by John Decure
“You’d better, mister.” Her tone had softened ever so slightly.
I hugged her tight, my chin resting on her shoulder, weary of doing damage control, yet knowing that I was damn lucky to have her and not wanting to let her go—ever. Beyond the impossibly bright office windows, the garage door stood wide open and the shop sucked in the night like a cave. In the shadows I could barely discern various shapes: the cylindrical shaft of a hydraulic lift, a car chassis suspended in midair, coils from a hose hung on the rear wall. A long workbench. Against the bench stood another dark vertical column, thicker and not perfectly shaped like the hydraulic lift. An upright figure, one the general size and shape of Mickey Conlin. Looking right at me.
Ten
A new swell hit Saturday morning, a west-northwest that barreled through a narrow window of open ocean between the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the north and Catalina Island to the south at just the precise angle to strike the sandbars off Christianitos like a tomahawk drumbeat. The sea was playing my song, and not one that I often hear at home this time of year. Winter swells are generated by far-off storms bearing either north or west off the California coast; those from too far north lose something when they bend around Palos Verdes, while swells straight out of the west are blocked by Catalina Island, which lies twenty miles straight offshore from the tip of Christianitos pier. But when a swell like this, from just the right angle, manages to shoot the gap—as locals call it—the drumbeat rises. Bands of energy refract off the long south jetty and collide with undiluted incoming lines to form thick peaks that pack twice the juice of a typical wave. In double-up conditions, takeoffs are touchy because the wall is sucking up hard, turning inside out as it breaks. But if you can make it to the bottom still standing you’re going to get wickedly slotted, and, as anyone who surfs can tell you, a good tube ride is unbeatable.
I heard the first muffled detonations while lying in bed late Friday night, the house otherwise silent but for the groaning of my mattress as I shifted endlessly in search of sleep. By dawn the air was vibrating with energy. I slid downstairs without a sound, found Max in his spot near the kitchen door, and jogged down the block and across the sand.
Southside was alive with wedging green peaks pitching and bowling into an early-morning sunshine that made the shorebreak sparkle like white wine. Two riders were already out about a hundred yards south of the pier and Max was shadowing their movements in the sand. A big set lifted out the back, and the two rose over a stacking wall of water that devoured their trails as it unloaded on the bar. Through the mist another peak was hooking, and I saw a slash of white descending through its heart, a rider up and caroming off the bottom now, arching his back as he slipped beneath a canopy of falling water. I hooted, Max barked, and the surfer, locked inside, felt his way through the glorious glass-blown belly of the wave until it spat him out onto the shoulder. I turned and ran for my board.
My giddiness was short-lived. Surfwise, this was easily the best day of the winter, a no-brainer for any serious surfer. Days like this, you drop everything else in order to log as much water time as possible. But as I stood in the garage and stared up at the two dozen surfboards that float beneath the rafters like a school of colorful big-game fish, an odd paralysis set in, and I found that I could not decide which board to bring down. Typically it would be the 7’2” semigun for thumping overhead beach break, or maybe the seven-six for extra paddling speed, but I left the boards undisturbed in their stirrups and leaned against the wooden workbench as the sun cracked wider and wider through the open door. Not moving.
I never made it back to the shore that weekend. I just couldn’t. Too much was going sideways at home. Albert’s cheek was tattooed purple and his lower lip was as fat as a hand-rolled cigar. Since the mishap at the pier, he’d beaten a full retreat into the Wonderful World of Disney, camping in front of the TV set with a stack of G-rated videos in heavy rotation. By Sunday night I was gripping from two days of nonstop musical glee, pondering whether Mary Poppins, with her magic powers and ability to speak to animals, was perhaps the Antichrist.
Rudy had another regression and spent Saturday afternoon chanting like a Hindu priest as he inventoried the contents of the kitchen pantry—pap-reee-a, pap-reee-ka! But he wasn’t hurting anybody so I let him empty the shelves, then put everything back after we tucked him into bed. Dale mostly sat around all weekend, silently brooding in the bench seat beneath the living-room window as he gazed out onto Porpoise Way at his sagging house on wheels. Something was really killing him inside, something that lay beyond that window, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Twice on Saturday and once again Sunday he pried himself away, dutifully phoning Rudy’s daughter, Kimberley, to inquire as to when we could expect her arrival. But Kimberley was beginning to read as a flake, and no definitive date was forthcoming.
“‘Soon,’ she says, ‘really soon,’” Dale reported before heading back to his spot near the window.
Carmen didn’t ask me, but she knew the surf was pumping, could sense it in my keyed-up manner. Both days she tried to give me permission to go slide a few, but both times I said no, unable to bring myself to leave her there alone to watch over three men who were carrying on like three boys in their own distinctive ways. I’d set this thing in motion, which made them my responsibility, and that meant sticking around at all times to prevent any further chaos. Explaining myself, I felt shallow, having to give voice to a sense of duty to look after these men that was second nature to her, thinking: Funny, not long ago I actually believed riding great waves to be the end of the rainbow. Carmen nodded without comment, content, I believe, to let me stumble onto my own discoveries without adding to my discomfort.
By normal accounts it should have been a shitty weekend, sitting around the house those two days, just a spoonful of sugar not helping a single damn thing go down. Four times the phone rang with surfing friends on the line wanting to know if I was on it, itching to talk story about the day’s stellar rides and nasty wipeouts. I let the answering machine catch every message. Something had happened. For the first time in my life I had consciously overridden the reflex to surf, determined as I was to avoid taking undue advantage of my fiancée’s generosity. Before this weekend, my impending marriage to this girl had seemed an abstraction not yet within my grasp, like a fistful of pretty postcards from a foreign land I’d never been to. Now at least I felt like it was a place I could locate on a map.
So I missed a good swell—well, a cooker. Still, it wasn’t so bad. I would recover. Three thousand miles at sea an ill wind would kick up once again, a building front pinwheeling east below the Aleutians. A new swell would rise up and shoot the gap, the drumbeat pounding in the false dawn. Another time.
The thing is, there is only one Carmen, and this weekend felt like our time.
I took Dale with me to work Monday morning, had him wait downstairs in the cafeteria while I met with Therese Rozypal before Bobby Silver’s reinstatement hearing got rolling. Therese wasn’t looking too chipper and had her office door closed, her notes spread across that otherwise spanking clean desk.
“What’s the problem?” I asked after I’d settled in, raising an eyebrow at the Nixon photo all over again.
“I don’t know,” Therese said. “I don’t know.” She stared at the notes in apparent frustration. Therese seemed like the type who liked to control things, which is good if you’re a prosecutor, because you have to. But this one seemed beyond her grasp.
“Maybe it would help to just talk it through,” I suggested.
She sighed. “Okay. I’ve reviewed Silver’s petition for reinstatement again and again. I can feel it, something’s missing. It just seems … too clean.”
“What’s the work history read like?”
Therese flipped a page on her copy of Silver’s petition. “That’s a perfect for instance. Look at this, he shows a five-year history of these ‘business consulting’ gigs that are just too loose, you know, too convenient, too hard to track down.”
“Too elliptical,” I said.
“Exactly. I mean, how many disbarred attorneys do you know whose ‘consulting’ services would be in significant demand?”
“Not too many.”
“What advice would a man who’s misappropriated a half dozen clients’ settlement funds have to say that any sane person would want to hear?”
“So, is he lying about the jobs?” I said.
“That’s another funny thing. The companies he listed as clients checked out, and although none would comment on specifics, all of them verified having done business with Silver.”
“What kind of companies were they?” I asked.
“Interestingly, all four are investment-services outfits, limited partnerships with slick names like Capitol Consolidators and Homeowners Fidelity Trust. I say interestingly because Silver has no MBA or business background per se, not as far as I can tell.”
“So naturally you’re skeptical.”
Therese rubbed her forehead with an open palm. “Of course I’m skeptical. But you know, my dim view of the case isn’t evidence of anything. There’s more. I’ve just got a feeling I’m missing a connection.”
Apparently Silver had fared quite well as a consultant, well enough to repay the bar’s Client Security Fund every last cent the fund had shelled out to the former clients from whom he’d stolen. Financed by a small portion of yearly bar dues, the Client Security Fund is like a safety net that keeps bilked clients from crashing to the ground headfirst, awarding up to fifty thousand dollars per claim in cases in which a client can show that her lawyer separated her from her money through dishonest means. Restitution is a key component of rehabilitation, and any fallen lawyer seeking reinstatement must demonstrate as much by repaying the fund if it has made payouts in that lawyer’s name.
In Silver’s misappropriating wake, the fund had forked out a whopping $147,264 to six clients that had gotten the royal bendover, all of the awards paid out during the first year following his disbarment. Most lawyers seeking reinstatement have trouble making ends meet during the down years; losing your principal livelihood will do that to you. Not Bobby Silver. Fourteen months ago, the fund received a check for $24,544 from him, the first of six checks in the exact same amount to roll in once a month, each dated the first of the month. One day after the last payment was received, Silver filed his petition for reinstatement. Like clockwork, Therese said.
“Impressive,” I agreed.
She leaned forward over her papers. “I guess so, but what do you really think?”
“It’s too good to be true.”
Most thieving attorneys make only halfhearted stabs at restitution, casting themselves as victims, their good intentions thwarted by their inability to make a decent living as nonlawyers. They look for ways to get back in the club without paying those steep back dues. If they make it back in, great; if they don’t, hell, what’s a few days in court spinning a tall tale or two? It was worth a try. But this guy wanted back in the worst way. Which didn’t make a lot of sense.
If Bobby Silver was swimming in green as a so-called consultant, why bother reclaiming his law license? He was near sixty, creeping up on the traditional age of retirement. As long as he wasn’t a lawyer the state bar had no jurisdiction over him, which meant they had no practical basis to collect the hundred forty-seven grand they’d paid out of the fund. Something was not right about this synchronized method of repayment, the fat checks rolling in. Silver was the picture of cool efficiency. It just didn’t jibe with the concrete cowboy I’d seen waddling in to the law center four days ago, face red and spit flying as he realized that Dale and I stood in the way of his plans to fleece a befuddled old man. By all outward appearances he was no better equipped to make a living outside the practice of law than any of the other wannabes whose reinstatements I’d handled.
“My guess, the restitution money he’s been forking over is ill-gotten,” I said.
Therese took her time thinking that one over. “But restitution is restitution, the judge will say.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Were it not for our chance encounter with Silver last Thursday, he likely would have breezed today.”
“Too bad for him.”
We shared a smile as we stood to go.
The thought of my chance meeting with Silver as a lucky break put an extra click in my step as Therese and I made our way down to the fifth floor and through the state bar court’s security check. The place was quiet, as usual, and the long, carpeted hallway outside the courtroom lay before us like an open fairway as we walked to the last door on the left and entered Department 6. Because the department case calendars are manageable and the judges handle only a few matters each day, state bar court is devoid of the usual courthouse hubbub. Today not a single soul lingered about the fringes.
Inside Department 6, the Honorable Anita Wachter had not yet taken the bench. Wachter’s clerk, Wayne Fong, sat at an adjacent desk to the left of the judge’s big leather chair, fooling with the recording equipment the state bar court uses in lieu of live court reporters to memorialize the proceedings. Wayne and I play pickup basketball in the basement gym a few times a week. I broke off from Therese to sit in the gallery.
“You playing at lunch today, J.?” Wayne asked as he slung a sleek headphone around his neck. His white shirt and oversize navy blazer made him look like airport security.
Bobby Silver was at the defense table with a man in an expensive black suit who was presently hunched over the table reviewing notes. Neither so much as glanced at Therese as she settled in opposite their table, but when Silver heard Wayne speak my name, he turned and eyed me, looking none too pleased to see me.
“Probably not, I’ve gotta be here today,” I said, not coming out and saying that I’d be testifying, but letting Silver, who was straining to listen in, know that he’d stepped in something last Thursday in Glendale by running into me.
I smiled at Wayne, then glanced at Silver. His face was in full blush, his eyes flaring. I shot him the classic shit-eater in return. He whispered something to his lawyer that started with a few loose “goddamns” and trailed off into an extended hush-hush rant. His lawyer is a cool one, I thought, still writing his notes with his back turned to me as Silver’s neck puffed and corded. Across from the defense table I saw Therese stop unpacking her things long enough to pick up a thin pleading someone had left on the corner of the prosecutor’s table. She scanned the front page of the pleading, stopped short, and surveyed Silver’s table with a frown.
Bobby Silver’s lawyer finally turned and showed me a row of perfect white teeth I would know anywhere. “Counselor.”
Roger Turnbull, one of the most high-powered criminal defense specialists in the state, and his simple greeting wiped the smile off my face like a hard slap.
“Morning,” I managed.
I watched him introduce himself to Therese with the greatest of ease, apologizing for the last-minute substitution of attorney he’d dropped on her and promising to cooperate so as to make the hearing proceed as smoothly as possible.
“How have you been, J.?”
My lips were moving. “Fine, just fine,” I think I said. But the whole time my brain was screaming: Roger Turnbull? What in hell is Roger Turnbull doing representing Bobby Silver in a routine little reinstatement hearing?
Therese finished unpacking her file box and caught my eye. I nodded to her to step outside. The hallway was deserted as usual. Therese brushed at the perfectly coiffed bangs on her forehead, a nervous gesture.
“Oh my God, that’s Roger Turnbull,” she half whispered. “The Roger Turnbull. You know him?”
“We had a conviction matter together last year. He was representing the mayor’s son. You know, the cocaine addict.”
“Oh. Right, right. I read about it in the papers.”
I guessed Therese was a bit freaked by the fact that she was about to butt heads with a legal luminary. Now was the time to let her know how he operated.
“
Interesting case,” I said. “Had some lesser charges, a couple of solicitation misdemeanors to go with the coke possession for sale. The guy was on a weird power trip. We located the call girls who got busted with him on the sex counts. They told us he’d flashed a gold badge on them when it came time to pay, acted like he was a cop. Said he wouldn’t bust them, they were ‘way too hot’ to get arrested. Apparently when vice popped him they found a gold honorary city inspector’s badge in his wallet, had his dad’s name inscribed on it.”
“Nice guy,” Therese said. “Impersonating law enforcement. Not too bright.”
“The way I saw it he was also committing an illegal act under color of authority.”
Therese nodded. “Yeah, I like that. Hey, that’s good.” The color coming back to her face now.
“Thank you.”
“How’d it go?”
“We were all set to go to hearing, I’m figuring he might get disbarred. Then Roger comes riding to the rescue. I’d talked to Eloise about settlement on this before, and she’d said no way, take his license, this is a statement case. Felony possession for sale, under the influence, the two solicitation counts. For once I had to agree. Then Roger tells me wait until next Monday, he’ll make a few phone calls, see what he can do. Monday morning, I get a call from Eloise to make a deal.”
“You’re kidding,” Therese said.
“Serious. She told me she’d consulted the chief, and after further consideration, this was—how did she put it? Said the case presented a fine opportunity for the bar to show it could be ‘firm, yet fair,’ whatever that means.”
“What did he get?”
“Nothing much. Stayed suspension, three years’ probation, the usual terms and conditions.”