Corrupt Practices (14 page)

I remember Ed Diamond as an irascible son of a bitch, bitter and condescending and foul-mouthed. Back then, everyone in the industry knew that he yearned to go legit. On my films, he took a monotonous and low-paying job as a production accountant—he’d started out as a CPA—just so he could direct some second unit work. People joked that he approached his mundane second unit job as if he were a combination David Lean and Federico Fellini. Those who worked with him said that he was, indeed, supremely talented, that you could tell from the way he filmed stock settings at the beach or close-ups of inanimate objects. He made almost no money—not compared to what he made directing porn—but hoped his willingness to do grunt work using his real name would cleanse his reputation and allow him to become a mainstream director. It didn’t happen. Studio executives wouldn’t touch him.

“So, how did Ed know about me?”

“My father never forgets anything. We were talking about my classes and professors like we do. When I told him your name, he remembered that the kid actor’s full name was Parker Gerald Stern. The first day of class when I asked you about it was a shot in the dark.” She hesitates for a moment. “Now I have a question for you. Why did you stop acting?”

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I reach over and power off the stereo. “What makes you so interested in my past?”

Her cheeks turn scarlet. I’m not sure whether she’s angry or embarrassed. I glare at her for all too long, and when I turn forward again, I realize that we’ve hit a stretch of heavy traffic, and I have to slam on the brakes to avoid rear-ending an SUV.

“Shit,” she says. “Be careful.”

“I still want to know. Why the great interest in my past?”

“Oh my God, why do you think? Because you’re my teacher. Because we’ve sort of become friends, or so I thought.”

I glance over. Her eyes have narrowed, the irises darkening to a turbulent gray. Her question wasn’t simply idle curiosity or something more nefarious, but a kind of test to see if I would reveal myself to her the way she’d just revealed herself to me. She props her right leg on the dashboard, the sole of her boot threatening to scuff the vinyl, a pose that tells me that she doesn’t care what I think. At the moment, I want nothing more than to break through that, because I do care what she thinks.

“It’s complicated,” I say. “It started . . . my mother was only nineteen when I was born. I never knew my father. It was 1974, and she was this hippie flower child. When I came along, her life changed. She’d wanted to be an actress, but there was no way. So she started taking me on auditions when I was just three years old. She got caught up in the whole Hollywood thing. It was fine when I was a little kid doing bit parts, but then I got pretty successful and my career became her main focus in life.” It’s an understatement. My career became her obsession. When she watched dailies and rough cuts of my movies, she would silently mouth my dialogue. At every close-up of me, her coruscating eyes seemed to emit a peculiar cinematic light of their own.

“There were a lot men in my mother’s life,” I continue. “When I was eleven or twelve, she got involved with a jerk who claimed he could manage my finances. He convinced her to give him access to my money.”

“I thought the Coogan law made it impossible for a parent to rip off her kid.”

“He found a loophole. He took what he called salaries and commissions and pension distributions and investments for my future. Anyway, by the time I turned fifteen, I’d figured out what was going on.” I stop and take a breath. “I’ve only told this to one other person in my adult life. My mother and her boyfriend took almost everything I’d earned and gave it to the Church of the Sanctified Assembly. The church wasn’t much in those days, but . . .”

“And that’s why you feel the way you do about them.”

“I sued to become an emancipated minor. What the public never knew was that I entered into a settlement with the Assembly prelitigation. The terms are confidential to this day, so that’s a major reason why I can’t talk about it. All I can tell you is that afterward, I was on my own.”

“You were so young. It must have been really hard.”

“The best thing that ever happened to me. Anyway, after that, I didn’t want the acting anymore. It just didn’t seem important.”

“What made you become a lawyer?”

“My own case got me interested in the law. And you know what? It’s much more gratifying than being an actor. Trials are real, far more important than the fantasy world of movies and plays and reality TV. I actually did a little stage work during summers. My mother thought it would hone my skills. And the first day of trial feels like opening night of a stage play, except that if you make a mistake at trial, people get hurt and there isn’t a repeat performance the next day.”

She takes her foot off the dashboard, and places her hand on my upper arm.

We make good time the rest of the way. Just as I approach the law school to drop her off, I have an idea. It’s far-fetched, but worth a try.

“What’s your father doing these days?”

“You mean is he still directing porn?”

“God no, I mean . . .” I relax when I see her playful smile. “I was wondering if Ed’s maybe retired.”

“He’s got a lot of time on his hands. Why?”

“This is crazy, but you know we have all those financial documents that we got from Rich Baxter’s computer. I don’t have the background to understand them. Neither does Deanna. Dean Mason took a quick look at them and didn’t find anything, but he’s too busy to really dig deep. Both of the forensic accounting firms I worked with at Macklin & Cherry have a conflict, or so they say. I think they’re afraid to oppose the Assembly. And I’d rather not go to a stranger. I’d pay your father for his time.”

She laughs. “My father hated being an accountant. He’s a filmmaker. And he doesn’t need money.”

“I told you it was off-the-wall.”

“But, if I ask him, he’ll do it for me.”

Christopher McCarthy warned me away from Monica Baxter—which is exactly why I want to speak with her. And I have to do it before the Assembly sues Rich Baxter’s estate, because after that, there will be no chance. The Assembly will spin the lawsuit as the only way to protect a grieving widow against a vindictive and avaricious father-in-law. It’s ironic—as heir to half of Rich’s fortune under the community property laws, an attack on his estate is an attack on her interests, which means she really should take Raymond’s side in any lawsuit. But she’d never do that—logic means nothing to an Assembly zealot like her.

I can’t just telephone her. The Assembly is undoubtedly monitoring her calls. Worse, when Rich and I argued about his joining the church, I’d implied that she’d used sex to entice him into the fold. I’m sure she knows every gory detail of our quarrel. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d keep a secret from the woman he loved.

Manny Mason might be able to arrange a meeting, though. He and Rich stayed in contact after the firm split up. Unlike Deanna and me, he’s family oriented, the kind of outsider whom Monica could tolerate. So I phone him and ask him to set up a meeting with Monica. I expect him to put up a fight, but he says, “I’m not teaching today. Be at my house in an hour. And dress for hoops.”

“Does that mean you’ll—?”

The line goes dead.

I throw on a faded Lakers jersey and a sweatshirt and some old shorts I’ve had since college and make the forty-minute drive to Moraga Canyon, a neighborhood of lush hillsides and mansions and winding roads and venture capitalists and spotty cell phone reception and reality TV stars and guys like Manny Mason who are lucky enough to have married a woman from a moneyed Argentinean family. As soon as I park in the driveway, Manny’s wife, Elena, comes out the front door. I haven’t seen her since Harmon’s funeral. She’s nearly six feet tall with a coltish prettiness, a good physical match for Manny. When she sees me, she hurries over and gives me a hug. “It’s been too long, Parker.”

“How are you, Elena?”

“Good. Good. I’m just running over to the boys’ school to give a tour. I’m a proud parent volunteer.” Though she came to this country when she was eleven, her speech has a vague Spanish lilt. “Now, why haven’t you come by to see us?”

“You know how busy we attorneys get.”

“I certainly do.” Her look of pity leaves no doubt that Manny told her about my stage fright. She kisses me on the cheek. “Manny is in the back waiting for you. We’ll have you over for dinner soon.”

I walk around to the backyard, where Manny’s shooting baskets on a regulation size court. He’s come a long way from sweltering Lodi, California. His family owned a vineyard planted to zinfandel and petite sirah, which they sold for cheap bulk labels like Gallo and Charles Shaw. They didn’t own nearly enough acreage to compete with the huge agricultural conglomerates. His parents declared bankruptcy when he was ten and were wiped out again as a result of the 1992 phylloxera infestation. His older brother is a high school dropout who works in an auto body shop. His sister was pregnant and married at seventeen. Manny tells us he escaped their fate because of his 3.87 high school GPA, his facility for shooting a basketball, and his good fortune in meeting Elena in a sociology class.

He sinks a shot from just beyond the three-point arc and jogs over.

“So, about Monica Baxter,” I say.

“Later. Now we’re going to play one-on-one. First to eleven by ones.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but—”

“Humor me.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re a former division one ballplayer, and I’m an out-of-shape lawyer. Too many of Deanna’s pastries. Not to mention the six-inch height advantage.”

“You’re a good ballplayer. Quicker than I am and a better ball handler. Let’s go. First to eleven. You have to win by two baskets. Then we’ll talk. What’s the downside?”

Aside from the humiliation of getting crushed, the downside is that physicality is part of his game. He’s typical of a lot of even-tempered men who excel athletically—the basketball court is the one place where he’s combative. I remember one Lawyers’ League game, six or seven years ago, when some jerk intentionally low-bridged me on a fast break, a real cheap shot. I flipped over him and hit my lower back on the floor. The guy could’ve killed me. When I managed to get up, he and I got into a shoving match, but Manny played peacemaker. I actually resented him for stopping the fight—until five minutes later, when he came down with a rebound and in the process smashed the guy’s nose with a sharp elbow. Since then I’ve always felt that Manny and I have each other’s backs. Still, I don’t relish guarding him even in a friendly game.

“This is BS, Manny. Just tell me if you’ll talk to Monica.”

“After the game.” He stares at me impassively, the ball cradled in the crook of his arm.

I grab the ball away. “OK, OK. But I get first outs.”

I spend five minutes warming up and then take the ball out. I hit two mid-range jump shots from the baseline and make three layups, Manny offering only token defense. After I score my fifth point, I say, “What’re you doing?

“You want me to try hard?”

“I want you to tell me what’s going on.”

“Just take the ball out. It’s getting cold. I don’t want to pull a muscle.”

I dribble the ball to the right of the key and rise for a jump shot. My ability to elevate isn’t what it used to be. Manny blocks the shot, snatches the ball out of the air, and drives in for a layup. In the next two minutes, he sinks four more baskets, and the score is tied. I don’t have a chance.

“This is a fucking joke,” I say.

“Just play.”

The next time he drives in for a layup, I try to block it, fouling him hard. “Your ball,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because I fouled you.”

“Clean block, Parker. Take the ball out.”

“I don’t want any more charity.”

“My court, my rules.”

I take the ball out and score. For the next twenty minutes, we jostle and bump and exchange buckets. He does a much better job of disguising the fact that he’s letting me keep it close. I convince myself that a couple of my baskets—a Hail Mary reverse layup and a turnaround jumper—are legitimate. Sweat pours down my face and stings my eyes. I didn’t think to bring a headband. At least I’m getting a good workout.

Eventually, I go ahead, 10-9, a basket away from a win. I take the ball out, dribble hard to the left elbow, and fake a drive. I stop suddenly, and Manny flies by. I’ve created space and now have the first open shot I’ve clearly earned on my own. I shoot the ball with a smooth rotation. From the moment it leaves my hand, I know it’s in. No matter that Manny let me stay in the game. A win is a win.

Manny’s long arm swoops high above me and swats the ball away. We both lunge for it, but he out-muscles me. After that, he quickly scores two layups, and for good measure hits a long jumper to win the game, 12-10.

We bump fists and sit down at a picnic table by the side of the court.

“I’m not going to contact Monica Baxter for you,” he says.

“And if I’d have won?”

“I still wouldn’t have done it.”

“Even if it means helping me find her husband’s killer?”

“You know, you can tell a lot about a person by the way he plays basketball. If a guy repeatedly travels but always disputes the call, he’s probably going to cheat someone in a business deal. Another man always goes ballistic at a referee and gets into fights and you know he wants to hit his wife or girlfriend.”