by Dave Daren
So, we opened Sedona Legal.
We’ve come pretty far in the last eight months, popping up on the radar of Sedona’s movers and shakers. Now, we were personally asked by the city council to participate in the Independence Day film project, so I guess that was a good thing.
Vicki and I reached the parking lot of Steele Productions, and I clicked the key alarm for my black BMW. The parking lot had been full when I came, so I was forced to park in a deserted area behind the building.
“Oh my God,” Vicki suddenly gushed as we neared the car.
My heart raced at her words. Had my tires been slashed or something?
“Would you look at that?” she added.
She pointed to a window with the blinds open. I had to look twice to see what she was talking about, but once I did, I saw it. In a back office of the building, I clearly saw Jerry Steele and Allison.
And they were making out.
“Whoa,” I snickered. “This film just got some plot.”
“I don’t get it,” Vicki said as we unlocked the car and got in. “She’s young and super hot. Why is she with him?”
“The infamous ‘casting couch,’ maybe?” I replied.
“For a Sedona independent film project?” Vicki scoffed. “I don’t think so. Then again, you never know how far some girls will go to be a star.”
“Hmm,” I said.
Something about it still didn’t seem right. I pulled out of the parking space, and through the window I saw they knocked over a printer, and their make out session was over.
“Well, whatever it is,” I chuckled, “they suck at it.”
“I say we go home and show them up,” Vicki purred as she put her hand on my thigh.
I winked. “We do have a sordid colonial love scene to rehearse.”
Chapter 2
The next morning, I was relieved to be safely in my office, away from men in tights, vocalizing actors, and philandering directors.
Our office space was in a quaint area of downtown Sedona, known for its vintage appeal. We were a wooden storefront in a strip center, sandwiched between a vintage record store and a smoothie shop.
I pulled up to the curbside parking, and the smoothie shop manager was outside.
She gave me a dirty look and then hurried inside.
I rolled my eyes.
When I first looked at our office space, I heard she had her eyes on it, too. She sold beaded jewelry on Etsy and wanted a physical shop. I outbid her, and now she hated us. Now, none of us can ever go into that smoothie shop for fear of having our drinks spit in.
I walked inside the office, and AJ and Vicki were already there.
“Any ideas on a peace offering for the lady next door?” I asked as I set my bag down on my desk.
“Oh, Lord,” AJ groaned. “I saw her at the post office a couple days ago, and she wouldn’t even look at me.”
“Geez,” Vicki replied from behind her laptop. “It’s been eight months already, and we’ve got a five year lease. Get over it, lady.”
“Never come between a woman and her high end beaded jewelry,” AJ laughed.
“Apparently,” I muttered.
Our office was a two room space, a main room and a conference room. We had real wood floors and freshly painted white walls, and the front wall was composed of old fashioned tiered windows.
When we first signed the lease, I had to go back to California for six weeks, and in the meantime, Vicki decorated it. She did a great job, too. She went with the contemporary style minimalist theme, all white and chrome, which went well with the flooring. We had three white desks in the main room, white swivel chairs, and chrome task lighting. On the far side of the room, there was a kitchenette with a single serve coffee maker and a mini-fridge.
The conference room had an old wooden dining table and whiteboard. It also had the fear of Johnny Law hovering like a ghost. Many witnesses walked into that room of their own free will and left in handcuffs.
I pulled out my laptop and opened my e-mail for the day’s take. Vicki and AJ were discussing a new independent designer opening a store in our shopping center, and I was just about to enter the conversation, when a visitor popped in.
“Perry,” I smiled, “haven’t seen you in a while.”
One of our deceased clients named me in his will as the executor of his estate’s trust. The trust had decided to invested in Perry McGrath’s kombucha plant, and now we’d all been talking back and forth about a facility update.
“Yeah,” he said as he smiled and took a seat. “I’ve been meaning to come by and see where we are on that budget proposal I sent over.”
Perry was in his early thirties, with long brown hair that was usually pulled into a rough ponytail. He had gauged earlobes, a tongue ring, and lived on a commune named Tranquility. Yeah, it was a real commune with farm animals, a vegetable garden, chickens, and a long term goal of being “off the grid.”
But, when their little kombucha operation got picked up by a major health food chain, things started to change for the Tranquility bunch. To meet the demands of the business world, they needed to join the real world.
I’d been out there a couple of times since the trust had invested, and they seemed to have found a good balance of creating an adequate facility but still keeping with the authentic spirit of “living in community,” as they called it. The idea of a kombucha that came straight out of a Sedona hippie commune was probably a big selling point for the distributor.
But, according to Perry, they needed to update to a more efficient manufacturing process, which required a hefty check. We’d been e-mailing back and forth about it for months, and I could tell he was tired of talking and ready to make some moves.
Today, Perry wore his usual, cargo pants and a t-shirt that looked like he’d been out in Tranquility’s vegetable garden.
“Perry,” Vicki greeted him with a smile. “How are you?”
Perry gave Vicki a quick side hug, and they exchanged pleasantries briefly while I pulled up Perry’s budget proposal. I’d sent it over to the board for approval, but I hadn’t read the responses yet.
“How’s Kristen and the baby?” Vicki asked.
Kristen was Perry’s wife, and their son, a boy named Neptune, had almost been born in a van I was driving. In the end, we found my mother, who delivered the baby in a birthing center. But, for a brief moment, I’d thought for sure Vicki and I were going to have to deliver a baby on the side of the road. To date, that was probably the most memorable moment of my career.
“They’re great,” Perry’s smiled, “Neptune has finally started sleeping through the night, so we actually get sleep now.”
“Aww,” Vicki cooed. “That’s a relief. Infant sleep training is always hard. What method did you use?”
I furrowed my brow at Vicki. What would she know about infant sleep training? That’s the thing about moving from the big city to a small town. In our circles in L.A., people were all about their careers and into casual dating, or even just hooking up. They wouldn’t start getting serious about marriage until much later in life.
But, in Sedona, most of the people our age were already knee deep into marriage and family life. It took a bit of faking it to relate to them sometimes.
Unfortunately, Vicki only served to encourage Perry to go on and on about the dangers of modern sleep training, how it hinders the child’s cognitive and social development and might have lasting roots in adolescent maldevelopment.
Vicki listened with the best feigned empathy I’d ever seen, but I interrupted them.
“I have the budget breakdown right here,” I announced as I pulled papers off the printer, and Perry turned to me.
“Great,” he said as he wrung his hands nervously. “What did the board think?”
“Overall,” I replied evenly, “they liked it, and gave the project the green light.” Then I cracked a broad grin.
Perry threw his arms in the air and smiled. “So, we can start hiring contractors?”
>
“Yep,” I chuckled. “You’re in business.”
“We’re in business,” he echoed in awe.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “make the trust some money. I’ll have a check for you here in a couple of days.”
“Will do,” he said and rose to leave, but then he turned back to us. “Hey, before I forget … ”
Vicki and I paused to listen.
“We’ve got this party,” Perry continued. “We think you guys would be into it. We’re going to plant the placenta with a tree in honor of Neptune, and it’s going to be a big deal. You guys should come.”
I glanced at Vicki, who sighed, and I searched for a polite decline.
“And we’ll have some bootleg.” Perry shrugged in my direction.
”Bootleg, huh?” I said with a raised eyebrow.
The kombucha factory also manufactured some pretty good whiskey on the down low, but a placenta planting party was not in the cards.
“We’d love to come,” Vicki cut in before I could say another word. “Tell Kristen I said hi.”
“Will do,” Perry replied with a grin. “Gotta go make some tea.”
“Make that tea,” I said.
Perry left, and I turned to Vicki.
“What?” she responded.
“You just RSVP’ed us to a placenta planting party,” I muttered.
“It will be fun,” she chuckled. “Just drink ‘artisan’ whiskey and don’t worry about it.”
“Did you do that just to get at me?” I said and narrowed my eyes at her.
She laughed but didn’t respond.
I rolled my eyes, pulled up my e-mails again, and tried to go through them.
“The architect we talked to yesterday sent a follow-up,” I announced.
Vicki and I had just closed on a land deal, and we were in the earliest stage of building our first home.
“I didn’t like her,” Vicki grumbled and scrunched her nose. “She gave me that vibe.”
“What vibe?” I asked with a frown. “She seemed nice enough.”
She shrugged. “It’s that competitive woman vibe.”
“What do you mean?” I questioned.
She groaned and searched for words. “It’s hard to explain.”
“I know what you mean,” AJ piped up from the corner of the room. “It’s all the high school mean girls who never grew out of it, they only learned sneakier tricks.”
“Yes!” Vicki exclaimed as she clapped her hands together.
“I hate that stuff,” AJ rolled her eyes, “high school was stupid.”
“Okay,” I said and deleted the e-mail from the high school mean girl architect. “I thought she did good work, had a good portfolio.”
“We have to work with this person for months,” Vicki pointed out. “Personality counts a lot.”
Right after she finished speaking, the door to the office slammed open. To my surprise, in walked The Count, and I searched my memory for his real name.
“Hello, Alfred,” I rose and shook his hand, “good to see you.”
“Likewise, Mr. Irving,” he greeted me with a quick bow. The Count wore a full French Revolution era costume, complete with a cape.
“Please, call me Henry,” I said and motioned toward a chair in front of my desk. “What can I do for you?”
“I must relay that a most grave and terrible injustice has been committed against me,” he intoned.
His voice rose and fell like a stage soliloquy, and I wondered why he wasn’t directing anything.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said as I crossed my legs and leaned back in my chair. “What is the nature of the injustice?”
With a grand flourish, he pulled a manila file folder out of his robe and handed it to me.
“What is this?” I asked as I took the folder.
“This,” he said, “is my written legal agreement with Steele Productions. As you may know, I have given Jerry Steele permission to adapt my literary work, An American Revolutionary Tale, into a work of film.”
“And I take it you aren’t happy,” I said as I skimmed the documents.
The Count rose from the chair and slowly paced the room as if in deep thought. He tapped his fingertips together and searched the ceiling, and then he spoke with full stage projection, diaphragm breaths and all.
“Steele Productions has taken my magnum opus, the work I spent seven years researching, and has attempted to turn it into a tawdry affair that only vaguely resembles the original work.”
I nodded. “Steele Productions is not known for its ethical treatment of subjects.”
“On the contrary,” The Count extrapolated, “Mr. Steele assured me he would treat my novel with the utmost of care and precision.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered as I read through the rest of the file.
“Herein lies the injustice,” he cried, and he gripped the back of the chair so tightly his knuckles turned white. “This cannot be done! This will not be done! This is an injustice! A heresy! Not just against me, but against the American people and the history of this country!”
I stroked my chin and listened to his monologue, half expecting some sort of Shakespearean aside.
“Mr. Irving,” he finished dramatically, “we must take this matter before a judge to say what he will.”
I nodded slowly. “You’re saying you want to sue Steele Productions?”
“Precisely.” The Count sat back down, and he frowned and then just looked sad.
“Unfortunately,” I said as I looked over the contract, “whoever did this contract knew what they were doing.”
The Count’s expression fell further.
“You’ve signed over all of the rights to the book to Steele Productions,” I went on.
“No,” he protested. “No, it can’t be.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, you should have had a lawyer look over it before you signed it. Legally, you have no rights. He can do whatever he wants.”
“No, no, no,” The Count gestured frantically toward the page, “look again, surely there is some loophole, something that can be done. That can’t be right. It just can’t be.”
“You received the check mentioned here, right?” I pointed to a line on the contract.
“Yes,” he said, “but that was at the start of the project. Mr. Steele assured me I would be involved artistically each step of the way.”
“Unfortunately,” I sighed, “according to this, the check was all you were to ever get out of it. Any artistic involvement you may or may not have is solely at the director’s discretion.”
“But you don’t understand, Mr. Irving!” he cried. “I spent seven years of my life researching my book. I even stayed in England for six months to research the American Revolution, auditing courses with an Oxford historian. This … this is my life’s work, really. I doubt I shall have another great work as this.”
“I understand,” I nodded, “you’re passionate about it, and you have every right to take pride in the work you created. But the contract is clear.”
“But, surely,” he said with perfect stage elocution, “surely there must be something we can do. We must fight this contract. It is wrong, and unjust.”
“The only thing you can do now,” I offered, “is to play nice and ask Steele Productions to drop the project. I doubt he will, but at this point, that’s the only real option you have.”
The Count’s face contorted. “This man cheated me out of a lifetime of work!” Then he grabbed the paperwork and looked me in the eye. “I say to you, good day, sir.”
“Good day, Mr. Dumont,” I sighed.
The Count left the office with a flourish, and as soon as he was out of view, I turned to Vicki.
“Well, that was something,” I said with a quirked eyebrow.
“I feel bad for him,” she frowned, “Jerry really is screwing him over.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, “he is. I really wish Alfred had brought me the contract before he signed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if some o
f the city leaders drop out of the film.”
“Geez,” AJ said, “I literally got caught in the middle with those two last night. Jerry wants to rewrite all the battle scenes with World War I weaponry to reconcile with the period shift, and Alfred or The Count or whatever that guy’s name is, totally lost his shit. His face turned bright red, and I thought we were going to have to call either an ambulance or the cops.”
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” I mused as I quoted Hamlet.
“You know,” Vicki said, “Shakespeare was a fraud, too. He stole all his work from all the other writers in the theatre.”
I laughed. “Thank you, Landon.”
We all laughed. Landon was our contract graphic designer who had moved to Chicago for art school. But, during his brief period in and out of our office, he had started dating AJ. Last month, though, he was home for a brief break and did some work for us. That is, he followed us around for weeks doing a documentary to prove, once and for all, that the Illuminati and the Clintons, particularly, were behind a murder we were litigating. When he didn’t single handedly bring down the global elite, he was disappointed and went back to Chicago for the summer term.
“How is he doing?” Vicki asked AJ.
“He just got into the dorms a few days ago,” she replied. “His new roommate made an electrical generator out of an Easy Bake oven, and doesn’t use money.”
“He doesn’t use money?” I asked incredulously.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “Since U.S. currency is fake--”
“U.S. currency is not fake,” I sighed. “It’s just not backed by anything.”
“So, it’s fake,” AJ said. “Anyway, he believes the dollar is a scam and unreliable, so he instead pays for everything in bitcoins and gold.”
“I don’t know how that works,” I muttered.
“Me neither,” she said. “I think he works on the dark web, and he gets paid in bitcoin, and when he has to have U.S. currency, he uses that to buy Visa gift cards. I don’t know.”
“Sounds like a lot of effort to make a useless economic statement,” I said. “Also sounds like they might be kindred spirits.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “According to Landon, he invests in all kinds of currency, and he’s got all of this built up wealth in alternative money. It’s confusing, but this guy really knows what he’s doing.”
