by Tim Dorsey
The attorney was still stammering when the gavel banged. “Court’s in recess.”
Weeks passed, nothing from the bank. Brook sent a certified letter. The Rockfords called: “We got another notice.”
“Don’t even mail it,” said Brook. “I’ll come by and pick it up.”
More weeks, no check, another notice, rinse, lather, repeat. Brook petitioned the court to enforce its decree. The bank received another order from the judge. Nothing changed. The bank was too big; unless it was the U.S. Justice Department, they didn’t care who had to wait. With billions in assets, what could anyone do to them?
Brook told her bosses her next move. They laughed and gave her the go-ahead: More power to you. Brook filed her motion to show cause.
The same bored attorney stood before the judge. “Your Honor, it’s an honest paperwork mistake. You have my word this will be rectified and prompt payment dispatched immediately.”
The judge turned toward Brook for her response. She knew her play. Any major firm would have called it preposterous, because judges rarely go outside the envelope. But Brook knew something else: Judges also don’t like to be ignored.
“Your Honor,” said Brook. “As you can see in the certified receipts before you, as well as in the copy of your enforcement order, First American has uniformly ignored diligent efforts to seek compliance for almost two months. The only possible conclusion is they have no respect for this court.”
The judge liked this. “What do you suggest?”
“May I approach?”
He nodded. Brook handed him her newest motion. As the judge read it, he couldn’t prevent the corner of a grin from escaping. He handed it to the bailiff for the bank’s lawyer.
The attorney read the motion and looked up in alarm. “Foreclosure? You can’t do that!”
The judge raised his eyebrows. “Really? You do it all the time.”
“But we’re a bank!”
“And I’m only a judge?” He leaned back in his padded chair and swiveled slightly. “You should have already been intimately familiar with foreclosure law when you first appeared before this court, and now you will be . . . Order is entered: thirty days to comply or forfeiture proceedings will commence.”
“To recover this tiny amount of money?” protested the attorney.
“No, to get your attention,” said the judge. “I think I’ve got it.”
The gavel banged.
The judge was wrong. All he’d required of the bank was to pay meager legal costs and leave the poor plaintiffs alone. Nope. They were a big bank, after all. The bowels of their bureaucracy even belched out another eviction notice.
So here it was, the morning of the thirty-first day. Brook stood waiting in the corner of the parking lot. A moving truck arrived at a local branch of First American. The truck had a mural on the side of the Empire State Building, Grand Canyon and Golden Gate Bridge. It blocked the whole parking lot. The security guard told the driver to move. Then two patrol cars pulled up. The guard went inside and got the manager.
“What’s going on?”
A sheriff’s deputy handed him the court’s seizure order.
“There must be some kind of mistake.”
“Apparently the judge thinks so,” said the deputy.
The moving guys rolled handcarts up the walkway. The branch manager blocked them. “You can’t take our stuff!”
“Move away,” said the deputy. “Or be arrested.”
Poetic justice is a term cheaply flung, but this was a sweet sonnet. Inside the building, a legal bank robbery. Deputies ordered all employees to move away from their workstations. The moving company began unplugging computers and loading furniture. The only thing they couldn’t touch was the money, because it belonged to depositors. A clock came down off a wall.
Inside a glass office, the manager burned up the phone lines to district and regional headquarters. In the middle of a call, the manager stood because someone took his chair. Then someone else unplugged the phone and removed the receiver from his hand.
People began lining the sidewalk. News trucks arrived. Brook was soon joined by the rest of her staff from the legal aid center, which had closed early because this was just too good. As word of the foreclosure worked its way through the crowd of onlookers, laughter and applause.
The manager darted back and forth across the parking lot like an animal in a wildfire. He saw Brook standing with the sergeant.
“I can pay you from the cash drawers!”
Brook shook her head. “You of all people should know that isn’t proper foreclosure procedure. Once seizure has commenced, it’s our property. You can’t suddenly run up and pay the balance due to stop everything. But you already know that because evicted homeowners have requested the same mercy from you, and what is your trained response? I’ll refresh your memory: ‘We have to raise funds from the auction of seized property to satisfy the judgment.’ ”
“But you’re taking way too much to cover what we owe! It’s not fair!”
Brook shrugged. “They’re your rules. The best laws campaign money can buy. And you never know how little people are willing to bid for this stuff, so we have to take it all to make sure. But I promise to return the extra—trust me.”
A special van arrived. Electrical workers propped ladders against the front of the building and climbed. The branch manager’s eyes popped. “Not the sign!”
Emergency phone calls crisscrossed the state. “I’m watching it on the news right now,” said an executive vice president. “What are we paying you for?”
Lawyers were dragged from lunch and golf courses. Soon they arrived in force, pulling up to the bank in a wing formation of BMWs and Jaguars. They surrounded Brook with checkbooks.
“Too late,” she said. “But maybe you can go to the auction and be the high bidders.”
“When’s the auction?” asked a man in pinstripes.
“I can probably get it on my calendar for next month.”
“But the branch will be closed all that time.”
“Branch? Singular?” She pointed north. “We have two more scheduled today, and another three tomorrow.”
The attorneys huddled. Eventually, they started nodding. The one with seniority deferentially approached Brook. “There’s another way to resolve this outside of foreclosure. Without admitting any liability, what if we offered a settlement for your client’s time and emotional suffering? In return, you stipulate to make a tax-deductible donation of the property, which is rightfully yours, to one of the bank’s many charitable foundations.”
“What kind of settlement?”
He threw out a number.
Brook did worse than reject it. She just stared.
So he doubled it. Then tripled.
No response.
“Be reasonable,” said the attorney. “That’s ten times what we originally owed.”
Brook looked over his shoulder at burly moving men. “Nice conference table.”
The lawyer turned and watched it disappear into the back of the semi. “Okay, here’s my final offer . . .”
Brook scrunched her eyebrows, then looked up. “Add a zero.”
“What?” More furniture clanged loudly into the trailer. “All right!” He got out his checkbook.
Brook shook her head. “I’m afraid it will have to be a certified check.”
The attorney huffed and started toward the bank. He met the branch manager in the middle of the parking lot.
He returned to Brook. “You already took the printers they use to make the checks.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to go to another bank.” She checked her watch. “Better hurry. They close notoriously early.”
“Can you at least stop loading until I get back?”
Another empty stare.
“Fine!”
The Rockfords arrived.
“We can’t thank Brook enough,” Vernon said into a camera. “Me and Hilda would have been out on the street if it wasn’t for—”
A loud crash made everyone turn. The electric First American sign lay in pieces. The worker on one of the ladders pointed at the worker on the other ladder.
It grew dark as the last news trucks pulled away. The legal aid team congratulated Brook and headed for their cars. They began leaving the lot en masse as a lone vehicle entered the other way.
The black stretch limo parked, and a chauffeur opened the back door.
A distinguished man with salt-and-pepper hair stepped out. “Brook Campanella?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Ken Shapiro of Shapiro, Heathcote-Mendacious and Blatt . . .”
Brook thought: Jeez, you don’t have to tell me. It’s one of the biggest firms in the state, in all the Southeast.
Shapiro looked around the parking lot, then shook his head with a smile. “Do you always cause such a fuss?”
“My clients required vigorous advocacy according to the canons—”
Shapiro held up a hand. “Relax, you already passed the bar. And banks are the ultimate passive-aggressives. You had to keep a full-court press.” He smiled again. “Me and some of the partners were watching on TV. Priceless.”
“You came here just to tell me that?”
“No,” said the partner. “And we all truly respect the legal aid center. They do great work for people without deep pockets. But your time could be spent helping a lot more people. We do a lot of important class-action work.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
“Forgive me, but we’d like to know as soon as possible,” said Shapiro. “Some important trials are coming up.”
“But I just got out of law school,” said Brook. “And I’ve never tried a case.”
“We know that,” said Shapiro. “You’d start as second chair and get your feet wet with some easy expert witnesses. You’ll be fine.”
“But, Mr. Shapiro, I don’t—”
“I’ll level with you . . . and call me Ken,” said Ken. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, because it bears no reflection on what we think of your legal mind, but . . . you just have the right look. Face, stature, television presence.”
“Look?”
“Completely nonthreatening. To the point many people would want to protect you,” said Ken. “When I mentioned the partners were watching you on TV, we also had our jury consultant with us, and he said, I quote: ‘Go down there and hire her immediately before someone else does. I need to start getting her in front of juries.’ ”
“Sounds superficial,” said Brook.
“It is,” said Ken, handing her a piece of paper. “But we’re fighting the bad guys. Think about it.”
“Excuse me.” Brook looked up from the note. “I don’t think this phone number is from around here.”
“That’s not a phone number.” Ken climbed into the backseat of the limo. “It’s our offer.”
The limo drove away.
Chapter TWELVE
SOUTH TAMPA
A pastel-green bungalow sat on the corner of a residential street. The green was pistachio. Drums and tubas carried faintly in the distance from a high school football game. Much closer, laughter and loud talk from the direction of the bungalow. But all the lights in the house were out; the revelry came from the backyard, where students had discovered that the foreclosed home was unoccupied and the perfect spot for kegs and joints.
Four hours went by. The party dwindled down as a blue-and-white Cobra passed the house and wound slowly through the upscale neighborhood. Mediterraneans and post-moderns and driveway basketball hoops. Someone still flew a silk porch flag for Romney.
Serge rolled to a stop at the curb and leaned for a better view three houses down. “Excellent, still asleep.” He quietly opened the door. “Coleman, you know what to do.”
“What’s that?”
“I told you twice on the way over.”
“You were talking to me?”
“Coleman, who else was in the car?”
“I thought it was another time you were talking to the world in general, screaming about courtesy and fabric of neighborhoods. So I drank beer like usual.”
“You do not drink beer! You’re in the world, too! I was just giving you context for tonight’s maneuver . . . Screw it, just follow and I’ll fill you in.” Serge gently eased his door closed. “Right now the most important thing is to remain as silent as possible—”
Crash.
Coleman pushed himself from the ground and uprighted a trash can. “Could you repeat that last part? I couldn’t hear because of the noise . . .”
Upstairs in the master bedroom of a stucco house with a barrel-tile roof, the soothing blue digits of a clock radio said 3:17. When they reached 3:21, the phone rang. The only person in bed tried to clear the haze as he reached and knocked over the clock. The phone continued ringing. He picked up the clock and looked at the numbers. “It’s never good news at this hour. Who on earth could be calling?” He grabbed the phone. “Hello?”
A muffled voice with cellular static. “Is this Linus Quim?”
“Who are you?”
“There’s been an accident. Since you’re on the line with me, I’m guessing it’s not you in the car.”
Quim was sitting up straight now. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you own a new black Lexus with a yacht club sticker in the corner of the windshield?”
“Ohhhh.” Linus began nodding to himself. “Sanchez, have you been drinking?”
“Whoever was driving your car tonight killed my best friend.”
“Dammit, Sanchez! The joke’s not funny. And don’t be talking about this stuff on the phone. My home phone!”
“Your friend’s bleeding out, but I’m not going to call an ambulance until you wire me—”
“Goddammit, Sanchez! We’ll talk tomorrow, and if you call me back tonight, I’ll kill you!” He slammed the phone down in the cradle. It bounced behind the nightstand, and he had to reel it back in by the curly cord. “I can’t wait to get my hands on that putz.”
He lay back down and closed his eyes.
His eyes opened. “I can’t sleep.”
Quim yanked the sheets off his legs. He always had been obsessively organized, which is why he was the only one in the gang who could map out their meticulous plans. And he couldn’t go back to sleep as long as something was out of place.
The Lexus.
And the poor phone reception now left him unsure about Sanchez’s voice.
He jogged down the stairs and through the kitchen to the garage’s side door. When he opened it, the car was sitting inside just like he’d left it—just like he thought. Worried for nothing. Now he could go back to sleep. “That moron Sanchez . . .”
He was closing the door when a hand came out of the darkness and jerked him into the garage.
“There’s been an accident,” said Serge, bashing Quim on the head with a tire iron. “Oops, I slipped.”
THE NEXT DAY
From the sidewalk, the view up the face of the thirty-story building was steep and bright. One of those all-glass designs with floor-to-ceiling mirror windows. The noon sun began peeking over the southwest corner, fracturing the light into sparkling rays.
Streams of pedestrians parted around Brook Campanella, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, craning her neck toward the Fort Lauderdale sky. Capturing the moment. And hesitating. Brook shielded her eyes as cotton-ball clouds slowly drifted over
the roof, creating the illusion that the building was moving. Her stomach felt the unbalance of vertigo, but it was also nerves. She took a deep breath and went inside.
The open space of the lobby echoed the clatter of a marble floor. Brook went through the metal detector, and her briefcase went through the X-ray. The reason for the precaution was that half the people liked what was going on in the building; the other half not so much. Par for the legal biz. Brook grabbed her attaché on the other side. The security guard expressed that he wanted her day to be good, but wasn’t emotionally invested either way.
The high-speed express elevator opened on the top floor. Brook entered another lobby with a lower ceiling. Ahead sat a long cherry-oak reception desk. Behind the desk was a wall where recessed lighting emphasized the firm’s logo: three interlocking letters, SH&B, forming a flat sculpture of glossy chrome. It was originally going to be brushed metal until someone said they weren’t selling refrigerators. Hidden shims offset the sign two inches out from the wall so that unseen lighting could leave a shadow. About $80,000 had gone into this thinking.
Brook approached the desk and gave her name.
The receptionist smiled with on-command friendship. “They’re already waiting for you in the conference room.”
“Who’s waiting? Where’s the conference room?”
“Everyone. That way.”
Brook walked hesitantly past private offices and the copy room and other doors leading to unknown activity. She suddenly stopped, and her tummy knotted again. Ahead, the windows of the conference room. Inside stretched the longest table she had ever seen, surrounded by dozens of people in suits that definitely weren’t off the rack. At the head of the table, a well-tended man stood and made a gregarious waving motion for her to enter.
“Everyone,” said Ken Shapiro. “This is Brook Campanella, our newest associate.”
“Hello, Brook . . .” “Welcome . . .” “Have a seat . . .”
“You’ve already met me,” said Ken, gesturing to his left. “This is Willard Heathcote-Mendacious and Shug Blatt . . .”
Each smiled and nodded in turn.