The Street Lawyer (2 page)

“Why would you want to kill us?” I asked.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he announced. No further questions, Your Honor.

Because I’m a lawyer and live by the clock, I checked my watch so that whatever happened could be duly recorded, if we somehow managed to survive. It was one-twenty. Mister wanted things quiet, and so we endured a nerve-racking period of silence that lasted fourteen minutes.

I could not believe that we were going to die. There appeared to be no motive, no reason to kill us. I was certain that none of us had ever met him before. I remembered the ride on the elevator, and the fact that he seemed to have no particular destination. He was just a nut in search of hostages, which unfortunately would have made the killings seem almost normal by today’s standards.

It was precisely the kind of senseless slaughter that would grab the headlines for twenty-four hours and make people shake their heads. Then the dead lawyer jokes would start.

I could see the headlines and hear the reporters, but I refused to believe it would happen.

I heard voices in the foyer, sirens outside; a police radio squawked somewhere down the hallway.

“What did you eat for lunch?” Mister asked me, his voice breaking the silence. Too surprised to consider lying, I hesitated for a second, then said, “A grilled chicken Caesar.”

“Alone?”

“No, I met a friend.” He was a law school buddy from Philly.

“How much did it cost, for both of you?”

“Thirty bucks.”

He didn’t like this. “Thirty bucks,” he repeated. “For two people.” He shook his head, then looked at the eight litigators. If he polled them, I hoped they planned to lie. There were some serious stomachs among the group, and thirty bucks wouldn’t cover their appetizers.

“You know what I had?” he asked me.

“No.”

“I had soup. Soup and crackers at a shelter. Free soup, and I was glad to get it. You could feed a hundred of my friends for thirty bucks, you know that?”

I nodded gravely, as if I suddenly realized the weight of my sin.

“Collect all the wallets, money, watches, jewelry,” he said, waving the gun again.

“May I ask why?” I asked.

“No.”

I placed my wallet, watch, and cash on the table, and
began rummaging through the pockets of my fellow hostages.

“It’s for the next of kin,” Mister said, and we all exhaled.

He instructed me to place the loot in a briefcase, lock it, and call “the boss” again. Rudolph answered on the first ring. I could envision the SWAT leader camped in his office.

“Rudolph, it’s me, Mike, again. I’m on the speakerphone.”

“Yes, Mike. Are you okay?”

“Just fine. Look, this gentleman wants me to open the door nearest the reception area and place a black briefcase in the hallway. I will then close the door and lock it. Understand?”

“Yes.”

With the gun touching the back of my head, I slowly cracked the door and tossed the briefcase into the hallway. I did not see a person anywhere.

FEW THINGS can keep a big-firm lawyer from the joys of hourly billing. Sleep is one, though most of us slept little. Eating actually encouraged billing, especially lunch when the client was picking up the check. As the minutes dragged on, I caught myself wondering how in the world the other four hundred lawyers in the building would manage to bill while waiting for the hostage crisis to end. I could just see them out there in the parking lot, most of them sitting in their cars to
keep warm, chatting away on cell phones, billing somebody. The firm, I decided, wouldn’t miss a beat.

Some of the cutthroats down there didn’t care
how
it ended. Just hurry up and get it over with.

Mister seemed to doze for a second. His chin dipped, and his breathing was heavier. Rafter grunted to get my attention, then jerked his head to one side as if to suggest I make a move. Problem was, Mister held the gun with his right hand, and if he was indeed napping, then he was doing so with the dreaded red wire held firmly in his left hand.

And Rafter wanted me to be the hero. Though Rafter was the meanest and most effective litigator in the firm, he was not yet a partner. He was not in my division, and we weren’t in the Army. I didn’t take orders.

“How much money did you make last year?” Mister, very much awake, asked me, his voice clear.

Again, I was startled. “I, uh, gosh, let me see—”

“Don’t lie.”

“A hundred and twenty thousand.”

He didn’t like this either. “How much did you give away?”

“Give away?”

“Yes. To charities.”

“Oh. Well, I really don’t remember. My wife takes care of the bills and things like that.”

All eight litigators seemed to shift at once.

Mister didn’t like my answer, and he was not about to be denied. “Who, like, fills in your tax forms?”

“You mean for the IRS?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“It’s handled by our tax division, down on the second floor.”

“Here in this building?”

“Yes.”

“Then get it for me. Get me the tax records for everybody here.”

I looked at their faces, and a couple wanted to say, “Just go ahead and shoot me.” I must’ve hesitated too long, because Mister shouted, “Do it now!” And he used the gun when he shouted.

I called Rudolph, who also hesitated, and so I shouted at him. “Just fax them in here,” I demanded. “Last year’s only.”

We stared at the fax machine in the corner for fifteen minutes, afraid Mister might start executing us if our 1040’s didn’t hurry along.

Two

F
RESHLY ANOINTED as scribe for the group, I sat where Mister pointed with the gun and clutched the faxes. My buddies had been standing for almost two hours, backs to the wall, still joined together, barely able to move, and they were beginning to slouch and slump and look miserable.

But their level of discomfort was about to rise significantly.

“You first,” he said to me. “What’s your name?”

“Michael Brock,” I answered politely. Nice to meet you.

“How much money did you make last year?”

“I’ve already told you. A hundred and twenty thousand. Before taxes.”

“How much did you give away?”

I was certain I could lie. I was not a tax lawyer, but I was confident I could dance around his questions. I found my 1040 and took my time flipping through the pages. Claire had earned thirty-one thousand dollars as a second-year surgical resident, so our gross income looked quite handsome. But we paid fifty-three thousand in taxes—federal income and an amazing variety of others—and after repayment of student loans, Claire’s educational expenses, twenty-four hundred a month for a very nice apartment in Georgetown, two late-model cars with the obligatory mortgages, and a host of other costs naturally related to a comfortable lifestyle, we had invested only twenty-two thousand in mutual funds.

Mister was waiting patiently. In fact, his patience was beginning to unnerve me. I assumed that the SWAT boys were crawling in the air vents, climbing nearby trees, scampering across the roofs of buildings next door, looking at blueprints of our offices, doing all the things you see on TV with the goal of somehow placing a bullet through his skull, and he seemed oblivious to it. He had accepted his fate and was ready to die. Not true for the rest of us.

He continually toyed with the red wire, and that kept my heart rate over a hundred.

“I gave a thousand dollars to Yale,” I said. “And two thousand to the local United Way.”

“How much did you give to poor people?”

I doubted if the Yale money went to feed needy students. “Well, the United Way spreads the money around the city, and I’m sure some of it went to help the poor.”

“How much did you give to the hungry?”

“I paid fifty-three thousand dollars in taxes, and a nice chunk of it went for welfare, Medicaid, Aid to Dependent Children, stuff like that.”

“And you did this voluntarily, with a giving spirit?”

“I didn’t complain,” I said, lying like most of my countrymen.

“Have you ever been hungry?”

He liked simple answers, and my wit and sarcasm would not be productive. “No,” I said. “I have not.”

“Have you ever slept in the snow?”

“No.”

“You make a lot of money, yet you’re too greedy to hand me some change on the sidewalk.” He waved the gun at the rest of them. “All of you. You walk right by me as I sit and beg. You spend more on fancy coffee than I do on meals. Why can’t you help the poor, the sick, the homeless? You have so much.”

I caught myself looking at those greedy bastards along with Mister, and it was not a pretty sight. Most were staring at their feet. Only Rafter glared down the table, thinking the thoughts all of us had when we stepped over the Misters of D.C.: If I give you some change you’ll (1) run to the liquor store, (2) only beg more, (3) never leave the sidewalk.

Silence again. A helicopter hovered nearby, and I could only imagine what they were planning in the parking lot. Pursuant to Mister’s instructions, the phone lines were on hold, so there was no communication. He had no desire to talk to or negotiate with anyone. He had his audience in the conference room.

“Which of these guys makes the most money?” he asked me.

Malamud was the only partner, and I shuffled the papers until I found his.

“That would be me,” Malamud offered.

“What is your name?”

“Nate Malamud.”

I flipped through Nate’s return. It was a rare moment to see the intimate details of a partner’s success, but I got no pleasure from it.

“How much?” Mister asked me.

Oh, the joys of the IRS code. What would you like, sir? Gross? Adjusted gross? Net? Taxable? Income from salaries and wages? Or income from business and investments?

Malamud’s salary from the firm was fifty thousand dollars a month, and his annual bonus, the one we all dreamed about, was five hundred and ten thousand. It had been a very good year, and we all knew it. He was one of many partners who had earned over a million dollars.

I decided to play it safe. There was lots of other income tucked away near the back of the return—rental properties, dividends, a small business—but I
guessed that if Mister somehow grabbed the return he would struggle with the numbers.

“One point one million,” I said, leaving another two hundred thousand on the table.

He contemplated this for a moment. “You made a million dollars,” he said to Malamud, who wasn’t the least bit ashamed of it.

“Yes, I did.”

“How much did you give to the hungry, and the homeless?”

I was already scouring his itemized deductions for the truth.

“I don’t recall exactly. My wife and I give to a lot of charities. I know there was a donation, I think for five thousand, to the Greater D.C. Fund, which, as I’m sure you know, distributes money to the needy. We give a lot. And we’re happy to do it.”

“I’m sure you’re very happy,” Mister replied, with the first hint of sarcasm.

He wasn’t about to allow us to explain how generous we
really
were. He simply wanted the hard facts. He instructed me to list all nine names, and beside each write last year’s income, then last year’s gifts to charities.

It took some time, and I didn’t know whether to hurry or be deliberate. Would he slaughter us if he didn’t like the math? Perhaps I shouldn’t hurry. It was immediately obvious that we rich folks had made lots of money while handing over precious little of it. At the
same time, I knew the longer the situation dragged on, the crazier the rescue scenarios would become.

He hadn’t mentioned executing a hostage every hour. He didn’t want his buddies freed from jail. He didn’t seem to want anything, really.

I took my time. Malamud set the pace. The rear was brought up by Colburn, a third-year associate who grossed a mere eighty-six thousand. I was dismayed to learn my pal Barry Nuzzo earned eleven thousand more than I did. We would discuss it later.

“If you round it off, it comes to three million dollars,” I reported to Mister, who appeared to be napping again, with his fingers still on the red wire.

He slowly shook his head. “And how much for the poor people?”

“Total contributions of one hundred eighty thousand.”

“I don’t want total contributions. Don’t put me and my people in the same class with the symphony and the synagogue, and all your pretty white folks clubs where you auction wine and autographs and give a few bucks to the Boy Scouts. I’m talking about food. Food for hungry people who live here in the same city you live in. Food for little babies. Right here. Right in this city, with all you people making millions, we got little babies starving at night, crying ’cause they’re hungry. How much for food?”

He was looking at me. I was looking at the papers in front of me. I couldn’t lie.

He continued. “We got soup kitchens all over town,
places where the poor and homeless can get something to eat. How much money did you folks give to the soup kitchens? Any?”

“Not directly,” I said. “But some of these charities—”

“Shut up!”

He waved the damned gun again.

“How about homeless shelters? Places we sleep when it’s ten degrees outside. How many shelters are listed there in those papers?”

Invention failed me. “None,” I said softly.

He jumped to his feet, startling us, the red sticks fully visible under the silver duct tape. He kicked his chair back. “How ’bout clinics? We got these little clinics where doctors—good, decent people who used to make lots of money—come and donate their time to help the sick. They don’t charge nothing. Government used to help pay the rent, help buy the medicine and supplies. Now the government’s run by Newt and all the money’s gone. How much do you give to the clinics?”

Rafter looked at me as if I should do something, perhaps suddenly see something in the papers and say, “Damn! Look here! We gave half a million bucks to the clinics and soup kitchens.”

That’s exactly what Rafter would do. But not me. I didn’t want to get shot. Mister was a lot smarter than he looked.

I flipped through the papers as Mister walked to the windows and peeked around the mini-blinds. “Cops
everywhere,” he said just loud enough for us to hear. “And lots of ambulances.”