by Mike Stewart
“I was happy before.” I tried to smile. It hurt.
Kai-Li returned my smile. “Then you should have kept your mouth shut. In any event, sexy small talk—which is not something I’m completely adverse to engaging in with you at some future date—should probably be left to a time when you look less like a drunken toad.”
I sipped some coffee. “Toad, huh?”
She pressed her lips together, raised her eyebrows, and nodded.
“Afraid so. Anyway, time to get up and hit the showers. You’ve had a call this morning from your colleagues at Russell and Wagler.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. I’m not. You said that’s what you expected after your meeting yesterday with Dr. Adderson.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I wasn’t sure it was going to work.”
“Well, it did. Get up. You’ve got a meeting at their offices at two this afternoon.” As she talked, Kai-Li uncrossed her legs, rolled onto one hip, and bounced off the bed. When she did, I glanced down again at her cream-colored panties. I really meant not to, but that’s what happened.
Kai-Li said, “I saw that.”
“What do you expect from a drunken toad?”
Twenty-nine
The glass and steel of Mobile Convention Center interrupted the waterfront, and I hung a left on Government Street. The wide pavement made a “V” around the entrance to Bankhead Tunnel and passed by the old Admiral Sims Hotel, a television station, and a couple of municipal buildings before gaining some dignity beneath twin rows of live oaks, the tips of whose limbs touched and moved against one another over five lanes of traffic.
In summer, the oaks cast a cool, civilizing shade over the busy street. Now, a few days before Christmas, harsh light cut through a stark, black crisscross of limbs. Up ahead, at the apex of the park on Old Government, a cannon seated in white concrete at just about windshield height pointed straight at me.
“Look for the cannon. You’ll see it, but we’re a couple of blocks before the road splits. On the right.” The directions had been friendly, professional, and impersonal, and they’d been delivered by Russell & Wagler’s newest receptionist.
I slowed the Safari, then turned right and left again to ease into the paved lot behind the antebellum mansion that housed the law firm. It was not an unusual setup for successful plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Corporate firms—lawyers who draft contracts and argue over tax issues and securities fraud—are, almost invariably, on the highest possible floor of some bank building. There are two reasons for this: Corporate clients feel more comfortable in corporate buildings, and banks generally insist that their own firms rent space in their newest overpriced building.
Plaintiff firms, by contrast, are trying to impress blue-collar workers, for the most part, so those workers will hire the firm to sue the kind of corporation that builds overpriced office buildings. Using an old mansion is a way of separating a “blue-collar” firm from the corporation the plaintiff hates, and it’s a pretty good way of making your firm look like a winner. Nothing says success to an assembly-line worker like a mansion—and, of course, a receptionist in a miniskirt.
I stepped out into a hard winter day, swung the door shut, and shot the Safari with the remote. The alarm responded with that double beep that makes parking decks at 8:00 A.M. sound like they’re full of bobwhites.
A concrete path beside the building and around the front led to tall steps. Up on the columned porch, green double doors held twin wreaths. A brass sign instructed me to COME IN.
The entry hall was twenty feet wide, almost as tall, and ran the depth of the house, ending at a wall of sheer curtains and floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the receptionist’s desk. Loutie sat in front of those windows, where harsh December light silhouetted every curve of the curviest woman I’ve ever known.
I walked across marble and slate and handmade rugs, passed between staircases that curved onto the floor like twin parentheses, and stopped in front of a small desk designed to let clients check out the receptionist’s legs.
Loutie flashed a beautiful smile. “Yes sir? May I help you?” No wink. No sidelong glance. She was playing her part to the hilt.
I told one of my best friends my name. “I’m here to see Mr. Wagler.”
“Just a moment.” Loutie punched a button on an electronic console and spoke quietly into a tiny microphone suspended from a single earpiece that seemed to bloom naturally from her ear. She punched another button. “His assistant is on her way down.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“No,” I said, “I really appreciate your help.”
“It’s no problem, sir.”
“Seriously, you’re great at this. Do they send you to school for this or what? I don’t mind telling you. I’ve had some complaints about my secretary’s greeting skills. And I’m thinking …”
Loutie looked hard into my eyes, and my stomach tightened a little. She whispered, “Get away from me.”
I tried to smile. It wasn’t easy. I’m a little afraid of Loutie Blue.
High heels echoed on marble, and I looked up to see an attractive, middle-aged woman descending the left staircase. As I met her eyes, she said, “Good afternoon Mr. McInnes. Mr. Wagler will meet you in his conference room.” She reached the foot of the stairs and held out her hand. I shook it. The woman had a nice handshake. She told me her name was Cruella.
“I’m sorry?”
She smiled. “Sue Ella. Named for my grandmothers.” I apologized.
She smiled again. “Happens all the time. This way, please.”
Upstairs, the ceilings fell to ten feet, and the flooring changed from marble and slate to heart pine. Cruella Sue Ella paused outside a paneled door and tapped with one knuckle.
A male voice said, “Come in.”
My escort opened the door, stepped aside while I walked through, and remained in the hallway when she closed it.
Inside, Bill Wagler sat at one end of the conference table and Judge Luther Savin—chief judge of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and Dr. Laurel Adderson’s love machine—sat at the other.
Wagler rose out of his seat and took my hand. “Good of you to come, Tom. I’ve been looking forward to this.” He motioned at Judge Savin, who sat watching me with a smile on his lips. “You know the judge, I believe.”
“Yes. He and I had dinner together at the home of a mutual friend just two nights ago.” I flashed my best fake smile. “Good to see you again, judge.”
Judge Savin didn’t respond. He just sat there—round, furry, and satisfied—like a tomcat who’d just batted around and then devoured the last rat in the barn.
He was starting to piss me off.
Wagler motioned toward an empty chair. “Sit down. Please. Judge Savin and I had finished up and were just catching up on Montgomery politics. He was getting up to leave when you came in.”
And with that, Judge Savin pushed back from the table, lifted his girth out of the chair, and gave me a wink before exiting through Wagler’s private office.
Wagler paused until he heard the outside door of his office close behind the judge. “Tom, would you like some coffee or maybe a Coke? I think we have Frog water too, if you like that kind of thing.”
“No, thank you. I’m anxious to find out why you wanted to meet today.”
A big man, Wagler leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. He had the thickly veined hands of a manual laborer, and he used them in a way that suggested he knew the strength in his hands was obvious to other men.
“Well the truth is, Tom, I need your help. Up until a few days ago, you were representing Sheri Baneberry in the wrongful death of her mother.”
I nodded.
“Well, Sheri thinks you’re a fine lawyer, Tom. And I sure as hell agree with her. From talking with Sheri, my partners and I feel like you’ve got a handle on the case, and we could use your help getting ready for trial. So, what we’d like is to brin
g you in as associate counsel.”
The man’s handsome face bore a light, artificial tan. And I noticed that the delineation between the white at his temples and his black mane of loose curls seemed a little too precise. Everything around me just then seemed too precise.
I leaned back in my seat, moving away from the mannered aggressor across the table. He wanted to dominate me. I decided it’d be smart to let him.
“Bill, my license to practice has been suspended by the bar. I don’t see how I can come in as any kind of counsel on this thing.”
Wagler pursed his lips and bobbed his head. “I understand that. But—and don’t quote me on this, Tom—I hear from some pretty good sources that your problems with the bar may go away.”
“Who says …”
He threw up his hands. “Don’t ask me, ’cause I can’t say. But I will tell you that I think we can work around the licensing problem until it’s resolved. How about if we say it’s worth, oh, ten percent of any eventual verdict to bring you in as something like an adviser on the case? Would that work for you?”
And there was the payoff.
I tried not to react. “I appreciate the offer, Bill. I really do. But I’ve had just about enough of the Baneberrys. So what I’d rather do is waive any interest in a potential judgment in return for a check for the fees and expenses I’ve got sunk in this case right now.” I leaned up to close the distance between us. “Is that anything you’d be willing to consider?”
Wagler actually reached up and stroked his chin like a bad actor who has been told to look like he’s thinking about something. “What’d you be looking for here? Say twenty thousand?”
I smiled. “Say twenty-five.”
“Done.”
Wagler reached across the table to shake hands. I’d been officially bought off.
The firm’s back office cut the check in five minutes flat, after which Wagler’s efficient assistant escorted me downstairs. I was three or four steps from the bottom when Loutie called out to me. “Sir? Mr. McInnes?”
“Yes?” I answered as I hooked my fingers around the finial at the end of the banister and pivoted toward Loutie’s desk.
She held up a pink message slip. “A call came in while you were with Mr. Wagler. I asked if it was an emergency, and the party said not to disturb you.”
I reached out and took the paper. On the top two lines, Loutie had simply written Call home on one line and my home number on the next. I assumed that was what would show up on the carbon in the message pad. But underneath, in the lined, “message” section of the slip, Loutie had written:
1. J. Cort arrived noon. Still here.
2. Judge S. arrived 1:00—Left building just after you went up.
3. Kai-Li called. Z left message: “Looking for good university psychologist.”
I looked up. “Thank you, Ms.…”
“Blue.”
“Thank you, Ms. Blue.”
She flashed a plastic smile and said, “Certainly.” Then she dropped her eyes and focused her attention on an article in the December Cosmopolitan, which she had spread out behind her telephone panel.
Turning to leave, I nearly plowed into Wagler’s assistant, who had been quietly hovering. Twin furrows had formed between Cruella’s eyebrows.
“Is everything all right, Mr. McInnes?”
“To tell you the truth,” I said, “I’m not sure yet.”
Jumping inside the Safari, I fumbled for my cell phone and had tapped in six digits before intelligence overtook emotion. I scanned the parking lot and side street for Zybo, for anyone who might be equipped to listen in on a cell phone. There was no one who seemed remotely interested.
The key clashed with the ignition. The steering felt clumsy. Bumping out over a curb in reverse, I cut off a guy in a pickup and he flipped me the bird. I waved and dropped the gearshift into drive.
Quaint homes streamed by as cobblestones mixed with buckling pavement rumbled beneath my tires. Two rights and a left and I passed Loutie’s place. No one followed. I punched in my home number. Kai-Li answered.
I asked, “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I was afraid the message from Zybo would make you freak. I think it just means …”
I interrupted. Too much adrenaline pumping not to. “It means he wants to meet.”
“Yes, Thomas.” Kai-Li’s voice came out smooth and lilting, like a mother calming a child. “Are you ready?”
I sat at a red light, waiting. “I’m not sure. Let’s talk when I get there. I’m on the way.”
I think I hung up without saying goodbye. The light turned green, and I gunned the Safari back onto Government Street.
Zybo was rushing me.
I forced myself to wait an interminable ten minutes, to get calm and think. I was on I-10 and speeding across a thin strip of pavement stretched across saltwater flats when my self-imposed purgatory ended. I punched in Joey’s cell number.
“Tom.” He had Caller ID.
“Make the call.”
“What call? What are you talking about? Is this one of those ‘The cock crows at midnight’ things?”
Off the causeway to the right, two old men hunkered in a flat-bottom boat. One of them cast a spinner out next to a likely looking swirl of water. As the lure hit, I came even with them and they passed out of sight behind me.
I said, “Make the call to your friend at the ABI in Montgomery. The one we talked about. Zybo’s pushing for a meeting.”
“Oh, yeah. That call.”
“We up to speed now?”
Joey said, “Up to speed,” and hung up.
Twelve minutes later, as I exited the interstate, my phone beeped. I flipped it open and said hello.
Joey’s unmistakable voice, a comfortable mix of Southern and military accents, said, “The cock crows at four this afternoon.”
“Cute.” I glanced at my watch. “You sure?”
“Yeah. He’ll do it. Whether it’ll be enough to get the Mobile cops interested is up in the air, though.”
“So he’s calling thirty minutes from now.”
“You got it. Anything else?”
I said no, and he ended the connection.
Thirty
That night and most of the next day passed without incident or interruption. In the early evening, I drove to the diner and parked on a graded lot paved with oyster shells and mixed gravel.
The front door hung from spring hinges and slammed shut too fast behind me, nipping the heel of my shoe. A couple of sixty-watt bulbs spread dingy light across the diner. Heated air blew gently from some unseen vent, carrying the heavy scents of burned tallow and Pine-Sol. The same waitress with the same dyed hair and dry cleavage looked up and then down again at what looked like the classified section draped over the counter.
Four small tables fronted the place. Each one rested beside a screened window with plastic sheeting duct-taped over the glass to keep out winter. Zybo sat at the back corner table. He met my eyes across the top of a clothbound book.
As I walked toward the table, he glanced at the page he’d been reading, memorizing the page number, and placed the closed volume on the yellow plastic tablecloth. In gold block printing, the cover read,
THE CITADEL
BY
ARCHIBALD JOSEPH CRONIN
I remembered writing a book report on it in high school. Pointing, I said, “Good book.”
Zybo motioned for me to sit. “Yeah. Nice diner, too.”
I sat across from him with my back to the door. “Better than the barbecue pit in the alley.”
He leaned back, rolled his shoulders, and looked at a spot over my right ear. It’s an old trick that supposed to disconcert your listener. “Dis supposed to be an intimidatin’ place for me?”
“Nope. Just knew you’d know where it was. And I didn’t want to meet where we’d be seen.”
He nodded at the tip of my ear.
I leaned to the right to intercept his line of sight. “You afraid to look at me?
”
Zybo met my eyes. Then he leaned forward until his nose was a foot from mine. His pupils dilated. “How’s dat?”
“Fine, if you’re planning to kiss me.”
He grinned and eased back a bit in his chair.
I asked, “Why’d you call?”
“You met Judge Savin again. Dis time at de woman doctor’s house.”
“That’s true.”
“Yesterday afternoon, you drove to de judge’s pet law firm for a meeting.”
“Also true. So far, so good, Zybo. What’s your question?”
“I wanna know what’s goin’ on.”
“If wishes were horses.”
“I could make you tell me.”
“That’s pretty much the same thing Billy Savin said at the Mandrake Club.” I tried to keep the nauseating fear that roiled inside from registering on my face. “Billy ended up on the floor.”
My Cajun tormentor broke eye contact. He leaned back in his chair and paused a few seconds before saying, “Not to be too confrontational, Tommy Boy. But actually I could.” His accent was slipping. He paused again. “But what good would it do?”
I thought about that. “Some.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Some. But some ain’t good enough. I tink I’m bein’ set up.”
“I know the feeling.”
Zion Thibbodeaux, ex-con and psychological warrior, smiled. “Yeah, Tommy Boy. I guess you do.” He held his hands in the air. “Question is, what is it we gonna do ’bout dat?”
“You’ve been cut off, haven’t you? Nobody’s returning your phone calls. Nobody’s asking about trials that need fixing. No people who need poisoning.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t speak.
“Everybody’s hunkering down, Zybo. And you’re the only one left standing out there like a Day-Glo® golf ball—all teed up and ready for somebody to take a whack at.”
His eyes wandered the diner wall over my shoulder.
“Speaking of which, I need to know something.” I asked, “Did you pay a visit to my house the night I had dinner with Judge Savin and Dr. Adderson?”