The Ditto List (24 page)

“Whiskey sour.”

D.T. repeated her order, then led Rita Holloway to a booth near the back, out of earshot of anyone who could still decipher a sentence.

Like a marshmallow in a brownie, her uniform quarreled mightily with her surroundings. As she slid warily into the booth she brushed her hand across the tabletop, then rubbed her fingers like a safe-cracker, then whistled. “I hate to think what kind of spores are growing in those cracks.”

“Bars aren't places to think, Miss Holloway. Bars are places to do the opposite.”

They were silent while Russ served the drinks and rolled his eyes and flashed the high sign, all a burlesque indication that he was favorably impressed by D.T.'s companion. After Russ had gone, D.T. drained half his draught. “So,” he began. “What have you been up to?” He licked away the itch of foam from his upper lip before she answered.

Rita Holloway's hot eyes flashed in the black of the back of the bar. “You know damned well what I've been up to, Mr. Jones. I've been playing Nancy Drew, just like you told me to.”

His fears confirmed, D.T. leaned back against the back of the booth until it groaned. “All this time?”

“Yes.”

“Find anything?” He sighed against the answer.

“That's for you to tell me, isn't it, Mr. Attorney-and-Counselor-at-Law?” Her eyes dared him to deny it.

“I guess it is,” he said, then said it once again.

D.T. drained his beer as Rita Holloway reached over and pulled her briefcase from the bench beside her, placed it on her lap, snapped its latches, and reached inside and pulled out a sheaf of papers an inch or more in thickness. She closed the briefcase, set the papers on top of it, and squared their edges, making a perfect pile. “I have an abstract,” she said. “Do you want to read it?”

D.T. checked his watch, considered claiming an appointment or an ailment. “I don't suppose we could do this on Friday,” he said finally.

“No. We couldn't.” Rita Holloway looked capable of false imprisonment.

“Okay,” he said. “If we're going to do it let's do it systematically. Before you tell me what you've found, tell me where you've looked.”

She picked through her papers and pulled out the fourth sheet from the top. “I have the list right here.”

“Read it to me. Just the essentials.”

She wriggled to a more comfortable position and took a hefty drink of her whiskey sour, leaving a red smear on the glass. “I examined records in the following locations, for the years 1960 through 1967, to include five years before and two years after the divorce. Here in the county, I went to the assessor's office, recorder's office, treasurer's office, and clerk's office. At the state capitol, I went to the secretary of state's office, corporations commissioner's office, insurance commissioner's office, and the Department of Agriculture.”

“Department of Agriculture?”

“I thought Dr. Preston might have owned a farm. Lots of doctors buy farms. For tax reasons.”

“Good thinking.”

“Most of the records involved a search for real property or for some sort of corporate affiliation.” She looked at D.T.

“Right,” he said, to please her.

“I also checked the litigation records in the clerk's office, and the motor vehicle records and the records at the Department of Transportation which show ownership of boats or airplanes.”

“Jesus.”

“Also,” she plunged on, “I have the names of Dr. Preston's former medical partners, and the names of the bank and savings and loan he and Esther patronized in those days. I understand banking records can be secured but I don't know how. Also, I have the names of their stock broker and the realtor who sold them the house they bought in 1964.” Rita Holloway looked up from her papers, pleased with herself, ready for a fight. D.T. was again amazed at how many people in the world loved a good scrap. And at how few of them were lawyers and how many of them were women.

“How about the tax returns?” D.T. asked.

Rita Holloway shook her head. “She doesn't have them. I asked.”

“Too bad,” D.T. said. “Now, before we get to the bottom line, tell me. Which of the people you named have you talked to?”

“What?”

“Which of the doctors or the broker or the realtor did you talk to about Mrs. Preston?”

Her back straightened. “None of them. You told me not to.”

“I know what I told you, Miss Holloway. And I know that somehow Dr. Preston learned I sicked you onto him. The other night I met him at a party. He asked what the hell I was up to, quote, unquote. I thought he was going to punch me out.”

Rita Holloway frowned and gulped her drink. “But I didn't … it must have been Janice.”

“Who?”

“Janice Cox. I roomed with her in nursing school. She works for a neurologist named Haskell. By coincidence, Dr. Haskell used to be in partnership with Nathaniel Preston, back when he was married to Esther. Later they had a falling-out. It was very bitter, but no one seems to know why.”

“And you talked over poor Esther's problem with your old friend Janice.”

“Yes. I'm afraid I did.” Momentarily, the spunk had gone out of her, leaving her an entirely different creature. D.T. marvelled at the change, then watched her essence grow back as quickly as a weed.

“And you happened to mention to Janice that the shyster you'd prevailed upon to help you out in all this was a sap named Jones. D.T. Jones, to be exact.”

She nodded slowly. “What does the D.T. stand for, anyway?”

“Double Talk. Well, you can count on Dr. Preston knowing all there is to know about our little plan to gouge some bucks out of him, Miss Holloway.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't … I'm sorry.”

“He offered ten thousand to settle the thing, by the way,” D.T. added casually. “To get me and Esther off his back for good.”

“Really? That much?”

“Really.”

“Are we going to take it?”

“I don't think so.”

“Why not? I mean, that's quite a bit of money. What if we end up getting nothing?”

“If you wanted someone to fold up at the first offer on the table you should have stayed downtown. Preston got to ten grand awfully fast. We haven't even filed against him yet. If he'll go ten now he'll go thirty the morning of trial. Maybe more.”

It was more complicated than that—Preston had, after all, sworn not to pay a dime—but he saw no need to mention it. If Rita Holloway hadn't come up with hard evidence of fraudulent concealment, or if the Supreme Court eventually ruled a professional degree wasn't a marital asset or that a claim against the degree could not be asserted retroactively, then he would be thrown out of court on a motion for summary judgment and the ten grand in the hand would have indeed beaten the thirty in the bush. The wages of litigation. The greatest game in town next to a private casino he knew of near his office.

“Besides,” D.T. added finally. “The guy seemed awfully upset. I mean, at best we've got a trivial claim if he's as rich as everyone says he is, but he's taking it very seriously. So I think we should play him a little.” He smiled. “But of course Mrs. Preston is the boss. You talk to her and tell me what she thinks.”

Rita Holloway nodded thoughtfully. D.T. waved for Russ to bring another round. When the drinks arrived Rita Holloway pushed hers away with a frown. “Have we covered all the rocks you've looked under, Miss Holloway?” D.T. asked when Russ had gone.

“Yes.”

“So. Did you find any hidden assets? Did Dr. Preston own half of downtown Phoenix back in 1964 and neglect to mention it at the time of their divorce? Have we stumbled onto a treasure trove, Miss Holloway?”

Rita Holloway drummed her fingers on the table, so incensed at his levity she was oblivious to the grime. “Have I looked everywhere there is to look?” she asked.

“Pretty much.”

“What if I haven't found anything?”

“Then that about wraps it up.”

“But …”

“But what?”

“Isn't there anything
you
can do?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. Talk to people.”

“What people?”

“The doctors. The stock broker. I don't know.
Anyone
.” The last word caused two heads at the bar to turn their way, though not for long.

“You're saying you didn't find anything,” D.T. said quietly.

“Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. I didn't find one goddamned thing except some records that listed the little bitty house they lived in. That's it. I had to put up with all those stuffy lazy bureaucrats who had so goddamned many other things to do other than help me and that's all I came up with. Nothing.”

She started to cry and hated herself because of it. D.T. could see her face reflected in the curved flank of his beer glass. It seemed to have broken into pieces. D.T. put his hand over the one of hers that wasn't swiping at her eyes. “Hey. It's all right. Come on. It's all right.”

“How can I face her, Mr. Jones? I practically
promised
her I'd do something.”

“I'm sure she didn't expect a miracle.”

“But don't you see? I
wanted
her to expect a miracle.”

She cried again, but only briefly, then blew her nose and picked up her research papers and started to put them back in her briefcase. “Why don't you take those over to my office so I can make a copy of them for me to keep.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Something might come up.”

D.T. remembered the copy machine was broken. “Better yet,” he amended, “wait here. There's a copy service down the block. I'll run the papers down there and get them started. By the time we finish our drinks they'll be copied and you can pick up the originals and be on your way.”

D.T. grabbed her briefcase and trotted out of the bar with it, leaving a protesting Rita Holloway and a quizzical Russ behind him. Luckily, the copy service wasn't busy. Also luckily, their only competent employee was on duty. “Xerox down again?” he asked.

D.T. didn't have a Xerox, and what he had wasn't down so much as underfinanced, but he didn't say that. What he said was, “Rush.” Then he returned to the nurse in the bar.

She looked at him disgustedly as he took his seat. “While you were gone your friend made a pass at me.”

“Did you catch it?”

“Of course not.”

D.T. shrugged. “He likes to keep in shape during the off-season.”

Rita Holloway started to counter, then paused, then spoke so softly he had to learn forward to hear. “Did I do everything that could be done, Mr. Jones?”

D.T. nodded.

“Will you please keep trying? Will you try to think of something that might work?”

D.T. thought of his ex-wife and his daughter, and of what they seemed to think of him. “Okay. But don't hold your breath. And don't tell Esther Preston I'm about to be her savior, because it's most likely not true.”

Rita Holloway stood up and slid out of the booth. He told her where to go to get her papers and she thanked him as she shifted nervously about, unwilling to meet his eye. “I think somehow you're going to find a way to help, Mr. Jones. Is that silly of me?”

“Extremely.”

“Well, I hope … I just hope, I guess.” She stuck out her hand and shook his when he grasped it, then turned and left.

When she had vanished Russ came over to his booth. “New squeeze?”

“Client.”

“Yeah? Probably got a big itch down there, now she's not getting it regular.”

“She's not that kind of client.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So excuse me all to hell. What's the matter with you, anyhow? You been about as cheery as a Jesuit lately. You in hock to the book, or what?”

“That. Other things. Who the hell knows?” Or cares, he almost added.

“You got what they call the male menopause, D.T. I read about it in the
Enquirer
.”

“Bullshit.”

“No. Really. Men get it too, just like the broads. Makes everything seem the shits for about two years.”

“Then maybe that's what I've got. Only I've had it since I was nineteen.”

Russ chuckled. “So what you got going for you in the courts, D.T.? Class action, wrongful death, Arab divorce, any of that big bucks shit?” Russ picked up Rita Holloway's glass and wiped the table beneath it, then drank its dregs.

“I got nothing going for me in the courts at all, Russ. Nothing but a Ditto List as long as your arm.”

“Ditto List? What's that mean?”

“That's the thing about the Ditto List. It's totally, wholly, and always meaningless.”

D.T. pushed his way out of the booth and headed for the lot where he parked his car. Halfway there he detoured sharply and went back to his office.

It was dark and cold, a catacomb that bore the bones of a thousand lifeless marriages. He turned on the desk lamp and walked to various corners of the room, extracting academic journals and advance sheets, looseleaf binders and law reviews, and took them to his desk. He read through them slowly,
Family Law Quarterly
and the
Journal of Family Law, New Law Journal
and
Practical Lawyer, Law & Society Review
and
Current Legal Problems
, even the
Women Lawyers Journal
, as well as more general periodicals that occasionally bore upon his specialty, getting up to date, absorbing the most recent developments in that déclassé branch of the law on which he perched as precariously as a dove on opening day of the season.

He read for two hours, making notes, dictating file memos, applying what he read to his own Ditto List of active cases that he carried like a menu in his mind. “Evicting the Recalcitrant Spouse”; “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law—The Case of Divorce”; “Nontraditional Lifestyles and the Law”; “Wifebeating: A Psycho-Legal Analysis”; “Psychology: Impediment or Aid in Child Custody Cases”; “Dilemma v. Paradox—Valuation of an Advanced Degree upon Dissolution of a Marriage”; “Compelling Disclosure of ‘Invisible Assets' Upon Divorce”; and finally, “Domestic Relations Litigation—Attorney's Fees,” a gift from the current issue of
Trial
. Part of the unending stream of theory, some helpful, much naive, that had accumulated over the six months or so since he had last done the exercise. He read till his head had apparently cracked open, till it all seemed absurd and useless, then drove home, exhausted.