Chapter 25
The smell of bacon fills Bill Harvey’s nostrils as soon as he steps into the old diner on Wilshire Boulevard. That smell always brings a smile to his face.
His favorite diner has remained oblivious to the passing of time, a time warp on the busy street. The eatery is almost full – most of the crowd are locals looking for a reason not to eat breakfast at home, whether that be because of a persistent nagging partner, a need for interaction, or a complete lack of culinary skills. Over the past decade, the rise of the hip café has dwindled the regular crowd for most diners, but not this one.
People come here from all over Downtown for the diner’s simple, delicious, and very reliable bacon and eggs. It’s a recipe that they’ve been cooking for decades, and the cook, a Hungarian immigrant now in his seventies, won’t stop until his body prevents him from doing so. Hardworking, focused and dedicated, Hans Horvath should be the poster boy for what America can provide for those that are willing to toil for success. He works hard, lives in a nice house, has a loving family, loves his customers, and is loved by the community.
“Ah, Bill!” Hans shouts as Bill walks in the door. “Good to see you, my friend! Sit, sit!”
Bill smiles as he walks to his booth, the same process he has done for more than ten years, but this time he isn’t alone. This time he’s joined by the only family he has left, waiting patiently for his arrival.
“Bill.” Jonathon Harvey, as tall as his brother, greets him with a handshake.
“Morning, Sunshine.” Ella Townsend, the youngest of the three siblings, offers her brother a kiss on the cheek before sliding across the vinyl seat in the booth. “It’s good to see you.”
Bill sits down, barely saying a word, slightly overwhelmed that his siblings are joining him for breakfast. The three of them haven’t shared a breakfast for decades. After they grew up in a small farming community outside of L.A., their lives took very different turns once they reached their teens.
Ella Townsend watched her family fall apart through the eyes of a young girl. It shaped her, impacting her more than she could ever realize. Struggling through years of depression, she walked away from contact with Bill after their parents died.
Their father’s suicide hit her hard. At a time when she was at her most vulnerable, she lost the person that she respected the most. She couldn’t understand why her father would abandon her, why such a hard man would choose the easy way out. For many years, she blamed herself for his death, crying over his gravestone time and time again. Maybe she wasn’t enough for him? Maybe she wasn’t enough to keep him around?
Instead of turning to her brother for help, she shut him out and tried to start another life elsewhere. Luckily, she found a stable husband, a stable job, and stable friends.
‘Stability is the enemy of anxiety,’ became her life motto.
But now that her mental state is stable, she’s finding that stability is also the best friend of boredom.
“We haven’t done this for a very long time.” Ella tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear. Dressed casually, her appearance still speaks of class and money. Her effortless beauty meant she had a hard time convincing people she was unwell; most people refused to believe that attractive people could not be in love with their lives.
“You must have been only this tall.” Jonathon laughs, holding his hand at table height. With his thinning hair slicked back and a tie-dye T-shirt, he looks like a man stuck in 90’s fashion. But that’s what happens when you have to survive off donated clothes.
“She isn’t much taller now,” Bill jokes, and his little sister playfully punches his arm.
“Thanks for letting me join you here, Bill.” Jonathon’s head drops. “I have to say that I’m sorry for what happened. I can’t apologize enough. I’m fighting the addiction, but sometimes it’s really hard. Ella’s been so good to me.”
Bill nods his response. In a courtroom, words are his weapon, but in a heightened emotional situation, he draws a blank. For all his skills, for all his talents, dealing with his own emotions still makes his shoulder’s tense.
“Jonathon has something to tell you about his job.” Ella smiles, eager to move the conversation past what happened one week ago.
Over the past seven days, she has been by her brother’s side, helping him in the comedown, sleeping in his tiny apartment to ensure that he hasn’t had another midnight heroin craving. It’s what he always needed; a loving, non-judgmental person that was willing to stick by him, no matter what.
“Did you manage to hold onto it?” Bill questions.
“I did.” Jonathon nods. “Luckily, they didn’t need me for a few days, so I kept my mistake quiet. When they drug-tested me yesterday, I was clean. I was lucky.”
“This time.” Ella adds. “You probably won’t be that lucky next time.”
“Then let’s make sure there isn’t a next time.” Jonathon smiles. “And I tell you, I’m glad I was clean. Yesterday was such a hard day work. I could never have done that high on drugs.”
“What did you do yesterday?”
“I had a moving job for the Whitehall family. Their grandfather had died, so the place was a deceased estate, and we had to clean the whole house out. The family has to sell the house to pay for his medical bills, but weren’t sure what to do with all the belongings, so everything had to go. We had to pack, pick up, and take it all out to a storage facility, where the family will go through everything later.”
“Going through a dead person’s estate must have been weird.” Ella sips her coffee.
“The house was alright, but the weirdest thing was the hidden basement. It was deliberately hidden, but apparently that’s quite common in those parts.”
“A hidden basement?”
“That’s right. Apparently there’s a few of them in L.A. We had to walk out into the yard and there was this little manhole down in the ground. The guys said it was a Cold War basement, built when people thought that Los Angeles was going to be the target of a Russian bombing. It was all concrete, a few inches thick. He had all this stuff down there that we had to move up a ladder – old boxes full of paperwork, old bottles of wine, even an old bed. It was like another house down there – a cold, concrete one-bedroom basement. The guy could have had a whole different family sleeping down there.”
The younger brother smiles broadly. In the depths of his addiction, he could never imagine that his life would get back on track. He could never imagine that he could feel happy again. And he certainly never thought that he would feel proud of himself again.
“I thought the Cold War bunkers were the stuff of rumors?”
Three hearty plates of bacon and eggs are placed on the table in front of them. It’s a beautiful smell, full of European spices and absorbing aromas.
“It was real.” Jonathon pauses to swallow a mouthful of eggs, digging straight into the breakfast. “Saw it with my own two eyes. Definitely not a rumor. And trust me, after having to lift all that stuff out of that basement bunker, my back will tell you that it wasn’t a rumor.”
“Sounds like something out of the backwaters of Eastern Europe. How many bunkers do you think are still out there?” Ella closes her eyes while eating her bacon. The look of satisfaction on her face is immeasurable.
“The boys on the job told me that they’ve done ten or so of these basements.”
“If you think about it, it’s really creepy.” Ella shudders. “Who knows what could be in some of those bunkers? It’s so weird to think that those bunkers were built forty to fifty years ago, and they’re still there, just under people’s houses. People could store anything in there. They could even hide people in those types of basements.”
Bill places his fork down.
As the conversation turns to horror movie plots, involving bunkers under suburban houses, Bill’s thoughts turn back to work. Almost automatically, he eats his plate full of bacon, eggs, and a side of tomato, hardly stopping to appreciate the flavor of the award-win
ning food.
“Bill?” Ella breaks his focus.
“Yes?” He turns to his sister.
“I just asked you how work is, but judging by that far-off look in your eyes, I’m going to guess things are quite intense.”
“I have a very tough case at the moment.” He looks down to his empty plate. “I have two weeks to find someone to testify in a case, locate a box full of old notes, or find some missing CCTV footage.”
“Why the rush? Can’t you just apply for court extension?”
“No.” He places his fork down. “In two weeks, there will be a news article that will destroy the defendant’s reputation, regardless of the court case outcome.”
“That sounds like a tough case. Who’s the defendant?” Jonathon questions.
“I am. And I have two weeks to find the information, or I’ll be asking you for a job with the removals company.” Bill stands and tosses enough money on the table to cover everyone’s breakfast, along with a healthy tip. “But you’ve just given me the information I need.”
Chapter 26
“The only reason I’m here is because there’s money involved.”
“Of course.” Bill nods. “I would expect nothing else.”
Under the false pretense that he would be willing to discuss a settlement, Bill walked into the mediation session grinning from ear to ear. Taylor Reaper had obviously expected that he would be signing off on a settlement today, or he would have sent one of his junior lawyers to the session.
But the defendant didn’t want that – Bill wanted to get under the skin of his opponent and waste his time until he snapped and fired out a piece of information that he would’ve preferred to keep disclosed.
Mediation specialist Jodie Glass sits at the head of the table, her meek voice barely heard in comparison to the two loud men. “This mediation appearance has been ordered by the court, and I understand that—”
“We know the spiel; we’re both lawyers.” Taylor sits in the small conference room, one long leg crossed over the other, hands resting in his lap, like he’s ready for Bill just to state an amount.
“I apologize for his rudeness.” Bill looks at the petite middle-aged woman searching through the files in front of her. “His level of arrogance doesn’t represent all lawyers.”
“Go on.” Taylor impatience is clear. “How much?”
“I’m not going to settle.” Bill can’t contain his smirk as he leans back in his chair.
“What?” Taylor jumps forward, uncrossing his legs, hitting his index finger on the table. “You said on the phone that you would be willing to discuss a settlement! This is a mediation attempt, not some time to play a game! I came here in good faith!”
“C’mon, Taylor. You can’t be serious?” Bill laughs. “You didn’t honestly think that I was going to discuss a settlement with you? If I didn’t say that, you wouldn’t be here. You would have sent one of your juniors to this session, and I didn’t want that. I wanted to see you squirm.”
With a huff, Taylor shakes his head. He leans back in his chair, angry that he fell into the trap. For years, he has tried to get a win against his adversary, and every time he fails he feels worse about himself. It’s only a small win for Bill, but one that desperately gets under the skin of his opponent.
“This must be strange for you.” Bill studies the man across from him. “You’ve made a career out of defending white-collar criminals, people who trade in numbers and papers. You haven’t touched organized crime or anything remotely dangerous. This is a very strange deviation from your current business model.”
“I was sold the second they mentioned your name. I couldn’t imagine anything more enjoyable than watching you go down.” Taylor’s jaw clenches. “What do you want then? Why call me here?”
“I wanted to let you know that we’re going to be presenting a witness that will testify that this is all a setup.” Bill lies. “And I wanted to see your reaction in person.”
“Not a chance. Nobody would be brave enough to testify against Kevin Wu. That person must have a death sentence.”
“Not if that person is Monty Lee.”
“Monty Lee?” Taylor’s eyes shoot up in surprise, jumping forward with one arm on the table. “So you’ve found him?”
“Clearly, you know how much he knows. You understand how important his testimony will be to this case.”
“He’s a very vital part of my client’s long history.” He draws a deep breath, disappointed that he gave Bill the reaction that he was after. Calmly, he crosses his legs again. “But he would know nothing about this case. Nothing. The two men never had a decent conversation after Monty’s youngest daughter died.”
“He knows a lot more than you think.” Bill brings his hands together, staring at his opponent. “And I would suggest that you be careful with this case. If it goes to court, we’ll be wheeling out Monty Lee, and your reputation is going to take a hit. You don’t want to be seen as someone that can’t defend street criminals. Yes, you’re good at white-collar crime, probably the best in the city, but your reputation will take a hit if you don’t win this.”
“Are you suggesting that you care about my reputation?”
“Not at all. I would take great pleasure in being part of your downfall.”
“But you also don’t want this case to go to court.”
“Of course.” Bill studies Taylor for a moment, his eyes thinning as he glares at him. “Why get involved with him, Taylor? This isn’t your area of expertise. I know you want me, I know that you want to take me down, but this isn’t the way to do it. You’re deliberately trying to dirty my name, not beat me in court. That isn’t a fair fight.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I want justice. That’s what I want. I want to see you go down for the crimes that you’ve committed as a hypnotherapist. People should be able to walk into a hypnotherapist’s office with the confidence that they will be reasonably looked after. You didn’t do that. You took advantage of my client’s distressed mental state, and you made money from it.”
“That’s ludicrous.”
“Really?” He smiles. “You made money after Kevin legitimately lost a business deal. In fact, you made over $250,000 after the company that you were a shareholder of signed a deal that Kevin’s company lost.”
“Ridiculous!” Bill throws his hands up in the air. “You’ve got to be kidding? Really? That’s the angle you’re pushing now?!”
“It’s not an angle; it’s the law.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Here. Johnson and Smith. A construction company.” Taylor slides a piece of paper across the desk. “You owned shares in this company, and it beat Kevin’s legitimate business, Wu Construction, only three months after the hypnotherapy sessions. That decision sent Wu Construction onto the path of bankruptcy.”
Bill looks at the papers, chest heaving up and down. “No. This is a coincidence. Nothing more.”
“Perhaps, but in the current context, it appears quite damning.”
“This is ridiculous. This is not the angle to be pushing.”
“The angle I’m pushing is justice.”
“You’re not interested in justice.” Bill snarls. “You only believe in justice until your client is proven broke.”
“Clever, but I’m not here for jokes. If I wanted to hear bad jokes, I would spend the night at an open mic night at The Comedy Store.”
“I respect you, Taylor. I don’t like you, but I respect what you’ve done with your business. So, I’m going to give you a piece of advice for free, something I wish I knew when I was your age.” He leans forward, elbows resting on his large table.
“What is it?”
“Sharks only attack you if you’re wet.”
Taylor’s eyes squint. “So now you’re a comedian and a philosopher?”
“If you swim with the sharks, they’ll attack you. If you stay on dry land, playing with the white-collar guys, building sand-castles, then no
shark is going to be able to bite you.” Bill draws a long breath. “But if you swim in their waters, if you play in their playground, then the sharks will attack you. And Kevin Wu is one great, big, hungry predator. If you don’t win this case, then he’ll come after you. If he doesn’t win this, he’s going to be angry, and you really won’t like him when he’s angry.”
Taylor’s face goes a shade paler.
He has built his business by dealing with white-collar criminals, people who fudge figures, nobody with any pull on the streets.
His top-flight schoolboy life is suddenly threatened by the client he took on.
“Taking on Kevin’s case is the first time that you’ve dealt with a real killer – someone who would be brave enough to attack you personally. You might have money, fast cars, and good looks, and you might feel unstoppable in your world, but those things hardly matter to a man like Kevin Wu. He’ll have you killed within the hour of a judgment against him.”
“He couldn’t,” Taylor whispers with his mouth hanging open.
“He doesn’t play nicely, and your rules don’t matter to him. Do you think he cares about you? Do you think he won’t touch you? No. Kevin Wu will destroy you the second you lose this case.”
“I can see that we’re not going to settle today,” Taylor replies softly. He stands, buttoning up his three-piece suit, shaken by the notion that he has endangered his own life. “Thank you for your time, Miss Glass.”
With a quiet step, Taylor walks out of the office, and Bill Harvey almost feels sorry for his privileged opponent.
Almost.
Chapter 27
The wind whistles through the large door as Terrance Marshall steps away from the bright sunshine and into the dark, subdued mood of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
He avoided the main door of the post-modern church; instead opting for a back entrance that has led him to the calm Reconciliation Chapel. Whether it’s the cold in contrast to the outside warmth, or the presence of something more, a shiver runs up his spine as he steps inside the chapel.
A Time for Justice_A Legal Thriller Page 12