Mama what they said, and she said I couldn’t play with those girls anymore.”

  “Look, do either of you have any idea what sex is?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because Mama said the dead man gave her money for sex.”

  “Oh.”

  “Then he hit her, and boy, that was his first mistake. My mama, she doesn’t let any man hit her, not since my daddy. So she kicked his butt good.” She smiled. “Like you beat up that man’s car, Mr. Fenney.”