Attorney at Large (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by John Ellsworth

  It was uncomfortable and he was breathing shallow, frightened breaths.

  Thaddeus had never before been arrested and going handcuffed to a jail was the last thing he ever thought would happen to him.

  On the drive to the Las Vegas Detention Center the two agents up front laughed and joked and made reference to the fox they had caught in the hen house.

  “Hey, Thad,” Kroc shouted into the rearview mirror. “What’s six feet, white, and locked up for two days?”

  Thaddeus returned the look on the laughing face with a dark glare. He was suddenly furious, even more than he was scared. They had planned it out, coming for him on a Friday so he couldn’t make bail and get out right away. He would have to wait until Monday to be taken before a magistrate and have bail set then. Sons of bitches had planned every bit of it, he thought. Then he decided to keep his cool. There would be a time for payback and pay back he would. He’d never run from a fight before and he damn sure wasn’t about to start running now.

  As they rode along, Moretti back at the casino was working the phones, looking for a tax lawyer with a specialty in tax crime defense. It was late on a Friday and it seemed everyone was gone from the office for a weekend.

  He stretched his arms over his head and yawned.

  He would keep looking and dialing.

  There had to be someone.

  18

  Tubby Watsonn was a golfer and a tax lawyer who would rather hit a drive 330 yards than take in a $50,000 fee on a new tax case. The one made him feel fabulously

  virile, the other made him feel that much more indebted to the IRS when his own taxes came due at the end of the year.

  He was given to wearing bright colors on the links—coral slacks with canary sweaters, orange-checkered slacks with pink shirts, and a bewildering array of Oakley golf shoes in every conceivable hue—as long as they bore no resemblance of match to either slacks, shirts, or sweater being worn that day.

  He kept score down to the stroke, obeyed all rules, and insisted his golfing companions do the same. He invested heavily in lessons twice a week, hit the driving range every night after work, and played eighteen on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays.

  Saturdays were reserved for squiring Eryn Watsonn around town in their white Caddy, while she returned items of clothing to the boutiques where she had taken them home on spec during the week. And of course she made payments for those she would be keeping, at the same time. At those shops she required Tubby to accompany her inside the store and pay for the item(s) with the platinum American Express he kept sequestered deep inside his wallet, far away from her no-known-limits spending style. If he was going to devote his life to golf then she, by all that was holy, was going to give her wardrobe the same attention and investment of funds, dollar for dollar.

  Tubby Watsonn was a tax lawyer who specialized in tax crimes.

  Or it could be said of him that he was a criminal lawyer who specialized in tax cases.

  It didn’t matter to him how he was touted in the Google paid advertising for which he paid $1,000/day, the clients came rolling in no matter how his expertise was formulated.

  The reason for his lucrative tax law practice was two-fold.

  First, there was an abundance of tax cheats in Vegas—people who won at the tables but who did what they could to avoid paying the tax on their winnings. The IRS office in Las Vegas was double-staffed compared to every other IRS office in the country, all to snare all the cheats they could possibly round up.

  The second reason for his lucrative tax practice was that Tubby Watsonn, simply put, had never lost a case.

  He knew the tax law better than the IRS, taught state bar seminars to lawyers on tax issues, studied the new laws at least two hours each day, first thing in the morning on coming into the office at seven, and he wrote prodigious articles about tax law issues affecting the gambling industry and the tax treatment of winners and losers. As a result, his name was synonymous with “tax lawyer” in Nevada. He was the first person called when a big name got nailed.

  Lang Moretti reached Tubby Watsonn’s cell phone that Friday, at the same time Thaddeus was being chauffeured downtown by the two arresting officers, Kroc and Magence.

  Watsonn was playing the seventeenth at Winterhaven Short Nine on Friday because the Friday afternoon IRS revenue agent interview was suddenly discontinued by the agent who had unexpectedly eaten a bad fish taco and left the office early.

  Tubby took the blank spot on his calendar and immediately penciled in the short nine. He would be home in time for the Sabbath, Friday night.

  They weren’t Orthodox at his house, but they did observe the Sabbath—at least on Friday at sundown. Saturdays, well—Tubby figured the Lord wouldn’t mind him tending to Eryn’s impulse-buying on Saturdays and the necessity of running her around town while she returned and purchased her ensembles. So far the Lord had kept His peace about it and Tubby felt they had a good, workable understanding in place. Negotiation—it worked with the IRS and it worked with the Lord, at least as far as Tubby could tell.

  He was steering the golf cart down the seventeenth fairway when his cell beeped angrily.

  He ignored the call and it went to recording.

  Minutes later it beeped again and he again ignored the call.

  The third time was the charm, as he whipped it from the zippered pocket on his golf bag and shouted, “What!” so loudly into the phone that the putters on the seventeenth green turned and looked, making shush motions at him.

  Tubby saluted them back, in apology.

  “This is Tubby Watsonn,” he said.

  “Mister Watsonn, Lang Moretti here. I’m calling from the Desert Riviera.”

  “If this is about a transactional tax issue, you’ve got the wrong guy. My particular milieu is code violations. I leave the transactional stuff to the smart guys. And since you’re calling from a casino I can only assume it’s transactional tax problems you have on your mind.”

  “Mister Watsonn, the owner of our casino has been arrested on criminal tax charges.”

  So quickly did he pull over, Tubby almost steered the cart into a culvert. He smelled a $1 million fee and for that his beloved game could be interrupted. “When arrested?”

  “Not thirty minutes ago. Some guy named Aldous Kroc slapped the cuffs on him.”

  “I know that asshole Kroc,” said Tubby, which was true. They had gone toe-to-toe at least a half-dozen times. He knew Kroc to be a vicious attack dog who would let nothing come between him and a conviction. This was going to require money up front—lots of money.

  “We should meet now,” said Tubby. “Give me one hour.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” said Moretti. He slammed down the phone and buzzed downstairs for a whiskey sour. It was going to be a long night and he was going to need a quick drink—in and out—before it got any further underway.

  He wasn’t a drunk, Lang Moretti, but he was known never to miss a chance for a quickie after five. Italian, of course, he jokingly referred to himself as “Irish about some things—like overindulgence.” He was a transplanted New Yorker and old prejudices died hard with him. The micks were never above humiliating, in his worldview.

  An hour later the two attorneys were meeting in Moretti’s casino office, seventh floor, with a panoramic view of the Strip.

  Neons were glaring as the sun dipped lower in the west, and the crowds were picking up as it was Friday night and there were paychecks to be cashed and wagered away.

  Moretti, wearing his standard New York pinstripes and wingtips, stood behind his desk when security ushered Tubby Watsonn into his office.

  Watsonn was decked out in teal golf slacks from Oakley, white bucks footwear, and a linen navy blazer over a white golf shirt, open at the throat. He clenched a half-burnt cigar in the chubby fingers of his right hand, having stubbed it out when he entered the Desert Riviera. Half-glasses were perched on his forehead and his hawk nose sniffed the air dramatically as he swept into the office.

&
nbsp; “You’ve been drinking,” he said to Moretti. “I smell booze a half mile away. How about you order me a single malt Scotch before we get down to it?”

  Hands were pumped and seating assumed.

  Taken aback but game, Moretti tapped a button on his desk phone and placed the drink order. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said, “Anything to eat? Snack? Steak?”

  Watsonn raised his hands. “I’m set,” he said, “just the Scotch.”

  They wasted no time after that.

  Watsonn absorbed the inch of papers submitted by Aldous Kroc not two hours ago, and read the indictment three times.

  “Hmm. Tell me about skimming. And tell me the f-ing truth. We might as well get that up front right away. I get the truth from everyone I speak with or I’m gone, sayonara. How’s the skim work?”

  Moretti blanched. “There is no skim. At least not that I’m aware of.”

  Tubby Watsonn pulled a Bic from his jacket and fired up the cigar.

  “Ridiculous. This is a casino. Of course there’s a skim on. Otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing one of these!” he said, smacking the indictment for emphasis. “The Service’s DIF algorithm has aimed these people at this casino. Something ain’t adding up, you get my drift.”

  Moretti nodded fluidly. “I do, I do. And we can talk about all that. But for right now, can we get bail set and spring Thaddeus from custody?”

  “Hmm. I know a magistrate I can call. He’ll sign a bail order for me tonight—but only because it’s me. That’s if—and it’s a big ‘if’—I take the case.”

  “What’s it take to get you on board?”

  “Simple. I leave here with a check drawn on the casino’s general account for one million dollars. Then you’ve bought my time, my attention, and my drag around town with the powers-that-be.”

  “Done,” said Moretti. He buzzed CEO Mickey Herkemier and placed the order for the check.

  “That’s Watsonn with two n’s?” said Moretti.

  Tubby Watsonn blew a thick plume of cigar smoke into the ceiling.

  “Exactly two,” he said. He was already envisioning the cabin cruiser he would soon be enjoying on Lake Mead. He would leave Eryn at home with a credit card and take the boat out by himself. Maybe with some topless coed from UNLV on board, someone who was pre-law and who needed to make a few dollars on the weekends. The economy was toast—such arrangements were easy anymore.

  Best of all, they were tax deductible.

  19

  The sally-port door rolled up and Special Agent Kroc pulled the Ford Crown Vic inside.

  The door slowly creaked down and closed behind them.

  Both agents exited the vehicle and came around to Thaddeus’ door and helped him to his feet.

  “Nice,” the young lawyer said. “And I’m certain this was all absolutely necessary. There must be some IRS rule in some well-thumbed book somewhere, about arresting citizens on a Friday night so they can’t make bail until Monday. Isn’t that what we’re looking at here?”

  Agent Magence eyed him without the hint of a smile.

  “Attorney Murfee, you’d do damn well to tell your client—which is you—to shut his damn mouth. He wants to be sure he doesn’t say anything that can and will be used against him.”

  Thaddeus closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Nominally she was right.

  He was going to have to hold his tongue while they controlled his freedom.

  But he swore, right then and there, this would never happen to him again as long as he lived. There would be precautions on top of precautions henceforth. He would insulate and isolate himself from all governmental agencies and entities whether local, state, or federal.

  His bodyguards would be traded in for lawyers, a whole cadre of lawyers religiously dedicated to keeping the hounds at bay.

  He mentally kicked himself.

  How naïve he had been to have trusted the people around him without the safety net of checks and balances and eyes looking over shoulders to make sure everything was being done on the up and up.

  Somehow there was money missing from the casino—that much was clear from the indictments. And he would get to the bottom of it and heads would roll.

  He was even thinking about burying the guilty party in some faraway hole in the sand out in the middle of the godforsaken Nevada desert.

  He was all that furious.

  The woman inside at the first desk recognized him from the visit he’d made there a week ago to visit Kiki following her arrest. She couldn’t resist burrowing under his skin.

  “Well, it’s the hotshot lawyer, back again, this time in cuffs. Who are you here to see this time, counsel, yourself?”

  Thaddeus gave her his best smile and shook his head. “You’ve got me there,” he said. “Looks like I’ve screwed the pooch this time, for sure.”

  “Welcome to the Las Vegas Detention Center. We hope you’re stay with us is a pleasant one—isn’t that what you tell all the high rollers back at the casino?”

  “Something like that. But we don’t handcuff them, nobody makes them come there.”

  “Well, there you are,” she said, in her best brush-off voice, already busy with something more important than his own intake.

  The Special Agents went through the motions with the woman and soon Thaddeus was being printed and mug shot.

  He was then taken into a gang shower where he was told by the jailer to strip and shower, which he did.

  The orange jumpsuit came next, while his clothes were taken away in a basket perched on top of a cart.

  Then he was led into a large, circular island, where a dozen or more inmates surrounded him, in varying degrees of interest about the new guy.

  Most were absorbed in watching America’s Most Wanted on the center-stage TV, but a couple gave him more than one lookover.

  There were jailhouse tats milling around and there were $1,000 tats milling around, which told him the holding cell’s clientele came from all walks of life.

  He looked for a remote perch to make himself less obvious, saw none, and settled for an orange plastic chair six rows back from the TV screen. Might as well watch, he thought, and try to fit in.

  Which wasn’t all that hard. In the orange suit of the day, no one stood out and everyone stood out.

  They were all equals at being in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter what kind of name you put on it.

  * * *

  Six frantic calls and Tubby Watsonn finally tracked down U.S. Magistrate Peter J. Gladston III as he was in line to board a flight out of McCarran, bound for San Francisco and the 49ers game.

  Judge Gladston unhappily agreed to step out of line as Watsonn hailed a passing cart and was rushed to the boarding area, an order for bail in hand. “It’s a lawyer, a casino owner,” he shouted breathlessly at the impatient, stewing magistrate. “IRS grabbed him on a Friday night so’s he’d have to cool his heels in jail over the weekend. I know you always set these things at one million, so that’s what this one orders.”

  A cursory reading of the order, and Judge Gladston signed off with a dignified scrawl that left no doubt it was he who had signed. Wordlessly he turned away and headed through the boarding tunnel.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” shouted Tubby at the judge’s receding backside. “I won’t forget this!”

  * * *

  The first contact in jail was made at 6:15 by a black man with one eye missing, that same Friday night.

  The man was fidgety, walked listed off to one side, and sported a Mohawk cut just like James Harden of the Rockets, his hero.

  Unlike Harden, however, he had no job, no place to live, and zero prospects of either. The cot offered him by the jail was the first time he had slept up off the ground since the last time he was incarcerated.

  “I seen you before,” the man told Thaddeus. “Hey, everyone, I know this dude,” he shouted over the TV and general clamor. “This here one’s casino something.”

  Not one head turne
d to look. Just some old fool babbling on, they thought.

  “What can I do for you?” Thaddeus asked the man.

  “Desert Riviera casino. I seen you there. I never forgets a face.”

  “I work there,” Thaddeus said. “So you’re right. But why do you care?”

  “Got any money to loan for bail? I needs outta here yesterday.”

  “What are you in for?”

  “I sold some two-bit narc a zip of weed. Thas all.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Billy A. Tattinger. Most call me Bat for short.”

  “Well, Bat, selling narcotics is a serious crime in this state. Nevada has tough drug laws.”

  “How you know that?”

  “For one, I’m a lawyer.”

  And at that exact point Bat leaped to his feet and exclaimed, “Hey, y’all, this one here’s a lawyer!”

  This time the heads did turn.

  Within moments they were surrounded by a ring of onlookers who had questions for this lawyer.

  “How much is bail? Ten percent? Will they take plastic?”

  “If I lose my job and it was a false arrest can I sue them?”

  “My kid went with DES. Can you help me get her back after I’m out?”

  “How could a lawyer be in here?”

  Thaddeus was barraged with questions and hands reaching for his attention from all sides. He slouched lower in the orange chair, but it was no use. There was no place to run, no chance of making an escape.

  He was every bit as stuck as his new acquaintances.

  All right,” he said. “How about if I take a chair over between those tables and you come visit with me one at a time? Just like a real lawyer.”

  “That’ll work,” said Bat. “But I found you so’s I’m first.”

  “Fair enough,” said Thaddeus.

  He stood and dragged the plastic chair across the room.

  Bat followed close behind with another.