Legally Wasted (5 page)

Nestled in a muggy valley surrounded by
ancient mountains, Big Lick was the largest city in the Western
half of Virginia. Although surrounded by largely rural areas, quite
a handful of glass and steel buildings had sprung up within the
shadows of the gently sloping mountains. Originally a bustling
railroad town, the city had stagnated some since its industrial
heyday. Rusted tracks crisscrossed the neighborhoods
stereotypically separating the relatively affluent from the
impoverished.

Beads of sweat trailed down Larkin’s temple.
As he made his way down the street, he tried not to think about the
god-awful liquor that was both numbing his senses and eating away
at his stomach. He passed Tudor’s Biscuit World and the usually
pleasant aroma of hot buttered bacon egg and cheese biscuits forced
him to close his eyes and lock his throat in a half-swallow lest
some of the Bowland’s find its way back to his mouth.

He reopened his eyes after the tip of his
left shoe banged against a fire hydrant. The shock shook his
constitution and he immediately shuffled to an alley where he
coughed and hacked into the side of a brownstone for a precious
minute. He looked at his watch. “Damn,” he croaked.

From his pocket, he withdrew the kind of
wrinkled red bandana that wannabe outlaws carried and dabbed at the
corner of his mouth.

“Are you all right, man?” asked a city
employee clutching a trash bag in one hand and a spiked pole for
litter collection in the other.

“Fine,” Larkin lied as he waved his bandana.
“I’m fine.”

The man stood for a moment and regarded him.
Larkin could sense the pity and it swelled him with a putrid mix of
anger and sadness. He was a licensed attorney, a professional in a
city without much of a professional class, while the other man
clutched refuse and wore a blaze orange vest. He waved the bandana
again, in an insulting “shoo” gesture. The man shrugged and
continued about his business.

More gin burned a hole in his stomach lining,
but as it entered and cooled his bloodstream, he felt a second
wind. The alley was shaded from the heat of the day and that
pleasant moss-on-stone smell filled his nostrils.

“There she is,” said Larkin as his second
wind flushed him from the alley. “Deveraux had better match me,” he
said as he straightened his tie. He strode quickly up the long
gradual hill toward the city courthouse. Hit with a pang of civic
pride, he scooped up an empty beer bottle on Church Street and
tossed it into a nearby dumpster.

The state courthouse was a relatively
attractive tinted glass structure that poked through the ground
about midway up Church Street hill like a polished brick of quartz.
The exterior of the building portrayed a bit of class, especially
compared with the dour federal courthouse two blocks away. Larkin
hustled up the stone steps and pushed his way through the revolving
door that had always needed more than a few squirts of oil. He
rubbed his eyes while cool conditioned air hit his face. He stood
quietly just inside the main entrance for a moment as he regained
his bearings. The interior of the courthouse certainly paled in
comparison to the building’s exterior.

Whether one looked at the tan floorboards,
the spiraling stairs that cut through the center of the building or
even the metal detector that always seemed a bit too sensitive on
humid days, everything was worn. One of the busiest courthouses in
all of Virginia, the Big Lick City Courthouse saw heavy traffic
Monday through Friday. The paint scheme might have once resembled
the muted taupe and pastel shades typically found in public
buildings, but now the colors only peeked out from behind layers of
scuff marks.

“Christ,” Larkin hissed as he scanned the
long line of people waiting to walk through the metal detector.
Years ago, he could have given the deputies guarding the court
entrance a little knowing wave and they would have allowed him to
bypass the security check. But now, all lawyers, even the
prosecutors who were constantly popping in and out of the building,
had to receive the electromagnetic onceover.

The machine buzzed like a game show buzzer as
a stream of individuals continually upset the overly sensitive
detector. Larkin took his place behind a woman holding a toddler
and gabbing on a pink lipstick-colored cell phone.

“That’s right,” he said under his DUI breath,
“bring your baby to court. The judge won’t throw you in jail if you
bring your baby. He’ll feel sorry for you and think that you’re
probably such a great mother. That misdemeanor won’t stick if you
bring your baby. Christ,” he cursed, “and a cell phone to
boot.”

Larkin followed the woman’s lead and
deposited his personal effects into one of the plastic bowls on the
card table next to the metal detector. The deputy glared at the
woman’s cell phone which lay in the bowl a few inches from a
dangling baby foot.

“No cell phones, ma’am,” said the deputy.

The woman pointed to Larkin’s bowl.

“How come he’s got his phone?” she asked.

“He’s a lawyer, ma’am,” said the deputy.
“Lawyers can have phones.”

“That’s discrimin - -”

Larkin didn’t give her a chance to finish.
“Bullshit,” he said. “They don’t care if you’re black, white or
purple. You want to bring a phone in? Pass the bar exam.”

The woman glared at the smartass behind her
in line. Her lips trembled and she took a deep breath, but she
ultimately said nothing.

A sudden stroke of shame at the whole
incident, nearly forced Larkin to blurt the lie, “It’s okay,
though. I’m a civil rights attorney.” But he stopped himself before
getting in more trouble.

“You’ll have to take the phone back to your
car, ma’am,” informed the deputy.

Larkin scooted around her before either she,
her cell phone, or her baby could slow him down any further. When
he reached the metal detector, he gave Deputy Deano a high five.
Deano gave all the defense attorneys high fives, but Larkin had
never asked him why.

“A bit fired up aren’t we today, Mr.
Monroe?”

“Maybe,” said Larkin.

“Not everyone went to law school like you, I
guess,” said Deano.

Larkin paused. “Right.”

“What you got this afternoon, Mr. Monroe?”
barked Deano from under his bristly horsehair moustache.

“A little bit of juvenile court, Deano.”

“Ah,” said Deano with a dip of his head.
“Enjoy the circus.”

Larkin nodded. A fly on the wall in the
juvenile and domestic relations court could hear tales of cheating
spouses, physically abused children, and undisciplined juvenile
hellions on their ninth strike in a three-strike system. While the
subject matter remained juicy, generally, an attorney could make
much better money in the courtrooms on the higher floors of the
building. Despite this, Larkin could not deny that he received a
certain satisfaction from participating in the theatrics of the
state family court. But it was not the same rush as winning a
sophisticated legal battle in the circuit court. It was more like
winning a street brawl at the flea market.

“It’s where you get the best stories,” said
Larkin as he cruised through the metal detector. He didn’t know if
he was lying or not; just riding the Bowland’s train. He nodded
once more to Deano and hustled down the hall. As he rounded the
corner, his finger slid along the glass wall. Normally he tried as
hard as he could not to touch a damn thing in the courthouse. That
rang doubly true for juvenile court.

“Feels like I drank a bottle of Purell
anyway,” he muttered as he navigated his way through the mob of
people milling about in front of the three juvenile court rooms. A
young deputy standing like a rancher in the thick of the herd
rapped a clipboard against his hand. Larkin waved and whistled. The
deputy nodded, looked down at the docket, and held up three fingers
directing Larkin to the third court room. Larkin snapped his
fingers and continued his way through the crowd. He did not spy
Deveraux amongst the members of the crowd, but given Larkin’s
tardiness, he assumed that he was most likely already seated in the
courtroom.

“Mr. Monroe, sir,” shouted a voice to
Larkin’s left. He squinted at the man erupting from his chair
against the back wall. The vaguely familiar client pawed at the air
and eventually barreled his way in between Larkin and the courtroom
door.

“Mr. Monroe, sir!” he stammered.

“Yes, hello to you, Mr. . . .” Larkin held
out the last syllable and nodded to encourage the man.

“Craig Powers,” he replied. He nervously eyed
the deputy standing not ten feet away. Sweat dotted his brow.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Powers,” said Larkin. “We’ll
begin in a moment.” He attempted to slide past Mr. Powers, but the
bigger man side-shuffled like a basketball player defending the
paint.

“Am I going to jail? Just tell me now if I
am. I need to know.”

Larkin sighed. He opened his brief case and
rifled through the manila folders until he located the Powers file.
“Let’s see,” he said as he deciphered his own hastily scrawled
chicken scratch. “Three hundred and eighty dollars a month to . . .
Ms. Tracy Fitzgerald . . . arrearages of around nine thousand bucks
. . . hmmm.” He flipped through a few more pages before looking up
at Mr. Powers. The taller man seemed as if he was about to burst in
tears. “No,” Larkin finally said and proceeded to scoot past Mr.
Powers.

“Are you sure, Mr. Monroe?” Mr. Powers asked
as Larkin grabbed the door handle.

“Absolutely,” said Larkin. “I have certain
things worked out with the department attorney in these cases.” He
turned and entered the courtroom. The thick doors closed gently
behind him and his ears stopped ringing with the din of the lobby.
“I’m glad these things aren’t open to the public,” he announced as
he made his way to the defendant’s table.

“Why is that, counselor?” asked a woman’s
voice. “Are you worried about losing face?”

Larkin quickly looked across the courtroom.
Though she was no more than five feet tall and seated, Wendy
McAdams looked down at Larkin through her heavy framed black
glasses.

“Ms. McAdams,” Larkin said with a start. He
scanned the courtroom for Deveraux’s wrinkled hound dog face, but
it was very clear that he was not present. His throat clinched.
“Where is Deveraux?”

A smile worked its way across Wendy’s thin
lips. Only a few years out of law school, Wendy McAdams had already
made quite a reputation for herself as a competent no-nonsense
attorney who particularly despised the pervasive “good old boys”
network. Though Larkin surely resided near the bottom of the local
male hierarchy, his situation worsened when he recalled that he had
seen Wendy’s name pop up multiple times on his caller ID log in the
past two weeks but he had never returned her phone calls. As he
thought for a moment, he realized that there might have even been
an unopened letter from Wendy starting to collect dust on the
corner of his desk.

“Didn’t you get my messages, Mr. Monroe?” she
asked, although she already knew the answer. Wendy probably could
have envisioned the cluttered surface of Larkin’s desk better than
Larkin.

Larkin’s fingers fidgeted with the latches on
his briefcase. He was not in a position to stare competence in the
face, much less begin to make legal arguments. And he could tell by
the tone of her voice that the hearings were going to be hell. She
would relish going toe to toe with a loser like himself but merely
as practice to hone her skills for more impressive opponents. A cat
playing with a drunk and under-qualified mouse.

With quick glances stolen here and there,
Larkin spied on Wendy while pretending to flip through mostly
documents in his files. She swung her legs back and forth below her
desk fairly quickly, like a child waiting for her favorite carnival
ride to start. Larkin’s wounded stomach turned. “There might be
something on my desk. My secretary has been out for a few days,” he
said, wincing a bit.

“A few days?” she asked as she tapped her pen
lightly against her legal pad. “I don’t remember a secretary ever
answering my calls. Is she sick?”

“Very,” said Larkin. He kept staring at her
legs. No one in court twelve years ago wore those shiny knee-high
vixen boots, he thought to himself.

“Sorry to hear that. It must be pretty
severe. I called you two weeks ago and the call went straight to
your answering service.”

“Yes, well . . . you know, Ms. McAdams,
Deveraux and I had worked out a number of things on these
cases.”

“Oh yes,” said Wendy as she lifted a thin
file folder. She opened it and showed Larkin its contents, only a
single yellow sheet of paper with a few unintelligible notes lay
inside. “I have read Mr. Deveraux’s files. Quite the work.”

“Where is Deveraux?” Larkin asked. Her
attitude was pissing him off.

“Fired,” said Wendy. “Three weeks ago.”

Larkin swallowed. “Cocksucker,” he whispered
as he slammed his briefcase shut. It closed loudly and caused the
clerk to jump in her chair. A serene middle-aged woman seated next
to the judge’s vacant leather chair, the clerk glared at Larkin
from over her paperwork.

“Sorry,” Larkin said with an artificial
smile. His tongue suddenly felt thick and dry. He searched for the
defendant’s water pitcher but found neither the pitcher nor the
disposable cups that usually sat in the center of the table. “Hey,”
he said, “where’s the water?”

“Water’s been removed, Mr. Monroe,” said a
nearby deputy.

“Removed?” asked Larkin. “Whatever for? Don’t
tell me that they’re digging that low because of the budget.”
Larkin wiped his brow with his right sleeve and quickly realized
that he had spoken far too loudly.

“No, sir,” said the deputy, “but someone done
used that aluminum pitcher as a weapon in Courtroom Two last week
and Sheriff put in new policies.”