Firm Ambitions

by Michael A. Kahn

  I didn’t hang up. I stood there staring at the basement door, gasping for breath. Waiting. Waiting

  She came back on the line. “They’re on their way, ma’am. Get out of the house.”

  “Right,” I said mechanically, eyes on the basement door. I gripped the meat cleaver.

  “The police are coming!” I shouted at the door.

  In the silence that followed, the bedlam inside me seemed to recede. The ringing in my ears stopped. My heartbeat slowed. Everything became almost microscopically focused. I could hear the electric hum of the kitchen clock, the distant drip of the bathroom sink.

  I took two steps closer to the basement door. His leg was broken. Had to be. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  Here pussy. That’s what he’d said. Here, pussy? And then he laughed.

  The cat.

  The rush of anger blurred my vision—zero to warp speed in a flash. “You bastard!” I screamed at the closed door.

  In the distance I could hear the wail of police sirens. I moved closer, until I was pressed against the wall near the basement door. I strained my ears. I heard a groan of pain. It came from down in the basement.

  “It’s over, Tommy,” I shouted. “The police are here.”

  I listened for movement below. I heard nothing. I waited. The police sirens were getting louder.

  I reached for the door handle, as fear struggled against rage. But then I remembered Gitel and my mother’s broken arm. I opened the door a crack. I inched my head along the wall toward the doorway.

  “Tommy,” I said. I quickly peeked around the edge of the doorway as light from the kitchen illuminated the scene. “You said you—” I stopped.

  He was seated on the bottom stair, his back to me. His right leg was bent at a horrible angle. It was dark down there, too dark to make out details. He seemed to be hunched forward.

  “It’s over,” I said angrily. “You said you’d be the one they’d remember. You’d better hope they’ll give you enough time to write your memoirs on death row.”

  Outside there were the sounds of arriving police cars—screeching brakes, skidding tires, doors slamming. As I glanced around, flashing red lights strobed through the front windows and into the kitchen.

  As I turned back toward the basement, Tommy leaned forward, and suddenly the back of his head exploded. There was a concussive boom, a micro-second of silence, and then splats and thunks all around me. I stared in horror at the shuddering body. Clots of blood spurted rhythmically into the air from the pulpy stump on his shoulders. His body reared back for a long moment, the arms flailing, and then pitched forward onto the floor.

  I heard the police running up the front walk toward the house, their walkie-talkies crackling. I turned away from the basement and leaned back against the kitchen wall, staring up at the ceiling. I slid down to a sitting position and hugged my knees to my chest. As the police came charging into the kitchen, I rested my chin on my knees and closed my eyes.

  Epilogue

  “Really?” Benny said with a big grin. “What happened?”

  I shrugged, amused. “Farmer Bob’s been born again.”

  “Come on,” Benny scoffed.

  “That’s what he claims. Big Sal died about a week ago. Two nights later, while Bob was still in mourning, Jesus appeared in his bedroom.”

  “With another collie?”

  I shook my head. “With some celestial marital advice. As soon as Jesus left. Bob hopped in his pickup, drove over to June’s place, got down on his knees, and begged for forgiveness.”

  “She fell for it?”

  “Yep,” I said with a smile. “They were in yesterday to sign the court dismissal papers. You should have seen them. Like a pair of newlyweds. In fact, as soon as the crops are in, they’re heading off to Orlando for a second honeymoon.”

  Benny reached for another bottle of Sam Adams and removed the cap with a bottle opener. He had showed up at my office late that afternoon on his way home from a law school faculty meeting. Happy Hour, he had announced as he walked in with a chilled six-pack of Sam Adams and a bag of peanuts.

  Benny sat back and shook his head in wonder. “That was one kinky divorce case.”

  “And,” I reminded him as I reached for another handful of peanuts, “my last divorce case.”

  He took a long sip of beer. “Turns out Charles Kimball was serious.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. He’s leaving town. One of the guys on the faculty is friends with the dean of the law school at North Carolina. He confirmed that Kimball’s going to run their trial practice program.”

  I leaned back in my chair and shook my head wearily. “Some month.”

  “No kidding.”

  Thirty days ago, I’d watched Tommy Landau die at the foot of my basement stairs. Although he’d killed himself at approximately 10:30 p.m., the official time of death, as recorded in the police report, was 1:30 a.m. His final metamorphosis began somewhere in that gap and was complete two days later, which is when the first account of his death appeared in the Post-Dispatch.

  The initial hint came in the wee hours that first night, during a break in the police interrogation. I was alone in the room when Harris Landau came in. “Hello, Rachel,” he said quietly. He looked haggard but resolute. We talked for a few moments, and then he said, “My son was a monster, but now that he’s dead, there’s nothing to be gained by telling the world. Allow me to bury him without a freak show.”

  I did, without even having to try.

  By the time Harris Landau’s spin doctors were through, the late Tommy Landau was just another victim of the real estate slump. Despondent over a failed marriage that had been strained to the breaking point by his financial woes, he took a gun and ended his life in an undisclosed location. Although he hadn’t left a suicide note, he did call his father earlier that night.

  “Tommy told me to tell his wife that he was sorry,” Harris Landau said. “He told me to tell his children that he loved them. I was worried. He sounded down. I asked him if there was anything wrong, but he hung up.”

  That’s the exact quote, as published in the third paragraph of a four-paragraph story that appeared on page five of the second section of the Post-Dispatch under a small headline that read, Real Estate Developer Dies from Gunshot Wound.

  Ironically, the story fit the police department’s ready-made theory about Tommy, which was shaped by the recent spree of angry men attacking their ex-wives’ divorce attorneys. From the cops’ perspective, Tommy neatly fit that cubbyhole, especially given his prior conduct, which included my 911 call to get him out of my office and (and as revealed in the billing records for his portable phone) his thirty-seven-second telephone call to my home telephone number late on the night that Gitel was decapitated. They essentially closed his file without looking beyond the divorce. As for the murder of Andros, the bogus leads supplied by Charles Kimball’s source continued to guide the police investigation.

  Eileen Landau no longer needed a divorce lawyer. I found her a good workout specialist with plenty of real estate experience. In our last meeting, I explained the Cayman Islands situation to Eileen. As sole heir under Tommy’s will, she now owned Capital Investments, Ltd. That meant she also owned a Grand Cayman bank account containing the proceeds of at least one key-man life insurance policy. In death, the two men in her life had placed her in a far better financial position than she would have been in if either had lived.

  “You talked to your sister lately?” Benny asked.

  I nodded. “She’s doing okay. Richie’s never going to become Rudolph Valentino, but he’s better than before. They seem happier.”

  He took another sip of beer and gave me an impish grin. “And look at you. Going on a double date tonight with your mom.”

  “It’s not really a double date.”

  “Oh? You’ve got a date, she’s
got a date, and all four of you are going to the same place in one car.”

  I felt my cheeks redden. “Okay, it’s a double date.”

  My mother and I met our dates ten days ago when I took her to the orthopedist to get her cast removed. We had both known Dr. Seymour Feldman for years. In fact, he had put a cast on me when I was ten years old and broke my wrist falling out of a tree. It so happened that his son, Mark, was now in the practice as well, and he joined us while we were in his father’s office. Seymour was recently divorced, Mark had never married, both had good senses of humor, Mark had gentle eyes, and between them they had four mezzanine seats to the evening performance of Les Misèrables. If you’re going to double-date with your mom, I can think of worse ways.

  “What about poor old Tex?” Benny asked.

  “She still likes him. But it’s not like they’re going steady or anything.”

  Our Happy Hour came to an end. As I was closing up the office, the phone rang. I glanced over at Benny.

  He shrugged. “Take it,” he said. “It could be General Motors with a big case.”

  I reached for the telephone on my secretary’s desk.

  “Please hold for Mr. Max Feigelbaum,” his secretary cooed.

  I turned to Benny, covering the mouthpiece with my hand. “Max Feigelbaum,” I whispered in surprise. Benny raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

  Although I’d never met Max, I knew him by reputation and had seen him more than once in the hallways of the Circuit Court of Cook County back in my Chicago days. He was a tanned and ruthless little ferret who wore dark glasses and Italian suits and was one of the most feared divorce lawyers in Chicago. His principal victims were the men of the Chicago ruling class who had had the misfortune (literally) of marrying one of Max’s future clients.

  “Rachel, Max Fiegelbaum in Chicago.” He had a classic Chicago accent (“Chi-cawgo”) and spoke in a slow, raspy tone that reminded me of Jack Nicholson.

  “Hello, Max,” I said cautiously.

  “I need you to handle a domestic matter down there.”

  “Well,” I said as I looked over at Benny and shook my head, “I’m getting out of divorce work.”

  “You’ll want to make an exception for this one. It’s a beaut. Lady’s name is Tricia Fletcher. Her ex-husband’s a putz named Deb Fletcher. You used to work at his firm back in Chicago.”

  “I know him,” I said, intrigued in spite of myself. I could feel those litigator juices starting to flow.

  “He’s screwed up big-time,” Feigelbaum continued. “Trying to hide assets, crap like that. I’ve decided it’s time to drill Mr. L. Debevoise Fletcher, Esquire, a brand-new asshole. I’ll need a St. Louis firm to help out. I hear you got brass balls. You want in?”

  I could feel my pulse quicken. Asking a trial lawyer if she wants to take part in a good courtroom battle is like asking a ballplayer if he wants to take part in a World Series.

  “By the way,” he continued before I could answer, “you’ll need some help on this one. Money’s no object. You got a reliable associate?”

  I looked over at Benny and grinned.

  “What?” Benny asked eagerly.

  I covered the mouthpiece. “Trust me,” I whispered back.

  “Well?” Feigelbaum asked.

  “I’ve got the perfect associate,” I said with a wink at Benny, “and I’m sure he’d love a shot at Deb Fletcher.”

  “Fletcher?” Benny said, his eyes widening with delight. “Yes!” he hissed as he pumped his fist.

  “Good,” Feigelbaum grunted. “I’ll have my girl ship you the documents.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, with feigned indignance. “Your what?’

  “Aw, shit. No offense. I meant the woman who is my secretary. So you’ll do the case, huh?”

  “Maxie,” I said with a smile, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

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