by Peg Herring
It was hard to imagine the seventy-plus Ms. Kane kicking down doors and chasing bad guys through the streets of Cleveland. Still, Robin reminded herself, old is what everybody gets to be if they don’t die first.
Pouring a cup for their guest and setting the sugar, milk and a spoon on the end table, she wondered if politeness demanded she have coffee too. Having never developed a taste for it, Robin instead got sodas for herself and Cam. Popping hers open with a hiss she asked, “What did you mean about us needing your help?”
“The private detective is good at his job, and he’s as determined as a blue jay at a bird feeder. He’s all over the building asking questions, and he’s come to my door twice.” She raised one gray brow. “I didn’t tell him anything, but I doubt he’ll give up easily.”
“Ms. Kane—Em—Cam plans to relocate soon. If you could keep his presence here a secret for a few days longer, he’ll be gone and the detective will go away. “We hate to ask you to lie, but—”
Em Kane’s smile was slightly feral. “Oh, I don’t mind lying, Honey, as long as it’s in a good cause.”
***
Robin went through the rest of that day and the night that followed with a war going on inside her head. The idea of subjecting the senator Chris had described to the same treatment they’d given Barney Abrams was crazy. But the lawyer she’d consulted hadn’t seemed outraged by her actions, and Em Kane had calmly offered to help Cam avoid the private detective who’d been poking around. Though neither of them knew all of it, the support of objective outsiders made Robin believe that her actions had been laudable, though certainly not legal. The next question was could they possibly get away with taking action against a second target? It meant they’d both have to go on the run, but they might accomplish something good in the process.
Senator Buckram was a con man who cheated others the way her father once had. Though Robin had felt sorry for her father’s victims, she’d been unable to help them. She guessed Chris’ current crusade to expose corruption stemmed from the same feelings of guilt and shame she had about their past. Now Chris had discovered a crook he really wanted to take down, but he was at an impasse. Robin wasn’t sure she was capable of following through for her brother, but she wanted to try. And that meant she needed to ask someone for objective advice.
Someone who will talk you out of this.
Robin took a seat on the same battered wooden chair in Mink’s cluttered office. In the outer room a couple argued in tones that suggested the disagreement was old and well-rehearsed. When Mink had peered out to see her in the waiting room, his weathered face creased in a smile, and Robin saw—hoped she saw—sympathy in his gaze. Maybe the lawyer felt sorry for everyone whose lives hadn’t turned out the way they imagined.
“Would you be interested in hearing a story, Mr. Mink?” she said when he was seated behind the desk.
His brow furrowed. “A story?”
“It’s a suspense novel I plan to write.” She swallowed. “It’s about clowns who want to fight corruption and dishonesty in America.”
Mink’s face lengthened as his brows rose. “You’ve come here to tell me a story?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze directly. “I need legal expertise in order to make the plot believable.”
He tilted his head to one side. “All right. Let’s hear this fictional tale.”
“My main characters are two clowns,” Robin began, “Bozo and, um, Clarabell. They have an acquaintance who’s in a position to hear of corruption in business and government. We’ll call him Ronald.”
“Of course.”
Her smile was brief. “Ronald doesn’t know he’s providing a basis for the actions of the other clowns.”
He nodded. “Is Bozo aware of Ronald?”
“Not specifically.” She made a waggling gesture with one hand. “Bozo pretty much trusts Clarabell to make decisions for both of them.”
Mink regarded her for a moment with his head tilted to one side. “Miss Polk—”
She almost turned to see who’d come into the office but realized after a moment that Polk was the name he knew her by.
“—are you certain this is a book you want to write?”
Silence stretched between them for perhaps thirty seconds. Mink waited with a patient expression. When she finally spoke, Robin told him something she’d never told anyone before.
“My father was—probably still is—a con man, a grifter, whatever you want to call it. He’s always on the con, and he doesn’t do it because he needs money or sex or your grandmother’s brooch. He does it because it makes him happy to take something away from someone else.” She stopped, but Mink remained silent. His expression revealed interest and nothing more, neither the disgust or the pity she’d feared.
“When I was a kid, he used to make me help him.” She paused to choose a typical example. “We’d go to a rest area, and he’d tell me to stand by the entry door and cry.” Her hands clenched in her lap. “If I couldn’t cry, he’d give me something to cry about.” Now Mink’s eyebrows approached each other, but he said nothing. “Sooner or later someone would stop and ask what was wrong. That’s when Mark would hurry over, put his arm around me, and explain that I was sad because my mom had been in a horrible house fire. He’d smile this really sad smile and tell them we were on our way to see her at the burn center when our car broke down. Then he’d look embarrassed and say he didn’t have any money, since payday wasn’t for two more days.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “At that point he’d manage a tear or two of his own, and seven times out of ten, the person who’d stopped forked over a twenty—sometimes a fifty.”
Mink leaned his face on his fist. “You felt like you helped him cheat those people.”
Robin gave a sniff that was half anger, half determination to keep from crying. “Mark had a dozen different scams, and we—I—was part of half of them.”
“So your, um, book is about righting your father’s wrongs?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think the things he did can ever really be made right, but I’d like to do what I can—in my story, I mean—to stop people like him.”
“What’s the next chapter going to be about?”
Robin described her “antagonist,” a politician who used his position to line his pockets. While she recounted the scenario that would bring the man face-to-face with his deeds, Mink listened, leaning back in his chair with a sneaker-clad foot on the handle of his desk drawer. “Just the two clowns plan to accomplish this?”
She smiled. “Well, there’s a lawyer whose advice would be useful.”
“And the lawyer’s job will be what?”
“Consultant.” She leaned forward in her chair. “In the first chapter, the clowns made mistakes. From now on they’d like to avoid them if possible.” Scooting the chair closer, she punched Mink’s stress toy with a finger and watched it return to shape. “You’ve seen criminals come and go. You know what works and what doesn’t.”
Mink’s expression seemed doubtful, and Robin said, “It’s all fictional, so you aren’t responsible if Bozo and Clarabell get caught.” When he still didn’t reply, she added, “Of course, I expect to pay for your advice.”
“Will the clowns demand money from the target?”
“Yes,” she replied. “For two reasons. First, they need money to get started in a new place. Second, when a person has to pay for something he’s done, the lesson is more likely to stick with him.”
Mink smoothed his ponytail with one hand. “Indulgences.”
“What?”
“In the Middle Ages, priests made sinners pay for forgiveness. Most today see that as corruption in the church, and they’re probably correct. But the priests might have known what you just said: losing something he cares about—money, for example—as a result of wrongdoing makes a person less likely to sin again.” He chuckled. “At least he’ll be more cautious about it.”
“These clowns aren’t priests,” she cautioned.
“True.” His tone turned warning. “They have no structure supporting them, and society is against vigilantes, though some see the value of, um, de facto justice if it’s applied with caution.”
Robin felt some of her tension dissipate. Her idea wasn’t crazy—well, it was, but not so crazy that Mink couldn’t see the value in it. “I like that. De facto justice.”
His manner turned businesslike. “Since money has never been my reason for doing what I do, I’ll advise your fictional clowns pro bono.” He reached out a hand, and they shook to seal the deal—his cool, dry palm meeting Robin’s warm, slightly damp one.
“We—the clowns—have agreed to give half the money to charity. Anonymously, of course.”
“What part of your novel do you want advice on?”
Now that they’d agreed to work together, Robin wasn’t sure how to begin. “What’s your first concern when you look at my plot?”
“Amateurs,” Mink replied without hesitation. “Your clowns were lucky the first time out, but they simply don’t know much about being criminals. How will they stay out of police data bases? How will they avoid facial recognition, which grows daily in scope and sophistication? If one of them is caught, will that lead to the capture of the other?” He spread his hands. “It doesn’t take much effort to become a criminal, but it takes a great deal of effort to be a criminal who remains uncaught.”
“All right,” Robin said thoughtfully. “I’ll work on those things. You said something before about telling the target that we—the clowns—will be watching them.”
“Yes. The clowns might claim they’ll monitor electronically or say they’ve bribed someone on the target’s staff to tattle if he returns to his old ways. That will depend on the situation. The prospect of electronic bugs is unnerving, and not knowing who can be trusted among his own people would make anyone think twice.” He considered for a moment. “You might want to establish some sort of communication that requires them to check in with you periodically. It’s easy to backslide when one doesn’t think anyone is paying attention.”
“Okay, so we need an email address or something where they have to report in. What else?”
Mink tapped his chin with his fingers. “They need an escape plan that covers all possibilities. Most criminals are caught because they simply can’t imagine things won’t go as they expect.”
“All right.” She rose. “I might not see you again, Mr. Mink—”
“Tell you what,” he interrupted. “If you need to speak with me, send me an email or a text with—” He scribbled some letters on the blotter until he found a combination he liked. “Put KNP in the heading. That way I’ll know it’s you, no matter what address or phone number it comes from. I’ll respond as soon as I can.”
“Great. Thank you very much.”
As they shook hands, he met her gaze. “Be careful,, Miss Polk. I’d hate to see your book end in tragedy.”
Robin promised she would, but she left Mink’s office with more questions than answers. How was she supposed to devise some genius escape plan? How could she set up a system that could track Buckram’s behavior after they released him? And how goofy was she, agreeing to secret codes and cloak-and-dagger conferences?
By the time she got home, Robin was half-angry with Mink. He could at least have tried to talk me out of it.
Chapter Four
On Monday Robin was still a nervous wreck. She’d spent most of Saturday and Sunday at the large window in her small living room. She watched the sun rise over the buildings opposite, turn the parking lot below them to brilliant white, and retreat until street lights made circles in the darkness of night. No one came to arrest them.
That didn’t make her feel safe. Carter was guilty of kidnapping. She’d aided and abetted him, adding to the seriousness of the original crime. They were in possession of fifty thousand dollars that wasn’t theirs, no matter how moral their actions had been.
Still, it felt kind of good too. Robin Marie Parsons had struck a blow against corruption. She’d made a greedy, conniving businessman pay—not enough, apparently, but something.
What should she do next? The money was still in the black bag, stuffed at the back of her bedroom closet between her winter boots and her vanilla-scented sachet from Mexico. They hadn’t even counted it, though Carter had checked the stacks to make sure they were real. “Hundreds,” he reported. “We should have asked for fifties and twenties.”
She almost laughed out loud. That was the least of what we should have done.
Every possibility she considered created new fears. Robin herself was fairly safe, since no one knew she was involved, but she felt responsible for Carter. He’d started the mess, but she’d dragged him farther in.
She might open negotiations with the police on his behalf. He hadn’t meant any harm to Abrams, and they’d probably take his mental difficulties into consideration.
And lock him up as a violent mental defective, if Abrams has any say in the matter.
Could she take the blame onto herself and go on the run? Her career was in ruins anyway. She could start over somewhere new, and Carter could have his life back.
But Abrams knows Carter was there. He’ll insist Carter is punished, no matter what I say.
Robin wished she had someone to talk to about it. It would have to be someone who knew what they were faced with. Someone who knew the law.
That was it! She needed to find a lawyer and pay him a retainer. Once hired, he’d have to provide advice but couldn’t turn her in to the cops.
While Carter played Mines under Therla (which she’d gotten by sneaking into his apartment at three a.m.), Robin went through a mental list of the lawyers she’d met since moving to Cedar. The Greens were out, since they were jerks, mostly concerned with corporate law, and mad at her.
A man had come to the office once, a criminal lawyer who worked mostly for poor people. She’d pegged him as an old hippie, the kind who never trusted anyone over thirty until one day he woke up and realized he was twice that. He hadn’t looked particularly impressive, but from the grumbling the G’s did after he left, he’d managed to best them somehow.
What was his name?
Taking up her phone, she typed in Lawyers, Cedar GA. She got a long list, and after scrolling for some time, stopped at a name: R. Butler Mink. How could she have forgotten a name like that?
***
Butler Mink had an office downtown, up a flight of stairs and over a bakery. The odor of freshly-baked bread from below must have made it hard not to gain weight. Robin climbed the narrow steps to find a half-dozen people seated on battered folding chairs in the reception area. Beyond them the lawyer stood beside a metal desk in a closet-sized room with the door open. He had risen to escort a tough-looking young man out, and when he saw Robin in the entry, he waved her in, closing the door on the scowls she got for moving to the front of the line.
“I don’t get many appointments,” Mink said, waving at a slightly crooked wooden chair opposite his desk. “Mostly people just show up.”
The office smelled of perspiration and desperation, as if those who’d occupied the chair before her left the scent of their fear behind. Mink was friendly and reassuring, and she imagined him calming nervous parents and worried wives with his knowledge of the system and concern for their welfare. Though he was much as she remembered him, Mink seemed more at home here than he had at the Greens’ office. He wore corduroy jeans with a Falcons jersey, but on a hook near the door was a tweed jacket, a rather beat-up white shirt, and a plain black necktie. His hair was buzzed to an easy-to-keep half-inch on top, but a thin braid about a foot long ran down his back. His graying beard was trimmed short, and half-glasses sat almost at the end of his nose. Taking them off, he tossed them on the desk. “Have we met before?”
“A year or so back. I used to work for the Greens.”
One eyebrow rose. “Used to?”
“I got pushed out so they could move someone else in.” The confession and the bitt
erness in her voice surprised her. She hadn’t even told her brother yet about losing her job.
Mink touched a yellow legal pad near his right hand. “You want to sue them?”
“No. It’s something else.” Now that she’d come, Robin didn’t know how to begin. Mink waited, a look of polite interest on his uneven features. She guessed plenty of people had trouble getting started, probably because they knew they were guilty.
Just like I am.
“I want to hire you.” Opening her purse, she took out ten one-hundred dollar bills she’d taken from Barney Abrams’ bag. “Here’s a retainer.”
He glanced at the money and returned his gaze to her face, studying her for a moment. With an abrupt motion he slid open the center desk drawer, causing a metallic grate, rummaged in it until he found what he wanted, and slapped a receipt book on the table. He picked up the glasses and put them back on, squinting despite their helpful power. Scribbling an entry, he tore the white copy out of the book and handed it to her. “There. I’m officially your lawyer. Now you can say anything, and unless you’re planning a future crime, I can’t tell a soul.”
“I have no plans for crime in the future, but I need to tell you about the crime I did commit.”
She told the story she’d concocted, a blend of truth and fiction. A friend had been cheated. She’d found out who cheated him and got revenge by waylaying the cheater and making him pay a fine in return for his freedom. Unsure if lawyer-client privilege extended to Carter, she made herself the lone criminal.
It did no good. “Who’s this friend?” he demanded.
“I can’t—”
Mink regarded her over the glasses. “I need to know everything if I’m going to help you.”
She set her lips. “I don’t want to implicate anyone else.”
The huff he made might have been humor, might have been disgust. “Okay. Tell me the real story this time, but use...um, Bozo in place of the other person’s name.”
“The clown?”
“I’ll picture him with a white face and a crazy hairdo.” He leaned back, folding his arms on his chest.