Foreclosure: A Novel (20 page)

Frank removed his sunglasses and squinted at David. “Hell, I’m not gonna testify about it. And let’s say I had already committed it.”

“In that case, I could be bound to keep it confidential.”

“Is that so? You hear that, Robbie? He can’t tell no one about what you did.”

Robbie told Frank to shut up, but Frank was laughing too hard to notice.

He finally calmed down and assured David, “I’m just fucking with you. And I hope you’re not gonna bill me for this.”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether you’re about to kill someone.”

Frank erupted with laughter. “Good one. You’re really growing on me.” He started chewing on his lower lip and stared at his attorney. “Seriously, man, you’re red as a lobster. Better get some sunscreen.”

David moved his shoulders in circles and felt the crispy burn.

Frank returned his shades and smiled. “I got an idea. Let’s go swimming.”

“Hell, no,” David said.

Frank dropped his shorts and pulled them over his sandals. “I’m serious. You’ve never enjoyed a high until you’ve been in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico with the sharks and tarpons swimming by.” Now butt naked, Frank pulled David by the arms and led him to the bow. “Let’s go.”

David glanced down at Frank’s shriveled penis, a cigar butt in an ashtray of pubic hair, and he realized that Frank, naked and baked out of his mind, had every intention of putting David overboard. Just as David was about to resist, he decided to give in and take a swim. So he followed Frank’s lead and climbed over the rail. As he reached the zenith and was about to jump, Frank gave him a quick push that sent him overboard.

David hit the warm Gulf waters with his eyes closed. He stayed in a tight ball as he sank into the salty water and waited for his own buoyancy to raise him up again. The instant he emerged for air, he could hear Frank’s insane guffaw echoing over the water.

“Let’s go,” Frank yelled. He charged the console, cranked the motor, and grabbed the wheel. In no time, the boat was darting away, steered by Frank, his wrinkled ass gleaming in the sun. An air horn honked obnoxiously.

Fear overtook David. Frank was mad enough to leave him in the middle of the water. And no one would ever know he was here. He could wash ashore in a few weeks. Just as the boat had nearly disappeared, David saw it veer to the right and then circle back toward him. In no time, the boat whipped by again and passed him, and then at the last moment it steered to the left to miss him. David bounced up and down like a bobber in its wake. His arms and legs were tiring. He struggled for breath.

He was sure now that the boat was leaving for good, accelerating, leaving him to drown.

But no, it was really moving in a perfect circle, with David at its center, and the boat’s wake was forming a current around him. The current moved faster, and he felt something grabbing his feet and pulling him under. It was as if he were stuck in a maelstrom that Frank had summoned, and Frank acknowledged that by waving and saluting to David as he passed again. Perhaps this would be his last pass before he left David to die.

David felt consciousness escaping and wondered if they would pull him out of the water. Because something really was pulling him down, and quickly.

David awoke in a cold sweat. He would believe it was all a dream—getting high with Frank on the boat, nearly drowning in the Gulf, being pulled out of the water by Robbie as Frank laughed so hard he started coughing up bile—if it weren’t for the fever-inducing, blistered sunburn on his shoulders that was keeping him from sleeping more than an hour at a spell. It was no dream, but it didn’t seem like reality, either.

He stumbled to the bathroom and looked for aloe or anything else cool and soothing Lana might have left behind. He found nothing.

Downstairs, he downed three aspirin in the dark kitchen. The pain was only getting worse. He had no choice but to run to the store. So he grabbed his keys, slipped on his flip-flops in the utility room, and walked out the garage.

As the garage door rose, the first thing he saw was Ed Savage’s silver Yukon, shining under the moonlight and blocking the Saab in the driveway.

David opened his car door and removed his garage door opener. Then he walked to Ed’s Yukon. He pulled on the passenger door, but it was locked.

The window rolled down and Ed asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

“You’re blocking my driveway. So move your car or drive me to the store.”

Ed looked at David for a confounded moment.

“I haven’t got all night, Ed.”

David heard the door unlock. He hopped in and put on his seatbelt. The cooled leather seat felt soothing on his back.

“Where to?” Ed murmured.

David could smell the alcohol on Ed’s breath and remembered Ed’s recent warning at lunch: if he’d been drinking, David should just run.

“Walgreens,” David answered.

“I hope you’re sick.”

“Rest assured.”

David enjoyed the awkward silence on the ride to the store because he knew it was more awkward for Ed.

Ed came to a stop at a red light and glanced at David. “They scheduled the appeal for oral argument.”

“I know. I should be thanking you.”

“For what?”

“First you give me my first jury-trial win. Now I’ll win my first appellate argument.”

“I’m going to enjoy watching you burn.”

A few minutes later, Ed parked his Yukon outside the drugstore.

“You need anything?” David asked as he hopped out of the car. “Hershey bar?
Women’s
World
?”

Ed didn’t answer or move.

It took David less than four minutes to find a squirt bottle of aloe.

“Sunburn?” the clerk asked as she rang it up for David.

He nodded and handed over his credit card. “By the way, if the police ever come here investigating my death, tell them it was Ed Savage.”

“Ed Savage?” she repeated rather blankly.

Ed was sitting in the same hunched position he’d been in when David left. David fell into the passenger seat, and Ed glanced at the bag curiously.

The ride back was more silence. David felt Ed growing more frustrated the closer they got to the town house.

“So, Ed, you can’t sleep tonight?”

“You know, there’s nothing stopping me from driving you out to the beach, cutting your throat, and leaving you to die.”

“Nothing but me.”

Ed sighed. “You better hope you don’t win this appeal.”

“I hate to break the news to you, but this appeal is the last thing on my mind, Ed.”

“I wish I could say the same thing.” Ed seemed short of breath as he pulled the Yukon back into David’s driveway.

“Ed, it’s never too late to put some money on the table. I’m not trying to be crass here, and I’ve been straight with you since we sued you, but you don’t have a chance in hell of winning this appeal.”

Ed stared at him with black eyes. “You know you lied.”

David shook his head. “Ed, I’m sorry, it’s over.” He hopped out of the Yukon and closed the door.

Ed rolled his window down. “When this is over, I’ll see you in hell, Friedman.”

David unlocked his car and pushed the garage door opener. “I don’t know about hell, Ed, but I’ll see you in court.” As he watched Ed back out and speed away, David thought about what Ed said about hell, and he wondered: what if there was a hell? It would surely be filled with lawyers. There had to be a lawyer joke there somewhere, but he was in too much pain to figure it out.

David ascended the steps to the Sixth District Court of Appeals, a monolithic brick building built in the early 1970s. With dozens of square eyes seemingly peering at passersby, the Brutalist courthouse reminded him of an angry alien that sought retribution. The steps leading to the entrance were oddly sized, too short to take them one at a time, but too tall to skip comfortably. He had attended a ceremony here in 2000 when he was sworn in as a lawyer. He hadn’t returned before today.

“Wait up,” a voice called out.

Blake Hubert was lunging up the stairs, skipping a step with each stride.

“You know you don’t have to come to this,” David said.

“I’ve never seen an appellate argument.”

“I’m surprised they even granted argument.”

“Does that concern you?” Blake asked.

It sure did, but David just shook his head. “We have nothing to worry about. It’s very hard to disturb a jury’s findings.”

Blake took a step closer to David. “What about the email? Any chance that can come up?”

“It’s too late for that.” David shut up when he saw Ed and Wanda Savage making their way up the steps. Wanda led Ed by the hand, her husband clearly pale and fatigued. They both were taking one awkward step at a time. David was surprised when he noticed that Joe McLaren was trailing them.

Ed and Wanda passed without acknowledging David, but Joe stopped by him, apparently to catch his breath.

“You couldn’t pass up the chance to argue an appeal?” David asked.

Joe grinned as a courtesy. “What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.”

“Your client’s money would be better spent paying the bank.”

“I’m doing this pro bono. Holding out hope justice might finally be done.”

Still wheezing, Joe resumed his climb.

“So much for settling on the courthouse steps,” Blake said with a chuckle, as though he’d wanted to say that for a long time.

The inside of the courthouse was just as David remembered, more hideous than the exterior. The walls were lined with a molded paneling the color of breakfast syrup; the floors were covered with checkered green tiles in some areas and sandy turf-like carpet in others. David and Blake cleared security and moved with the light traffic of litigators and clients finding the courtroom and restroom and a place to talk in quiet.

Up ahead, Joe was talking with the Savages outside a set of double doors.

David passed them and checked the argument schedule posted outside the courtroom. He nodded to Blake to confirm they had the right room, and they entered a courtroom with three sections of rows lined like church pews facing a chancel. In this case, though, the chancel was a bench with three leather chairs waiting for the three appellate judges who would soon decide whether Ed and Wanda Savage should get another day in court.
This is where the common law is made
, David thought, trying to muster some nostalgia for the law as he’d understood it before it became his career and identity. For ninety-nine percent of the civil cases tried in Gaspar County or anywhere else in this appellate district, this court was the final round of the game David played for a living. This court would have to certify something of great importance, or issue a decision that conflicted with another Florida appellate court, for Ed Savage or any other litigant to have a shot at going before the Florida Supreme Court. And David knew that wasn’t going to happen in this case.

David took a seat in the gallery a few rows behind the counsels’ tables. Blake sat a few seats away, leaving a comfortable space between them. David felt the urge to pull his outline out for a final review, but he’d never seen the use in cramming. If you still had to prepare this late in the game, then you’d already lost.

A bailiff announced the entrance of the three appellate judges. David’s case would be heard second, which would give him an opportunity to listen to the judges and get a sense of their styles and sensibilities. He’d already read up on all three of them. The one who was taking her seat to David’s left was the Honorable Evelyn Ayerbach, the most senior judge in the district. She appeared more vibrant in person than in the black-and-white photo posted on the court’s website. She’d graduated from Vanderbilt Law School in the 1960s, made partner at a small firm in Miami four years later, and eventually opened an office in Fort Gaspar. She’d been elected a circuit judge ten years later and appointed to the district court a few years after that. Rumor had it she’d declined a nomination to the Florida Supreme Court because she didn’t want to leave Southwest Florida for Tallahassee.

David knew the least about the center judge, the Honorable Harry Stevens. He’d gone to David’s law school in Gainesville, where he had been editor of the law review. Stevens had started his career as a prosecutor and worked his way up. Now, his face was covered in a bushy black beard that didn’t match his thin graying hair. And to his right sat the Honorable Maurice Spivey, an African American who’d bypassed circuit court when Governor Chiles appointed him directly from private practice, where he’d been a trial lawyer in Orlando and prominent fundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party.

The first case was called to order,
McDonald v. State
, a criminal appeal. The defendant was the appellant. David listened as appellate counsel for the public defender’s office announced himself. He was a sloppy slouch who wore dress pants that looked like they’d slept in a ball on the floor last night. He hunched over the podium and began his argument. From the outset, he spoke in a tone resigned to defeat, just going through the motions. David caught something about the legality of a search of the defendant’s premises, the first he’d heard of the Fourth Amendment since he’d studied for the bar exam.

The talk of due process and criminal law made David think of Beth, and he wondered whether she really believed in what she was doing. He concluded that she was no different than he was, and they both ultimately wanted the same thing, whether it was to make partner or lead prosecutor. Beth had just as big a fire up her ass as he did; the only difference was hers didn’t pay as well. Still, he could imagine her sitting up there one day drilling a public defender with questions, just as Judge Harry Stevens was now. The Honorable Bethany Collins Connor. Or the Honorable Bethany Connor Friedman? It wasn’t the first time he imagined his last name tagging hers. She’d be better off keeping her own last name.

“Isn’t it enough that his wife consented to the search?” Judge Stevens asked.

“There was no indication of that in the record.”

Judge Stevens raised his hands along with his voice. “Of course there was. It’s right here in front of me.” He pointed at a pile of transcript, wasted trees.