The Eye of the Tigress

by Paul Coggins

  Buying an ad the firm couldn’t afford further proved the reporter’s point that Goldberg had been bleeding cash for years, leaving behind a trail of angry creditors, pissed ex-spouses, uncollected judgments, and contempt orders.

  To make matters worse, Cash was pretty damn sure the world didn’t subscribe to the DBJ. At least not their world of prostitutes, petty thieves, pervs, and perps with the bad judgment to steal something small.

  He fought the urge to lash out at a seventy-year-old who had cheated death last year. With Goldy, the time for teachable moments had long since passed. Not much time left for any kind of moments.

  Cash turned to Eva, seated at his side on the couch. She had ditched the boho look and entered a goth phase. Black boots, jeans, belt, and shirt. Black lipstick and nail polish as well. If this was meant to make her look edgy and dangerous, it wasn’t working.

  “How could you let this happen?” he said to her.

  “Me?” Eva did a decent job of feigning outrage. “You two are the partners here. I’m just a lowly assistant.”

  “Someone has to babysit him,” Cash said.

  Goldy clapped loudly. “Hey, I’m right here, and I can hear you two.”

  Eva rose and walked behind Goldy, still seated at his desk. His head swiveled to track her movements.

  She massaged his shoulders while leaning down to speak in his good ear. “Given the hole we’re in, we can’t afford to have you spend your precious time on marketing or bookkeeping. You need to focus one hundred percent of your energy on attracting clients and winning cases.”

  Goldy’s eyes closed. His sigh heralded a smile.

  As her left hand continued to knead his shoulder, her right lifted the checkbook from his coat pocket. A skill she had honed on the streets of Juárez as a runaway teen.

  “Hey!” Goldy grabbed for the checkbook. A beat too late. “What do you think you’re doing?” He sounded indignant but slowly settled back into the chair.

  Eva picked up the intensity of the massage. “Freeing you to do what God put you on the planet to do. A great lawyer shouldn’t waste his time with bills, creditors, and the humdrum of running an office.”

  The massage melted Goldy into his seat. He surrendered to her touch. “Great idea. Cash, why didn’t you think of that?”

  Cash rolled his eyes. Took all his strength not to respond and risk breaking Eva’s spell over the old man.

  “While I pull us out of the ditch we’re in,” Goldy said, “Eva will take over the firm’s finances. This is strictly a short-term measure. Once we’re back in the black, we revert to the way things were.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Goldy’s eyes remained closed. His shoulders slumped. His breathing slowed and slipped into a snore.

  Eva motioned for Cash to step outside. They walked silently to his office. He sat behind the desk. She, in a client chair.

  “That was a slick move,” Cash said, “the way you conned Goldy into giving up his checkbook.”

  “Step one, complete. Step two is striking him as a signatory on our bank accounts, and step three, suspending his corporate credit card.”

  “All the while making him think he came up with the idea. I hope you treat me with kid gloves like that, when I’m his age.”

  “Consider it done,” she said. “I’m taking your checkbook and credit card as well.”

  “Wait a goddam second! What makes you think I would cede control of the finances?”

  “My track record.” She walked to his coat on a hanger and took his checkbook. “I pay all my bills on time and send money to my mother in Mexico, all on the pittance you pay me.”

  Before Cash could protest, his cell phone chirped. Kent Michaels from Channel 5 is calling.

  Seconds later Eva’s phone vibrated. “It’s Channel 8,” she said.

  The landline rang, making it a trifecta.

  A cacophony of calls flooded the room. With no credible defense to Eva’s power play, Cash welcomed the interruption.

  Michaels from Channel 5 followed up his call with a text message, requesting an on-camera interview. The reporter would rush to Cash’s office. The sooner, the better, for a segment to air on the noon broadcast.

  Cash read the text twice but couldn’t respond right away, stunned by the breaking news of Rhoden’s death.

  Turned out there was one interruption he didn’t welcome.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hit hard by Rhoden’s death, Cash balked at the requests for interviews before reminding himself that life would go on. Well, his life anyway.

  He taped segments for Channels 4, 5, 8, 11, and 13, delivering a fresh sound bite on each clip and proving again that the most dangerous spot in Dallas was between a TV camera and him.

  He drew the line with Skyler Patterson of the Dallas Morning News, denying her a precious quote as punishment for not covering Tina Campos’ trial. Her snub had kept Cash’s latest courtroom triumph under the radar.

  The silent treatment with Skyler lasted all of twenty minutes. After which, Cash gave her a killer quote. Bull crap about Rhoden being a pillar of the defense bar. A champion of the underdog. A voice for the voiceless. With liberty and justice for all. Until death do us part.

  At least the death line in the eulogy rang true.

  Cash polished his favorite gem of the day and gifted it to the News: “The Rocket never coasted in the courtroom but went full throttle all the way.”

  He liked the line so much that he recycled it two days later at Rhoden’s funeral, which made it two memorial services in one week for him. One more would set a personal record.

  The two funerals differed in most respects. The chief differences were venue and viewing. Mariposa’s send-off featured an open casket and six strippers in G-strings as pallbearers at an upscale gentlemen’s club. In contrast, Rhoden went out with a closed casket at the smallest chapel at Restland Funeral Home.

  Closing the casket was a no-brainer, given the hailstorm of bullets that had blown away Rhoden’s face and severed three of four limbs. The holdout, a right leg that clung to the hip by a tendon. The remains more closely resembled a puzzle of bloody parts than an actual body.

  Assassins wearing Charlie Sheen masks and carrying AK-47s had gunned down Rhoden in the parking lot of the Galleria Shopping Center. Fitting, since there were two-and-a-half hitmen. Twin hulks and a pint-sizer.

  It had taken less than two minutes for a black Mercedes SUV with tinted windows to whisk the gunmen in and out of the lot. A hit meant to carry a message, with the cartel’s fingerprints smeared all over the job.

  What happened south of the border never stayed south of the border.

  The murders of a criminal lawyer and his client within days of each other raised red flags and even scored a couple of news cycles, before fading into the oblivion of old news. Not that the cops or feds would lose much sleep over the deaths of a trafficker and her mouthpiece.

  Nor did the departed duo leave behind many mourners. Certainly not judging by the sparse turnout at both funerals, which were depressingly alike in certain respects. Few butts in the seats. Not a wet eye in the house.

  At Rhoden’s funeral, the first two rows—typically reserved for family—remained empty. Cash had the third row to himself. He recognized the blonde across the aisle and one row back as Rhoden’s assistant, Sami something. He had no idea who the elderly couple behind her were.

  An ancient organist with henna-hued hair played “There’ll Be Peace in the Valley.”

  Fat chance.

  Skyler Patterson showed up late and sat next to Cash, ensuring there would be no peace at the service. Not for him anyway.

  She had made a halfhearted effort to look funereal, with a black dress too short for the occasion and a hit-and-miss makeup job, but the red jogging shoes undercut the effect.

  “I hear you’re taking over Toby Fine’s defense,” she whispered to Cash.

  “You heard wrong,” he whispered back.

  “Never kno
wn you to turn down a high-profile case, certainly not with a wealthy defendant in the dock.”

  She had a point. He assessed prospective clients on three criteria: whether taking the case would fatten the firm’s bank account, generate publicity, and/or further a righteous cause.

  Not necessarily in that order.

  He generally subscribed to Meat Loaf’s rule of thumb that Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, and Fine scored off the charts as a media magnet and a money maker.

  The cause, however, not so noble.

  One big problem—Cash had promised Eva no more cartel work. Well, except for the freebie he owed La Tigra. After that, the firm would cater strictly to white-collar clients.

  “Probably better that you pass on the case anyway,” Skyler said, “at least as far as Fine is concerned.”

  Cash turned to her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re gaining quite a reputation, along with a new nickname.”

  “What nickname?” Cash caught himself mid-sentence and lowered his voice. She had a knack for getting under his skin.

  “The Angel of Death. Not quite as crisp as Cash, but it has a certain ring to it.”

  “Bullshit, no one calls me that. By the way, Cash isn’t my nickname. It’s my name.”

  “It’ll take time for the new handle to catch on, but it’s off to a good start. You were working on Martin Biddle’s appeal when he killed himself. Last week you visited Mariposa Benanti in prison, and she died three days later. The day after your meeting with Rocket, he catches enough lead to build a battleship. Are you noticing a pattern here? A reason for Fine to keep his distance?”

  The organist segued into “Rock of Ages,” padding the service with hymns to compensate for the dearth of testimonials.

  Cash knew better than to engage with Skyler, who had a talent for twisting words and facts to fit her story, but he couldn’t help himself. “Two people with ties to a cartel get killed. That’s dog-bites-man material.”

  He didn’t bring up Biddle, who had no cartel connection. At least as far as Cash knew.

  “Good quote,” she said. “I’ll be sure to include that in my Sunday piece.”

  “Do you know what they say about cops?” Cash didn’t wait for a response. “They’re never around when you need one, but always show up when you don’t.” He rose. “Same goes in spades for reporters.”

  Cash left the service with mixed feelings. Buoyed by the promise his name would appear in print this weekend. Bummed by the threat that Skyler’s hit job could be bad for business. Her story would test his theory that for a defense lawyer, there was no such thing as bad publicity.

  From across the parking lot, it looked as if cops had ticketed Cash’s Porsche. The ticket turned out to be a note tucked under the windshield wiper:

  Limpia tu calendario.

  He crumpled and tossed the note. Not signed, but it didn’t need to be to get La Tigra’s message across.

  “Consider it done,” he said to himself. “Calendar cleared.”

  His conscience, not so much.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Skyler Patterson’s article in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News presented Cash with a classic good news/bad news situation. The good—his name appeared on the front page above the fold. The bad—his name appeared on the front page above the fold.

  The hit job carried the too-cute-to-be-Skyler’s-idea headline: “Cashing In and Checking Out: The Ups and Downs of an Embattled Lawyer.” Most attorneys would’ve bristled at the tone of the piece and cringed at the new nickname: Angel of Death, credited to anonymous sources.

  The nickname probably was Skyler’s idea.

  Cash pushed past the negative slant and drive-by insults. Instead, he fixated on the reporter’s burial on the back page of Campos’ acquittal. Skyler had reduced Cash’s courtroom triumph to little more than a footnote.

  A rapidly shrinking pool of readers subscribed to the News, online or off. Of the dying breed of readers, only a few pushed past the first few paragraphs of a story outside the sports section.

  The muckraker had devoted four paragraphs to Cash’s conviction for jury tampering, his hard time at Seagoville, and his release on a “technicality.” She hadn’t bothered to explain that the technicality turned on his innocence, at least of the sole charge on his rap sheet.

  Sunday morning, Cash fell into a funk. He failed to answer repeated calls from the media, clamoring for comment on Skyler’s story. He even ignored the ringing doorbell at his Lakewood house. It took a pounding on the door to rouse him from the couch.

  He opened the door to face what could only be more bad news. Paula Marshall had surely come to deliver a kick to the balls, not a pat on the back. The big shot lawyer from Stewart Powell’s megafirm had sunk her hooks into Eva, in a desperate attempt to pry her loose from Cash.

  Without waiting for an invitation, she charged into the house, armed with a copy of the News. Even on the weekend, she dressed the part of a corporate attorney. The navy-blue pinstripe suit accentuated her broad shoulders and narrow waist. Blonde and big-boned, she cut an imposing figure. Her cold, gray eyes sent a chill through Cash.

  One thing’s for sure, Paula wasn’t on her way to or from a church service. The closest she came to bowing to a deity was worshipping the currency that carried the warning: In God We Trust.

  If Paula had swung by a church this morning, it had been to drop off Eva at the ten o’clock mass at St. Rita’s.

  Light a candle for me, mijita.

  Paula slammed the newspaper onto the kitchen table. “I won’t waste time asking if you’ve seen the lead story. Media whore that you are, I’m sure it’s framed and hanging on the wall by now.”

  “Look, Paula, if you’re here to kick me while I’m down, take a number and get in line.”

  “For the record, I’ve never waited until you were down before kicking the shit out of you.”

  Good point.

  “I’ll go out on a limb,” he said, “and guess that you’re not here to console me or express outrage at the libelous article.” Her silence confirmed his hunch. “So why did you come?”

  “I came for Eva’s sake.”

  He sighed loudly. Not this again. Every month or so, Paula harassed him with the same request that escalated into a demand and hardened into a threat. She would start calm and civil, urging him to release Eva from his Manson-like spell. Soon the gloves would come off, and she’d vow to liberate her girlfriend.

  Over his dead body, if necessary.

  Neither Paula nor Cash bothered to deal Eva into the raging debate over her future. Mainly because she could match and raise their decibel level. Plus, she had made her position clear, laying the exact same odds of leaving Cash’s side or Paula’s bed.

  Less than zero.

  “I love her,” Paula said.

  “I don’t doubt that you do, but Eva and I have been together for almost fifteen years. She was a sixteen-year-old street kid from Mexico when I took her in. I’m like a father figure to her.”

  Paula snickered. “More like a problem child, one who can’t cut the cord. Besides, all that is ancient history, long before my time. Also before people around you started falling like dominoes.”

  “Bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

  “Two victims in one week,” Paula said. “I don’t want Eva to make it a trifecta.”

  Damn, the bitch had a talent for hitting his rawest nerve. Plus, if Biddle were counted, Cash had already scored the hat trick. Easy to see how Paula had fast-tracked onto the management committee of her law firm, leapfrogging scores of bigwigs with more seniority.

  Cash didn’t need a scoreboard to know he was losing. Not only the debate with Paula but also the internal one. He resorted to his last line of defense. “What would she do?” The without me was silent.

  “Work for my firm as a corporate paralegal, which would mean more money, more prestige, and here’s the kicker, less chance of winding up dead.”

 
; “She’d be bored stiff.”

  “It’s called growing up. The time in your life when you start eating vegetables and flossing daily.”

  Floss you, lady.

  Cash hit back with all he had in the tank. “Eva is loyal to a fault. She’ll never quit me.”

  “Which is why you have to fire her.”

  “For what?”

  “For cause…or no cause…for talking back…laughing too loud. You’re a clever boy. You’ll come up with a reason.”

  “None that she wouldn’t see through,” he said.

  She shoved her copy of the News across the table, toward him. “I’ll leave this behind. Extra copy for friends and family, assuming you have any left. Maybe rereading the article will motivate you to let Eva go. ‘Angel of Death.’ It has a ring to it.”

  He returned the paper to her. “I have no intention of reading Skyler’s flight of fiction again, and Eva is my best friend and my family.”

  “I’m counting on that,” she said on her way out.

  Paula hadn’t waited for his formal surrender, no doubt knowing she didn’t need to. Hours after her departure, he stopped lying to himself and concentrated on lying to Eva.

  The hard part would be concocting some bullshit ground for canning her.

  The harder part, selling it.

  Light a second candle for me, mijita.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Monday morning, Cash arrived late at the office, still steamed over Skyler’s smear. He placed a latte with half-and-half and two Splendas on the reception desk. Depending on how the day went, the coffee could be a peace offering or a parting gift.

  Eva wore an expression that curdled cream. “Say it ain’t so.”

  Her tone backed Cash away from the desk. “What now?” he said.

  “I read in the News that you’re taking over Toby Fine’s defense.” An undercurrent of anger amped her voice. “Would’ve been nice to give me a heads up. Even nicer if you had kept your word.”