by John Decure
Parked behind the Christmas shot was the photo I’d heard others at the bar talk about outside Therese’s presence. Heavy silver frame, black felt around the edges of a vintage black-and-white of a pigtailed little Girl Scout shaking hands with Richard Nixon. The subjects looked stiff and a bit posed, but on closer inspection, a lot was going on: Tricky Dick, jowly and bent at the waist, a big incisor poking out the side of his grin as he employed the classic politician’s two-hander on his nubile future constituent. Even in the old photo he looked older, near the end of his run as President. She was no more than twelve or thirteen, I guessed, the hand embrace from a man of his experience and years somehow out of place. The young lady’s forest green Girl Scout sash was peppered with badges. Impressive, and maybe a tad swanky, the way it hung free below the breast line, like a beauty contestant’s banner. A holy river of silky blond hair running shiny and free. No glasses on the future Republican’s face—or maybe she’d removed them for her photo-op with the Quaker from Yorba Linda.
Therese finished her call and parked her gold wire-rimmed glasses a bit higher. The rushes of blond locks were braided into a tight bun today, but the face was as fresh and ready as in the old Nixon photo. Judging from the photo, I guessed Therese to be in her early thirties, like me. But she looked about twenty-five. She cracked a smile.
“The old one’s not a fake, if you’re wondering,” she said.
“You mean the photo, or the politician?”
“Ha-ha, very funny. They’re both originals, smart guy.”
“You can say that again.” No time to be teeing off on Nixon, I thought. I was here to talk about Bobby Silver. “So, where was the picture taken?” Shifting gears.
“Newport Beach. The Balboa Bay Club.”
“I know the place.” Therese seemed to be awaiting my explanation. I was recalling an incident that could not be counted among my finer moments as a man-about-town. “I sort of got thrown out of there once.”
She perked right up. “Well. Please, do tell.”
“It was a retirement party for my sales manager, Kenny Vakoutas. One thing about salesmen is they love to drink even more than they love to talk. Anyway …” She looked at me a bit askance. “What’s wrong?” I said.
Between us was an empty desk blotter, and I began to notice that this office was about twice as clean and organized as mine. Of course, I have a much heavier caseload, boxes full of paper stacked waist-high against every wall, the Legal Warehouse Deco look. Therese and I were in the same trial unit, Eloise’s group. On the corner of the desk, a plastic in-box tray sat empty. No doubt she submitted her F-due reports on time.
“I just … can’t really picture you in sales,” she said.
“Neither could very many buyers.”
She laughed. “So what happened at the party?”
“It seriously bogged when they ran out of spirits, so some of us adjourned outside to take in the view. Wow.” I shook my head at the memory. “A lot of stars in the sky that night. You know that long dock they have in back, right on the harbor?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Well, there was this yacht, pretty big, took up half the dock, just sitting there, the keys right in it.”
“You didn’t.”
“You have to admit, Therese, it was a strange setup. As if somebody left it that way, just begging us to take it for a spin. Almost like it was some kind of a test.”
“How far did you get?”
“Not very. I didn’t know the police had boats in Newport.”
“Harbor patrol,” she said quickly.
“Not the friendliest bunch.”
“They’re not so bad. I grew up on Lido Island,” she explained.
Lido was one of the artificial islands enclosed within the harbor, a place ringed with dockside mansions.
“Yeah, not so bad.” This time I smiled back.
She sat back, assessing me, her big eyelashes rolling like soft fans. “So, J. Shepard. Yacht thief.”
“We just borrowed it, no intent to permanently deprive. Where would we park it anyway?”
“I’ve heard you live at the beach.”
“Right, in Christianitos. I assure you, there’s nowhere to park a yacht there.” Suddenly I felt like I was talking too much about myself. It was time to discuss Bobby Silver’s reinstatement trial. “Anyway—”
“I was wondering, how do you square a life of crime with being a prosecutor of bad guys here?” Needling me a little, but goodnatured.
“I’m a master of self-deception.”
She leaned forward, mock serious. “Good thing I found out. You probably don’t know this, but last week I asked Eloise if I could co-counsel with you on a trial or two. Imagine that.”
I went along. “Close call, Therese.” But this was news to me. I couldn’t imagine Eloise endorsing such an arrangement, not with the way she felt she couldn’t control me.
“She said no,” I added. “Right?”
“Wrong. She actually suggested it when I was hired.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“Well, she didn’t exactly use your name, but she said I should try to pair up with the strongest trial lawyers in the unit.” Therese gazed at the picture of the Girl Scout with the president. “You know, as a way of getting my career here off on the right foot.”
“What gave you the impression that I was one of those lawyers?”
“Don’t be so modest,” she cut me off. “You know your stuff. I’ve asked around. Everybody says so.”
Obviously, Therese’s poll excluded Eugene Podette and his lovely wife Trixie, who, had they heard this little tribute to my legal stature, would doubtless be on the floor, writhing in breathless laughter right now.
“I need to talk with you about something.” I said. “The reinstatement trial for Bobby Silver.”
She sat back in her big chair. “Okay, but can I get your opinion on something first?”
“Sure.” She’d probably been working on the Silver case for three months, her entire career at the bar thus far, and I was about to put it on a completely different tack. Even if I was about to significantly boost her case, it was still her case. Lawyers tend to be proprietary about the matters they handle. Every case is like a problem, a riddle, and when you’re locked into solving that riddle, it’s none too gratifying when someone else comes along and whispers an answer into your ear. “Fire away,” I said.
“That was Lars Gerbel on the phone a minute ago, asking for another-continuance of a trial that’s set next month. He accused me of giving him a hard time just to ‘assert my womanhood,’ said I was trying too hard to prove myself just because I’m a ‘woman in a man’s world.’”
“Sounds like Lars.”
The man was a bit quick with the personal cracks for my taste. Last year at a pretrial conference, he’d told me I was “too tanned to work full-time,” which explained why I seemed “a little slow” to appreciate the finer points of his fuzzy little motion in limine, a maneuver defense lawyers make before trial to exclude damaging evidence against their clients. But my opposition was solid. When the judge said motion denied, Lars rolled his eyes, acting as if I’d been handed a gift, like I was just another lucky bastard. I took special pleasure from winning that trial on every count I’d charged. To me, Lars Gerbel was a major blowhard.
“What was your question?” I asked her.
She blushed a little and waited. “You don’t think there’s anything to that. I mean, me asserting myself too much in that way.”
“Lars Gerbel talks a lot, Therese, that’s all. He’s just trying to get into your head to work an advantage. Look around you. Half our prosecutors are women. Blow it off.”
I knew what Gerbel was working up to, the suggestion that Therese Rozypal had made it this far based on looks, not ability. A common insult laid on attractive women everywhere. But I didn’t say more.
She sighed and folded her arms. “You’re right. Thank you. So, what do yo
u want?”
“To help you with the Robert Silver reinstatement.”
“Oh my god, that’s great! We’ll … you can co-counsel!” She turned to her credenza and started pulling out a thick file folder. “Let me get his witness list.” Flipping through papers. “I’d love to see you take some of his witnesses on cross. Maybe you can do—”
“Actually, I can’t,” I interrupted. She put down the pleadings, instantly deflated. “I mean, I can’t co-counsel with you, Therese. Not on this one.”
“Oh. Why not?” The insecurity that Lars had nicked was right there in those pale blue eyes again.
“I could be a witness. I know some things about this guy. Bad things.”
“Oh my God,” she said again, this time more softly. “I didn’t realize.”
I would explain, of course, but already I felt lousy, seeing those eyes fade like the last calm reflections off the pier at dusk. “The point is, this guy’s not getting his license back,” I told her. “I’ll help see to that, Therese. But it’s still your case all the way.”
“Okay, J.”
I looked at that old photo of Nixon and actually felt something for the guy, pressing the flesh of the moneyed Newport crowd until his hands were numb, then suddenly, reaching out to this … vision of a Girl Scout. The blood pumping in his ears, tongue-tied—well, then! A simple affable nod suddenly veering into a thirsty perve on her loveliness.
J. Shepard, yacht thief. Good one, Therese, I was thinking. I must have been smiling a little because she asked me what was so funny. Nothing, I told her.
Nixon and I silently watched as she took out a legal pad and pen. Then I told her everything I knew about Bobby Silver.
If I was going to meet that Glendale police detective after three I had about an hour to kill on more mundane projects, the first of which was a pretrial statement coming due on a case going to trial in March, the matter of Rodney Dortmunder. A personal-injury solo practitioner from Burbank, Dortmunder had a thing for settling his cases for lowball, sellout sums, then stiffing his clients’ medical providers so he could still retain a fat contingency fee. Months later, unwitting clients would get a phone call from a friendly collection agency or, worse, discover new black marks on their credit reports. They’d dial up Rodney demanding an explanation, but invariably get brushed off with the I’ll-get-right-back- to-you runaround routine. Then they’d call the state bar and make a complaint, at which time their former attorney would sue them for defamation of character in a cheap attempt at intimidation.
Pretrial statements take time for prosecutors because you’re required to set forth your entire case by listing your witnesses and what they’re going to say and listing your exhibits and which witnesses are sponsoring their admission into evidence. The rule is that if you don’t name a witness or exhibit in the pretrial statement, it won’t come into evidence later at trial. But when you’re taking away someone’s livelihood, judges tend to go overboard to be fair to defending lawyers. Typically, the accused attorney on trial won’t even file a pretrial statement, claiming ignorance of the rules. If he’s representing himself, judges will often let it slide. It’s a nice advantage, putting on your defense by surprise.
Rodney Dortmunder was representing himself. Just as Eugene Podette had done. Imagine that.
Three o’clock came and went, with Eloise back early from her damn dental appointment and prowling the halls outside my office like the doc had forgotten the novocaine. Another early exit would not be possible, so I rang up Glendale PD and was put through to a detective with a lilting Caribbean accent named Tamango Perry. Official but friendly manner, and an intelligent way of speaking.
“Tell me the full story, Mista Shep-had, and I will puh-sunnily do what I can.” Sounding Jamaican, which I commented on, but he said I guessed wrong. “I am half African, my fatha’s side, half Haitian, from my motha.”
“You have an interesting first name,” I said.
“I was named Tamango in honor of the Yoruban spirits Exu and Shango.”
Which left me with not a damn thing to say, except a most witless “Cool.”
He laughed. “What about this office you went to, Counselor?”
I filled him in on our visit to the law center, Dale’s situation, Rudy’s marriage to Angie. The glowering boyfriend Carlito, Bobby Silver, and the straight-arm attempt they’d made at the savings and loan. He told me there wasn’t much he could do about Rudy as yet.
“It sounds like potential elder abuse,” he explained, “but if his marriage to the girl is valid—that is, if he wanted to marry her and knew what he was doing, and she hasn’t yet stolen his assets—I don’t know. Sounds like no crime has been committed yet.”
“What about the law center?”
“I will look into that place for you. If they are engaged in unauthorized practice of law, we can do things. Get a search warrant, make arrests on the employees.” His last remark just hung there between us. “What about your friend, Mr. Bleeker?” he added.
“Not much he can do,” I admitted. “We don’t know how many cases they’ve used his name on. Probably quite a few. But obviously, he’ll be cooperating.”
“I would certainly hope so.”
Then I found myself doing something that surprised me: I went out on a limb for Dale. “I know it might look shaky, his involvement, but Mr. Bleeker was just recently hired on. He’d been out of work a long time before that. He really needed the job. I think it clouded his judgment.”
The detective paused. “I see.”
“When I first met him, he seemed unaware of the situation.”
“When was that?”
Shit. “Yesterday.”
I told Perry about Dale’s probation—had to. Then I asked him why Dale would tell me about a UPL scam if he was really in on it. I realized as I spoke that the Dale Bleeker I had glimpsed years ago, the high-minded courtroom stalwart and prosecutor of criminals, was still a presence, if only in my memory.
“He didn’t know they were using his license, Detective,” I concluded.
Another pause. “Are you are sure about that?”
“Yes, I am.”
“All right, good enough, Mr. Shepard. So, where is Mr. Kirkmeyer staying?”
“With Mr. Bleeker.”
“Here in Glendale?”
Man, this guy and his questions—which, of course, probably made him a good detective. “In Christianitos,” I said, not inclined to reveal the depth to which I’d sunk myself in this mess. But if I wanted to maintain my credibility, I had to tell him straight. “In my own home. We expect that his daughter will be coming in from Washington State in a few days. Of course, we can bring him in for an interview anytime you like.”
Tamango Perry took his time with that little piece of information. “Thank you. I’ll let you know.” The sound of fingers drumming on a desktop. “What will you do in the meantime?”
“Keep him safe, I guess.” I couldn’t think of anything else to tell him.
“Thank you again, Mr. Shepard. That is very good of you.”
Apparently I’d said the right thing. “Call me J., Detective.”
“All right. Thank you, J., and you may call me Tamango. You are doing a good thing for this gentleman.”
“Don’t mention it, Tamango.” I could feel an objection coming.
“But please, J., do be careful. These kinds of people …” He sighed. “These people, who would steal from the elderly, the infirm, take everything, leave them with nothing, they are very dangerous. They won’t think twice about pushing aside anyone who stands in their way.”
I thought about Carmen, alone in my house with a handicapped young man and a broken-down former prosecutor as her only protectors, a solid one-hour drive from my office. She was also still too leery of Max to let him close enough to run interference on an intruder. Carmen was potentially helpless if Angie and Carlito happened to ring my doorbell on Porpoise Way.
I thanked Detective Perry and got off the line,
then dialed my home number with the receiver still stuck to my ear. Eloise Horton floated by my open doorway like a faithful apparition, peeked in, and probably noticed the case file documents splayed across my desktop, the pleadings on the computer screen behind me, because she gave me a contented nod, as if pleased to see me buried up to my eyeballs. Gee, thanks, Eloise. But the Rodney Dortmunder filing was the least of my concerns at the moment.
My home phone rang. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty times.
No answer.
Nine
At times I build these false barriers in my mind regarding what is truly important and what isn’t. I wake up in hell, feeling totally shot, thinking, God, I’d like to call in sick, just this once … but no, I shouldn’t, I’m needed at work and there’s this case, a brief due, another filing I really should file by … Right, as if a single day removed from the grind would alter the world’s rotation by so much as a hair. I see my face frozen before the closet, certain I can’t wear the blue oxford shirt again, I just wore it last week, people might notice. Never mind that those same people are too busy sweating their own little lists of private details no else cares about. Checking my watch in a stacked freeway lane, I guard the sliver of space between my bumper and the van in front me from line jumpers, sweating about … let’s see, five minutes and forty-five seconds of scheduled commute time, now misplaced. A line jumper emerges in a lowered white Honda Civic, his tinted windows quivering amid an angry rap lyric and serious woofer distortion, and as he dive-bombs the spot between the van and my wagon I brake hard and mutter a rhetorical “What the fuck was that?” Five minutes and forty-five seconds late already … but late to do what? To walk into a building and anchor myself in a chair behind a desk all day, of course, those first five minutes and forty-five seconds indistinguishable from the four hundred and seventy-four minutes and fifteen seconds more to come before quitting time. I flip on my computer, the fluorescent light flooding my pores. Fucking line jumpers.
