Compromised

by James R. Scarantino

  “Eat,” his father said, “before that falls apart in your lap.”

  Twenty-three

  Fager’s Mercedes waited for him in the detention center’s visitors lot. He’d had it dropped off, not wanting to ride the prison bus to the center of town and have to walk blocks in the heat and smoky air to his car at the courthouse, sitting there since Judy Diaz ordered him jailed for contempt. He was back in the clothes he’d worn to court, the Hart, Schaffner & Marx navy pinstripe with the black tee and canvas shoes. He couldn’t understand why he ever wore wool in this weather.

  The cloudless sky was brown with smoke. The jail had its own stink. He was wearing it. But he hadn’t been smelling smoke inside the prison. That could have caused a riot, prisoners thinking the place was on fire and they’d burn to death in their cells.

  “I don’t want to go,” he’d told Yago when he got word Diaz had lifted her contempt order. “I’ve got work here.”

  The men were enjoying filing complaints against Thornton, something to do and a way to take a shot at a women with everything they’d never have. Fager was enjoying it, too. Not just putting Marcy on her heels. He missed being a lawyer. A part of his brain came awake as he pulled law books off shelves in the prison library. He turned out work no judge would confuse with a pro se petition: correct legal citations, perfect paragraphs, an orderly argument progressing to a clearly stated request for relief. Two of the motions were actually righteous. The guys had truly been screwed. The rest, they didn’t stand a chance. But he gave it his best shot. And damn, it felt good.

  He’d done nothing to purge himself of contempt. Something outside the prison walls had shifted. He started his car and headed to the office. He wanted his desk, his computer and printer. He’d finish the pleadings drafted on the metal table in the pod and mail them back to his clients in envelopes marked “legal mail.” The boys could sign them and use the money he’d deposit in their prison accounts for postage to file and serve them on Thornton.

  He was pleased to see that her parking lot was as empty as his. Kicking back in the pod, work done for the day, he had talked about Montclaire bringing teenagers to Thornton’s office to celebrate wins. Sometimes bringing them to a judge’s house, the judge also a woman. That got the men listening to what he wanted them to remember and share with everyone they knew: “She’s now talking to police, Thornton’s investigator. You think there’s anything in that office the cops aren’t hearing about?”

  It would kill Marcy’s practice.

  His mail was on the floor inside the slot. He’d let his longtime secretary go even before he received the disciplinary board’s ruling. The PO box she’d check in the morning he’d let go, too. Now the little mail he got came through the slot. Between a Joseph A. Banks catalog and a notice of the annual bar convention (let them waste postage) was an envelope printed with Thornton’s return address. He slit it open with a finger, read the single sheet of paper inside, and was off running to her office.

  He made it to the path from the parking lot to the sidewalk leading to her steps before falling flat on his face.

  “What the hell?”

  He’d caught his toe where flagstones were missing. He scrambled to his feet and climbed the steps. He threw out a “Hello, darling” to the young receptionist and pushed open the door to Thornton’s office. She had her feet on the desk, high heels off, a legal brief opened across her chest. She looked at him over her toes.

  “Aren’t you the guy who used to be Walter Fager?”

  That stopped him. He dropped his eyes, saw his grass-stained, torn pants, blood seeping through the knee. Looking up, he saw the window onto the parking lot and realized she’d seen him taking a fall.

  “You scheduled a deposition of Leon Bronkowski,” he said. “You didn’t think I’d be out of prison in time to do something about it.”

  “So now you are. Thank me. You’re welcome.” She raised her feet from the desk and swiveled her chair to let them drop. “It would have been a very short deposition. Now I suppose you’ll bulk up the record with objections and speeches.”

  “He’s in a coma. He can’t talk. What was the point?”

  “He’s a defendant. I’m entitled to discovery. Maybe he can hear me. Maybe I’ll make him so angry he’ll snap out of it and tell me to fuck myself. Maybe he’s just not answering any questions. You help shoot America’s favorite Indian artist, best move is to get very sick. Like geezer Mafia dons, getting heart attacks and dementia right before trial.” She stood and brushed down the front of her skirt. Without her heels she was shorter than he’d remembered. She always seemed so big in court. “Depo’s still on. Thanks for reminding me why I scheduled it. File your pro se motion for protective order. But take a shower before the hearing, okay?”

  He came in close so he could take something away by looking down at her.

  “Maybe you don’t have time to be harassing Bronk. All those disciplinary complaints, more coming, you’re going to be very busy.”

  She swept a foot under her desk. A black high heel, then another skidded across the floor. She retrieved them and sat at the leather couch to pull them on.

  “Nuisances.” She stood. That sound of hers he knew so well—heels clacking on a hard floor as she crossed a courtroom to approach the witness stand, or walking away down a courthouse hallway after she made her last offer—it was missing as she walked across a Persian rug to get her briefcase from a leather chair.

  Why was he watching her and not talking?

  She pulled on a black silk jacket and faced him, a trial lawyer in battle armor, the white shirt crisp and radiant, her skirt stopping mid-thigh to show the curve of muscle, the briefcase like a war club.

  “Walter, for those complaints to go anywhere, those broke thugs you’ve stirred up need an expert witness or two to testify they’ve examined my work and found it fell below the standard of practice in some specific, material respect. Those losers couldn’t pay my copying and postage charges. Where are they going to get an expert witness? It has to be a lawyer or a law professor. It will take days to prep, and then they have to sit through me explaining my reasoning for my moves, my decision to call or not call a witness. Then I get to tear them apart. Who does that for free?”

  “You’re looking at him.”

  And she did. Up and down. Her eyes came back to his face and she smiled. “You’re disbarred. This could be fun.”

  “I wasn’t disbarred for lack of zealousness. I’ll explain why. Which means they’ll hear more about your sharp practices. I’ll bring up Lily Montclaire destroying evidence under your instructions. You serving a disciplinary complaint on me at my wife’s funeral. They’ll understand why I lost it.”

  “Why you choked me in front of television cameras. They’ll understand that?”

  “So maybe you’ll blow every disciplinary complaint out of the water.” He turned away, making a show of studying the room.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m wondering if this was the movie set.”

  “The movie set?” She stopped moving toward the door.

  “Those disciplinary complaints, Marcy.” He held up a hand and spread his fingers. He had her. “Nine now, five more coming. All the time filing answers, motions, responding to the board’s investigators, the hearings, appeals to the Supreme Court, you won’t be heading to court. You won’t be billing time. You won’t be taking in new clients. Word’s already out that anything said in your office goes straight to the cops. Two years of dead time fighting a flood of disciplinary complaints, ouch. Not good for a law practice.”

  “You’re living for this,” she said. “What were you saying, the movie set?”

  Now he moved to the door, getting himself past her. They were close here, both competing for the same thirty inches separating the office from the reception area and the door to the outside.

  He smelle
d her perfume. Nothing sweet or delicate. She wore fragrance to make you stop and think about her, and lose yourself wondering.

  He fought it off.

  “Judy Diaz terminated your questioning of me too soon,” he said, reaching back to where he’d been going with this. Leave her with wondering what he knew that she didn’t.

  “I got what I wanted.”

  “You got what Lily said to me. You didn’t ask anything about what she gave me.”

  “Gave you?”

  “When your practice collapses, Marcy, you can try porn. I’ve seen your work. It’s good. Judy, too. But you should be more careful about your supporting cast.”

  He saw it in her eyes. She knew what he was talking about.

  He squeezed past her and retraced his steps. At the missing flagstones where he’d fallen he took out his phone and snapped photos. They’d be good exhibits for his lawsuit. A trip and fall, this one truly a nuisance. One more thing on Marcy’s plate. One more distraction. Another small cut with many more to come. He could write it up and file before the day was done.

  Fager was taking photographs of her damaged walkway when Thornton came out the front door on her way to court. What a pathetic sight, the man who had once been her mentor, who cost prosecutors sleep, who made judges sit up, gathering evidence for a lawsuit over torn pants.

  Forget all that. How the hell did he know about the videos? What did Lily give him?

  Twenty-four

  Aragon missed Thornton at her office. Bail hearings, her pretty secretary said. Then she has a meeting with Judge Diaz. So Aragon wrote out the message she’d left earlier: We moved Lily. Call off your dogs.

  A cleaning woman was there, switching out flowers from vases scattered around the office. Friendly, reminding Aragon of her own grandmother, the woman said, “I take the flowers now.” On the side, more workers, a three-man crew setting up sawhorses and flags on string, a stack of flagstones nearby on the lawn. Thornton’s Aston wasn’t in the parking lot, but Fager’s Mercedes was in its spot. She wasn’t aware he’d been released from his contempt of court charge.

  She called Lewis to check that he was in place. He was a couple miles out but the sheriff said he had a car with Serena, his men wanting to know again why they should unsnap their holsters if a van from a garbage company appeared on the dirt road. Aragon said she’d be right out. The two of them would stay until tomorrow, when she’d beg Rivera to share some of his notorious unlimited FBI resources.

  Hopefully Thornton would get the message and pull Silva back. Maybe the message, telling Thornton the police had connected to Silva, would make her cautious.

  Or maybe I’ve got this wrong and I’m blind to something, Aragon told herself.

  She lost Lewis’s call as she walked across the parking lot to the 1930s bungalow that was Fager’s office. She pressed the bell and caught a whiff of jail when Fager cracked the door.

  “I want to talk with you about Lily Montclaire. And Benny Silva.”

  “Come in. I’m just finishing my lawsuit against Thornton.” He touched his leg and she saw the ripped fabric and bloodstain. “Those guys repairing her walkway? A little late. Lawsuit of the century coming.”

  She followed him to his office in the back, thinking, Fager’s walking fine. He couldn’t be suing just over ruined pants. But Fager had changed since his wife was murdered. He’d wanted to switch sides, become a prosecutor, dedicate his life to truth and justice. She’d never bought it. It was all about the anger that had driven him for years, nothing close to a change of heart. He was still a prick. Maybe a crazy prick now, obsessed with bringing down Thornton and Diaz.

  Finally, putting his talents to good use.

  His office was a mess. Coffee cups on every surface. Full wastebaskets, books scattered on the floor, the copier open, the toner cartridge missing. He took a seat behind his desk in a padded maroon leather chair, cracked and worn. He’d cleared a space where he’d been writing on a legal pad. The rest of the desk was buried under food wrappers, crumpled paper, an empty holster.

  “Where’s the gun that goes in there?” she asked.

  “In evidence. It was the gun that killed Cody Geronimo. I keep the holster so every day I am reminded of the fact I missed the chance to kill him myself. What do you want to know about Lily?”

  “She’s playing games with us. I want to know everything she told you to see if it’s different than the story she’s telling now.”

  “I miss saying, ‘That’s attorney-client privileged information.’”

  “Get used to it.”

  “But I can still say I don’t want to talk to police. Everyone has that right. You want your question answered, subpoena me.”

  “That’s not helping her.”

  “Helping her is not my job.”

  “She’s not helping herself, not having a lawyer.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Then let’s talk about Benny Silva.” Aragon cleared books from the chair in front of his desk and sat. “You called Lewis to say Thornton’s been asking about him.”

  “The nine-million-dollar man.” Fager leaned back and laced fingers behind his head and showed stains in his armpits. “He’s got other people interested besides Thornton. Word about that award got the attention of the Mexican Mafia. They’re waiting for him to collect, then they’ll levy a tax, if they don’t take it all.”

  “It could be years before he collects.”

  “They are very patient people. They’ll outlast us all, like beetles after nuclear war. The lowest form of life is the hardest to kill. Why was Marcy asking about Silva?”

  “That’s what I wanted you to tell me,” Aragon said.

  “I think it’s for Judy Diaz. She’s got the motion for a new trial. Everything’s political in this town. Maybe she wants to know who Silva is, whether ruling for or against him matters. Maybe she’s sizing him up for a big contribution to Judy’s re-election.”

  “He keeps popping up, Benny Silva. In the investigation of Thornton and Diaz. In the case of a dead girl in a dumpster on the south side. In this other thing, a teenage girl named Star Salazar.”

  “Star Salazar. I know that name. Hang on.”

  Fager pushed away from his desk and swiveled to file cabinets against the wall. He came back with a dog-eared manila folder. “I bet you already know about this case.”

  “Let me hear you tell it.

  “Sure. I represented the kid charged with supplying the PCP and guns, this crazy game in his apartment. Two boys sitting across from each other with bullet-proof vests and small caliber guns, wigged out on the drugs. One kid, this Victor Griego, broke the rules and simply murdered the other boy for the fun of it. He’s Star Salazar’s brother. I was surprised Judge Diaz granted bail. The DA had wanted my guy held so he’d be around for trial. He took off first chance. The bail bondsman took Grandmom’s house. You know, Marcy represented Griego. Montclaire worked the case for her.”

  “You return your fee, since the case never went to trial?”

  “I kept the kid out of jail, didn’t I? I hope he’s enjoying life in Mexico.”

  “That where he is?”

  “That’s where Star Salazar said he went.”

  “Everybody goes to Mexico,” Aragon said. “Just this week Star Salazar said she was going with Abel Silva, Jr., Benny Silva’s great-nephew.”

  Fager checked the file, holding up a finger while he read.

  “How about that? That’s the same guy my kid went to Mexico with.”

  “Where’s your guy now? I like to have a chat.”

  “Beats me. Still in Mexico, as far as I know.”

  Aragon stepped out of Fager’s building to see Thornton closing the door on her Aston and walking toward her office. She hustled across the parking lot. Thornton had reached the front door by the time Aragon got close enough.
r />   “You get my messages?”

  Thornton turned slowly around, not fully facing Aragon. “Detective, have you been harassing my receptionist?”

  “We moved Lily Montclaire from Loco Lobo Outfitters. The people you have going out there, they won’t find her.”

  Now Aragon was at the bottom of the steps with Thornton looking down at her.

  “I don’t have anyone searching for her, detective.”

  “I know who’s doing it.”

  “Then tell them yourself.”

  “Tell them this: If they go out there again, it won’t be Lily Montclaire they’ll find. It will be me.”

  Rigo collected everyone’s phones and turned them off until the job was over. They went inside a foot of lead pipe capped at both ends. This guy on Forensic Files had done everything right but the phone in his pocket was sending out a map of where he’d been when he said he was somewhere else. Rigo called Benny from the pay phone at the gas station in Pecos while Abel let air out of the van’s tires. Soft rubber was quieter on dirt roads, he said. Whether that was right or not, it was good, Abel thinking things through, the little details that kept you alive and out of jail.

  They’d gone to town and come back with his Olds and the equipment they’d need. Junior would drive the van later tonight. Rigo and Abel would flank it, lights out, rolling quietly down the dirt road on soft tires, at the end the outfitter’s place with this Lily Montclaire. They should be back by dawn. The Olds would be lead car on the Interstate into Santa Fe. They’d take the car to breakfast after they’d fed El Puerco and power-washed the van with hydrogen peroxide. Then it would be repainted inside and out. Benny was talking about switching from white to bright green for all the E. Benny Silva Enterprises vehicles.

  That wasn’t why he was calling. He had the steps worked out. It was the why of this that made him want to talk to Benny again.

  “The lawyer,” he said into the phone. “We take care of her problem, she got what she wants. When do we get ours?”