by Dave Daren
Chapter 1
“Hunter!” I heard someone yell out.
I looked around, still bleary eyed from an all nighter of reviewing the latest suggested changes to a one hundred page merger agreement. It was dull, plodding work and not what I envisioned myself doing once I graduated from law school. But law school left me with a lot of student loans to pay off, and the job at Parish, McHale would go a long way towards that goal. Just a few years, I would tell myself whenever another contract crossed my desk, and I would be free to pursue my own interest in criminal law full time.
“Mark,” I said with a smile when I spotted my office mate trotting across the plaza with a cup of coffee in one hand and his briefcase in the other.
Mark looked the part of the Wall Street lawyer. He was just under six feet tall with light brown hair, blue eyes that could either twinkle merrily or nail you with a steely glare, wire rimmed glasses, and the start of a paunch around the waist. He wore Brooks Brothers suits every day with Vineyard Vines ties that reflected his mood that morning. Today he wore the red tie with miniature American flags, a sure sign that he had a meeting with a conservative client.
“You look terrible,” Mark commented as we walked towards the glass revolving doors.
“More contract work,” I moaned.
“At least you didn’t get stuck on that Wallach mess,” my office mate replied. “I hear the son’s threatening to challenge the firm’s role as trustee.”
“I have never been so happy to be in corporate rather than estates,” I said as we joined the morning crush in the lobby.
We swiped our cards at the turnstiles and crossed the marble floor to the elevators. We managed to jam onto an elevator together, and after exchanging hellos with the other Parish, McHale employees that I recognized, we rode in silence to the thirty-fourth floor with only a few stops along the way.
Our office was on the north side of the building with a view of the surrounding skyscrapers and the tiny sliver of old New York along Stone Street. The office wasn’t really meant to be a double, but the firm had more associates than offices at the moment, and while one brave soul had floated the idea of shrinking the size of the partner’s offices, no one had taken that suggestion seriously. So our two desks were squeezed into the space, along with a shared bookcase and stacks of boxes.
We both dropped our briefcases onto the floor behind our desks, then sat down in our chairs and turned on our computers. Mark sipped his coffee while we waited for the machines to boot, and I twiddled a pen while I debated whether to go ahead and grab a second cup of coffee for the morning. I’d slurped down my first cup while I’d waited for the subway, but the smell of Mark’s cup was making me realize that I could really use more caffeine. Of course, that led to another internal debate about whether I would venture to the corner deli and get a reasonably good cup or if I should just suck it up and go for the free stuff that was offered by the firm.
“Gentleman,” a voice drawled from the doorway and we both looked up to see Peter Noble, partner, just outside.
“Mr. Noble,” we both said in unison since only partners were allowed to call the man by his first name.
“I have a second request that’s expected by the end of the month, and we need to staff up,” Noble mused. “How do your schedules look?”
I was saved from having to answer by the buzz of my office phone. I snatched it up as soon as I saw the number and tuned out Mark and Noble.
“How are you doing this morning?” I asked rather than using Bridgit’s name. Bridgit was the firm’s pro bono coordinator, and while the firm generally preferred big pro bono matters that would garner lots of good press, associates were also encouraged to help out on small matters periodically. Bridgit knew that my real passion was criminal law and any time we received such a request, she would call me first. But I’d recently been informed by one of the partners that I was spending too much time on such matters and that I needed to up my billable hours, so I tended to treat phone calls from Bridgit as top secret.
“Oh dear,” Bridgit sighed. “There must be someone there looking for help on a case you don’t want.”
“That’s true,” I replied as Noble moved over to Mark’s desk and sat down in the lone guest chair that we shared.
“Well, I just got a call from Legal Aid,” Bridgit said. “They’re looking for some help with an assortment of small matters, so naturally I thought of you first.”
“I could do that,” I replied. “Shall I come by your office?”
“Boy, you really don’t want that other case,” Bridgit laughed. “Sure, come by, then I can go home tonight and tell my husband that I was locked in my office with a handsome young man today.”
“Let me just grab a cup of coffee and I’ll be there,” I said as I glanced towards Mark and Noble.
I hung up the phone, spared a nod for Mark and Noble, and darted from the office. I stopped at the break room to grab a cup of the brown sludge that the firm insisted was coffee and then trotted down four flights of stairs to Bridgit’s office.
Bridgit was a fifty-something bottle blonde who had started her career at Parish, McHale as a temp and slowly worked her way over to her current post. She was friendly and perky, which was a nice change of pace from the usual attitudes around the office. She loved her husband, their two yorkies, and most importantly to me, she loved to help the underdog. The firm received a barrage of pro bono requests every week and Bridgit dutifully sorted through them to find the ones she thought the attorneys might be willing to take on.
“That blue looks good on you,” I noted as I stepped into the closet-sized office that was Bridgit’s domain. There were no windows and the overhead fluorescent light had flickered for as long as I had been at the firm, but Bridgit had added one of those full spectrum lamps that she brought from home and a thick green plant to counter the drabness of the office.
“And that gray suit looks sharp on you,” she said as she pointed me towards the guest chair.
“Now I know you’re just being kind,” I chuckled. “I look frightful this morning.”
Bridgit set down the folder she had picked up and studied me with a serious eye.
“You do look tired, but everyone around here does,” she replied. “I do like the untamed curls look.”
I quickly ran a hand over my thick black curls, then gave up. I hadn’t bothered with hair gel before I’d left my apartment, which meant my curls would be on full display. Not that I was complaining. Women seemed to love the curls, and on the weekends, I could be ready to go with little more than a quick comb through. But for Parish, McHale, longish curls were not the right look for male associates, and most mornings I did what I could to tame them.
“Maybe I’ll grow a beard next,” I mused as I ran a hand over my chin.
“Oh, no,” Bridget said. “I like to see that dimple in the chin. Besides, you know they wouldn’t approve of a big beard.”
“I’d have to make do with that barely there look that Ken has,” I laughed.
Ken was another partner at the firm, and he maintained a beard and moustache so short that the hairs barely made it past the skin.
“I can’t even imagine what that would look like,” the coordinator replied with a shudder.
“So, what do you have from legal aid?” I asked.
“A couple of wills, which I’ll hand off to someone in estates, and a civil suit in landlord-tenant.”
I did the ‘meh’ motion with my palm. I’d handled a couple of landlord-tenant cases the year before, and while they were good practice for court appearances, they were pretty routine.
“There’s also an arrest for assaulting a police officer,” Bridgit added as she handed me a folder. “The accused was pulled over for a traffic violation. The policeman wa
s writing the ticket when he realized that the car partially blocked the exit from a parking garage. So he told the driver to back up, which the driver did, but he ran over the policeman’s foot.”
“On purpose?” I asked.
“You’d have to ask him,” she replied. “He’s got his first appearance tomorrow.”
“I’ll take it,” I said as I read through the few pages that Legal Aid had sent over. “In fact, I should probably go visit him now, just to get his side of the story.”
“So who are you trying to avoid?” Bridgit asked with a smile.
“Noble was in the office when I left,” I admitted. “And Burkowski’s been after me about my billable hours.”
“Ooooh, I heard that they’re expecting that second request to be huge,” Bridgit confided. “They’re already planning on at least two hundred temps to do the document review.”
“Wow,” I said. “Definitely sounds like I need to make a trip to Rikers then. Not sure I’m up for a two hundred temp case.”
“I’ll let Legal Aid know you’ve taken the case,” Bridgit replied. “They’ll let Rikers know to expect you.”
“Hope they don’t take too long this time,” I noted. “Last time, I had to hang around while they got confirmation.”
“It’s your own fault for rushing right over there,” she pointed out.
“Can I help it if I want to make sure my client’s are properly represented?” I replied.
Bridgit chuckled as I stood up with the folder and snuck back into the hallway. I really wanted to leave the building right at that moment, but I needed my briefcase before I could make the trip to New York City’s main jail complex. I managed to do a lap around the floor, then walk slowly up the stairs. I stopped for another cup of sludge since I’d left my last one on Bridgit’s desk. I drank about half of the muddy substance, then tossed the cup and cleaned up around the pot before slowly walking back to my office.
The door was open, which was a good sign, and I didn’t hear anyone talking, which was an even better sign. I stuck my head around the door and saw that the place was empty except for a half-eaten doughnut on Mark’s desk. I slipped into my chair, did a quick check of my email now that the computer had finally booted up, fired off two quick responses, then called the service desk to request a round trip car to Rikers Island and back.
“You know they hate that route,” the guy on duty warned me. “It could take twenty or thirty minutes to get a car for you.”
“That’s fine,” I replied. “Just call me on my cell phone with the car number.”
I hung up the phone while the guy was still grumbling and grabbed my briefcase. The hallway was still quiet, so I bolted for the elevators before anyone realized I was leaving the building. Once outside, I found a spot near a planter where I could loiter out of sight and wait for the service desk to call while I reflected on my last visit to one of New York’s most notorious places.
Rikers Island is four hundred acres of misery in the middle of the East River. Like Alcatraz, the plan was to confine prisoners to an island where they wouldn’t be able to escape. Fortunately, someone along the way did decide that a bridge was needed, but that lone bridge is the only way on or off the island, and it is heavily guarded. It’s also one of the dreariest drives in the world, even if you’re riding in a comfortable car and know that you’ll be able to turn around and leave at the end of the day.
The original island was only eighty seven acres, but as the city’s need for jail space expanded, so did the island. The vast majority of the ten jails that make up the complex sit on landfill, which can make it a tough place to be during the heat of summer. The whole place starts to smell like rotten eggs, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the unimaginably bad conditions. The jail routinely floods during rain and snow storms, the plumbing is a joke, and overcrowded doesn’t even begin to describe the place. And the abuse inflicted by guards and inmates both has been the stuff of so many lawsuits that you could teach an entire course on it in law schools.
In short, it’s one of the worst places on earth, and it’s only redeeming feature is that most prisoners are only there for a short time. With any luck, I could have my client out in the real world again before too much of the Rikers Island schmutz sank into his bones.
My phone buzzed, and I saw that it was the service desk. I answered and was greeted by the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard.
“Fast Car two eight seven in five minutes on Water,” a woman finally said without preamble.
She hung up before I could respond, and I sauntered around towards the back side of the building to wait for the car. Four minutes later, the car arrived, and I hustled to the passenger door before the driver had a chance to place his placard in the window.
“You Hunter Morgan?” the driver asked as I slipped into the backseat.
“I am,” I agreed.
“Rikers Island, huh,” he sniffed as he checked for traffic.
“Meeting a client,” I replied as we started to pull out.
“Some client,” the driver replied.
That was the end of our conversation. The driver, a balding man with a Russian accent and apparently a fan of sandalwood cologne, turned his attention to his fellow drivers. Aside from a few muttered Russian phrases, the ride was as quiet as a ride in New York City traffic can be. I used the time to look over the few paltry pages again, then checked assorted social media sites for anything about my client, Anthony Lamon.
And that piqued my interest. A twenty-three year old, only a year out of college, but he only turned up in posts by friends. Lamon himself didn’t have any social media accounts, which must have made him something of a social pariah among his peers. The only things I could find out about him were that he worked at a brewery in Queens, liked to hang out with his friends at a place called The Hard Mile on the Queens side of the East River, and had an Italian mom who routinely provided Anthony and his buddies with plenty of homemade pasta and sauces, but the mom’s name was never given. She was always just ‘Tony’s mom’.
Anthony Lamon was tagged in a few blurry pictures from The Hard Mile and a shot taken the previous year at Coney Island. If I hadn’t known his mother was Italian, I probably wouldn’t have pegged Anthony as Italian just by looking at him. He had straight brown hair, gray-green eyes, and ears that reminded me of Prince Charles. He also had a friendly smile, perfect teeth, and a lanky build that didn’t hold much muscle. That could be very bad in a place like Rikers.
I glanced up as we started across the bridge, and it was as long and unpleasant as I remembered. Even if you had no idea what lay at the other end, there was something deeply depressing about the crossing. I gave an involuntary shudder as we neared the end of the span and the fence and first few buildings came into view
The driver let me out near the bus stop, where I joined the usual crowd of family members, attorneys, investigators, and shady characters as we waited for the bus that would take us to each of the prisons. I double-checked where my client was being held, though as a first time offender I knew where he should be. Unfortunately, his first time offense was officially assaulting a police officer and I doubted that the Corrections Officers spent much time worrying about the details of the case. Once they saw the charge, there was always a chance, even after all the lawsuits, that the kid ended up with some of the more dangerous felons.
The bus arrived and a host of people straggled off. Most remained close by and waited for the bus that would take them back to Queens, but a few went towards the parking lot, and another attorney quickly ducked into the back seat of a different car service. Once the bus was empty, those of us who had been waiting piled on and the driver once again set off on his loop of the island.
The bus was hot and smelled like old hot dogs, and I was happy to step off once we pulled up at the right prison. There was actually a whiff of clean air as I did, and I sucked in as much as I could get before I joined the line to enter the prison.
&
nbsp; My identity was confirmed, my briefcase thoroughly checked, and the visitation rules replayed twice, just to make sure I understood. After all that, I was led to a drab green room with a window too high to offer any sort of view. There was one scarred table and two metal chairs for furniture, and a dangling lightbulb that made little fizzing noises. There was mold growing up the wall in one corner which seemed appropriate given the stale sweat smell that permeated everything.
I didn’t have to wait long, thankfully. The opposite door clanged open and Anthony Lamon was led into the room. He sank into the chair on the other side of the table with a sidelong glance at me, but he didn’t say anything until the guard had left. He was taller than he looked in the pictures, and his eyes were a flat gray in the flickering light. He also had a bruise along his temple that looked fresh and scratches on his knuckles.
“Are you the attorney from Legal Aid?” he asked.
“I am,” I replied. “Hunter Morgan.”
“You don’t look like a Legal Aid attorney,” he noted as he studied my suit and tie.
“I’m with a firm called Parish, McHale,” I explained. “I’m doing this pro bono.”
Lamon let out a low whistle and then frowned.
“That’s a white shoe firm,” he said suspiciously. “How the hell did you end up with my case? Did my father send you and tell you to say you’re working pro bono?”
I leaned in and examined my client more closely. I doubted very many people on Rikers Island at that moment had ever heard the phrase ‘white shoe firm’, much less knew what that meant. My client was young, but he clearly knew about money and the people who managed it.
“I don’t know anything about your father,” I replied. “As I said, this was a request from Legal Aid. If you’d rather have one of the regular staff attorneys, I can call them and tell them you’ve turned down my services.”
I didn’t say anything else as Lamon looked around the room and then finally looked back at me.
“You don’t know anything about my father?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I repeated.
