Rogue Lawyer (27 page)

We park the U-Haul in a slot at a hot-dog drive-in and order sodas from a cutie on skates. Neither of us has an appetite. She brings the drinks and Partner rolls up the window, by hand, the old-fashioned way. He takes a long sip, and staring straight ahead says, “No way, Boss. I made myself real clear. Scare 'em but don't touch 'em. Nobody gets hurt.”

“They're not in pain,” I say.

“But, Boss, you gotta understand how things work in the gutter. Say Miguel and his boys track down Tubby and Razor and manage to create a confrontation. They make threats, but let's say Tubby and Razor are not bothered by threats. Hell, they've been making 'em for thirty years. They don't appreciate the intrusion and let it be known. Miguel has to stand his ground. Words get heated, more threats are made, and at some point things get outta hand. Takes just one punch to start a brawl and before long somebody pulls a gun or a knife.”

“I want you to talk to Miguel.”

“Why? He'll never admit it, Boss. Never.”

I sip through the straw and force down the beverage. Everything seems to be locked up—from throat to bowels. After a long gap, I say, “We're assuming it's Miguel. It could be someone else. Tubby and Razor have spent a career breaking arms, maybe they pushed the wrong guy this time.”

Partner nods and manages a weak “Could be.”

I'm awake at 3:37 a.m. when my cell phone begins vibrating. Slowly, I pick it up. Caller unknown, the worst kind. With great reluctance I say, “Hello.”

I'd recognize the voice anywhere. “This Rudd?” he asks.

“It is. Who's calling?”

“Your old client Swanger, Arch Swanger.”

“I was hoping I'd never hear from you again.”

“I don't miss you either, but we gotta talk. Since you can't be trusted and don't hesitate to sacrifice your clients, I'm assuming your phone is tapped and the cops are listening.”

“Nope.”

“You're a liar, Rudd.”

“Fine, hang up and don't call me back.”

“Not that simple. We gotta talk. That girl is alive, Rudd, and bad things are going on.”

“I don't care.”

“There's an all-night pharmacy at the corner of Preston and Fifteenth. Buy some shaving cream. Behind a can of Gillette Menthol you'll find a small black phone, prepaid. Take it but don't get caught shoplifting. Call the number on the screen. It's me. I'll wait thirty minutes, then I'm leaving town. Got it, Rudd?”

“No, I'm not playing this time, Swanger.”

“The girl is alive, Rudd, and you can bring her back. Just like you rescued your kid, now you can be the real hero. If not, she'll be dead in a year. It's all you, buddy.”

“Why should I believe you, Swanger?”

“Because I know the truth. I may not always tell the truth, but I know what's going on with the Kemp girl. It ain't pretty. Come on, Rudd, play along. Don't call your thug and don't use that goofy U-Haul van. Seriously? What kind of lawyer are you?”

The line goes dead and I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. If Arch Swanger is on the run, and I know for a fact that he is because he's number one on our cops' most wanted list, Link Scanlon being number two, then how in the world could he know that I'm buzzing around town these days in a rented van? And how could he purchase and hide a prepaid cell phone?

Twenty minutes later I park in front of the pharmacy and wait until two winos move away from the front door. This is a sketchy part of town and it's not clear why this company, a national chain, would select this neighborhood for an all-night drugstore. I walk inside and see no one except for the clerk, who's flipping through a tabloid. I find the shaving cream and the phone, which I quickly stick into a pocket. I pay for the shaving cream, and as I drive away I punch in the number.

Swanger answers with “Just keep driving. Hit the interstate and go north.”

“To where, Swanger?”

“To me. I want to look you in the eyes and ask you why you told the cops where I buried the girl.”

“Maybe I don't want to talk about it.”

“You will.”

“Why did you lie, Swanger?”

“It was just a test to see if you can be trusted. Obviously you cannot. I want to know why.”

“And I want to know why you can't leave me alone.”

“Because I need a lawyer, Rudd, plain and simple. What am I supposed to do? Take the elevator up to the fortieth floor and confide in a guy in a black suit who charges a thousand bucks an hour? Or maybe call one of those bozos you see on the billboards begging for bankruptcies and car wrecks? I need a real guy from the streets, Rudd, a real slimeball who knows how to play dirty. Right now you're the man.”

“No I'm not.”

“Take the White Bluff exit off the interstate and go east for two miles. There's an all-night burger joint currently advertising a double-patty melt with real Velveeta cheese. Yum-yum. I'll watch you go in and take a seat. I'll make sure you're alone and nobody's following you. When I walk in you won't recognize me at first.”

“I'll be packing some heat, Swanger, permit and all, and I know how to use it. Nothing funny, okay?”

“No need for that, I swear.”

“Swear all you want to, but I don't believe a word you say.”

“Makes two of us.”

There is a lack of ventilation and the air is thick with the smell of greasy burgers and fries. I buy a coffee and sit at a table in the center for ten minutes as two drunk teenagers in a booth giggle and talk with their mouths full. In a far corner an obese, elderly couple gorge themselves as if they'll never see food again. Part of this joint's marketing brilliance is that the entire menu is half price from midnight to 6:00 a.m. That and the Velveeta.

A man in a brown UPS uniform enters and does not look around. He buys a soft drink and some fries and is suddenly seated across from me. Behind round frameless glasses I finally recognize Swanger's eyes. “Glad you could make it,” he says, barely audible.

“A real pleasure,” I say. “Cute uniform.”

“It works. Here's what's happening, Rudd. Jiliana Kemp is very much alive but I'm sure she wishes she were dead. She had her baby a few months back. They sold it for fifty thousand bucks, on the high end. The range, I'm told, is twenty-five to fifty, for a little Caucasian thing from good stock. The darker ones go cheaper.”

“Who is they?”

“We'll get to it in a minute. Right now she's working long hours as a stripper and hooker in a sex club a thousand miles away. She's basically a slave, owned by some nasty types who've got her hooked on heroin. That's why she can't leave and that's why she'll do whatever she's told. Don't suppose you've ever dealt with human trafficking?”

“No.”

“Don't ask how I got involved. A long sad story.”

“I really don't care, Swanger. I'd like to help the girl but I'm not sticking my nose into it. You said you needed a lawyer.”

He picks up a single fry and examines it as if looking for poison, then slowly puts it into his mouth. He glares at me from behind the fake lenses, and finally says, “She'll work the clubs for a bit, then they'll decide to breed her again. They pass her around, you know, and when she gets pregnant they'll get her off the drugs and lock her away. The baby's gotta be healthy, you know. She's one of eight or ten girls on their payroll, mostly white but a few brown ones, all from this country.”

“All abducted?”

“Of course. You don't think they volunteered?”

“I don't know what to think.” I hope he's lying but something tells me he's not. Either way, the story is so repulsive I can only shake my head. I can't help but see the images of Roy Kemp and his wife on the news pleading for a safe return of their daughter.

“Real tragic,” I say. “But I'm losing patience here, Swanger. First, I can't believe anything you say. Second, you said you needed a lawyer.”

“Why did you tell the cops where she was buried?”

“Because they kidnapped my son and forced me to cough up what you'd told me.”

He likes this story and can't hold back a smile. “Really? The cops kidnapped your son?”

“They did. I caved, told them, they raced out to the site, wasted an entire night digging, and when it became apparent you were lying, they released my kid.”

He crams three fries into his mouth and chomps like he's working an entire pack of bubble gum. “I was in the woods, watching, laughing my ass off at those clowns. I was also cussing you for telling my secret.”

“You're a sicko, Swanger. Why am I here?”

“Because I need money, Rudd. It ain't easy living on the run like this. You wouldn't believe some of the shit I have to do to generate cash and I'm sick of it. There's about 150 grand in reward money sitting in a pot somewhere in the police department. I figure if I can get the girl back to her family, then I should get some of the money.”

I don't know why I'm shocked by this. Nothing this idiot says should surprise me. I take a deep breath and say, “Allow me to make some sense of this. You kidnapped the girl a year ago. The good people of our city donated their cash for a reward fund. Now you, the kidnapper, would like to return the girl, and for this act of great humanity you think you should get some of the reward money, the same money now being held to solve the crime you committed. Right, Swanger?”

“I got no problem with that. It works on all fronts. They get the girl; I get the cash.”

“More of a ransom deal, I think.”

“Call it what you like. I don't care. I just gotta have some cash, Rudd, and I figure a lawyer like you can make it happen.”

I jump to my feet and say, “What you need is a bullet, Swanger.”

“Where you going?”

“Home. And if you call me again I'll call the cops.”

“I'm sure you will.”

Our volume has increased and the drunk teenagers are staring at us. I walk away and manage to get outside before he catches me and grabs my shoulder. “You think I'm lying about the girl, don't you, Rudd?”

I quickly grab the Glock 19 from the holster under my left armpit and grip it with my right hand. I back away as he freezes, staring at the pistol. I say, “I don't know if you're lying and I don't care. You're a sick puppy, Swanger, and I'm sure you'll die an awful death. Now leave me alone.”

He relaxes and smiles. “You ever hear of a town called Lamont, Missouri? No reason to, really. Podunk place of a thousand people, an hour north of Columbia. Three nights ago a twenty-year-old girl, first name of Heather, disappeared. The whole town's in a panic, everybody's in on the search, stomping through the woods and looking under bushes. No sign whatsoever. She's all right, I mean at least she's alive. She's living in the same warehouse with Jiliana Kemp, west-central Chicago, getting the same abuse. Check it out online, Rudd, the Columbia paper ran a small story this morning. Just another girl, this one five hundred miles away, but these guys are hard-core traffickers.”

I grip the pistol even tighter and resist the urge to raise it shoulder high and put a couple into his skull.

Jury selection in the trial of Tadeo Zapate begins on Monday. It will be a circus because the press is giddy with anticipation and the courthouse is buzzing. The YouTube video of Tadeo laying waste to the referee Sean King has over sixty million hits. Our fearless
Action News!
heroes show it repeatedly during the evening and morning broadcasts. Same video, same drivel, same grim shaking of heads as if it just can't be believed. It seems as though everyone has an opinion and few of them favor my client. On three occasions I have asked the court for a change of venue, and all three requests have been quickly rejected. Two hundred prospective jurors have been summoned for Monday, and it will be fascinating to see how many claim to have no knowledge of the case.

Right now, though, it's Friday, around midnight, and I'm lying naked under the sheets with Ms. Naomi Tarrant close by. She is sleeping, purring in long deep breaths, dead to the world. Our second session began around ten, after pizza and beer, and though it lasted for less than half an hour it was nonetheless thrilling and utterly exhausting. We both admit that we've been a bit on the inactive side, and we're having a grand time catching up. I have no idea where this nascent relationship might be headed, and I'm always overcautious—a result no doubt of the permanent damage inflicted by Judith—but as of right now I adore this girl and would like to see her as often as possible, naked or otherwise.

I wish I could sleep like that. She's in a coma and I'm lying here wide awake, not aroused—that would be normal—but thinking of so many things other than sex. The trial Monday; Swanger and his tale about the Kemp girl; the bloody bodies of Tubby and Razor, rolled up in old cheap carpet and dumped in the landfill, probably by Miguel Zapate and his gang of drug dealers. I think of Detective Reardon and almost shudder at the idea that he and others in the police department suspect, either slightly or strongly, that I had something to do with the murders of Link's thugs. I wonder if Link has decided to leave me alone, now that I can snap my fingers and get people whacked.

So many thoughts, so many problems. I'm tempted to ease out of bed and go find some booze, then I remember that Naomi doesn't keep the stuff in her apartment. She's a light drinker and a healthy eater, and she does yoga four days a week to keep things superbly toned. I don't want to wake her, so I lie still and stare at her back, at the smooth perfect skin that rises and falls over her shoulder blades and lifts again to form the cutest bottom I've ever seen. She's thirty-three years old, recently divorced from a creep she wasted seven years with, childless and seemingly unconcerned by it. She doesn't talk much about her past but I know she has suffered greatly. Her first love was her college boyfriend who was killed by a drunk driver a month before their wedding date. With moist eyes, she told me she could never love another man that much.

I'm not really looking for love.

I cannot shake the thoughts of Jiliana Kemp. She is or was a beautiful girl, like my companion here, and there is a good chance that she is alive and living a life that is indescribable. Arch Swanger is a psychopath, and probably a sociopath, and he would rather lie than tell the truth about anything. But he wasn't lying about young Heather Farris, late of the village of Lamont, Missouri, a twenty-year-old dropout who was working the graveyard shift at a convenience store when she vanished with no clues. They're still combing the woods and bringing in bloodhounds and offering rewards but nothing has worked so far. How did Swanger know about her? It's possible he caught an early news report, but that's not likely. I went online immediately, found her story, and began following it in the Columbia newspaper. Lamont is over five hundred miles away from here, and, sadly, she's just another missing girl from a small town. Heather has not made the national news.

What if Swanger is telling the truth? That Jiliana Kemp and Heather Farris are two girls out of a dozen who've been kidnapped by a sex-trafficking ring and forced to strip, screw, and breed while they live on heroin? The fact that I know this, or at least suspect it, makes me feel like an accomplice. I am not Swanger's lawyer and I made that very clear. Indeed, I felt a real rush of adrenaline when I gripped my Glock and thought about putting him out of his misery. There are no ethical constraints binding me to silence and confidentiality with this scumbag. And even if there were, I would be inclined to ignore them if doing so might save some girls.

I stopped worrying about ethics a long time ago. In my world, my enemies are ruthless. If I make nice, I get crushed.

It is now 1:00 a.m. and I'm even wider awake. Naomi rolls over and flings a leg in my direction. I gently stroke her thigh—how can flesh be so smooth—and she whimpers as if somewhere in her deep sleep she likes the touching. I manage to get still and close my eyes.

My last thought is of Jiliana Kemp, living in our generation's version of slavery.