One Dead Lawyer (4 page)
Authors: Tony Lindsay
“You trippin',” he said, but threw the blunt and the box of cigars out the window.
“Are you selling crack cocaine?” I asked. The kid didn't look the type, but I wanted to know what I could expect. Despite the façade he offered, there was a softness about the kid that didn't say drug dealer.
“Hell naw! I just bought that so Mama could find it. I ain't no penny-ante-ass rock boy, old-timer, I got game for real.”
I had to keep reminding myself that at one time I'd actually liked the kid. And I had to remind myself that to him, I was an old-timer, or an “old hat,” as me and Ricky used to call the older men in our area. For a second I had to think back and remember how old the old hats were. They men were older than their mid-forties. They were retired men who sat around checker boards for the better part of the day. They could be seen scattered throughout the neighborhood in garages or in the shade of a mechanic's tree, but the largest group of old hats congregated under the trees behind the church parking lot. We called them old hats because of the beat-up brims they wore. Sweat stained bans, thin spots in the felt, worn satin trim that no longer shone, dented crowns, wavy brims, and absolutely no feathers. These hats, like their owners, had seen a lot of life, and it showed. No. I am not quite an old hat, but to the kid, I guess I might have been.
“Oh yeah, kid, is that right, you got some real game? Cool, I'm always interested in opportunities. Tell me about your thing.”
“I got a white boy hustle and it is so so smooth. Matter of fact, I might be able to get your ride paid off and put a couple of grand in your pocket.”
I tried not to look at the skinny big-shot-acting kid as if he'd lost his mind. I forced a smile on my face and said, “I own this car, young buck, and I keep a couple of stacks in my pocket, but tell me about your clever hustle anyway.”
The DTS was floating at ninety-five miles per hour.
“Game is to be sold not told, old-timer.”
“True that, young brother. The game is cold but fair, so you might as well share with another soldier on the square. Youngster, you speakin' like your game is lock. What is it gonna hurt you to help me get off the block?”
“Old nigga, you ain't no solider, and you sho' ain't on the block. You're ridin' a DTS Caddy and sportin' pinky rangs and thangs. Niggas still be talking about you and your boy from back in the day. I tell people y'all my uncles, D and Ricky. Man, y'all legends around the way.”
I felt his eyes on me, but I was pushing the Caddy hard and I couldn't look away from the road.
“What are you doing around the way?”
Coming around the bend at 103rd Street I noticed some traffic ahead so I slowed the DTS. If he had been truly down my way, finding out what he was involved in wouldn't be hard at all.
“I be over that way a lot.”
“Why?”
“I know people from around there.”
“Who?” If he told me this I had him.
“My girl lives on Elizabeth.”
“What's her last name?” I kept my eyes straight ahead, looking through the windshield. Even an inexperienced kid could see anxiousness.
“Gardner.”
“Her daddy name Mitchell?”
“Yeah.”
I was talking with Mitch about three weeks ago and he was worried about his daughter dating some half-slick young punk from downtown. She was going into her last year of high school, and Mitch didn't want her head getting turned by a boy driving his mama's Benz. Mitch wasn't sure, but he heard rumors that the boy was involved in doing phony car accidents. I decided to push the envelope a little.
“So it's you. Man, I heard about you. You're the young boy hooking folks up with the car accidents.”
Then I looked over at him. I had to see how he reacted to my accusation.
“What?” The boy's eyelids were fluttering faster than roach legs. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. You doing the rear-end jobs with the trucks.”
“What?”
Oh man, I hoped he didn't play poker, at least not for money.
“The rear-end jobs, you know, when a driver, a professional driver causes a truck to rear-end the car he's driving. You know what I'm talking about don't you? Ain't you the boy from downtown folks been talking about? Is that your âsmooth' hustle?”
He said nothing. It was his turn to look out the front windshield.
“That shit is not new, boy. The only thing new is you and your friends wrecking your parents' cars and driving up their insurance rates. Tell me, smart boy, are you getting paid from both ends? Your friends and the lawyer?”
“Ain't nobody said that's what I'm doing.”
“You're only getting paid from the lawyer, huh?”
“IâIâI gets mine.”
“Yeah, I bet you do. So why do you have to pay somebody five grand? What went wrong?”
I needed to know who the lawyer was, but I didn't want Stanley to know what I needed.
“Ain't nothing go wrong.”
“Come on now, tell me what happened. I know most of it already.”
When he turned and looked at me, I could tell he wanted to tell me everything. The boy was burdened and tired of the load. He needed help. For that brief moment I saw the little rough and tumble boy who played under my porch. I exited the expressway on Seventy-ninth Street, taking the long way home.
“This dude wanted in, told me he had a job with insurance and car insurance. So I set it up. Turns out dude didn't have a job or insurance. The lawyer walked away from the case. Dude got pissed and he's holding me responsible for his ride being wrecked. I got about seven grand coming from the lawyer in a week from a couple of accidents I was in. I was going to pay for dude's car then.
“But dude got tired of waiting for me to fix his ride and sent those boys to my mama's house. She don't even let our cousins come to our new downtown place, so you know she flipped when she saw dude's crew sitting six-deep in a wrecked Olds '98 in front of our house.
“She found the crack yesterday, so I figured it would all work out. I wanted her to be scared and think I was in trouble with some crack-selling gangster. She believed my lie and all, but dude's crew scared her and she thought about you.”
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing, kid. I guess your smooth-ass game ain't that smooth.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. Can you help me, Mr. Price?”
The kid was asking, really asking, so he got my help.
“Yeah I can help you, Stanley, but it's going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“Not money, young player. Your mama is going to cover my fee. From you I'm going to want hard labor, house chores.” I smiled at him, but he was looking out the window, worried. “Oh, and by the way, what lawyer does the cases?”
“It be different lawyers, but they all work for the same firm Mama and her boyfriend work for, the one that be on TV.”
Chapter Four
By the time I got Stanley to my place Monday night, I was tired and annoyed. My mind was elsewhere. Baby sitting a sixteen-year-old wannabe thug was the last thing I was in the mood for. I needed to get focused and call a lawyer to find out if what Regina and the shyster were trying was even legal.
It couldn't be. There is no way in hell one man could legally take another man's child. Not in this day and age. I began to worry over the fact that I had never seen Chester's birth certificate. Was I even listed as his father? And the bigger fear was, what if Chester really wasn't mine? Did Regina have some other proof? I regretted not looking at the papers she tried to give me.
“Hey, man, what the hell is this? The Batcave or something? Cut on the lights!”
If Stanley hadn't spoken, I probably would have sat in my underground garage for several more minutes. Involved in my own thoughts, I'd ignored the boy. I usually tell people about the underground garage before I pull into it. It can be a startling experience. I pull straight in from the street.
To the passenger it appears I'm going to crash into my house. However, under the porch is a garage door that opens in response to a recognition chip installed in the DTS. Once the car is in, the door closes and the garage is pitch black until I give the verbal command for lights. Sitting in the complete darkness with me not talking must have spooked Stanley.
“Lights please, Wilma” was the command for lights. The garage lit up completely. I said nothing to Stanley. My mood didn't allow for explaining the garage or the technology in it. The boy followed me in silence. Once we entered the house, Yin and Yang, my Dobermans, greeted us at the door.
They separated me from Stanley as they were trained to do. They held him at bay against the door. I introduced a petrified Stanley by giving the command “Friend,” and they allowed him to pass.
“Wicked,” was his response. “Man, this is some Fort Knox type shit.”
Yin and Yang scared people. No matter how much money I offered the cleaning service, the owner would not agree to have her people feed them. They are trained to my voice command and also a sequence of chimes I have installed in my home-security system. I gave the cleaning service the code, allowing them to enter. However, it appears that in my absence Yin and Yang split up and follow the cleaning crew through the house while they do their duties. This apparently makes some of them nervous, and more times than the owner of the cleaning service likes, she has to come to my place and clean.
I showed Stanley to the guest bath and bedroom which was on the main level. As a result of remodeling, my home had been transformed into a two-bedroom house, with the master suite upstairs. Stanley didn't appear happy about being downstairs alone. I told him Yin and Yang slept at my door, but that didn't appear to settle him any. I told him there was a phone in the guest room and he could feel free to call his mother. With that, he settled in. I gave the kid some towels and a fresh bar of soap and headed upstairs.
I took off my mesh T-shirt and flip-flops and plummeted into the middle of my bed. The night had not turned out like I planned. I started thinking about lawyers I could call. A couple owed me favors, but I wanted a good lawyer, one with as many powerful connections as Randolph Peal. My oldest brother, Charlie, the Republican alderman, would have the associations I required. With that thought I was able to drift off to an almost restful sleep, until the phone rang.
Being in the protection business I often get calls at 3:00
A.M.
, but an early-morning call is still an interruption. I yanked the phone up. “Yeah.”
A.M.
, but an early-morning call is still an interruption. I yanked the phone up. “Yeah.”
“D, it's me, Nelson.”
“Who?”
“Daaaphna, from Harvey. A few hours ago we were over Gina's together. Remember? Those boys who were bothering my son are parked in front of my home. I was afraid to go in. I didn't want to call the pooolice, 'cause I don't know what Stanley's true association with them is. So I called Gina and she gave me your address. I'm parked outside your home. Is that okay? What should I do?”
She sounded a bit tipsy to me. I wanted to tell her to take her drunk behind back over to Regina's.
“Hold on. I'll be right down.”
I was expecting to go outside, sit in her car and give some rational advice, but as soon as I opened the front door she was standing there and immediately got in my face. She was crying and babbling at the same time.
“I don't know what to do about all this mess. It's too much for me. It's way too much, it's all wrong and I know it. It's been wrong for a long time.”
She fell against my chest, blubbering like a baby. Yin and Yang were at my side. They didn't try to separate us. They didn't even wait for the “friend” command, they just walked away and left me there holding her crying, reeking-of-liquor behind.
“I don't know where or who to turn to, D. It's all a mess, a mess I made and now my boy is in it. My baby involved in my shit, my shit, D.”
Drunk or not, she was crying and obviously upset so I pulled her close, closed the door and walked into my living area. I sat on the couch and allowed her to sob on my chest. I was still half 'sleep when I went to the door and didn't think to put on a T-shirt. She didn't seem to mind crying on my bare skin.
Through continued sobs, whimpers and cries, she managed to put a sentence or two together.
“It has always been about money with me, D. Always trying to get more and keep what I have. You know my story. Neighborhood drunk for a father, got pregnant and lived in my parents' basement.”
I'd forgotten about her father. He was the initial reason I began spending time with Stanley. He was so drunk so often that he couldn't play with the boy. I'd see him trying to do things with the kid, but he would either pass out to the yard or give up and stumble on in the house, leaving the kid standing there with a ball or toy in his hand. I started calling the kid over in my yard and we threw the ball around or whatever.
“The neighborhood pretty boy got me and four other girls pregnant the same year. Now I hear he's living in San Francisco being gay. Gay! How the hell you gonna get five girls pregnant in one summer and be gay?” She looked to me with dazed, unfocused eyes as if she expected an answer, but the crying took over again.
“I try so hard to do the right thing, but doing the right thing don't pay shit, not a damn thing. I would still be in my mama's basement doing the right thing. Seven dollars and twenty-five cent an hour wouldn't feed and clothe a baby and me. I wasn't wrong for wanting more. I wasn't, but it wasn't supposed to be like this, not like this, D.”
One of her big rollers almost poked me in the eye. I tried to adjust her head while she sobbed.
“My baby wasn't supposed to be involved in my mess, he wasn't. Tonight my man, the same man who won't help my son, told me things were getting beyond his scope of control and that I should find counsel outside of him. Bastard!”
She dug her nails in my shoulder and really boo-hooed. I tried to move free of her grasp, but she grabbed hold of one of my pecs.
“The pain, it's all inside of me. I want it to stop. Oh God, make it stop. Gina said you used to take her pain away.” Again her unfocused eyes were on me. Her whole face had drooped. “Help me, D. Make me right, make me feel right. Get this pain out of me, rod it out of me. Gina said . . .” Her hand fell to my lap and she gripped my jones. “She said you was big enough to . . .”
That was the last understandable thing she said. She mumbled, sobbed, then passed out.
I rose from the couch and got a sheet from the linen closet, took off her house shoes, stretched her out, covered her up and went back upstairs. That made it official; the past twelve hours had been whack.
When I got up to my bedroom, I dialed Regina's number.
“Heellloooo?”
She was drunk too. I hung up the phone.
Later that morning, I woke to the smell of frying bacon, brewing coffee and buttered something. I don't know if it was buttered toast, buttered English muffins or fried eggs cooked in butter, but I smelled butter and it got me out of the bed, in the tub and through the shower in record time.
I enjoy, no, I love having breakfast cooked for me. There are few feelings better than waking up hungry and having hot food waiting for you. I paused after I jumped into my shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops and thought about a life lesson. In the past, good feelings have cost. I pushed the negative thought aside and followed my nose to the food.
There on my grandmama's kitchen table was one of my grandmama's breakfasts: a saucepan full of bubbling grits with melting butter, a platter overflowing with bacon, a bowl of cubed cantaloupe, a stack of oven-broiled toast with butter, a bowl of scrambled eggs with melted cheese, and a big full pitcher of red Kool-Aid. Damn, if I wasn't grinning.
Seeing Stanley sitting in my chair stuffing his face didn't even lessen my joy. His mama was standing next to my new, chrome, double-sided, ice-making refrigerator, smiling. She remained dressed in the same gold sweatsuit, but she'd undone her big rollers and her hair was hanging down around her shoulders. She must have taken off her underclothes, because I could see the imprint of her thick nipples and areolas. The night before I hadn't noticed, but Daphne had gotten kind of top-heavy over the years, adding curves to her slim, petite build.
Looking at her reminded me of a phrase Ricky used to tease thin women. In our younger, partying days, Ricky would walk up to a thin sister at a club and ask, “Tell me, sister, how long have you been afflicted by it?” Of course the sister would ask “what?” and he'd answer with, “The disease noassatall, does it run in your family or what?” He'd offer mock concern and even buy her a drink. “I hear that if you eat a little something it might help. Noassatall is nothing to play with.”
Some women would get it and laugh along with us. Others would just accept the free drink and his pseudo concern, not realizing that there was no disease called noassatall only that they had no ass at all.
“I hope you don't mind, D, but I'm diabetic, so I have to eat when I get hungry.”
I didn't think that food was on a diabetic's diet, but I wasn't asking.
“No problem, Daphne, as long as there's enough for me.”
“Hush, you know good and well it's enough food for all of us. Grab a chair and dig in.”
She had set the table for three, two at one end, one on the other. Stanley was sitting at the lone plate. I sat down, scooped up and grabbed some of everything, said a quick grace and dug in.
Daphne chuckled.
“What?” I asked between swallows.
“Nothing, it's just been so long since I've seen a man say grace, that's all. It's nice to see.”
Stanley hadn't said good morning, but I hadn't said a thing to him either. After a couple more bites, I asked him, “How did you sleep, Stanley? That's an old mattress in that room. I wasn't sure how it would work out.”
The boy looked different by the morning light, more clean-cut. If it wasn't for the long chain hanging around his neck, he would have looked kind of preppy with his close haircut and clear skin.
“It was fine, Mr. Price. Everything was good. I let your dogs out in the back yard this morning. Was that okay?”
“Not a problem, young man. Thanks for doing it.”
Daphne sat in the chair next to me. All she put on her plate was cantaloupe cubes, toast and grits. When she sat down she rested her hand on my thigh. I tensed a little but didn't stop eating. The food was good. It tasted like she'd sprinkled a little onion powder or something in the eggs.
“D, I want to thank you again for taking the time to work this out for us.” She patted my thigh as she spoke. “I realize you are a busy man.”
“What you are asking me to do is my business; no âthank you' is required. This is what I do.” No, it wasn't onion powder, it was garlic salt.
“Still, thank you.” She smiled.
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