Foreclosure: A Novel (29 page)

Judge Cox looked at his computer monitor, probably reading an email from his law clerk on the issue. “I’m familiar with that case law. Did you oppose this motion, Mr. Friedman?”

“I did,” David said, still on his feet.

“On what grounds?”

“They can’t have their cake and eat it too, Judge. They can’t accuse my client of committing this horrible crime and at the same time keep me from telling the jury that the police never arrested a single person in connection with this alleged crime.”

Judge Cox removed his glasses and looked David up and down. “Said who? The law of the Eleventh Circuit or the law of David Friedman?”

“It’s common sense, Judge. Just common sense and fairness.”

Judge Cox shook his head. “Mr. Friedman, I’ll be the first to admit the rulings we got out of Atlanta and Washington don’t always comport with common sense. But I agree with Mr. Vasquez that the law is clear on this issue, and as is often the case, it favors the insurance company. I have no choice but to grant the motion.”

Vasquez pandered to the judge with a thank you.

“There will be no mention of criminal prosecution in this case at any time in front of the jury. Are we clear on that?” The judge looked right at David for a response. “As I recall, Mr. Friedman, the last time you tried a case in front of me, you didn’t exactly respect my pretrial rulings.”

“I will abide by your ruling, Judge.”

The judge turned to Vasquez. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a ruling sooner. This one slipped through the cracks.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. That’s why I brought it to your attention.”

After the judge left, Vasquez blew David a kiss and started packing.

A few minutes later, Vasquez cornered David by the elevator bank. “Freeman!”

“It’s Friedman.” David hit the down button.

“That’s what I said.” Vasquez was catching his breath. “So what, you got pictures of the judge I need to know about?”

“Sounds to me like he doesn’t like your case.”

“Sounds to me like some homer favoritism.” Vasquez glanced at his watch, and then shook his head. “Which I could care less about. He’s not going to decide the case. The jury is.”

“We’re ready to take this to the jury,” David said with all the confidence he could muster, which wasn’t much.

“By the end of the year? Give me a break.”

The elevator arrived. David let Vasquez get on first. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

“You reek of desperation, Friedman. You must have this on a contingency fee.” Vasquez studied David’s reaction, glaring as though he could read his mind.

David hit the button for the second floor, and the door closed. “So I want to get my client paid.”

“Even if you win at trial, we can bleed you to death on appeal,” Vasquez said. “It’ll take years to get paid.”

“We’ll take our chances,” David said as the elevator stopped at the second floor.

Vasquez’s face twisted with his trademark sinister grin. “You really willing to take your chances with Xerxes Capital hanging out there?”

David stepped out of the elevator, trying to play it cool. But there was something chilling about those words:
Xerxes Capital
.

“That’s what I thought,” Vasquez said as the elevator door closed shut on him.

David wanted to kick himself for letting Vasquez see his fear. And he wanted to kick Frank harder for not coming clean about Xerxes Capital, or at least making David believe he’d come clean. He was ready to give Frank an earful, but first he had to get his BlackBerry back from Beth.

He entered courtroom 2-B and found at least twenty people seated in the gallery. Another five were seated at each of the two tables for counsel. Beth stood at the podium addressing a federal judge David didn’t know.

Beth’s voice had grown a few hundred decibels since law school. “Yes, Your Honor, under the sentencing guidelines, Mr. Ruiz is subject to a maximum of twenty years. As part of his plea, we have agreed to the minimum of seven years along with five of probation.”

As Beth persuaded the judge to cut the defendant a break for cooperating, David studied the unshaven defendant, who looked more like a salesman than a criminal. He was seated by his attorney, probably facing his last day of freedom for several years.

The judge interrupted. “Honestly, Ms. Connor, I have some misgivings about sentencing a man who has bilked taxpayers out of that kind of money to the minimum sentence, even if he did cooperate with the government’s investigation.”

Beth nodded as though she’d anticipated that response. “He also cooperated in our investigation and provided information that was vital to our case and several ongoing investigations.”

“Can you expound on any of that?” the judge asked.

“Not in open court, Your Honor.”

The defendant turned and glanced at the audience behind him. David imagined how anyone seated in the gallery could have it out for the guy. He scanned the rows behind the defendant’s table; maybe a few media types and family members. In the rear of the courtroom, a man was standing to leave. He turned for the door, allowing David to get a good look at his face. David’s heart pounded as he realized this was the linebacker with the blue and gray eye who was always harassing Katherine at the sales office.

David waited a moment before he stood to follow Dick Butkus. Outside, in the hallway, David peered around the corner at the elevator bank and saw the door closing. Then, he hit the button for the next elevator.

Once he reached the lobby, he scanned every direction but saw no sign of his subject. He darted through security and down the steps of the courthouse. The streets were dead except for a shadow turning a corner on the opposite side. David sprinted in that direction.

Once he turned the corner, he knew it was Dick Butkus all right when he saw the black Acura parked down the street. The linebacker was opening the car door.

Without thinking, David yelled, “Stop!”

The linebacker looked back momentarily before opening his car door. He glanced back at David again, got in the car, and closed the door.

“Wait up,” David yelled. He sprinted to the Acura and arrived just as the motor started humming. David knocked on the window a few times. The window rolled down and the man looked out and calmly assessed the situation.

“Can we talk?” David said.

Without warning, the door swung open. David stumbled on the curb as he tried to avoid getting hit. Before he knew what was happening, the man swept David off the sidewalk and against the hard brick wall of an abandoned store.

“I don’t want any trouble,” David said.

The man pushed David tight against the wall and put his hand around his throat, just tight enough to get his attention. “For someone who doesn’t want any trouble, you’re pretty stupid.”

“Who are you?” David said, trying to catch his breath.

“What’s it matter to you?”

“I saw you snooping around the Towers before the fire. I just want to know who you are.”

He glanced to his left and right, then at David. “You can call me Samson if that makes you feel better.”

“Who do you work for?”

Samson snickered. “A better question, Friedman, is who do you work for?”

David didn’t like that this guy knew his name. His breathing accelerated.

“Surprised I know your name?”

David quickly slapped the man’s hand away and ducked. He started to run, but Samson swept his feet and knocked him to the ground.

David rolled over, looked up, and braced himself, ready to block whatever blows were on the way. “I said I don’t want any trouble. I just want to know the truth.”

Samson laughed. “A lawyer who cares about the truth? Give me a break.” He pulled David to his feet, took a step back, and took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one without speaking.

“What do you know about Katherine?” David asked.

“Katherine Hawkins? She’s dead. Ain’t that enough?”

David took a step closer. “Do you work for them? The investor?”

Samson feigned surprise. “Which investor?”

David didn’t know what to say to that.

“Sounds to me like you ask some dangerous questions,” Samson said.

“And what does Ruiz have to do with this?”

“Why don’t you just ask your boss?”

David took a few easy steps away from Samson.

Samson followed. “Oh, he won’t tell you?” He laughed again. “You have no idea what you’re tied up with—do you, you stupid little shit? Do you even know who your boss is?”

David was still backtracking, and Samson was following him every step of the way, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake. When David reached the end of the street, he glanced at the corner behind him and found the courthouse. Across the intersection, Beth was descending the courthouse steps.

“Now be a good boy and run back to your prosecutor friend.” Samson was grinning now.

David turned and ran toward the courthouse.

“And be careful where you go digging around,” Samson yelled after him. “Or the truth might catch up with you.”

David sprinted across the street and slowed as soon as Beth spotted him. Her face radiated in the sunlight. He glanced behind him. There was no sign of Samson.

“I was going to bill you for shipping,” she said as she handed him the BlackBerry.

“You couldn’t drop it off tonight?” He was still catching his breath.

“Your dream, remember?”

David took the BlackBerry and held it along with Beth’s hand. “Is that really why you can’t see me?”

Beth removed her hand and nodded toward the courthouse, apologetically. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this.”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“Be careful, David.”

He wanted to kiss her, and cursed himself for not kissing her the nights he’d had a chance. The night he first saw her at the Hilton, when he walked her to her car, before this all started. The night they went to Judge Cox’s reception. The night they went to dinner on the beach—the last night he could have, before everything changed. But he knew the most he could get from her now was information. So he asked, “Who was that guy being sentenced today?”

“Which one?”

“The last one. Ruiz.”

“Nick Ruiz.” She averted his gaze. This was clearly becoming unnerving for her. “Pleaded out for mortgage fraud. It’s all public record now. Anything else you need to know?”

He paused. This could be his last chance. “When will I see you again?”

She stared at him for a moment. He could tell she wasn’t going to say what she really wanted to say, and definitely not what he wanted her to say. “I’ll see you around, David.” Before she turned the corner, she glanced back at him with a look of regret and determination.

David’s BlackBerry, still clutched in his grip, began to ring. It was Frank.

“Where the hell are you?” Frank asked.

“Since when do you care what happens in court?”

“Since I get a call like the one I just got.”

David glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “Who called you?”

“The investor.”

That didn’t take long
, David thought. “What did they say?”

Frank breathed heavily over the phone. “They want you dead.”

David pulled into the driveway at the safe house. The garage door was open, and Robbie’s truck was parked inside. David smelled weed burning the instant he set foot in the garage.

The door to the mudroom swung open, and Robbie peeked out.

David fanned the pungent smell. “I know this neighborhood is deserted, but you can smell the reefer down the street.”

Robbie nodded behind him. “He’s had a bad day. Don’t listen to anything he says.”

“What happened?”

“We just got back from the doctor. He’s not handling the news or the drugs well.”

“So you get him high?”

“He said it’s the only thing that helps.”

David honed in on Robbie’s glazed eyes. “So what’s your excuse?”

A moment later David passed through the kitchen, following the smell of the weed to the living room, where a muted TV played a newscast on FOX news, a story about Barack Obama’s rise in the polls and the upcoming election in November. Across the room, Frank was sitting upright in a worn recliner. His eyes were bandaged with white gauze that glistened with the sheen of ointment and blood.

“Frank?” was all David could say.

“Here.” Frank didn’t budge.

David stepped closer.

“Are we going to win this case?” Frank moaned, his volume oblivious to David’s proximity.

David leaned over him. “I’m going to do everything I can to win this case.”

“They’ll kill me if you don’t. They’ll kill you too.”

David glanced at Robbie, who was shaking his head to discount Frank.

“Did you really get a call from the investor this afternoon?” David asked Frank.

“They’ll kill us, David. Just like they did Katherine.” Frank began to sob. A stream of snot dripped from his nose onto the stubble of his upper lip.

“Don’t listen to him,” Robbie whispered. “He’s not all there right now.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Frank moaned in a low voice. “Lord is with you.”

“I didn’t know he was Catholic,” David said.

Robbie shook his head. “He’s not.”

“What do you know about a Nick Ruiz?” David asked Robbie.

“Why do you ask?”

“I saw him in court today.”

Robbie seemed disturbed by this news. “Nick Ruiz worked with WMC Brokers. I think he closed the loans on a few of our sales.”

“A few?” David asked.

“That’s what I said. He was probably skimming some money. It happened to the best of them when times were good.” Robbie shrugged. “The temptation.”

“Ruiz took the fall for us,” Frank gasped. “And he’ll die too.”

“What does he mean, he took the fall?” David asked.

“Don’t listen to him,” Robbie said. “What’s next?”

David took a deep breath. “We go to trial.” He stared at Frank, whose prayer was growing louder. “He gonna be okay to testify?”

Robbie nodded. “He’ll sleep it off. Be back to himself tomorrow.”

“Will he be able to see?”

Robbie shook his head and shrugged. “They don’t know yet.”