The Boardwalk Trust (Beach Lawyer Series Book 2)

by Avery Duff

  “That extension, Ms. Levine, sounds like a plan. Thank you.”

  “All right,” Evelyn said. “Brace yourself.”

  After allowing Robert to identify himself and the Famosas, Judge Blackwell thanked him and launched into Evelyn.

  “Ms. Levine, do you mean to tell me Mr. Carlos Famosa was able to avoid hearing this court’s opinion of his final accounting as trustee by the simple expedient of dying?”

  Evelyn: “Your Honor, I—”

  “Where will this imbecile be buried?”

  “Your Honor, if it please the court, I would like to ask—”

  “No, Ms. Levine. Absolutely nothing pleases me today. I’d like to attend the man’s funeral for one reason only—to tell him I’ve never seen a clearer case of negligent management of trust assets and to impose court sanctions against him as trustee.”

  Robert looked on as the judge railed against Carlos. Finally, there was a break in the action.

  Evelyn said, “Two things, Your Honor. First, there’s a child present, so please lower your voice. And second, Mr. Famosa was my friend of long standing, regardless of what the trust’s final accounting may or may not contain. So on both counts, please cool down, Your Honor. That’s all I have at this time.”

  Judge Blackwell made a half-hearted attempt to regain the upper hand, but Evelyn was right, and he knew it. Once he simmered down, Judge Blackwell granted a joint motion for a two-week extension of the hearing and dismissed the court.

  Teo looked to Robert like he had been poleaxed by news of Carlos’ death.

  “You got all that?” Robert asked.

  “Yep.”

  No time to console him. Robert needed a copy of the case file from the court because Evelyn was right—he had no idea what was going on.

  “Are we in trouble?” Delfina asked him. “Is Daddy in trouble?”

  He knelt beside her.

  “No, not at all. Everything’s all right, Delfina.” Then to Teo: “I need to talk to the other lawyer. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Got it,” Teo said.

  Robert noticed that the hearing had drawn a gallery in the back rows: ten men and women in suits, who had just now filtered out.

  Joining Evelyn, Robert asked, “Is that kind of outburst normal?”

  “Blackwell’s going through a divorce, wife cleaned him out, took the kids. He’ll e-mail me later to apologize.” They exchanged business cards, and she said, “Tell you what, I have some ideas about how to move forward. Why don’t we take five, ten minutes, look each other up online, and go from there?”

  “Good idea,” Robert said.

  Taking a seat nearby, Robert Googled Evelyn Levine. Martindale-Hubbell had given her their top rating, same as his own. Currently a sole practitioner, she’d had several articles printed in California Trusts and Estates Quarterly and was a member of the Real Property, Trusts and Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association, the latter making him grateful he hadn’t crossed swords with her just now.

  Evelyn motioned him over to her table.

  “Robert Logan Worth. Five years with Fanelli and Pierce. Corporate and securities transactions, banking, M&A. I knew Pierce by reputation only, but Philip Fanelli was always top-notch by all accounts.”

  “Definitely,” Robert said.

  “On your own now, Beach Lawyer?”

  Thanks, Yo! Venice.

  “Yes. And your qualifications are . . . you’re good to go.”

  Not done with him yet, she asked, “You left Fanelli’s firm on good terms?”

  “Good enough,” Robert said. “There’s an NDA connected to my departure, but I’m partnered with Philip on another case, if that helps.” NDA: a nondisclosure agreement.

  “Helps if it’s true. So if I called Fanelli right now . . . ?”

  He showed her Philip’s number in his contacts. “His cell. Give him a call.”

  “Maybe later. For now, let’s you and me quit screwing around.”

  She pointed to the large legal file bungeed to her rolling briefcase.

  “That’s my Famosa file. It includes not all—but almost all—the correspondence between me, as trust counsel, and Carlos Famosa, the trustee. I’m thinking about turning it over to you. But first, mind if I tell you about attorney-client privilege for California trustees?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Some idealists argue that the privilege belongs to the beneficiaries, your clients, so they could look at my work product anytime. But people who actually work with trustees—people like me—we know that the trustee and the trust should have the privilege, and that’s how California case law stacks up.”

  Off the top of her head, she cited book and page of a California Supreme Court ruling. Just for fun, she gave him a Texas case that agreed with California. Sounded like she was gearing up for a fight over his access to the Famosa trust’s privileged documents: her work.

  “I have to believe you’d like to see the trust’s file, including my privileged correspondence with Carlos about trust business.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” he said. That way, he avoided begging for it.

  “For a moment, pretend we’re big-boy lawyers. That we have deep-pocket clients. What would happen next?”

  “We’d fight about it, no matter what the California cases say, and after a year or two, you’d win. If the cases you cited are on point.”

  “They are, but I’m sure you’ll check them anyway. And after that?”

  “After all that, the lawyers would pocket big fees, and the bankers, who usually serve as trustees, don’t really care. For them, it’s a cost of doing business.”

  “But this is different, right? Different because there is nothing at stake.”

  She let that news sink in: nothing at stake.

  “Because . . . ?”

  “This trust is worth nothing at all. Glad you’re here, Robert. Nice to meet you and all that, but I could’ve saved you the trouble.”

  “Real estate that’s worth nothing?” Robert asked.

  “I’m exaggerating a tiny bit to make a point. Don’t take my word for it. You have the case number, so check the court’s file, along with what I’m going to give you.” Evelyn took a deep breath. “The child with Teo Famosa?”

  “Delfina, his daughter.”

  “Mind if I meet her?”

  “Not at all.”

  Teo stood when Evelyn approached the table. She ignored him and knelt in front of Delfina.

  “Hi, Delfina. My name is Evelyn. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” Delfina said. They shook hands. “Are we in trouble, Evelyn?”

  “Not at all, dear.”

  She turned back to Robert and spoke, not quite a whisper:

  “The Famosa family—welcome to Crazy Town.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Hey, Sharon, don’t go cheating on me over at Eggslut,” the Latina clerk said from the counter of a Grand Central Market burrito bar.

  Sharon Sloan said, “I’m not eating today, just window-shopping,” and pointed to her baby bump.

  “Where’s your boyfriend? Killer?”

  Killer. That was Bruce Keller’s nickname for himself.

  “Getting a facial’s what he said,” Sharon joked.

  Sharon had planned to eat lunch today with Bruce, her fellow probate attorney. Then her marching orders came in, and she’d canceled—but not before Bruce had dropped by her office to dish about Judge Blackwell’s morning session.

  “J. Black went off,” Bruce told her. “It was classic, but he made the mistake of trying it on Levine.”

  Bruce Keller, a one-man probate court newswire.

  “Evelyn Levine could’ve been a probate judge herself if she’d wanted it,” Sharon said.

  She halfway listened as Bruce kept going. “Only death saved the trustee from J. Black’s wrath.”

  She locked her office door, and they headed toward the escalator.

  “Oh, well,” she said, for lack of a
nything better to say.

  “And we had a newbie lawyer at the hearing. Robert Worth. What a cutie.”

  “New guy get out alive?”

  “He skated unscathed,” Bruce said. As she ascended the escalator, he added, “Okay, Basic, you’re buying next time.”

  Bruce and his nicknames. Sharon Sloan’s being “Basic” after Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

  After that exchange, she’d left Superior Court and headed down Hill Street beneath the stainless-steel curves of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Four months pregnant, just beginning to show; she and her husband had told the other two kids last week, and they’d seemed okay with it.

  As Sharon made it onto South Broadway, Latino street flavor kicked in hard: frilly bride’s dresses, mantillas, mother-of-pearl peinetas, baby-blue charro outfits for kids with baby-blue sombreros.

  She wondered what Bruce would think if he knew about the people she was meeting. Bruce wouldn’t know what to think, she decided. It was beyond his reach and, depending on the day, beyond her own.

  Passing through the buzzing indoor food courts—Japanese, Chinese, Latino, fusion, barbecue, high and low cuisine—she headed to the rear of Grand Central and took the basement stairs.

  From the first landing, she saw the two men sitting at a metal picnic table. Easy to spot them in those black leather jackets, black jeans, chains, and white T-shirts. Her hand went to a 14-karat Christian Orthodox crucifix, nestled against her growing breasts, the sacred dancing with the profane.

  She took a seat next to Kiril, the least obvious of the two. Penko’s appraising stare from across the table reminded her why seeing this pair, twice already in one month, was her limit.

  “We will keep it short,” she said, her cadence and syntax deliberate, more in their manner of speaking. “Today, things changed. Maybe it means something, maybe it does not.”

  Penko reached into his leather jacket and showed her a bottle.

  “We drink?” he asked, his accent thick with booze already.

  “You will do well to remember your place,” she told Penko.

  She handed Kiril a slip of paper.

  “Go online,” she said. “Do it in your hotel lobby. That is the case number and my password. All new developments from court will be entered by now. You will find the information you need in that case file.”

  Kiril asked, “On Internet, I go to Superior Court site, then to Probate?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What is expected of us?” Kiril asked.

  “For now, monitor the address in the probate file, nothing more,” she said. “If you have more questions, I will meet you here in two days. Same time, understood?”

  Kiril nodded. “Very well.”

  “Sharon?” Penko asked her. “Does TMZ tour visit home of the Kirk?”

  The Kirk. She knew who he meant. Kirk Douglas had played Spartacus in the movie. Legend was, the real Spartacus, a Thracian, was born in Sandanski, a Bulgarian village, and even though Kirk Douglas was Russian, they all overlooked that fact.

  “Call them and ask,” she said.

  “Spartacus, Bad and Beautiful, Champion. Which movie you prefer?” Penko asked her.

  Even Kiril got into it. “No. The Vikings. An excellent picture.”

  “Spartacus,” she said. “Hands down.”

  Penko again: “The Kirk say, ‘I am Spartacus.’ Fuck Terminator. The Kirk, he is all-time top movie badass.”

  This could go on forever, so Sharon stood to leave. Penko stood, too. He lifted her crucifix from her chest, stroked it with his thumb, his eyes on hers. She didn’t back down. This one must be drunk and overvaluing his aunt’s role as Gospodar’s current mistress. He fancied himself something special, but men like him were a dime a dozen in Sofia.

  “Lust for Life, a good movie, too,” Penko said.

  She said, “That movie is for tapak only.” Idiots only.

  He kept stroking the crucifix, grinning that cocky grin.

  She looked at Kiril. “He shows no respect for me. You should have a long talk with him.”

  “Penko. Enough.”

  Penko dropped the crucifix, not the attitude.

  “I need a small box,” Penko said to her. He held up his pinkie. “About that big. Like jewelry box, small and very tight.”

  “Jewelry District’s not far. Walk there and clear your foolish head.”

  “Walk with me. Maybe I buy you ring, we get married.”

  “You,” she said, “are filth. After you lick clean the ass of my dog, you will praise me for letting you do so.”

  That fake smile of his got bigger. The reaction of a violent man without enough power to lay hands on her.

  She motioned to Kiril and walked him away from the table.

  “I am sorry about him,” Kiril said. “He is useful but hard to control.”

  She nodded. “I have eyes.”

  “The big celebration out in San Bernardino. You will be there?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course.” She gave him advice on new clothing to fit in around low-key Westside neighborhoods. Then, turning her back on him, she said, “By the time I come out of the bathroom, you will have taken that scum away from here.”

  Kiril finished his probate court computer search in the Millennium Biltmore hotel lobby, then joined Penko, already waiting outside, pacing the wide sidewalk across from Pershing Square.

  “Where is our fucking car?” he asked Kiril.

  “Coming,” Kiril said.

  Penko spit on the ground.

  “Grozna curva, ya chukash!” Unkind Bulgarian words about Sharon. Draining his liquor bottle, he slammed it into a trash can marked LA Sparkles!

  “She is right about how we look, dobre?” Kiril said.

  “What is wrong with twelve-hundred-dollar leather jacket? We have no tattoos. Now we are told to wear no good jackets—”

  “It is not like home here, dobre? We have no pull, no family, or judges to help us.”

  Kiril understood the frustrations of Penko and the other men, up in the forest all that time. Hitting town now, they wanted to look sharp, cut loose.

  Kiril said, “We will shop the Westside. I promise you, we will look cool, but no black tracksuits, all right? No black jeans, no black nothing.”

  Penko was getting ready to spew again when a private Mercedes Mauck 2 Sprinter tour bus pulled up to the curb. The door opened, and Kiril stepped inside.

  “Our very own ride,” he told Penko. “I rent. You like?”

  Penko lit up. “Fantastichen,” he said, joining Kiril.

  Inside the Mercedes: six captain’s chairs, a bench table in back, a kicking sound system, and disco lights. The other three men from the Emerald Triangle were already getting their swerve on with the five women on board—call girls Kiril had summoned from the family’s online escort business. Dark and beautiful, a morale booster for the men.

  Penko wrapped Kiril in a big bear hug, then moved in on the women. The driver hit the head mike:

  “Welcome aboard, gentlemen . . . and ladies . . . to Tip-Top Tours of Hollywood. Today, our first stop will be the home of film legend Mister Kirk Douglas.”

  Kiril threaded through the cheering men, taking a table seat in back with his special woman, Ilina. Not demure, but quieter than the others. Avoiding that slutwear the other women liked.

  He poured two glasses of champagne and handed one to her.

  “Wonderful to see you again, Ilina.”

  “And you, Kiril. Will this visit to LA be longer than your last?”

  He toasted her. “Yes, and you have been greatly on my mind.”

  “Oh?”

  As the Mercedes pulled away from the Millennium Biltmore, Kiril laughed along with the others, but his thoughts returned to the address he’d just seen on the hotel-lobby computer.

  A Westside Los Angeles house on Amherst Avenue that belonged to Carlos Famosa.

  CHAPTER 7

  On Tuesday, Robert still had a hard time believing what had
happened to the Famosa family trust. Evelyn’s enormous legal file was spread out over Gia’s living room table, where he’d been plowing through twenty-plus years of records, correspondence, and documents.

  He’d started with the most recent item—the final accounting Carlos Famosa had filed with the court before he died.

  At the end of the current quarter, the trust had no real estate at all and a cash balance of $18,000 and change. Compared to two years ago when its assets and cash totaled $3,840,607.

  No wonder Judge Blackwell lost his temper. What in God’s name happened? he wondered.

  It was simple enough to find out. Starting two years ago, Carlos began selling off all the trust’s real estate. Once the trust went all cash, he invested in two start-up ventures—SoccMom and Vegas Rail. Both went under. As in total loss, belly-up, zeroed out.

  Even after those disasters, the trust still had over $220,000 in uninvested cash. But according to bank statements, Carlos had blown through all but $18,000—including the $1,400 left in his personal checking account. And now Carlos was dead.

  Walking with Evelyn through the courthouse’s underground parking, he’d learned Carlos’ gardener had found the body. When he’d shown up at Carlos’ house, late afternoon, the study’s curtain had been open, and Carlos had been sprawled on the floor by his desk.

  Evelyn had told Robert, “We live in the same neighborhood, use the same gardener, and he ran straight over to my house.”

  “Carlos was alone?”

  “All alone,” she’d said. “Because he died unattended, as they say, an autopsy was called for. Report came back, massive heart attack. Suicide wouldn’t have surprised me.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “The trust. Life’s little tragedies. His life had fallen apart.”

  In court, she’d shown little regard for Teo. When he’d pressed her about it, she’d said, “Teo Famosa and Bee, his sometimes wife. You have the file. See for yourself what your client pulled.”