Reckless Disregard (11 page)

“This was left on my chair by mistake,” he says. “It’s addressed to you.”

“Do you have any idea who—?”

“None.” Before I can say another word, he’s out the door, obviously not happy about my working on something other than mediation.

The manila envelope bears a printed label addressed to Parker Stern c/o Judicial Alternative Dispute Solutions, PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. There’s no postage, no courier logo, no return address. Like an excited child on Christmas morning, I roughly tear open the flap. I reach inside and pull a large Ziploc baggie that contains a smaller envelope, which contains three sheets of paper—the correspondence between Felicity and Scotty. Or, that’s what the documents appear to be. I examine the larger envelope. There’s no cover letter, not even a buck slip from Poniard saying
here you go
.

I find Felicity’s first letter, the one in which she mentions “Billy Bishop.” The handwriting is calligraphic but relaxed. I compare it with the handwriting in Felicity’s later, undated note, in which she surprises Scotty with a trip to France. Although both notes seem to be written by the same person, the writing in the second seems more frenetic, more deeply etched into the paper. But what do I know about handwriting analysis? I’ll have to hire a real expert. I put the papers back into the large envelope and then e-mail Poniard confirming that I’ve received the letters.

Brenda arrives at work an hour later.

“You look nice,” I say, and then scold myself for violating the first rule of anti–gender bias training.

Blushing, she primps her hair. “Oh, thanks. Philip took me clothes shopping.”

“He did what?”

“It was just H&M.” She puts her hands to her mouth when she realizes what I’m implying. “Oh my god, no, we weren’t . . . his wife, Joyce, came with.” She takes a deep breath. “I was telling him how much I like working here—working for you—and he noticed I was wearing the same two dresses all the time. He said if I wanted to get ahead I should be more professional and he’s so easy to talk to I let it slip that I couldn’t afford a new wardrobe. So he insisted that he loan me some money for new clothes and said I could pay him back from my paychecks, which I’ll be able to soon because I have a steady job now.” She bites at a fingernail. “If I did something wrong, I could take the clothes back.”

“No. It really isn’t any of my business. Philip is a kind man.”

She hands me the briefing for a small mediation that I have scheduled next week. As she’s about to leave, the chat program launches.

Poniard:

>Do you have the letters, counselor?

Brenda glances at the screen and says, “I’ll come back later.” She takes a step toward the door.

“No, stay,” I say. “We’re all on the same team.”

She grins slightly and sits down in a client chair opposite my desk.

PStern

>It’s about time. They went to the wrong office. How were they delivered?

Poniard:

>JUST TELL ME THEY’RE SECURE!

PStern

>Yes, I’ve got the letters. We need to get them tested by the document examiners. Do I have your permission?

Poniard:

>Whatever you need to do . . . just keep them safe and in good condition

PStern

>
I will take care of that immediately.

Without a
thank you
, he abruptly ends the chat.

After Brenda leaves, I pick up the envelope, grab my coat, and head out the door. When I get outside, the cosplayers—now gathered in front of the seedy Café Guadalajara because they’d been rousted for loitering in front of JADS—begin waving and shouting at me. I hurry to my car and drive the fifteen minutes to the Community Bank of Marina Del Rey, not far from my condo. The teller accompanies me into the vault and retrieves my oversized 12 × 12 safety deposit box. He uses his key on the lock and leaves me alone. Only when the door closes do I insert my own key.

I haven’t opened the box in years, and now I survey its contents: fifteen thousand dollars in cash, because I learned at a young age that you might have to go on the run at any time; my old SAG card, under the name
Parky Gerald
, expiration date July 31, 1990, the year after I became an emancipated minor and went underground at age fifteen; a washed-out snapshot of my mother and me in Big Bear—I must’ve been eight or nine—throwing snowballs and actually having fun together; a stack of reviews and credits on all my films (I guess it’s not as easy to jettison the past as I pretend); an English pewter tie tack in the shape of a barn owl, inexpensive and unfashionable, a gift from Harmon Cherry simply because I once admired it on him. I take the McGrath letters and place them in the safety deposit box. I start to close the lid but instead reach into my wallet and retrieve a picture of Lovely Diamond and me taken at a barbecue last Labor Day. Her arms are wrapped around my neck, and she’s looking up at me with genuine love, or so I thought at the time. I’m smiling my best Parky Gerald smile, still mugging for the camera after all these years. I have quite a few digital photos of us, but this is my favorite, the only one I actually printed out so I could keep it with me always. But that particular
always
is over. I drop the photo into the box and close the lid.

Instead of going back to the office, I drive to Venice Beach. Though it’s less than a mile away from my home, for the past year and a half I’ve stayed away from that neighborhood. Horrible memories. After searching for the impossible parking spot near the ocean, I finally relent and park farther inland on Main Street. I get out of the car and walk toward the beach, eventually finding the address of what was once the Windward Bar, where Paula Felicity McGrath was last seen. It’s now an organic sandwich shop/juice bar. Then I diagonally cross the street to the Pacific Avenue Hotel, the former flophouse turned upscale beachside inn, where Luther “Boardwalk Freddy” Frederickson supposedly spotted William Bishop driving away with the goons who kidnapped Felicity. There’s a valet service and a doorman outside. There are alcoves on the building facade, but I can’t conceive of a homeless person being allowed to stand near the wall these days, much less sleep there. I go west until I reach the boardwalk. It’s October, and the salt scent of the ocean rides on a clement breeze, but school started weeks ago, so the beaches are empty. I walk north, passing bicycle riders and Rollerbladers, beach bums with overbaked skin, senior citizens in wheelchairs pushed by devoted but bored Filipino attendants. I pass street vendors who despite the sparse crowds have shown up to sell T-shirts and henna tattoos and cheap jewelry and vintage clothing and laser-art seascapes. I pass hot dog stands, pizza joints, seaside bars, beachfront apartments, youth hostels, medical marijuana dispensaries. When I reach the Santa Monica Pier, I’m drenched in sweat. As I walk, I try to learn something about Paula Felicity McGrath, as if the permanence of steel and brick and concrete and water and sand can whisper wisdom if I only listen hard enough.

I’d like to go home but decide to spend the afternoon drumming up some mediation business for my employer and so make the short drive up Ocean Park back to the office. When I pull into the parking lot, I notice that the cosplayers are gathered at the building’s entrance, exactly where they’re not supposed to be. I start to pull around the building to my assigned space in the back and ask them to disperse, but then I get close enough to hear shouting, and I realize what’s really going on. I stomp on the brake, leave the car parked in the middle of the driveway, and sprint over to the entrance. The cosplayers are gathered on one side of the walkway, screaming and shouting and waving their arms like spectators at a bullfight. Some of the people who work at JADS are standing on the walkway near the building, gawking like freeway rubberneckers. My boss, Walker Mitchell, is shouting for someone to call building security and for someone else to call the cops, and my assistant Brenda is alone by the door crying, blood oozing from her knee and down her leg. In the middle of the melee Banquo and some huge biker-type with long hair, a grizzly beard, and tattoos covering both arms are rolling around on the concrete. Just as I arrive, Banquo gets the upper hand and repeatedly punches the biker in the face. I’ve broken up a few basketball fights, and the trick is to always grab your teammate and not the opponent, because your teammate is less likely to turn and punch you. I run over and grab Banquo’s arms, hoping he realizes it’s me and considers me a teammate.

“That’s enough, Banquo,” I shout. “You said you wanted to help Poniard? Well, this is hurting him.”

His arm is cocked to strike another blow to the bloodied face of the biker, and as hard as I grip his deltoid and bicep, I’m not nearly strong enough to hold him back. But he relaxes and stands. He looks into my eyes, his gaze a terrifying mixture of anger, surprise, and regret, and for a fleeting moment I feel I recognize him from somewhere other than his role as one of Poniard’s hangers-on. But then the sirens become audible and that feeling is gone, and so is Banquo, running toward a beat-up brown Honda—a later model of the car that Felicity McGrath was driving on the day she disappeared. Courtney is at the wheel. He gets in, and they speed out of the parking lot, long gone when the police arrive thirty seconds later.

I go over to Philip Paulsen, who’s still comforting Brenda, but before I can ask what happened, Walker Mitchell approaches and points a finger at me, his face almost as white as his hair. “You’re done, Stern. Effective this moment. I don’t even want you in the building. Let me know where we can send your personal property.”

“Judge Mitchell, I—”

“Leave now, or I’ll have
you
arrested for trespassing.” He gestures toward Brenda. “You’re terminated, too . . .” He’s obviously struggling to remember her name. “Young lady. Two weeks’ severance, and you’re lucky to get that.”

“Walker, that’s not fair,” Philip says. “Brenda needs this job.” I didn’t realize that Philip Paulsen and Walker Mitchell knew each other, though Philip seems to know everyone.

“That is not my problem,” Mitchell says.

“Can I get my purse, sir?” Brenda asks. “And a bandage for my knee?”

“No, you may not,” Mitchell says. “I’ll have someone bring you your purse. As for a Band-Aid, ask the paramedics.” He points to the EMTs attending to the biker, who obviously has a fractured nose.

“What happened?” I ask.

Brenda cowers and moves close to Philip. He puts his arm around her. “We have to talk to the police,” he says. “We’ll explain later. Where can we meet?”

I tell them to meet me at The Barrista Coffee House in West Hollywood. I’ve used it as an office before. Why not again?

My ex-law partner Deanna Poulos opened The Barrista Coffee House shortly after our law firm fell apart three years ago. Since then, I’ve spent most of my spare time here. Deanna died almost two years ago and bequeathed the place to her employees. But her estranged parents contested the will. I represented the employees
pro bono
—they’d been Deanna’s true family—and avoided a costly lawsuit by buying them out with money that I’d earned as a kid actor. I wanted to give the shop to the employees, but they insisted that I remain a fifty percent owner. That’s on paper. Her former top associate Romulo manages the place, and any profits go to the staff. In exchange, the baristas keep my regular table in the back open for me and warm my coffee when it gets cold.

Now the shop is empty, except for a couple of regulars who nurse one cup of cappuccino for hours while they sit hunched over their laptops using the shop’s free Wi-Fi, or pounding out the next great screenplay or novel, or mapping out the story of a video game that will rival Poniard’s. Philip, Brenda, and I are meeting in the office, a cubbyhole where my late friend Deanna spent so many hours balancing the books and counting cash. Philip Paulsen is sitting behind the desk across from a disconsolate Brenda Sica, who alternately looks down at the floor and up at the ceiling.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I am so very sorry,” Brenda says.

“Don’t apologize,” Philip says. “Just tell him.”

She sits back in her chair and begins talking so softly that I have to ask her to speak up. Apparently, the huge man who looked like a biker was a process server who barged into JADS reception and announced in a loud voice that he was serving Parker Stern with papers in
Bishop v. Poniard
. The receptionist called Brenda. When she came out front and told him I wasn’t in the office, he called her a liar and started walking toward the back offices.

“That’s when I made the big mistake,” Brenda says, her voice quavering. “I reached out and grabbed the man’s sleeve to stop him because he had no right to go to your office, but he was so big and strong, and when he turned he twisted my arm hard and I lost my balance and fell.” She points to a fresh scrape on her knee. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have touched him.” Her eyes are glistening.

“Typical Frantz bullshit,” I say, forgetting for the moment that she doesn’t like profanity. “He didn’t need to send a process server. Frantz could’ve had his secretary e-mail the documents, but he has to grandstand, to try to embarrass me with the people at JADS.”