Death, Taxes, and Hot-Pink Leg Warmers

by Diane Kelly

  Ernestine crooked a finger at me and Eddie. “I know them two. Does that count?”

  Eddie and I explained our previous interactions with Ernestine for the court.

  Ross stepped toward the gallery, resting a hand on the half wall that separated the benches from the counsel tables as he addressed Ernestine. “Will your earlier fraud case affect your ability to be unbiased in this trial?”

  “Not at all,” Ernestine spat. “So long as we can string the bastards up by their balls.”

  The judge didn’t wait for the defense attorneys’ inevitable reaction before indicating the door with her gavel. “You’re dismissed, Ms. Griggs.”

  I watched the jurors as Ross asked his questions. One of them, a middle-aged woman with reading glasses, pulled two knitting needles and a skein of yarn from a bag at her feet and began to knit one, purl two. A twentyish man in a Quickie Slickie Oil Change uniform fidgeted in his seat, rolling his head and cracking his neck, using his car keys to pick gum off the bottom of his steel-toed work shoe. A gender-indeterminate hipster in skinny jeans and a hoodie hid under long brown bangs lying at an angle across the top half of his or her face. An Indian American woman wearing a red dot on her forehead and an orange sari over her curvy frame sneaked jelly beans out of her purse and into her mouth, despite the sign on the wall that read NO FOOD OR DRINKS IN THE COURTROOM.

  A man in a scraggly beard and frayed flannel shirt raised his hand. “Did you say sumpin’ ’bout tax invasion? ’Cause I hate the stinkin’ IRS. They’re dockin’ my paychecks. It ain’t fair.”

  Ain’t fair? What wasn’t fair was that millions of people paid their taxes while deadbeats like this guy and the Tennis Racketeers sat back and let others foot the bill for national defense, highways, and Social Security. Heck, the courthouse we were sitting in had been paid for with federal tax dollars. The air-conditioning bill would also be paid with tax funds. Of course, some of those funds could be saved if it weren’t so damn cold in here. I could no longer feel my toes.

  Judge Trumbull let the bearded boor go. None of the other jurors seemed sad to see him leave. The fact that he’d been digging his pinkie in his ear since he’d arrived hadn’t endeared him to the rest of the pool.

  Ross spent several minutes questioning a woman in a blue dress. She worked at a title company, knew many of the real estate agents in town, and could potentially have a bias. Ross took a step closer to the woman. “Are you familiar with—”

  The Commodores’ classic “Brick House” blared from the gallery.

  Trumbull waved her gavel at the jurors. “Who forgot to turn off their cell phone?”

  The Indian woman shrank in her seat, surreptitiously turning her cell phone to silent.

  Ross wrapped up his questions without dismissing the potential juror.

  “Your turn, defense counsel,” Trumbull said. “One at a time.”

  Plimpton demanded the woman who worked for the title company be dismissed for cause. She knew the juror would see the botched paperwork for what it was, complete and utter nonsense designed to trick desperate homeowners into handing over their houses for next to nothing.

  Despite Ross’s objections, Judge Trumbull went with the defense. “You’re free to go,” she told the woman.

  A smile broke out on the woman’s face. No doubt she’d take the rest of the day off but tell her employer she’d been tied up in court all day. Who could blame her?

  The attorney asked the jurors whether anyone had ever been defrauded.

  A middle-aged man with a clip-on tie raised his hand. “I gave five hundred dollars to those Nigerians. Never did get the millions they were supposed to send me.”

  The Quickie Slickie oil tech snorted. “That was stupid.”

  Clip-On rose to his feet. “You want to take this outside, oil jockey?”

  Judge Trumbull banged her gavel. Bam! “Sit down!”

  Clip-On took his seat, but when Trumbull’s attention turned elsewhere he pointed at his eyes then turned his fingers on the oil tech. The oil jockey offered one particular finger in return.

  The defense attorneys spent all morning and a good part of the afternoon interviewing the jurors. Some of their questions made sense. Have you ever lost a home to foreclosure? Have you ever sought assistance from a debt-relief company? Others, in my opinion, didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Are you married, single, or divorced? What neighborhood do you live in? They might as well ask, Who put the bop-in-the-bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop? Or, Why did the chicken cross the road? Or, How many nuns does it take to change a lightbulb? And, of course, all of us were still waiting to learn Who let the dogs out?

  Judge Trumbull gave us a half-hour lunch break, barely enough time to grab a greasy slice of pizza in the courthouse snack bar. After lunch, the attorneys questioned the jury pool regarding their knowledge of the case. Though the arrest of the defendants had been front-page news and a featured story in television newscasts, it hadn’t personally affected any in the pool so none had paid it much attention. For once, self-interest played in our favor.

  When the group had been narrowed down to twenty presumably impartial and unbiased potential jurors, the judge asked whether any objected to being sequestered.

  “I’m divorced with three teenagers,” replied the knitter. “This trial will be a vacation.”

  On hearing his fellow juror was single, Clip-On craned his neck from the second row to take a better look at her.

  “Will the hotel have down bedding?” asked the Asian man. “I’m allergic to feathers.”

  “Do we get room service?” asked the Indian brick house.

  The oil tech chimed in, too. “What about a fitness room?”

  “You’ll get a basic room without TV and a small expense account for the hotel restaurant,” Trumbull said. “No turndown service, no mint on the pillow. You are not to leave the hotel, read any newspapers, surf the Web, or talk to anyone about this case while the trial is going on. Got it?”

  The Asian man raised a timid hand. “The bedding?”

  The judge returned her gavel to its stand. “Talk to the hotel manager.”

  Jury selection wrapped up at three o’clock. By then the knitter had completed a pair of mittens and what appeared to be either a toaster cozy or a pair of underpants. Twelve jurors had been chosen, along with three alternates. The yarn enthusiast, the oil jockey, Clip-On, the hipster, and the Indian brick house had survived the culling.

  Judge Trumbull called it a day. “Everyone be back at nine in the morning. No stragglers.”

  chapter twenty-four

  Bye-bye Birdie

  As we left the courthouse, I turned to Eddie. “Want to work out with me and Lu? It’s Pilates again.”

  “You gonna wear those ridiculous leg warmers?”

  “Yeah.” They’d grown on me. Besides, they were a gift from the Lobo. The old broad was overbearing and demanding, but I liked her nonetheless. “You got something to say about it?”

  Eddie raised his palms in surrender. “Who am I to question you about your wardrobe?”

  Nick joined Eddie, me, and Lu at the Y for the Pilates class. I enjoyed working out with the balls and stretchy bands. They were much easier than the Zumba moves.

  As I stopped at the water fountain afterward, Nick twirled his towel into a tight, twisted weapon and snapped it at me, popping me on the butt with it. “You’re looking mighty fine these days.”

  “It’s these workouts with Lu.” I wiped water from my mouth with the back of my hand. “She’s really pushing herself. It’s forced me to step up my game.”

  “Keep it up,” Nick said, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Because I’m going to give you the workout of your life.”

  I could hardly wait.

  * * *

  Tuesday evening, a cold fall drizzle moved into the metroplex. While the moisture would normally turn my hair into an unmanageable ball of frizz, with my new curly perm my hair became curlier and springier. There’s a lot to be said for such a caref
ree style.

  It was another relatively slow night at Guys & Dolls. Neither Nick nor Aaron Menger were working, so Christina and I were on our own. Both of the men had told us to text them if Wesley Prescott showed his face at the club. If he’s there, I’m there, Nick’s text said. Don’t take any chances.

  I knew Nick only meant to express concern, but a part of me couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the implication that we might take a stupid risk. Then again, I had been stupid before, not realized a risk existed, and ended up with a fractured skull. My confidence was still shaky, which annoyed me even more. If we could take Geils down, though, my self-esteem would be restored.

  As I headed to the bar for a soda, I noticed a couple of men in the audience had taken advantage of the small crowd to flash a lot of cash. In a short time, both were surrounded by young women clamoring to earn a big tip. I had to wonder if the men might be undercover cops from the Dallas PD sex crimes unit trying to buy their way into the VIP room.

  One of the regular but less generous customers, a burly, beer-bellied guy, didn’t like being ignored. He stood at his table and hollered, “What’s a guy gotta do to see some tits around here?”

  Maybe tip more than three bucks for a lap dance? Heck, even I knew that.

  The dancers on the club floor glanced briefly his way and began arguing among themselves. One of them eventually acquiesced and walked less than enthusiastically to beer belly’s table.

  “That’s more like it!” he called, sitting down again and holding his arms out to his sides, wiggling his fingers. “Come to papa.”

  Urk.

  The girl turned her back to him and performed a halfhearted lap dance, all the while making eyes at Theo across the bar. Would I ever get used to a world where it was normal to flirt with one guy while bumping your ass against the crotch of another? It was like working in some alternate, sexually charged universe.

  “Thanks, Theo.” I signed the card slip, took my soda, and returned to the cash office.

  Payroll taxes were due tomorrow, and Merle was working his way through the records, adding up the wages and tips paid, computing the Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes due.

  I finished counting a dancer’s tips and found myself totally caught up with no envelopes waiting to be counted.

  “Good job, Sara,” Merle said. “You work fast.”

  “I aim to please.” I performed a sitting curtsy in my rolling chair.

  He pulled a manila folder from his drawer and tossed it onto my desktop. “Since you’re such an overachiever, how about you pay some of the bills?”

  I took Merle’s request as a good sign. He was beginning to trust me, to give me access to more of the financial information. Of course, he had no idea I’d already used his password to access the invoices.

  Merle pecked away at his keyboard for a moment. “You’re now authorized to access all of the accounting records.”

  He stepped over to my desk and showed me how to process the invoices and issue payment. “Don’t forget to scan a copy of the invoice into the system before you shred it.”

  “Got it.”

  I set to work paying the invoices. On top was one from Stillwater Spirits for today’s delivery. Like the earlier bills I’d downloaded, this statement reflected both a bulk discount and a rebate. The second bill in the stack was for an upcoming shipment of fruits and vegetables from Valley Produce. As before, this bill seemed horribly inflated. The club was paying an arm and a leg for each head of lettuce and ear of corn. Of course the bill had CASH PAYMENT ONLY noted in all capital letters across the top. There was also a statement for the upcoming meat and seafood delivery from Michelson’s. Their statement likewise indicated cash payment was required.

  After scanning the bills, I decided to seize the opportunity to fish for information, to gauge Merle, see if he seemed to know anything. I held up the produce bill. “Is it just me or is the produce company charging excessive prices? Look here.” I pointed at the line for tomatoes. “They’ve charged the club $4.25 a pound for tomatoes. I only paid $1.89 a pound last time I bought them at the grocery store.”

  “Really?” Merle appeared genuinely surprised, rolling his chair over to take a look. “I never paid much attention before. Guys like me, living alone, we tend to eat mostly frozen dinners or pick up takeout. I can’t even recall the last time I bought a fresh vegetable.” He took the paper from my hand and looked it over.

  “Maybe you should mention this to Mr. Geils,” I said. “If you save him some money, he might give you a raise.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  He stepped out of the cash office and across the hall to Don Geils’s digs. I heard the rap-rap-rap of his knuckles on Geils’s door as the cash office door swung closed. There was a murmur of voices for a few seconds, followed by Geils’s barking, “I make the decisions around here. If I want to pay more to get high-quality vegetables, that’s my choice. You got that, gimpy?”

  I peeked through the window in the cash office door just in time to see Geils thump Merle on the forehead before slamming the door in his face. Merle stood there, his back to me, staring at Geils’s door. His hand, which still held the invoice, shook.

  Guilt sliced through me. I’d been the one who’d put Merle up to confronting Geils. But at least I knew for certain now that if the drugs were, in fact, coming from Valley Produce, Merle knew nothing about it.

  After a few seconds, Merle turned around. His eyes met mine through the glass and held for a moment before he turned and raised a middle finger at Geils’s door.

  I quietly opened the door to the cash office. “That goes double for me!” I whispered.

  Merle stormed in, moving fast for a guy with a bum leg. “I try to do the boss a favor and that’s the thanks I get?” He flung the bill aside and fell into his chair. “If I had any hair left, I’d rip it out.”

  He poured himself a full glass of scotch and downed it in five seconds flat. I hoped his aged liver was up to the challenge.

  Sighing, Merle looked out into the club. “One day you’re a young guy, fresh out of high school, full of dreams, your whole life ahead of you. You’re going to be the next big playwright, maybe even win a Tony for your production. Next thing you know you’re slaving away for some pig-nosed jackass in stacked heels and your best years are long behind you.” He poured himself another full glass of scotch. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother getting out of bed in the morning.”

  Wow. That was harsh. I wasn’t sure what to say, but I should at least try to cheer the guy up, right? “Your life’s not so bad, Merle. You’ve got your health.” For now at least. I had some serious concerns about his liver. “You’re a decorated war hero. You’ve had a steady job, never been out of work. You own a home.”

  Shit! I’d slipped up on that last one. Merle had never mentioned owning a house. The only way I knew about it was because I’d looked over his tax returns and noted he’d taken a mortgage interest deduction. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice my blunder.

  He drained his second glass. “None of that means anything without someone to share it with.”

  There was really nothing I could say to that, was there? It was true.

  By closing time, Merle had been asleep in his chair for an hour. Luckily, he sat relatively upright and I’d turned his chair so that his back was to the security camera. If anyone was monitoring the feed from the camera aimed at his desk, they’d only see the back of his bald head.

  I’d finished the payroll tax reports for him. I’d also picked up Merle’s cell phone from his desk and scrolled through his contacts until I found Bernice’s number, summoning her to help me with Merle. He wasn’t a big man, but I’d never get him into my car by myself and I didn’t trust any of my other coworkers to be discreet about his condition. If Geils learned that Merle was stone-cold drunk and hadn’t done a lick of work for the past three hours, he’d probably fire the guy on the spot.

  I’d taken advantage of Merle’s unconscious
state to search the computer, looking for any information that might be relevant to our drug/prostitution/tax evasion case. Unfortunately, while I found drafts of several half-completed scripts, including a remarkably heartfelt story called Boot Camp Blues starring an eighteen-year-old boy who’d been drafted into the army, I found no smoking guns. I supposed it was too much to ask for a list of Geils’s drug mules and VIP customers with their names and contact information.

  Shortly after midnight, while Bernice did her best to pour some coffee into Merle, the dancers, waitresses, and bartenders brought me their final take for the night. I processed the dancers’ and waitresses’ tips first, saving Theo’s register receipts for last. As usual, I tallied up the credit card slips, then divided the bills into separate stacks by denomination. Singles. Fives. Tens. Twenties.

  After counting the twenties, I turned them over to make a quick inspection of the back of the bills, pretending to be verifying my count as I laid each bill on the desk.

  Twenty. Nothing.

  Forty. Nothing.

  Sixty. Nothing.

  Eighty. Bingo.

  In the middle of the stack was a bill with a stick-figure birdie flying over the White House and a slash through the 2 in the upper left corner.

  One of the marked bills.

  Christina had made a buy.

  I laid the bill out on my desk and snapped a photo of it before adding it back to the stack.

  Merle turned my way, spilling lukewarm coffee onto his shirt, his slurred speech coming out as one word. “Iseverythingokay?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer before dropping his paper cup of coffee into the trash, closing his eyes, and settling back into his chair.

  I shoved the money into the bank bag, trying to be subtle in case the security camera was being monitored. I ventured a look at Bernice and spoke as softly as I could. “Christina made a buy tonight.”

  Bernice stayed cool, her body language not reflecting the hopeful look in her eyes. Clearly she wanted Geils nailed as much as we federal agents did. “That’s good, right? That means things will start moving along?”