Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1)

by Trueman, Debra

  “I don’t want to hear anything more about that picture,” I said.

  “Not a word will cross my lips,” she said, but she still had that stupid smile on her face, then she pretended to lock her lips and throw away the key.

  “I’m going in my office. Screen my calls. If it’s about the photo, I’m not here.”

  * * * *

  It was late in the day when I heard from Richard Stollens. His tone was superior and it immediately pissed me off.

  “$250,000. And I suggest you take it Collins. That’s more than the case is worth,” he asserted.

  “More than the case is worth?” I laughed. “If some pervert had been watching your wife pull down her pants and take a piss for the last year, do you think you’d settle for that?”

  “There’s no proof,” he said, but I could tell he was only hoping.

  “Are you stupid, Dick? Did you think I didn’t know that the first thing Datacare would do would be to get rid of the mirror?” I asked in disbelief. “I’ve got pictures, you asshole!” I wished that our meeting had been in person so I could see the sweat beading-up on his forehead. “Then there are the hidden cameras. How do you think the media would react to the fact that Datacare’s supervisors are sitting in their office getting their jollies watching videos of a lactating mother pumping her breasts? Do you think that’s the kind of story the media would play down, or do you think they’d milk it for all it was worth?” I laughed at my own joke. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” I said.

  I was having a great time tormenting Dick, but he wasn’t laughing. He was in a terrible position as an attorney and I only hoped that I never ended up in that kind of fix. One of his clients was a liar, one was a pervert, and the other had a billion dollars at its disposal. I almost felt sorry for Old Dick.

  “Now, I suggest you go back and tell your clients everything we just talked about. And if they come up with another lame-ass offer, all settlement discussions are off. We’ll try the damn thing!”

  “I don’t think any of us want that,” Dick said, trying to muster some authority back into his voice.

  “Hey, you know me. It’s no sweat off my back if my client gets put through the ringer on the stand. The outcome’s still the same – forty percent.”

  “You could never be accused of being sensitive to your client’s feelings,” he said.

  “Yeah, well that may be true, but I’d still hate for any of this to get leaked to the press.”

  Dick took the threat well. I knew he wouldn’t put it past me to do it. There was no way he could know that I actually was sensitive to my client’s feelings.

  “And another thing,” I said. “Are Larry and the CEO still employed?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “What are they waiting for? Don’t they realize that with every day those creeps are on their payroll, their potential liability increases? Don’t they know about negligent retention?”

  “I’ll speak to my clients,” he said, sounding totally deflated.

  “Well, don’t take it so hard, Dick. You’ll still get paid.”

  “Go to hell,” he said, and he hung up without so much as a goodbye.

  I walked out of my office with an ear to ear grin. Penny and Maddie were in the kitchen and they stopped talking when I came in.

  “What are you so happy about?” Maddie asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just love to irritate the guy.”

  “You mean Richard Stollens?” Maddie asked.

  “Yeah. They came back with a quarter million. I turned them down.”

  Her eyes got big. “You turned down $250,000?” Maddie said. “How much are we willing to take?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ll know when I hear it. What time is Oliver getting here?”

  Maddie looked at her watch. “Right about now. And Samuel . . . let’s see if we can steer the conversation away from babes or fine girls.”

  “What else is there to talk about?” I said.

  I pushed her head to the side and she slapped at my hand. “Get away!” she said.

  I turned around and Penny was watching us, smiling. “Why don’t you come with us Penny?” I said. “We’re taking Oliver up in the Tower.”

  “I haven’t been up there in years,” Penny said.

  “I haven’t either,” I said.

  The Hemisfair Tower, also know as the Tower of the Americas, was the centerpiece of Hemisfair ’68, the 6-month worlds fair which commemorated the 250th anniversary of the founding of San Antonio. The tower looks like a big cement pylon with a round box sitting on top. The 1.4 million pound upper portion that houses the restaurant and the observation deck was actually built on the ground and lifted to the top, inch-by-inch – a feat which took 21 days to accomplish and which I’m sure was an event in itself. The fact that the restaurant had been lifted to its position some 600+ feet in the sky always gave me pause. Like if it could be lifted up, maybe it could come sliding back down too. I knew it was an illogical perspective so I tried not to give it much credence, but nevertheless, the thought was never too far off when I was up there.

  The last time I’d been up in the restaurant, I’d almost thrown up. The outer portion revolves so diners can get a view of the whole city while they eat. I’d made the mistake of watching the floor move and I finally had to fix my eyes out the window to get rid of the nausea. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience and I wasn’t thrilled about going back up.

  “I’d love to go,” Penny said, “if you’re sure I won’t be imposing.”

  “Imposing on what?” I asked.

  Maddie and I looked at each other and we both shrugged our shoulders. It was done is such perfect unison that it looked like we’d practiced the maneuver.

  “You wouldn’t be imposing on anything,” Maddie assured her.

  Maddie’s mom dropped Oliver off and the four of us loaded into the Suburban and headed to the Tower. We parked in the Tower parking lot, which was practically deserted, and had walked almost to the plaza in front of the Tower when Maddie stopped.

  “I left my sweater in the car,” she said.

  “It’s not even cold,” I pointed out. I didn’t feel like going back to the car.

  “But it’s always freezing up in the restaurant. Give me the keys and I’ll go back,” she offered.

  “No, you go on and I’ll meet you at the fountains down there,” I said, motioning towards the plaza.

  “Are you sure?” Maddie asked. She sounded really sweet and it made me feel guilty for being so lazy in the first place.

  “Positive.”

  We went in opposite directions and I made my way back to the car. It was a gorgeous afternoon with a clear blue sky. The view would be incredible from the restaurant and observation deck. I was actually getting psyched about the adventure; I just needed to remember not to watch the floor.

  My phone rang as I was unlocking the door and I had to fumble with my keys to get the phone out of my pocket before the call went to voice mail.

  “Hi. It’s Landra.”

  “Hello, Landra.” I smiled just hearing her voice.

  “Are you guys already at the Tower?”

  “We’re just getting here. Why don’t you join us?” She’d already turned me down the night before and I was hoping maybe she had changed her mind, but she turned me down again.

  I got Maddie’s sweater out of the car as I carried on a conversation with Landra, and I had just closed the door when I noticed something that made my heart skip a beat. There was a black pick-up parked right next to my Suburban that hadn’t been there when we’d parked minutes earlier.

  “Hold on a second, Landra,” I said, going over to the other side of the car. I could feel my pulse start to race and I got a sick feeling in my gut. There were still faint red lines where the paint had dripped down all over the truck. My stomach churned as I took off running as fast as I could across the parking lot. I’d only gone a short distance when I heard people screaming from the plaz
a.

  “Landra, I need you to call Niki Lautrec! Larry’s here. And call 911!”

  I crammed the phone into my pocket and raced up the stairs toward the Tower. When I reached the top of the stairs, I had a view of the whole plaza. There were groups of people standing huddled together in different areas, but all eyes were focused in the same direction and everyone was screaming, yelling and pointing.

  Larry was holding Oliver in one arm and he had a pistol pressed up against the boy’s temple. Maddie was screaming and running towards them.

  “Get back or I’ll shoot him!” Larry yelled at Maddie.

  Maddie froze in her tracks, screaming hysterically, while Penny held on to her. I ran over to them, trying desperately to figure out what to do, but I was as helpless as everyone else.

  “Mommy!” Oliver cried.

  “It’s okay baby,” Maddie called back. “Mommy won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Stay back!” Larry yelled.

  He was walking backwards toward the Tower entrance, and after every few steps he would move the pistol from Oliver’s head and point it in a sweeping motion towards the crowd in the plaza and everyone would scream. By then, everyone except for Maddie and Penny and I was lying flat on the ground.

  I decided I’d try to reason with him. “You don’t want to take the kid,” I yelled. “Put Oliver down and take me.” I put my hands in the air in a gesture of surrender and took a step forward and the son of a bitch shot me.

  I took it in with all my senses. I saw the spark come out of the barrel; I heard the boom echo through the plaza; I smelled the burned gunpowder; and I tasted the blood from where I bit my tongue when the bullet went ripping in one side of my left bicep and out the other. It hurt like hell, but it had happened so fast, I didn’t even realize at first that I’d been shot.

  It wasn’t until I saw the look of horror on Maddie’s face as she looked at my blood-soaked tattered sleeve that the impact of what had just happened hit me. My first and only thought was of Oliver. If the bastard would shoot me so cavalierly, there was no telling what he might do to Oliver.

  “Oh my God! You’re shot!” Maddie screamed. She seemed torn between looking out for me and keeping an eye on Oliver.

  “I’m okay,” I told her.

  “Samuel!” Oliver was crying. He was wriggling in Larry’s arm, trying to get away. “Let me go! Mommy!”

  “Don’t fight him, Oliver. It’s going to be okay,” I called out to him in a voice that sounded surprisingly calm.

  Larry had reached the Tower entrance and he turned his back to us when he got inside. He was wearing a backpack and I shuddered to think what he might have in it. We watched in horror as he carried Oliver over to the elevator and pushed the button, then waited for it to come down.

  The Hemisfair Tower is the tallest structure in San Antonio, with the observation deck sitting around 600 feet. The elevator goes up the outside of the Tower and has a glass front so visitors can look out at the city on the ride to the restaurant or the observation deck, the only two floors where the elevator stops. We watched the elevator come lower and lower until it reached the ground floor. Larry and Oliver got in and the doors closed and Maddie, Penny and I raced into the Tower lobby, and over to the elevator.

  My phone rang and I was shaking so badly that I could barely push the button to answer it. “Hello,” I said. My voice sounded like someone else’s.

  “It’s Niki.”

  I was so relieved that I if he’d been there in person I probably would have kissed him. “Larry’s got Oliver,” I said. My voice kept catching and I had started to tremble. “He took him up in the Tower. Where are you?” I prayed he wasn’t going to say that he was out of town.

  “I’m pulling into the parking lot right now. I see your car. And Larry’s.”

  “Thank God,” I said under my breath. I needed someone to deal with the situation that knew what he was doing because I sure as hell didn’t.

  Three policemen came running through the door at that point. Their pistols were drawn and Maddie and Penny both threw up their hands.

  “I’ll see you in a second,” I told Niki, and I hung up the phone.

  “He took my son!” Maddie cried. “He’s got a gun . . . and he shot Samuel . . . Oh, please God, don’t let him hurt him!”

  Maddie needed to be sedated. As bad as I was, she was a thousand times worse. She broke down sobbing, and I caught her just as her legs collapsed underneath her. My arm felt like it was being ripped off my body as I tried to shift her around to my good arm. If one of the policemen hadn’t stepped in to assist, we both would have ended up on the floor.

  I looked at the panel of lights on the wall beside the elevator. Larry had taken the elevator to the observation deck.

  “Come over here and sit down ma’am,” the officer was saying to Maddie. He was an older man, probably in his 60s. Maddie and Penny went with the policeman and sat on a bench against the wall. Six more officers were running in our direction and I could hear sirens in the background.

  “You need to get to a hospital,” one of the officers said. He’d sneaked up out of nowhere and scared me to death.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said irritably. I could see Niki running down the steps. “Actually, I’ll be right back,” I told the policeman, and I went outside to meet Niki.

  There was a huge crowd of people gathered outside. I recognized some of them as having been in the plaza when Larry took Oliver. Many of them were already giving statements to the police.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” Niki exclaimed when he saw my arm. By then, my entire sleeve from shoulder to wrist was covered in blood and it had spread over half of my chest.

  “I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,” I said.

  “He shot you?”

  I nodded my head without speaking. Niki ran his hand through his hair. It was a gesture I’d seen him do a hundred times and always when things were bad. He had just realized how serious the situation was.

  “Okay,” he said thinking. I could tell he was going to take control and I felt immensely better. “You need to get that looked at,” he said, sounding distracted.

  “I will.”

  “How’s Maddie?”

  “Terrible.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “To the observation deck.”

  Something caught my eye and I looked up. The elevator was coming back down. It was a 90 second ride from the top to the bottom and one by one, all heads turned up toward the sky watching the contraption come lower and lower. We walked back inside the lobby. When the elevator finally landed, a whole load of people came off, eyes wide and faces pale.

  “There’s a man with a gun and a little boy up there!” they exclaimed, all talking at once. “He said to send the elevator back up empty or he’ll kill the boy.”

  “Send it back up!” Maddie screamed, and she went busting through the crowd, making her way to the elevator. She was shoving men out of the way who were three times her size. And when she finally reached the elevator she shoved the last person out of the way, got in and pressed the button for the observation deck, then stepped back outside the elevator, blocking the opening until the doors were firmly closed behind her.

  I tried to make my way over to her, but one of the policemen stopped me. “You can’t come in here. You need to get to a hospital.”

  “I’m with her,” I said, pointing to Maddie.

  “Samuel,” Maddie called out, and she came running over to me. “Your arm! Samuel you need to get a hospital!”

  It did look bad. “I will.”

  “No. Now.” Maddie burst into another round of tears. “Oh, Samuel. What am I going to do if he kills him?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said adamantly.

  “You need to see a doctor.”

  “I will.”

  I looked around and Niki was nowhere in sight. It had been no more than 15 or 20 minutes since the whole ordeal had begun, but I
was totally drained. I needed to sit down.

  “May I have a look at that?” someone said from behind me, and I was actually relieved to see that it was a paramedic.

  “Yeah. I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks.” I don’t know why I kept saying that. I guess because I was still walking around talking, but the truth was, my arm was killing me. If I’d been shot in a different situation I’m sure I would have been freaking out, but as it was, Oliver’s predicament was so much worse than mine that I felt like a bullet in the arm was no big deal.

  “Let’s get your shirt off,” he said, and he helped me unbutton it, then peeled the soggy thing off of me.

  A swat team had gathered below the steps by the fountains and the police were cordoning off an area around the Tower. Several media vans had pulled up and their crews were raising their antennas to start live broadcasting as the scene unfolded. I felt like I’d been thrust into a movie scene. The paramedic was telling me something, but I was having a hard time focusing on what he was saying.

  “He’s going into shock,” I heard him say, and I snapped back to reality. There was a second paramedic and he had wrapped a blanket around me.

  “Lie down,” he said. They had produced a gurney from somewhere and they were trying to get me onto the damn thing.

  “No. I can’t leave,” I protested. I tried to shake the feeling that had taken over me, but I was disoriented and I couldn’t stop shaking.

  I was laying on the gurney and one of the guys strapped an oxygen mask to my face. There were loading me into an ambulance.

  “I can’t leave. Can you treat me here?” I asked. Now that I was horizontal, I was feeling a bit better.

  “You know the kid who was taken?” the guy asked me.

  I wished I could say we were related in some way. Saying that Oliver was my neighbor could never convey the way I felt for him.

  “He’s my next-door neighbor,” I said, “but he’s the closest thing I have to a son.”

  The medic smiled. “We’ll see what we can do.” He wrapped a blood pressure band around my good arm and pumped it up. “You seem like you’re doing better. You’re getting some color back.”

  The other medic was bandaging my arm, winding a gauze strip around and around. The bleeding was under control if not completely stopped, and by the time he got it all wrapped up, there was no blood coming through the bandage.