We first talk about the Blacks and their dispute with Great Benefit. I hand him a three-page summary of their case, along with my ingenious conclusions and suggested courses of action. He reads it carefully while I study the wadded balls of paper under his desk. He’s very impressed, and says so over and over. It’s my advice to the Blacks that they contact a trial lawyer and pursue a bad-faith action against Great Benefit. Smoot wholeheartedly agrees. Little does he know.
All I want from him is a passing grade, nothing else. Next we talk about Miss Birdie Birdsong. I tell him she is quite comfortable and wants to remake her will. I keep the details to myself. I present to him a five-page document, the revised last will and testament for Miss Birdie, and he scans it quickly. Says it looks fine without seeing anything in it. Legal Problems of the Elderly has no final
exam, no papers to be submitted. You attend class, visit the geezers, do the case summaries. Smoot gives you an A.
Smoot has known Miss Birdie for several years. Evidently she’s been the queen of Cypress Gardens for a while, and he’s seen her twice a year on visits there with his students. She’s never been inclined to take advantage of the free legal advice before, he says, pondering and tugging at the bow tie. Says he’s surprised to learn she’s wealthy.
He’d really be surprised to learn she’s about to be my landlord.
Max Leuberg’s office is around the corner from Smoot’s. He left a message for me at the front desk of the library, said he needed to see me. Max is leaving when classes are over. He’s been on loan for two years from Wisconsin, and it’s time for him to go. I’ll probably miss Max a little when both of us are gone from here, but right now it’s hard to imagine any lingering feelings of sentiment for anything or anybody connected with this law school.
Max’s office is filled with cardboard liquor boxes. He’s packing to move, and I’ve never seen such a mess. We reminisce for a few awkward moments, a desperate effort to make law school sound provocative. I’ve never seen him subdued before. It’s almost as if he’s genuinely sad to be leaving. He points to a stack of papers in a Wild Turkey box. “That’s for you. It’s a bunch of recent materials I’ve used in bad-faith cases. Take it. Might come in handy.”
I haven’t quite finished the last batch of research materials he laid on me. “Thanks, Max,” I say, looking at the red turkey.
“Have you filed suit yet?” he asks.
“Uh, no. Not yet.”
“You need to. Find a lawyer downtown with a good trial
record. Someone with bad-faith experience. I’ve been thinking about this case a lot, and it grows on you. Lots of jury appeal. I can see a jury getting mad here, wanting to punish the insurance company. Someone needs to take this case and run with it.” I’m running like hell.
He bounces from his seat and stretches his arms. “What kinda firm are you going with?” he asks, on his toes, performing some yoga expansion on his calves. “Because this is a great case for you to work on. I’m just thinking, you know. Maybe you should take it to your firm, let them sign it up, then do the grunt work yourself. Surely there’s somebody in your firm with trial experience. You can call me if you want. I’ll be in Detroit all summer working on a huge case against Allstate, but I’m interested, okay? I think this might be a big case, a landmark. I’d love to see you pop these boys.”
“What’s Allstate done?” I ask, steering matters away from my firm.
He breaks into a wide grin, clasps his hands together on top of his head, just can’t believe it. “Incredible,” he says, then launches into a windy narrative about a gorgeous case. I wish I hadn’t asked.
In my limited experience of hanging around lawyers, I’ve learned that they all suffer the same afflictions. One of the most obnoxious habits is the telling of war stories. If they’ve had a great trial, they want you to know it. If they have a great case that’s destined to make them rich, they must share it with other like minds. Max is losing sleep with visions of bankrupting Allstate.
“But anyway,” he says, drifting back to reality, “I might be able to help with this one. I’m not coming back next fall, but my phone number and address are in the box. Call me if you need me.”
I pick up the Wild Turkey box. It’s heavy and the bottom
flaps sag. “Thanks,” I say, facing him. “I really appreciate this.”
“I wanna help, Rudy. There’s nothing more thrilling than nailing an insurance company. Believe me.”
“I’ll give it my best shot. Thanks.”
The phone rings and he attacks it. I ease from his office with my bulky load.
MISS BIRDIE and I strike an odd deal. She’s not much of a negotiator, and she obviously doesn’t need the money. I get her down to a hundred and fifty dollars a month rent, utilities included. She also throws in enough furniture to fill the four rooms.
In addition to the money, she receives from me a commitment to assist with various chores around the place, primarily lawn and garden work. I’ll mow the grass, so she can save thirty dollars a week. I’ll trim hedges, rake leaves, the usual. There was some vague and unfinished talk of weed-pulling, but I didn’t take it seriously.
It’s a good deal for me, and I’m proud of my businesslike approach to it. The apartment is worth at least three hundred and fifty per month, so I saved two hundred in cash. I figure I can get by working five hours a week, twenty hours a month. Not a bad deal under the circumstances. After three years of life in the library, I need the fresh air and exercise. No one will know I’m a yard boy. Plus, it’ll keep me close to Miss Birdie, my client.
It’s an oral lease, from month to month, so if it doesn’t work out then I’ll move on.
Not very long ago, I looked at some nice apartments, fit for an up-and-coming lawyer. They wanted seven hundred a month for two bedrooms, less than a thousand square feet. And I was perfectly willing to pay it. A lot has changed.
Now I’m moving into a rather spartan afterthought, designed
by Miss Birdie, then neglected by her for ten years. There’s a modest den with orange shag carpeting and pale green walls. There’s a bedroom, a small efficiency kitchen and a separate dining area. The ceilings are vaulted from all directions, in every room, giving a rather claustrophobic effect to my little attic.
It’s perfect for me. As long as Miss Birdie keeps her distance, then it’ll work fine. She made me promise there’d be no wild parties, loud music, loose women, booze, drugs, dogs or cats. She cleaned the place herself; scrubbed the floors and walls, moved as much junk as she could. She literally clung to my side as I trudged up the steps with my sparse belongings. I’m sure she felt sorry for me.
As soon as I finished hauling the last box up the stairs and before I had a chance to unpack anything, she insisted we drink coffee on the patio.
We sat on the patio for about ten minutes, just long enough for me to stop sweating, when she declared it was time to hit the flower beds. I pulled weeds until my back cramped. She was an active partner for a few minutes, then took to standing behind me, pointing.
I’M ABLE TO ESCAPE the yard work only by retreating to the safety of Yogi’s. I’m scheduled to tend bar until closing, sometime after 1 A.M.
The place is full tonight, and much to my dismay there are a bunch of my peers grouped around two long tables in a front corner. It’s the final meeting of one of the various legal fraternities, one I was not asked to join. It’s called The Barristers, a group of Law Review types, important students who take themselves much too seriously. They try to be secretive and exclusive, with obscure initiation rites chanted in Latin and other such foolishness. Almost all are headed for either big firms or federal judicial
clerkships. A couple have been accepted to tax school at NYU. It’s a pompous clique.
They quickly get drunk as I draw pitcher after pitcher of beer. The loudest is a little squirrel named Jacob Staples, a promising young lawyer who began law school three years ago, already having mastered the art of dirty tricks. Staples has found more ways to cheat than any person in the history of this law school. He’s stolen exams, hidden research books, filched outlines from the rest of us, lied to professors to delay papers and briefs. He’ll make a million bucks soon. I suspect Staples is the one who copied my newsbrief from
The Daily Report
and plastered it around the law school. Sounds just like him.
Though I try to ignore them, I catch an occasional stare. I hear the word “bankruptcy” several times.
But I stay busy, occasionally sipping beer from a coffee mug. Prince is in the opposite corner, watching television and keeping a wary eye on The Barristers. Tonight he’s watching greyhound racing from a track in Florida, and betting on every race. His gambling and drinking buddy tonight is his lawyer, Bruiser Stone, an enormously fat and broad man with long, thick gray hair and sagging goatee. He weighs at least 350, and together they look like two bears sitting on rocks, chomping peanuts.
Bruiser Stone is a lawyer with highly questionable ethics. He and Prince go way back, old high school buddies from South Memphis, and they’ve done many shady deals together. They count their cash when no one is around. They bribe politicians and police. Prince is the front man, Bruiser does the thinking. And when Prince gets caught, Bruiser is on the front page screaming about injustices. Bruiser is very effective in the courtroom, primarily because he’s known to offer significant sums of cash to jurors. Prince has no fear of guilty verdicts.
Bruiser has four or five lawyers in his firm. I cannot
imagine the depths of desperation which would force me to ask him for a job. I cannot think of anything worse than to tell people I work for Bruiser Stone.
Prince could arrange it for me. He’d love to do the favor, show how much clout he’s got.
I can’t believe I’m even thinking about it.
Ten
U
NDER PRESSURE FROM THE FOUR OF us, Smoot relents and says we can return to Cypress Gardens on our own, without going as a group and suffering through another lunch. Booker and I sneak in one day during “America the Beautiful,” and sit in the back while Miss Birdie gives em all a pep talk about vitamins and proper exercise. She finally sees us, and insists that we walk to the podium for formal introductions.
After the program breaks up, Booker slides into a far corner, where he meets with his clients and dispenses advice he wants no one else to hear. Since I’ve already met with Dot, and since Miss Birdie and I have spent hours sparring over her will, there’s not much left for me to do. Mr. DeWayne Deweese, my third client from our previous visit, is in the hospital, and I’ve mailed him a thoroughly useless summary of my suggestions to aid him in his own private little war against the Veterans Administration.
Miss Birdie’s will is incomplete and unsigned. She’s
been very touchy about it in recent days. I’m not sure she wants to change it. She says she hasn’t heard from the Reverend Kenneth Chandler, so she might not leave him her fortune. I’ve tried to encourage this.
We’ve had a few conversations about her money. She likes to wait until I’m buried up to my ass in mulch and potting soil, my nose dripping with sweat and moist with peat, then, hovering over me, ask some off-the-wall question like “Can Delbert’s wife sue my estate if I leave him nothing?” Or, “Why can’t I just give the money away right now?”
I’ll stop, extract myself from beneath the flowers, wipe my face and try to think of an intelligent answer. Usually, by this time she’s changed the subject and wants to know why the azaleas over there are not growing.
I’ve broached the subject a few times over coffee on the patio, but she gets nervous and agitated. She has a healthy suspicion of lawyers.
I’ve been able to verify a few facts. She was in fact married a second time, to a Mr. Anthony Murdine. Their marriage lasted almost five years until he died in Atlanta four years ago. Apparently, Mr. Murdine left a sizable estate when he passed on, and apparently it was surrounded by a great deal of controversy because the court in De Kalb County, Georgia, ordered the file sealed. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I plan to talk to some of the lawyers involved in his estate.
Miss Birdie wants to talk, to conference. It makes her feel important in front of her people. We sit at a table near the piano, away from the others. We huddle, our heads just inches apart. You’d think we hadn’t seen each other in a month.
“I need to know what to do with your will, Miss Birdie,” I say. “And before I can properly draft it, I need to know a little about the money.”
She darts her eyes around as if everyone is listening. In fact, most of these poor souls couldn’t hear us if we were screaming at each other. She dips low, hand over mouth. “None of it’s in real estate, okay. Money markets, mutual funds, municipal bonds.”
I’m surprised to hear her rattle off these types of investments with obvious familiarity. The money must actually be there.
“Who handles it?” I ask. The question is unnecessary. It makes no difference to the will or to her estate who manages her money. My curiosity is eating at me.
“A firm in Atlanta.”
“A law firm?” I ask, scared.
“Oh no. I wouldn’t trust lawyers with it. A trust company. The money is all in trust. I get the income until I die, then I give it away. That’s the way the judge set things up.”
“How much income?” I ask, completely out of control. “Now, that’s really not any of your business, is it, Rudy?”
No, it’s not. I’ve been slapped on the hand, but in the finest legal tradition, I try and cover my ass. “Well, it could be important, you know. For tax purposes.”
“I didn’t ask you to do my taxes, did I? I have an accountant for that. I simply asked you to do redo my will, and, my, it sure seems over your head.”
Bosco walks to the other end of the table, and grins at us. Most of his teeth are missing. She politely asks him to go play Parcheesi for a few minutes. She is remarkably kind and gentle with these people.
“I’ll prepare your will any way you want it, Miss Birdie,” I say sternly. “But you’ll have to make up your mind.”