by Mark Gimenez
Scott knew what Louis meant. He noticed the peephole in the door turn dark. And he heard a tiny voice: “That the lawyer?”
“Yeah,” Louis said.
The peephole went light again and Scott heard the sound of a heavy object being pushed away from the door, then the releasing of five deadbolts. The door opened a crack and a small brown face with big brown eyes gazed up at Scott.
“You gonna save my mama?” she asked.
“Pajamae. That’s a, uh, different sort of name.”
Her face glued to the Ferrari’s air-conditioning vent, the little black girl said, “Mama says it’s French, but it’s really just black. We don’t do names like Susie and Patty and Mandy down here. We do names like Shantay and Beyonce and Pajamae.”
“My daughter’s name is Boo.”
She smiled. “That’s different.”
Scott smiled back. “She’s different. You’d like her.”
Scott had relaxed considerably once they had left the projects and turned onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, the main thoroughfare through South Dallas. His heartbeat was near normal and his body wasn’t sweating like a sprinkler hose. He wasn’t even slouched in his seat. He was sitting upright, looking around at this strange environment like a Japanese tourist at a rodeo. On one side of the street was the tall black wrought-iron fence that guarded the Fair Park grounds; inside were the Cotton Bowl stadium where the Cowboys had played until they struck out for the suburbs, and the historic Art Deco buildings dating back to the Texas Centennial Exposition of 1936 that now sat abandoned and decaying like an old movie set. On the other side of the street were overgrown vacant lots that apparently served as the neighborhood’s unofficial dumps, and boarded-up structures with broken-out windows and black men loitering outside.
“Crack houses,” Pajamae said.
Run-down strip centers offered pawn shops and liquor stores. Ramshackle frame houses slanted at twenty-degree angles, their paint peeling like skin from a badly sunburned body. Sofas sat on droopy porches, old cars were jacked up on cement blocks in the yards, garbage was backed up at the streets, and black burglar bars guarded every door and window of every house and storefront as if each structure were its owner’s personal prison. The entire landscape was dull and colorless, except for the graffiti adorning every wall and fence and the thick-bodied black women strolling by in colorful skirts and shorts and heels.
“Working girls,” Pajamae said. “Mama says they work down here because they’re too fat to get white tricks on Harry Hines.”
Scott was imagining living in this neighborhood, walking these streets with Boo, or worse, Boo walking alone, when his peripheral vision caught a commotion at the side of the road, and he slowed…a little.
“What’s going on?”
On the sidewalk outside a dilapidated apartment complex was a massive pile of belongings, everything from a microwave to clothes, a basketball to dolls, as if someone had backed up a truck and dumped the stuff there. Sitting on the curb were two black kids, their elbows on their knees, their chins cradled in their palms, looking like their world had just come to an end. An obese black woman in red stretch shorts and a white T-shirt was yelling and gesturing wildly at a skinny black man wearing a short-sleeve shirt and a tie. Pajamae strained her neck to see, then slumped back down.
“Eviction day,” she said matter-of-factly.
“They got evicted from their apartment?”
“Yeah. Happens first of every month.”
As a young lawyer, Scott had appeared in J.P. court numerous times on behalf of landlords to evict deadbeat tenants. But he had never witnessed firsthand the law in action-a family’s personal property removed from their apartment and dumped on the sidewalk out front, exactly as the eviction statute mandated. He glanced back at the scene and then accelerated away. When the Ferrari’s expensive racing tires hit the interstate heading north to downtown Dallas, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“My daddy, he was white,” Pajamae said.
He glanced over at the girl in the passenger’s seat. She was a cute kid with facial features that were more white than black. Her hair was done in neat rows braided lengthwise and snug to her scalp with long braids hanging to her narrow shoulders; she was wearing a pink T-shirt, jean shorts, pink socks folded down, and white Nike sneakers. Other than her light brown skin, she was no different from all the little girls Scott had seen in Highland Park-except for the cornrows.
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. He hurt my mama.”
“How did he die?”
“Po-lice shot him. He was dealing.”
She ran her finger lightly over the dash, as if checking for dust, and then she turned to Scott.
“Mr. Fenney, did my mama kill that white man?”
“No, baby, I ain’t killed no one,” Shawanda said through the glass partition, her right palm plastered to her side of the window and matched by Pajamae’s left palm on the other side. Both mother and daughter were crying and aching to hold each other. When Shawanda had said she had a child, Scott had naturally assumed she was a lousy mother-she was a prostitute, for God’s sake. But seeing them together now, it occurred to him that this woman loved her daughter as much as he loved his. He turned to the black guard.
“Can’t they be together?”
The guard’s eyes dropped; he scratched his chin. When his eyes came back up, he said, “You here to discuss her defense?”
Scott caught on quickly. “Yes.”
The guard gestured at Pajamae. “She a material witness?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
The guard led them to the small room where Scott and Shawanda always met. He patted Scott down, but he only patted the top of Pajamae’s head. When he brought Shawanda in, she dropped to her knees and embraced Pajamae for the longest time. The guard said he’d wait outside. Shawanda finally released Pajamae, then cupped her daughter’s face and just stared at her, as if examining every inch of her smooth face. Then she held Pajamae at arm’s length and looked her up and down.
“You dress yourself real nice,” Shawanda said. “Louis bringing you groceries, watching out for you?”
Pajamae nodded. “Yes, Mama.”
“You staying inside?”
Another nod. “Yes, Mama.”
Shawanda appeared in much better health than the last time Scott had seen her, more alert, making Scott less worried she might puke on his suit.
“You sleeping now?” Scott asked.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Fenney. I’m over the worst part, except the headaches.”
“I brought your medicine, Mama,” Pajamae said.
“Good girl.”
“I always take Tylenol for headaches,” Scott said.
“I need something stronger.”
“Ibuprofen?”
“Yeah, Ibu…that.”
“When are you getting out, Mama?”
“I ain’t, not till after the trial. If Mr. Fenney here prove me innocent.”
Scott said, “No, Shawanda, I don’t have to prove you’re innocent. The government’s got to prove you’re guilty.”
Shawanda looked at him like an adult at a naive child.
“Mr. Fenney, you got a lot to learn.”
“When’s the trial?” Pajamae asked.
“End of August,” Scott said.
Pajamae made a face. “But that’s two months from now! What am I supposed to do for that long? Mama, I’m scared to be alone in the projects!”
And the fear Scott Fenney had experienced less than an hour earlier returned with a vengeance. Sweat broke out on his forehead again. His heart beat faster again. His mind played out his odds of survival again, a fat little rabbit chased by a pack of wolves. He did not want to go back into South Dallas, not today, not ever. He did not want to take this little black girl back to her apartment in the projects and get out of the Ferrari and walk her to the door through a g
auntlet of strong young black males looking upon him as prey. What if Louis weren’t there to chaperone? But he couldn’t very well put a little girl on a public bus or in a taxi alone. What the hell could he do with her? While mother and daughter embraced and shared tears, Scott’s agile mind worked through all the available options until it arrived at an answer: Consuela de la Rosa.
He figured, Consuela’s raising one little girl this summer, why not two? It was a perfect solution: Boo would have a playmate, this little girl wouldn’t be scared and alone in the projects, and he wouldn’t have to drive back into South Dallas. So in the emotion of the moment, Scott Fenney said words his wife would soon regret: “Pajamae, why don’t you stay at my house until after the trial?”
“What the hell am I supposed to do with her?”
Rebecca’s face was as red as her hair, her fists were embedded in her narrow hips, and she was glaring at him like he was a Neiman Marcus salesclerk who had brought her the wrong size dress to try on.
Scott had driven home directly from the courthouse. But as luck would have it, he had picked the one day his wife was not out social climbing to bring this little black girl home to Highland Park. Boo had said, “I love your hair,” and then had taken Pajamae upstairs. Consuela had retreated to the kitchen, and Scott found himself facing Rebecca’s wrath alone. Of course, Scott wasn’t about to tell his wife the whole truth, that he had brought this little black girl home mostly because he was scared to death to take her back to her own home. So he responded like a lawyer. He told her only part of the truth, the part that supported his position.
“She’s living alone down in the projects, she’s nine years old, she doesn’t have anyone else-she doesn’t even have air-conditioning! Hell, Rebecca, you go to Junior League and sit around with other Highland Park ladies dreaming up ways to help the less fortunate. This should win you the goddamn grand prize!”
“We help those people, Scott, but we don’t invite them home. You said yourself her mother’s going to be convicted. What are you going to do with her then, adopt her? Raise her as your daughter? Send her to Highland Park schools? Scott, there’s not another black kid at Boo’s school!”
Sometimes, as now, the intensity of his wife’s anger unnerved Scott, much as when his college coach would grab his face mask and pull him close and chew him out over a blown play. Back then Scott Fenney would stand mute before his coach, and now he stood mute before this beautiful angry woman. Only difference was, little bits of chewing tobacco were not spewing out of her mouth with each angry word and sticking to Scott’s face. Still, he would gladly swap this angry woman for wet tobacco in a heartbeat.
“And there’s sure as hell not another girl named Pajamae!”
ELEVEN
Scotty, with this evidence, we just might save her life.”
Scott had escaped his wife’s wrath and found sanctuary in the friendly confines of Dibrell Tower; he and Bobby were having a late lunch upstairs at the Downtown Club. He had filled Bobby in on his visit to the projects and the Fenney family’s new houseguest and Rebecca’s reaction. Now Bobby was bringing Scott up to date on Shawanda’s legal case.
“My man Carl, the PI, he finds this Kiki, she backs up Shawanda’s story. No surprise there. But then he talks to some Highland Park cops he’s buddies with.” Bobby leaned across the table, close enough for Scott to smell his last cigarette on his breath; his voice dropped to a whisper. “Get this: turns out Clark McCall was accused of rape and assault a year ago. SMU sorority girl. She filed a complaint, but it disappeared when daddy-as in Senator Mack McCall-paid her off. Carl talked to the desk sergeant on duty that night, cop that took the complaint. He said the girl was slapped around pretty good.”
“How are we going to find her without the complaint?”
“Desk sergeant, he ain’t stupid. Figures the senator knows he knows, so he also figures it might come in handy one day: he kept a copy of the complaint.”
“Did he give it to Carl?”
“No way. He said it’s locked away in a safe-deposit box. Said if he gave it to Carl, they’d know it came from him, he’d get fired, and he’s only two years away from a pension. Said he’ll deny having it if we call him to testify. But he gave Carl the woman’s name, Hannah Steele. She lives in Galveston now.”
“Will she testify?”
“Carl’s flying down there today to find out.”
Scott turned his palms up. “So…?”
“So our defense is twofold. First, she didn’t pull the trigger, which is gonna be tough with her fingerprints on her gun and one of her bullets in his brain. And if she didn’t, who did? Clark? He suddenly realizes his evil ways and decides to make the world a better place and off himself? I don’t think so. Our backup is self-defense. He called her racial slurs, he attacked her, so she shot him in self-defense. But she’s black, a hooker, and a drug addict-who’s gonna believe her, right? That’s where Hannah Steele comes in, corroborating testimony. Nice white girl testifies Clark beat and raped her a year ago, jury figures maybe Shawanda’s telling the truth. And the jury’s got to include some blacks. We show them that Clark McCall was a racist and a rapist, we might just save her life.”
“An acquittal?”
Bobby gave him a look. “No, not an acquittal, Scotty. Life in prison, maybe parole in thirty with good time. You don’t get acquitted when your gun is the murder weapon and your fingerprints are on the gun and the gun was fired point-blank into the victim’s brain while he was lying on the floor. With that kind of evidence, life in prison is a win for her.”
“Goddamnit, Dan, you tell him to drop it and drop it now!”
The senator’s voice was so loud in Dan Ford’s ear that he pulled the phone away a few inches. Dan had just gotten a status report from Scott on the Shawanda Jones case and, per his agreement with the senator, he had immediately placed a call to Washington. Mack McCall, the senior senator from Texas, didn’t like what he heard.
“Bad enough, Dan, a hooker taking the stand and saying Clark beat her and called her nigger. But your boy starts parading white girls up there saying Clark beat and raped them, too, I’m fucking finished! I thought that girl was taken care of! And what if they dredge up that crap from college, Clark and his fraternity?”
Clark McCall had organized a “Minority Night” fraternity party where everyone dressed up as their favorite minority; Clark had gone in blackface as a pimp. Mack had bought off the newspaper to keep the story quiet. Dan Ford had been the bagman.
“The public will think he learned that at home! From me! Press gets hold of that, I’ll be branded another Strom fucking Thurmond! I’ll never see the inside of the White House!” A pause. “And, Dan, you will never be the president’s lawyer.”
“George W. Bush?”
“Yes,” Scott said.
Sid Greenberg seemed stunned. “The president used eminent domain to take people’s land for a baseball stadium?”
“He wasn’t the president back then, Sid. He wasn’t even the governor yet. While you were at Harvard being taught by left-wing professors, George Bush was running the Texas Rangers. They were playing in a crappy old stadium, so he got the city to condemn land to build a new stadium.”
“How is that a public use?”
“It’s not.”
“Then how could the city condemn the land?”
“Because the law allows it…or at least the courts haven’t stopped it. They did it for the Rangers stadium, they did it for the NASCAR motor speedway, they’re doing it for the new Cowboys stadium…Hell, Sid, they’re doing it all across the country and not just for roads and parks, but for stadiums and shopping malls and big box stores…”
“And now we’re going to do it for Dibrell’s hotel.”
Scott shrugged. “That’s the deal Tom made with the city.”
“We’re going to take poor people’s homes so rich people can stay in a five-star luxury hotel?” Sid looked indignant. “Why don’t they ever take rich people’s homes?”
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“Because rich people can afford to hire lawyers and fight it in court. Poor people can’t.”
“So the city’s gonna buy them out cheap-with Dibrell’s money, bulldoze their homes, and give the land to Dibrell so he can build his hotel? What’s in it for the city?”
“Millions more in property taxes. The hotel will be worth a hundred million, minimum. Those little homes are worth a million, max.”
“Dibrell gets his hotel, the city gets more taxes, and poor people get screwed. And it’s all perfectly legal.”
“Sid, we do what the law allows…and sometimes what it doesn’t.”
“You know, Scott, screwing the government and plaintiffs’ lawyers, that’s fun, it’s just a game. But poor people? My parents were poor. I grew up in a house like those.”
“Look, Sid, I don’t like it either, but that’s our job. At least we’re only taking thirty homes. They took a hundred twenty homes for that mall out in Hurst, and they’re taking ninety homes for the Cowboys stadium.”
“Well, that makes me feel better.” Sid shook his head. “This is what I went to Harvard Law School for?”
Scott turned his palms up. “Sid, what do you want me to do? Tell Dibrell we won’t do it? If I say no to Dibrell, he’ll find another lawyer who’ll say yes. This deal is gonna get done, those homes are gonna get condemned, and that hotel is gonna get built. The only question is which lawyers are going to get paid half a million dollars for doing it. If Dibrell takes this deal to another firm, Sid, that means I’ve got to fire one of my associates. Are you willing to give up your job-and your two-hundred-thousand-dollar salary-so you don’t have to condemn those people? So you don’t get your hands dirty?”
Sid stared at his shoes. Finally, he shook his head slowly and said, “No.”
“Sid, when I was a young lawyer, Dan Ford told me, ‘Scotty, check your conscience at the door each morning or you won’t last long in the law.’”
Sid looked up. “The law sucks.”
“It’s just business, Sid.”
“They don’t tell you that in law school, do they, that the law is just a business, a game we play, with other people’s lives and money? No, they need someone to pay tuition, kids who don’t have a clue what being a lawyer’s all about, kids who think…”