The Firm (41 page)

“Get ’em all finished?” Lamar asked, devouring the shrimp.

“Yeah. I finished mine yesterday. Avery and I worked on Sonny Capps’s until five P.M. It’s finished.”

“How much?”

“Quarter of a mill.”

“Ouch.” Lamar turned up the bottle and drained half of it. “He’s never paid that much, has he?”

“No, and he’s furious. I don’t understand the guy. He cleared six million from all sorts of ventures, and he’s mad as hell because he had to pay five percent in taxes.”

“How’s Avery?”

“Somewhat worried. Capps made him fly to Houston last week, and it did not go well. He left on the Lear at midnight. Told me later Capps was waiting at his office at four in the morning, furious over his tax mess. Blamed it all on Avery. Said he might change firms.”

“I think he says that all the time. You need a beer?”

Lamar left and returned with four Mooseheads. “How’s Abby’s mom?”

Mitch borrowed a shrimp and peeled it. “She’s okay, for now. They removed a lung.”

“And how’s Abby?” Lamar was watching his friend, and not eating.

Mitch started another beer. “She’s fine.”

“Look, Mitch, our kids go to St. Andrew’s. It’s no secret Abby took a leave of absence. She’s been gone for two weeks. We know it, and we’re concerned.”

“Things will work out. She wants to spend a little time away. It’s no big deal, really.”

“Come on, Mitch. It’s a big deal when your wife leaves home without saying when she’ll return. At least that’s what she told the headmaster at school.”

“That’s true. She doesn’t know when she’ll come back. Probably a month or so. She’s had a hard time coping with the hours at the office.”

The lawyers were all present and accounted for, so Roosevelt shut the door. The room became noisier. Bobby Blue took requests.

“Have you thought about slowing down?” Lamar asked.

“No, not really. Why should I?”

“Look, Mitch, I’m your friend, right? I’m worried about you. You can’t make a million bucks the first year.”

Oh yeah, he thought. I made a million bucks last week. In ten seconds the little account in Freeport jumped from ten thousand to a million ten thousand. And fifteen minutes later, the account was closed and the money was resting safely in a bank in Switzerland. Ah, the wonder of wire transfer. And because of the million bucks, this would be the first and only April 15 party of his short, but distinguished legal career. And his good friend who is so concerned about his marriage will most likely be in jail before long. Along with everyone else in the room, except for Roosevelt. Hell, Tarrance might get so excited he’ll indict Roosevelt and Jessie Frances just for the fun of it.

Then the trials. “I, Mitchell Y. McDeere, do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God.” And he’d sit in the witness chair and point the finger at his good friend Lamar Quin. And Kay and the kids would be sitting in the front row for jury appeal. Crying softly.

He finished the second beer and started the third. “I know, Lamar, but I have no plans to slow down. Abby will adjust. Things’ll be fine.”

“If you say so. Kay wants you over tomorrow for a big steak. We’ll cook on the grill and eat on the patio. How about it?”

“Yes, on one condition. No discussion about Abby. She went home to see her mother, and she’ll be back. Okay?”

“Fine. Sure.”

Avery sat across the table with a plate of shrimp. He began peeling them.

“We were just discussing Capps,” Lamar said.

“That’s not a pleasant subject,” Avery replied. Mitch watched the shrimp intently until there was a little pile of about six freshly peeled. He grabbed them
across the table and shoved the handful into his mouth.

Avery glared at him with tired, sad eyes. Red eyes. He struggled for something appropriate, then began eating the unpeeled shrimp. “I wish the heads were still on them,” he said between bites. “Much better with the heads.”

Mitch raked across two handfuls and began crunching. “I like the tails myself. Always been a tail man.”

Lamar stopped eating and gawked at them. “You must be kidding.”

“Nope,” said Avery. “When I was a kid in El Paso, we used to go out with our nets and scoop up a bunch of fresh shrimp. We’d eat ’em on the spot, while they were still wiggling.” Chomp, chomp. “The heads are the best part because of all the brain juices.”

“Shrimp, in El Paso?”

“Yeah, Rio Grande’s full of them.”

Lamar left for another round of beer. The wear, tear, stress and fatigue mixed quickly with the alcohol and the room became rowdier. Bobby Blue was playing Steppenwolf. Even Nathan Locke was smiling and talking loudly. Just one of the boys. Roosevelt added five cases to the barrel of ice.

At ten, the singing started. Wally Hudson, minus the bow tie, stood on a chair by the piano and led the howling chorus through a riotous medley of Australian drinking songs. The restaurant was closed now, so who cared. Kendall Mahan was next. He had played rugby at Cornell and had an amazing repertoire of raunchy beer songs. Fifty untalented and drunk voices sang happily along with him.

Mitch excused himself and went to the rest room. A busboy unlocked the rear door, and he was in the
parking lot. The singing was pleasant at this distance. He started for his car, but instead walked to a window. He stood in the dark, next to the corner of the building, and watched and listened. Kendall was now on the piano, leading his choir through an obscene refrain.

Joyous voices, of rich and happy people. He studied them one at a time, around the tables. Their faces were red. Their eyes were glowing. They were his friends—family men with wives and children—all caught up in this terrible conspiracy.

Last year Joe Hodge and Marty Kozinski were singing with the rest of them.

Last year he was a hotshot Harvard man with job offers in every pocket.

Now he was a millionaire, and would soon have a price on his head.

Funny what a year can do.

Sing on, brothers.

Mitch turned and walked away.

Around midnight, the taxis lined up on Madison, and the richest lawyers in town were carried and dragged into the back seats. Of course, Oliver Lambert was the soberest of the lot, and he directed the evacuation. Fifteen taxis in all, with drunk lawyers lying everywhere.

At the same time, across town on Front Street, two identical navy-blue-and-yellow Ford vans with DUSTBUSTERS painted brightly on the sides pulled up to the gate. Dutch Hendrix opened it and waved them through. They backed up to the rear door, and eight women with matching shirts began unloading vacuum cleaners and buckets filled with spray bottles.
They unloaded brooms and mops and rolls of paper towels. They chattered quietly among themselves as they went through the building. As directed from above, the technicians cleaned one floor at a time, beginning with the fourth. The guards walked the floors and watched them carefully.

The women ignored them and buzzed about their business of emptying garbage cans, polishing furniture, vacuuming and scrubbing bathrooms. The new girl was slower than the others. She noticed things. She pulled on desk drawers and file cabinets when the guards weren’t looking. She paid attention.

It was her third night on the job, and she was learning her way around. She’d found the Tolar office on the fourth floor the first night, and smiled to herself.

She wore dirty jeans and ragged tennis shoes. The blue DUSTBUSTERS shirt was extra large, to hide the figure and make her appear plump, like the other technicians. The patch above the pocket read DORIS. Doris, the cleaning technician.

When the crew was half finished with the second floor, a guard told Doris and two others, Susie and Charlotte, to follow him. He inserted a key in the elevator panel, and it stopped in the basement. He unlocked a heavy metal door, and they walked into a large room divided into a dozen cubicles. Each small desk was cluttered, and dominated by a large computer. There were terminals everywhere. Black file cabinets lined the walls. No windows.

“The supplies are in there,” the guard said, pointing to a closet. They pulled out a vacuum cleaner and spray bottles and went to work.

“Don’t touch the desks,” he said.

    30    

Mitch tied the laces of his Nike Air Cushion jogging shoes and sat on the sofa waiting by the phone. Hearsay, depressed after two weeks without the woman around, sat next to him and tried to doze. At exactly ten-thirty, it rang. It was Abby.

There were no mushy “sweethearts” and “babes” and “honeys.” The dialogue was cool and forced.

“How’s your mother?” he asked.

“Doing much better. She’s up and around, but very sore. Her spirits are good.”

“That’s good to hear. And your dad?”

“The same. Always busy. How’s my dog?”

“Lonesome and depressed. I think he’s cracking up.”

“I miss him. How’s work?”

“We survived April 15 without disaster. Everyone’s in a better mood. Half the partners left for vacation on the sixteenth, so the place is a lot quieter.”

“I guess you’ve cut back to sixteen hours a day?”

He hesitated, and let it sink in. No sense starting a fight. “When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know. Mom will need me for a couple more weeks. I’m afraid Dad’s not much help. They’ve got a maid and all, but Mom needs me now.” She paused, as if something heavy was coming. “I called St. Andrew’s today and told them I wouldn’t be back this semester.”

He took it in stride. “There are two months left in this semester. You’re not coming back for two months?”

“At least two months, Mitch. I just need some time, that’s all.”

“Time for what?”

“Let’s not start it again, okay? I’m not in the mood to argue.”

“Fine. Fine. Fine. What are you in the mood for?”

She ignored this, and there was a long pause. “How many miles are you jogging?”

“A couple. I’ve been walking to the track, then running about eight laps.”

“Be careful at the track. It’s awfully dark.”

“Thanks.”

Another long pause. “I need to go,” she said. “Mom’s ready for bed.”

“Will you call tomorrow night?”

“Yes. Same time.”

She hung up without a “goodbye” or “I love you” or anything. Just hung up.

Mitch pulled on his white athletic socks and tucked in his white long-sleeved T-shirt. He locked the kitchen door and trotted down the dark street. West Junior High School was six blocks to the east of East Meadowbrook. Behind the red-brick classrooms and gymnasium was the baseball field, and farther away at the end of a dark driveway was the football field. A
cinder track circled the field, and was a favorite of local joggers.

But not at 11 P.M., especially with no moon. The track was deserted, and that was fine with Mitch. The spring air was light and cool, and he finished the first mile in eight minutes. He began walking a lap. As he passed the aluminum bleachers on the home side, he saw someone from the corner of his eye. He kept walking.

“Pssssssst.”

Mitch stopped. “Yeah. Who is it?”

A hoarse, scratchy voice replied, “Joey Morolto.”

Mitch started for the bleachers. “Very funny, Tarrance. Am I clean?”

“Sure, you’re clean. Laney’s sitting up there in a school bus with a flashlight. He flashed green when you passed, and if you see something red flash, get back to the track and make like Carl Lewis.”

They walked to the top of the bleachers and into the unlocked press box. They sat on stools in the dark and watched the school. The buses were parked in perfect order along the driveway.

“Is this private enough for you?” Mitch asked.

“It’ll do. Who’s the girl?”

“I know you prefer to meet in daylight, preferably where a crowd has gathered, say like a fast-food joint or a Korean shoe store. But I like these places better.”

“Great. Who’s the girl?”

“Pretty clever, huh?”

“Good idea. Who is she?”

“An employee of mine.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“What difference does it make? Why are you always asking questions that are irrelevant?”

“Irrelevant? I get a call today from some woman I’ve never met, tells me she needs to talk to me about a little matter at the Bendini Building, says we gotta change phones, instructs me to go to a certain pay phone outside a certain grocery store and be there at a certain time, and she’ll call exactly at one-thirty. And I go there, and she calls at exactly one-thirty. Keep in mind, I’ve got three men within a hundred feet of the phone watching everybody that moves. And she tells me to be here at exactly ten forty-five tonight, to have the place sealed off, and that you’ll come trotting by.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, so far. But who is she? I mean, now you got someone else involved, and that really worries me, McDeere. Who is she and how much does she know?”

“Trust me, Tarrance. She’s my employee and she knows everything. In fact, if you knew what she knows you’d be serving indictments right now instead of sitting here bitching about her.”

Tarrance breathed deeply and thought about it. “Okay, so tell me what she knows.”

“She knows that in the last three years the Morolto gang and its accomplices have taken over eight hundred million bucks in cash out of this country and deposited it in various banks in the Caribbean. She knows which banks, which accounts, the dates, a bunch of stuff. She knows that the Moroltos control at least three hundred and fifty companies chartered in the Caymans, and that these companies regularly send clean money back into the country. She knows the dates and amounts of the wire transfers. She knows of at least forty U.S. corporations owned by Cayman corporations owned by the Moroltos. She
knows a helluva lot, Tarrance. She’s a very knowledgeable woman, don’t you think?”

Tarrance could not speak. He stared fiercely into the darkness up the driveway.

Mitch found it enjoyable. “She knows how they take their dirty cash, trade it up to one-hundred-dollar bills and sneak it out of the country.”

“How?”

“The firm Lear, of course. But they also mule it. They’ve got a small army of mules, usually their minimum-wage thugs and their girlfriends, but also students and other freelancers, and they’ll give them ninety-eight hundred in cash and buy them a ticket to the Caymans or the Bahamas. No declarations are required for amounts under ten thousand, you understand. And the mules will fly down like regular tourists with pockets full of cash and take the money to their banks. Doesn’t sound like much money, but you get three hundred people making twenty trips a year, and that’s some serious cash walking out of the country. It’s also called smurfing, you know.”