At any rate, when my phone rings at 3:20 A.M., I'm not terribly surprised. It's Deck, with the double announcement that the feds raided our offices just after midnight, and that Bruiser has slapped town. There's more. Our former offices are now locked by court order, and the feds will probably want to talk to everyone who worked in the place. And, most surprising, Prince Thomas seems to have vanished along with his lawyer and friend.
Imagine, Deck giggles into the phone, those two hogs,
with their long grayish hair and facial growths, trying to sneak through airports incognito.
Indictments are supposed to be issued later today, after the sun comes up. Deck suggests we meet at our new offices around noon, and since I have no place else to go, I agree.
I stare at the dark ceiling for half an hour, then give it up. I step barefoot through the cool wet grass and fall into the hammock. A character like Prince spawns lots of colorful rumors. He loved cash, and my first day on the job at Yogi's I was told by a waitress that eighty percent of it was never reported. The employees loved to gossip and speculate over the amounts of cash he was able to skim.
He had other ventures. A witness in a racketeering trial a couple of years ago testified that ninety percent of the income generated in a particular topless bar was in the form of cash, and that sixty percent of this was never reported. If Bruiser and Prince in fact owned one or more skin clubs, then they were mining gold.
It was rumored that Prince had a house in Mexico, bank accounts in the Caribbean, a black mistress in Jamaica, a farm in Argentina, and I can't remember the other stories. There was a mysterious door in his office, and behind it there supposedly was a small room filled with boxes of twenty- and one-hundred-dollar bills.
If he's on the run, I hope he's safe. I hope he escaped with large sums of his precious cash, and never gets caught. I don't care what he's allegedly done wrong, he's my friend.
DOT SEATS ME at the kitchen table, same chair, and serves me instant coffee, same cup. It's early, and the smell of bacon grease hangs thick in the cluttered kitchen. Buddy's out there, she says, waving her arms. I don't look.
Donny Ray is fading fast, she says, hasn't been out of bed for the past two days.
"We went to court yesterday for the first time," I explain.
"Already?"
"It wasn't a trial or anything like that. Just a preliminary morion. The insurance company is trying to get the case dismissed, and we're having a big fight over it." I tryto keep it simple, but I'm not sure it registers. She looks through the dirty windows, into the backyard but certainly not at the Fairlane. Dot doesn't seem to care.
This is oddly comforting. If Judge Hale does what I think he's about to, and if we're unable to refile in another court, then this case is over. Maybe the entire family has given up. Maybe they won't scream at me when we get bounced.
I decided when I was driving over that I wouldn't mention Judge Hale and his threats. It would only complicate our discussion. There will be plenty of time to discuss this later, when we have nothing else to talk about.
"The insurance company has made an offer to settle."
"What kind of offer?"
"Some money."
"How much?"
"Seventy-five thousand dollars. They figure that's how much they'll pay their lawyers to defend the case, so they're offering it now to settle everything."
There's a noticeable reddening in her face, a tightening of her jaws. "Sumbitches think they can buy us off now, right?"
"Yes, that's what they think."
"Donny Ray don't need money. He needed a bone mare transplant last year. Now it's too late."
"I agree."
She picks up her pack of cigarettes from the table, and
lights one. Her eyes are red and wet. I was wrong. This mother has not given up. She wants blood. "Just exactly what're we supposed to do with seventy-five thousand dollars? Donny Ray'11 be dead, and it'll just be me and him." She points with her forehead in the direction of the Fairlane.
"Them sumbitches," she says.
"I agree."
"I guess you said we'll take it, didn't you?"
"Of course not. I can't settle the case without your approval. We have until tomorrow morning to make a decision." The issue of the dismissal rears up again. We'll have the right to appeal any adverse ruling by Judge Hale. It could take a year or so, but we'll have a fighting chance. Again, this is not something I want to discuss now.
We sit in silence for a long time, both of us perfectly content to think and wait. I try to arrange my thoughts. God only knows what's rattling around in her brain. Poor woman.
She stubs out her cigarette in an ashtray, and says, "We'd better talk to Donny Ray."
I follow her through the dark den and into a short hallway. Donny Ray's door is closed, and there's a NO SMOKING sign on it. She taps lightly and we enter. The room is neat and tidy, with an antiseptic smell to it. A fan blows from the corner. The screened window is open. A television is elevated at the foot of his bed, and next to it, close to his pillow, is a small table covered with bottles of fluids and pills.
Donny Ray lies stiff as a board with a sheet tucked tightly under his frail body. He smiles broadly when he sees me, and pats a spot next to him. This is where I sit. Dot assumes a position on the other side.
He tries to keep smiling as he struggles to convince me he's feeling fine, everything's better today. Just a little
tired, that's all. His voice is low and strained, his words at times barely audible. He listens carefully as I recount yesterday's hearing and explain the offer to settle. Dot holds his right hand.
"Will they go higher?" he asks. It's a question Deck and I debated over lunch yesterday. Great Benefit has made the remarkable leap from zero to seventy-five thousand. We both suspect they may go as high as a hundred thousand, but I wouldn't dare be so optimistic in front of my clients.
"I doubt it," I say. "But we can try. All they can do is say no."
"How much will you get?" he asks. I explain the contract, how my third comes off the top.
He looks at his mother and says, "That's fifty thousand for you and Dad."
"What're we gonna do with fifty thousand dollars?" she asks him.
"Pay off the house. Buy a new car. Stick some away for old age."
"I don't want their damned money."
Donny Ray closes his eyes and takes a quick nap. I stare at the bottles of medication. When he wakes up, he touches my arm, tries to squeeze it and says, "Do you want to settle, Rudy? Some of the money is yours."
"No. I don't want to settle," I say with conviction. I look at him, then at her. They are listening intently. "They wouldn't offer this money if they weren't worried. I want to expose these people."
A lawyer has a duty to give his client the best possible advice without regard for his own financial circumstances. There is no doubt in my mind that I could beguile the Blacks into settling. With little effort, I could convince them that Judge Hale is about to jerk the rug from under us, that the money is now on the table but will soon be
gone forever. I could paint a doomsday picture, and these people have been stepped on so much they'd readily believe it.
It would be easy. And I would walk away with twenty-five thousand dollars, a fee I have trouble comprehending at the moment. But I've overcome the temptation. I wrestled with it early this morning in the hammock, and I've made peace with myself.
It wouldn't take much to drive me from the legal profession at this point. I'll take the next step and quit before I sell out my clients.