Foreclosure: A Novel (22 page)

“Didn’t you hear?” she cried.

“I was there, Mirabel. It’s okay, they say he’s going to live.”

She wiped her eyes and shook her head like she had no idea what he was talking about. “They let me go, David. I was fired today.”

“What? Who let you go?”

She fidgeted with shreds of Kleenex between her fingers. “Who do you think?”

A minute later, David barged into Alton’s office and found him staring out his window with the phone to his ear.

Alton turned to David and raised his hand. “The guy I need to talk to just walked in. I’ll call you back.”

Alton hung up. “What the hell happened to Ed Savage?”

“What the hell happened to Mirabel?”

Alton swatted at something in the air. “We made cuts today. Five secretaries, four associates, three support staff, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

“Why Mirabel? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Because she works for you.” Alton curled his right eyebrow. “And because she works for you.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Just business. We had to eliminate a few unprofitable practice areas and we’ll have to increase our attorney-to-secretary ratio. Don’t worry. You’ll be working with Beatrice from now on.”

“I hate Beatrice. I want Mirabel.”

“David, I’d tell you to beat it, but first I’d like to know why I’ve already received three calls from the media asking about Ed Savage.”

“He had a heart attack during oral argument at the DCA.”

“And there are reports that the two of you were involved in an altercation?”

“I wouldn’t call it that. He attacked me. The bailiffs tazed him, and then he went into cardiac arrest.”

Alton reviewed the facts in his mind for a moment, and then looked satisfied. “Are you going to win the appeal?”

David nodded, reluctantly but confidently.

Alton nodded back and grinned faintly. “Be sure to direct any inquiries from the media to me.”

David walked Mirabel to the cheap monthly parking lot a few blocks from the office where most of the staff parked. He carried a box containing the few keepsakes she’d pulled from her cubicle.

“I promise you, Mirabel, I knew nothing about this.”

“I know you didn’t,” she said.

“You’ll be able to find a new job. I’ll write you the best damn letter of recommendation this county’s ever seen.”

Mirabel stopped by her beat-up Honda and stared at David.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tried to assure her.

“I’m not worried about myself.” She sniffled. “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

She wiped her eyes, smudging more grime around her eyes. “I remember when you started here out of law school. You seemed different than the others.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“But you’ve changed, David.”

“I’ve grown up.”

She shook her head. “You’re really just like them now. And they’ll own you soon. Once you make partner, they’ll own you.”

David understood why she would be lashing out at the firm right now, but something about her statement felt like a punch in the gut. “For all you know, I could be getting out of this place sooner than you think.” He wiped her cheek with his thumb. “In which case I’d need to hire myself a secretary.”

A twinkle of hope flashed in her eyes. “Are you serious?”

“No promises. But I’m serious.”

“I’d never believe a lawyer’s promise no-how.”

“Good for you.”

Mirabel remembered something, reached in her box, and pulled out a card. “I honestly had forgotten tomorrow’s your birthday. But Beth called to confirm your dinner date tonight. I left you a note.” Then the moaning and sobbing returned and interrupted her train of thought. “I’m sorry, David. You were always like a son to me.”

David set the box on the trunk and held her. He felt a tear trickle down his cheek. He dug his head into her shoulder to dry his eyes.

As David walked back to the office, he felt the anger welling inside him like a flooded river hitting a dam. He’d like nothing more than to return to Alton’s office and slug him on the chin, but that would serve no purpose other than to give Alton a legitimate reason for firing David. The best way to get back at Alton was to succeed, to make a lot of money off Pinnacle Homes & Investments, and to crush Alton when the opportunity presented itself. David knew it would.

He returned to his office and noticed a package was sitting on his desk. He opened it and skimmed a cover letter printed on Gaspar Towers letterhead:

Enclosed please find the account statements you requested relating to the referenced purchase contracts. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you need anything else.

Katherine had signed the cover letter, but she’d also attached a handwritten message on a Post-it note:
Please call me about this ASAP
. David didn’t have time to call her just then. He studied the account statements for a while and concluded that if they were fakes, then Frank had done a fine job with them. And even if they were phonies, David had no choice but to produce them to Chaska or risk sanctions from Judge Leblanc.

A moment later, he turned the corner and found his new secretary typing away.

“Beatrice?” he said.

She looked up slowly from her computer screen, obviously annoyed to see him.

“You know you work for me now?”

“So I’ve been told.”

David handed the account statements to her. “Copy these and send them to Joel Chaska pronto. Cover letter should say, ‘enclosed find documents responsive to defendant’s request for escrow account statements.’ Send it overnight.”

Beatrice took the documents with a roll of her eyes, dropped them dismissively, and resumed typing.

David gritted his teeth. “Beatrice. I know you’re used to working for a guy who stays in his office plotting the downfall of Western civilization, but some of us do practice law around here, and if you’re going to work for me, I’m going to need you to respect that.”

Beatrice removed her headphones and leaned forward. “I’ve worked for Mr. Holloway since you were in diapers, sonny boy. And he’s given me permission to tell you, when appropriate,” she began whispering, “to go fuck yourself.”

“So that’s how things are gonna be?”

She nodded and resumed typing.

David stood in his driveway and let the wind blow his hair into a frenzied mess. A storm head darkened the sky from the west. He noticed three new For Sale signs had popped up on his row of townhomes just this month. Beth’s Camry pulled in his driveway right on time, its headlights glowing through the stormy air.

“Thanks for driving,” he said as he closed the passenger door.

Beth smiled uneasily. He sensed that she wasn’t looking forward to this date any more than he was.

“Happy Birthday,” she said with the inflection of a question.

“Thanks.”

She glanced at David a few times as she merged onto the highway. “You don’t seem your normal chipper self today.”

He smiled and assured her he’d do his best. He rested his head and peered out the window at a strange amalgam of grays and blues and oranges smeared together like finger paint on a child’s pallet. The fluorescent colors of the sky obscured random flashes of lightning that were blitzing over the Gulf.

A moment later, he realized they were not driving toward the beach. Rather, they seemed to be heading east. “I thought we were eating at the Gulfview Grill tonight.”

“Our reservations aren’t until eight. I want to show you something first.”

He wished he were excited right now. He knew the most relaxed he’d felt in 2008 were the few times he’d been alone with Beth. Now that he had his wish, on his birthday nonetheless, all he could think about was everything else that had happened over the past twelve hours.

Beth finally turned off the highway into a subdivision that David knew too well—Lahey Acres—and then made a few turns before they were coasting along a street just a few blocks away from Frank and Robbie’s safe house.

“Are you in the market for a new house?” David asked. “I can get you a good deal.”

“I bet you can.” She found the street she was looking for, made a quick left, and arrived at a lonely stucco ranch that stared at them through an uncut lawn. “You recognize this house?”

“Should I? They all look the same.”

Beth put the car in park and left the engine running. “This house sold on March 30, 2006, for about two hundred grand. That was an inflated price to begin with, even for that market.”

“And people were lining up to buy.”

“Actually, in this case, the person lining up to buy it was a straw man. One Joseph Hinchey. He sold the house that same day to another straw man, Rafael Innings, for two hundred ten grand. And you know who built the house?”

“Habitat for Humanity?”

“Try again. Pinnacle Homes & Investments. They also financed it to Mr. Vargas with a federally backed mortgage. You know how many payments were made?”

David crossed his arms and sighed. “The suspense is killing me.”

“You should know this one—none. It went into default. And you know who owns the paper now?” Beth tapped her finger on the steering wheel.

“I guess I should know that, too.”

“Because you foreclosed on it. Your client owns it. Between the sale and loan fees, your client made out pretty well with this setup, didn’t he?”

“My client is a company.”

“Everyone knows your client is Frank O’Reilly.”

“Well, you’d have to ask him. I wouldn’t say he’s all too happy these days either.”

“This whole neighborhood, David, is a scam. And the people who bought here and actually wanted to live in their homes are paying the price. Working people who didn’t know what they were buying, and now their homes are worth a small fraction of what they paid.”

David looked around but saw no sign of life on this street. “I didn’t know tonight was going to be a lecture.”

Beth put the car in reverse. “I’m not lecturing you. I just want to know—do you really know who you’re working for?”

“Unfortunately, I do. I don’t care what the guy does. He keeps it away from me. And he pays my bills.”

“Out of sight, out of mind. Good excuse.”

“Beth, please spare me your idealism. I can’t afford to think that way.”

She said nothing, but sighed deeply. David could hear the grinding of her teeth, the locking of her jaw. He could practically feel her grip on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry for saying that,” he said. “I’ve had a bad day. If you’d rather do this another night, I understand.”

She glanced at him with a hint of contrition. “Not unless you don’t want to.” Still staring, waiting for his reaction.

“I want to be with you tonight.”

She blinked and sighed with relief. “I promise I won’t say anything else about your client.” She removed her right hand from the wheel and held David’s left. “I only brought it up because I care.” As she gripped his hand, he rested his head against the window and watched the storm head expanding over the Gulf.

Ten minutes later, they turned onto the highway that led to the beach, and David leaned forward to get a good look at Gaspar Towers. The south tower looked eerily desolate in the dark, save a faint light glowing in the sales office. “She’s working late,” he mumbled about Katherine.

“Who is?”

“No one.” He remembered Katherine’s note asking him to call her, but he’d forgotten to do that after the whirlwind of an afternoon he’d had.

Despite the weather, the restaurant bustled with a typical Friday-evening crowd. David was able to get a seat here on late notice only thanks to Terry, who apparently had some pull here, as the table the host led them to offered the best view of the Gulf.

David watched Beth settle into her seat and take in the view. Outside, lightning lit the darkened sky, and the storm seemed to have rested just a few miles off the beach. He started to reach across the table for her hand, but the waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne. He greeted them and showed David the bottle. “Compliments of Mr. Jenkins.”

“That’s Terry, the guy I work with,” David told Beth.

She nodded and watched the waiter pop the cork and catch every drop of champagne before he filled their flutes.

They raised their glasses. Beth looked to him, waiting for the toast.

“To litigators,” he said.

But that seemed to disappoint her, so she clanged her glass against his and said, “And your birthday.”

They sipped the champagne. It was clear she didn’t care for it by the way her lip curled. He could tell it was good champagne, with notes of apple and spice and honey, something Terry’s wife probably taught him at a dinner party when he was a junior associate. Yet, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he really cared for it, either.

He set his glass down and looked her in the eyes. He sensed her mind was wandering, too. She ran her fingers over her face and muttered something about exhaustion, the three trials she’d had since moving here, and how her caseload had doubled over the last six weeks.

“We’ve been doing this a while now,” David said.

“Practicing law? About eight years to the day.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about drumming up work.”

She smiled, making no attempt to hide her pity and relief. “No, I don’t.”

“If you had it all to do over,” he said, “would you do it again?”

“There are things I’d do differently.” A boom of thunder made her flinch. “What about you?”

He thought about that for a moment. “I didn’t really have a choice.”

“What do you mean? You don’t have a choice?”

He shrugged. “You remember when we used to go to the video store in Gainesville? Remember what I told you was my favorite movie?”

She had the answer in an instant, and her face lit up as though they were in a duel and she’d just found some hidden bullets. “
An Officer and a Gentleman
. Which really always surprised the hell out of me.”

“And you know my favorite scene?”

“I’m sure one of the sex scenes. They are actually pretty good, but when I heard what Debra Winger went through with the director and Richard Gere, they never quite did it for me anymore.”