Writ of Execution (16 page)

He thought, It’s a sign. My luck has turned.

They pulled their cars up beside the trailer and got out.

It was very quiet. Nights in the high desert were often cool, even in summer, and tonight was no exception. He saw a dirt front yard with a row of prickly pear cacti guarding ripe orange fruit. A padlocked metal shed, a car-port, even a small empty corral with an unused horse stall. A ranchito, the Mexicans would call it. All neat and orderly, as a lawyer’s hideout should be.

What did Nina Reilly use it for? Nina had impressed Kenny as the sort of lawyer who would be rich if she had set up in Silicon Valley—intelligent and experienced, but with a crazy streak. He imagined various scenarios for Nina in this trailer, all of them involving intrigue and drama.

The sky a luminous blue, Venus on the horizon. Stillness.

Maybe she just came here to sit in the metal folding chair by the side of the trailer and watch the rattlesnakes and think up legal arguments.

“I don’t know if I like it. It’s very exposed. But that could work in our favor. No hidden approach.” Jessie didn’t waste time looking around, but got the door open and checked out the trailer. Books and more books stacked on the table, on the bed in back, next to the tiny stainless-steel sink. Books on psychology, medicine, law, books of poetry, mystery novels, courtroom dramas.

Kenny had his answer. Nina read.

“Dust everywhere,” Kenny said. He picked up a Steve Martini novel lying open on the floor. “I’ll clean up while you get Gabe settled in.”

He wiped a wet cloth around and made beds while Jessie found a spot for Gabe’s portable crib. The moment she set Gabe in his bed, he began to cry.

Kenny went outside and fiddled with the propane tank. After a while, he admitted to himself that he would blow them all up and was going to have to ask for Jessie’s help if he didn’t want this brief idyll to end with a bang.

He went back in and started cutting up vegetables, waiting for Jessie to get Gabe to sleep. “What’s the matter?” Kenny asked finally, after watching her fuss over the baby for quite some time without result.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He cried nearly all the way here. He usually sleeps in the car. But—he gets this way sometimes lately. Irritable. He just cries. I think that’s normal with kids, isn’t it?”

Kenny picked Gabe up. “He seems kind of—warm, doesn’t he?”

Gabe was burning hot.

This time Kemp wouldn’t meet Red in his room. Unhappy memories, Red had no problem with that, but when Kemp wouldn’t tell him over the phone if he had the husband, Red got an unpleasant tremor in his gut, which he knew well. He felt separated from the action, left out. No control. He couldn’t stand that feeling except when the money was on a number. Even then he couldn’t stand it, but the pleasure was there, the hope.

It was past ten o’clock when Red parked out in front of the Pizza Hut in Minden. Kemp was already inside, sitting at a table in the crowded place, with a pitcher of beer in front of him. Red got out of the Boxster and locked up, then took a walk around the place looking at the security. Video cam facing the cashier. That seemed to be the sum total of their security measures except for a simple burglar alarm setup on the doors and windows. No outside cams. Kemp’s silver Chrysler was empty. No sign of the kidnappee.

Okay. It could still be okay. Hear Kemp’s story. Stay smart. He went in, skirting around the edges of the monitor’s visual field, pulling down on the baseball cap.

A kid brought a large pizza with canned pineapple strewn over it to the table as Red sat down with his back to the cam. More brats at the table in front of them, no sign of the parents, booths full of young jocks in nylon T-shirts that read “Pau Wa Lu,” celebrating some athletic triumph. Nobody else in the place was over twenty-one.

“Well?” Red said, standing there.

“Relax, man. Tell you in a minute. I have to eat. I’m starving. Have a beer on me.”

Red had no choice. He sat down. Kemp’s hair reeked and his eyes bulged red. His glove compartment was probably full of grass. He was a walking disaster, not a committed, organized criminal.

“What the fuck happened?” he said. “Where is he?”

Kemp worked his way through his second piece of pizza. He waved a hand, his mouth full. “Been a long day,” he said.

He drank some beer. Red considered him, considered the restaurant, wondered how it had all come down to a Pizza Hut. Big score, rapidly dwindling in the distance as the rest of the pack headed into the home stretch. He was getting a stomachache watching the Englishman.

A toddler tried to climb off his chair, fell against Red. He didn’t move. The teenaged mother picked him up and put him back in his chair, ignoring Red. Some people were rude, no way around it.

“I suppose you have guessed,” Kemp said. “Slight postponement, I fear. The dish ran away with the spoon.”

“Meaning?”

“I went after our boy. Tried to knock him down so I could get him into the car, but he managed to run. I followed him out to some godforsaken village across the mountains. The girl was there. She came out on the porch. I could have done them both right then, but that wasn’t the plan, was it? I was just going to wait and see if he came back out, and then I was going to grab our boy when he finally leaves. So I reconnoiter and what should I hear but this girl yelling that she’s going to shoot me. I jump off the porch and she sends a blast after me that bloody well almost took my ears off. I went as deaf as Winston Churchill. I step back, not wanting to be picking bullets out of my ass for the next hundred years. The neighbors are peeking out their curtains, I’m nipping under the porch for a second of shelter. It’s nasty under there, they must have a lot of dogs.”

“And?”

“And, I decide it’s time to bloody well move out and wait my chance. I get out just in time. Police cruiser, red light flashing, on me left as I left.”

“He saw you?”

“Two of them. Paid absolutely no attention to me. So there’s only one highway out of this place. Deep forest all round. I pull off the road behind a tree and wait. And wait. And wait all bloody night.”

“Poor you,” Red said.

“Yeah.” Kemp ate some more, his face working industriously through each bite with the deprived look of someone who had grown up malnourished. He hadn’t looked this way when he was on a winning streak. Red caught a glimpse of his own face in the window reflection. He thought, I look old. Using a paper napkin, he brushed some of Kemp’s crumbs off the table onto the floor, which was already a lost cause.

“And when I woke up, they was gone,” Kemp said.

“What do you mean, when you woke up?”

“A man’s got to sleep, last I heard. I was up at the crack, no lie, but they didn’t come, so finally I took a chance and cruised by the place. Cars gone. I felt like beating something up, I did. So I went back to Tahoe, looking for them everywhere. Checked the lawyer’s office, but she was gone.”

Red considered this.

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault, though. You wouldn’t have had no better luck.”

“Fuck,” Red said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The mom at the next table turned and shot him a shocked look.

He turned to her and said, eyes glittering, “You have a fucking problem?”

“I’m telling the manager,” she said, jumping like a little girl whose brother has just pinched her. She grabbed her kid and marched toward the cashier.

“Come on,” Red said. He pulled the baseball cap lower, made sure the goatee was on straight.

“Oh, no. Not after last time in my room. I want lots of witnesses. Look, it’s just a matter of time. I’ll get him.”

“That’s fine,” Red said. “I have no problem with that. But we have to go. The manager’s going to come over and throw us out anyway.”

“Right out front. That’s how far we go, mate.”

“Fine.” They walked out through a field of dirty looks.

“Over here,” Red said, pointing around to the side of the building. “They’re watching us.”

Kemp hesitated. When Red didn’t stop, he shrugged and followed him. He was a follower, that was his nature, so he followed. “Okay, so what’s the plan now?” Kemp said, leaning against the dumpster out back of the restaurant.

“I’ve got an idea,” Red said.

“I’m all ears.”

“It’s kind of far-out.”

“I’m with you. I’ll make it right, you’ll see.”

“You still have the gun? We’ll need it.”

“Right here.” Kemp got it out.

“Hand it over.” Red waited, hands in his pockets, casual. A moment passed during which Red felt a confusion overwhelming him and blurring his vision. The gun was the line he had never crossed. But the gun was the only hope. The power the gun gave him was the power to keep gambling and to keep Donna too. The gun was the only chance to take back his jackpot.

He didn’t know why his whole life depended on the gun. He didn’t know what to do now if he got the gun. He was whirling around the wheel, inside a gamble: Kemp would give it to him or he wouldn’t. If he didn’t, Red was finished. If he did, it would mean that Red was lucky again.

Kemp handed it over. Clouds moved in Red’s mind when he did that. Red let elation fill him. He couldn’t speak, it was such a big win.

“So what now?” Kemp said.

“Well, I’ll be damned. There’s a dog in the dumpster.”

Kemp turned around to see the fucking invisible dog in the dumpster, and Red shot him neatly in the back of the head. The sound was brief, loud, and sharp. Kemp jerked forward and banged the edge of the dumpster. The top of his skull sailed twenty feet into the air like a cap blowing off in the wind.

Red leaned down. Picking him up by the legs, he dumped Kemp into the dumpster.

He looked down, looked at the gun, stuck it in his waistband, closed his jacket. Looked at his hands. Not a speck of blood on him, though the area around was a mess. Looked around. No witnesses, and he already knew, no cameras.

Checking the hat again, he looked around. Time to move. He couldn’t wait to wash his hands thoroughly. They felt like they were crawling with
E. coli
. And that damn pizza—he needed a good flossing. His hand went into his pocket and he fingered the small white plastic container of mint-flavored waxed dental floss.

He walked rapidly down the street to the unlit place he had left the car. He locked the seat belt into place, took a breath, then reached up and patted his right shoulder with his left hand. Good boy. He rubbed and patted himself even though he needed to leave. Good boy! Good boy!

A whole new logic had unfolded inside of him.

14

“AN ENVELOPE WITH a million dollars in it and more to come,” Nina said. “Imagine it sitting in the middle of a field. Just outside Kenny Leung’s City of Gold.”

Paul snickered.

“A tattered note says it’s the property of this obscure peasant. Stay away. Along comes the army of the black knight, Atchison Potter, with his general, Jeff Riesner. They gallop up and look at the money, and Riesner turns to Potter and says—what does he say, Paul?”

Nina, Paul, and Sandy were sitting in Nina’s library after hours. Paul nursed a Heineken. Nina and Sandy had cracked a cold bottle of Sancerre. They would all be drunkards before this case was over.

“Riesner says to Potter, ‘If the little peasant comes around, I’ll cut her head off and hang it on the village gate.’ He picks the money up on the prong of his shining lance.”

“Correct.” Nina took off her shoes, pulled up another chair, and stretched her legs out on it. “But while the money is still fluttering on the tip of the lance, along comes the king of Nevada with a much bigger army. And the king says to himself, ‘That money ought to be returned to me and my son, Global Gaming.’ ”

“So they get in a fight. They’re jousting around,” Sandy said, getting into it.

“Right. The Nevada Gaming Control Board is taking a peculiar interest in the writ case, along with Global Gaming. Even Prize’s is watching this Potter court case carefully. They seem to be looking for a way to void the jackpot.”

“On what theory?” Paul said.

“I can’t imagine. But Thomas Munzinger called me this morning. He said that he is sending a couple of lawyers over to observe the court hearing on Monday.”

“He was the one who looked like a cowboy,” Paul said.

“Right. The rancher. He has cattle and horses, anyway.”

“Was he the one who handed Jessie her check?”

“Yep. Global Gaming. They build and maintain the progressives and they make the payouts.”

“But she won it! So how can they go after it now?”

“I don’t know yet,” Nina said. “I’ve asked Kenny to work with me on researching the gaming industry through the Net. I’ve already checked out the newspaper archives and the Global Gaming site, but Kenny has time to take a systematic look.”

“Indian givers,” Sandy said drily.

“If Global Gaming recovered the jackpot money, Atchison Potter wouldn’t get it,” Paul said. “Interesting.”

“Meanwhile, what about that peasant?” Sandy said.

“Jessie is currently scheduled to be crushed under the hooves of the more powerful parties,” Paul said. “Should you just try to get her out of this alive? Maybe they would throw her a bill or two if she retreated quickly.”

“That would be the prudent course. But the whole thing makes me mad,” Nina said. “I want to fight ’em for it. Jessie agrees.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Paul said. He raised his bottle and said, “To blind chivalry,” and Sandy and Nina touched their plastic tumblers to it.

“Except how do we get paid?” Sandy said.

“As usual,” Nina said. “Just to let you know, Sandy, I’m charging the usual hourly rate. We’re not going to be part of the gambling. Jessie will pay us one way or the other.”

“You could get rich if you charge a twenty-fivepercent contingency fee and you win,” Paul said. “Jessie would go along.”

“It wouldn’t be fair. I have a strong feeling about this. I don’t want to have my judgment affected by too big a personal stake. I didn’t get into this business to gouge people. I don’t want to join the vultures trying to fly off with a piece of Jessie.”

She felt slightly quixotic saying this, but Paul and Sandy understood immediately. They were both nodding approvingly. She smiled at them, knowing how lucky she was to be working with them.

“Well, with the costs you’re advancing, you’re gonna be writing the rent check late,” Sandy said. She got up and went out to her desk. When she came back, she had the calendar and a legal pad and pen.

“The first battle is tomorrow,” she said. “One-thirty, Courtroom Two, Judge Simeon Amagosian. Has a ranch near Markleeville. Quite a few peasants workin’ his fields.”

“He’s always been fair to me in court,” Nina said. “But I’ll keep that in mind. There’s no point to this Examination of Judgment Debtor except to hound her. Potter already knows she doesn’t have any other assets. But there is something I’d rather he didn’t know.”

“Which is?”

“The date of her marriage to Kenny,” Nina said. Her brow furrowed. “I can’t get away with anything, Paul. Ever since I was a kid. I really don’t want that to come out right now.”

“Was it unethical?” Paul said. “In retrospect.”

“We weren’t trying to defraud anybody. We were trying to protect the client. But it’s not going to look good in Riesner’s hands, and he’s bound to find out if the examination goes forward. I’m going to ask Amagosian to put this whole examination thing over for a few weeks. The next hearing after this is the big one, when Amagosian decides if the Writ of Execution should issue. We still have about two weeks before that hearing. Meantime, the money’s frozen.”

“What do you want me to do?” Paul said. Nina looked at him, at the sharp hazel eyes under the blond hair, the big hand holding the bottle. She felt a rush of gratitude toward him. He seemed to feel it; he smiled and raised his eyebrows.

“I want you to go to Hawaii for a few days,” she said. “We’ve got to attack Atchison Potter’s judgment, and I can only think of two ways at this late date. One, prove Jessie didn’t kill her husband. If we can do that, no court will enforce that judgment. Two, prove that the judgment was procedurally defective. Show Potter knew Jessie was in California and should have put a notice in the California papers. You need to copy the court papers in Honolulu, check out the notice in the newspapers, see what you can find.”

“I thought once you had a judgment, you can’t go back and try to overturn it,” Sandy said.

Nina nodded. “After six months, a judgment becomes final and no matter how wrong it may be, you can’t attack it. That’s true, Sandy. But there is at least one exception.”

“Always,” Paul said. “Once you figure out the cardinal rule that there is always an exception, you are free to graduate from law school. So what is the exception?”

“When you are trying to enforce a judgment from another state,” Nina said. “Here we have a sister-state judgment from Hawaii. The California court can review it before issuing the writ. And that’s the hearing in two weeks. So we have to work fast.”

Paul didn’t look happy.

“What is it?”

“Things are breaking here,” Paul said. “I need to find the gun. Kenny says someone tried to kill him with the Glock. Finding the Glock gets even more important. And I can’t find Kemp. I’m figuring he’s the stalker. Now is not a good time.”

“I know. I hate to send you away. But I believe it’s absolutely necessary.”

“You’re the boss. I’ll leave tonight,” Paul said. “I can get a flight out of Sacramento.” Sandy nodded and made a note.

“Thanks, Paul,” Nina said. “I made you up a file with a lot of my thoughts on this jotted down.” She handed it over.

“Want to get together for dinner?” Paul said, getting up. Sandy’s eyes moved from him to Nina. Nina’s head was shaking, and she was going to tell him all about her impossible schedule and her neglected home life, but Paul’s expression stopped her. He raised a hand. “Never mind.”

“I’ll book you an e-ticket from Sac,” Sandy said, “and fax your confirmation numbers to Caesars tonight. You’ll probably need to be there by nine in the morning.”

He was gone. Sandy drank down the rest of her glass, saying, “Guess I’ll call the airline. Then I’m going home.”

“Me, too.”

“I have some advice you won’t take.”

Nina drank some more wine.

“You’re gonna lose him.”

Nina said, “That’s my business.”

“He’s getting tired of putting up with you.”

“You don’t understand, Sandy.”

“You ought to be careful not to lose anything now.”

Nina exhaled, set her glass down, and took her feet off the chair. “And why is that?” she said.

“Because you don’t have that much left.”

“I’ve got Bob and my work,” Nina said. “It’s enough for now.”

The king of Nevada himself, Ully Miller of the Gaming Control Board, arrived at court just before one-thirty the next day. Thomas Munzinger of Global Gaming was with him, deferring to him as a dutiful son should.

Outside the courtroom, through the high window, Nina saw pine trees and blue sky. Her soul rushed out there and took a deep breath and came back refreshed. Jessie was sitting on her left, right beside Nina, with her shadow Kenny behind them in the audience. Riesner sat at his table on the right.

When Munzinger and Miller came in, Nina watched their greetings from an anthropological perspective: the two men striding up to the lawyer, Riesner’s attempt to take Miller’s elbow and the shakeoff, Miller getting his hand out first for the shake as if they were dueling, the way Munzinger stood by. Miller obviously held the weight of power.

Other than them, Amagosian’s clerk Debra, and Deputy Kimura, the bailiff for the courtroom, nobody else had come in yet, not even the press. The locals had all left town so the tourists had Tahoe to themselves, but it still seemed odd that the press wasn’t around.

Maybe they always did this, reported the joyful news of the jackpots, but downplayed the consequences, which must sometimes include court cases against the winners. The tourists wouldn’t want to hear about that. Let them keep their illusions.

Riesner got up with many a flirt and flutter and came over to Nina’s table. He wore Armani. He always wore Armani. How she hated Armani.

“My, you look lovely today,” he said. “Except for your unladylike scowl. I suppose you can’t really do anything about that.”

“Go away,” Nina said. He brightened. However meager the reaction, she had reacted, which always excited him. She watched him fill with air in preparation for the next taunt but then he stopped suddenly. She caught a glimpse of a couple of suited men attached to attachés entering the room.

Polite introductions. It was one-thirty-five. Time wore lead shoes and dragged from second to second. Nina wished it was over.

The lawyers, Felicidad and Moorhead, represented the State of Nevada and Global Gaming. They were seasoned, quiet, colorless. Felicidad had a fleshy, broken-capillaried face; a lawyer of the old style, who had obviously never embraced running or working out at the gym for relaxation but stuck by the old tried and true tonic of drink. “We’re just here to watch,” he said, sitting down in the audience next to Munzinger and Miller.

Atchison Potter came in. The powers turned to assess this new power. Nina too couldn’t keep from turning around.

Potter walked straight over to Riesner and pleasantries were exchanged. Then he approached Nina. Another expensive suit, this one very lightweight, a real summer suit, what she would expect from an executive from Hawaii. He was a short, stocky man, angular in feature, black-haired and brown-eyed, about fifty, wearing rimless glasses, but even with the glasses, the kind of guy who has hair on his back.

He didn’t say anything at first, just cocked his head to the side and looked her up and down in a way she knew he meant to be insulting.

She was tired of being insulted and tired of being the only skirt in a room full of suits, and the hearing hadn’t even started yet.

“What is it, Mr. Potter?” Nina said.

“I want her to understand that she can’t get away with it,” he said. “My son was the most important thing in my life.”

“And I want you to understand. I’m not going to let you hurt her,” Nina said.

“How will you stop me?” His mouth compressed into a straight, mean line.

“That’s not the question,” Nina said. “The question is, how will you stop
me
?”

He looked startled, then started to laugh.

And aloha to you too, Nina thought.

Deputy Kimura got off the phone. “All rise,” he said. “The Court of the Honorable Judge Simeon Amagosian is in session.”

Judge Amagosian appeared on the dais in his black robe. Well-fed and tanned like Munzinger, he had notorious mood swings, although he had won a reputation for fairness. First appointed back in the days of Jerry Brown’s administration, he had been around long enough to feel secure in his calling. That left plenty of room for the occasional volcanic emotional eruptions which Nina knew at this very moment simmered in wait behind his smile. Today he had adopted a folksy manner.

The clerk, until then lounging back in her chair, began to move papers around on his desk. The stenographer flexed her fingers and poised for action.

“
Potter v. Potter
. This is the time set for the examination of the judgment debtor on this judgment.” The judge looked out at the audience. Spying Felicidad and Moorhead, he raised his eyebrows, giving them a friendly nod.

Ominous.

“I have your opposing papers, Counsel,” Amagosian said to Nina. “We are moving quickly, but not precipitately. Ten days’ notice for this examination is all that is required.”

Nina said, “But it’s potentially unnecessary, Your Honor. Makes no sense to examine the judgment debtor now when we have a hearing scheduled for two weeks from now to determine whether my client
is
a judgment debtor. Why the unseemly hurry? The only asset my client has, which Mr. Riesner well knows, is already attached pending the hearing on the writ. The jackpot money isn’t going anywhere.”

“How do we know it’s her only asset if I can’t examine her, Judge? How do I preserve other assets?” Riesner said.

Nina said quickly, “I’ll answer that in a minute, Your Honor. But first, let me say something about this type of proceeding in general. I will grant that the underlying rationale for allowing these examinations is well-intentioned . . .”

“Oh, my, that’s big of you,” Riesner interrupted.

“. . . but the potential for abuse is also enormous, which is why I am here today, Your Honor. I will represent to the court that Ms. Potter is afraid of Atchison Potter, in fact believes that Mr. Potter has made an attempt on her life. It is our contention that the sole reason for this proceeding is to punish and persecute Ms. Potter and to elicit personal information to make it easier for Mr. Potter to persecute her further.”