Single Jeopardy (7 page)

After a night at the hotel, I go to see Melvin. He’s fumbling with his computer, trying to get it to boot up so that he can check his e-mail. He had read Koontz’s fax to me while I was out of town and in his twisted mind he created a scenario that turns me into the Marina’s Dr. Evil. He thinks that I engineered the whole chain of events, from talking my ex-wife into taking the boat, to having it burned up just before she had it towed away. He looks at me like I’m his new hero.

Maybe that’s why he’s so understanding of my present situation, and probably why he goes so far as to make me an offer that must be the nicest thing he ever did for anyone other than his ex-wife Jasmine: L. Martin Unger decided to buy a condo and spend the rest of the year in Thailand, so Melvin got his permission to let me stay on the fifty-foot Grand Banks until I can get another place to live.

This really blows my mind. That fifty-foot fiberglass Grand Banks trawler yacht has always been my dreamboat and now I’ll actually be living on one. I can’t stop thanking Melvin, who only says “hey, what’re friends for?” Somehow I can’t help but think that Melvin has another agenda. Kindness isn’t in his bag of tricks unless there’s something in it for him. But this has to be a good sign. I went from being suspended, divorced, evicted and burned out, to living on my dream yacht. And now when George walks by he’ll see me in a different light. The deal apparently also includes the Asian Boys as a maintenance crew and I’m told that they’ll clean the boat at least twice every week. The rest of the time that crew will no doubt be working on the other boats on our dock, including George’s, Laverne’s, Melvin’s and the retired ophthal-mologist, ‘Snatch Adams.’ They’re also night busboys at that Chinese restaurant around the corner.

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I haven’t seen Melvin for the past week or so, but the faxed and e-mailed assignments keep coming in from his office. But where is this ‘office?’ It isn’t at the mailbox place around the corner, because that was only a box in the wall. It can’t be on his houseboat, because all that’s there is a small laptop computer, a fax machine and the dynamic trio. This is starting to get interesting. There was never a need for me to visit his office, so I think it would be a little out of line for me to question him about it because if I did, he would be justified in answering “what’s the difference, your checks keep getting delivered on time, don’t they?” And that would be a good answer, because the checks do arrive on time, usually within one day of my leaving an invoice in his boat’s mailbox.

Somehow I have a feeling in the back of my mind that the little girl knows all the secrets, but would it be proper to talk to her? Does she even speak English? All questions that I’d love to have the answers to.

Over the next week or so I arrange my schedule so that I can be around the Marina at the same times of the day that the little girl and her ‘gang’ do their traveling in the electric car. I see that a pattern is being followed. Every day like clockwork, they go to the mailbox place to pick up the incoming mail. At least twice a week, they drive up to the outside ATM at the Wells Fargo Bank around the corner, where she uses the walk-up ATM that’s lower than the others, probably installed for use by people in wheelchairs, but the perfect height for her to reach from the e-car, and a good thing too, because making deposits would have been too tough a trick to teach the Saint Bernard. Another stop is the rear alley kitchen entrance to the Chinese restaurant. They always go there before lunch time and I never have the time to sit and wait until they come out again, but they’re always back on the houseboat before it gets dark.

So far I have their schedule down pat, with only one morning a week missing from my calendar of their regular stops, but that missing piece gets filled in the following week when I make a visit to the Courthouse. On my way back to the parking lot I see their e-car illegally parked by a back entrance to the building, and there’s no parking ticket on it, even though it’s less than twenty feet away from the Police station’s entrance and uniformed cops constantly pass by it. There’s no mistaking it for another e-car just like it, because the odds are astronomical against finding a similar vehicle that contains a Saint Bernard sitting behind the wheel, and a cat sleeping on the back seat.

Their once-a-week visit to the court house bothered me for a while until I poke my head into the Courtroom of the Municipal Court where almost all of Melvin’s cases are handled. The Court isn’t in session at this moment because the judge is probably in chambers negotiating and trying to settle cases with opposing counsel. Behind the railing is the person who runs the courtroom – the clerk, an extremely attractive Asian woman who looks vaguely familiar, and she should. I’ve seen her eating dinner at the Chinese restaurant many evenings.

It’s a funny thing about remembering people. You can see the same face several times a week in one particular place, but when you see it somewhere else outside of its normal surroundings, all it looks like is a familiar face. For several years I went to the same market three times a week to pick up stuff my wife wanted brought home in the evening. The clerk there wore his usual apron and we exchanged the same small talk each time about the weather, the Lakers, Cubs or Dodgers, yada yada. One time I bumped into him in a department store. I saw his face but for a while couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. It wasn’t until in the car on the way home that I realized it was the clerk from the market. The same thing happened one time when I was in a criminal arraignment Court, where the criminal defendants all appeared with their attorneys only for the purpose of making a plea. A case was in front of the judge, who looked down at the defendant and said “you look familiar, sir – have you appeared before me on other matters?”

The defendant said “no.” The judge wouldn’t give up, and over the defense attorney’s objections he kept badgering the guy as to why he looked familiar. Finally the judge’s patience gave out and he gave an order to the defendant.

“
I know I’ve seen you somewhere before, so either you tell me where or I’ll throw you in jail for contempt of Court!” The defendant looked at his lawyer, who grudgingly nodded an assent.

The defendant looked up at the judge and reluctantly spoke. “Judge, I’m your bookie.”

The clerk isn’t the only familiar face in this courtroom; the uniformed bailiff looks familiar too. He isn’t Asian, but I still know that I’ve seen him around somewhere, but can’t put my finger on where. He’s probably one of the many uniforms that frequent the Chinese place for lunch every day. I really don’t give it much thought because after years of appearing in courtrooms, all the uniformed bailiffs start to look the same.

After the kid leaves through the court’s private rear exit, I go up to the clerk’s area and see the reason she was there. It was to bring in a check for court costs and to pick up the cards of attorneys who made appearances for Melvin during the week. She probably comes in once a week to pay the accumulated costs and get stamped receipts for the case files.

The Asian clerk must be new here because she mistakes me for an attorney. When I tell her that we have the same restaurant in common, she becomes a little friendlier, explaining that she has a few minutes until Max returns. My look tells her I didn’t know who ‘Max’ is, so she explains that it’s Maxine, the judge recently assigned to this Court, who is usually either in chambers approving settlement deals, or down the hall running the Small Claims Court. Cutbacks in the court’s budget require her to do double duty.

This courtroom is like a lot of them, where the judge hardly ever takes the bench, preferring to clear up the calendar by doing all the business in chambers. Still under the impression that I’m on active status with the State Bar, she asks if I would like to make an occasional appearance for an attorney who is disabled and can’t make it to court. She mentions that his name Marcel’ Bradley, and lets me know that any attorney in the courtroom who temporarily fills in for Mister Bradley by making a special appearance (which means not being put on the case as attorney of record) will be sent a generous one-hundred dollar appearance fee by his office.

Not wanting to deceive her, I confess that at the Bar’s request, I’m taking a brief leave of absence from the ‘appearance’ scene. She appreciates my honesty. To show my gratitude for being offered the appearances, I offer to buy her a drink at the restaurant next time I se her there. She blushes and turns back to her duties.

On my way back to the parking lot, I realize that Melvin doesn’t have to come to Court. Hell, he doesn’t even have to exist, because the clerk helps out by hiring attorneys to make any appearances that attorney Unger can’t cover, and the kid sends out the checks. In fact, Melvin probably doesn’t even know most of the things that are going on in the practice, but someone has to be running the whole show. Could it be that little Girl? And if it is, does she do it all from Melvin’s houseboat?

Life aboard the Grand Banks is a dream come true. Beautiful parquet floors in the main ‘saloon,’ which is what the real boaters call it, not ‘salon.’ It has a full gourmet kitchen, called a ‘galley,’ plus an island bar and raised pilothouse. Now that I’m living on a real yacht I’m starting to learn the proper vocabulary, being helped out by some old fart down the dock that lives on his fifty-foot Columbia sailboat.

Using the semi-circular teak staircase you can step down ‘below,’ where there are immaculate engine rooms on both sides of the companionway - and in back at the rear of the boat, or ‘aft,’ there’s a guest stateroom and a master stateroom that rivals any sleeping quarters I’ve ever seen, complete with rear windows that look out onto the water. I don’t know how to start the engines on this yacht, and could probably never learn how to drive it, but I’ll sure try to use the right words describing it to my friends. At least I can ‘sound’ nautical.

Having such a great place to stay also means not having to leave as often because L. Martin has a small law library lining the walls of the saloon and both staterooms. Now I can do my legal research here and use the ship’s complete computer set-up to print reports, case pleadings, or whatever else might be required. Having a large full-sized side-by-side refrigerator will also require fewer trips to the market. I’m even considering learning how to cook, to utilize the gourmet facility aboard. The idea is quickly forgotten after my first meatloaf comes out looking like something an elephant dropped.

The boat also has a satellite dish, so I can watch all those great classic black-and-white movies. I love seeing those grand old cars, dial telephones, guys who wear fedoras, and hard-boiled cops that all acted like
NYPD Blue’s
Andy Sipowitz. Most remarkable are those elaborate murder plots motivated by as little as the husband/victim’s five thousand dollar insurance policy, which was big money in those days.

But, just as the T-shirts say, ‘stuff happens.’ I receive an e-mail from Melvin’s office requesting my help. Melvin went to Thailand to visit with L. Martin and he hasn’t sent any messages back to the kid for a couple of weeks. If he doesn’t get in touch with the office soon, I may be required to go to Thailand to find him. The mere fact that Mel’s law practice is running quite smoothly in his absence supports my suspicions about the little girl, court clerk, and outside attorneys really doing all of the work.

Never having been to Thailand, it sounds like a different world. All I know about it is that it used to be called
Siam
. One of the guys who work on boats here in the Marina goes there every year, as does my barber, and neither one of them can stop talking about the place. Aside from allegedly being the sex capitol of the world, it’s also supposed to be a beautiful place to visit. Just in case, I think I’ll stop by the Culver City Auto Club office on Sepulveda tomorrow and have some passport pictures taken.

In 1974 a James Bond movie
The Man With The Golden Gun,
was shot there, the Thai beaches and its jungles ‘doubled’ for Viet Nam in
The Deer Hunter, Good
Morning Viet Nam, Air America
and many other films. I’m going over to the Odyssey video store on Lincoln to rent that James Bond DVD, just to see what Thailand looks like. Maybe If I go there I’ll meet a descendant of Anna.

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Unable to avoid it any longer, I make my regular monthly appointment to see Burt Cohen, my divorce lawyer. After the burned-out boat caper there’s a good possibility my ex-wife will be out for evens, and it would be nice to have some strategy to fight her off. Burt’s office is on the twelfth floor of the Cal Fed Building on Ventura Boulevard, just East of Sepulveda in Sherman Oaks, and as I drop off my car with the lot’s parking valet, I spot someone I have no difficulty in recognizing. It’s my old law clerk and wannabe associate, Ricky Hansel. He’s wearing a bright yellow ski jacket, so it’s easy to spot him at a distance, and I want see where he’s going. If it’s to an attorney’s office, a courtesy warning to that unsuspecting brother member of the bar would be in order, so that another sucker lawyer may not have to suffer what I went through with those disciplinary hearings.

I stay as far back as possible so as to not be noticed, but not being a trained gumshoe I lose him when he enters the building. This is the same one that my lawyer and about a hundred others have their offices. Luckily, I see which elevator he gets into, and it looks like it was empty when he got in, so I watch the floor display to see where it stops. He gets off on the ninth floor. I have no way of knowing which office he went to on that floor, so I’ll just have to go up there and check it out.

Getting off on the ninth floor I step into the lobby of a Fegian suite, one of those huge whole-floor office set-ups named after an attorney named Paul Fegian who created the idea of a bunch of lawyers all sharing a large suite. Each one rents a private office, but there are a bunch of amenities included in the rent that they’re all allowed to use like a receptionist, copy machine, law library, coffee room, conference room, and a little display of class.