The Boardwalk Trust (Beach Lawyer Series Book 2)

by Avery Duff

  “What’s up?” Robert said, aiming for abrupt—anything but welcoming.

  “I need to know, sir, can they eject me from a movie without no refund whatsoever, just for using my phone?”

  “Tell you what, Jack, you need to move on,” Robert said.

  “Sir, my name’s not Jack, sir. It’s Dave, and you’re the beach lawyer, I’m told, sir.”

  “Take this piece of advice, Sir Dave.”

  Robert emptied Dave’s cup, handed it back to him, and hit the sand running, catching up with the others shoreline.

  As they spread the blanket and sat down, Delfina asked, “He talked too loud. Was he not polite?”

  “Not at all polite, Delfina.”

  “Did you coatrack him, Robert?”

  Robert winked at her. “Tell you what, sweetheart, we see him again, I’ll let you coatrack him, okay?”

  “Okay, that would be so fun. Daddy, can you make a chip for your phone out of this sand?”

  “I don’t know,” Teo said.

  She looked at Robert.

  Robert said, “Gia’s better at science than I am.”

  She looked at Gia.

  Gia said, “Maybe if you heated it up so it was real, real hot, but I don’t know.”

  Delfina said, “Fun Kid Facts online said the astronauts left a coin on the moon made out of sand. It had seventy-three little messages for aliens written on it and said we come from Earth and we come in peace for all mankind.”

  An inscribed silicon coin, Robert dimly recalled, left on the moon by the first astronauts.

  “Exactly,” he added.

  After dinner, Robert and Gia drove over to her place in the Bronco. As he made a turn onto Wilshire, Gia said, “Erik claims you owe him a day’s pay for today.”

  “For . . . ?”

  “Any day he has to talk to Reyes costs you a full day’s investigator pay, plus therapy. What was up with Teo tonight?” she asked.

  He knew what she meant. Teo had been quiet during the meal, ate very little. Halfway through, he’d excused himself and eased down the bank and stood in the shallow tide. A few minutes later, Gia had caught Robert’s eye, and Robert had walked down to check on him.

  “What’s up, man? You doin’ okay?”

  Teo kept staring out across the milky sea. A few straggling sailboats lazed across the horizon, headed back to the marina in light winds.

  “Zara, the food. Her food. It’s the smell of her. Cinnamon . . . cloves. Like I told you, she wasn’t drunk all the time. I don’t like the smell of her food and, same time, I do. I fear it and want it at the same time, but it’s just food, right?”

  Robert recalled the eucalyptus trees lining the Gilroy, California, driveway that led into the family farm where he had been raised. That crisp scent sometimes brought back the good things about his childhood: that hillside tree limb where Robert and his first cousin, Rosalind, used to sit and talk. But that scent triggered the bad times, too.

  “Sure, just food,” Robert told him.

  “Teo’s mom was Jamaican,” he said to Gia now. “They had a troubled relationship, but he misses her anyway.”

  Gia nodded. “Boy, Delfina’s such a good girl.”

  “Sure looks that way.”

  “All day long I wanted to buy her things. Clothes, books, anything. Bad idea, right?”

  “Think so, yeah. This situation won’t last forever.”

  “Really smart, too,” Gia said.

  “Fun Kid Facts? I was already in over my head.”

  “But sometimes she gets scared.”

  “About those men on the boardwalk coming back?”

  “No. Afraid her father might go for a walk and never come back.”

  Teo and Delfina. Teo had surprised him with how soft he was below the surface; that ran counter to Robert’s first impression. And Delfina? Anyone who didn’t fall for her wasn’t playing with a full deck. Robert liked them a lot, but what he’d said to Gia applied to him as well: better that he keep his distance.

  CHAPTER 5

  The next morning, Robert and Gia hung around her house, took a long walk up nearby Amalfi Drive. Between Amalfi and the ocean, Santa Monica and Rustic canyons wound their way back in to the hills, their giant eucalyptus and sycamores sheltering what had once been the Uplifters Ranch. Complete with polo grounds, its members included stars like Will Rogers and Bing Crosby, who cruised from LA proper to their secluded canyon clubhouse to lift up their glasses of booze and to pursue whatever else might come to mind.

  Back at Gia’s place, she cracked open her civil procedure book for Monday’s class, and he started to organize his notes about Teo’s family history in case he needed to know it for tomorrow’s hearing.

  “What’s up in class?” he asked her.

  “Pennoyer v. Neff, and the International Shoe case,” she said. “Minimum state contacts sufficient to sue somebody in the state where you reside.”

  He remembered. First-year law cases about limits on where you could sue a person or entity and when you could bring them to your state. Doing so gave the person who’d sued an immediate advantage.

  “Gripping, huh?” he asked.

  “I’ll say,” she said.

  Working for a law firm and seeing litigation firsthand, Gia already knew quite a bit about filing lawsuits. She’d even served papers on defendants herself. That had demystified what she was studying in her class full of eager beavers.

  “You acting interested?” he asked.

  She nodded thoughtfully and—no sexy pout this time—furrowed her brow in deep concentration. “How’s that?”

  “Intensely interested. You got a future in the law game, kid.”

  At 2:10 p.m., Robert drove up the Ozone alley for his meeting with Teo. Teo’s truck wasn’t behind Robert’s apartment, so he parked there. At 2:30 p.m., Teo was still a no-show. No incoming phone call, either.

  Robert walked up the stairs, went inside. Dishes were clean, the bed made, and the apartment empty. Trying to keep from getting pissed off, he cruised Venice, looking for the truck and wondering, How long could his brush pickup job out in Malibu take?

  No luck spotting the cube truck roaming or parked around Venice, so Robert drove back to Gia’s. Later, in the backyard, he fired up the grill and threw on some of the chicken from the barbecue.

  “What were we thinking?” Gia asked.

  “Teo didn’t really want to talk about the trust. Thinks there’s bad blood between him and his brother, the trustee. Too much to ask of him, I guess.” He poked the chicken. “I tried, right?”

  She gave him a squeeze. “I’m so smart.”

  “I know,” he said, a little confused.

  She kissed him on the mouth. “Smart for being with you.”

  “Oh, that,” he said, and kissed her back.

  It was after dark when Teo finally called.

  “Roberto, man, I’m real sorry . . .”

  Out in Malibu, Teo’s and Delfina’s cheap phones had failed to grab a signal. And instead of a morning job like he’d been told, the landowner had asked Teo to haul the brush to another lot up the coast, close to County Line Beach.

  “Took all day and two round trips, but I cleared four hundred dollars.”

  Robert was glad he hadn’t lit up Teo about being MIA. “Okay, I’ll come over there and . . .”

  “Listen, man, I know I messed you up. Been thinking all day about what you need from me, so I’ll tell you on the way to court. Won’t take fifteen, twenty minutes in the car.”

  Robert agreed, signed off, and went into the darkened living room. He heard Gia in the shower and thought about Teo’s call. This wasn’t a corporate client with problems; this was a family with problems. But he’d taken it on and tried to make himself remember: all he could do was what Teo allowed him to do.

  The mesquite fire he’d set earlier was on its way out. Jabbing the biggest log with the poker, he knelt on the hearth, stared into the fire, and counted his blessings.

  Rob
ert picked up the Famosas on Ozone at 7:00 a.m. for the 8:30 a.m. hearing. At least they would be on time—barring a pileup on the eastbound I-10.

  Delfina sat in back wearing earbuds, jacked into Robert’s phone. With Robert driving, Teo filled in more family history, starting with his older brother, Carlos.

  “Two years older’n me. Smaller, smarter, lived in his head quite a bit, and always did real good in school. I’s a big kid, athletic, not dumb, exactly, but never accused of being too bright.”

  “Smart enough,” Robert said, and meant it. He found Teo to be clear, logical, and clever.

  Teo grinned at the compliment. “By the time I was seven, I could whip Carlos easy, and sometimes I did, but he was a pretty fast runner, lucky for him. Some nights, he’d find my report card from school first, bring it to the dinner table. Say what a dumbass I was not passing math or whatever else I’s failing. And me? I might tell about Carlos’ gym class. How he couldn’t do push-ups or got picked last for some team.”

  Robert knew that brothers picking on each other wasn’t unusual. In a few minutes, he changed his mind about these siblings.

  “Mom, she was loaded most of the time by now or taking a nap. Sad, mostly, but the Don? Don Vincent was head of the table, always stirring the pot. Always taking sides with me or Carlos against the other. Depending on what he wanted, how he felt that day. Dinnertime,” Teo said, “was most always a nightmare.”

  Teo turned around in his seat. “How you doin’ on Waze patrol, baby?”

  “Fine, Daddy.” She gave him a thumbs-up and a smile and said, “Get off I-10 up here.”

  Robert took the 110 off I-10 East, headed for the north side of downtown Los Angeles. On their right, the Microsoft Theater and STAPLES Center, and he could just make out the top of City Hall.

  Delfina, from the back seat: “Sixth Street exit, take it, take it!”

  He took Sixth, went downhill to the first light.

  Teo spoke again: “In the movie about me and Carlos, the brothers gonna tell each other, ‘Don’t listen to Dad; he’s a bully.’ And one night, after the brothers had enough, they’d stand up to him and tell him off. But wasn’t no movie happenin’ on my street. Whoever caught it that night lost; the other brother won.”

  “Until the next night,” Robert said, despising Vincent even more.

  “Yeah. It always hurt, but once I started boxing, things changed some. I was top dog then. Vincent made Carlos come along to the gym, called him el Débil, the Weakling. Vincent’s in the ring with me, just me, and my brother’s on the sidelines, doing homework or working those puzzles.”

  “Puzzles?”

  “Crosswords, puzzle books, word games. ‘His little faggot books and puzzles,’ Vincent called ’em.”

  “And the trust. When did you learn about it?” Robert asked.

  “Mid-’90s, Vincent told us he had apartment buildings in it, not that rental house anymore, and he was rich now.”

  “Left on Olive, Robert, left on Olive!” Delfina said behind him.

  “Got it, good job,” Robert said.

  Passing Pershing Square, he reached back for Delfina’s high five, got one back.

  “So Vincent sold that first house and bought other property?” he asked Teo.

  “Over the years, yeah. Apartments over in Monterey Park.”

  East of downtown. A predominantly Asian section, even back then.

  “Once Vincent passed, that trust called for Carlos to be the new head honcho, but we’re supposed to split the money down the middle after bills and whatnot were paid.”

  Whatnot? Taxes and property insurance, Robert was thinking.

  “How long since you’ve seen Carlos?” he asked.

  “Been years.”

  After that, Teo just stared ahead at the imposing courthouse carved into Bunker Hill.

  Seemed to Robert, the closer they drew to court, the more he retreated.

  “You okay?” Robert asked.

  Teo gave him a nod. That was all, his eyes still fixed ahead. In a half hour or so, he and his estranged brother would come face-to-face, whether Teo liked it or not.

  After parking in a public lot, Robert got out. Teo stayed buckled in. Robert let Delfina out on his side; by the time they circled over to Teo, Teo had gotten out but looked pale.

  “Ready when you are,” Teo said, taking Delfina’s hand; his trembling voice betrayed his smile.

  Robert walked alone to the slotted money box, taking his time. As he headed back, he saw Teo squatting by the car, holding his daughter, she holding him. Looked to him like a child comforting an adult.

  Together, they crossed Hill Street and headed uphill to the courthouse entrance on Grand. Nearing the front door, Delfina looked up at the three marble-block statues over the bank of doors. Carved underneath the respective statues were the words: Mosaic Law, Magna Carta, and Declaration of Independence.

  “What’s Magna Carta?” she asked Teo.

  “Dunno, sweetie,” Teo said, his face drawn tight as they went inside.

  After they made it through security, Robert held back to speak to a security guard. It was one thing to tell a client about his inexperience, another for them actually to see that he couldn’t find the courtroom. Once the guard told him how to locate Room 356, he rejoined his clients, and they walked down a two-block-long marble corridor.

  Lines spilled out of landlord-tenant court and the clerk’s office; still farther along, Robert led them left onto the escalators. In short order, they stepped onto the third floor and found the courtroom from the Argonaut notice: Room 356. A plastic sign ID’d Judge Hardwick Blackwell as presiding judge.

  They were twenty minutes early; Teo looked borderline nauseated.

  “No need for you to come inside yet,” Robert said.

  “Man, sorry, I . . . I might need to catch a meeting real quick.”

  Robert didn’t know much about AA, and at this point he didn’t much care. He pulled Teo aside.

  “You’re here. There’s no booze here—just you and your brother. I don’t care if you two get square with each other or not, but you gotta stay, all right? Gotta deal, okay, then it’ll be over. Stay here, all right?”

  “I hear you, okay.”

  Robert pushed through the door into the courtroom. To his left sat a cop, who looked up. Robert nodded to him. To his right, a court clerk sat up on a dais. She was talking to a man in a suit who looked to Robert like a lawyer.

  Robert approached the clerk. Her nameplate read: Valerie Chou.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Chou?”

  “It’s pronounced Joe,” she said.

  Must happen a lot; she smiled at him.

  “Sorry, Ms. Chou, am I in the right room for the Vincent Famosa Family Trust hearing?”

  She didn’t bother checking. “Yes, you are.”

  Robert shook her hand, then did the same with the lawyer, Bruce Keller. He was a court-hired probate lawyer and was assigned to all Judge Blackwell’s cases.

  Bruce asked, “And you represent . . . ?”

  “Two of the beneficiaries. Matteo Famosa and his daughter, Delfina.”

  A loud bang echoed from outside. That cop’s radio barked, and he took off for the door.

  Shit, Robert just knew: Teo!

  Robert made the hallway and saw three cops struggling with two unfamiliar men. All along the hall, doors opened, heads appeared. Teo was nowhere in sight. The cop from Blackwell’s courtroom headed back Robert’s way. As he passed, Robert heard him mutter: “Families and money, oil and water.”

  Corner of his eye, Robert caught Teo and Delfina down the hall. She was drinking from a water fountain, her father watching. Robert hurried to another cop at a nearby courtroom door.

  “Sorry to bother you. Which side of the courtroom do the beneficiaries sit on?”

  “On the left. Trustees, they sit on the right.”

  Robert thanked him and met up with Teo and Delfina down the hall.

  “See Carlos anywhere?” Robert asked him.<
br />
  “Not yet,” Teo said.

  “Okay, then . . .”

  Robert held open the door; they went inside. Now Valerie Chou was talking to a woman in her fifties, brunette, in a dark designer suit. Given her dark looks, he’d guess she was Latina. Robert set his ultrathin case file on the left-side table as the woman walked over to him.

  “I’m Evelyn Levine,” she said. “Val tells me you’re Robert Worth. That right?”

  Val, not Valerie. Evelyn was a probate court regular.

  He shook her hand. “That’s right, here on behalf of Matteo and Delfina Famosa.” She didn’t bother looking at them. “And you?”

  “Here for the trustee and the trust. Val said you didn’t have the case number, so I assume you know little to nothing about probate practice.”

  Coming right at me, huh?

  “I was retained Friday afternoon. I did what I could to bring myself up to speed.”

  “If you’re relying on Matteo Famosa for information, I doubt you know much at all. Here’s what I think we should do. Judge Blackwell will walk in here any moment, and when he does, I’ll ask him for an extension. If that’s all right with you?”

  She was already way ahead of him; he didn’t care for that.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll hear what the judge has to say before I agree to anything.” He looked around, making sure Carlos hadn’t just now slipped in. “If your client ever gets here.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Then you don’t know?”

  “About . . . ?”

  “Carlos Famosa is dead. I’m here as executor of his estate, and as such, I stepped into his shoes as trustee of the Vincent Famosa Family Trust.”

  Carlos Famosa dead? Definitely in over my head. That extension looks better than ever.

  “Just now,” Evelyn said, “I gave Bruce Keller a notarized original of Carlos Famosa’s instructions appointing me his executor. Right about now, Bruce slipped it to Judge Blackwell, who is now reading it. My document, together with Carlos Famosa’s final accounting as trustee, will create an unhealthy head of steam for Judge Blackwell.”

  Before Robert could react, Judge Blackwell came in fast through a front-corner door and headed to his perch, that head of steam Evelyn had mentioned visible. No time to tell Teo what he’d learned and no point pretending: he’d just gotten blindsided. In spite of Evelyn’s hard edge, she’d been trying to toss him a line.