The Reform Artists: A Legal Suspense, Spy Thriller (The Reform Artists Series Book 1) (18 page)

Rockville was baking in the Friday, midday sun as the temperature climbed to 89 degrees. Tony Sands Jr., turned left on the sidewalk at MD Rte. 28 and saw the district court building looming dead ahead.

He licked the corner of his lips, removing a bit of tomato sauce left over from the slice of pizza he had picked up on his way from the barber shop. He carried his brand new barber’s bag in his right hand and a cup of diet soda in his left.

Sands took another sip of soda through the straw and smiled as he remembered how excited his dad had been earlier that morning, when he had called his son about the fishing trip.

The call came at 3:18 a.m. “Huh?” he had said, still half asleep.

“Junior, where the Hell are you?” his dad had bellowed. “I can hear those bluefish and rockfish flapping their fins in the water!”

“Calm down, Pops. I’m only five minutes away from you, and Sam isn’t expecting you until four.”

“I’m calling him next. Otherwise, we’ll get there and he’ll still be sawing away! You said the boat leaves at five, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s not cut it too close, son. Traffic could be heavy.”

“At four o’clock in the morning? I don’t think so, Pops. Why don’t you ask Mom for one of her pills? It’ll calm you down.”

“Calm me down? Whose side are you on, the bluefishes’?”

Tony laughed, just thinking about it.

But now as he advanced toward the district courthouse, each new step seemed to bring him down a little further. He was thinking about the bag in his right hand, its contents – including the tape recording of
La traviata
, that a courier had delivered to him just before seven thirty in the morning. He also was worried about the security checkpoint he would have to clear inside the courthouse in just a matter of minutes. Suddenly, the barber bag handle began to feel sweaty.

Sand’s imagination had been running wild with scenarios.

In one, he was at the checkpoint and had removed all the metal objects in the bag, but when he passed it through the metal detector, the alarm tripped anyway. Instantly, the sheriff’s deputies turned on him with their guns at the ready! He raised his hands. “OK, OK. You got me. Don’t shoot!”

They flipped him around, pressed him against the conveyor belt, spread his legs, and handcuffed his hands behind his back.

“You have the right to remain silent,” one of the sheriff’s deputies said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

“Jeeze!” Sands moaned, annoyed at his inability to control his thoughts. Real sweat was now pouring down his face. He pulled out a couple of paper napkins he had grabbed at the pizza parlor and began wiping his brow. He willed his brain to shut down and prayed his handlers knew what they were doing.

It was 12:35 p.m. when he pressed the large, polished stainless-steel door handle and slowly pushed open the courthouse’s tall glass door. A frigid blast of air hit him like a Maui wave.

Inside the lobby, lighting was minimal. He saw a sign directly ahead that read, “Please have your driver’s ID ready. Remove all metal objects from your person, and open your bags for inspection.”

A line of well-dressed men and women had formed ahead of him – attorneys, he figured – with an occasional, less formally attired person – a client, perhaps? – interspersed between them.

Ahead three guards – two men and a woman – manned the scanners. The woman waved a wand up and down the female visitors while the male guard screened the men.

A thin, Latin-looking man in his early twenties, wearing a loose-fitting, patterned Caribbean shirt, walked briskly through the scanner arch and triggered a loud “bleep.”

“Hold on,” the third guard said. He stepped forward and cut the man off from his attorney.

“Empty your pockets.”

“I already did,” the young man said.

“Did you take off your belt?” the guard asked.

“Whaaat?”

“Lose the belt, sir.”

“Ahh, that’s mean, man,” the young man said as he undid his belt and handed it to the guard. A large pen knife was attached in the center of the back of the belt.

The guard smiled. “Say ‘goodbye’ to your little friend. You’re never going to see it, or the belt, again.”

“Say, what?” the young man said, stamping his feet. “How am I going to keep my pants up?”

The attorney had moved around the guard and was now standing at his client’s side. “Shut up, Rodriguez, before he charges you with carrying a concealed weapon. Use your hands.”

After what felt like hours, Sand’s turn finally came. The larger of the two guards, an African American man in his late thirties, asked for his ID.

“I’m Tony Sands, the barber’s, son,” he said, handing the guard his driver’s license. “I treated Pops to a charter fishing trip today, so I’m here to give Judge Farnsworth his weekly haircut.”

“OK,” the guard said. “Take off your belt and put it in one of these little trays, along with all of your metal items.”

He handed a tray to Sands, so that he could begin emptying his pockets. Afterward, Sands took off his shoes and put them on the conveyor belt as well, along with his barber’s bag. “Should I take the metal objects out, or just leave them all together?” he asked.

“Yes. Take them out.”

Sands emptied the bag into one of the larger trays. The guard glanced, momentarily, at the tools. Then, to Sand’s horror, he asked for the bag.

He opened the top, looked inside and examined the outside. “Wow, some nice bag!” he said. “Your dad’s rundown old thing looks like hell, in comparison.” Then, he noticed that the bag’s interior stopped two inches short of the bottom.

He frowned. “What’s this about?”

Sands suddenly felt lightheaded and scared.
What was he supposed to say?
He decided to live dangerously.

“It’s a cushioned bottom,” he said. “To make sure we don’t break anything, like aftershave bottles, or damage equipment by setting it down too hard.”

The guard looked at him skeptically.

“Hey,” Sands continued. “You’ve seen my dad’s bag. It didn’t get like that without a lot of help from him! We barbers are notorious for banging them up.”

The guard considered that for a moment and smiled. “Makes sense to me. Here,” he added, picking up the bag and tossing it back to Sands. “Put it on the conveyor belt, and then walk through the arch.”

Sands did as he was told, but when he was halfway through the arch, the buzzer went off. “Oh, shit” he muttered to himself.

He stretched his arms out, waiting for the guard with the wand to come over and scan him again. When the guard reached him, he smiled and shook his head, as if to say, ‘Gotcha, fool!’ Then, to Sands’ surprise, he reached his arm out and unfastened Tony’s wrist watch. “A bit absent-minded today, huh?”

“I sure seem to be,” Sands sighed.

“Gather your stuff together and Jack will escort you to the judge’s chambers.”

Sands smiled “Thanks. Will do.”

Moments later, Sands had all of his items back together, and Jack, the guard who had checked his belongings, took him to Judge Farnsworth’s chambers on the second floor. When they arrived, he opened the door with a key and led Sands inside. “The judge likes to have his hair cut in this chair,” he said, tapping a leather-lined and padded black wooden chair.

“You can put your floor cover underneath it and use these outlets,” he said, pointing to a bank of sockets on the lower wall. “The judge will be in here any minute.”

“OK. Thanks,” Sands said.

“No problem.”

When the guard left the room, Sands crossed himself once and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

At 1:00 p.m., as he always did, Judge Farnsworth declared a one-hour lunch recess. When he arrived back in chambers, he thought, for a moment, that he had been transported back thirty years in time. There, standing before him, was his good friend Tony, looking half his age! Sands saw the confused look on the judge’s face and, smiled, extending his hand.

“Hi, Your Honor,” he said, “I’m Tony Jr. I treated Pops and a friend to a charter fishing trip today, so he asked me to fill in. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, no. Not at all,” Judge Farnsworth said, shaking his hand warmly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you! You know, you are the spitting image of your dad at your age.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sands said, smiling, as he showed Judge Farnsworth to his seat. “It’s uncanny, Pops says. But I always tell him I’m a lot better looking than he was. I say, ‘You may have looked good, back then, Pops, but not
this
good!’”

The two shared a good laugh.

Sands fluffed the plastic smock, spread it out in front of the judge and then fastened the collar around his neck. “Don’t worry, Your Honor,” he said. “I know exactly what you like. Dad gave me detailed instructions—right down to the Vitalis
®
.”

“Are you working with your dad now?” Judge Farnsworth asked.

“Yeah,” I used to have my own place downtown. But I sold it several years ago.” Tony Jr. brushed the Judge’s hair and sprayed it with water in preparation for the razor cut.

“What happened?” the judge asked, “Did the neighborhood change?”

“No, my wife and I split up, and it wasn’t pretty. Big custody fight. I ran up a lot of legal bills, and they had to be paid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the Judge said. “Who represented you?”

“Jerry Doyle, of Doyle, Dubney and Fastow,” Tony Jr. said, starting to lightly apply the razor blade to the tips of the judge’s hair, as instructed.

“What kind of fees did you run up with him?” the judge asked.

“Thirty-five thou.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of money! How did he do by you?”

“Not too bad. I had a complicated case and we did all right in the end. I got joint custody of my little girl, and that meant a lot.

Sands kept cutting and combing the Judge’s hair. In a few minutes, he was done. He pulled out a mirror and gave the judge a good look.

“Just like your old man,” Judge Farnsworth said.

“Thanks.”

Now, Sands opened his bag again and brought out the Vitalis and the scalp-massaging unit. “I’ve got a special treat for you today, Your Honor,” Sands said. He waved a small pump sprayer around the judge’s head and Farnsworth smelled a refreshing burst of vanilla.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Aroma therapy, to heighten the relaxing effects of the massage. It’s also a muscle relaxant. I’m going to spray some on your neck to make the massage even more soothing. OK?”

“Sure,” Judge Farnsworth said, as Sands spritzed the solution all over his neck.

“Pops told me you’re an opera buff?”

“Sure am.”

“He said your favorite opera is La traviata. Did I get that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ve got a special, Quadraplex recording of it that you’re gonna love. I’ll put the head phones on you while I massage your scalp and shoulders. It’s incredible—extremely relaxing.”

“Great,” the Judge said with a smile. He closed his eyes as Sands placed the headphones over his ears. The music began with a richness he had never heard before.

“This is wonderful,” the judge said. “Your dad’s going to have to step up his game!” Then, he felt a slight pinch at his neck. “Ouch!”

“Oh, sorry, Your Honor,” Sands said, putting the cap back on the syringe and burying it in his pocket. “I think the massage unit must have pinched you.”

“That’s all right,” the judge said. “I’m fine now.”

Slowly the music grew even deeper and richer in intensity as the massage unit began working the judge’s shoulders. Then, a soothing voice spoke to him out of the music, a voice he didn’t recognize, but a voice he enjoyed listening to, nonetheless. The voice promised to take him on a brief, refreshing journey to a wonderful place created by the music. It told him many things. And it promised he would remember none of them. But it also told him he would be making the journey again, very soon, and that it would seem as real as real could be.

Sands released the paper neck guard and began applying powder to the judge’s neck with the whisk brush. Judge Farnsworth opened his eyes brightly.

“My God,” he said, “that was refreshing! What an excellent rendition of La traviata. It was extraordinary!”

“You fell asleep,” Sands said. “I wasn’t sure you liked it.”

“Oh, no, it was marvelous,” the Judge said, as Sands brushed the rest of. his cut hair off the smock and onto the floor. He removed the smock, splashed the judge’s cheeks with a little aftershave and then began sweeping up.

Judge Farnsworth picked up the mirror and looked his haircut over once more.

“You’re definitely your father’s son,” Farnsworth said, primping a little. “Be sure to give him my best.”

“I will, Your Honor.”

Then, the judge stood up, slipped twenty-five dollars into Sand’s hand, and walked to where his judicial robe was hanging next to the door. He put it back on and smiled. “I haven’t felt this refreshed in ages,” he said. “It’s like I just slept eight hours!”

Then, he opened the door to return to the courtroom. “Tell your dad next Friday, same time, same place, OK?”

“You bet, Your Honor.” he said.

After Farnsworth left, Sands emptied his dustpan into the trash, put away his remaining tools, zipped up his bag and was on his way.