The Color of Law (7 page)

Scott pushed the pad and pen across the table.

“Write down your address…and Louis’s phone number.”

Shawanda stopped her pacing, sat, took the pen in her left hand, and began writing, but her hand was shaking like an old person with tremors. Scott realized the awkwardness of the moment.

“My daughter’s left-handed, too.”

She stopped and stared at her hand. After a moment, she stopped writing, put the pen down, and looked back up at Scott with wet eyes.

“Mr. Fenney, the smack, it just own me.”

Then she doubled over and vomited.

Dan Ford was on the phone when Scott arrived at his senior partner’s office and dropped his body onto the sofa like a load of cement.

Dan was saying into the phone: “Of course we support your reelection, Governor. Your fine leadership gave the business community everything we asked for from the legislature—no new taxes, tort reform…Yes…Yes…All right, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dan hung up the phone and shook his head in amazement.

“That boy couldn’t find oil at an Exxon station.” A long sigh. “But he is the governor.” Finally, he focused his attention on Scott. “Did she go for it?”

“No. She won’t cop a plea.”

A knowing nod. “Figured she might not.”

Scott had braced himself for one of Dan Ford’s profanity-laced tirades, but his senior partner didn’t seem all that upset.

“What should I do?”

“Hire her out,” Dan said.

“Hire her out?”

“Yeah, hire a criminal defense attorney to take your place. It’s a simple mathematical calculation, Scotty.”

“Dan, what the hell are you talking about?”

Dan stood and stepped over to the grease board mounted on the wall under the head of an elk, opened the wood doors, and picked up a marker. Writing as he spoke, he said, “Say the case takes a thousand lawyer-hours, worst-case scenario. We pay a defense lawyer—now I’m not talking a summa cum laude graduate; I’m talking anyone with a license—fifty dollars an hour—”

“
Fifty an hour?
We charge a hundred an hour for our summer clerks’ time.”

“They’re top of their class. I’m talking a bottom-of-the-class lawyer, Scott, someone who needs fifty bucks an hour. So a thousand hours at fifty an hour, that’s a fifty-thousand-dollar expense to the firm.”

Scott knew his senior partner had thought this through because Dan Ford didn’t part with fifty cents easily much less fifty grand. He was a lawyer who calculated the profit the firm generated on each copy machine—forty cents per page—and made damn sure the copiers ran around the clock, spitting out paper and adding almost a million dollars to the firm’s annual bottom line. Ford Stevens marked up the cost of everything in its offices, animate and inanimate, turning a profit on every associate, paralegal, secretary, typist, courier, copy, fax, and phone call. And Dan Ford kept tabs on everyone and everything.

He was saying, “But that frees up those thousand lawyer-hours for you to work for our paying clients at three-fifty an hour. That’s three hundred fifty thousand dollars in revenues for the firm. Deduct the fifty thousand we pay the defense lawyer, and the firm still nets three hundred thousand, versus losing the entire three hundred fifty thousand if you have to work the case.”

Scott’s spirits started to lift. “Will Buford go for that?”

“Sure. Before the federal court had a public defender’s office, we got appointed all the time. Hiring them out was standard operating procedure for the big firms.” Dan shrugged. “And besides, it’s a win-win situation: she gets a lawyer who knows more about criminal defense than you do, and you get rid of her.”

Dan closed the doors to the grease board and said, “You know a cheap criminal defense attorney?”

RO ERT HERR N, ATT NEY-AT-L W,
the sign out front read because the landlord was too damn cheap to replace the letters that had been shot off. Didn’t matter, it was the only sign printed in English, and most people in this part of town couldn’t read it anyway. This attorney’s office was not in the best part of town; it was in a piece-of-shit strip center in East Dallas. He was a street lawyer; hence his office was at street level. He would often arrive to find someone sleeping on the stoop. He never kicked them awake as the other business owners in the strip did: hell, the guy might be his next best client. And he never called the police, which would be a monumental waste of a phone call; the police only kept the peace in the parts of town that mattered. He simply stepped over them and entered the law offices of Robert Herrin, Esq.

His professional address was a thirty- by twenty-foot space, one room and a tiny john, lodged between a Mexican bar and a Korean donut shop; he ate donuts for breakfast and drank beer for dinner. The roof leaked, the ceiling tiles were discolored, and the scent of mold permeated the place. The linoleum on the floor was cracked and curling at the corners like elves’ shoes. His desk was metal, as was his chair, but it swiveled and had a nice seat cushion. Fortunately, he was a pretty fair typist because he couldn’t afford a secretary. And here Robert Herrin, Attorney-at-Law, had eked out a legal living for the last eleven years, representing those members of society who wouldn’t get past the security guards at a downtown law firm.

He was a fixture in this East Dallas neighborhood—he was
the lawyer
—same as the bar and donut shop were fixtures. The thin walls of his office afforded him the opportunity to pick up several foreign languages, although his Spanish skills far exceeded his Korean, probably because when he wasn’t here he was usually next door in the bar shooting pool. As a general rule, Anglos were not welcome in a Mexican beer joint. But
Señor Herrin, el abogado
, was always welcome because the owner, the bartender, the waitresses, and most of the bar’s customers were his clients. Which had the added benefit of keeping his plateglass window free of bullet holes. He was the go-to lawyer when spouses, offspring, or siblings were busted, either because he showed them respect or because he offered a convenient payment plan. Often he would open the door (after stepping over the aforementioned drunk sleeping it off) and find fives and tens and every now and then a twenty on the floor with a note clipped to each so he could credit the correct client.

It was not the life he had dreamed of in law school.

The phone rang. If experience was any indication, Bobby Herrin would soon be driving over to the county jail to bail out one of his regulars. He reached for the phone.

SEVEN

B
OBBY
H
ERRIN
felt like a lawyer in an out-of-town courtroom.

He was standing in the lobby of the Downtown Club, located on the top floor of Dibrell Tower and hands-down the swankiest eating place in downtown, and watching the richest men in Dallas arrive for lunch, trailed by their lawyers like a rapper’s entourage. These were lawyers who owned the biggest law firms in town, who billed three, four, maybe five hundred dollars an hour—Bobby made $500 on a good
week
—and who wore wool suits, starched shirts, silk ties, and shoes shined by the black shoe guy downstairs. Everything Bobby was wearing had been purchased years ago off the sale racks and was made of polyester, except his shoes, which hadn’t been shined in months. He rubbed his right shoe against the back of his left trouser leg and repeated the attempt to bring something resembling a shine with the other shoe.

“Bobby!”

He turned and was greeted by the brightest smile on the most handsome face imaginable, the face of the friend he had once cheered and admired and envied and followed like a rock star’s groupie—and loved like a brother. Scotty Fenney. Bobby hadn’t seen Scotty in eleven years, and now he had to resist the urge to embrace his former best friend. They shook hands.

“Glad you could make it,” Scotty said. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you, buddy?”

Bobby shook his head. But, in fact, he had. He’d arrived fifteen minutes ago, parked in the underground garage, and rode the express elevator right to the top. Which reminded him. He pulled his parking ticket from his shirt pocket.

“They validate?”

If not, the ten-dollar parking fee would damn near bankrupt Bobby that day. But Scotty didn’t answer; he was looking Bobby up and down as if trying to come up with a compliment for his wardrobe. He finally gave up and slapped Bobby on the shoulder.

“C’mon, let’s eat.”

Scotty led the way to the maître d’s station, down a short corridor. One wall was a gallery of framed portraits of the club’s founders and board of directors, past and present, a regular Who’s Who of Dallas.

“Ah, Mr. Fenney, a pleasure to see you today,” a middle-aged Hispanic man said with a practiced smile, as if seeing Scotty was the highlight of his day. He was trim, his hair was parted neatly and slicked over, and his face was smooth and brown, clean-shaven with a pencil mustache. The scent of aftershave hovered over him. He was dressed in a dark suit, dark tie, and white shirt. He could be the local Latino undertaker. He tucked two menus bound in leather under his arm. “Two for lunch, sir?”

“Yes, Roberto.”

Bobby followed Roberto and Scotty through the entryway and into a dining room illuminated by fancy chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling windows and filled with dark wood paneling, dark wood columns, and dark wood tables covered with white tablecloths. Young brown men in white waistcoats and black bow ties served old white men. Roberto snapped his fingers at his underlings and gestured at glasses that needed to be filled and plates removed. The alluring aroma of grilled steaks, fresh fried shrimp, and charbroiled fish and the symphony of silver utensils against crystal and china joined together to remind Bobby of what might have been had his life taken a different turn here or there. He usually had lunch at the barbecue joint down the block where you ate at picnic tables on paper plates with plastic utensils.

While Bobby felt like Ralph Nader at a chamber of commerce meeting, Scotty strode through the dining room like the star halfback onto a football field, greeting and shaking hands with everyone he passed—that familiar Scotty Fenney entrance Bobby had witnessed so many times in the old days and from the same vantage point: behind Scotty Fenney. Bobby recognized the faces of the men Scotty was greeting from the business section of the newspaper. These men owned Dallas—the land, the buildings, the businesses, and everything else worth owning in the city. Scotty’s attention was suddenly drawn across the room. He said to Bobby, “I’ll be right there,” and went over to a table of four men.

Bobby followed Roberto to a table by the window through which Bobby could gaze out upon the city where he had lived his entire life. Born poor in East Dallas, he had moved with his parents to a rental duplex near SMU the summer before ninth grade. They wanted a better life for their son, but they couldn’t afford private school on his father’s truck driver’s pay. Instead their son would be educated in the Highland Park public school system just like the sons of the richest men in Dallas.

Bobby had met Scotty Fenney that first year, two renters seeking similarly situated companions—renters occupied a social status in Highland Park only a step above the Mexican household help. Bobby became Scotty’s faithful follower, like Robin to Batman; and as Scotty’s status rose with each football game, Bobby was pulled along in his friend’s considerable wake, welcomed anywhere in Highland Park, as long as he was with Scotty Fenney.

After high school, Bobby had followed Scotty to SMU. Scotty got a football scholarship; Bobby got student loans. Four years later, he followed Scotty to law school. But a law degree had not led to a better life for him. The money is in the big law firms, and the big firms take only the best of the best, the top ten percent—the Scotty Fenneys, not the Bobby Herrins. All through law school, they had talked about practicing law together, but the big firms came calling and Scotty answered; and suddenly, like a Texas summer storm that dumps two inches of rain and then abruptly disappears, Scotty was gone. For the first time since he was fourteen, Bobby did not have Scotty Fenney to follow.

For eleven years now, Bobby had wandered through life like Moses in the Sinai Desert, trying to find his way without Scotty. He had caught glimpses of his old friend in the society section—Mr. and Mrs. A. Scott Fenney at such-and-such society ball—and sometimes in the business section—another courtroom victory or major deal engineered by A. Scott Fenney, Esq. Each time he read something about his old friend the memories would return and he would feel so completely alone again.

Still, through no real intent, Bobby had fashioned a life of sorts. Not much of a life—his exact thought that morning as he arrived at the office and stepped over a drunk on the doorstep, the start of another day of bailing out dopers at the jail, fighting evictions in J.P. court, eating Korean donuts, and drinking Mexican beer and playing pool in the bar next door. But then the phone rang and the caller identified herself as Scott Fenney’s secretary. When she invited him to lunch with Scotty at the Downtown Club, Bobby thought he’d have to call 911 and have them hook him up to a defibrillator. He accepted, hung up the phone, took one look at his clothes, and immediately regretted his decision. He paced the office for an hour, deciding a dozen times to call back and cancel and a dozen times not to. When he finally pulled the old Impala into the parking garage under Dibrell Tower and the attendant looked it over and chuckled, he knew he was in over his head.

Bobby Herrin didn’t belong at the Downtown Club.

He realized his finger was tapping the table like he was sending an urgent Morse code message. He craved a cigarette, but the Dallas city council had banned smoking in all public places. He desperately wanted to get up and walk out, to go back to East Dallas where he belonged.
Goddamnit, why had he accepted this lunch invitation?
Only because Scotty’s secretary’s call had caught him by surprise, he told himself, but he knew the truth: he wanted to see Scotty again.

He missed Scotty more than he missed his two ex-wives.

Bobby looked for Scotty and saw him several tables away, leaning over and whispering in the ear of a man whose face Bobby also recognized. Whatever Scotty said had made the man very happy. He stood and shook Scotty’s hand, slapped him on the back, and damn near hugged him. Scotty walked over to Bobby with a big smile on his face and sat down across the table.

“You know Tom Dibrell?” Bobby asked.

“I’m his lawyer. Got him out of a crack yesterday. Literally.” Scotty leaned over and whispered, “Tom’s got a problem keeping his prick out of the payroll.”

“Scotty, he’s the guy who paid SMU players, got the football team the death penalty! You hated assholes like him back then. Now you’re working for him?
Why?
”

Scotty smiled. “Three million bucks a year in legal fees, Bobby, that’s why.”

The number took Bobby’s breath away:
three million bucks.
Bobby’s best year ever, he’d grossed $27,500. Only a few minutes together after eleven years apart, and he was already envying Scotty’s life again. Sure, Bobby had loyal clients—one brought him homemade tamales each week, another had named her illegitimate son after him—and his money was no good at either the donut shop or the bar—free donuts and beer were the only perks his particular position offered—but his best client had paid him $500 last year; Scotty’s best client paid him $3 million. In all English-speaking parts of Dallas, money was the only recognized measure of a lawyer’s success; consequently, only among the Spanish-speaking population of East Dallas was Robert Herrin, Esq., not considered a total loser.

His mind was prying open the door to depression again, the point in each day when he would walk next door and down a few Tecates, when Roberto appeared with two glasses of iced tea and placed them on the table and then spread napkins in their laps, which made Bobby flinch—where he ate, someone leans in that close they’re going for your wallet. After Roberto left, Bobby emptied two sweeteners in his tea, drank half the glass, and said, “Kind of surprised to get your call this morning, Scotty. Your secretary’s call, anyway. But you know me, never could pass up a free lunch.”

“So, how you been, Bobby?”

Bobby studied Scotty sitting there in his expensive suit and starched shirt and designer tie and looking like the Prince of Dallas and wondered if his old friend really gave a damn how Bobby Herrin had been. Used to be that when Bobby ran into an old law school classmate who had done better—which is to say, any law school classmate—they would both realize the awkwardness of the encounter and manufacture a quick escape. But there was no escaping here.

So Bobby said, “Scotty, when you get up in the morning, do you think good things are gonna happen to you that day?”

Scotty frowned a moment, then shrugged and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Why?”

Scotty shrugged again. “Good things have always happened to me.”

“The best football player, best student, best looking, marries the most beautiful cheerleader, becomes a rich lawyer, and lives happily ever after?”

Scotty flashed that big smile again. “Something like that.”

“Exactly like that.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, see, Scotty, it ain’t like that for everybody. I don’t wake up thinking good things are gonna happen that day. I wake up wondering what’s the next bad thing that’s gonna happen to me.”

Scotty was staring at his water goblet with the same expression Bobby had seen on the faces of those other classmates he’d run into over the years, a look of abject embarrassment. But he was too far in to stop now.

“You graduated first in our class, Scotty. I graduated. Remember that old law school joke? What do they call the doctor who graduated last in his med school class? Doctor. What do they call the lawyer who graduated last in his law school class? Infrequently.” Bobby lowered his eyes to the silver fork he was fiddling with. “Well, it’s no joke.”

Scotty did not respond immediately, so Bobby raised his eyes, expecting to see a haughty smirk; instead, he saw a hint of real concern on his old friend’s face. Scotty and Bobby had been inseparable in college and law school: they had lived together, studied together, got drunk together, chased girls together (Bobby got Scotty’s hand-me-downs), and played hoops and golf together. They were like brothers, right up until the day Scotty hired on with Ford Stevens at a starting salary of $100,000. They had not spoken since.

“Things haven’t gone well?” Scotty asked.

“Clients you get from ads in the TV guide don’t pay so well.” Bobby shrugged and tried to smile. “Hey, life just didn’t work out.”

Scotty straightened in his chair. “Well, Bobby, let’s have lunch and talk about that.”

Scotty stuck a finger in the air and a waiter appeared instantly. Bobby was scanning a menu with entrées that cost more than his suit when he heard a thick Latino accent: “Mr. Herrin?”

He looked up at the waiter, a young Hispanic man, well groomed with erect posture. His face seemed vaguely familiar.

“Mr. Herrin, it’s Carlos. Carlos Hernandez? Remember me, last year? You was my lawyer? Possession with intent to distribute?”

So many of Bobby’s clients looked so much alike—young males, brown or black—and were charged with the same crimes—possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to distribute, conspiracy to distribute; they were just two-bit users caught in the cross fire of the war against drugs. Sometimes he could remember a particular client by his tattoos—he vividly recalled a client named Hector (conspiracy to distribute) because his entire upper body was one big tattoo, a mural in honor of the Virgin Mary—but since Carlos here was clothed from his neck to his toes, Bobby could not remember Carlos from Jorge or Ricardo or Lupe. Still, he said, “Oh, yeah, Carlos. How you doing, man? You staying clean?”

A big grin from Carlos and a bigger lie, “Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Herrin.”

They never stay clean. “Good man.”

Scotty ordered salmon, Bobby a T-bone. As Carlos walked off, Bobby gestured after him. “My best client.”

“You do a lot of criminal defense work?”

Bobby nodded. “I represent the petty criminal class. Guys like Carlos, they don’t need estate plans.”

“Federal court?”

“Yeah, since they federalized all the drug crimes.”

Carlos soon returned with their food, and they ate and talked and laughed about the old days, old friends, good times, and their families. Scotty didn’t know Bobby had been married and divorced twice; Bobby didn’t know Scotty’s mother had died or that he had a daughter. And for a brief moment it was eleven years ago and they were still best friends. But Bobby knew he was just Cinderella at the ball with the Prince of Dallas, and the fancy lunch at the fancy club would soon be over and he’d be back in his crappy office in East Dallas living his shitty life again representing clients like Carlos.