The Color of Law (17 page)

“Why?”

“Orders.”

“From whom?”

“The club manager.”

“And who gave him orders?”

“I don’t know.”

Han crossed his arms over his chest, creating a mass of muscle, bulging biceps and triceps and forearms and pectorals. Scott wasn’t sure he wanted to test his theory about steroid-induced muscle on Han. Scott had been in his share of bar fights in college, but never in a juice bar and never sober and never with anyone as big as Han. And he had always been backed up by one or two offensive linemen; those guys were crazy enough to fight a grizzly bear hand to hand. So when Bobby grabbed his arm and said, “Let’s get out of here,” Scott did not resist.

For the first time since he made partner at Ford Stevens, A. Scott Fenney, Esq., ate a hot dog for lunch, purchased from a street vendor, in the company of people whose collective net worth was less than the price of his suit.

After choking down two dogs, which he was beginning to regret, he and Bobby walked down Main Street, something else Scott hadn’t done in years. Or ever. And for a good reason.

Five minutes in the July heat and Scott was soaked from head to toe in sweat. His hair and face were wet, and his crisply starched shirt now clung to him like wet tissue. The sweat from his chest and back was rolling down and collecting in his underwear; the sweat from his legs was collecting in his socks. Hoping to at least save the coat of his $2,000 suit, he removed it and draped it over his shoulder. Bobby was saying something, but to Scott it was just background noise. Scott’s mind was on Mack McCall.

Bobby said, “Can you believe those civic boosters, actually thinking the Summer Olympics might come to Dallas? Half the athletes wouldn’t make it out of this blast furnace alive.”

A block later, Bobby said, “Used to be whorehouses and saloons all up and down Main Street. Doc Holliday practiced dentistry and killed his first man right here.”

And later: “You know Bonnie and Clyde grew up here? They’re both buried here. Clyde’s grave is over in West Dallas. I don’t know where Bonnie’s is at.”

They walked like that, Bobby giving Scott a brief history of Dallas and Scott responding with only nods and grunts the same as if he were listening to Rebecca telling him about her day. They arrived at Dealey Plaza on the western edge of downtown, a tiny triangle of green grass wedged between Houston, Commerce, and Elm streets, the Triple Underpass to the west and the School Book Depository and the grassy knoll to the north. The place remained exactly as it had been on November 22, 1963.

Bobby said, “You ever been up to the Sixth Floor, looked out the window?”

Scott shook his head.

“No way Oswald did it alone,” Bobby said. “Had to be a shooter on the grassy knoll. You want to go over?”

Scott shook his head again.

Bobby pointed down the street. “Right over there, that’s where Ruby shot Oswald, down in the basement of the old jail.”

Scott grunted. Oswald shot Kennedy, Ruby shot Oswald, Shawanda shot Clark, Scott shot Mack. It was a thought.

Bobby said, “Right here, this is where Dallas got started, a hundred and sixty years ago, at the exact spot Kennedy got shot. Kind of creepy, ain’t it? Anyway, guy named John Neely Bryan set up a trading post right on the banks of the Trinity River—you know it used to run right here? Every spring it flooded downtown, so eighty years ago the city leaders moved the whole damn river a mile west, built big levees so it wouldn’t flood downtown. Course, ever since it’s flooded black people’s homes in South Dallas. They didn’t build levees down there.”

They started back toward Dibrell Tower.

Bobby said, “People that started Dallas, they were running from their creditors back East. ‘Gone to Texas,’ they said, which is like saying ‘chapter seven bankruptcy’ today. They figured their creditors might be brave enough to chase them into Indian territory, but they sure as hell weren’t stupid enough to follow them into this hellhole.”

When they arrived at the six-story Neiman Marcus flagship store at Main and Ervay, Scott stopped and watched an old homeless woman pull her shopping cart full of junk over and admire the window display, designer clothes on skinny white mannequins, while inside the fine ladies of Highland Park were attending the Estée Lauder Focus Week, or so the sign in the window said. The old lady looked up at Scott and gave him a big toothless smile.

They walked on and Scott began to notice the other strange people populating downtown, the people who walked the streets amid the heat and the noise and the nauseating exhaust fumes of buses and cars, so thick in the air he could taste it, the vagrants and the panhandlers, the old women without teeth and the old men with beards, Hispanic girls with little children in tow, black boys looking tough, and the cops walking the beat. There was another world down here on the streets. Driving by in his Ferrari, Scott had noticed these people no more than he did the inanimate objects of downtown, the light poles and parking meters and trash cans. His life was lived 620 feet up, in air-conditioned comfort. Scott was terribly uncomfortable down here on the street. Bobby was passing out business cards.

“What the hell are you doing, Bobby?”

“Trolling for clients, man. Scotty, I’m a street lawyer and this is the street. You look at them and see homeless people, vagrants, dime players, bottom-feeders—I see clients! This is my Downtown Club.”

Bobby quickly realized his error.

“Shit, I’ve been trying my best for an hour to get your mind off that, now I bring it up. Sorry.”

But Scott’s thoughts had already returned to his perfect life sixty-two stories above them. He now knew that Mack McCall was not going to beat Scott Fenney senseless with brass knuckles. He was going to do something much worse. He was going to take Scott’s perfect life away.

That feeling of impending doom enveloped Scott Fenney.

If she made this putt, Rebecca Fenney would finish with a 74, her lowest score ever. She stood behind the ball and took two practice strokes, then walked over and assumed her putting stance, carefully placing the putter behind the ball and adjusting her weight until she was comfortably balanced. She knew Trey, the young golf pro whom she was paying $500 for today’s playing lesson, was watching her closely, but he wasn’t eyeing her putting stroke. He was eyeing her butt. He always managed to stand directly behind her when she putted.

Trey had already holed out for a 62. He was twenty-six, gorgeous, and a former All-American golfer. He had just received notice from the PGA that he was eligible to play in the remaining tournaments that year. This was his last week at the club.

She made a smooth stroke, sending the ball on a true line six inches outside the cup, and watched as the ball broke left and rolled into the hole.

“Yes!”

Trey walked over to her. They high-fived on the eighteenth green of the country club. He looked at her like he always did, and she saw the need in his eyes: he needed her more than life itself. They had been having sex for the last seven months.

They turned and walked up the grassy slope to their cart and climbed in for the short drive to the clubhouse. Trey parked the cart, and the black bag boy appeared.

“Your car be the black Mercedes coupe, Miz Fenney?”

“What?”

“Your car, it the black coupe?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Make sure I take your clubs to the right car.”

“Don’t take my clubs to my car. Put them in the clubhouse, like always.”

“Mr. Porter, he tell me take them to your car.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, ma’am.”

Rebecca turned to Trey. He shrugged. She walked inside the clubhouse, into the golf shop, and directly to the head pro’s office, where Ernie Porter was sitting. Ernie couldn’t make it on the pro tour, so he had spent the last twenty years giving golf lessons, running tournaments, and pocketing a percentage of every club, golf ball, and pair of shoes sold in the pro shop.

“Ernie?”

He looked up. “Yes, Mrs. Fenney?”

“The bag boy, you told him to take my clubs to my car?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why?”

“If that’s inconvenient, Mrs. Fenney, I’ll have them delivered to your house.”

“I don’t want my clubs at my house. I play here every day.”

Ernie suddenly appeared sick. “Mrs. Fenney, you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Ernie shuffled some papers, squirmed in his chair, then said, “Your husband, Mr. Fenney…Well, he’s…He’s, uh…He’s no longer a member here.”

“
What?
We’ve been members for four years.”

“Well, technically, Mrs. Fenney, your husband is the member. You have playing privileges as his spouse. Since he’s no longer a member, you no longer have privileges. It’s in the bylaws.”

“Since when isn’t Scott a member?”

“Since today.”

She found her husband sitting at the kitchen table, their daughter cradled in his lap and sobbing into his shoulder as he stroked her braids. Pajamae was sitting across the table, her face glum, her chin resting on her hands on the table.

“Mother, Consuela’s gone and she’s never coming back!”

Rebecca put her hands on her hips and tried not to scream.

“Didn’t Sue pay our club dues this month?”

Scott raised his eyes to her. He nodded blankly.

“Ernie said you’re no longer a member.”

His hand slowly came up and fell on a piece of paper on the table. She recognized the club’s letterhead. He pushed it her way. She picked it up and read:

Dear Mr. Fenney:

The Membership Committee believes that your continued presence at the club will detract from the collegial social atmosphere of the membership. Therefore your membership has been revoked effective this date. Please do not return to the premises. Your personal belongings will be delivered to your residence, along with your final bill.

“It’s McCall,” he said. “He got me kicked out of the Downtown Club and the athletic club, too. He’s trying to pressure me to drop our defense.”

“Goddamnit, Scott, I told you!” Her arm dropped and the letter floated to the floor. The Scott Fenney ride was coming to an end. The only question now was whether the end would be a soft landing or a fiery crash.

The girls were sitting up in Boo’s bed when Scott picked up the book and sat down in the chair next to the bed. All the strength had drained out of his body. In one day, he had lost his maid and his memberships at the dining club, the athletic club, and the country club. Just the idea of it, that Mack McCall possessed that kind of power, that he could sit in Washington and pull strings in Dallas, make a few phone calls and affect Scott’s perfect life, made Scott realize his relative place in the world. Maybe 193 yards against Texas didn’t make Scott Fenney so special after all.

“You broke your promise,” Boo said, her voice stern, “and now Consuela’s gone.”

Scott had suffered all manner of physical pain, but none compared to the pain he felt now for letting his daughter down.

Scott removed his glasses. “I’m sorry, Boo.”

“Get her back.”

“I’m trying to.” Scott replaced his glasses and opened the book. “Where were we, the Thirteenth Amendment?”

Boo said, “We want to talk about something else.”

Scott shut the book. “Okay. What?”

“What’s a will?”

“A will is a legal declaration evidencing a testamentary intent to dispose of one’s property upon one’s death.”

Boo had a blank expression. “In English,” she said. Pajamae was nodding.

“A will says who gets your stuff when you die.”

The girls glanced at each other and nodded. Boo said, “So who gets your stuff if you die?”

“Your mother.”

“Who gets her stuff if she dies?”

“Me.”

“Who gets your and Mother’s stuff if you both die?”

“You.”

“Who gets me?”

“Oh.”

“My grandparents are dead, I don’t have any uncles or aunts or older brothers or sisters…and now I don’t even have Consuela.”

“Well, first of all, Boo, your mother and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, so this is all hypothetical.”

“All what?”

“Hypothetical. You know, what if. But don’t worry, your mother and I are going to be here to take care of you.”

Pajamae said, “Mama says all my kin are dead or in prison.”

“So what if?” Boo said.

“What if what?”

“What if you and Mother die?”

“I don’t know, Boo. I guess I haven’t thought much about it.”

Boo held out a handful of one-dollar bills and assorted coins. “We want to hire you as our lawyer, but we’ve only got thirteen dollars between us, so you’ll have to work really fast.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

“Write us a will that says if Pajamae’s mother dies, we get her and she gets to live with us, and if you and Mother die, her mother gets me and I get to live with them.”

“In the projects?”
Scott said before he could catch himself.

“
No
. I’ll get this house, we’ll live here.”

Both girls were nodding now. And Scott smiled for the first time that day, at the image of Shawanda Jones as the woman of the house at 4000 Beverly Drive in the heart of Highland Park.

SEVENTEEN

M
C
C
ALL’S AN ASSHOLE.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

It was nine the next morning, and Scott was slumped on the sofa in Dan Ford’s office. His senior partner was sitting behind his desk, his hands folded, like a priest taking a confession.

“But he’s rich and powerful, Scott, which makes him a very dangerous asshole.”

“He’s your friend.”

“I didn’t say he was my friend. Fact is, I wouldn’t turn my back on the bastard. But he’s going to be the next president, and we want him to be this firm’s friend.”

“Dan, you tell him I can live without the Downtown Club and the athletic club and the country club—taking my memberships…okay, fine, that’s playing hardball. But taking Consuela, hurting a poor Mexican girl who never hurt a soul in her life…that ain’t hardball, Dan, that’s just plain fucking mean. You tell him he’s a mean son of a bitch to do that.” Scott had awakened that morning itching for a fight. “Matter of fact, why don’t you give me McCall’s number, I’ll tell him myself.”

Dan smiled. “I don’t think so, Scotty.”

“You know, Dan, I was never carried off the field. I took the best shot any team could give me, and I always got up.”

Dan nodded. “You were tough.”

“I’m still tough.” Scott tapped his index finger to the side of his head. “Up here. That’s where real toughness is, in your head. Everyone hurts physically, but the guys who are mentally tough get up off the ground and keep playing. McCall gave me his best shot, and I got up. You tell him that. I’m still playing—and I’m gonna play harder now. You tell him that, too.”

Scott stood and walked to the door but stopped when Dan said, “Scotty?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you know that’s his best shot?”

Five minutes later, Mack McCall was saying to Dan, “The boy don’t break easy.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Dan said.

“Well, he will…or everyone in Dallas is gonna know his wife is screwing the assistant pro at the club.”

“
Trey?
Jesus, that boy’s cutting a wide swath through the wives out there. He ought to be paying us. How’d you find out?”

“Delroy’s been snooping.”

“Damn, Mack, hold off on that, see if Scott gets on board. His wife cheating on him…that’s gonna be tough on him.”

“You sound like you care about Fenney.”

“He’s the best young lawyer I’ve ever met…he’s like a son to me.”

“Dan, a son can be a dangerous thing.” The morning mail was waiting for Scott when he returned to his office. But instead of billing a thousand dollars for reading his mail, today’s mail was going to cost him many times that sum: one letter was from the Internal Revenue Service, demanding $75,000 for back nanny taxes, penalties, and interest in the matter of Consuela de la Rosa. And Scott knew Dan’s words had been a warning: Mack McCall was not yet through with Scott Fenney.

Scott sat at his desk and assessed his financial condition. He had $100,000 cash, more or less—actually, $25,000 less since he had sent a check over to Rudy Gutierrez yesterday—in his savings account, which was generating almost nothing in interest income, and another $200,000 in his 401(k) account, all in tech stocks, all under water, all worth half what he paid for them.

He owed $2.8 million on the house, $175,000 on the Ferrari, and another $150,000 on the Mercedes and Range Rover, and $25,000 on credit cards. Three million one hundred fifty thousand in debt. The cars were probably at breakeven, debt to value, and the house was worth maybe a million over the debt, although the high-end housing market in Dallas had slowed recently.

His only income was his monthly partnership draw, $62,500 gross, but only $42,000 after taxes, which disappeared faster than a raindrop on the sidewalk in July: $4,000 in monthly payments on the Ferrari, $3,000 on Rebecca’s Mercedes and the Rover, $16,000 in monthly interest payments on the house note, $10,000 a month in property taxes and insurance premium escrows, and $4,000 a month in utilities and upkeep. Which left only $5,000 a month for groceries, clothes, eating out, entertainment, and club dues—at least he wouldn’t have to pay club dues anymore. He had never worried about saving money; the house was his savings account, retirement account, and rainy-day fund. Of course, he could access those accounts only by selling the place or refinancing the mortgage, which was not a likely option since Dan Ford had called in a personal favor with the bank president to get the $2.8 million loan in the first place.

So Scott wrote a check on his savings account for
Seventy-Five Thousand and no/100 Dollars
to the “Internal Fucking Revenue Service.” And then he sat back in his chair and wondered what McCall would take next.

From the sofa in Scott’s office, Bobby said, “Seventy-five thousand bucks? Shit, I sell everything I own and pay my debts, I’m still seventy-four thousand shy of that. And you wrote a check?”

Bobby had arrived and Scott had brought him up to date.

“Yeah. But it was all of my cash.”

“You know, Scotty, McCall’s taken this way further than I thought he would. I mean, being pissed off is one thing, but trying to destroy your life, man, he’s into Stephen King territory now.”

“He can’t destroy my life, Bobby. He can take my maid, my memberships, and my cash, but he can’t destroy me. I’ve still got clients that pay me three million dollars a year.”

“Mr. Fenney?”

Sue was standing in the door.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Dibrell called, said he needs to see you ASAP.”

The beautiful blonde Dibrell Property Company receptionist did not inquire about Scott’s marital status today, and Marlene did not smile at Scott. Instead she averted her eyes as he walked past her workstation and into Tom Dibrell’s inner sanctum. From Tom’s pained expression, Scott figured he would have to negotiate sexual harassment settlements with two receptionists this time. And he wondered if he could.

“What’s up, Tom?”

Tom motioned to the sofa. “Sit down, Scott.”

Scott stepped around the coffee table, a long glass top set on a base of horseshoes laid flat and welded together. He plopped down on the soft leather and spread his arms along the top of the back. Attorney and client regarded each other across twenty feet of expensive finish-out.

“We’ve been together a long time, Scott.”

“Eleven years, Tom. As long as I’ve been a lawyer.”

“You’re the best lawyer I’ve ever had, Scott, and I’ve had more than a few.”

“Well, thanks.” He chuckled and smiled. “You know, Tom, back in college when I broke up with a girl, I’d always tell her how beautiful she was first.”

Tom nodded and exhaled. But he didn’t smile.

“We’re breaking up, Scott.”

“What?”

“You’re no longer my lawyer.”

Fear shot Scott up off the sofa and across the void to Tom’s desk. He was now looking down at his rich client, at three million in legal fees, his heartbeat increasing with each second as all the ramifications of losing Tom Dibrell as a client raced through his mind like a runaway locomotive.

“Tom…
why
?”

“It’s best not to go into it, Scott. It’s done.”

“But…”

“Don’t, Scott.”

Scott felt wobbly and confused, like he’d taken a blow to the head. He turned away from Tom and took several steps toward the door, and he saw something he had never seen before or had never taken the time to see. He blinked hard, his eyes and mind coming into focus simultaneously. On the wall was a framed photograph of Tom Dibrell and Senator Mack McCall at a golf tournament. He turned back to Tom, but pointed at the photo.

“It’s him, isn’t it? McCall. He made you do this.”

Their eyes locked for a long moment, then Tom’s face sagged and he nodded his head like it hurt.

“Scott, you want to know the answer to the mystery?”

“What mystery?”

“Did Oswald act alone?…What the hell mystery you think I’m talking about? How Tom Dibrell survived the real-estate crash and kept his building when everyone else failed and lost theirs.”

Scott nodded.

“McCall. He saved me. The pension fund in New York, the bastards holding the mortgage on this building—which they were trying to foreclose—they wanted legislation passed in Congress, some kind of special tax break on their investments. Mack told them if they foreclosed on me, he’d shit-can their legislation. They dropped the foreclosure. And Mack got me the contracts on the new post office building and the justice center, gave me some cash flow. He saved me, Scott, just because we’re neighbors and I send my gardener over to mow his grass. And he’s never asked me for a goddamned thing…until now. He’s like the Godfather, Scott—when he finally asks you for a favor, you don’t say no. I owe him.”

“What about me? I started working for you when other lawyers dropped you like a load of shit. I’ve been loyal to you for eleven years. Don’t you owe
me
?”

Tom recoiled and his expression changed from pained to bemused.

“I paid you what I owed you, Scott. In full, every month. As a matter of fact, more than in full. You’ve been overbilling me for years. You think I didn’t know that? Billing me for your law students, training new lawyers on my tab, marking up your cost of copies and faxes and phone calls, charging your hourly rate for our lunches, padding hours—why’d you think I hired all those MBAs from Harvard, for my health? I know where every goddamned penny in this company goes! I figure over the years you’re probably into me for two, three million in overbillings. But that’s what you wanted from me—my fees, not my friendship. So that’s how I paid you back, Scott, in cash. Not in loyalty. I’m loyal to my friends, damn loyal. But you weren’t my friend. You were my lawyer.”

“Yeah, Tom, and as your lawyer I’ve bent some rules for you. I’ve pushed the ethical and legal envelope for you, to make your deals happen!”

Tom held his hands up, as if surrendering. “Whoa, I don’t know nothing about that, Scott. I’m just a dumb ol’ dirt developer. I leave that complicated legal stuff to my real smart lawyer.”

He smiled.

“Not a month ago, Tom, I was standing right here, and you needed me to pull your ass out of a crack again…what was her name, Nadine? I did. You said you’d never forget.”

“I won’t. I’ll never forget that, Scott. But this is business.”

He’s Ross Perot’s lawyer.

He’s Jerry Jones’s lawyer.

He’s Mark Cuban’s lawyer.

He was Tom Dibrell’s lawyer.

A lawyer would much prefer his wife run off with another man than his client run off with another lawyer. A wife’s betrayal makes him question her. But a client’s betrayal makes him question himself; fact is, a client’s betrayal is the
only
thing that can make a lawyer question himself, what he is and who he is. Because a lawyer without a wife is still a lawyer, but a lawyer without a client is just a man.

A lawyer’s identity is derived from the clients he represents. A lawyer’s power, prestige, influence, wealth, reputation, and standing in the community—
what he is and who he is
—are determined by the clients he represents. You’re only as good as your clients are rich.

Scott had ridden the elevator up as an important lawyer in Dallas, a lawyer with a rich client; he was
Scott Fenney, Tom Dibrell’s lawyer
. Now he rode the elevator down as…who? He didn’t recognize the man in the elevator’s mirrored walls.

His first known identity was as Butch’s son. Then, from the time his football skills became apparent, it was as a football player. And for the last eleven years it had been as Tom Dibrell’s lawyer. He had always had an identity. But who was Scott Fenney now? Just another lawyer without a rich client, no better than Bobby, whose best client was a Latino waiter?

For the first time in his life, he didn’t know who he was.

Scott was still in a state of shock when he returned to his office and found Bobby on the sofa and a certified letter on his desk. The name on the envelope—First Dallas Bank—barely registered in his mind. He used the letter opener to slice the top of the envelope with no more thought than if it were junk mail. He removed the letter, four pages of crisp bond paper, and unfolded and smoothed the pages flat on his desk. And he read. And as he did, a slow realization came over him: he was reading his own obituary.

The bank was calling the notes on the house and the cars. He had ten days to pay off $325,000 on the three automobiles and thirty days to pay off $2.8 million on the house. Failure to make timely payment would result in immediate repossession of the cars and foreclosure of the house. Scott Fenney would lose his mansion and the Ferrari.

His perfect life would be gone.

A sense of defeat tried to take hold in his mind, but Scott Fenney had never been defeated, even when he lost. Because when he lost, he did not accept it. Instead, he got mad. As he did now. His respiration accelerated, his jaws clenched, and anger energized his mind and body. He picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for the private number of Ted Sidwell, the bank president. Ted answered on the first ring.

“Ted, Scott Fenney. What the hell’s going on?”

“Demand notes, Scott. And we just made demand.”

“Why?”

“These loans were made to you as a favor, Scott. To get favors, you’ve got to give favors. That’s how the game’s played.”

“I see. McCall. Fine, I’ll refinance with another bank.”

Ted laughed. “In today’s market? And without Tom Dibrell as your client? I don’t think so.”

“News travels fast.”

“I knew before you did.”

“I’ll sell the damn place, it’s worth a million more than the debt.”

“Fire sale in thirty days? You’ll be lucky to get what you owe.”

“I’ll throw it into bankruptcy. I can hold you off for six months, maybe a year.”

“Also not likely. The bank holds a note on Judge Schneider’s home in Highland Park. He’s the bankruptcy judge. And he understands favors.”

Scott had run out of lawyerly rebuttals, so he fell back on the universal football retort: “Fuck you, Ted.”