“I thought that was dude again,” he said. “But maybe it wasn’t.”
I sighed. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s working.”
“So you’re ready to drop the case?”
“No way. Let’s get off of my job and finish talking about yours.”
“The general contractor may not have enough money to finish the job, which means me and all the other subcontractors will be left holding the bag. But I’m not sweating it. It’ll work out.”
We finished our meal, picked up cookies from Mrs. Fields and headed to the parking garage. When we stepped into the elevator, Jefferson was about to press our floor, then stopped and pinned me with a blank look.
“Don’t ask me,” I said. “I don’t remember what level we parked on either.”
“You’re the super-smart one,” he quipped with a smile. “You should automatically remember stuff like this.”
He punched the second floor and when the doors opened, he stuck his head out and looked to the left.
“Not this one. Must be level three.”
When the elevator doors reopened, I made a move to step out ahead of Jefferson, but he took my arm and pulled me back inside.
“Hold the doors open, while I check first.” He trotted a few feet up the first aisle, then waved me over. “The car’s over there,” he said, pointing.
I had almost caught up with him, when Jefferson suddenly took off, running past me at top speed.
I whirled around. “Jefferson, what are you—”
“Hold up, asshole!” Jefferson yelled.
My stomach flip-flopped when I realized that Jefferson was chasing after someone. A man in khakis and sunglasses was zigzagging between cars with Jefferson only a yard or two behind him. Another couple, headed for the elevators, stopped to watch.
“Jefferson, what are you doing?” I yelled, jogging toward him.
The man cut right and stumbled as he tried to make his way around an Escalade. That put him within Jefferson’s reach. I watched in complete shock as my husband grabbed the man by the back of his collar.
By the time I reached them, Jefferson had the guy pressed up against a car with his arm twisted behind his back.
“Why you following us?” Jefferson demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man snarled, trying to twist himself free. “Ain’t nobody following you. Let me go.”
Based on his height and clothing, he appeared to be the guy Jefferson had described earlier.
“You’re lyin’!” Jefferson yelled at him. “I saw you in that Honda when we first drove in here. Then you followed us into the theater and I saw you walk by the restaurant too. So what’s up?”
“Get offa me! This is assault!”
We had now attracted a small crowd.
I tugged hard on the tail of Jefferson’s shirt. “Are you crazy? What are you doing? Let him go!”
Jefferson ignored me. Using his body weight to keep the man pinned against the car, he dug out a wallet from the guy’s back pocket. He flipped it open and studied the license.
“Antoine Davis, I don’t know who told you to follow us, but I have your name and your address,” Jefferson said. “And I’m not going to forget it. If I ever see you within fifty feet of me or my wife again, I’ma beat you down.”
He pulled the man up toward him, then hurled him between two cars. He landed on all fours. Jefferson flung the man’s wallet, hitting him in the head with it. He grabbed it and scurried off.
“Jefferson, are you crazy? Why did—”
A motorized cart carrying two security guards screeched to a stop just in front of us.
“What’s going on here?” The guard on the passenger side jumped out first. A dark-skinned Hispanic, he was barely five feet.
“That punk grabbed my wife’s purse,” Jefferson said, breathless.
“That’s not the report we got,” the man challenged, puffing out his chest.
Jefferson tugged at the sleeves of his shirt. “I don’t know what report you got, but that’s what happened.”
The other guard, taller and heftier, had a harder time climbing out of the cart. “Looks to me like your wife is holding her purse.”
“That’s because I got it back,” Jefferson lied. “He grabbed it just as we stepped off the elevator. Maybe we need to sue this place for inadequate security.”
An apprehensive look ping-ponged between the two guards. The threat of a lawsuit seemed to spark an immediate change in their attitude.
The first guard turned his attention to me. “Are you okay, ma’am? We’ll need to take a report.”
“Forget it,” Jefferson said. “We’re leaving.” He grabbed my hand and started tugging me toward the car.
I waited until Jefferson had started the engine before erupting. “Are you nuts? They have cameras in here! You could be facing assault charges!”
“That dude ain’t filing no police report,” Jefferson said, backing his Chrysler 300 out of the stall. “He was following us, not the other way around. And I bet it has something to do with that Big Buy case. That was probably the same guy who attacked Benjamin.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know that it wasn’t him. You need to drop that case. ’Cuz the next time somebody’s following you, I may not be around to save you.”
CHAPTER 36
“I ran into a little problem.”
The man was not prepared to hear this. Not less than a week after his other guy had screwed up.
“What kind of problem?” His voice was stretched tight enough to snap.
“Um…they made me.”
“They?”
The assignment was simple. Follow Vernetta Henderson. Don’t talk to her. Don’t ask her about the Big Buy documents. Just follow her. Who was this they?
“She was with her husband. And, um…there was a little mishap.”
The man pinched the bridge of his nose until it hurt. “I need specifics.”
The caller, his voice shrinking in volume, recounted how the target’s husband had spotted him in the garage at the Howard Hughes Promenade.
The man’s fingers drummed lightly on the desk as he stared out of the window at nothing. “I said I wanted specifics,” he snapped.
“He grabbed me, okay. Took my license. But it’s not a big deal. I was carrying a fake.”
This was indeed a big deal. A very big deal. This kind of thing was not supposed to happen on his watch. He provided the highest echelon of surveillance services. The people who hired his company had a lot at stake. Screw-ups like this were unacceptable.
“How in the hell did he make you? That place is usually packed.”
“I don’t know. The guy is good.”
“Or maybe you’re just an idiot.”
He would not be mentioning this incident to his client. Just as he had not reported the botched break-in and assault at the Center for Justice. If Benjamin Cohen had been killed, his client would have been linked to a murder.
The man closed his eyes. It was good that this conversation had not taken place in person. He would have assaulted the clown himself.
“I…I don’t know how it happened,” the caller stuttered.
“It happened because you’re incompetent,” the man spit into the phone.
That’s what he got for relying on amateurs, something he only did when his regular crew was unavailable. He pressed a button, ending the call. He would deal with this lackey later.
This was very disappointing. The man had hoped that the documents could have been easily retrieved. A search of Cohen’s office had been a bust. They’d already crossed Phillip Peterman off the list. Three days after his girlfriend’s death, they had snuck into the house late one night and searched every crevice of the place, even though it was still roped off as a crime scene.
Based on his intelligence, it was clear that Ida Lopez and Olivia Jackson didn’t have them. That left their attorney, Vernetta Henderson. Searching her office wi
thout being detected was too risky. Until they had a feasible plan, he just wanted to keep an eye on her.
The man took a long, deep breath. If he could not find the mystery documents, it was not the end of the world. But it would very much please his client and the man took great pride in always delivering, even under the most challenging circumstances.
And this one was indeed turning out to be quite a challenge.
CHAPTER 37
“Rounding up plaintiffs is hard work,” I said to Benjamin, who was sitting across the table from me at the Center for Justice.
“No pain, no gain,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
For the past four hours we’d been conducting telephone interviews with Big Buy employees from all across the state. We had a thirty-minute break before the arrival of fifteen women from three different Big Buy stores in Los Angeles County.
Benjamin’s bleary eyes told me that he was just as tired as I was. Purplish scars were still visible on the side of his face, but hair now covered the stitches near his hairline.
Both of us were stunned by the flood of calls we received after Olivia’s exile from the store. Suddenly, employees who’d shunned her were applauding her as a hero. Dozens of female employees had contacted us about joining the lawsuit. We were now seriously considering refiling the case as a class action.
A local law firm with class action expertise was interested in partnering with us, but wanted to see what evidence we had first. So far, our interviews told us there was a clear pattern and practice of discrimination at Big Buy.
Benjamin and I spent a few minutes comparing notes from our interviews.
“I spoke to a woman who worked at a store in Bakersfield,” Benjamin said, perusing the notes on his legal pad. “She claims a regional manager told her women weren’t fit for management because God made men to rule and females to serve.”
“Was he trying to be funny?”
“She certainly didn’t think so. That was the response she got when she asked him to submit her name for a promotion to department manager. He said his views were backed up by the Bible.”
I lowered my head. “It’s hard to believe this kind of stuff could even come out of someone’s mouth.”
I thought about Special and the Community of Islam. Was this the kind of sexist thinking she was buying into?
We traded a few more stories, then I ran down to the lobby to pick up a pizza I had ordered. On my way back, I grabbed two Cokes from the lunchroom vending machine.
“So you really think we can pull off a class action?” Benjamin asked, popping open one of the Coke cans.
“Sure, provided we find the right firm to partner with. There’s no way we could handle all the work involved in a class action by ourselves.”
I was on my second piece of pizza but noticed that Benjamin hadn’t eaten one. I was about to ask why, when it hit me. Benjamin only ate Kosher food.
I covered my eyes in embarrassment. “I’m sorry about the pizza.”
“No big deal. I’m not really hungry.”
“Can I ask you something?” I said, my voice full of curiosity. “If you can only eat Kosher food, how can you drink that Coke?”
He smiled, then picked up the can and pointed to a symbol that looked like a circle with the letter U inside. “See that?”
I examined my own Coke more closely. “Yeah.”
“That’s the symbol of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations,” Benjamin explained. “Which means this Coke is Kosher. It’s the oldest organization that certifies Kosher products. You’ll find it on a lot of things.”
Between Benjamin and Special, I was learning quite a bit about other faiths. I continued to eat in silence.
“So is Jefferson still upset about you staying on the case?” Benjamin asked.
“Yep. Especially after he thought that guy at the Promenade was following us.”
“How do you know for sure that he wasn’t?”
Actually, I wasn’t sure. But I refused to buy into the fear.
“I’ll be honest. What happened to you really scared me. But not enough to drop this case. We don’t have the documents, and hopefully whoever wants them knows that by now.”
My iPhone buzzed. I glanced at the display, rolled my eyes and hit the decline button.
“That’s Lamarr bugging me again. I’m working with an appellate attorney to get his notice of appeal filed. But it’s highly unlikely that he’ll get a new trial. He’s having a hard time understanding that he’ll eventually have to pay Tonisha two-million dollars, plus interest. He can’t seem to get it in his head that we lost.”
Benjamin’s face grew pensive. “And what if we lose?”
“Anything’s possible with litigation,” I said. “But I don’t see how we can. The evidence we’ve been collecting clearly shows that Big Buy has an ingrained culture of discriminatory practices toward women.”
An hour later, only three of the fifteen Big Buy employees we were expecting had shown up for our meeting. Not even Olivia had shown up. I was bummed by the turnout but didn’t dare show it.
“I want to thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” I began. “Suing your employer isn’t an easy thing to do. I know that it was a tough decision for you to come here today.”
The women focused their attention on me and had barely said a word to each other.
“What we’ve discovered is a good-old-boys’ network in effect at Big Buy where the men promote their friends, who happen to be other men,” I continued. “Our class action lawsuit will challenge that system because it’s unlawful.”
“There’s definitely a good-old-boy thing going on at the Gardena store,” said Marcia Watkins, the only white woman present. She had six years’ tenure with the company.
Robyn Gant, a bubbly African-American sitting next to her, nodded. “I second that.”
Robyn’s gregarious, opinionated personality reminded me of Olivia. She had teetered into the room wearing expensive shoes that looked like stilts. I wasn’t surprised when I learned that she was the architect of the work slowdown.
“What exactly is a class action?” asked Janice Miller, the other African-American sales associate brave enough to show up.
Benjamin decided to field that question. “It’s basically a way to address similar claims involving a large number of people in one lawsuit, rather than everyone filing their own individual case.”
“But how can we do that?” Janice asked. “We don’t even all work at the same store.” She looked over at Marcia. “The store manager who discriminated against her didn’t discriminate against me.”
“We’ll be showing that there’s a pattern and practice of discrimination that’s condoned at the upper levels of the company,” I explained.
Marcia inhaled and wrung her hands. “When my boss finds out that I’m suing the company, I’m going to be scared to death to go to work.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Benjamin said. “It’s unlawful for Big Buy to retaliate against you for suing them.”
“That doesn’t mean they still won’t do it,” Janice pointed out. “Look at what they did to Olivia.”
“And we were also able to quickly get her back to work with no repercussions.”
Janice was the only one taking copious notes, which gave me a bad vibe.
“According to my husband,” she continued, “the only people who really make any money off of a class action are the attorneys.”
Benjamin caught my eye. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was. Janice sounded like trouble.
“If you’re a lead plaintiff, you’ll receive more than the other plaintiffs,” I said, intentionally side-stepping her comment because she was right. The legal fees we recovered would likely be far more than what the plaintiffs received individually.
But Benjamin and I weren’t doing this for a big payday. This lawsuit was personal for us. We wanted to put an end to the way Big Buy treated its female employees.
“I could certainly u
se a big settlement check,” Robyn said. “I saw a new pair of Christian Louboutins I’d love to have. And I’m definitely up for a promotion.”
“Me too,” Marcia chimed in.
“Do all of us need to have our names on the lawsuit?” Janice asked.
“No. We just need two or three women to be class representatives. Only their names will appear on the front page of the complaint.”
“You can definitely use my name,” Robyn said. “I ain’t scared of them.”
“Doesn’t a lawsuit take a long time?” Janice asked.
“It can,” I said.
“My cousin had a disability case against his company. He won at trial, but it’s been a year and he still hasn’t seen a dime.”
I paused, trying to figure out the best way to combat Janice’s negativity, when Olivia walked in.
“Sorry, I’m so late everybody,” she said, out of breath. “I had a last-minute meeting at the church. I would’ve called but my cell ran out of juice.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, pulling out a chair for her. “We were just talking about the challenges of filing a lawsuit like this. I know it hasn’t been easy for you. Why don’t you talk a little bit about your experiences?”
Olivia sucked in a long breath. “No, it certainly hasn’t been easy. But I refuse to sit back and let them get away with this. If you all join this lawsuit with me, it’s going to mean better working conditions for us and every woman who comes through the door after us.”
The women nodded. Olivia’s frankness had resonated with them in a way my assurances had not.
“I don’t know about your relationship with God,” Olivia said, “but mine is solid. And I have nothing but faith that He’ll help us through this, every step of the way.”
CHAPTER 38
Phillip refused to put his life on hold a minute longer. Screw those asshole cops. He was in desperate need of cash, plus he was dying to get laid.
He drove slowly down his street, then circled the block twice before finally beginning to relax a bit. On his third lap, he bypassed the house and headed for the grocery store three blocks away. Once inside the store, he meandered in the bread aisle, pretended to read the label on a loaf of bread, then pulled out his throwaway cell phone.
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