by Mark Gimenez
But Scotty Junior was a girl named Boo. A collective sigh of disappointment went up in Highland Park, from everyone except Scott. He didn’t care. When he gazed on his new daughter in the hospital nursery, it was love at first sight. And Rebecca saw that her place in his heart had been stolen.
Sex was never the same.
Rebecca Fenney needed a man who needed her more than life itself; Scott Fenney was no longer that man. But she also needed a man who could give her the life she needed; that man was still Scott Fenney. He had given her this Highland Park mansion, the home she had dreamed about since she was a little girl, the home that told the world Rebecca Fenney belonged in Highland Park. A woman living in a $500,000 house can join the society clubs; a woman living in a $3.5 million mansion can chair the society balls. This home made Rebecca Fenney’s life. Her life was perfect and could get no better.
It could only get worse.
Which had become a constant worry for her over the last few weeks: Was her life about to take a turn for the worse? Was the ride slowing down…or coming to an end? She had thought and hoped and prayed that the Scott Fenney ride would last a lifetime. But you never know with men. Men can always find a way to fuck up a good thing.
Would Scott Fenney?
Other Highland Park men certainly had, leaving their wives-older women Rebecca knew-for younger women. But those discarded wives were in their fifties and sixties, the family fortunes made and their community halves secure. Rebecca was thirty-three, and the family fortune was still in the making, still owed to the bank that held the mortgage on their home and her life. If Scott left her now, she would have nothing, just as her mother had nothing when her father left them. The Scott Fenney ride had to last until the mortgage was paid off.
She had bet her beauty on Scott Fenney. What if she lost that bet?
When she first became Mrs. A. Scott Fenney and went to the homes of the older lawyers’ wives, she would admire their possessions, and she wanted what they had, all the things money could buy. Only recently had she realized that while she was coveting what they possessed, they were coveting what she possessed: youth and beauty-what they needed to compete for their lawyers. But their money could not buy youth and beauty, try though they did with liposuction, tummy tucks, breast implants, and face-lifts; the good doctor could help, but he could not make a fifty-year-old woman look twenty-five again. So they lost their lawyers to younger women.
And now Rebecca, thirty-three, old by Highland Park standards, understood their fear as she observed the blonde by the pool- what was she, twenty-two, twenty-three? — giving her husband a come-hither look, competing for her lawyer, more than willing to use her beauty to claim what Rebecca possessed. There was always a younger, prettier, skinnier woman ready to take your place in the mansion. Rebecca Fenney was still remarkably beautiful, still the most beautiful woman in Highland Park, still able to compete with a twenty-two-year-old for her lawyer. But the day would come for her, she knew; and with each passing day, Rebecca Fenney was a day older and a day less beautiful.
If she lost Scott to the girl by the pool-and every Fourth of July there would be a girl by the pool-before the family fortune was made and her community half secure, she would have only one option for a new husband: a man fifty, fifty-five, maybe sixty years old. The thought of a sixty-year-old man climbing on top of her made her shudder. With enough money, a man could always drop down two decades, even three, for a new wife. But a woman? She would have no chance at a man her own age. Men in their thirties or forties were looking at twenty-somethings like the blonde.
Yes, in every woman’s life, there’s always another woman. But it was different for Rebecca Fenney: the other woman in her life, the woman competing for her lawyer, the woman who was threatening to take everything she had in life-her home, her position, her possessions-was not a twenty-two-year-old blonde with big tits and a tight ass, but a black prostitute accused of murdering a senator’s son.
“I’m gonna be a hooker when I grow up.”
Consuela let out a shriek from the kitchen, Scott almost choked on a mouthful of barbecued brisket left over from the party, and Rebecca glared at him from across the dining table. He turned to Boo, who had just announced her career plan to her family at the dinner table.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah,” she said, chewing on a barbecued rib, “men pay Pajamae’s mother two hundred dollars an hour just to be with her, and if the trick wants her all night, then it’s a thousand.”
Scott looked at Pajamae, who was nodding matter-of-factly.
“Well, Scott,” Rebecca said, “your little social experiment is already making our daughter a more worldly person.”
“Rebecca, she doesn’t understand what she’s saying.” To Boo: “And what does Pajamae’s mom do with her tricks?”
Boo shoveled potato salad into her mouth and said, “Well, mostly they watch TV and eat popcorn, but sometimes the trick wants to fornicate.”
Rebecca dropped her silverware. “Oh, this is just great!”
Calmly: “And what about that?”
Boo said, “Well, that’s okay as long as he wears his rubbers, although if it’s not raining, why the heck would he need rubbers?”
She turned to Pajamae for an answer, but Pajamae only shrugged, shook her head, and bit into a rib.
“Unh-huh. So that’s what your mother told you, Pajamae?”
Pajamae was busy with her food, but she said, “Yeah, that’s what she said. And she said if a president can make ten million dollars for writing a book about getting blow jobs in the White House, she ought to be able to make a hundred dollars for giving one on Harry Hines.” She now looked up from her plate. “Mama talks a lot when she’s sick and takes her medicine…until she falls asleep.”
Boo turned to Pajamae: “What’s a blow job?”
Shawanda sucked the bone dry, then licked her lips. She turned her big brown eyes up to Bobby, smiled, and said, “This here some good cooking.”
Bobby handed her another barbecued rib from Scotty’s party. He had walked out with a dozen ribs, two pints of coleslaw, one pint of baked beans, and two cold beers. He knew he couldn’t get the beers into the federal detention center, so he drank them on the way over. Of course, before Shawanda would eat, he had to tell her all about the pool party and Pajamae, how pretty she looked.
She said, “Mr. Herrin, over last month you bring me food what, five, six time?”
“Seven, but who’s counting. And don’t tell Scotty, okay?”
“Why you come? You sweet on Shawanda?”
Bobby shrugged. “You’re my client…sort of.”
She looked at him like a psychic trying to read his future in his face, then nodded knowingly and said, “You ain’t got no one to eat with, do you?”
Bobby stared down at his paper plate. “No.”
“Well, you awful nice, bring good food for me…’cept that pizza with them little fishes-”
“Anchovies.”
“Yeah, them.” She swallowed some coleslaw, then said, “Mr. Herrin, I’m real sorry.”
“For what?”
“For thinking you ain’t nothin’ but a dud…lawyer.”
Bobby laughed. “That’s okay. I feel that way about myself most of the time.”
“You just poor ’cause you care. You all soft inside for people like me, workin’ for nothin’, that’s why you ain’t a rich lawyer. Can’t make no money givin’ everyone freebies-where I be, I do that? Nope, Mr. Herrin, that just bad business. Mr. Fenney, he rich ’cause he know to only work for rich people.”
“He used to care.”
“So you ain’t mad, me telling the judge I want Mr. Fenney be my lawyer?”
“No. You need him, Shawanda. He’s a lot better lawyer than me.”
“Maybe you make him care again…maybe about me.”
They looked at each other, and Bobby saw the hope in her eyes.
“Maybe.”
The clubhouse at the Highland Park C
ountry Club wasn’t the most expensive building in Dallas or even in Highland Park for that matter, but it was the hardest to get into. To say it was an exclusive club is like saying Michael Jordan was a pretty good basketball player. You don’t buy your way into this club; you’re born into it, you marry into it, or you kiss so many important asses in town to get in that the American Medical Association could board certify you as a proctologist. Scott Fenney had taken the latter route to membership, a privilege available only because he was a local football legend and Tom Dibrell’s lawyer.
Scott stopped the Range Rover under the porte cochere. Before he had cut the engine, the valet had their doors open. Scott gave the boy a twenty, and then walked his family into the club. Boo and Pajamae skipped ahead, giggling like the little girls they were. Scott smiled at the sight. Rebecca did not.
Even when not in the best of moods, as now, Rebecca Fenney was still the most beautiful woman in Highland Park. And Scott felt proud to squire his spouse into the clubhouse at the country club, the tall handsome ex-SMU-football-star-turned-successful-lawyer escorting the gorgeous ex-SMU cheerleader wearing a pale green sundress that showed off her fabulous figure, and to see each man discretely glance at her, wishing that she and not their wrinkled dinosaur wife was going home with them tonight. Rebecca was a big part of Scott Fenney’s perfect life, albeit a severely pissed-off part tonight.
“This is a big fucking mistake,” she said through her teeth.
“Oh, you worry too much. We’re here for the fireworks. No one’s going to pay attention to a little black girl.”
“Yeah, right. The women here notice if your breasts are half an inch bigger or your butt’s half an inch smaller. How am I going to explain her to them? She’s sure as hell not a member’s kid!”
The country club opened its doors to the members’ children twice a year, for the annual Christmas Party featuring Santa Claus and for the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Otherwise, children were banned from the premises. Not that kids would find the place inviting. The average age of the members was seventy-four; Scott and Rebecca were two of the young members, “young” meaning under sixty. The decor was contemporary-for 1952; the members saw no reason to update the club, the only concession to the last fifty years being a big-screen TV in the men’s grill. There was simply no sense in trying to convince a seventy-four-year-old member that change could be good; to a man that age, change could only be bad. No change could make him young again.
So, other than those two annual events, there were no kids at the country club. Or blacks, except for the caddies and the help. Or Hispanics, or anyone else who could qualify for affirmative action. Or Jews. Even though the Bible-beating Baptist members got their medical care at Zale Lipshy Hospital and their wives shopped at Neiman Marcus, they wouldn’t let a Jew join their club. Go figure. Not that there was a written policy to that effect-you don’t write stuff like that down. You just know how it is, like you know not to give a cop the finger: there’s no law against it, but it will get you a ticket for reckless driving just the same.
The Fenneys continued into the clubhouse and down the main corridor, detained briefly by several wrinkled dinosaurs who congratulated Rebecca on her certain selection as the next chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball-“She’s a Junior League project!” Rebecca blurted out when the women noticed Pajamae-and then out the back doors and to the elevated grassy area behind the eighteenth green where the club had set up lawn chairs so the members could enjoy the club’s fireworks show.
They found four empty chairs next to a group of geriatrics who boasted a combined net worth in excess of a billion dollars. They didn’t blink an eye at Pajamae’s presence; but then, they probably couldn’t see her in the darkness. The two girls sat in front, with Scott and Rebecca behind. Scott leaned into Rebecca.
“See, nobody cares.”
They sat quietly, enjoying the summer evening and the spectacular view of the lights of downtown Dallas. The girls were huddled together and whispering when the first fireworks suddenly exploded, a giant Roman candle- boom! — and Pajamae dove out of her chair and hit the deck like a soldier under incoming attack. Scott jumped to her.
“Pajamae! What’s wrong?”
“Get down, Mr. Fenney! Get down! It’s a drive-by!”
Some nearby kids started laughing, dredging up some bad childhood memories for Scotty Fenney, the poor kid on the block-“Scotty, where’d your mommy buy your clothes, at Sears?”-and jacking up his blood pressure to pregame level. Highland Park kids enjoyed taunting their poorer peers, the most recent occasion being last year’s playoff game at Texas Stadium against a team from a working-class suburb: the Highland Park kids had chanted, “Cold cash versus white trash!” and tossed dollar bills down on their opponents from their daddies’ skyboxes. Scott glared at the snotty brats, fighting an overwhelming urge to slap the bunch of them into the ninth fairway. But smacking the heirs of the richest men in Dallas wouldn’t be good for his law business, so instead he helped Pajamae up.
“Honey, it’s okay, we don’t have drive-by shootings in Highland Park. It’s just the fireworks.”
Pajamae sat up, looked around, and said, “Oh.” Scott helped her back into her chair and sat down behind her. The geriatrics were now staring intently at Pajamae.
Rebecca sighed and said, “Well, that should make the club’s newsletter.”
THIRTEEN
Carlos Hernandez, Bobby’s favorite waiter at the Downtown Club, got busted on the Fourth of July. He went to a party in East Dallas, figuring on firing off a few fireworks. It’s illegal to even possess fireworks in the City of Dallas, but since Carlos was also in possession of cocaine and marijuana, he wasn’t thinking about the city’s fireworks ordinance-or much else, for that matter-as he stood drunk and stoned out of his mind in the middle of Grand Avenue blowing off bottle rockets at passing vehicles. When a Dallas police cruiser happened by, Carlos put a bottle rocket right in the cop’s lap. Carlos was busted for possessing two dozen bottle rockets, five strands of firecrackers, fifty Roman candles, ten grams of cocaine, and two Baggies of weed. Due to his prior experience in the federal system, he was turned over to the Feds. They charged him with possession with intent to distribute-the dope, not the fireworks. With his five priors, Carlos was looking at ten to life in a federal prison.
Which is what brought Bobby downtown four days later. Carlos’s mother had hired him to represent her son for the total sum of $500, $100 down and $100 a month until paid in full. Bobby parked six blocks down from the federal building to avoid a parking fee and to smoke another cigarette. By the time he arrived at the U.S. Attorney’s office on the third floor, he reeked of sweat and cigarette smoke. After stating his name and purpose to the receptionist, Bobby took a seat in the waiting room. He had come to negotiate a plea bargain with the Assistant U.S. Attorney handling Carlos’s prosecution. He tried not to look surprised when Ray Burns walked through the door.
“Bobby!” A big smile from Burns, as if he were happier to see Bobby Herrin this morning than any other person on the planet. “Good to see you, man.”
“Ray.”
Ray sniffed the air, then gave Bobby a funny look.
“You run over a skunk?”
“You’re the AUSA on Carlos’s case?”
“Yeah. Some coincidence, huh?” A slap on his newest best friend’s shoulder. “Come on back, Bobby, let’s talk about your main man Carlos.”
Ray’s genial disposition got Bobby’s mind to churning. It occurred to him that it was a pretty goddamn big coincidence that Ray Burns was the Assistant U.S. Attorney on this case, too. He followed Ray down a corridor and into his office. It was standard government issue, but compared to Bobby’s office, it was lavish: a leather chair, a wood desk, two guest chairs, and Sheetrock walls thick enough so you didn’t hear Jin-Jin cussing Joo-Chan for messing up a batch of Korean donuts. On the walls were Ray’s diplomas, licenses, and photos of important politicians. Ray gestured Bobby to a chair, then he sa
t behind his desk, leaned back, and said, “What would you think about two years for Carlos?”
“ Two years? You’re reducing the charge to simple possession? No intent to distribute?”
A shrug between friends. “Sure, why not?”
“Why?”
The two lawyers stared at each other across the wide wood desk; a thin smile crossed Ray’s face. And Bobby knew his instincts were on the mark.
“What do you want, Ray?”
No pretense now. “I want the bitch’s guilty plea. You get Shawanda to plead to second-degree murder, we’ll agree to forty years.”
“ Forty years? She’ll be eligible for Medicare by the time she gets out.”
“Thirty. And that’s as low as we’re going.”
Bobby studied Ray Burns. “Why the change of heart, Ray? You were gung-ho for the death penalty.”
“I still am-a death sentence would round out my resume nicely. But we’re political appointees, at least the U.S. Attorney is, and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his career in this hellhole, a hundred and ten in the goddamn shade. He’s thinking maybe California. This case might be his ticket west.”
Bobby Herrin was not a lawyer whose clients were beneficiaries of political power. So it took a moment for the motive behind Ray’s generosity to dawn on him.
“You know about Clark’s past?” he said.
“Yep.”
“And Senator McCall wants to keep it quiet?”
“Yep again.”
“So he calls up the United States Attorney General and asks for a small favor. And the Attorney General calls up the U.S. Attorney in Dallas and asks for a small favor. Which the U.S. Attorney will grant, for a small favor in return. And, just like that, a person’s life is suddenly changed.”