The Common Lawyer

by Mark Gimenez

"My secretary, Doris Sullivan. You handled her traffic ticket."

  "I called her this morning."

  "I overheard. I've been thinking how to handle this, so when she mentioned you, I checked you out and liked what I learned."

  "You did?"

  "Look, Andy, you didn't graduate at the top of your class, we both know that. And I wouldn't hire you to handle an IPO, but you're the right man for this job. How much do you charge?"

  "Well, uh…"

  Andy hadn't had an hourly fee client in his entire career.

  "… how about for-"

  "Four hundred? My downtown lawyers charge twice that." Reeves waved a hand in the air. "But then, you don't have their overhead. All right, four hundred dollars an hour it is."

  Four hundred dollars an hour? Andy was going to say forty. His pulse ratcheted up while his mind raced through the financial implications of billing four hundred dollars an hour: one billable hour would cover his office rent for two months, two billable hours his house rent and utilities, and another his entire month's living expenses, three billable hours a date with Suzie… and twenty billable hours-My God, that would buy a Stumpjumper!

  "So, Andy, do you want to be my lawyer or not?"

  Andy's mind was playing a video of himself hammering the Hill of Life on a Stumpjumper, shredding the trails, carving the corners, bombing the descent…

  "Andy?"

  Andy blinked hard and returned to the moment. He focused on the billionaire sitting across from him-on the answer to all his dreams.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Reeves. I do want to be your lawyer."

  "Excellent. First purchase is the old grocery store site this side of Oltorf."

  "They've been asking five million. We've stopped two office buildings from going in there."

  "They're taking four, and we're going to build two hundred low-income town homes. The purchase is contingent upon the residents approving the redevelopment plan. That's your job. You get them on board and the deal closed. My downtown lawyers will provide the contracts and handle all the title matters. We've identified a dozen more properties. You'll be a busy lawyer, Andy. I hope you've got a lot of free time."

  "I'll juggle my schedule."

  "Good."

  Russell Reeves stood and held out a business card.

  "My numbers. Call me on my cell phone anytime."

  Reeves' business card was fancy with embossed lettering. Andy's was not. He had made his cards on Ramon's computer. He handed one to Reeves.

  "That's my cell phone."

  As if he had another phone.

  "Welcome aboard, Andy."

  They shook hands again, then Reeves reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Andy.

  "This should cover the first week."

  Russell Reeves walked to the door then turned back.

  "But get a haircut, okay?"

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Reeves."

  He disappeared down the stairs. Andy stepped to the window and saw Russell Reeves emerge on the sidewalk below and walk over to a waiting limousine, which was double-parked. A cop had stopped and was standing next to a big bald white dude in a black suit and sunglasses; the cop was writing a ticket. He looked up when Reeves arrived. The cop's body language suddenly changed; he now appeared to be apologizing. He shut his ticket book. He smiled and shook Reeves' hand. Then he left the scene.

  The big dude opened the back door for Reeves, then got into the driver's seat. The limo drove off. Andy sat down, opened the envelope, and removed a cashier's check made payable to "Andrew Paul Prescott." For $10,000.

  Ten thousand dollars.

  Andy was suddenly overwhelmed with excitement… and a foul smell that could only mean one thing. He glanced down at Max, who was looking sheepish.

  "You had a bean burrito at Guero's, didn't you?"

  The limo was barely out of sight before Andy had raced downstairs, dropped Max off with Ramon (after conducting only a cursory examination of Ramon's work on the coed's bottom), and jumped on the little Huffy. He hammered the pavement to the bank and deposited the check, his heart beating like a teenager about to cop his first feel. When the teller said, "Funds are available," Andy wanted to throw his arms around her and give her a big kiss. Instead, he said, "Thanks," as if it were a normal occurrence.

  Then he rode directly over to REI.

  He wished he had had a camera to capture Wayne's expression when he told him what he wanted. Of course, Wayne had called the bank to confirm funds before he accepted Andy's check. "Nothing personal," he had said. Two hours later, Andy Prescott was riding a Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper mountain bike on the Hike-and-Bike Trail around Lady Bird Lake. Max was trotting alongside.

  Trail rules required he keep his speed under ten miles per hour, and the trail was crowded with the after-work crowd anyway, so Andy was just getting a feel for the bike-and enjoying envious glances from other bikers. And who could blame them-the carbon-steel full-suspension frame, the hydraulic disk brakes, the Shimano derailleur, the carbon trigger shifters, the race rims and tires. All top of the line. The way the guys stared with such open envy, Andy felt as if he were riding down the trail with Suzie perched on the handlebars in her Spandex short-shorts and tube top.

  The ten-mile-long crushed granite trail ran right along the shoreline. Runners and riders crowded the trail every weekday after five and all day on weekends; some were serious, some were social, but most were fit and showing it off. Running or riding around the lake had become a central part of the Austin social scene, another place to see and be seen. To be active and fit. To worship nature. To wear Spandex.

  He felt good.

  Like a real man. A real lawyer. With a rich client. Not that he hadn't considered the strangeness of the situation: What were the odds that Russell Reeves, a billionaire, would just walk into his office and hire Andy Prescott, a traffic ticket lawyer, for a multimillion-dollar real-estate deal? Astronomical. A lightning strike. And it made him nervous. Like his father always said, "If something is too good to be true, it probably isn't."

  On the other hand-and Andy found himself desperately seeking the other hand-Reeves was right about the SoCo locals: they would oppose him every step of the way. They were activists and they would get active, raise hell at city hall, stop him in his tracks. They didn't trust anyone north of the river, so he needed a lawyer south of the river whom they did trust. Someone like Andy Prescott.

  He was perfect.

  A noise caught his attention. Andy was riding the section of the trail that ran right along Cesar Chavez Street. Directly across the street a group of protestors stood in front of the construction site for the Seaholm project-the biggest single development in the history of downtown Austin being built by a Dallas developer-chanting "City hall sold us out! Vote 'em out!" and holding signs that read THEY WANT TO MAKE AUSTIN LOOK LIKE DALLAS and THE DEVIL IS IN THE DEVELOPER and, more to the point, DEVELOPERS SUCK. As far as native Austinites were concerned, no more despicable creatures roamed the Earth than real-estate developers; heck, the little whack job running North Korea these days ranked higher in local opinion polls than developers. And now Andy Prescott was lawyering for one.

  Or was he?

  Andy averted his eyes from the protestors and considered his new client's intentions. Russell Reeves didn't want to develop SoCo; he wanted to renovate SoCo. Andy wasn't representing a developer; he was representing a renovator. He wasn't the devil's defender; he was an angel's advocate. A billionaire angel who wanted to renovate rundown properties into uplifting low-income housing, for Christ's sake. Who does that today? Not the city. Not a developer wanting to make a quick buck. Only an angel would do that. Only Russell Reeves. The residents were being pushed out of SoCo by high rents, high home prices, and high taxes. They needed what Reeves was offering. By convincing the residents to go along with his plans, Andy would be helping them. And helping them helped him.

  Four hundred dollars an hour!

  He had been overjoy
ed because he had made four hundred dollars in one day-but in one hour? If he billed forty hours a month, that would be sixteen thousand dollars. He didn't make that much money in a year of traffic tickets. Was he supposed to just walk away from that? Was he supposed to return this stupendous Stumpjumper to Wayne and go back to riding a Schwinn? Was he supposed to return the log owl to Yard Dog and show up for his mother's sixty-second birthday without the perfect present? Is that what the residents of SoCo would want?

  I don't think so.

  His father also said, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."

  Fifteen hundred miles to the north, Alvin Adams bit down on a huge hamburger. He was sitting in a booth in a bar in Queens drinking a beer and eating the hamburger and French fries. It had been another long dull day at the shop; and he now had another headache that would require two or three beers to relieve. In other words, it had been just another day in Alvin Adams' exceedingly boring life: eight hours poring over text of articles in the medical journals his company printed, checking for errors, and calling the authors to confirm footnotes and spelling of the exotic diseases they researched. Hell, he could qualify for an M.D. or a Ph. D. or some kind of advanced degree, what with all the research he had read over the last decade.

  He hated his job.

  But it paid the bills. Or at least it allowed him to stay one step ahead of his bills, paying the minimum monthly payment on his ten maxed-out credit cards. Thirty percent interest, the bastards. There used to be laws against usury, but the credit card companies bought themselves a federal law preempting all state usury laws. What a deal. Just as he again bit into the hamburger, a middle-aged man wearing a suit and wielding a briefcase slid into the seat across from him. He looked like a lawyer. Alvin swallowed and said, "Can I help you?"

  "We can help each other, Alvin," the man said.

  "How's that?"

  The man opened his briefcase and removed an envelope. He pushed it across the table. Alvin put the hamburger down and picked the envelope up. It was thick. He opened it. Inside were $100 bills. Lots of $100 bills. He shut the envelope and set it on the table.

  "That's a lot of money."

  "Fifty thousand dollars."

  "Who are you?"

  "Mr. Smith."

  Alvin smiled. "Okay, Mr. Smith, what do you want?"

  "A name."

  "Whose?"

  Mr. Smith again reached inside his briefcase and removed a document this time. He placed it on the table so Alvin could read the title: "Patient X: The Savior?" Alvin recognized the document; it was a research article that had run in one of the journals his company printed. When was it-two, three years ago? Alvin recalled the article because the author was "Anonymous" and because the article was a "Crock of shit."

  "What?"

  Alvin pointed a French fry at the article.

  "That."

  "What, you're a research scientist?"

  "Pretty much. I've read hundreds of those research articles. That one was a crock. No one in the field believes that crap. It's all just a big hoax."

  "Do you know who this is?"

  "Patient X?"

  "Anonymous."

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "Need to know basis, Alvin, and you don't need to know. All you need to know is that that name is worth fifty thousand dollars. Tax free."

  Alvin knew who "Anonymous" was because he had emailed the author several times to correct the copy of that article as well as two follow-up articles.

  "You know that's confidential."

  "Are you a lawyer, Alvin?"

  "No."

  "Then what do you have to lose?"

  "My job."

  "How will anyone know?"

  Alvin thought about that. How would anyone know?

  "They wouldn't. But…"

  The man reached across the table and put his hand on the envelope as if to take it away.

  "Tony Falco."

  Alvin remembered the name because he had never had an "Anonymous" author before.

  The man removed his hand. "And who is Tony Falco?"

  "A doctor."

  "Where?"

  "Here. In New York. Or at least he was back then."

  Mr. Smith stood and walked out of the bar. Alvin looked again at the cash in the envelope then put the envelope in his inside coat pocket. He ordered another beer even though his headache was gone.

  Two hours and four beers later, Alvin stumbled out the bar. It was now dark. Half a block down the sidewalk, he noticed a tall man leaning against the hood of a black sedan parked along the curb. He stood as Alvin neared. Then he stepped alongside Alvin and clamped a strong arm around his shoulders.

  "Alvin, what did you tell the lawyer?"

  "What lawyer?"

  "The lawyer who gave you the cash."

  "What cash?"

  The man tapped his finger on Alvin's coat over the inside coat pocket.

  "That cash. Look, Alvin, I don't want the cash. I want the information."

  "Nothing."

  The man pulled his coat back to reveal a gun.

  "Come on, Alvin, it's not worth dying for."

  He was right.

  "Tony Falco."

  "And?"

  "He's a doctor, here in New York."

  "Thanks, Alvin."

  The man released his grip on Alvin's shoulder. Alvin breathed a sigh of relief just before the man shoved him into an alley a block down from the bar. Alvin looked back just in time to see the man raise a gun with a long, thick barrel to his head. And Alvin Adams knew he would never suffer another headache.

  The voice on the phone said, "Jesus, Harmon, why'd you kill Adams?"

  "To silence him."

  "Who was he going to talk to? They just bribed him, for Christ's sake. And he gave you the name." A deep sigh. "From now on, Harmon, let the lawyer do the work for you. No more unauthorized killing, you understand? Remember-there's only one person we want dead."

  SEVEN

  Andy Prescott turned to his back-seat passenger.

  "Max, how about a swim in the creek after lunch?"

  Max barked a Yes! Yes, I'd like that very much!

  It was the following Saturday morning, and Andy was pedaling the Stumpjumper south on Ranch Road 12. He was packing the log owl in his backpack; it rose above his head like a lookout. Max rode behind him in a seat Andy had rigged up over the rear wheel. They both wore helmets.

  Andy enjoyed biking the country roads outside Austin. The air was cleaner, the views of the Hill Country went on forever, and the odds of getting nailed by a speeding motorist were considerably lesser… except for Max barked.

  He had heard it before Andy, and now Andy heard the roar of the massive engine. He looked back. The pickup truck rounded the last curve and barreled toward them at a high rate of speed. It was not your standard-size pickup. It was a black 4x4 with wide off-road tires and a grill guard and its suspension jacked up high. It looked like an Abrams battle tank hurtling down the narrow farm-to-market.

  Andy steered onto the shoulder and braced himself for the blast of air current that buffeted them when the pickup blew past. The guy hammered his horn like a kid with a new toy. Andy dabbed so as not to fall over. He considered giving the guy the finger, but a new law allowed Texans to carry a weapon in their vehicles, purportedly to protect themselves against carjackers. No doubt this bubba was armed and stupid.

  So Andy just pedaled on down the road.

  The quaint Village of Wimberley, Texas, population 3,946, sits at the intersection of Ranch Road 12 and Cypress Creek forty miles southwest of Austin, far enough off the beaten path to discourage commuters but close enough to attract Austin's creative types. Wimberley has long been an idyllic colony inhabited by artists, sculptors, singers, writers, craftsmen, glass blowers, and dope smokers.

  Jean Prescott had inherited fifty acres just outside town back before Wimberley had been discovered by city folk sick of the city; but city folk had since moved to the country and driven
up land prices. His mother's land would bring a million dollars or more, if she wanted to sell out to a developer. She didn't. Real-estate developers ranked just below football coaches on her list. But the property taxes had risen along with the land values. His grandparents had kept cattle for the agricultural exemption, which reduced the taxes to a few hundred dollars. But his mother had sworn off red meat, so she and his father raised a few dozen ostriches instead.

  Andy opened the barbed-wire gate. A few of the big birds-ostriches stood eight feet tall and weighed almost four hundred pounds-had wandered over to greet him; he shooed them away, then rode in and closed the gate behind him. He pedaled up the gravel road to the house.

  Tall oak trees shaded the old two-story farmhouse with the wraparound porch where Andy had played as a child. A rainwater collection system gathered nature's water for irrigation and solar panels gathered the sun's energy for electricity; his father enjoyed the summer months when he sold surplus electricity back to the grid. Drought-hardy native Texas plants grew in the garden that followed the porch around the house-the log owl would fit right in-and vegetables in the organic garden out back. A compost stood by the fence line. His folks had been green before green was fashionable.

  There was no place like home.

  Max was barking. Andy parked and lifted the dog down. Max ran off to chase after the ostriches; and the ostriches would chase him. The two-toed birds could hit speeds of forty miles per hour. So they enjoyed free rein on the land, from barbed-wire to barbed-wire; the fence kept them from wandering onto the farm-to-markets and ending up road kill. Even a four-hundred-pound bird had no chance against a three-ton pickup.

  Andy unbuckled the backpack and removed the owl. He stepped up onto the porch and entered the house through the screen door. His folks avoided the air conditioner even in the summer; but the house had been built to catch the breeze up from the creek. From the front door, he knew his mother had been baking a cake in the back kitchen.

  "Mom!"

  No answer. He knew where he'd find her. He walked through the kitchen where a still-warm strawberry cake-his mother knew Max couldn't eat chocolate-sat cooling on the counter. He continued through the screened-in back porch and out the door. Wind chimes hung from the eaves and limbs of the oak trees and played a symphony in the soft breeze. Colorful yard art-metal birds and coyotes and wind catchers-stood in the open space like a sculpture garden. Thirty steps farther and he was at the barn. From all outward appearances, it was a working barn; but once through the open double doors, the classical music playing on the stereo system told otherwise.