The Rainmaker (3 page)

If I had a grandmother worth twenty million dollars I’d send flowers once a week, cards every other day, chocolates whenever it rained and champagne whenever it didn’t. I’d call her once in the morning and twice before bedtime. I’d take her to church every Sunday and sit with her, hand in hand, during the service, then off to brunch we’d go and then to an auction or a play or an art show or
wherever in the hell Granny wanted to go. I’d take care of my grandmother.

And I was thinking of doing the same for Miss Birdie.

“Okay,” I say solemnly as if I’ve done this many times. “And nothing for your two children?”

“That’s what I said. Absolutely nothing.”

“What, may I ask, have they done to you?”

She exhales heavily as if frustrated by this, and she rolls her eyes around as if she hates to tell me, but then she lurches forward on both elbows to tell me anyway. “Well,” she whispers, “Randolph, the oldest, he’s almost sixty, just married for the third time to a little tramp who’s always asking about the money. Whatever I leave to him she’ll end up with, and I’d rather give it to you, Rudy, than to my own son. Or to Professor Smoot, or to anyone but Randolph. Know what I mean?”

My heart stops. Inches, just inches, from striking paydirt with my first client. To hell with Brodnax and Speer and all those conferences awaiting me.

“You can’t leave it to me, Miss Birdie,” I say, and offer her my sweetest smile. My eyes, and probably my lips and mouth and nose as well, beg for her to say Yes! Dammit! It’s my money and I’ll leave it to whomever I want, and if I want you, Rudy, to have it, then dammit! It’s yours!

Instead, she says, “Everything else goes to the Reverend Kenneth Chandler. Do you know him? He’s on television all the time now, out of Dallas, and he’s doing all sorts of wonderful things around the world with our donations, building homes, feeding babies, teaching from the Bible. I want him to have it.”

“A television evangelist?”

“Oh, he’s much more than an evangelist. He’s a teacher and statesman and counselor, eats dinner with heads of state, you know, plus he’s cute as a bug. Got this head full
of curly gray hair, premature, but he wouldn’t dare touch it up, you know.”

“Of course not. But—”

“He called me the other night. Can you believe it? That voice on television is as smooth as silk, but over the phone it’s downright seductive. Know what I mean?”

“Yes, I think I do. Why did he call you?”

“Well, last month, when I sent my pledge for March, I wrote him a short note, said I was thinking of redoing my will now that my kids have abandoned me and all, and that I was thinking of leaving some money for his ministries. Not three days later he called, just full of himself, so cute and vibrant on the phone, and wanted to know how much I might be thinking of leaving him and his ministries. I shot him a ballpark figure, and he’s been calling ever since. Said he would even fly out in his own Learjet to meet me if I so desired.”

I struggle for words. Smoot has Bosco by the arm and is attempting to pacify him and sit him once again before N. Elizabeth Erickson, who at the moment has lost the chip on her shoulder and is obviously embarrassed by her first client and ready to crawl under the table. She cuts her eyes around, and I flash her a quick grin so she knows I’m watching. Next to her, F. Franklin Donaldson the Fourth is locked in a deep consultation with an elderly couple. They are discussing a document which appears to be a will. I’m smug in the knowledge that the will I’m holding is worth far more than the one he’s frowning over.

I decide to change the subject. “Uh, Miss Birdie, you said you had two children. Randolph and—”

“Yes, Delbert. Forget him too. I haven’t heard from him in three years. Lives in Florida. Cut, cut, cut.”

I slash with my pen and Delbert loses his millions.

“I need to see about Bosco,” she says abruptly, and
jumps to her feet. “He’s such a pitiful little fella. No family, no friends except for us.”

“We’re not finished,” I say.

She leans down and again our faces are inches apart. “Yes we are, Rudy. Just do as I say. A million each to those four, and all the rest to Kenneth Chandler. Everything else in the will stays the same; executor, bond, trustees, all stays the same. It’s simple, Rudy. I do it all the time. Professor Smoot says y’all will be back in two weeks with everything all typed up real nice and neat. Is that so?”

“I guess.”

“Good. See you then, Rudy.” She flutters to the end of the table and puts her arm around Bosco, who is immediately calm and innocent again.

I study the will and take notes from it. It’s comforting to know that Smoot and the other professors will be available to guide and assist, and that I have two weeks to collect my senses and figure out what to do. I don’t have to do this, I tell myself. This delightful little woman with twenty million needs more advice than I can give her. She needs a will that she can’t possibly understand, but one the IRS will certainly take heed of. I don’t feel stupid, just inadequate. After three years of studying the law, I’m very much aware of how little I know.

Booker’s client is trying gallantly to control his emotions, and his lawyer has run out of things to say. Booker continues to take notes and grunts yes or no every few seconds. I can’t wait to tell him about Miss Birdie and her fortune.

I glance at the dwindling crowd, and in the second row I notice a couple who appear to be staring at me. At the moment, I’m the only available lawyer, and they seem to be undecided about whether to try their luck with me. The woman’s holding a bulky wad of papers secured by
rubber bands. She mumbles something under her breath, and her husband shakes his head as if he’d rather wait for one of the other bright young legal eagles.

Slowly, they stand and make their way to my end of the table. They both stare at me as they approach. I smile. Welcome to my office.

She takes Miss Birdie’s chair. He sits across the table and keeps his distance.

“Hi there,” I say with a smile and an outstretched hand. He shakes it limply, then I offer it to her. “I’m Rudy Baylor.”

“I’m Dot and he’s Buddy,” she says, nodding at Buddy, ignoring my hand.

“Dot and Buddy,” I repeat, and start taking notes. “What is your last name?” I ask with all the warmth of a seasoned counselor.

“Black. Dot and Buddy Black. It’s really Marvarine and Willis Black, but everybody just calls us Dot and Buddy.” Dot’s hair is all teased and permed and frosted silver on top. It appears clean. She’s wearing cheap white sneakers, brown socks and oversized jeans. She is a thin, wiry woman with a hard edge.

“Address?” I ask.

“Eight sixty-three Squire, in Granger.”

“Are you employed?”

Buddy has yet to open his mouth, and I get the impression Dot has been doing the talking for many years now. “I’m on Social Security Disability,” she says. “I’m only fifty-eight, but I’ve got a bad heart. Buddy draws a pension, a small one.”

Buddy just looks at me. He wears thick glasses with plastic stems that barely reach his ears. His cheeks are red and plump. His hair is bushy and gray with a brown tint to it. I doubt if it’s been washed in a week. His shirt is a black-and-red-plaid number, even dirtier than his hair.

“How old is Mr. Black?” I ask her, uncertain as to whether Mr. Black would tell me if I asked him.

“It’s Buddy, okay? Dot and Buddy. None of this Mister business, okay? He’s sixty-two. Can I tell you something?”

I nod quickly. Buddy glances at Booker across the table.

“He ain’t right,” she whispers with a slight nod in Buddy’s general direction. I look at him. He looks at us.

“War injury,” she says. “Korea. You know those metal detectors at the airport?”

I nod again.

“Well, he could walk through one buck naked and the thing would go off.”

Buddy’s shirt is stretched almost threadbare and its buttons are about to pop as it tries desperately to cover his protruding gut. He has at least three chins. I try to picture a naked Buddy walking through the Memphis International Airport with the alarms buzzing and security guards in a panic.

“Got a plate in his head,” she adds in summation.

“That’s—that’s awful,” I whisper back to her, then write on my pad that Mr. Buddy Black has a plate in his head. Mr. Black turns to his left and glares at Booker’s client three feet away.

Suddenly, she lurches forward. “Something else,” she says.

I lean slightly toward her in anticipation. “Yes?”

“He has a problem with alkeehall.”

“You don’t say.”

“But it all goes back to the war injury,” she adds helpfully. And just like that, this woman I met three minutes ago has reduced her husband to an alcoholic imbecile.

“Mind if I smoke?” she asks as she tugs at her purse.

“Is it allowed in here?” I ask, looking and hoping for a No Smoking sign. I don’t see one.

“Oh sure.” She sticks a cigarette between her cracked lips and lights it, then yanks it out and blows a cloud of smoke directly at Buddy, who doesn’t move an inch.

“What can I do for you folks?” I ask, looking at the bundle of papers with wide rubber bands wrapped tightly around it. I slide Miss Birdie’s will under my legal pad. My first client is a multimillionaire, and my next clients are pensioners. My fledgling career has come crashing back to earth.

“We don’t have much money,” she says quietly as if this is a big secret and she’s embarrassed to reveal it. I smile compassionately. Regardless of what they own, they’re much wealthier than I, and I doubt if they’re about to be sued.

“And we need a lawyer,” she adds as she takes the papers and snaps off the rubber bands.

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, we’re gettin’ a royal screwin’ by an insurance company.”

“What type of policy?” I ask. She shoves the paperwork toward me, then wipes her hands as if she’s rid of it and the burden has now been passed to a miracle worker. A smudged, creased and well-worn policy of some sort is on the top of the pile. Dot blows another cloud and for a moment I can barely see Buddy.

“It’s a medical policy,” she says. “We bought it five years ago, Great Benefit Life, when our boys were seventeen. Now Donny Ray is dying of leukemia, and the crooks won’t pay for his treatment.”

“Great Benefit?”

“Right.”

“Never heard of them,” I say confidently as I scan the declaration page of the policy, as if I’ve handled many of these lawsuits and personally know everything about every insurance company. Two dependents are listed, Donny
Ray and Ronny Ray Black. They have the same birth dates.

“Well, pardon my French, but they’re a bunch of sumbitches.”

“Most insurance companies are,” I add thoughtfully, and Dot smiles at this. I have won her confidence. “So you purchased this policy five years ago?”

“Something like that. Never missed a premium, and never used the damned thing until Donny Ray got sick.”

I’m a student, an uninsured one. There are no policies covering me or my life, health or auto. I can’t even afford a new tire for the left rear of my ragged little Toyota.

“And, uh, you say he’s dying?”

She nods with the cigarette between her lips. “Acute leukemia. Caught it eight months ago. Doctors gave him a year, but he won’t make it because he couldn’t get his bone marrow transplant. Now it’s probably too late.”

She pronounces “marrow” in one syllable: “mare.”

“A transplant?” I say, confused.

“Don’t you know nothin’ about leukemia?”

“Uh, not really.”

She clicks her teeth and rolls her eyes around as if I’m a complete idiot, then inserts the cigarette for a painful drag. When the smoke is sufficiently exhaled, she says, “My boys are identical twins, you see. So Ron, we call him Ron because he don’t like Ronny Ray, is a perfect match for Donny Ray’s bone mare transplant. Doctors said so. Problem is, the transplant costs somewhere around a hundred-fifty thousand dollars. We ain’t got it, you see. The insurance company’s supposed to pay it because it’s covered in the policy right there. Sumbitches said no. So Donny Ray’s dying because of them.”

She has an amazing way of getting to the core of this.

We have been ignoring Buddy, but he’s been listening. He slowly removes his thick glasses and dabs his eyes with
the hairy back of his left hand. Great. Buddy’s crying. Bosco’s whimpering at the far end. And Booker’s client had been struck again with guilt or remorse or some sort of grief and is sobbing into his hands. Smoot is standing by a window watching us, no doubt wondering what manner of advice we’re dispensing to evoke such sorrow.

“Where does he live?” I ask, just searching for a question the answer to which will allow me to write for a few seconds on my pad and ignore the tears.

“He’s never left home. Lives with us. That’s another reason the insurance company turned us down, said since he’s an adult he’s no longer covered.”

I pick through the papers and glance at letters to and from Great Benefit. “Does the policy terminate his coverage when he becomes an adult?”

She shakes her head and smiles tightly. “Nope. Ain’t in the policy, Rudy. I’ve read it a dozen times, and there’s no such thing. Even read all the fine print.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, again glancing at the policy.

“I’m positive. I’ve been reading that damned thing for almost a year.”

“Who sold it to you? Who’s the agent?”

“Some little goofy twerp who knocked on our door and talked us into it. Name was Ott or something like that, just a slick little crook who talked real fast. I’ve tried to find him, but evidently he’s skipped town.”

I pick a letter from the pile and read it. It’s from a senior claims examiner in Cleveland, written several months after the first letter I looked at, and it rather abruptly denies coverage on the grounds that Donny’s leukemia was a preexisting condition, and therefore not covered. If Donny in fact has had leukemia for less than a year, then he was diagnosed four years after the policy was issued by Great Benefit. “Says here coverage was denied because of a preexisting condition.”

“They’ve used every excuse in the book, Rudy. Just take all those papers there and read them carefully. Exclusions, exemptions, preexisting conditions, fine print, they’ve tried everything.”