One Dead Lawyer

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Authors: Tony Lindsay

One Dead Lawyer
Tony Lindsay
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For my daughters;
Tiffany, Joy and Kimberly
 
Love you, Daddy
Prologue
I am not a man who often resorts to violence. The fact is, being African American, six foot two and 250-pounds-plus, with a shaved head, I try to avoid the violent reaction because so many people expect it from African American males. There are, however, situations when a brother does what a brother got to do. Attorney Randolph Peal and I had found ourselves in such a situation.
I was holding him with my left arm wrapped around his neck. My right hand held my 9 mm pistol to his temple. I wanted to kill him because in my soul I was certain that he'd either had them killed or done it himself.
We were on the Persian rug that covered the floor area in front of his large leather-padded desk. I tightened my arm around his neck. Kneeling behind him I could see the bald spot on the top of his narrow head. Dandruff had formed around the roots of his remaining dishwater-blond hair. I moved the pistol from his temple to the bald spot.
I wanted to blow a hole in his head, to scatter his brains across the fancy rug and buffed-wood floor. I wanted to see his blood splatter as theirs had. I wanted to end the shyster's life . . . but I didn't. Not because my desire for his death lessened, but because I was hit hard on my own head from behind.
Chapter One
I come to, and the sun is shining bright into my eyes. The front seat of my best friend Ricky's Ford Expedition is where I am. Flipping the passenger visor down gives me relief from the intrusive afternoon sun. Ricky is sitting in the driver's seat and behind me is my ex-wife Regina. There is an egg-sized lump growing on the back of my head and Ricky's .38-pistol is on the seat next to him.
The pistol is customarily under his shirt, so, seeing it out from under his black short-sleeved shirt, I summarize that he and it are responsible for the lump on my head. Ricky Brown is well over 350 pounds and at least six foot three inches tall. He doesn't do much to exert himself, so seeing him labor for breath has me wondering.
My guess is it's from carrying me out of the lawyer's office, and his heavy breathing confirms my speculations. Despite the painful throbbing, I notice the black linen short suit Ricky is wearing is actually very sharp. I would wear it. But why he chose to wear it with a pair of dressy, baby-blue alligator shoes is beyond me.
Ricky's eyes are focused on the police squad cars in front of the lawyer's building. There are at least six.
We are parked in downtown Chicago across the street from the monstrously large city hall building on the corner of LaSalle and Randolph. The lawyer's office is in the high-rise on the far south corner. This side of the street is lined with high-rise buildings. Regina reaches over my shoulder and drops my 9 mm in my lap. She doesn't say a word to me. Downtown shoppers and workers walk up and down LaSalle Street staring back at the squad cars. My own alertness is kicking in, and the squads have my attention as well.
“Are they here for me?” I ask.
“What da fuck do you think? Of course they here fo' yo ass. You cain't go up in no big-time lawyer's office and put a pistol to his head. What da fuck was you thinkin'? We agreed to a plan. Man, you got to stop thinkin' wid ya heart. Shit. We'll be lucky to get da hell away from down here.” His words are directed to me, but his gaze remains on the squad cars and police officers piling out of them.
My buddy Ricky has a big head, a huge head. Last week we went to Bacon's hat shop on Forty-seventh Street and he was measured at an eight and a half. The hat maker and I shared a good laugh at his expense. To make matters worse, Ricky draws attention to three quarters of a watermelon-size head by continuing to wear his hair in a slicked-down process in a finger-wave pattern. A style that, in my opinion, was played out in the seventies, when he first started wearing it.
“Look-a-here, D: I'm too old fo' stupid shit. And goin' up in there was some stupid shit! We had his ass, lock, stock and barrel. All you had to do was follow da plan. Goin' up in there was just plain stupid!”
I have no reply. He is right. It was stupid, but there are times when stupidity is satisfying, and having that shyster at the end of my 9 mm was very satisfying. It was very satisfying indeed. Admittedly, seeing his eyes buck, feeling him tremble in my grasp, watching his urine spread down his pants leg and hearing him whimper for his life pleased me.
“Man, what is you grinnin' about?” Ricky sees my satisfied smile. “Dis situation ain't funny. You sick, ya sittin' here damn near laughin' and dem damn cops up da block lookin' fo' ya ass. I sho' wish you would tell me what's funny.”
The good thing about good friends is you can communicate beyond spoken words. His words were harsh, but once Ricky sees the grin on my face, he too starts to grin. Without me saying a word he feels my satisfaction. His fat, round, tan-colored face gives way to a full, toothy smile.
“Man, I gots to know, was dat piss stainin' da leg of dat fine suit? Did you make dat man piss his pants, D? I gots to know.”
Before I can answer Ricky, Regina cuts me off by announcing, “I'm calling him.”
“What?” Ricky and I both ask, turning around in our seats to face her thin, bright, unsmiling face.
“I'm calling him. We need to let him know we have some leverage in case he is thinking of giving the police your name.” Before either of us can object, she opens her tiny flip phone and dials his number. I rub the sore lump on the back of my skull. My whole head begins to throb harder.
This summer has been a hot one. Ricky has the air conditioner on maximum, but as I rest my head against the passenger window I can still feel the afternoon heat outside.
“Regina Price for Attorney Peal . . . I'm aware he is in a meeting, Veronica, but put me through anyway . . . Randolph, this is Regina. Yes, of course I'm fine. I have nothing to fear from David or his friend, but I cannot say the same for you. What I'm saying is that if you give David's name or description to the police they will act in accordance. Of course I'm not threatening you . . . It's not a matter of whose side I am on, it's a simple matter of you not turning him over to the authorities or pressing any type of charges . . . I am really not concerned with how this looks to you. Yes, things have changed . . . Dinner tonight? It's a possibility. Call me around eight. Good-bye.”
Again I turn around to face her. I must not have heard her right. “Did you agree to dinner with that murdering bastard?”
“Yes, because I don't know that he killed anyone. That is your suspicion.” She answers quickly, with her emerald eyes rolling away from my accusing gaze, then out the window. “And I also got him to agree to not give you over to the police, which is more to the point of our current situation.”
Her two-piece business suit, a soft summer white, buttoned to the collar, goes well with the “stay out of my business” attitude she's offering me. The painful throbbing from the back of my head is increasing looking at the snide, “ain't nobody's business if I do” expression on her face. Her eyes roll back to me.
“I would expect a little more gratitude considering I just saved you from jail.”
Although the street is filled with people, although the afternoon sun is beaming through the spaces between the thick high-rise buildings, and although Ricky is in the truck with us, in my mind, I am in a dark tunnel with Regina and the tiny cell phone she used to call that shyster.
I see my hand snatch it from her. The truck door opens, and I begin stomping the little phone into the concrete sidewalk. The downtown strollers scatter away from the spectacle of me demolishing every bit of her tiny gadget and stomping it to smithereens.
When I get back into the truck, Ricky is bent over his steering wheel laughing at my adolescent display of anger.
Regina remains cool in the backseat.
“That phone retailed for three hundred and seventy-five dollars. I expect payment in full.”
I hear her, but I don't answer her. Al Sharpton will be wearing dreads and Whoopi Goldberg will be in a perm before I pay her a damn dime for that phone. The whole situation is her fault, hers and hers alone. And to think I really thought we had a chance of getting back together. I must have been trippin'.
“Ricky, drop me at my car, man. I'm in the indoor parking lot on Adams.”
Sliding into my Cadillac DTS, I notice the date, Wednesday, August 13th, 2003, on the small screen of my cell. The phone is in a hands-free mount attached under the dash. Tomorrow is my mother's birthday. Maybe I'll fly out to Arizona next week and surprise her and Daddy. I have been promising them a visit for over a year.
The DTS starts right up. This black-on-blackin-black sedan is by far the best Caddy I have ever owned. I traded both my Fleetwood Brougham and El Dog for it. All I want and need right now is one car. A brother is tired of maintaining two and three cars. Besides, even if I still had them, all I would drive would be this one. This Caddy rolls.
The kid loved it too. The kid . . . damn, I had been starting to like him again. Only a heartless, soulless person could kill a child, or a person so threatened they would forsake what's right for self-preservation. The latter I believe is the case with Attorney Randolph Peal, the man whose head I just had my pistol to.
He did kill them. I'd bet my right arm on it, and if Ricky hadn't stopped me I would have ended it. No more African American people dying at his hands. With Attorney Randolph Peal it's not a black/white thing; with him it is a green thing, an assets thing. He killed them to maintain his wealthy status, the sick bastard.
In the short time it takes me to exit the parking lot, the sedan has reached a comfortable seventy-two degrees and Miles's trumpet in “Green Haze” is trying hard to mellow me out. I rest my head easily against the headrest, conscious of the lump. It remains sore, but the throbbing is gone. The subtlety of the headrest's soft calf leather provides an almost therapeutic touch.
Pulling from the inside parking lot onto Adams Street, I stop to say a couple of quick thank-you prayers. First, I thank God for having Ricky stop me from killing the lawyer. I continue by thanking Him for not letting the police catch us coming out of the lawyer's office, and I thank Him again for my son.
During the last four months I have been getting acquainted with my four-year-old son, a child I hadn't known existed. Regina kept his birth and life a secret from me. It wasn't until she thought I was on my deathbed that she brought him to me.
Chester is our second son. Our first son, Eric, died due to an underdeveloped heart. A big piece of me died with him. I have never felt whole since his death. Chester has not nor ever will replace Eric, but he has brought me joy. When I first laid eyes on him from my hospital bed, my life got better. A warmth opened up inside my chest, and it has been growing ever since.
My boy, my son, is truly a gift from God. His smile, his bright eyes, his soft voice, each and every little nap on his tiny head gives me reason to thank the Lord. I love the child, and because of him once again I have a life worthy of living.
When I first got out of the hospital, Regina set no boundaries on me visiting my son. She opened the doors to the home that used to be ours. I could stop by to see Chester whenever. And since I am one of the principals in a personal security firm, our time together is often. I am there to pour the milk over his Froot Loops in the morning, and more times than not we close his Pooh Bear books together before bedtime. Things were going great between us until Regina dropped the bomb on me.
I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. I was too busy thinking Regina and I were going to be a family again. The three of us were doing family things: matinee shows, Chuck E. Cheese pizza, Lincoln Park Zoo and the Children's Museum. It was all good, or so a brother thought.
While it's true Regina and I never went anywhere alone, I was still certain it would only be a matter of time. My thinking was wrong. Three days ago, she called me over to her place at twelve-thirty at night. I thought, it's the booty call a brother's been waiting for. It was a booty call, all right, except I was the one who got stuck.
Man, this city is changing form right in front of my eyes. Every time I pull up to this intersection at Halsted and Roosevelt, I trip on how much the area has changed. Maxwell Street, for practical purposes, is gone. No more Polish-sausage stands, no street peddlers, no cheap sweat socks, no price-haggling retail stores, no head shops, no blues music flowing through the air, no corner-to-corner people-filled blocks, no knife-sharpener's wheel, no rag man, no fish carts, no five dollar “gold” chains, no ten dollar “Rolex” or “Monado” watches, no all-African-American-cast nasty videos, no more single-hubcap deals, no Three-Card Molly players, no fruit wagons, no more Sunday mornings on Maxwell Street; it's all gone. Barren, flat, fenced-in city lots are what remains. They say the area will be “urbane” once the building starts and is finished, but now, to me, it looks like a flattened community.
Maxwell Street used to be Sunday-afternoon blues, fresh fried fish, the flea market, cheap gym shoes, Dobbs hats, Stacy Adams shoes and Tino the Tailor. I bought three suits last year, and I still haven't found a place to take them to get altered. Tino has been hemming my pants since I was twelve years old. This part of the city no longer feels like the Chicago I grew up in. The cultural hot spot it was is no more.
Regina told me she has been talking about living north of here and told me I should think about relocating downtown. I told her it wasn't affordable for me. A brother can afford it, but I don't want any part of this so called re-gentrification. As far as I can see, all they are really doing is moving folks out who are not rich.
I make the left onto Halsted and go into an immediate U-turn. I make the right on Roosevelt. They moved the Polish-sausage stands to Union Street; the street that runs alongside of the Dan Ryan Expressway. The Polish-sausage stands have been converted into a couple of trailers, but the sausages are still good; smothered in grilled onions and topped with hot peppers.
I just got the Caddy detailed, but since Regina won't be riding in it anytime soon, the smell of the grilled Polish sausages and onions won't be offending anyone. I personally enjoy getting in my car a day later and still smelling the scent of the sandwich, but that's me.
Instantly when I get out of my Caddy the heat assaults me. The sun is beaming strong and the air is heavy. Extreme, that's Chicago weather, scorching in the summer and freezing in the winter. I break a twenty for two Polishes, fries and two cans of pop. I give the kids begging in front of the trailers all the change. I know giving them money only encourages them to beg more, but one of them might really be hungry. Better to help the one in need than none.

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