SW03 -The Underground Man

by Parnell Hall

  “Mr. Jenson, there are thousands of homeless people in New York City. Granted, some of them are mentally incompetent. But a large number of them are merely poor.”

  “But he isn’t poor,” Jenson said. “That’s the whole point. The man’s worth millions.”

  “Millions?”

  “Yes, of course. Didn’t he tell you that?”

  Steve frowned. “Again with the questions.” Steve rubbed his head. “Mr. Jenson, what makes you think your uncle consulted me?”

  “I don’t think, I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I followed him here.”

  “You followed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why were you following him?”

  “To see where he went, of course. But, oh, you don’t mean that. You have to understand. None of us had seen him in weeks.”

  “Us?”

  “Yes. The family. His family.”

  “And who might that be?”

  Jenson frowned. “But surely you know that. If you don’t there’s no point. But you won’t let on, because you won’t tell me what he told you.”

  “Who’s the family?” Steve rephrased his question.

  “I don’t know why I should answer your questions when you won’t answer mine.”

  “Any reason why you don’t want me to know who his family is?”

  “None at all.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I was just pointing out that it wasn’t fair.”

  “I never claimed to be fair. You sought this interview. I told you it was going to be one-sided.”

  Jenson glared at him for a moment. Then he shook his head. “All right, have it your way. The family. Let’s see. There’s me. My sister Rose—that’s Rose Tindel. Her husband, Jason Tindel. My cousin Pat, Pat Grayson. Her husband, Fred Grayson. My Aunt Claire, Claire Chesterton. She’s Uncle Jack’s niece.”

  “Wait a minute. Your aunt is your uncle’s niece?”

  “No, no. That does sound strange, doesn’t it. Jack Walsh is really my great-uncle, but I call him Uncle Jack. My mother was his brother’s daughter. They’re both dead now. So’s my father. I always think of him as Uncle Jack.”

  “I see. So that’s the family?”

  “Yes. Except for Jeremy. He’s eighteen. He’s Jack’s sister’s grandson. His parents were killed in a car accident when he was three. Aunt Rose brought him up.”

  “All right,” Steve said. “And you say none of you had seen him for weeks?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And then today?”

  “I saw him on the street.”

  “Speak to him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Jenson waved his hand. “You don’t understand.”

  “I’m trying to understand. You’re not giving me much help. Why wouldn’t you speak to your uncle? Why would you just follow him?”

  “Because he wouldn’t speak to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you. He’s strange.”

  “So what was the point of following him?”

  Jenson’s eyes flicked momentarily. “To see where he goes. What he’s up to. Which is why I’m here.”

  Steve sighed. He thought for a moment. He turned to Tracy Garvin. “Miss Garvin. This man is not consulting me as a client. I don’t need notes of this interview. Besides, I think your presence is inhibiting him.”

  Tracy’s face fell. She looked at Steve as if she couldn’t quite believe he’d said that.

  “So,” Steve said, “why don’t you go call Mark Taylor. See if he’s turned up anything on the Halsburg case. If he has, coordinate with him and set everything up.”

  Tracy stared at him. There was no Halsburg case. She blinked. Then nodded. “Yes, Mr. Winslow,” she said. She folded her notebook, got up, and went out the door.

  Steve Winslow turned back to Jenson. “All right,” he said. “It’s just you and me here. We can stop beating around the bush. If you won’t quote me, I won’t quote you. What the hell’s going on?”

  Jenson smiled. “You now admit Uncle Jack called on you?”

  “I’ll admit anything you like. I can always deny it later. But say Uncle Jack was here. Why shouldn’t I listen to him, and what’s it to you?”

  “That’s more like it,” Jenson said. “All right, let’s talk turkey. My uncle’s worth a lot of money. It’s his. All his. Made it himself. A self-made man. It’s a classic success story. Who was it—Horatio Alger, right? Anyway, that’s him. Made it in the stock market. Started with a hundred bucks, parlayed it into a small fortune. In his day, the man was a genius. Sharp as a tack. Now ...” Jenson shrugged.

  “What happened?”

  “He got old. Senile. Lost it.”

  “Just like that?”

  Jenson’s eyes shifted. “No. It was gradual.”

  “Nothing happened to trigger it?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  “No, his mind just started getting muddled.”

  “When?”

  “Within the last year.”

  “Before that he was fine?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he had a home?”

  Jenson nodded. “Now you’ve got it. That’s the whole point. He had a home. A life. A family.”

  “Where was home?”

  “He had a house in Long Island. Great Neck. Gorgeous house. Lived there thirty years. One day he up and sells it, goes and lives on the subway.” Jenson smiled and shrugged. “What more do I have to say?”

  “How does that affect you?”

  Jenson looked at him. “Are you kidding? I was living there. In the house. We all were. Suddenly he sells it out from under us. No word, no warning, we’re out on the street. You know what it’s like trying to get an apartment in the city these days? Forget it. Right now we got a bungalow in Teaneck, New Jersey. We’re all jammed into it and lucky to get it. Meanwhile he’s running around the subway system begging quarters with the winos. All the time, the man’s worth millions.”

  “So,” Steve said, “what is it you want?”

  “I told you what I want. Let’s swap some information. Maybe we can help each other.”

  “How so?”

  “Look. The man’s insane. You can’t accept employment from a man who’s mentally incompetent. The way I understand it, he’s not responsible for his actions, so anything he does wouldn’t be legally binding. So you start working for him, you could find yourself out on a limb.”

  “Whereas?” Steve said.

  “Whereas, if you cooperate with me, I could make it worth your while.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. You have to understand. I’m his heir. We all are. We’re blood relations. When he dies, his money goes to us.”

  “It does?”

  “Yes, it does. In equal portions, share and share alike. I’ve seen the will.”

  “I see,” Steve said.

  “I’m sure you do,” Jenson said. “But that’s just the thing. Uncle Jack’s lost his marbles. He’s not responsible for his actions and he might do anything. You see the situation. Now he’s consulted a lawyer, and of course that worries me. What if he should try to change his will? He can’t, of course, because he’s not legally competent, but what if he tries? What if he decides to disinherit all of us, and leave the whole shooting match to some wino he met on the subway?”

  “What if he did?”

  “Well, I don’t think you’d want to be in the position of helping a man who didn’t know what he was doing throw away his money by doing something idiotic.”

  “I see.”

  “So I’m asking you point blank. Did Uncle Jack consult you about his will?”

  Steve shook his head. “You’re inquiring into matters which I’m not at liberty to discuss.”

  Jenson’s jaw dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  J
enson got to his feet. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “After all I told you. I mean, you sent your secretary out of the room so we could talk man to man. I thought you understood the situation, then you make me an answer like that.” Jenson shook his head. His face was flushed. “Some attorney,” he said. “What did he promise you? A hundred grand? Two hundred? It doesn’t matter, ’cause you aren’t going to see a penny.” Jenson drew himself up and glared at Winslow. “What a fucking disgrace,” he said. “A man’s trying to defraud his family out of millions, but you can’t discuss it. Probably even think you’re gonna help him do it. Well, fat chance. I’d like to see you try to collect your fee.”

  Jenson turned and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

  4.

  TRACY GARVIN STUCK HER HEAD IN the door.

  “Well?” Steve said.

  “That man is definitely pissed off.”

  “No, no,” Steve said. “I mean—”

  Tracy held up her hands. “Relax. Mark Taylor’s men picked him up. They’ll follow him until further notice.”

  Steve exhaled and his features relaxed. He smiled. “Nice work.”

  “Just routine.”

  “Yeah, as if we had a routine. How’d you work it out?”

  “Nothing to it,” Tracy said. “We have no Halsburg case. No surprise there. We have no cases at all. Any name you picked would do. So you had to be trying to tell me to get a message to Mark Taylor without tipping off Jenson. The only thing I could think of was you wanted to have him followed, or you wanted him thrown out of your office. I couldn’t really see you calling in detectives to give the guy the bum’s rush—not at that point, anyway—so I figured you must want him tailed.”

  “You figured right.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I think I made a bad mistake, and I want to try to make up for it.”

  Tracy frowned. “What do you mean, a bad mistake?”

  Steve rubbed his head. “Tell you what. There’s no point my going through this whole thing twice. Why don’t you give Mark Taylor a ring, tell him to drop down here. I need to fill him in anyway.”

  “Sure,” Tracy said. She went in the outer office to make the call.

  Steve Winslow leaned back in his chair and rubbed his head again. Jesus Christ. Once, just once, it would be nice to have a client come in, tell him the facts and retain him in the case. Just once it would be nice to approach a case from the point of view of knowing what the hell was going on.

  Steve chuckled. No, it probably wouldn’t. A case like that would probably be boring as hell.

  The door opened and Tracy Garvin ushered Mark Taylor into the room.

  Taylor said, “Hi, Steve,” and flopped his two hundred and twenty pounds into the clients’ chair. Taylor was Steve’s age, in fact had been his roommate at college. He had been an exceptional linebacker with pro aspirations, before an injury had ended the dream. Instead he ran the Taylor Detective Agency, and had offices in Steve’s building. Or rather, Steve had offices in his building. The Taylor Detective Agency had been there for years. When Steve had finally scraped up enough money to set up a practice, Mark Taylor had put in a word with the super to get Steve in.

  “Hi, Mark. You pick him up?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s covered. I got a man on him, and he’ll stick like glue, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  “That’s what I figured. Of course, I couldn’t be sure.” Taylor grinned, jerked his finger at Tracy Garvin. “Tracy here calls me up, says, ‘I think Steve wants someone followed.’”

  “That’s not what I said,” Tracy protested.

  “Maybe not in those words,” Taylor said, “but that’s the gist of it. Anyway, she gives me a rundown of what happened, says she figures that means you want this guy tailed. The way she tells it, I figure you do too. But I’m a nice guy, and I don’t want Tracy out on a limb taking the responsibility on herself, so I gave her the chance of a lifetime, Taylor special, money-back guaranteed surveillance.”

  Steve grinned. “What the hell is that?”

  “I told her I’d follow the guy, and if it turned out that wasn’t what you wanted, there’s no charge.”

  “It’s what I wanted.”

  “Good. Then I’ll bill you. So what’s the scoop? Why am I tailing this guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, that’s helpful. Glad you called me down here. Otherwise, I’d be working in the dark.”

  “Yeah, well that’s the problem,” Steve said. “In this case, we’re working in the dark.”

  “You got a client?”

  “In a way.”

  “Oh, great. I can’t wait to find out what way that is.” Taylor turned to Tracy. “Is he putting me on?”

  “No.”

  “All right, Steve, what’s the pitch? What do you mean, in a way? You got a client or not?”

  Steve shrugged. “That’s open to interpretation. More to the point, no client asked me to tail Jenson. I did that on my own initiative.”

  “Is Jenson the client?”

  “No.”

  “Then who is?”

  Steve rubbed his head. “O.K. Let me give you a brief rundown. This morning an old ragged man off the street comes into my office and asks me a whole bunch of questions about probate law.”

  Mark Taylor started at him. “What?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A street bum?”

  “One of the homeless. And he doesn’t tell me his problems, like you’d expect a guy like that to do. No names, no specifics. No, the guy just wants to discuss abstract points of law.”

  “A homeless guy?”

  “Yeah. He asks me a whole bunch of questions and I answer them. He still doesn’t say why he wants to know. Then he gets up, throws two hundred bucks on my desk, and walks out.”

  Taylor’s jaw dropped open. “A homeless guy paid you two hundred bucks?”

  Steve grinned, put up his hands. “Hang on. You ain’t heard nothing yet. This afternoon another man comes into my office. Carl Jenson. The person your men are tailing. Tells me the street guy’s his uncle—his great uncle actually. And get this—he tells me this uncle’s an eccentric multimillionaire who’s lost his marbles, sold his house out from under him, and went to live with the homeless on the subway.”

  Taylor blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all. Jenson’s argument is his uncle’s mentally incompetent, so anything I do for him won’t be legally binding. His pitch is, if I throw in with him against his uncle and help him get his hands on the money, he’ll pay me a whopping big fee.”

  “Jesus Christ. So that’s why you decided to have him tailed?”

  “Actually, I decided the moment he told me his uncle was worth money.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Because that’s when I realized I’d made a big mistake.”

  “How?”

  “By giving his uncle advice.”

  “Why? Because he’s not mentally competent?”

  Steve shook his head. “No. Besides, we’ve only got Jenson’s word for that. For all we know, the guy may be perfectly sane.”

  “A millionaire living on the subway?”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s insane. But that’s not the point. The point is, I shouldn’t have given him advice at all.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he didn’t tell me what his problem was. He just discussed abstract points of law.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Everything. A lawyer’s not a reference book. A lawyer’s job is to take the facts of the case, and apply the law to them. If the lawyer doesn’t get the facts, if the lawyer just tells the client the law and lets the client go off and apply the law himself, that’s the worst thing a lawyer can do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because every case is different. And the law may or may not apply. And even if it does, the law is constantly chang
ing. That’s what legal precedents are all about. You take the facts of the case and you say, ‘Ah, that’s similar to this previous case. The same laws should apply.’ Or, if you don’t want it to apply, you say, ‘Ah, the reason it’s different from Coosbaine vs. Markowitz is this,’ and then you argue that point, and if you win, your case becomes a legal precedent.

  “But, you see, it all depends on the facts of the individual case. So for a lawyer to tell a client the law without knowing the facts of the case is totally irresponsible. The results could be disastrous.”

  “Then why’d you do it?” Taylor asked.

  Steve shook his head. “I told you. I made a mistake. This morning I had two men waiting to see me. A businessman and a homeless man. I asked Tracy to show in the businessman, and she needled me about it—the homeless man was here first.”

  Tracy opened her mouth to protest.

  Steve held up his hand. “No, no. You were absolutely right. I’m just explaining what happened. Anyway, I saw the businessman first. For a number of reasons: the businessman would be impatient, he wouldn’t want to wait; the street guy would be more interesting, I saved him for last. Perfectly reasonable. But for all that, Tracy was basically right. All liberal protestations notwithstanding, I’m a snob and a bigot and I saw the rich man first.”

  Steve chuckled and shook his head. “So what do I do? I take the rich man with his hundred-thousand-dollar retainer and throw him out of my office.”

  Mark’s eyes widened. “Hundred-thousand-dollar retainer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You turned down a hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Believe me, we didn’t want it.”

  Taylor rubbed his head. “Jesus Christ.”

  “So I throw him out of my office, then I bring the street guy in, sit him down, treat him like a king, and sit there talking probate law with him like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

  Steve frowned and shook his head. “Only it wasn’t. And if he’d been a normal client and not a street person, I wouldn’t have been talking abstract law with him. I’d have made him tell me the facts of the case. If he wouldn’t, I’d have sent him on his way. Only I didn’t. I was too busy bending over backwards playing Mr. Liberal. But hey, what’s the harm? None of it matters anyway, the guy’s only a street person. What the hell difference does it make how he changes his will? Then Carl Jenson tells me the guy’s a multimillionaire and suddenly it makes all the difference in the world. The guy asked me for advice. I gave it to him. If he goes out and tries to apply it himself, the results could be disastrous.