An Unequal Defense (David Adams)

by Chad Zunker

  The door to the private room swung open, two deputies rushing inside at the sound of all the yelling and banging. One deputy grabbed Rebel around the shoulders. Rebel tried to thrust himself loose again as the second deputy clutched him around the neck, both deputies working hard to subdue him.

  “It’s the CIA, Lawyer!” Rebel yelled.

  David stood, not sure what to make of this. As they dragged Rebel from the room, he kept pleading with David.

  “Please don’t let them send me back to the dragon’s lair!”

  FIVE

  Early the next morning, David sprinted through the streets of downtown in his business suit, briefcase in hand, tie flapping over his shoulder, while sweat poured down his face. His twenty-two-year-old client, Bill Hadley—known as Billy the Kid on the streets—had a court appearance for his third public intoxication arrest in the past twelve months. David was running late because his beat-up old truck wouldn’t start this morning. The fifteen-year-old Chevy that had replaced his beloved Range Rover Sport had been barely stuttering to a start for a few weeks now. While a desperate prayer had worked the past couple of days—the tired engine would eventually turn over for him—David had no such luck today. The truck was completely dead. And so was David’s relationship with Judge Henry if he didn’t make it on time to the Downtown Austin Community Court. Judge Henry had already reprimanded him several times for being late to his courtroom.

  A wave of body odor slapped David in the face as he entered a nondescript court building that sat at the east edge of the popular bar district. Most of those who passed through this court day in and day out lived on the streets full-time.

  After breezing through a security checkpoint, David paused before entering Judge Henry’s courtroom. He wiped sweat from his brow onto his black suit sleeve, took a few deep breaths, tried to slow down his racing heart rate and gather himself, then pushed through the doors. His client was already standing behind the defense table, looking helpless. The prosecutor, a decent guy named Larry Wilkerson, turned, shook his head, and smiled at David.

  “Well, look who finally decided to show up,” Judge Henry said, peering at him over his reading glasses from up front. “Have we not already discussed your tardiness in my courtroom, Mr. Adams?”

  In his sixties with gray hair, Judge Henry was an intimidating character. At six-nine, he had once played basketball at Texas Tech. So when he stood up behind the bench, he towered over everyone. Thankfully, he was still sitting, which led David to believe he wasn’t altogether too pissed. At least, David hoped he wasn’t.

  David hustled to the front, dropped his briefcase to the floor. “Yes, sir, and I apologize once again, Judge. It won’t happen again.”

  Judge Henry frowned. But then again, he was always frowning. “I think I’ll help you remember for next time, Counselor. Court fines you two hundred dollars.”

  “Seriously?” David snapped. He was only four minutes late.

  “Do I look like a comedian, Mr. Adams? And if it does happen again, it’ll go up to five hundred. Are we clear, son?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” David said.

  Cursing under his breath, David realized he’d now make nothing on this case. Not a single dollar. Although Billy had agreed to scrounge up $200 for David to handle this legal matter, the court fine today made this a complete wash.

  “Good. Let’s finally get started.”

  David turned to look at his client, who was damn near skin and bones with spiky yellow hair and a small patch of brown hair under his chin. Billy had at least managed to find a decent brown button-down shirt to wear along with his dirty blue jeans. The shirt was tucked into his pants, like David had requested. His client also wore the dark blue tie David had let him borrow—although the knot at the top was completely botched.

  “Where the hell you been, Shep?” Billy whispered.

  “Car trouble,” David said.

  “Geez. Almost peed my pants standing here.”

  David noticed Billy’s eyes were bloodshot. And he could smell alcohol all over the man’s breath. Unbelievable. His client was making a court appearance for his third public intoxication charge—after Billy the Kid had cursed out a police officer and gotten himself arrested outside a restaurant—and the idiot was actually showing up to court drunk? Billy seemed to recognize the disturbed look on David’s face.

  “Sorry, Shep,” he muttered. “I was just so nervous today.”

  “Don’t say a word to anyone,” David ordered through clenched teeth.

  Billy swallowed, nodded.

  Wilkerson was asking the judge for thirty days’ jail time.

  Judge Henry looked over to David. “I’m inclined to agree, Mr. Adams. Your client doesn’t seem to be learning his lesson.”

  “I understand that position, Your Honor,” David said. “But my client has a three-year-old son whom he helps provide for each week through various part-time work. Any jail time for him could seriously hinder the mother’s ability to properly care for and feed the boy.”

  Judge Henry shifted his attention to Billy. “This true, Mr. Hadley?”

  Billy didn’t answer. He just stood there, wide-eyed.

  The judge looked annoyed. “Mr. Hadley, I’m speaking to you.”

  David turned to his client, gave him a “What the hell are you doing?” look.

  “You said don’t talk,” Billy whispered, barely moving his lips.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Adams?” the judge asked, his irritation growing.

  “Answer the judge,” David told Billy as calmly as he could.

  Billy looked up at the bench. “Uh, yessir, Judge Harry,” he began, butchering Judge Henry’s name. “I do gotta boy. Stays with his mom. Name is Nick, but I call him Nitro—he’s a fast little booger, you see. Always running circles around me. Not sure how it all happened, Judge, especially because his mom ain’t much to look at and all. But, you see, it gets lonely out there on the streets, and—”

  David raised his hand to cut off his client. Not only was Billy going off on a disturbing tangent, his words were beginning to slur. David could sense Judge Henry’s pensive eyes on his client. The judge was probably beginning to wonder whether Billy was the usual courtroom wacko—or something else. David needed to take things in another direction before the judge’s curiosity grew, or else Billy could come out of this with way more than thirty days in jail.

  “Judge, I’d like to ask for one hundred eighty days of probation. My client will also agree to perform twenty hours of community service and attend treatment classes for alcohol addiction. But you can’t take food out of a child’s mouth, Your Honor. The mother is not working—she has physical disabilities—so she is barely making it. If my client goes to jail, the mother falls off the deep end, and Nicholas probably ends up lost in the system somewhere. I think we can all agree that’s not the best thing for that boy.”

  Although David thought jail time might be good for Billy—maybe his client would finally take all this more seriously—everything he’d just told the judge about caring for the boy was true. His client might be a class A moron, but Billy did somehow manage to wrangle up a few bucks every week that he gave to the boy’s mother. David thought that was an honorable thing to do, especially when it forced his client to sleep most nights in a crowded room next to a hundred other desperate men over at the ARCH, the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless.

  “Fine,” Judge Henry said. “I agree the boy needs to be with his mother. But I’m going to hold you personally accountable, Mr. Adams, if your client doesn’t attend every single one of those classes. Agreed?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Don’t forget to pay the court fine on your way out,” Judge Henry added, before moving on to the next legal matter.

  David took Billy by the arm, eager to escort him out of the building before anyone else noticed the alcohol stench. After paying his fine, David huddled with his client across the street.

  “Thank you so much,” Billy kept
saying to him. “I owe you big-time, man. You’re the best. That judge can be a real hard-ass.”

  “The only thing you owe me is our agreed-upon legal fee. So pay up.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Billy said, reaching down into his pocket. But he had a certain look on his face that concerned David. Like a teenager who’d just been busted by his father for sneaking out in the car. Billy pulled out a wad of wrinkled cash, handed it to David, who quickly counted it out.

  “This is only eighteen dollars,” David said. “You were supposed to have two hundred for me by today, Billy. That was our agreement.”

  “I know, I know. I’m real sorry. I just don’t got it today.”

  “Why not? You said you got that job over at the car wash.”

  “Well, you see, there was this tricycle thing for Nitro. Cost me fifty dollars, man. But I had to get it for him. You should’ve seen his face—”

  David interrupted. “What about the rest of the money?”

  Another guilty look spread over his client’s face. “I’m an idiot, Shep. I always say I’m just gonna have one drink, and before I know it, I’ve spent damn near everything in my pockets. I gotta take those classes, just like the judge said, you know. Get my life together.”

  David sighed. “Yes, I do know. And, believe me, you will be attending every single one of those classes, or I’ll probably end up fined by the court again. And I can’t afford that. So don’t go hiding somewhere I can’t find you.”

  “I won’t. I swear. And I’ll get you the money, I promise.”

  They parted ways. Standing there, David shook his head. How many times had he heard that kind of empty promise from a client over the past six months? Too many to count. With the court fine, David calculated he’d just lost $182 on this case.

  Which was about par for the course these days.

  David met Thomas for breakfast at 1886 Café & Bakery, a few blocks up the street from their office. Lately, they’d been forced to regularly meet outside the office if they wanted to discuss any real law firm business. David’s growing client list had made their office a popular hangout for the downtown transients who wanted a brief escape from the heat, the cold, or just the mind-numbing boredom of living out on the streets. There seemed to always be at least one or two guys sitting around in the front room, eating their extra food, talking too loudly, hoping to strike up random conversations with anyone who passed their way—seemingly oblivious to the fact that both David and Thomas were actual lawyers who had real work to do.

  Most of them were harmless. There were a couple of guys who were a bit rough around the edges. The oddest was a black man in his seventies who had a prominent white beard, called himself Bobby E. Lee, and wore a full-on gray Confederate soldier uniform every day. David still wasn’t sure what to make of the paradox since the old man didn’t say much at all. He’d just show up at the office most days, pull a chair right outside the front door of their suite, sit quietly, and act as if he were guarding a military fort. The rich lawyers over at Hunter & Kellerman weren’t the only ones with a heightened security presence. No one got past Bobby Lee unnoticed.

  “You look like hell,” Thomas said to David, sipping his coffee.

  “Didn’t sleep well.”

  “It would probably help if you slept on a real bed and not a crappy sofa.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “I keep telling you that you can use our guest bedroom. Lori doesn’t mind.”

  “And I keep telling you, no, but thanks.”

  “You really are a stubborn ass.”

  They shared a grin. A slender man in his midthirties with short blond hair, Thomas had been a refuge for David in the aftermath of his dramatic departure from H&K last year. His partner was married to a terrific woman, who constantly stocked their office’s mini fridge with delicious homemade food. They had two young daughters. David trusted no one more than Thomas.

  A waitress came by and took their orders. David glanced out the window. The shooting of Luke Murphy had happened only a couple of blocks away. David had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning. He couldn’t stop thinking about Murphy and the tragedy that had been brought on to his family while also reliving every bizarre detail of his sit-down with Rebel inside the county jail. CIA? Russians? Aliens? The guy certainly had a lot going on in his mind. David wondered what had triggered all of it. It was clear that Rebel drifted in and out of reality. However, there had been something genuine in the man’s eyes during the brief window of seminormalcy that made David want to believe him—that someone else instead of Rebel could have killed Murphy. But wanting to believe someone was innocent was a million miles away from agreeing to represent them in the court of law.

  So far, every detail of what David had gathered about Murphy’s death pointed straight at Rebel. The man was standing there, holding the gun, twenty feet away, just minutes after Murphy was shot dead. Even Rebel had admitted to that fact. A claim of innocence could come only from Rebel’s delusional mind. David felt like he should probably just walk away from all this. Did he really want the media attention that would undoubtedly come from representing a crazy man? Did he really want Lisa Murphy to somehow think he was betraying his friendship with her husband? Not to mention a case like this would be expensive, and he doubted Rebel could pay him anything. David would lose on all fronts.

  Yet every time he felt like he’d come to the wise decision to bolt, David thought of how Benny had gone to incredible lengths to try to help Rebel. And now David had been thrust into a similar position, almost as if Benny had pulled all this together from beyond the grave. If Rebel was guilty, whether the man realized it or not, he needed an attorney who would walk with him through the difficult legal process of being charged and incarcerated. Rebel needed someone who would fight for a plea deal that included getting him serious psychological help. But would Rebel even talk to another attorney? The man had refused to talk to David until he’d mentioned his connection to Benny and Doc. Turning Rebel over to an assigned public defender right now felt like feeding him directly to the wolves.

  David turned back to the table when Thomas asked him a question.

  “You put the sign up yet at the village?”

  David nodded. “Yesterday. Another small step.”

  “Small but meaningful.”

  The village was a twenty-acre property in East Austin that David had purchased at the tail end of his tenure at Hunter & Kellerman. Benny’s dream had been to create his own community on the property for all the boys from the Camp—along with others who were barely surviving out on the streets of Austin. A place of their own where they would no longer be unwanted squatters. A safe spot to heal and be restored. David still had the piece of crumpled paper where Benny had sketched out a community map. The old man had shared it with him just days before his death. Benny had planned to build tiny homes with real roofs, walls, and beds. He had plans to put up a shared bathhouse with private stalls. To plant a garden with fresh vegetables. To construct a building with a real kitchen, where the boys could regularly host parties and gatherings. A village they could all finally call home. David had a professional sign made up—BENNY’S VILLAGE—and stuck it in the ground at the front of the land.

  “About all I can do right now,” David said. “Until I can somehow pull more cash together and get things moving along.”

  “You’ll get there eventually. I know you’re pouring your heart into it.”

  “And all of my money, too.”

  “Yeah, we need to talk about that. I updated the firm’s books this morning.”

  David grimaced. “How bad is it?”

  Thomas sighed. “We’re running on fumes.”

  David immediately lost his appetite. This was all his fault. He was currently on his worst streak of nonpaying clients since they’d started.

  “I knew it probably wasn’t looking good,” he said.

  “Not at all, I’m afraid.” Thomas set down his coffee cup, wiped his hands
on a napkin, as if it was time to have a serious talk. “Look, I know when we started this thing, we said we’d both have all the freedom in the world to pursue the type of legal work we were passionate about. And unlike at H&K, we would never let money become the driving force behind anything we do with this firm. But—”

  “Some of my clients need to start paying,” David interjected.

  “Right. I mean, your client list is five times longer than mine, but you’re only bringing in thirteen percent of the firm’s overall income right now. And my clients aren’t exactly big money, either, as you know. Something’s got to give soon, or we’re headed for real trouble here.”

  Thomas had been focused on helping families through the complex foster care and adoption system. The work was meaningful. David had seen a lot of happy tears shed inside their office from grateful parents because of it. His clients also paid their modest legal bills on time.

  David leaned back in his chair. “I hear what you’re saying. I have to figure out a way to manage it better since I’m getting inundated at every turn. I can barely keep up with all of the requests for help.”

  “You know what they’re calling you?”

  “Who?”

  “Our street friends. Doc says everyone calls you the Lawyer.”

  “Is that bad? I’ve been called a lot worse.”

  “You can’t be the only attorney they all come to when they need help, David. You have to start telling some of them no, or we won’t be able to keep our doors open long enough to help any of them. Hell, you’re already sleeping at the office because every last dollar you do earn goes either to pay Doc, to help a client who needs a new wardrobe, or toward bringing this village to life. All good things, mind you, but you can’t keep it up.”

  “I know. You’re right. I apologize for putting us in this position.”

  “No need to apologize. Let’s just begin to work our way out of it.”