The King of Torts (6 page)

“What, exactly, would I be doing?” Clay managed to get out.

“Oh, I don’t know all that lawyer stuff. But, if you’re interested, Ian said he’d be happy to arrange an interview. It’s a hot ticket, though. He said the résumés were flooding in. Gotta move quick.”

“Richmond’s not that far away,” Barb said.

It’s a helluva lot closer than New Zealand, Clay thought. Barb was already planning the wedding. He couldn’t read Rebecca. At times she felt strangled by her parents, but rarely showed any desire to get away from them. Bennett used his money, if indeed he had any left, as a carrot to keep both daughters close to home.

“Well, uh, thanks, I guess,” Clay said, collapsing under the weight of his newly bestowed broad shoulders.

“Starting salary is ninety-four thousand a year,” Bennett said, an octave or two lower so the other diners couldn’t hear.

Ninety-four thousand dollars was more than twice as much as Clay was currently earning, and he assumed that everyone at the table knew it. The Van Horns worshiped money and were obsessed with salaries and net worths.

“Wow,” Barb said, on cue.

“That’s a nice salary,” Clay admitted.

“Not a bad start,” Bennett said. “Ian says you’ll meet the big lawyers in town. Contacts are everything. Do it a few years, and you’ll be able to write your own ticket in corporate law. That’s where the big money is, you know.”

It was not comforting to know that Bennett Van Horn had suddenly taken an interest in planning the rest of Clay’s life. The planning, of course, had nothing to do with Clay, and everything to do with Rebecca.

“How can you say no?” Barb said, prodding with two left feet.

“Don’t push, Mother,” Rebecca said.

“It’s just such a wonderful opportunity,” Barb said, as if Clay couldn’t see the obvious.

“Kick it around, sleep on it,” Bennett said. The gift had been delivered. Let’s see if the boy is smart enough to take it.

Clay was devouring his salad with a new purpose. He nodded as if he couldn’t speak. The second Scotch arrived and broke up the moment. Bennett then shared the latest gossip from Richmond about the possibility of a new professional baseball franchise for the D.C. area, one of his favorite topics. He was on the fringes of one of three investment groups jockeying for the franchise, if and when one was ever approved, and he thrived on knowing the latest developments. According to a recent article in the
Post
, Bennett’s group was in third place and losing ground by the month. Their finances were unclear, downright shaky, according to one unnamed source, and throughout the article the name of Bennett

Van Horn was never mentioned. Clay knew he had enormous debts. Several of his developments had been stalled by environmental groups trying to preserve whatever land was left in Northern Virginia. He had lawsuits raging against former partners. His stock was practically worthless. Yet there he sat slugging down Scotch and yapping away about a new stadium for $400 million and a franchise fee of $200 million and a payroll of at least $100 million.

Their steaks arrived just when the salads were finished, thus sparing Clay another tortured moment of conversation with nothing to stuff in his mouth. Rebecca was ignoring him and he was certainly ignoring her. The fight would come very soon.

There were stories about the Guv, a close personal friend who was putting his machine in place to run for the Senate and of course he wanted Bennett in the middle of things. A couple of his hottest deals were revealed. There was talk of a new airplane, but this had been going on for some time and Bennett just couldn’t find the one he wanted. The meal seemed to last for two hours, but only ninety minutes had passed when they declined dessert and started wrapping things up.

Clay thanked Bennett and Barb for the food and promised again to move quickly on the job down in Richmond. “The chance of a lifetime,” Bennett said gravely. “Don’t screw it up.”

When Clay was certain they were gone, he asked Rebecca to step into the bar for a minute. They waited for their drinks to arrive before either spoke. When
things were tense both had the tendency to wait for the other to fire first.

“I didn’t know about the job in Richmond,” she began.

“I find that hard to believe. Seems like the entire family was in on the deal. Your mother certainly knew about it.”

“My father is just concerned about you, that’s all.”

Your father is an idiot, he wanted to say. “No, he’s concerned about
you
. Can’t have you marrying a guy with no future, so he’ll just manage the future for us. Don’t you think it’s presumptuous to decide he doesn’t like my job so he’ll find me another one?”

“Maybe he’s just trying to help. He loves the favors game.”

“But why does he assume I need help?”

“Maybe you do.”

“I see. Finally the truth.”

“You can’t work there forever, Clay. You’re good at what you do and you care about your clients, but maybe it’s time to move on. Five years at OPD is a long time. You’ve said so yourself.”

“Maybe I don’t want to live in Richmond. Perhaps I’ve never thought about leaving D.C. What if I don’t want to work under one of your father’s cronies? Suppose the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of local politicians does not appeal to me? I’m a lawyer, Rebecca, not a paper pusher.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

“Is this job an ultimatum?”

“In what way?”

“In every way. What if I say no?”

“I think you’ve already said no, which, by the way, is pretty typical. A snap decision.”

“Snap decisions are easy when the choice is obvious. I’ll find my own jobs, and I certainly didn’t ask your father to call in a favor. But what happens if I say no?”

“Oh, I’m sure the sun will come up.”

“And your parents?”

“I’m sure they’ll be disappointed.”

“And you?”

She shrugged and sipped her drink. Marriage had been discussed on several occasions but no agreement had been reached. There was no engagement, certainly no timetable. If one wanted out, there was sufficient wiggle room, though it would be a tight squeeze. But after four years of (1) dating no one else, and (2) continually reaffirming their love for each other, and (3) having sex at least five times a week, the relationship was headed toward permanent status.

However, she was not willing to admit the truth that she wanted a break from her career, and a husband and a family and then maybe no career at all. They were still competing, still playing the game of who was more important. She could not admit that she wanted a husband to support her.

“I don’t care, Clay,” she said. “It’s just a job offer, not a Cabinet appointment. Say no if you want to.”

“Thank you.” And suddenly he felt like a jerk. What if Bennett had simply been trying to help? He disliked her parents so much that everything they did irked him. That was his problem, wasn’t it? They had the right to
be worried about their daughter’s future mate, the father of their grandchildren.

And, Clay grudgingly admitted, who wouldn’t be worried about him as a son-in-law?

“I’d like to go,” she said.

“Sure.”

He followed her out of the club and watched her from the rear, almost suggesting that he had time to run by her apartment for a quick session. But her mood said no, and, given the tone of the evening, she would thoroughly enjoy a flat rejection. Then he would feel like a fool who couldn’t control himself, which was exactly what he was at these times. So he dug deep, clenched his jaws together, and let the moment pass.

As he helped her into her BMW, she whispered, “Why don’t you stop by for a few minutes?”

Clay sprinted to his car.

   CHAPTER 6   

He felt somewhat safer with Rodney, plus 9 A.M. was too early for the dangerous types on Lamont Street. They were still sleeping off whatever poison they had consumed the night before. The merchants were slowly coming to life. Clay parked near the alley.

Rodney was a career paralegal with OPD. He’d been enrolled in night law school off and on for a decade and still talked of one day getting his degree and passing the bar. But with four teenagers at home both money and time were scarce. Because he came from the streets of D.C. he knew them well. Part of his daily routine was a request from an OPD lawyer, usually one who was white and frightened and not very experienced, to accompany him or her into the war zones to investigate some heinous crime. He was a paralegal, not an investigator, and he declined as often as he said yes.

But he never said no to Clay. The two had worked
closely together on many cases. They found the spot in the alley where Ramón had fallen and inspected the surrounding area carefully, with full knowledge that the police had already combed the place several times. They shot a roll of film, then went looking for witnesses.

There were none, and this was not surprising. By the time Clay and Rodney had been on the scene for fifteen minutes, word had spread. Strangers were on-site, prying into the latest killing, so lock the doors and say nothing. The liquor store–milk crate witnesses, both men who spent many hours every day in the same spot sipping cheap wine and missing nothing, were long gone and no one had ever known them. The merchants seemed surprised that there had been a shooting at all. “Around here?” one asked, as if crime had yet to reach his ghetto.

After an hour, they left and headed for D Camp. As Clay drove, Rodney sipped cold coffee from a tall paper cup. Bad coffee, from the look on his face. “Jermaine got a similar case a few days ago,” he said. “Kid in rehab, locked down for a few months, got out somehow, don’t know if he escaped or was released, but within twenty-four hours he’d picked up a gun and shot two people, one died.”

“At random?”

“What’s random around here? Two guys in cars with no insurance have a fender bender and they start shooting at each other. Is that random, or is it justified?”

“Was it drugs, robbery, self-defense?”

“Random, I think.”

“Where was the rehab place?” Clay asked.

“It wasn’t D Camp. Some joint near Howard, I think. I haven’t seen the file. You know how slow Jermaine is.”

“So you’re not working the file?”

“No. Heard it through the grapevine.”

Rodney controlled the grapevine rumors and gossip and knew more about OPD lawyers and their caseloads than Glenda, the Director. As they turned on W Street, Clay said, “You been to D Camp before?”

“Once or twice. It’s for the hard cases, the last stop before the cemetery. Tough place, run by tough guys.”

“You know a gentleman by the name of Talmadge X?”

“No.”

There was no sidewalk circus to wade through. Clay parked in front of the building and they hurried inside. Talmadge X was not in, some emergency had taken him to a hospital. A colleague named Noland introduced himself pleasantly and said he was the head counselor. In his office, at a small table, he showed them Tequila Watson’s file and invited them to look through it. Clay thanked him, certain that it had been purged and cleaned up for his benefit.

“Our policy is that I stay in the room while you look through the file,” Noland explained. “If you want copies, they’re twenty-five cents each.”

“Well, sure,” Clay said. The policy was not going to be negotiated. And if he wanted the entire file he could snatch it at any time with a subpoena. Noland took his place behind his desk, where an impressive stack of
paperwork was waiting. Clay began leafing through the file. Rodney took notes.

Tequila’s background was sad and predictable. He had been admitted in January, referred from Social Services after being rescued from an overdose of something. He weighed 121 pounds and was five feet ten inches tall. His medical exam had been conducted at D Camp. He had a slight fever, chills, headaches, not unusual for a junkie. Other than malnourishment, a slight case of the flu, and a body ravaged by drugs, there was nothing else remarkable, according to the doctor. Like all patients, he had been locked down for the first thirty days and fed continually.

According to entries made by TX, Tequila began his slide at the age of eight when he and his brother stole a case of beer off a delivery truck. They drank half and sold half, and with the proceeds bought a gallon of cheap wine. He’d been kicked out of various schools and somewhere around the age of twelve, about the time he discovered crack, he’d dropped out altogether. Stealing became a way of survival.

His memory worked until the crack use began, so the last few years were a blur. TX had followed up on the details and there were letters and e-mails confirming some of the official stops along the miserable trail. When he was fourteen, Tequila had spent a month in a substance abuse unit of the D.C. Youth Detention Center. Upon his release, he went straight to a dealer and bargained for crack. Two months in Orchard House, a notorious lockdown facility for teens on crack, did little good. Tequila admitted to TX that he consumed as
many drugs inside “OH” as he had on the outside. At sixteen, he was admitted to Clean Streets, a no-nonsense abuse facility very similar to D Camp. A stellar performance there lasted for fifty-three days, then he walked away without a word. TX’s note said “… was high on crack within 2 hrs. of leaving.” The juvenile court ordered him to a summer boot camp for troubled teens when he was seventeen, but security was leaky and he actually made money selling drugs to his fellow campers. The final effort at sobriety, before D Camp, had been a program at Grayson Church, under the direction of Reverend Jolley, a well-known drug counselor. Jolley sent a letter to Talmadge X in which he expressed the opinion that Tequila was one of those tragic cases that was “probably hopeless.”

As depressing as the history was, there was a remarkable absence of violence in it. Tequila had been arrested and convicted five times for burglary, once for shoplifting, and twice for misdemeanor possession. Tequila had never used a weapon to commit a crime, at least not one that he had been nabbed for. This had not gone unnoticed by TX, who, in one entry on Day 39 said, “… has a tendency to avoid even the slightest threat of physical conflict. Seems truly afraid of the bigger ones, and most of the small ones too.”