The Common Lawyer (8 page)

"An-dy, you're gonna be late."

Floyd T.'s voice from outside. Andy checked his watch: 8:56. Traffic court convened at nine sharp. Damn, daydreaming again. He jumped up, stuffed that day's tickets into his backpack, then grabbed the old blue sports coat hanging on a nail and put it on. He strapped on the helmet, inserted the sunglasses, and exited the office. He hurried down the stairs, grabbed the bike, and went outside. Max followed.

"Judge won't like you being late," Floyd T. said.

Max ran alongside Andy as he rode back down the sidewalk. When they approached Güero's, Max bolted ahead and bounded up onto the front porch where Oscar was smoking a cigarette.

"Oh, what? You'd rather eat a burrito than come to court with me?"

Max barked back.

"Some loyalty. What about 'man's best friend'?"

"I'll watch him," Oscar said. He pointed his cigarette at the Huffy. "You steal a kid's bike?"

"Long story. When you get tired of Max, send him down to Ramon. And no bean burritos—they give him gas."

Andy pedaled fast toward downtown.

FOUR

Andy was late for traffic court. So he pedaled like a maniac north on Congress Avenue, raced through a red light at the Riverside intersection, and stood on the pedals to power up the incline leading to the bridge across the Colorado River.

Sailboats and kayaks and the UT women's rowing team on shells glided across the surface of the green water that flowed west to east through Austin. In town, the river was called Lady Bird Lake; it had been renamed in honor of Lady Bird Johnson after she died, an honor bestowed by the same people who had protested the Vietnam War back in the sixties when they were students at UT and taunted her husband, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, with chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" whenever he had dared show his face in Austin. Andy's mother had been one of the protestors.

Today, the river divided Austin as distinctly as the war had America back then. North of the river was a miniature version of Dallas. South of the river was Austin the way Austin used to be. But for how long? How long could SoCo stand against the inexorable force of money flowing south across the river? The money was insatiable; it wanted all of Austin: the greenbelt, the river, the springs, the heart, the soul. SoCo was the soul of Austin, and the money wanted SoCo. And one day, it would own SoCo. The money always won.

Andy crossed César Chávez Street that ran along the northern boundary of the river and entered the darkness that was downtown Austin: not a figurative darkness of rich developers and shady politicians and their crafty lawyers making backroom deals that lined their pockets and screwed the citizens—well, it was all that, too—but downtown was literally a dark place. The skyscrapers, hotels, and condo towers that lined Congress Avenue created a canyon at street level and blocked out the sun as effectively as a solar eclipse; except for the one hour each day when the sun was directly overhead, downtown Austin was plunged into shadows. Only the pink granite state capitol that stood on a low rise ten blocks due north where Congress dead-ended at Eleventh Street was free of shadows; basking in the morning sun, the capitol dome looked like the light at the end of a tunnel.

For some reason, that sight always gave Andy hope.

A construction site had traffic backed up at Second Street, so Andy bunny-hopped the curb and rode on the sidewalk. He weaved around office workers wearing suits and dresses, poor people waiting for buses, vagrants packing their possessions on their backs, and drunks sleeping it off on benches. He dodged a pedicab and an eastbound bus and ran the red light.

Once across Second, he bounced back down to the street to avoid a group of slow-moving tourists on the sidewalk. He stood on the pedals again and swerved in and out of northbound traffic. Angry drivers honked their horns; they were inching forward in their luxury automobiles while he blew past them on the little red bike. The exhaust fumes were so thick he could taste the global warming. A siren wailed somewhere. He came upon another traffic jam at Fourth Street. He again hopped the curb and hammered the sidewalk—"Coming through! Coming through!"—past the Frost Bank Tower that looked like something out of Spielberg's
Minority Report.
He carved the corner at the Mexic-Arte Museum and turned east on Fifth.

He checked his watch: 9:12.

His left knee burned with pain, but he stood on the pedals again and blew through the intersections at Brazos, San Jacinto, and Trinity—the north-south streets on either side of Congress were named after Texas rivers—then veered north on Neches past Lovejoys on the left and Coyote Ugly on the corner of Sixth. He swung east on Seventh and rode through a gauntlet of homeless people sitting on the curb near the shelter waiting for breakfast and around a green Dillo bus depositing passengers. He crossed Red River and Sabine then cut across the street and skidded to a stop at the entrance to the Municipal Court Building sitting in the shadow of the elevated southbound lanes of the interstate.

Interstate 35 separated the races in Austin, Texas: white people lived west of I-35; black and brown people lived east. West was rich and crime-free; east was poor and crime-ridden. West was downtown, lofts, lounges, restaurants, and political power; east was massage parlors, strip clubs, pawn shops, gravel pits, and the city dump. Austin was hip and cool, but it was no less unjust than any other American city.

Andy locked the Huffy to a bike stand; he didn't want to return only to find some homeless dude joyriding around downtown on Tres' bike. It would be a long walk back. He hurried inside, digging around in the backpack until he found the red tie; he clipped it onto his shirt collar. He stuffed the helmet into the backpack then ran his fingers through his long hair.

He was ready for court.

Judge Judith "Don't Call Me Judge Judy" Jackson gave Andy a stern look over her reading glasses as soon as he stepped inside Municipal Courtroom 3.

He was sweating. He had run into the building, emptied his pockets for Arturo at the security checkpoint—"Judge ain't gonna be happy, Andy"—evaded the violators in the lobby waiting to pay their fines—"Now serving number two-fifty-four"—and jumped into an open elevator. He had gotten off on the third floor and checked that day's docket posted on the wall outside the courtroom only to learn that two of his cases had been set for nine.

Andy slid into a pew.

A few cops in blue uniforms and two dozen citizens dressed like they were at a pro wrestling match occupied the spectator section. The courtroom was a small space, not like the district courtrooms in which felonies were tried over at the Travis County Courthouse. Here there were no grand staircases with polished wood rails, no fancy wainscoting lining the corridors, no portraits of revered old judges on the walls. There was only a clock that read 9:24. This was cheap, no-frills justice dispensed in a courtroom built by the lowest bidder.

This was Muny Court.

It was a few minutes before his breathing returned to normal, and Andy noticed the bare legs next to him; tanned and muscular, they emerged from a denim miniskirt hiked up high. Andy snuck a peek at their owner; she was young, blonde, and beautiful. He knew he was staring, so he broke away, but he couldn't resist going back for a second look. This time he ran his eyes up her legs and over the miniskirt, which ended below her navel, exposing a good six inches of tight torso before a black tank top took over. It was skin-tight and low cut, revealing a significant amount of soft cleavage.

Andy inhaled sharply.

Her perfume was more intoxicating than a Corona six-pack. Her lips and long fingernails were painted a shimmering red that made them look wet and inviting, like the springs on a hot summer day. He wanted desperately to dive into her lips, to immerse himself in their wetness, to feel their softness against his, to … he noticed her fingers kneading a traffic ticket like she was making dough—which snapped Andy's mind back to the fact that he was a traffic ticket lawyer who needed dough.

Dude, you zoned out.

Andy dug into his backpack and found a business card. He held it out to the young woman. She took the card and stared at it; then she stared at him—the old coat, the clip-on tie, the wrinkled shirt, the jeans, the sneakers—and said, "You're a lawyer?"

"Yep."

"My dad's lawyer doesn't wear jeans and sneakers."

"Dallas or Houston?"

"Dallas."

"This is Austin."

"What happened to your face?"

"Trail biking accident."

"My dad's lawyer—"

"Doesn't ride a trail bike."

"He drives a Mercedes."

"Figures."

"You do traffic tickets?"

"My specialty." He stuck out his right hand. "Andy Prescott."

She took his hand and said, "Britney Banks."

Her hand was soft; she gently pulled it away.

"UT?"

She nodded. "Sophomore."

"Speeding ticket?"

Another nod. "In a school zone."

"Ouch."

"My fifth ticket. My dad'll go apeshit 'cause they'll raise my insurance premiums … again. He said one more ticket, and he'd take the car back. It's a Z."

"Coupe?"

"Roadster. Graduation present."

"You're only a sophomore."

"High school graduation."

Her proud parents had given her a $40,000 Nissan Z Roadster convertible for getting through high school; she wanted desperately to keep her fine ride. Which presented Andy with an ethical dilemma: he could represent Britney Banks
pro bono
, get her ticket dismissed, and possibly snag a date with her; or, he could charge his standard fee—$100—and be that much closer to a replacement trail bike. On the one hand, she would be the most beautiful girl he had ever dated; on the other hand, he could not bear the thought of being on the trail-biking sideline for long—by Sunday, he'd be suffering withdrawal. He pondered the possibilities for a moment. What were the odds that she would actually go out with him, considering that (a) she drove a Z, and he rode a Huffy; (b) she was probably a regular at the trendy lounges downtown, and he wasn't allowed past the red velvet ropes; and (c) she had a rich daddy, and he would be a poor date? He sighed then doubled his fee. Her daddy could afford it.

"For two hundred cash, I'll get your ticket dismissed."

She turned that stunning face his way.

"You can do that?"

"Yep."

"And what if you don't?"

"No charge."

She smiled. "Okay."

"When did you get the ticket?"

"Spring semester. I couldn't let my dad find out, so I called the number on the ticket and asked if they could postpone the hearing until this semester. The cop had gone on maternity leave, so they said okay."

"Would you recognize the cop who gave you the ticket?"

"Sure."

"You see him here?"

"Her … maternity leave. And no. So what do I do now?"

Andy held out his right hand again. She took it with her left hand and smiled at him, as if they were sweethearts holding hands. Okay, Britney probably wasn't on the Dean's List.

"No. Pay me the two hundred."

"Oh."

She removed her hand and pulled her wallet out of her purse; it was thick with green bills. She gave him two brand new $100 bills sharp enough to slice a brisket. He stuffed the bills into his jeans. He was now two hundred dollars closer to a replacement trail bike.

But her legs were incredible.

Britney Banks had stumbled onto the secret behind a successful traffic ticket defense in much the same way Andy Prescott had: by necessity. Back during his first year of law school, he had gotten a speeding ticket driving Tres' Beemer. Much like Britney's father, Tres also would have gone apeshit if he had found out, and Andy had had no money to pay the fine. So he had studied the Rules of the Municipal Court of the City of Austin. Then he had requested a trial and was informed that there would be a minimum one-year delay due to the heavy backlog of cases; a trial by jury would be a two-year delay. He immediately requested a jury trial. When his case finally came to trial in his third year of law school, Andy went to court prepared to lose; but the cop didn't show. Without the cop's testimony to prove up the ticket, the prosecution failed. His ticket was dismissed.

And his career was born.

Now, for $100 cash, Andy guaranteed his clients a dismissal of their tickets; if he failed, he would pay the fines. In every case, he requested a trial by jury; he asked for continuances; he delayed the trial date for as long as possible. Two years later, when the trial date arrived, the cop always failed to show, for any number of reasons: he had died, retired, or quit the force; he was ill that day; he was working overtime on real crime; or he had just forgotten. No cop, no testimony, no conviction, no fine, no ticket on his client's record, no increased insurance premium. Case dismissed. Andy had handled over six hundred traffic tickets. Not once had the cop shown up. Not once had he paid a client's fine. All for $100. It wasn't much money, but it was easy money.