The Street Lawyer (31 page)

The negligence and/or intentional acts of the defendants caused the deaths, which were foreseeable. Bad things happened to those living on the streets, especially
single mothers with little children. Toss them out of their homes wrongfully and you pay the price if they get hurt.

We had briefly considered a separate lawsuit for Mister’s death. He too had been illegally evicted, but his death could not be considered foreseeable. Taking hostages and getting shot in the process were not a reasonable chain of events for one civilly wronged. Also, he had little jury appeal. We put Mister to rest, permanently.

Drake & Sweeney would immediately ask the Judge to require me to hand over the file. The Judge might very well make me do it, and that would be an admission of guilt. It could also cost me my license to practice law. Further, any evidence derived from anything in the stolen file could be excluded.

Mordecai and I reviewed the final draft Tuesday, and he again asked me if I wanted to proceed. To protect me, he was willing to drop the lawsuit entirely. We had talked about that several times. We even had a strategy whereby we would drop the Burton suit, negotiate a truce with Drake & Sweeney to clear my name, wait a year for tempers to cool, then sneak the case to a buddy of his on the other side of town. It was a bad strategy, one we ditched almost as soon as we thought of it.

He signed the pleadings, and we left for the courthouse. He drove, and I read the lawsuit again, the pages growing heavier the farther we went.

Negotiation would be the key. The exposure would humiliate Drake & Sweeney, a firm with immense
pride and ego, and built on credibility, client service, trustworthiness. I knew the mind-set, the personality, the cult of great lawyers who did no wrong. I knew the paranoia of being perceived as bad, in any way. There was guilt for making so much money, and a corresponding desire to appear compassionate for the less fortunate.

Drake & Sweeney was wrong, though I suspected the firm had no idea how very wrong it was. I imagined Braden Chance was cowering behind his locked door praying fervently that the hour would pass.

But I was wrong too. Perhaps we could meet in the middle somewhere, and cut a deal. If not, then Mordecai Green would have the pleasure of presenting the Burton case to a friendly jury one day soon, and asking them for big bucks. And the firm would have the pleasure of pushing my grand larceny case to the limit; to a point I didn’t care to think about.

The Burton case would never go to trial. I could still think like a Drake & Sweeney lawyer. The idea of facing a D.C. jury would terrify them. The initial embarrassment would have them scrambling for ways to cut their losses.

Tim Claussen, a college pal of Abraham’s, was a reporter for the
Post.
He was waiting outside the clerk’s office, and we gave him a copy of the lawsuit. He read it while Mordecai filed the original, then asked us questions, which we were more than happy to answer, but off the record.

The Burton tragedy was fast becoming a political
and social hot potato in the District. Blame was being passed around with dizzying speed. Every department head in the city blamed another one. The city council blamed the mayor, who blamed the council while also blaming Congress. Some right-wingers in the House had weighed in long enough to blame the mayor, the council, and the entire city.

The idea of pinning the whole thing on a bunch of rich white lawyers made for an astonishing story. Claussen—callous, caustic, jaded by years in journalism—couldn’t suppress his enthusiasm.

THE AMBUSHING of Drake & Sweeney by the press did not bother me in the least. The firm had established the rules the prior week when it tipped a reporter that I had been arrested. I could see Rafter and his little band of litigators happily agreeing around the conference table that, yes! it made perfect sense to alert the media about my arrest; and not only that but to slip them a nice photo of the criminal. It would embarrass me, humiliate me, make me sorry, force me to cough up the file and do whatever they wanted.

I knew the mentality, knew how the game was played.

I had no problem helping the reporter.

Thirty

I
NTAKE AT CCNV, alone, and two hours late. The clients were sitting patiently on the dirty floor of the lobby, some nodding off, some reading newspapers. Ernie with the keys was not pleased with my tardiness; he had a schedule of his own. He opened the intake room and handed me a clipboard with the names of thirteen prospective clients. I called the first one.

I was amazed at how far I’d come in a week. I had walked into the building a few minutes earlier without the fear of being shot. I had waited for Ernie in the lobby without thinking of being white. I listened to my clients patiently, but efficiently, because I knew what to
do. I even looked the part; my beard was more than a week old; my hair was slightly over the ears and showing the first signs of unkemptness; my khakis were wrinkled; my navy blazer was rumpled; my tie was loosened just so. The Nikes were still stylish but well worn. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and I would have been the perfect public interest lawyer.

Not that the clients cared. They wanted someone to listen to them, and that was my job. The list grew to seventeen, and I spent four hours counseling. I forgot about the coming battle with Drake & Sweeney. I forgot about Claire, though, sadly, I was finding that easier to do. I even forgot about Hector Palma and my trip to Chicago.

But I couldn’t forget about Ruby Simon. I somehow managed to connect each new client to her. I wasn’t worried about her safety; she had survived on the streets far longer than I could have. But why would she leave a clean motel room with a television and a shower, and strike out through the city to find her abandoned car?

She was an addict, and that was the plain and unavoidable answer. Crack was a magnet, pulling her back to the streets.

If I couldn’t keep her locked away in suburban motels for three nights, then how was I supposed to help her get clean?

The decision was not mine to make.

THE ROUTINE of the late afternoon was shattered by a phone call from my older brother Warner. He was in town, on business, unexpectedly, would’ve called sooner but couldn’t find my new number, and where could we meet for dinner? He was paying, he said before I could answer, and he’d heard about a great new place called Danny O’s where a friend had eaten just a week earlier—fantastic food! I hadn’t thought about an expensive meal in a long time.

Danny O’s was fine with me. It was trendy, loud, overpriced, sadly typical.

I stared at the phone long after our conversation was over. I did not want to see Warner, because I did not want to listen to Warner. He was not in town on business, though that happened about once a year. I was pretty sure my parents had sent him. They were grieving down in Memphis, heartbroken over another divorce, saddened by my sudden fall from the ladder. Someone had to check on me. It was always Warner.

We met in the crowded bar at Danny O’s. Before we could shake hands or embrace, he took a step backward to inspect the new image. Beard, hair, khakis, everything.

“A real radical,” he said, with an equal mixture of humor and sarcasm.

“It’s good to see you,” I said, trying to ignore his theatrics.

“You look thin,” he said.

“You don’t.”

He patted his stomach as if a few extra pounds had
sneaked on board during the day. “I’ll lose it.” He was thirty-eight, nice-looking, still very vain about his appearance. The mere fact that I had commented on the extra weight would drive him to lose it within a month.

Warner had been single for three years. Women were very important to him. There had been allegations of adultery during his divorce, but from both sides.

“You look great,” I said. And he did. Tailored suit and shirt. Expensive tie. I had a closet full of the stuff.

“You too. Is this the way you dress for work now?”

“For the most part. Sometimes I ditch the tie.”

We ordered Heinekens and sipped them in the crowd.

“How’s Claire?” he asked. The preliminaries were out of the way.

“I suppose she’s fine. We filed for divorce, uncontested. I’ve moved out.”

“Is she happy?”

“I think she was relieved to get rid of me. I’d say Claire is happier today than she was a month ago.”

“Has she found someone else?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I had to be careful because most, if not all, of our conversation would be repeated to my parents, especially any scandalous reason for the divorce. They would like to blame Claire, and if they believed she’d been caught screwing around, then the divorce would seem logical.

“Have you?” he asked.

“Nope. I’ve kept my pants on.”

“So why the divorce?”

“Lots of reasons. I’d rather not rehash them.”

That was not what he wanted. His had been a nasty split, with both parties fighting for custody of the kids. He had shared the details with me, often to the point of being boring. Now he wanted the same in return.

“You woke up one day, and decided to get a divorce?”

“You’ve been through it, Warner. It’s not that simple.”

The maître d’ led us deep into the restaurant. We passed a table where Wayne Umstead was sitting with two men I did not recognize. Umstead had been a fellow hostage, the one Mister had sent to the door to fetch the food, the one who’d barely missed the sniper’s bullet. He didn’t see me.

A copy of the lawsuit had been served on Arthur Jacobs, chairman of the executive committee, at 11 A.M., while I was at the CCNV. Umstead was not a partner, so I wondered if he even knew about the lawsuit.

Of course he did. In hurried meetings throughout the afternoon, the news had been dropped like a bomb. Defenses had to be prepared; marching orders given; wagons circled. Not a word to anyone outside the firm. On the surface, the lawsuit would be ignored.

Fortunately, our table could not be seen from Umstead’s. I glanced around to make sure no other bad guys were in the restaurant. Warner ordered a martini
for both of us, but I quickly begged off. Just water for me.

With Warner, everything was at full throttle. Work, play, food, drink, women, even books and old movies. He had almost frozen to death in a blizzard on a Peruvian mountain, and he’d been bitten by a deadly water snake while scuba diving in Australia. His post-divorce adjustment phase had been remarkably easy, primarily because Warner loved to travel and hang-glide and climb mountains and wrestle sharks and chase women on a global scale.

As a partner in a large Atlanta firm, he made plenty of money. And he spent a lot of it. The dinner was about money.

“Water?” he said in disgust. “Come on. Have a drink.”

“No,” I protested. Warner would go from martinis to wine. We would leave the restaurant late, and he would be up at four fiddling with his laptop, shaking off the slight hangover as just another part of the day.

“Candy ass,” he mumbled. I browsed the menu. He examined every skirt.

His drink arrived and we ordered. “Tell me about your work,” he said, trying desperately to give the impression that he was interested.

“Why?”

“Because it must be fascinating.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You walked away from a fortune. There must be a damned good reason.”

“There are reasons, and they’re good enough for me.”

Warner had planned the meeting. There was a purpose, a goal, a destination, and an outline of what he would say to get him there. I wasn’t sure where he was headed.

“I was arrested last week,” I said, diverting him. It was enough of a shock to be successful.

“You what?”

I told him the story, stretching it out with every detail because I was in control of the conversation. He was critical of my thievery, but I didn’t try to defend it. The file itself was another complicated issue, one neither of us wanted to explore.

“So the Drake & Sweeney bridge has been burned?” he asked as we ate.

“Permanently.”

“How long do you plan to be a public interest lawyer?”

“I’ve just started. I really hadn’t thought about the end. Why?”

“How long can you work for nothing?”

“As long as I can survive.”

“So survival is the standard?”

“For now. What’s your standard?” It was a ridiculous question.

“Money. How much I make; how much I spend; how much I can stash away somewhere and watch it grow so that one day I’ll have a shitpot full of it and not have to worry about anything.”

I had heard this before. Unabashed greed was to be admired. It was a slightly cruder version of what we’d been taught as children. Work hard and make plenty, and somehow society as a whole would benefit.

He was daring me to be critical, and it was not a fight I wanted. It was a fight with no winners; only an ugly draw.

“How much do you have?” I asked. As a greedy bastard, Warner was proud of his wealth.

“When I’m forty I’ll have a million bucks buried in mutual funds. When I’m forty-five, it’ll be three million. When I’m fifty, it’ll be ten. And that’s when I’m walking out the door.”

We knew those figures by heart. Big law firms were the same everywhere.

“What about you?” he asked as he whittled on free-range chicken.

“Well, let’s see. I’m thirty-two, got a net worth of five thousand bucks, give or take. When I’m thirty-five, if I work hard and save money, it should be around ten thousand. By the time I’m fifty, I should have about twenty thousand buried in mutual funds.”

“That’s something to look forward to. Eighteen years of living in poverty.”

“You know nothing about poverty.”

“Maybe I do. For people like us, poverty is a cheap apartment, a used car with dents and dings, bad clothing, no money to travel and play and see the world, no money to save or invest, no retirement, no safety net, nothing.”

“Perfect. You just proved my point. You don’t know a damned thing about poverty. How much will you make this year?”

“Nine hundred thousand.”

“I’ll make thirty. What would you do if someone forced you to work for thirty thousand bucks?”