The Arraignment

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next day I stumbled through an early morning court call downtown. Luckily it wasn’t something that required mental dexterity. It was only a first appearance. I stood next to my client in the dock for a reading of charges and thumbed through my calendar to fix a date for entry of a plea. Between calendar pages, I wiped sleep from my eyes, having been up half the night looking for the man in the funny hat.

I have whittled down the names on the mailboxes to five possibilities. Given that Espinoza told me the guy was Hispanic, this is not rocket science.

Hernandez; James Rosas; R. Ruiz; someone with the last name of Moreno; and H. Saldado. Narrowing it beyond this, assuming the guy’s name is even on the box and that he hasn’t used an alias, will be more difficult. Then, assuming I can identify him, and assuming further that I trace some link between this man and the Ibarras down in Mexico, the two brothers Metz told me about, I might have something. I’m laughing at myself. What I have is a pile of assumptions. I’m beginning to think Harry was right: I should forget it.

While I’m thinking this, I’m thumbing the white pages of the San Diego phone book. I find Hernandez, two pages of them. Without an initial, I’m left to check for the street address. Using a ruler to scan down the first page, I flip to the second. I’m actually surprised when I find it. “Susan.” I scratch the name off my list. It might be easier than I thought.

A half hour later I have found James Rosas and R. Ruiz, first name Richard, both at the right address. I write down their phone numbers. There are lots of Morenos but none of them on the right street. Several of them show phone numbers with no address. Without a first initial, I draw a blank. I have the same problem with Saldado, even with the first initial H. Assuming it’s a man, he either has no phone or he’s unlisted. I flop the white pages closed in the middle of my desk, lean back in my chair, and think.

After a couple of seconds, I access my computer phone directory, do a search for a name, and when it pops up, I hit the auto dial. On the third ring, I get an answer. I grab the receiver off the cradle before she’s finished saying: “Carlton Collections.”

It’s a woman’s voice, raspy, with a lot of phlegm.

“Joyce?”

“Yeah, who’s this?” Lisping like she has a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

“Paul Madriani.”

“Ahh, my favorite lawyer.” I can hear her wheezing on the intake. This is followed by a coughing jag, several wretched hacks, like a wood rasp working over a piece of pine.

I move the phone a couple of inches away from my ear to save my hearing.

“Hey, Bennie, it’s Paul Madriani.”

“Who?” I hear her husband in the background.

“Paul Madriani. You know, the lawyer.”

“Don’t tell me the fuckin’ D.A. wants to talk to us again.”

“No,” she says. “He’s just callin’ to say hello.”

“Tell him hello,” he says.

“Bennie says to say hello. You are just calling to say hello?”

I tell her to pass greetings the other way. She does.

“So, what is it you want? A busy lawyer like you doesn’t call just to chew the fat. Lemme guess. You got a deadbeat client you want us to find? Am I right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Like I tol’ you in court that day, my word is my bond. This one’s on the house. Didn’t I tell him that, Bennie?”

Joyce shouts this so loud I have to pull the phone away, but I can hear Bennie.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Gimme the name, I’ll draw ’n’ quarter the bastard,” she says.

Joyce and Ben Swartz own Carlton Collections. Where they got the company name I don’t know. Probably off a pack of cigarettes. It sounded more WASPish than Swartz. This might be a plus if Joyce wasn’t answering the phone.

The one thing I do know, phlegm or no phlegm, if you owe money, you don’t want Joyce, her nose to the ground sniffing along in your trail of bad debts.

I have seen people suffer less who have had their knees capped by the mob. She will find you at your house, at your neighbor’s, at your mother’s, floating down the Merced River, in Yosemite, on your vacation. Your children will come home from school with notes in their lunch pails, telling you to pay up. If you go to a wedding, your name and the amount you owe will be printed in lipstick on the back window of the groom’s car. Joyce views federal and state debt collection laws as a challenge. If she can’t call you at your job, she will hire a skywriter to fly over your place of employment and print your name in block letters at five thousand feet, followed by the word “deadbeat” in pink smoke.

Most collectors have a series of dunning letters, starting with a polite request and ending with suggestions that your kids may be sold into slavery. With Joyce, you get one polite letter. After that your ass belongs to her.

About a year ago, she pushed beyond the bounds when she lowered the boom on a local church that was waiting for the second coming to pay a printing bill. One Sunday at services she showed up dressed to the nines, with a hat, and sporting a name tag. She stood at one of the main doors out front, smiling at the gray-haired usher on the other side as he greeted the morning congregation and wondered who the nice lady volunteer was. Joyce handed out morning bulletins to a few hundred of the faithful.

When the pastor took to the pulpit, he couldn’t figure why members of his flock kept laughing every time he mentioned hell. Joyce had stuffed the bulletins with a dunning letter for the printing bill, and it reminded the readers that the devil is a deadbeat. They all stopped laughing when a sheriff’s deputy showed up, armed with papers to do a till tap on the morning offering. Unfortunately for Joyce, one of the church elders was the chief deputy district attorney.

“So what’s the guy’s name?” she says. “This guy you want us to find.”

There is no client, I tell her. “The State Bar frowns on my using your services for that.”

“Why? They don’t like us?”

“It’s nothing personal,” I tell her. “They make us arbitrate any unpaid bills by clients.”

“You’re a lawyer. You telling me you don’t win those?” she says.

“Even if we win, it’s usually suggested that we forget it. It’s bad P.R. Too many people already hate lawyers,” I say.

“This bar, with an organization like that, it’s a wonder you can stay in business.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So wad is it you want?”

“I’d like you to check some names, see if you can get information on some people.”

“What? Like their credit history?”

“Maybe. That might help.”

“You wanna skip trace maybe?”

“Not exactly. I know where these people live. What I don’t have in some cases is a first name, a telephone number, employment information if you can find it. Where they bank. Who their friends are.” I give her the names from my list, and the street address.

“And so that you don’t get in any trouble,” I tell her. “This is not a neighborhood you want to visit. Only what you can get at arm’s length, understand?”

“Hey. I don’t go anywhere I don’t take Bennie with me.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

“What else have you got?” she says. “No social security number? Maybe a vehicle license plate?”

“No. Sorry.”

“That’s it? Last name-first initial? And you don’t even got that for some of these people.”

“And the street address,” I remind her.

“You don’t want much,” she says.

“One other thing. The man I’m looking for. It’s possible he deals drugs.”

“Hmm. Well, now, that could help,” she says.

“How is that?”

“This guy deals drugs, he’s gotta have a pager, right? A cell phone? You ever seen a drug dealer doesn’t have a pager and cell phone?”

“I don’t know that many drug dealers,” I tell her.

“Take it from me. They got pagers and cell phones. People like that they always do. Of course sometimes these belong to somebody else,” she says. “That’s the business to be in.”

“What, cell phones?”

“Stealing them,” she says. Knowing Joyce, I know she is only half kidding.

“So I guess we start by doin’ the big five,” she says.

“What is that? Jump in the air and slap hands?”

“Noo. Noo.” Joyce has no sense of humor. “That’s the high five,” she says. “This is the big five. Different thing. These are the carriers. There’s five major ones offer all the wireless in this county. I know. We collect for them all. So, this guy you’re looking for. He’s got a cell phone; I’ll get his number. You want I should get you a copy of his monthly cell statement? Won’t cost you any more, seeing as it’s on the house.”

“You can do that?”

She hesitates for just a second. “For you, sure. When do you need this?”

“Yesterday,” I tell her.

“Gimme a day or so,” and she hangs up.