Attorney at Large (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by John Ellsworth

  He knocked on the door and got the guard’s attention. “We’re done in here,” he shouted.

  He retreated down the hallway and was finally buzzed outside. It was cool and he was free.

  It was time to make some calls.

  8

  Back at the office he was suddenly run over by exhaustion. He had been hitting it hard for eighteen hours. He called downstairs and ordered a pot of coffee and a cheeseburger.

  His hands were shaking. He didn’t know if it was from a protein low or from the reconnection with his sister. It was going to be a long night. Plus he realized he had missed supper.

  Something inside tugged at him about Kiki Murfee—Murphy—the thought of her sitting back there in a cell surrounded by drunks and toughs, absolutely at a loss about what everything meant, without any help from anyone. Except for him. Right then he was all she had. Bad thought, he decided, and turned to his computer to find help.

  He liked to say that his office was exactly what you would expect from a guy who owns a super casino on the Vegas Strip. It was loud, garish, and very gangsta because it had been decorated and outfitted by his predecessor, Bang Bang Moltinari, who was, in fact, a gangster. Everything was purple and orange, not Thaddeus’ favorites, but at least it kept him awake that night.

  It was like a Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze” video just to walk in there. Three white leather sofas arranged around a slate coffee table the size of Vermont, his enormous kidney-shaped ironwood desk where a fourth sofa would have completed the square, thick luxurious carpet that had originally been white like rabbit fur but now wouldn’t quite come clean and forever remained a tasteful shade of beige, Western art depicting horses, Indians, cows, and red mesas and violet sunsets, a wet bar along one wall, and two walls of CCTV screens that kept him updated on every square inch of the Desert Riviera Casino and Hotel.

  The hotel occupancy rate was hovering at mid-eighty percent, the shops and restaurants were enormously profitable, and the casino was a money machine.

  In his wildest dreams as a law student he had never imagined an actual river of money flowing through his life. But that was the casino business. And he kept it all legal.

  The casino manager, Mickey Herkemier, was a transplanted CPA who had represented Vegas casinos all his life and he knew exactly, to the penny, how much came in and how much went out. Beyond that, it was all refinement, with reports and sub-reports and sub-sub-reports, the kind of financial analysis that makes CPAs very happy. They were a hugely profitable going concern, employees were happy, and the employee turnover rate was the lowest on the Strip because their wages and salaries were the highest on the Strip.

  He turned to his computer with its three screens and Googled “Criminal Defense Attorneys.”

  Immediately the main screen filled with sponsored listings and the highest-ranked organic listings.

  His immediate reaction was that Vegas was a hotbed of criminal activity, based on the number of lawyers clamoring to be noticed among the dozens and dozens of listings. So how to choose one to pry out of bed in the wee hours? Simple, look for the 24/7 listings. And while he was at it, make it a female, because it’s a female defendant and male attackers. Might as well make it about the strong versus the weak right out of the gate, he thought, hating the sexist aspect of his thinking but recognizing that the system thrived on it. No offense.

  Which brought him to someone named Priscilla X. Persons.

  At first he thought the name was made up, so he browsed over to the Nevada Supreme Court attorney listings and, sure enough, there she was. It was evidently a real name of a real person—no pun intended.

  So Thaddeus dialed her number.

  A very sleepy voice mumbled, “P.X. Persons speaking. How can I help?”

  “My name is Thaddeus Murfee,” he said, “and I have a client in trouble with the law.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Homicide.”

  The voice perked up. “Really? Can he afford an attorney?”

  “It’s a she, and yes she can. I’ll be helping with that.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Thaddeus Murfee. I own the Desert Riviera Casino and Hotel.”

  Long silence. “Is this a joke? Is this really Thaddeus Murfee?”

  “You’ve heard of me?”

  “No, I just can’t imagine the owner of a casino calling me. I’ve never done any work for your company before, have I?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What are you looking for, lead counsel?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is she incarcerated? Strike that, obviously she is.”

  “Clark County Detention Center. Since tonight.”

  “Has she given a statement?”

  “No, and I’ve warned her not to. I’m a lawyer too.”

  “Excellent. Let’s hope she listens to you. What do you say I hop in my car and run over to your office?” She obviously had come fully awake now.

  “Tonight? That would be fantastic.”

  “I assume she’ll be appearing in court at nine in the morning. We need to get started right away.”

  “You know, I couldn’t agree more. I’ll have my people bring you right up when you get here.”

  “See you in sixty.”

  They hung up and he put his feet up on the huge desk.

  Room service delivered the coffee and cheeseburger and he clenched his eyes shut and chomped the USDA Grade AAA beef. It was delicious and the coffee resuscitated him. Just what he needed. The fries were fresh and hot, not greasy. He didn’t allow greasy anything from the seven kitchens.

  As he sat there he thought about the other women in his life, Katy and Ilene.

  Right then they seemed like they were a million miles away, and they might as well have been.

  Katy was twenty-two and doing her first year in med school at Stanford. Sarai, their baby, was two years old.

  Ilene was thirty-two, the mother of Eleanor, previous marriage, and now Andromeda, by Thaddeus. Andromeda was age two. They were living on a small horse farm in Illinois.

  Both infants were by him.

  It was a part of his life that seemed to shape itself on its own, and he just didn’t seem to be able to get all the sides of it nailed down at once. He thought it was like setting up a tent in a windstorm. Fasten down one side and the other side flops up. Go around and nail that down and the first side flies up again.

  That’s what it felt like. Or like he was in a blender and his feelings were being pureed. It wasn’t comfortable and he had no clear insights into any of it. Still, it was reality and it was his reality to deal with.

  “Keep your dick in your pants,” was his mantra.

  He must have reminded himself a thousand times a day.

  Before Ilene there had been one girlfriend in college and two dates in high school. He was learning, fast, about women and about himself. Las Vegas was home to the most beautiful women in the world, but that hardly touched him. His dance card was already way full. He was already over the limit on catches.

  He had everything he needed in his suite. Just off his office, there was a penthouse with living area—two story—loft, and three bedrooms. The master with the Italian Carrera marble was his own.

  He lived at the office.

  Two other bedrooms were kept in reserve for visitors. So far there hadn’t been any visitors, at least none that he would want that close by.

  He went into his bedroom and lay down. The sheets were high thread count and satin, also courtesy of Bang Bang. That would all change, in time.

  Maybe there would be time for ten minutes of REM sleep.

  He had just closed his eyes and started to drift off thanks to his full stomach, when the phone buzzed. The operator told him that P.X. Persons was waiting to come up. He said to bring her on up.

  Priscilla X. Persons looked as outrageous as her name. She had quickly brushed out her flaming red hair. Her face was friendly with freckles. She looked large-b
usted, though he couldn’t be sure, because she was wearing a gray pinstripe suit. On her pinky was a diamond as big as a salt shaker.

  She looked every inch successful, and when she shook his hand it felt like being in the grip of an NCAA wrestler. She meant for that grip to say it all about her, and it did. Tough, aggressive, tenacious.

  He immediately felt she was for real.

  “Please, sit down,” he said, and they each took the center of a sofa, staring at each other across Vermont, probably twenty feet apart. There was nothing cozy about Thaddeus’ office arrangement and it wasn’t meant to be. He didn’t like long visits. He wanted people to come in, say their business, and leave. There was just too much on his plate to fraternize over the course of the ordinary day. So he kept it impersonal, spread wide apart, and that worked just fine.

  “Did you say you own the casino?” she asked.

  “I did. I do. It’s a long story.”

  “Impressive. What should I call you?”

  “Thad. And you?”

  “PX. I go by my initials, although some people call me Pixie, my close friends.”

  “I’ll stick with PX and we’ll see where it goes.”

  “That’s perfect.” She withdrew a tablet from her briefcase and attached the keyboard. “So, what can you tell me about the incident involving—name?”

  “Kiki Murphy. That’s M-U-R-P-H-Y.”

  “And you’re Murfee, M-U-R-F-E-E?”

  “Yep.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “She’s my sister. It’s a long story, but she no longer wants to use the family name. Can’t really blame her, where she’s coming from.”

  “Fair enough. We can look into that later.”

  “Good.”

  She smiled and sat up. “What happened with the shooting?”

  “Maybe it would be better if I showed you the CCTV feed.”

  “Go ahead. Let’s see what they have against her.”

  Thaddeus clicked a button on the remote and a screen rose up out of the coffee table. It jumped to life and a recording played.

  Kiki could be seen walking away on the sidewalk, when two men hurried up behind her and attached themselves to her arms.

  She immediately kicked at one of them, caught him partially in the groin and upper thigh, giving herself just enough time to open the Coach bag.

  The incoming assailant could be seen screeching to a halt and raising his hands, as if in surrender.

  The video had no sound, but you could see when the shot was fired because the victim immediately fell face-down to the cement walk.

  The other perp was almost comical as he reached for the sky and froze in his tracks.

  She trained the gun at him and, for an instant, Thaddeus saw a look on her face that told it all. It was taking everything she had not to pull the trigger a second time. The guy was lucky to escape with his life.

  At the corner of the screen, a bystander punched numbers into a cell and within minutes a squad car was on the scene.

  The Strip was heavily patrolled, marked and unmarked, and a cop was never more than three minutes away. Never.

  Three uniforms disarmed her and pushed her down in the back of a patrol car.

  “So she shot the guy,” PX said. She made a note on the tablet. “Not much to say there. She did the shooting. Now the question is, was it intentional or did the gun just go off. Is it self-defense? It sure as hell doesn’t look like self-defense to me. The guy appeared to surrender. There’s got to be a back story to this. Did you ask why she shot him?”

  “No,” he said. “And I don’t know Nevada law that well. I don’t know jack about self-defense.”

  “Nevada’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law goes back a hundred forty years. Never forget, this is still the Wild West. If you’re attacked and in reasonable apprehension of great bodily harm or death, you’re entitled to pull the trigger. That’s what happened here, looks to me, if the guy keeps coming. But he didn’t, he stopped.”

  She brushed a comma of red hair from her forehead. Her lipstick was bright red, which made her refrigerator-white teeth sparkle. Her nose had probably been toned down by the surgeon’s knife, he could tell, because everyone in Las Vegas did “enhancement,” as they called it. She was all in the game, 100 percent.

  He liked her already.

  So he decided to move forward.

  “So can you help?” he asked.

  “Can I take it on? Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On you.”

  “You mean will I pay for her lawyer?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I will.”

  “I need one hundred grand up front. Tonight.”

  He stood up. “Come on over to my desk. I’ll write a check out of our general account.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Will you attend the first appearance in the morning?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He wrote the check and pushed it across the glass top.

  “Thanks,” she said, and folded it once. She carefully tucked the check inside a suit pocket.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “Past my bedtime.”

  “Do you stay here at the casino?”

  He pointed at the far double doors. “Right in there. Saves travel time.”

  She smiled. “Incredible.”

  “It’s a good life, I’m the first to admit.”

  “Holy shit. And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine. Almost.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t even go there.”

  She smiled slyly. “I was just kidding.”

  No, she wasn’t.

  She recovered from her lapse. “Okay. I’ll call you after the initial appearance.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll wait to hear.”

  “Good night. I can find my way back downstairs.”

  “Security is waiting right outside the door. They’ll escort you.”

  “Got it. Can’t be too careful.”

  “Something like that. House rules.”

  “And the house always wins.”

  “That’s the general idea, yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  “So long, PX. Thanks for coming.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then she was gone and he was in the grip of total exhaustion.

  He went straight to bed without even bothering to shower.

  It had been a long day, but he was just about on the other side, and it was good.

  9

  The Desert Riviera was exactly what the original architects intended it to be. Which was an eye-popping edifice of architecture meant to inspire great visions of entertainment to anyone who ventured inside.

  And it did exactly that.

  The first year Thaddeus owned it, over eight million people came through the front doors. It was on the cover of Newsweek magazine and there was even a piece in Esquire, for the discerning gambler.

  Initially, the forty-story model of a desert mesa facade was supposed to be covered with sixty square football fields of pink-tinted glass. But partway through the build-out they decided the pink was going to break the bank and about halfway up they went with black instead. Now it was said it depicted the desert hues, night and day. It worked well at that.

  If you checked out the casinos along the Strip—the so-called super casinos—you would see that each one of them featured a front entrance that was meant to overwhelm and impress the entering guest. Each one meant to make mom and pop forget their personal financial situation and be ready to spend whatever it would take to be a part of the glitz.

  In Thaddeus Murfee’s casino it was a diamond-walled cave with four-story ceiling, stalactites and stalagmites included at random (they all supported slot machines), all surfaces covered with tiny glass beads cut like diamond facets, backlit, that exploded with shimmering light when you entered the mammoth cavern.

  Some people immediately slipped on sunglasses when t
hey came inside.

  It was blinding and it was incredibly beautiful.

  The entire left-side wall was a thundering waterfall that created four-foot waves that ran across the rear and outside, where a flock of wave-riders waited, young and old.

  It ran out for 300 feet and gently emptied back into a tributary that ran back inside the casino, along a hidden tunnel, and ended up gliding along behind the waterfall until you came to a dock where you could get out.

  It was dramatic, expensive, and caused “Ooohs!” and “Aaahs!” from everyone who came inside.

  If you came in and went directly across the cavern and up over a bridge that modeled the Golden Gate Bridge, you then took an escalator down into the casino itself.

  It was all wildly gaudy, didn’t hang together in an aesthetic sense, but emptied wallets and checking accounts by its impressive scale and the challenge of getting as rich as the casino owner. Everyone, in short, was there to break the bank.

  Fat chance.

  10

  Ragman took the first $1 million—there would be another bag, after the job—and hid the money off-shore. All except for $20 thousand cash that he hid.

  He shopped the second-hand stores for clothes. If somehow he lost or left behind a shirt or pair of shorts, he wouldn’t want it traced. Same for the tools he would need—the knife, the pliers, the wrenches—all came second-hand.

  From his condo in North Hollywood, he made his plans on MapQuest. Then he hit the Greyhound Bus Lines website. Routes were planned and times and distances committed to memory. Escape routes were laid out and tickets bought in advance.

  He would have the kid within sixty days.

  The tickets would still be good then.

  And he would have the second million.

  After that he planned to head to Costa Rica or some other banana republic and let his feet grow roots. He would never have to move again, and that was very appealing. There would be women—lots of them. Tall ones, short, slender, obese—he had plans for all of them.

  He had a yard sale and disposed of everything he owned. He vacated the premises, turned off all utilities, and moved to Fresno. He paid cash at the Twiliter Motel on Washington Street, kept to the shadows, and allowed his trail to grow cold.