This girl was slender, and dressed in a professionally feminine manner. Though she was conservatively dressed, it did not suppress her electric personality. Her sophisticated attire did not seem to quite match her innocent, almost child-like face. She wore no jewelry. Her hair was her only accessory, worn loose and long - the color of burnished embers - which looked real, although probably not her natural color. That and the legs. Logan Burg was rarely at a loss for words, but this time, Holly had caught him.
Logan Burg was an imposing man in all respects. He always spoke to the support staff abruptly or just plain outright ignored them. They found him arrogant and chauvinistic, yet he was charming in front of a jury. He was known to come to the office every morning in a huff, galloping down the hallway towards his corner office, a large rectangular briefcase flying in his hand and the Wall Street Journal tucked under his arm. He never said good morning and with any luck would slam the door to his office and resurface only at lunchtime.
The 19th Century fox hunting and polo playing artwork on the walls defined the traditional culture of the law firm, which primarily hired associates from privileged backgrounds whose families belonged to the right country clubs, knew their way around a golf course and never ordered blended scotch.
Logan Burg barely gave Holly's resumé a glance beyond noting that she had gone to a decent law school. Not top drawer but accredited.
As he sat eyeing the young woman sitting in the proper suit and heels and smiling broadly, he decided to play the recruitment game a little differently and go with his gut. He knew there was something about this girl even across the lobby where he had watched her hurriedly run towards the elevators. It was her energy. Untapped and bursting. He found her eagerness amusing and took an immediate liking to her. Logan Burg decided to reward Holly for coming to see him. It was with great surprise to everyone when he hired Holly Park on the spot. Nobody was more surprised than Holly herself.
"Are you sure it's a lawyer position? Not a secretarial one?" Holly's sister, Christine, persisted when a beaming Holly announced the news. Holly paused. Even she couldn't believe it. It seemed too good to be true.
Logan Burg had gone to enough bar association meetings to see the trend of the bigger law firms hiring a minority person to help get clients from that ethnic group. It was fine in theory, but the actuality of socializing in immigrant communities with their mysterious food and cultural rules made him anxious and would, more importantly, cut into his private life. The one he had worked so hard to build, revolved around golf, the Hollywood Bowl, and dinners featuring good martinis. Chased with a dry-aged rib-eye (just past rare), a Caesar salad, no anchovies, and a glass or two of a fat California Cabernet.
Logan Burg didn't want to go to ethnic functions. Besides, he had no time. When was he supposed to attend these ribbon cuttings, grand openings, weddings, engagement parties and birthdays, flowers or potted plant in hand?
Send Holly.
Holly was personable, energetic and single. What did she have to do on the weekends except brush her lovely hair a hundred strokes? She would be welcomed and a good fit. Holly was born in Los Angeles, would fit into the firm's corporate culture and, most importantly, she was eager to please. Yes, Holly Park was perfect. Plus her father had a church that served the Korean community. What a good source of referrals that would be. That afternoon, Logan Burg decided to take a gamble which is how the name Holly H. Park appeared on the embossed letterhead of the Law Offices of Stowe, Hubbell and Burg as the first ethnic female hire in the seventy-five year history of the firm.
Logan Burg was pleased with himself. He liked Holly. Someone called her a banana, yellow on the outside but white on the inside. He wished he'd thought of that.
Holly floated out of the office and she even managed to buy her way out of the parking lot with the three twenty dollar bills carefully folded in her wallet in case of emergencies.
Chapter 4
The next Monday morning Holly was right on time. "Don't fraternize with the support staff - unless you want to be treated like a glorified secretary," Logan Burg said sternly as he walked Holly down the hall. Holly was smart, worked long hours and made her billable hours. Logan Burg was pleased. Exactly two years later, his gamble paid off when a man got hit by a delivery truck and died, leaving behind a young widow with three children and Holly brought the case to the firm, which turned to become hugely profitable for the family and for the firm.
It was a night soon after the big win. The view of the downtown skyline at night was impressive from thirty floors up. Desmond Stowe, the senior partner, absently toyed with his cuff links as he spoke to Jill, his paralegal. He looked up just as Holly walked in with an armload of trial binders for another case. Desmond Stowe glanced up long enough to motion where he wanted the binders placed then turned away. Jill buried her head and looked down at her yellow pad focusing on her perfect cursive script and giggled.
Jill wore a crisp white button down shirt revealing a deep cleavage and the slightest hint of some elegant camisole peeking out, a recent gift from Desmond Stowe.
The senior partner had a refined and playful sense of erotic in his taste for lingerie and he couldn't wait to see the rest of it later that night. Jill glanced up at Desmond, who raised an eyebrow back at her which made Jill tossed her dark mop of cropped hair and suppressed a laugh. Desmond was just like that. It wasn’t personal. He made a point never to get too friendly with the associates.
"You can go," Desmond Stowe said, looking blankly at Holly. "Unless I'm forgetting something?"
Yes, he was forgetting something. To thank her. To give her a bonus, a referral fee, some acknowledgment for her contribution towards the multi-million dollar award. After all, hadn’t she brought the case into the firm? And after the driver was found to be indigent and the trucking company uninsured, wasn’t it she who had gone out and done her own private investigation while Desmond Stowe was busily preparing a letter of disengagement dismissing the case as a dog? It had been Holly who went to inspect the accident site, something no one had bothered to do. She noticed a large bus stop billboard on the northeast corner intersection where the decedent had been struck and killed. It seemed the placement of the bus stop bench and billboard impaired the vision of drivers negotiating the right turn until the turn had been made. Holly convinced Desmond Stowe to take a second look at the case arguing the bus stop billboard created an unsafe road condition. Desmond Stowe agreed. The next day, the firm filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for creating an unsafe road condition.
The sharks circled around wanting a piece of the action. Ambulance chasers and unscrupulous plaintiff lawyers appeared out of nowhere offering the family of the decedent increasingly larger sums of front money to take the case away. Holly kept the sharks at bay as she worked up the case, propounding and responding to discovery, answering interrogatories, and taking depositions. It was Holly who dropped off food for the family - unreimbursed by the firm - and lent an ear to the grieving widow, at all hours of the day or night to keep control of the case. Yes, Holly had no doubt how important her role was in the win. When it became apparent she would get no reward, she felt cheated and resigned.
Holly organized her desk and left neat notes in all the case files. Lastly, she packed a few personal items then quietly looked around and flipped off the lights for the last time.
"Where's Logan?" Holly asked, looking around. But Logan Burg was nowhere to be found. In fact, he made sure not to be in the office on Holly's last day. Holly left a note on his desk, turned in her security clearance card and walked out of the polished lobby, dazed.
Downstairs she waved goodbye to the snack shop owners on the mezzanine level, passed a five-dollar bill to the maintenance man polishing the escalator rails and ran into Desmond Stowe and Jill as she stepped out to the parking garage.
"Where are you going to go?" Jill asked nicely enough. Holly shook her head.
"I don't know."
"You're Chinese, right?"
Desmond Stowe asked, abruptly, frowning.
"Korean, actually," Holly was polite but cool.
"Koreatown is a dump. And Chinatown's no better." Desmond Stowe wrinkled his nose in disdain. "Stay away from those parts. It's dirty in those places." Desmond Stowe smiled encouragingly and turned back to Jill.
Holly watched them ride up the escalators then turned away. She wished she would run into Logan Burg because she wanted to thank him for the job and say goodbye. But Logan was nowhere to be found.
A little before midnight, a Jaguar sedan pulled into the driveway in the Pacific Palisades. The house was dark except for one bedroom light. Logan Burg got out of the car and walked a little more slowly than usual up the driveway. The house was decorated in a nice, conservative manner. A Labrador bounced out to greet him. Logan put down his briefcase and rummaged through the mail before walking to his daughter's bedroom and bent down and kissed the sleeping sixteen year old on the forehead and turned off the light. Logan undressed and listened to his phone messages before crawling into his perfectly made bed. He couldn't sleep. He liked having Holly around, and didn't understand what had made her quit.
Chapter 5
The office rents downtown were so expensive that Holly found herself looking farther and farther west until she crossed the border into Koreatown. Desmond Stowe was right. Koreatown was dirty. Crossing Vermont Avenue there were more billboards per square inch than anywhere else in the city. The signs were all in Korean. The strange combination of foreign and familiar excited her.
The building on Ardmore and Wilshire Boulevard was the only one with a "For Lease" sign written in English so Holly went inside. The corridors were wide with marbled flooring and the doors were made of chipboard with oak veneer. It was the type of building loaded with accountants, lawyers, and dentists just getting by. The building manager wore an ill-fitting suit and chipped nail polish. She pulled out an application and handed it over with a dismissive look. In that moment, Holly realized that, up until now, while she had enjoyed the status of a downtown lawyer, now she just looked like another unemployed one. She thanked the building manager and left.
For the first time in her life Holly found she had nowhere to go. She was not stuck watching the clock to make her billable hours, or hurrying in late after lunch hoping to escape notice. If she didn't feel like working or wanted to come in at noon, she could. Holly took a deep breath, overwhelmed.
"I can do jury trials or go into criminal defense. I can draft complex trust documents or file death row appeals. I can try to break into entertainment law or go into indigent defense. I can be anyone or do anything - only I have to be somebody." The freedom was both paralyzing and amazing.
Chapter 6
"So..." Neil Cooper's voice boomed across the cafe. "What you're essentially saying is that you're dispensing legal advice for free Chinese food." His voice was so loud others turned around. Holly's cheeks reddened.
"I didn't say that. I said it was an initial meeting. He owns a restaurant chain and wanted advice regarding new acquisitions. We met at one of his restaurants and servers brought out an incredible spread of dishes. Lobster, crab dishes, meats, everything!" Holly said, excitedly. “I think I may get my first client,” she added, proudly.
"Precisely what I said," Neil snorted. "You're giving legal advice for free Chinese... er... Korean food," he corrected himself, winking. He reached for his coffee and took a sip.
Neil Cooper had broad shoulders and a booming voice. He had premature gray around the temples and when he furrowed his brows just the right way he looked reasonably intelligent. All his effort went into presentation. He wore the perfect navy suit, the snappily polished lawyer shoes, the carefully conservative tie, the weekly haircut, all of which created the image of burnished experience that held up very well in front of potential clients. His face appeared in the local ethnic newspapers each Sunday. Neil Cooper was never at a loss for new clients - as long as they spoke no English. Whatever the language, he always had a translator present.
Now, he reached into his rectangular leather briefcase. It was suitably weathered with the look of many courtroom battles. Inside, there was an unused legal pad and three bottles of water. Balancing the yellow pad on his knee, he pulled a pen from his breast pocket, pulled the lid off with his teeth and scribbled a phone number and an address and ripped the page off the pad and handed it to Holly.
"I'm out of business cards." he said and added, "Do you know Kate Hong?"
Holly shook her head.
"Anyone who's anybody in Koreatown knows who she is. She's a good person to know." Neil smiled and patted Holly on the shoulder. "Don't worry." He laughed. "I’ll introduce you to her. Isn't it funny that I have to introduce you to the right Koreans when you're the one who is Korean?" Neil guffawed. "Come to my office in the morning. I'll take you over there." He said, patting Holly. They walked out to the parking lot. Neil Cooper had a driver who was asleep in the Cadillac with his feet sticking out of the window. Neil cheerfully batted the resting driver's feet with his folded newspaper.
The next morning Holly sprang out of bed and rushed to Neil Cooper's office. She was exactly on time. In the parking lot Neil stopped in front of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
"Climb on," Neil said, handing her a helmet.
"A motorcycle?" Holly exclaimed. “Are you kidding me?” Neil revved the engine and patted the seat invitingly. "Not just any motorcycle. A Harley-Davidson.” Holly hesitated. Neil patted the seat more firmly. “You’re impossible,” she said, laughing, then climbed on the seat and gingerly positioned herself to be as far away from Neil as possible. "Hold on tight," Neil squeezed Holly's knee and revved the engine and took off.
It was an old, rundown building. The sign on the door was made of cheap plastic and read: American Legal Services.
Neil pushed open the door. The sofas and armchairs in the waiting room had curves copied from Italian designs with cheap, garish and harsh fabrics. The coffee table was gilded in gold trim with a vase of tired silk flowers. A huge crucifix hung from the wall. Sections of a well-thumbed ethnic newspaper littered the end tables. Just inside the French doors of the first office a woman sat behind an imposing black desk. On the wall behind the desk were mail-order theological seminary diplomas hanging on the wall and an elaborately framed certificate which read: West Los Angeles School of Law.
Below and in slightly smaller letters: Kate Hong, and then, in smaller letters yet: Paralegal.
Holly peeked through the french doors and caught her first glimpse of Kate Hong, who was in her early forties, very petite and quite pretty with dark eye makeup and long false eyelashes which swooped fashionably. She had alabaster skin and her dark hair swirled loosely in a bun with one strand curling prettily against her cheek. She wore a fuschia silk blouse with an animal print skirt and high heels. She looked over and smiled with supreme self-confidence. Neil, who was standing next to Kate Hong's desk, bowed deeply, in an exaggerated fashion followed up by a wink.
"You must be Holly," Kate said. Her voice was modulated and clear. It was a statement. It did not suggest a response, a dialogue, a reaction. It was definitive. It was paired with a presumptuous glance, and then she turned away with a smile as the door opened and Choi walked in. Choi was a broker of slight build who had once worked for the Korean diplomatic service in Los Angeles – just not lately. He wore a worn suit and an air of resignation, yet his eyes were sharp and anticipatory. Choi ushered in a middle-aged couple. Kate hurriedly motioned for Neil.
Kate Hong was an immigration broker and the owner of American Legal Services. She set up the office and employed various paralegals to process simple paperwork. But Kate Hong was greedy. She also retained serious cases that she could not possibly handle and retained lawyers like Neil Cooper to handle them on the cheap. Kate Hong would introduce potential clients to lawyers, then take forty percent of the legal fees.
It was a perfect arrangement and highly profitable, except for one thing. It was illegal. Kat
e didn't care. Neil Cooper was the one with the law license to lose, and if he did, she would just replace him with someone else. Hungry lawyers were everywhere. She liked Neil, but she liked money more.
Kate Hong always knew when the moment was right. She spoke rapidly, her hands flying, her eyes brightening as she gestured to Neil, sitting with his eyes narrowed, deep in thought, looking off into the distance with his brow furrowed. Sometimes, Neil rested his chin between his forefinger and thumb and nodded, gravely.
The couple listened, and watched, unable to take their eyes off Kate. Then, it was over as quickly as it had begun. The retainer agreement was signed and Choi and the clients left, a few thousand dollars poorer, but hopeful.
Kate splayed the tired hundred dollar bills across her desk as deftly as a Las Vegas croupier displaying a deck of cards. Kate Hong could count the money in a potential client's bank account, size them up with a glance, then extract fees equivalent to their net worth before they walked out the door.
"They're so damn willing," Kate sighed, then laughed, that tinkling laugh that everyone knew. Holly glanced tentatively at Neil, whose eyes were turned away as he slid his blank yellow legal pad back into his briefcase.
"There Holly! Now you've seen," Kate Hong said brightly. Her eyes glowed with excitement. "That's just how it's done. Let's go to lunch."
Neil chuckled and did a two-step and made a mock, swooping bow as Kate shimmied past him, laughing.
All types came to American Legal Services. Men and women, young, old - middle class immigrants, by ignorance or design, sometimes from too much craftiness or not enough, other times it was indulgence of drink or fists. Kate Hong could identify their greatest fear or anxiety, then, with one word, a phrase, comment or gesture, make that fear take on a heightened importance and urgency which emptied pockets. When Kate was around, there seemed to be no impossibility and it was astonishing how everyone around her believed it. Even Holly was impressed.
The Virgin Whore Trial: A Holly Park Legal Thriller Page 2
