Brain Storm

by Richard Dooling

  “I will, Judge.”

  “Ms. Schweich, if we come back for trial on this, you will behave yourself in my courtroom. No antics.”

  “I will do my utmost,” said Myrna.

  The judge snorted. “And if your utmost isn’t good enough, and you act like an asshole, then I will call you an asshole in front of your client, the jury, the press, your mother, and so on.”

  “I understand, Judge.”

  The judge swung slowly back around to his window and sighed. “That’s Mark Twain’s river,” he said.

  “It’s very beautiful today,” said Myrna.

  “I’m old and tired,” said Judge Stang. “Human vices and the voices of lawyers trouble my sleep. I am not at peace. Soon, I will be dead. Frank Donahue will be senator. And you will all still be back here talking. I’ll be slumbering in eternal bliss and you’ll be giving tongue to base human urges. Fools! I cry, Make me merry. But they do not oblige.”

  “We’ll make plenty merry after a ruling like that, Judge,” said Myrna. “May we be dismissed if the court has no further business with us?”

  “Ida! Show the lawyers out and bring my tea.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Myrna climbed into the backseat of Watson’s Honda and briskly disrobed, making like Joan of Arc after battle, using the clothes hooks as racks for her litigator’s panoply of armor: worsted wool breastplate, burgundy scarf gorget, chain mail of silk blouse, gray skirt of tasses.

  Watson tried to drive, but the adrenaline of conquest was singing in his veins and giving him the shakes. He had expected to go down in flames nobly defending Whitlow’s constitutional rights, and this expectation had become an antidote to his fear of failure. No shame in losing a loser of a case for a loser of a client. Nothing wrong with a novice practitioner training on the legal equivalent of a cadaver. A young lawyer could have done himself proud by winning just one of his sixteen pretrial motions. Even a symbolic win on a “mere technicality,” as the newspapers love to say, would have been ample reward. But to win all sixteen motions? Including a motion to dismiss the hate crime charges? Speechless delirium. He had at least temporarily altered the destiny of a murderer, upset the plans of the federal government, frustrated a U.S. Attorney and candidate for the U.S. Senate, and probably enraged half of the community—all by arranging letters and words on the aquamarine screen of his monitor, then printing them out and filing them in court.

  “Looks like you and Frank Donahue will go at it,” she said.

  “Frank Donahue? I figured Harper would argue it.”

  “No way, Harper is Mr. Hollywood. Helpless without a script. Donahue will handle this one himself. He’ll want to make sure the Eighth Circuit understands how important this case is to the office of the U.S. Attorney and to the office of the Senate.”

  Watson held off imagining what it would be like to square off against Frank Donahue in the U.S. Court of Appeals and savored the victory in hand. In law school, drafting legal memoranda had won him good grades and prizes. In federal district court, prize memos conferred tactical advantages on guys like James Whitlow, a bigot on taxpayer-funded life support. For the time being, Watson’s memos had thwarted the will of the People of the United States of America, who wanted Whitlow injected with something that would do the job quickly and not altogether painlessly.

  From the backseat, Myrna gave a short seminar on client relations and the criminal law, while changing back into black grunge mufti and her Elvis Costello T-shirt.

  At pivotal junctures in any case, she advised, the client needs to be informed. When the news is bad, the lawyer should never mention the subject of fees outstanding. But when bearing glad tidings of great joy, such as the pretrial motions massacre they’d just wrought on the government lawyers, the communication to the client should always include a reminder of the fees required to render such excellent services. In Myrna’s considered opinion, it was time to advise their client that Dr. Green’s fees were soaring. They had just won an important tactical battle in what could be a long war—a campaign that could very possibly include two appeals: one before trial, one after. He should seize the day and secure another bundle of fragrant, green bills.

  “Again?” asked Watson. “Ask them for more money? Already?”

  “Better now than after we win or lose an appeal or a trial, dude,” she said. “After that we may not hear from them again. Then what? Do we send them a statement of fees for services rendered? Attention: Order of the Eagles, care of Santa’s Workshop, North Pole. We don’t even have their address. Just between you and me I don’t want to know their address. We kicked the government’s well-funded ass with nothing but our canvas-topped tennis shoes, and now we need more money for steel-toed boots.”

  In describing the current posture of the case to their client, she advised, Watson should be guardedly optimistic, carefully exuberant, if such a thing was possible. Celebrate triumph without raising false hopes. They still had the court of appeals to contend with, but the deference that the court of appeals was required to give to Judge Stang’s evidentiary rulings—what lawyers called the “standard of review” on appeal—was so much in their favor that some, if not most, of the evidence of racial animus would not be admissible at trial. More important, they had thrown a procedural hurdle in the path of Donahue and Harper, who now had to write a brief and argue an appeal in the Eighth Circuit before they could even think about going to trial.

  “See what happens when you do your job?” said Myrna. “I’m the first to work with opposing counsel, until they try to do me in the eye. When that happens, I smack the other lawyer upside the head with a riot stick and break his teeth. Then I tell him if he ever, ever disses me again, I will go banshee. I will go Harpy, succubus, fuckubus, you name it. I will show up in his worst nightmare, sink my talons into his back, strangle him with piano wire, gnaw off his scalp with my fangs.” She stopped for a breath. “Am I too wrapped up in my work?”

  The snap and hiss of a match igniting led him to believe she was administering another maintenance dose of nicotine. Then he smelled burning herbs.

  “Myrna! Are you brain damaged? We are in the car, for the love of …”

  “Celebrate,” she croaked in the breathless whisper of a pothead who has learned to talk without exhaling. “We owe it to ourselves. We’ve made a real difference in the life of a poor, helpless, downtrodden, defenseless bigot.” She swallowed a cough without losing her hit.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “My purse,” she said.

  Watson flashed on the session in chambers, where Myrna had pulled a cigarette instead of a cookie out of her purse as a reward for her command of the federal rules of evidence. So, not only was she reckless enough to fire up a joint in a moving automobile on a major thoroughfare in broad daylight, but she also had waltzed through metal detectors operated by court security officers; into a federal courthouse; past regional offices of the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Attorney; and into federal district court, where she appeared before Judge Whittaker J. “Black Jack” Stang—Ivan the Terrible, the Prince of Darkness—all the while serenely in possession of a Class I narcotic.

  He needed to finish this case and promptly reassess his post–Stern, Pale office arrangements.

  She passed a thin, pink joint wrapped in strawberry rolling papers up to the front seat.

  “In the car?” cried Watson, waving it away. “Do you want to get arrested and tossed into the cell next to Whitlow’s?”

  The notion so amused her she lost her hit in a series of spasmodic chuckles. “We have our lawyers with us, don’t we?”

  Watson kept glancing into the rearview mirror, scanning for cherry-topped avengers, managing to get his pulse back under control when he didn’t see any. He berated Myrna again; he didn’t care if she endangered her own career, but he did not appreciate her putting his ass in legal peril. The next time he looked up at the mirror, he noticed a gray sedan. Noticed it, because it had been there before, or so it seemed. A few mi
nutes ago? A gray Ford? A Taurus? A Probe? Two serious-looking galoots—almost twins, dark hair, dark suits, dark sunglasses … make that mirrored sunglasses. They didn’t seem to be talking, just staring straight ahead at … Had they been there before? He’d checked the mirror before turning up the ramp onto Highway 40. Was this the same gray car he’d seen then? Nah.

  He changed lanes. The gray car followed.

  “Uh, Myrna,” he said, glancing again into the rearview mirror, “I’m not buzzing a cop, I’m not copping a buzz—I mean, maybe I’m having some contact paranoia. There’s a car behind us, possibly following us. Two guys in suits and sunglasses.”

  Myrna calmly exhaled her last hit, put the roach out on her tongue, and swallowed it. “If they want me for possession, they’ll need a warrant and a stomach pump. Don’t gape in the mirror,” she said. “The worst that can happen is you’ll get a clinic on probable cause and auto searches from a leading expert.”

  She fished a compact out of her purse, opened it, and dabbed at the corner of her lips with a tissue.

  “Couple a serious fucks in suits,” she said, tilting the compact mirror. “You got automatic windows?”

  “Yeah,” said Watson, struggling to keep his eyes off the rearview. “I do. And power windows will help get rid of the smoke. But what about the big wad of cash from Buck’s lawyer I have in the trunk?”

  Myrna emitted a vocal call that seemed to originate from somewhere in their evolutionary past. “YOU KEEP THE MONEY IN THE TRUNK OF YOUR CAR?” she yelled. “And you’re beating me over the head about having a hit of pot on me? Please advise that we have a container search on our hands here and not plain view!”

  “It’s still in the envelope it came in,” he said. “You told me bank deposits look like income to the IRS,” he protested, thinking—more like internally screaming—Not only do I lose my job! Now I lose my law license! Maybe Sheila will bring a bumper sticker home from school that says: DARE TO KEEP YOUR DAD OFF DRUGS. Or maybe he could show up on Parent Career Day for a short presentation on money laundering.

  “I have about ten safety deposit boxes in different names,” she said. “Remind me to show you how they work. In the meantime, make some big cracks in these windows back here, while I get this license number down. Missouri 5YW-77F.”

  Watson heard a click and beep as she powered up her cellular phone.

  “I know a friendly Department of Motor Vehicles dispatcher with main database access,” she said. “Got her kid off with a suspended sentence for a weapons charge.”

  “Where do I go?” asked Watson, steadfastly staring straight over the wheel and concentrating on the logo of a Bunny Bread delivery truck in front of them.

  “That depends if behind us we have government goombahs or some other variety of big tuna. Don’t look in the rearview. Turn on your blinker, make a lane switch, and check them in the sideview.”

  Watson signaled and hopped a lane. “Still there,” he said.

  “Real stealth bombers, these guys,” she said. “They need a siren and a couple wide-load warning signs.”

  “They’re closer,” said Watson.

  “Libby? Hey there. Myrna Schweich. Can’t chat ’cause I got a small emergency here. Can ya run one for me? Yep. Missouri 5YW-77F. Metallic gray 1992 Taurus. Right. Johnny Laws? No? Registered to who?”

  Watson crossed to the far right lane, dropped to fifty-five, and glanced in the sideview. The Taurus followed him to the right-hand lane and didn’t pass.

  “WHAT!” yelled Myrna. “Wake me up and say it again. No way. That’s positive? Thanks, Libby. Gotta go.”

  Another beep and click when she turned off the phone.

  “Cops?” asked Watson, doing an admirable job of keeping his voice from shaking.

  “Beat me naked with a bat,” said Myrna. “Those plates … That car is registered to James and Mary Whitlow, 4279 Fairmont, Dogtown, South St. Louis. New registration. Not more than three days old.”

  “Not possible,” said Watson, a glimpse in the mirror. Eerie visual disturbances, his brain metabolism suddenly accelerating, burning some new fuel mix of fight-or-flight secretions. The windshield was becoming a huge, wraparound, high-resolution video monitor, the rearview mirror a mini-live-action video inset. Level 5 in a 3-D multimedia experience called Lawyer Warriors. The clues coming onto the screen and over the audio interrupts were impossibly contrived and gamelike. And behind him, his virtual guide, a dwarf with red hair, some yappy know-it-all on the order of Microsoft’s Bob, was telling him how to destroy their Level 5 enemies, so they could advance to Level 6.

  “Can’t be Whitlow’s car,” he said, hoping sheer force of will might warp reality back into a narrative that made some sense. Then he recalled his interview with Whitlow and Myrna’s recitation of Dirt’s report: Lucy, the neighborhood watcher and mistress of towing—hadn’t she confirmed that Whitlow’s car was a Ford Taurus? And the tow lot lady? “Title and a photo ID … and you will have to register it, pay any back taxes and licensing fees. Then, it’s yours.”

  “Does your dispatcher ever make mistakes?” asked Watson.

  “Not so far,” said Myrna. “You heard me ask her twice. And it ain’t reported stolen either.”

  “Whitlow’s car is following us,” said Watson. He dropped all pretense and stared into the rearview mirror at two men in suits and shades, following him in his client’s car. Maybe they had stolen it. His delight at escaping arrest was so intoxicating, he almost assumed his Lawyer Warrior avatar stance, ready to defend his client’s property. What if he turned the car around, went back downtown, and filed an action for recaption and repossession? That would show them!

  “Looks like somebody got the car out of the impound lot,” said Myrna, whipping out her compact for another look. “Musta been Mary Whitlow. But neither of them look like they’d take being called Mary too well.”

  Her comment inspired two or three seconds of tense, prestorm silence followed by a burst of heat lightning in both their brains.

  “Order of the Eagles!” they both cried.

  “Shit,” she said. “Militia goons. Gotta be, right? The cops wouldn’t drive a suspect’s car around and fuck up evidence.”

  “Gee,” said Watson. “Do you suppose whoever it is has opened the trunk?”

  Another beep and click from her cellular phone.

  “Where do I go?” asked Watson. “We drove past Big Bend and we’re coming up on Hanley.”

  “Get off anywhere you want. I’m calling the office. I’ll tell you where to go in a … Tilly? What’s happening? No, hold the messages. Anybody been there to see me? Two guys in suits and sunglasses? You told them I was in court? No, Tilly. I wish it was the FBI. Be there in a sec.”

  “Where to?” he asked, taking the Hanley exit, and checking the sideview as the Taurus followed them.

  “They know where we live,” she said. “They’ve already been there.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “And what?” she said crossly, eyeballing her compact mirror again while pretending to tease an eyelash. “Go back to the office and we’ll talk to them. That’s what.”

  Watson cruised down Hanley trying to think of a polite way to ask if he could just drop her off. Instead he drove to the parking lot behind the building, trying to convince himself that gallantry and chivalry were useless vestiges, especially out of place here, where Myrna represented the gender in charge. He parked his Honda in the usual spot. The Taurus slid into a metered space on the street and waited.

  “Don’t give them the hairy eyeball search,” said Myrna, gathering up her clothes and purse and walking toward the back door of their building. “Just get inside.”

  Watson locked the Honda with his remote and lingered momentarily, thinking that if his car were a computer file or a desktop object, he could set an extended attribute or an archive bit, and then he would be able to tell if anyone tampered with it in his absence. Or if the parking lot were the desktop of an operating system, he could just l
ock up the whole thing with a screensaver, so that no one could get into it without typing in the password. He was suddenly alarmed at the uselessness of his own thoughts, staring blankly at a car, wishing it was not a real car but an object on the colorful, orderly, well-maintained desktop of his operating system.… Clutch thinking. A real-world crisis manager.

  “Joe,” said Myrna sharply, the look on her face expressing concern for his mental health.

  “You don’t think they’ll, uh, do anything to the car, do you?”

  “Not unless I hire them to do the job,” she muttered. “Get inside.”

  The door into the building faced west. As they approached it, he kept waiting for a bullet to enter the back of his skull. Probably, he would not even feel it—a flash of light inside his brain—and plush curtains of blood would fall slowly over his eyesight, his matinee video screens would go blank for good.

  When he opened the glass door and walked inside, the afternoon sun cast a shadow of his outstretched arm holding the door for Myrna, of his suited torso; the clean lines of his silhouette fell spread-eagle on the floor of the entryway like the outline of a fallen victim at a crime scene.

  “Some serious motherfucking professionals did this,” the homicide detective would say. “Probably Order of the Eagles, like their client. Birds of a feather. These two lawyer fucks probably never knew what happened. When those hollowpoint bullets hit the brain stem, they open your head like a fucking cantaloupe.”

  A split-second ejection to the afterlife. No time to make a confession or think about the meaning of life. It just stops, and then coarse people stand around talking about your remains, how you got what you deserved because you took too many risks, served the wrong clients, picked the wrong side, ate the wrong foods, smoked, and drank too much. Death—the ultimate defeat in the evolutionary fitness contest.

  Myrna jangled her keys and popped the locks on her office door, tossed her clothes and purse on a chair, then walked around her desk and pulled open the big lower drawer. She plucked out a black shoulder holster, so delicate it looked like a one-cup leather bra. She slipped into it and yanked open the top drawer, pulled out a Smith & Wesson .357, snapped a clip into it, and popped off the safety.