Once he’s properly situated in a cool spot, safely away from any sunlight that would blister his chalky skin, Miss Birdie declares it’s time to start working. She dramatically pauses and surveys the backyard, scratches her chin as if deeply in thought, then slowly allows her gaze to descend upon the mulch. She gives a few orders, for Donny Ray’s benefit, and I hop to it.
I’m soon soaked with sweat, but this time I enjoy every minute of it. Miss Birdie fusses about the humidity for the first hour, then decides to piddle in the flowers around the patio, where it’s cooler. I can hear her talking nonstop to Donny Ray, who says little but is enjoying the fresh air. On one trip with the wheelbarrow, I notice they’re playing checkers. On another, she’s sitting snugly beside him, pointing to pictures in a book.
I’ve thought many times about asking Miss Birdie if she would be interested in helping Donny Ray. I do believe this dear woman would write a check for the transplant, if she in fact has the money. But I haven’t for two reasons. First, it’s too late for the transplant. And second, it would
humiliate Miss Birdie if she didn’t have the money. She already has enough suspicions about my interest in her money. I can’t ask for any of it.
Shortly after he was diagnosed with acute leukemia, a feeble effort was made to raise funds for his treatment. Dot organized some friends and they placed Donny Ray’s face on milk cartons in cafes and in convenience stores all over North Memphis. Didn’t raise much, she said. They rented a local Moose Lodge and threw a big party with catfish and bluegrass, even got a local country DJ to spin records. The shindig lost twenty-eight dollars.
His first round of chemo cost four thousand dollars, two thirds of which was absorbed by St. Peter’s. They scraped together the rest. Five months later, the leukemia was back in full bloom.
As I shovel and haul and sweat, I direct my mental energies into hating Great Benefit. It doesn’t take a lot of work, but I’ll need a lot of self-righteous zeal to sustain me once the war starts with Tinley Britt.
Lunch is a pleasant surprise. Miss Birdie has made chicken soup, not exactly what I wanted on a day like today, but a welcome change from turkey sandwiches. Donny Ray eats a half a bowl, then says he needs a nap. He’d like to try the hammock. We walk him across the lawn, and ease him into it. Though the temperature is above ninety, he asks for a blanket.
WE SIT IN THE SHADE, sip more lemonade and talk about how sad he is. I tell her a little about the case against Great Benefit, and place emphasis on the fact that I’ve sued them for ten million dollars. She asks a few general questions about the bar exam, then disappears into the house.
When she returns, she hands me an envelope from a lawyer in Atlanta. I recognize the name of the firm.
“Can you explain this?” she asks, standing before me, hands on hips.
The lawyer has written a letter to Miss Birdie, and along with his letter he has attached a copy of the letter I sent to him. In my letter, I explained that I now represent Miss Birdie Birdsong, that she has asked me to draft a new will and that I need information about the estate of her deceased husband. In his letter to her, he simply asks if he may divulge any information to me. He sounds quite indifferent, as if he’s just following orders.
“It’s all in black and white,” I say. “I’m your lawyer. I’m trying to gather information.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to go dig around in Atlanta.”
“What’s wrong with it? What’s hidden over there, Miss Birdie? Why is this so secretive?”
“The judge sealed the court file,” she says with a shrug, as if that’s the end of it.
“What’s in the court file?”
“A bunch of trash.”
“Concerning you?”
“Heavens no!”
“Okay. About who?”
“Tony’s family. His brother was filthy rich, down in Florida, you see, had several wives and different sets of children. Whole family was loony. They had this big fight over his wills, four wills, I think. I don’t know much about it, but I heard once that when it was all over the lawyers got paid six million dollars. Some of the money filtered down to Tony, who lived just long enough to inherit it under Florida law. Tony didn’t even know it, because he died too fast. Left nothing but a wife. Me. That’s all I know.”
It’s not important how she obtained the money. But it
would be nice to know how much of it she inherited. “Do you want to talk about your will?” I ask.
“No. Later,” she says, reaching for her gardening gloves. “Let’s get to work.”
HOURS LATER, I sit with Dot and Donny Ray on the weedy patio outside their kitchen. Buddy is in bed, thank goodness. Donny Ray is exhausted from his day at Miss Birdie’s.
It’s Saturday night in the suburbs, and the smell of charcoal and barbecue permeates the sweltering air. The voices of backyard chefs and their guests filter across wooden fences and neat hedgerows.
It’s easier to sit and listen than it is to sit and talk. Dot prefers to smoke and drink her instant decaf coffee, occasionally passing along some useless tidbit of gossip about one of the neighbors. Or one of the neighbor’s dogs. The retired man next door lost a finger last week with a jigsaw, and she mentions this no fewer than three times.
I don’t care. I can sit and listen for hours. My mind is still numb from the bar exam. It doesn’t take much to amuse me. And when I’m successful in forgetting the law, I always have Kelly to occupy my thoughts. I have yet to figure out a harmless way to contact her, but I will. Just give me time.
Twenty-one
T
HE SHELBY COUNTY JUSTICE CENTER IS a twelve-story modern building downtown. The concept is one-stop justice. It has lots of courtrooms and offices for clerks and administrators. It houses the district attorney and the sheriff. It even has a jail.
Criminal Court has ten divisions, ten judges with different dockets in different courtrooms. The middle levels swarm with lawyers and cops and defendants and their families. It’s a forbidding jungle for a novice lawyer, but Deck knows his way around. He’s made a few calls.
He points to the door for Division Four, and says he’ll meet me there in an hour. I enter the double doors and take a seat on the back bench. The floor is carpeted, the furnishings are depressingly modern. Lawyers are as thick as ants in the front of the room. To the right is a holding area where a dozen orange-clad arrestees await their initial appearances before the judge. A prosecutor of some variety handles a stack of files, shuffling through them for the right defendant.
On the second row from the front, I see Cliff Riker.
He’s huddled with his lawyer, looking over some paperwork. His wife is not in the courtroom.
The judge appears from the back, and everyone rises. A few cases are disposed of, bonds reduced or forgotten, future dates agreed upon. The lawyers meet in brief huddles, then nod and whisper to His Honor.
Cliff’s name is called, and he swaggers to a podium in front of the bench. His lawyer is beside him with the papers. The prosecutor announces to the court that the charges against Cliff Riker have been dropped for lack of evidence.
“Where’s the victim?” the judge interrupts.
“She chose not to be here,” the prosecutor answers.
“Why?” the judge asks.
Because she’s in a wheelchair, I want to scream.
The prosecutor shrugs as if she doesn’t know, and, furthermore, doesn’t really care. Cliff’s lawyer shrugs as if he’s surprised the little lady is not here to exhibit her wounds.
The prosecutor is a busy person, with dozens of cases to work before noon. She quickly recites a summary of the facts, the arrest, the lack of evidence because the victim will not testify.
“This is the second time,” the judge says, glaring at Cliff. “Why don’t you divorce her before you kill her?”
“We’re trying to get some help, Your Honor,” Cliff says in a pitifully rehearsed voice.
“Well, get it quick. If I see these charges again, I will not dismiss them. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir,” Cliff answers, as if he’s deeply sorry to be such a bother. The paperwork is handed to the bench. The judge signs it while shaking his head. The charges are dismissed.
The voice of the victim once again has not been heard. She’s at home with a broken ankle, but that’s not what
kept her away. She’s hiding because she prefers not to be beaten again. I wonder what price she paid for dropping the charges.
Cliff shakes hands with his lawyer, and struts down the aisle, past my bench, out the door, free to do whatever he pleases, immune from prosecution because there’s no one to help Kelly.
There’s a frustrating logic to this assembly line justice. Not far away, sitting over there in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs, are rapists, murderers, drug dealers. The system barely has enough time to run these thugs through and allocate some measure of justice. How can the system be expected to care for the rights of one beaten wife?
While I was taking the bar last week, Deck was making phone calls. He found the Rikers’ new address and phone number. They just moved to a large apartment complex in southeast Memphis. One bedroom, four hundred a month. Cliff works for a freight company, not far from our office, a nonunion terminal. Deck suspects he makes about seven dollars an hour. His lawyer is just another ham-and-egger, one of a million in this city.
I have told Deck the truth about Kelly. He said he thought it was important for him to know, because when Cliff blows my head off with a shotgun, he, Deck, will be around to tell why it happened.
Deck also told me to forget about her. She’s nothing but trouble.
THERE’S A NOTE on my desk to immediately see Bruiser. He’s alone behind his oversized desk, on the phone, the one to his right. There’s another phone to his left, and three more scattered around the office. One in his car. One in his briefcase. And the one he gave me so he can reach me around the clock.
He motions for me to sit, rolls his black and red eyes as
if he’s conversing with some nut and grunts an affirmative reaction into the receiver. The sharks are either asleep or hidden behind some rocks. The aquarium filter gurgles and hums.
Deck has whispered to me that Bruiser makes between three hundred and five hundred thousand dollars a year from this office. That’s hard to believe, looking around the cluttered room. He keeps four associates out there beating the bushes, rustling up injury cases. (And now he’s got me.) Deck was able to click off five cases last year which earned Bruiser a hundred and fifty thousand. He makes a bundle from drug cases, and has earned the reputation in the narcotics industry as a lawyer who can be trusted. But, according to Deck, Bruiser Stone’s real income is from his investments. He’s involved, to what extent no one knows and the federal government evidently is trying desperately to ascertain, in the topless business in Memphis and Nashville. It’s a cash-rich industry, so there’s no telling what he skims.
He’s been divorced three times, Deck reported over a greasy sandwich at Trudy’s, has three teenaged children who, not surprisingly, live with their assorted mothers, likes the company of young table dancers, drinks and gambles too much, and will never, regardless of how much cash he can clutch with his thick hands, have enough money to satisfy him.
He was arrested seven years ago on federal racketeering charges, but the government didn’t stand a chance. The charges were dismissed after a year. Deck confided that he was worried about the FBI’s current investigation into the Memphis underworld, an investigation that has repeatedly yielded the names of Bruiser Stone and his best friend, Prince Thomas. Deck said that Bruiser has been acting a bit unusual—drinking too much, getting
angrier faster, stomping and growling around the office more than normal.
Speaking of phones. Deck is certain that the FBI has bugged every phone in our offices, including mine. And he thinks the walls are wired too. They’ve done it before, he said with grave authority. And be careful at Yogi’s too.
He left me with this comforting thought yesterday afternoon. If I pass the bar exam, get just a little money in my pocket, I’m outta here.
Bruiser finally hangs up and wipes his tired eyes. “Take a look at this,” he says, shoving a thick stack of papers at me.
“What is it?”
“Great Benefit responds. You’re about to learn why it’s painful to sue big corporations. They have lots of money to hire lots of lawyers who produce lots of paper. Leo F. Drummond probably clips Great Benefit for two-fifty per hour.”
It’s a motion to dismiss the Blacks’ lawsuit, with a supporting brief that’s sixty-three pages long. There’s a notice to hear argument on said motion before the Honorable Harvey Hale.
Bruiser watches me calmly. “Welcome to the battlefield.”
I have a nice lump in my throat. Responding in kind to this will take days. “It’s impressive,” I say with a dry throat. I don’t know where to begin.
“Read the rules carefully. Respond to the motion. Write your brief. Do it fast. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“It’s not?”
“No, Rudy. It’s paperwork. You’ll learn. These bastards will file every motion known and many they invent, all with thick supporting briefs. And they’ll want to run to court every time to have a hearing on their beloved little motions. They really don’t care if they win or lose them,
they’re making money regardless. Plus, it delays the trial. They’ve got it down to a fine art, and their clients foot the bill. Problem is, they’ll run you ragged in the process.”
“I’m already tired.”
“It’s a bitch. Drummond snaps his fingers, says, ‘I wanna motion to dismiss,’ and three associates bury themselves in the library, and two paralegals pull up old briefs on their computers. Presto! In no time there’s a fat brief, thoroughly researched. Then Drummond has to read it several times, plow through it at two-fifty an hour, maybe get a partner buddy of his to read it too. Then he has to edit and cut and modify, so the associates go back to the library and the paralegals go back to their computers. It’s a rip-off, but Great Benefit has plenty of money and doesn’t mind paying people like Tinley Britt.”