The Color of Law

ELEVEN

Scotty, with this evidence, we just might save her life.”

Scott had escaped his wife’s wrath and found sanctuary in the friendly confines of Dibrell Tower; he and Bobby were having a late lunch upstairs at the Downtown Club. He had filled Bobby in on his visit to the projects and the Fenney family’s new houseguest and Rebecca’s reaction. Now Bobby was bringing Scott up to date on Shawanda’s legal case.

“My man Carl, the PI, he finds this Kiki, she backs up Shawanda’s story. No surprise there. But then he talks to some Highland Park cops he’s buddies with.” Bobby leaned across the table, close enough for Scott to smell his last cigarette on his breath; his voice dropped to a whisper. “Get this: turns out Clark McCall was accused of rape and assault a year ago. SMU sorority girl. She filed a complaint, but it disappeared when daddy-as in Senator Mack McCall-paid her off. Carl talked to the desk sergeant on duty that night, cop that took the complaint. He said the girl was slapped around pretty good.”

“How are we going to find her without the complaint?”

“Desk sergeant, he ain’t stupid. Figures the senator knows he knows, so he also figures it might come in handy one day: he kept a copy of the complaint.”

“Did he give it to Carl?”

“No way. He said it’s locked away in a safe-deposit box. Said if he gave it to Carl, they’d know it came from him, he’d get fired, and he’s only two years away from a pension. Said he’ll deny having it if we call him to testify. But he gave Carl the woman’s name, Hannah Steele. She lives in Galveston now.”

“Will she testify?”

“Carl’s flying down there today to find out.”

Scott turned his palms up. “So…?”

“So our defense is twofold. First, she didn’t pull the trigger, which is gonna be tough with her fingerprints on her gun and one of her bullets in his brain. And if she didn’t, who did? Clark? He suddenly realizes his evil ways and decides to make the world a better place and off himself? I don’t think so. Our backup is self-defense. He called her racial slurs, he attacked her, so she shot him in self-defense. But she’s black, a hooker, and a drug addict-who’s gonna believe her, right? That’s where Hannah Steele comes in, corroborating testimony. Nice white girl testifies Clark beat and raped her a year ago, jury figures maybe Shawanda’s telling the truth. And the jury’s got to include some blacks. We show them that Clark McCall was a racist and a rapist, we might just save her life.”

“An acquittal?”

Bobby gave him a look. “No, not an acquittal, Scotty. Life in prison, maybe parole in thirty with good time. You don’t get acquitted when your gun is the murder weapon and your fingerprints are on the gun and the gun was fired point-blank into the victim’s brain while he was lying on the floor. With that kind of evidence, life in prison is a win for her.”

“Goddamnit, Dan, you tell him to drop it and drop it now!”

The senator’s voice was so loud in Dan Ford’s ear that he pulled the phone away a few inches. Dan had just gotten a status report from Scott on the Shawanda Jones case and, per his agreement with the senator, he had immediately placed a call to Washington. Mack McCall, the senior senator from Texas, didn’t like what he heard.

“Bad enough, Dan, a hooker taking the stand and saying Clark beat her and called her nigger. But your boy starts parading white girls up there saying Clark beat and raped them, too, I’m fucking finished! I thought that girl was taken care of! And what if they dredge up that crap from college, Clark and his fraternity?”

Clark McCall had organized a “Minority Night” fraternity party where everyone dressed up as their favorite minority; Clark had gone in blackface as a pimp. Mack had bought off the newspaper to keep the story quiet. Dan Ford had been the bagman.

“The public will think he learned that at home! From me! Press gets hold of that, I’ll be branded another Strom fucking Thurmond! I’ll never see the inside of the White House!” A pause. “And, Dan, you will never be the president’s lawyer.”

“George W. Bush?”

“Yes,” Scott said.

Sid Greenberg seemed stunned. “The president used eminent domain to take people’s land for a baseball stadium?”

“He wasn’t the president back then, Sid. He wasn’t even the governor yet. While you were at Harvard being taught by left-wing professors, George Bush was running the Texas Rangers. They were playing in a crappy old stadium, so he got the city to condemn land to build a new stadium.”

“How is that a public use?”

“It’s not.”

“Then how could the city condemn the land?”

“Because the law allows it…or at least the courts haven’t stopped it. They did it for the Rangers stadium, they did it for the NASCAR motor speedway, they’re doing it for the new Cowboys stadium…Hell, Sid, they’re doing it all across the country and not just for roads and parks, but for stadiums and shopping malls and big box stores…”

“And now we’re going to do it for Dibrell’s hotel.”

Scott shrugged. “That’s the deal Tom made with the city.”

“We’re going to take poor people’s homes so rich people can stay in a five-star luxury hotel?” Sid looked indignant. “Why don’t they ever take rich people’s homes?”

“Because rich people can afford to hire lawyers and fight it in court. Poor people can’t.”

“So the city’s gonna buy them out cheap-with Dibrell’s money, bulldoze their homes, and give the land to Dibrell so he can build his hotel? What’s in it for the city?”

“Millions more in property taxes. The hotel will be worth a hundred million, minimum. Those little homes are worth a million, max.”

“Dibrell gets his hotel, the city gets more taxes, and poor people get screwed. And it’s all perfectly legal.”

“Sid, we do what the law allows…and sometimes what it doesn’t.”

“You know, Scott, screwing the government and plaintiffs’ lawyers, that’s fun, it’s just a game. But poor people? My parents were poor. I grew up in a house like those.”

“Look, Sid, I don’t like it either, but that’s our job. At least we’re only taking thirty homes. They took a hundred twenty homes for that mall out in Hurst, and they’re taking ninety homes for the Cowboys stadium.”

“Well, that makes me feel better.” Sid shook his head. “This is what I went to Harvard Law School for?”

Scott turned his palms up. “Sid, what do you want me to do? Tell Dibrell we won’t do it? If I say no to Dibrell, he’ll find another lawyer who’ll say yes. This deal is gonna get done, those homes are gonna get condemned, and that hotel is gonna get built. The only question is which lawyers are going to get paid half a million dollars for doing it. If Dibrell takes this deal to another firm, Sid, that means I’ve got to fire one of my associates. Are you willing to give up your job-and your two-hundred-thousand-dollar salary-so you don’t have to condemn those people? So you don’t get your hands dirty?”

Sid stared at his shoes. Finally, he shook his head slowly and said, “No.”

“Sid, when I was a young lawyer, Dan Ford told me, ‘Scotty, check your conscience at the door each morning or you won’t last long in the law.’”

Sid looked up. “The law sucks.”

“It’s just business, Sid.”

“They don’t tell you that in law school, do they, that the law is just a business, a game we play, with other people’s lives and money? No, they need someone to pay tuition, kids who don’t have a clue what being a lawyer’s all about, kids who think…”

Scott sat silently, nodding like a therapist as his patient vented. Every lawyer goes through the same metamorphosis that Sid was now going through, like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly, only in reverse: from a beautiful human being to a slimy lawyer. Scott recalled Dan Ford nodding as a young patient named Scott Fenney vented.

Sid was saying, “Last time I went back home, my parents had all their friends in the old neighborhood over so they could show me off, their son the big-time lawyer. How am I supposed to tell them what we really do, Scott?”

“You’re not. You can’t. You don’t. You walk out that door each night, you leave it here, Sid, your lawyer life. You don’t take it home with you. Look, Sid, you’ve only been at this for five years. It takes a while to learn that you only talk about these things with other lawyers. Regular people just don’t understand what we do.”

“That’s the thing, Scott, I think they do.”

“Sid, wait till you get married, have children, you’ll see. You’ll go home and your wife and kids are gonna say, ‘Daddy, what did you do today?’ What are you going to tell them, the truth? Hell, no. You’re gonna lie. We all lie.”

Sid took a moment to consider Scott’s words, then slowly stood and walked to the door, but turned back.

“Oh, Scott, we closed Dibrell’s land deal. We got the environmental report, escrowed $10 million of the purchase price. We’ll start paving over the lead soon. TRAIL will never know about the report, and the EPA will never know about the lead.”

“Aggressive and creative lawyering, Sid.”

Sid nodded and turned away, but Scott could hear him say, “I should’ve gone to med school.”

After Sid left Scott turned to his computer. He was logging in one billable hour to Dibrell’s account for the thirty-minute “office conference” with Sid when he felt a presence. He turned and saw Dan Ford standing in his doorway, about as ordinary an occurrence as going to Sunday morning Mass and seeing the Pope standing at the altar.

“Dan, come in.”

Dan entered, his face creased with worry. He started shaking his head slowly and sighed like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“I knew this case would bring no good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just got off the phone with McCall.”

“ The senator? You mentioned him before, but I didn’t realize you knew him personally.”

Dan nodded. “Mack and I were fraternity brothers at SMU. I’m the executor of his will, I handle a few personal matters for him from time to time. Haven’t done much work for him since he sold the company and went to Washington twenty years ago. But if he’s elected and Ford Stevens is recognized as the president’s personal law firm…Scotty, it’d be a gold mine.”

“Great.”

“Yes, that would be great, Scotty. We could add fifty lawyers, maybe more, on the new business we’d get, corporate clients who’d beat a path to my door and pay any fee I demanded because I could pick up the phone and get the president to answer. You got any idea what that’s worth to a lawyer? I’m a big fish in a small pond here in Dallas, Scotty, but as the president’s lawyer, I’d be a big fish in a big pond. I’d be playing on a national stage…We could open a Washington office. Think what that could do for me. For this firm. For you. Scotty, you could make a million dollars the first year he’s in office, two the year after that, three by the time you’re forty. You’d be filthy rich, just like you tell our summer clerks.”

Dan paused and caught his breath. “But Mack made it clear that if his son’s good name is dragged through the mud at this trial, Ford Stevens will not be his personal law firm.”

Scott leaned back in his chair. “He wants me to hide Clark’s past.”

“Yes, he does.”

“But, Dan, Clark McCall was a rapist and a racist. And now with Hannah Steele’s testimony, we might save Shawanda’s life.”

“Yes, you might at that. But you would also destroy Mack’s chances to be president. Scotty, if the press can put ‘racist’ and ‘rapist’ and ‘McCall’ in the same sentence-even if it’s about his son-his chances of winning the nomination are about as good as me getting laid by Miss America.”

“Dan, why didn’t you tell me you did work for McCall? I could’ve told Buford we had a conflict of interest, gotten out of the case.”

Dan nodded. “I talked to Mack about that option, but he said it would be better to have some, uh, influence with the hooker’s lawyer.”

“In case her lawyer learned about Clark’s past.”

Dan shrugged. “Mack McCall didn’t make eight hundred million dollars by not thinking out all the angles.”

“Clark McCall was a loser, Dan. Rich boy who liked to beat up girls ends up dead because he beat up the wrong girl. Why should we give a damn about his reputation?”

“We don’t. But this isn’t about Clark McCall, Scott, it’s about Mack McCall. And we do give a damn about his reputation because it’s in this firm’s best interest for him to be the next president. Scotty, we hold his presidency in our hands! Think about it. He’d owe me big-time!”

His eyes got a faraway look and his mouth formed a half smile, which meant inside Dan Ford was turning somersaults. After a moment, he returned to the present and said, “So what do you say, Scotty, my boy?”

Scott said nothing. The two lawyers, separated by twenty-five feet of hardwood floor and almost as many years of lawyering, stared at each other as if they were two kids trying to see who would blink first. Scott knew what his senior partner wanted him to say, that he would follow McCall’s orders because what was good for McCall was good for Ford Stevens. But-and Scott couldn’t put into thought why-he couldn’t bring himself to say those words. Whether born of the mulelike stubbornness he had inherited from Butch or his long-standing general disdain for rich boys like Clark McCall or perhaps something deeper, something inside him wouldn’t allow it. Finally, Dan broke eye contact, exhaled loudly, and turned to the door. On his way out, he said, “Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.”

Boo sat up in the lounge chair by the pool in the backyard. She was wearing a white bathing suit and sunglasses and drinking pink punch Consuela had made. Pajamae was lying facedown in the adjacent lounge chair, wearing one of Boo’s many bathing suits. They were taking turns rubbing sunscreen onto each other’s back. It was Boo’s turn. She lifted Pajamae’s long braids and squirted a line of sunscreen onto her back.

A normal summer afternoon for Boo was spent home alone, reading a book. A. Scott was downtown, Mother was at the country club, and most of the kids her age were at their summer homes or at camp or in Europe. Not that Barbara Boo Fenney had many friends here in the Bubble. Most girls her age wanted to brag about their things. She didn’t. She was different. She thought different thoughts and she wore different clothes and she wanted different things. The other girls said she was weird and called her a lesbo because she didn’t dress like a girl. So she usually played by herself or swam under Consuela’s watchful eye. But today she had a new friend. Who was different, too.

“I love your hair,” Boo said. She began rubbing the white lotion into Pajamae’s brown skin. “Do black people need sun-screen?”

After a moment, Pajamae said, “I don’t know. But Mama always makes me put it on.”

“When will she get out of jail?”

“End of summer, if Mr. Fenney gets her out.”

“If she didn’t do it, she’ll get out.”

“Don’t work that way for us.”

“Us who?”

“Black people.”

“A. Scott’s a great lawyer. He’ll get your mother out.”

“I hope so. ’Cause my mama, she wouldn’t do well in prison.”

Boo rubbed until the lotion disappeared into Pajamae’s skin, then said, “Why do you talk like we do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, whereas-”

“Where what?”

“Whereas.”

“Where ass?”

“No, where as. A. Scott’s always saying whereas this and whereas that…it’s lawyer talk. Lawyers have lots of words like that.”

Pajamae was grinning. “Whereas. I like that. Where- as!”

“You don’t talk like black people on TV talk, like…”

“Black English, Mama calls it, like everyone in the projects talks. She says I’m not allowed to talk like that. She says I have to use correct English.”

Boo lifted one of Pajamae’s braids and let it slide through her fingers. She sat up with a start.

“Come on, I’ve got a great idea!”

Driving home, Scott was wondering why he wasn’t feeling more insulted by Mack McCall’s arrogant assumption that he could simply dictate to A. Scott Fenney, Esq., the terms of his representation of a client. The legal code of ethics to which all lawyers swear allegiance (at least long enough to obtain a license to practice law) clearly states (in theory) that a lawyer shall not be influenced by any outside interests in the zealous representation of his client. Of course, in practice the code of ethics is viewed by most lawyers in the same way career criminals view the penal code: more in the nature of suggestions than actual rules governing one’s professional conduct.

On the other hand, Scott was also wondering why he hadn’t readily agreed to McCall’s demands as requested by his senior partner. Scott had never gone against Dan Ford’s wishes-that would be like going against his own father. He had rubber-stamped all of Dan’s decisions for the firm, whether firing a partner or dumping a client or making campaign contributions to friendly judges up for reelection, because Dan was always acting in the best interests of Ford Stevens and thus in Scott’s best interests. Why had he hesitated this time? For the first time?

Back to the first hand: the fact that United States Senator Mack McCall just assumed Scott Fenney would drop his client’s best defense to a murder charge simply because McCall told him to, that should have brought Scott’s blood to a boil. Who the hell does he think he is? Back in college, if someone had even dared suggest that Scott Fenney, star halfback, might throw a game, he would have gotten pissed off and punched the son of a bitch in the mouth! Just for thinking he possessed so little integrity as to even entertain the idea of throwing a football game! So why wasn’t A. Scott Fenney, Esq., similarly pissed off when asked to throw a trial? Why was he even entertaining the idea? Had he engaged in so much aggressive and creative lawyering that he no longer recognized the difference between making a deal and compromising his integrity? Had he become such a good lawyer that he had no integrity left to compromise?

He was wrestling with these thoughts as he drove past the walled estates along Preston Road that backed up to Turtle Creek, the grand residences of real-estate tycoon Trammell Crow ($13.3 million appraised value), and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones ($14.1 million), and Tom Dibrell ($18 million), and Mack McCall ($25 million)-and he realized that it had never before registered with him that McCall and his best client owned adjoining estates. He slowed as he passed the entrance to the McCall estate and was thinking back to the night of the murder, Clark and Shawanda driving in through those gates, only minutes remaining in Clark McCall’s life, when his cell phone rang. He answered.

“Scott Fenney.”

“Mr. Fenney, this is Louis.”

“Louis…”

“From the projects.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, Louis.”

“Well, Mr. Fenney, Pajamae, she ain’t come back yet, and I be getting kinda worried…She still with you?”

“Oh, Louis, I’m sorry, I should’ve had my secretary call you. Pajamae’s going to stay with us until the trial’s over.”

“Us who?”

“Me. My family.”

“You taking Pajamae in?”

“Well, yeah, you know, until this is over. We were down at the courthouse with Shawanda this morning and I didn’t want to drive-” Scott decided not to mention that he didn’t want to return to Louis’s part of town-“and, well, I’ve got a daughter her age, and we’ve got four bedrooms sitting empty, and I just thought it might be better that way. Shawanda thought so, too.”

“What about her stuff, clothes and all?”

“Oh, she can wear my daughter’s clothes. They’re about the same size and, hell, my daughter never wears half the clothes my wife buys her anyway.”

“You want, I can bring her stuff to you.”

“To Highland Park?”

The phone was silent. Scott thought again he might have angered Louis. But he was wrong again.

“Louis?”

“Projects ain’t no place for a little girl living alone, Mr. Fenney. Tell her I said hey. And if you need any help down my way, you let me know.”

“Okay, thanks, Louis.”

“Oh, and Mr. Fenney…”

“Yeah?”

“I guess I wouldn’t expect something like that from a white man. You a good man, Mr. Fenney.”

Scott disconnected and wondered if Louis was right.

Boo bounced down the stairs to the kitchen and over to the table, followed by Pajamae. Mother took one look at Boo, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Young lady, what have you done to your hair?”

Boo’s long red hair was now braided tight to her scalp with long braids hanging to her shoulders.

“Cornrows. Pajamae did it. Pretty cool, huh?”

Mother turned to A. Scott and said, “Well, Scott?”

He shrugged and said, “She looks like Bo Derek.”

“Bo Derek?”

“Yeah, from that movie.”

Mother threw her hands up. “Barbara Boo Fenney, Highland Park debutantes don’t wear their hair in cornrows!”

“Then it’s not a problem, Mother, because I’m not gonna be a deb.”

Mother sighed heavily, restraining her anger, and said, “Pajamae, I hope you don’t have any tattoos.”

Pajamae laughed, but she didn’t know Mother wasn’t being funny. Consuela held up the salt and pepper shakers and said from the stove, “Is twins, like these.” She pointed at Boo-“Is salt”-and then at Pajamae-“is pepper.” Consuela chuckled and her body shook like Jell-O. “Salt and pepper.”

Mother was shaking her head and her lips were a tight line across her face, normally not a good sign.

“Finish the enchiladas, Consuela.”

“Y’all expecting company?” Pajamae asked.

Boo turned to Pajamae, who was standing at the table.

“What?”

“All this food, are you having a party?”

The table was crowded with tacos and enchiladas and guacamole and refried beans and flour tortillas and hot sauce. Mexican food night.

“No.”

“This is all just for us?”

Boo shrugged. “Yeah.”

Pajamae smiled and said, “Where- as.”

Butch and Barbara Fenney had always discussed family matters at the dinner table, in front of their young son: good things and bad things, successes and failures, possibilities and problems. They figured he would learn by listening. Scott recalled one such conversation, not too long before his father died, when Butch said a contractor wanted him to cut some corners on a job to reduce costs and increase the contractor’s profits. The owner would never know. Butch was faced with either complying with the contractor’s demands or losing the job. He asked his wife for advice. Scott’s mother responded without a second thought: tell him no.

So after retiring to the master suite, while Rebecca stood naked before the bathroom mirror and removed her makeup and checked her body for early signs of aging, Scott told her about Dan’s visit to his office and Mack McCall’s demands and he asked his wife for advice. She, too, responded without a second thought: “Do it! If Dan says drop it, you damn well better drop it. Are you going to give up everything we have for a goddamn-”

“What, Rebecca? A goddamn what?”

She whirled around, incredibly naked, and said, “A goddamn black whore, that’s what!”

A. Scott Fenney, Esq., had zealously defended his rich clients against all comers-business competitors, the government, famous plaintiffs’ lawyers, and young women claiming sexual harassment. But never against his wife. Of course, he had never had a black whore for a client. Still, his natural lawyerly instinct was to defend his client. So, perhaps because McCall’s demands were still weighing on his mind or because he had never thrown a game in his life or because rich boys like Clark McCall had always graveled his butt or because he knew Louis was not right about Scott Fenney or because of the love Shawanda showed for Pajamae that very morning or because of two little girls with their hair in cornrows on the floor above…or maybe just because this beautiful woman standing naked before him had denied him sex for over seven months…and his heat for her now turned into anger at her-Scott Fenney lashed out at his wife, defending Shawanda Jones with a passion normally reserved for only the richest of clients: “What, she deserves to die just because she’s black and a prostitute? What if you had been born black, Rebecca? Would you still have been Miss SMU and chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball? Or would you have ended up a hooker on Harry Hines, too?” He pointed to the floor above. “But for the grace of God, Rebecca, Boo could be that little black girl!”

His naked wife laughed without smiling.

“Don’t you get self-righteous with me, Scott Fenney. You wanted money and all the things money can buy as much as I did-this house, that Ferrari…How much did you pay for that suit? I married you because you had ambition, you wanted to be a rich lawyer. You didn’t go to work at the legal aid so you could help poor black people in South Dallas. You went to a big law firm so you could make lots of money working for rich clients living in Highland Park. And now you’re suddenly growing a conscience? I don’t think so.”

She pointed a finger at Scott. “You do this, you ruin my life over a whore-who you know goddamn well is guilty as sin-and I swear to God, we’re through!” She now pointed upward. “And that little girl will be better off without her mother.”

Upstairs on the third floor, Boo and Pajamae were getting ready for bed. A. Scott had read to them, which Pajamae enjoyed. It was fun to have a friend. Boo had insisted they share her room so they could talk. Pajamae agreed. But now Boo was kneeling up in bed and wondering what the heck Pajamae was doing, spreading out a comforter on the floor with a pillow.

“What in the Sam Hill are you doing?”

“Whose hill?”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Oh. Fixing my bed.”

“On the floor?”

Pajamae looked at her bed on the floor, then at Boo in the tall bed. “You sleep in the bed?”

Boo laughed. “Of course, I do. Where do you sleep?”

“On the floor.”

“Oh, you don’t have a real bed?”

“No, I’ve got a bed.”

“Do you have a bad back? Sometimes A. Scott sleeps on the floor when his back acts up, from when he played football.”

“No, I don’t have a bad back.”

“Then why?”

“It’s safer.”

“From what?”

“Gunfire.”

After some discussion, Boo convinced Pajamae that it was safe to sleep in a bed in Highland Park, and they were sleeping side by side an hour later when Scott climbed the stairs, as he did each night before going to bed, to check on his daughter and to kiss her on the forehead. The two girls were lying so close together that when he leaned over and kissed Boo, he had only to lean over just a little more to kiss Pajamae on the forehead as well. When he did, she stirred and whispered in her sleep, “Daddy?”