The Color of Law

THREE

Scott rode the elevator down to the Ford Stevens offices and then walked down the hall to the conference room on the sixty-second floor, past John Walker’s office where John’s secretary was boxing up his personal belongings and the next lawyer in line was already moving in. Scott was stepping smartly and snapping his fingers, wired on the greatest intoxicant known to man: success.

He threw open the double doors and entered the conference room, a considerable space currently occupied by a forty-foot-long cherrywood table, thirty chairs upholstered in deep brown leather, and a dozen male lawyers fighting over other people’s money like lions over raw meat. Today, these ravenous young lawyers were feasting on Dibrell Property Company’s $25 million purchase of fifty acres of land adjacent to the Trinity River on which Dibrell planned to build industrial warehouses. Three Ford Stevens lawyers were in the fray, fighting for Scott’s client at a combined hourly rate of $850. Scott stepped to the head of the long conference table.

“Gentlemen!”

The room fell silent and all eyes, ties, and suspenders turned to him.

“You guys haven’t closed this deal yet? What the hell’s the holdup?”

Sid Greenberg, a fifth-year associate at the firm whom Scott had put in charge of this Dibrell matter, said, “Scott, we’re still fighting over the environmental escrow.”

“That’s not resolved yet? It’s been what, two weeks?”

Sid said, “Scott, I don’t think we can resolve it.”

“Sid, there’s a solution to every legal problem. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is this, Scott: We know-but the government doesn’t-that there’s contamination on the land, lead from years ago when a battery plant operated there. And there’s some leaching into the river whenever it rains-a lot of leaching. So we’ve got to escrow part of the purchase price to cover the cleanup, in case the lead is discovered before Dibrell can pave over it. The problem is how much to escrow.”

“Hell, Sid, hire an environmental consultant. He’ll tell us how much to escrow.”

“We would’ve already done that, Scott, except the court ordered us to turn over all environmental reports to those stupid eco-nuts who filed suit to stop the deal.”

“Trinity River Allies in Litigation?”

“Yeah, TRAIL. They want the land used as some kind of nature park, where kids can go see a river habitat up close. All they’ll see is a bunch of dead fish and raw sewage. Shit, you even stick a toe in that water, you’ll get a disease. Anyway, we told the court that neither party had an environmental report. If we get one, we’ll have to give it to TRAIL and they’ll find out about the lead contamination and use it to stop the deal-the EPA will be all over that land the next day! But without a report, we don’t know how much to escrow. We want fifty percent of the purchase price escrowed; the seller wants five percent.”

Sid threw up his hands.

“We may have to tell Dibrell to call off the deal.”

Scott sighed. Years back he had made the mistake of telling Tom to call off a deal because of some legal nicety. Tom listened patiently to his new lawyer, and then said, “Scott, I’m not paying you to tell me what I can’t do. I’m paying you to tell me how I can do what I want to do. And if you can’t, I’ll find a smarter lawyer who can.”

Scott had learned his lesson well. He was not about to tell Tom Dibrell to call off a $25 million deal that would pay $500,000 in legal fees to Ford Stevens, and damn sure not over lead leaching into that cesspool called the Trinity River.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Ford Stevens will hire the environmental consultant. He’ll deliver his report only to me. Seller’s counsel can come to my office to read the report, but no copies will leave my office. That report will belong to Ford Stevens, not to Dibrell or the seller. That way, the report will be protected by the attorney-client privilege, and I can swear to the court that neither party has an environmental report subject to TRAIL’s subpoena. And no one will ever know about the lead leaching into the river.”

“Will that work?” Sid asked.

“It worked for the tobacco companies, Sid. They kept all that evidence about nicotine being addictive secret for forty years-because their lawyers hired the scientists who conducted the studies. So the studies were protected from subpoenas by the attorney-client privilege. No one ever knew that evidence was out there, because their lawyers hid it behind the privilege. Just like we’re going to do.”

Sid was beaming. “That’s brilliant. We can then close the deal with the appropriate environmental escrow.”

“Exactly,” Scott said. “And those environmentalists can go fuck a tree.”

“Frank, how the hell you been, buddy?”

Scott got Franklin Turner, Esq., famous plaintiffs’ lawyer, on the phone on the first try. No doubt Frank had instructed his secretary that if Tom Dibrell’s lawyer called to put him right through, aware that one phone call might net him a handsome fee.

“Two million, Scott.”

Scott had the door closed and Frank on the speakerphone so he could practice his golf swing while negotiating the settlement of a young woman’s claim that Tom Dibrell had used his position as her employer to pressure her to have sex with him-which, knowing Scott’s rich client, was probably true. Scott swung the 9-iron he kept in his office; he used to swing a 6-iron, but he had punched holes in the ceiling tile on his follow-through, so he had dropped down to a 9-iron. From across his office, Scott said: “Jesus, Frank, we could at least shoot the shit for a few minutes, just out of professional courtesy.”

“Scott, Dibrell’s a fifty-five-year-old father of five-”

“Six,” Scott said while checking his golfing address position in the window’s reflection.

“Father of six, married-”

“For the fourth time.” Scott checked his takeaway.

“Married and CEO of one of the biggest goddamn real-estate companies in Dallas, he’s a member of the business council, the chamber of commerce, and every other important civic organization in this city, and he forces himself on a naive twenty-two-year-old young woman-”

“ Forces himself? Give me a break, Frank. Knowing the girls Tom hires, she probably went down faster than Monica Lewinsky.”

He chuckled and checked his backswing at the halfway point.

“It’s not a goddamn joke, Scott! Nadine was irreparably harmed!”

“But two million bucks would make the hurt go away, right?”

“No, but it would make her go away.”

There was a soft knock on the door. Scott turned from the window to see Sue poking her head in. She said in a low voice: “Mr. Fenney, your daughter’s on the phone. She says it’s an emergency.”

An emergency? A jolt of fatherly fear ricocheted through Scott’s central nervous system like a pinball setting off alarms. Four long strides and he was at his desk. He said to the phone: “Frank, hang on the line, okay?”

Scott didn’t wait for a response. He leaned the 9-iron against the desk, picked up the receiver, and punched the blinking light on the phone, putting Frank Turner on hold and his nine-year-old daughter on the line.

“Hi, baby, what’s wrong?”

A tiny voice: “Mother’s gone and Consuela’s crying.”

“Why?”

“They arrested Esteban.”

“ Who? The INS?”

“He said ‘ inmigracion. ’”

“You talked to him?”

“Consuela talked to him first, but she started crying so I talked to him. He said they arrested him where he was building a home, said they’re sending him back to Mexico. Can you help him?”

“Honey, there’s nothing I can do. Esteban’s a tough kid, he’ll be all right. They’ll bus him down to Matamoros, he’ll cross back over the next day, and he’ll be back up here in a few weeks, just like the last time.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

“So why’s Consuela so upset?”

“She’s scared they’re gonna come for her, send her back to Mexico, too. She says she has no one in Mexico, that this is the only home she’s ever had.”

Consuela had come with the house. When the prior owner had filed bankruptcy and could no longer afford the mansion or his Mexican maid, the Fenney family had acquired Consuela de la Rosa like an appurtenance to the property.

“A. Scott, I told her you were fixing things so she can always live with us…you are, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m working on that.” He’d been meaning to hire an immigration lawyer to get Consuela’s green card. “Look, tell her not to worry. INS knows better than to conduct raids in Highland Park. Heads would roll.”

“Huh?”

“They’d get fired if they took Highland Park maids away.”

“Oh. But she’s really scared. She shut the front drapes, she won’t even go outside in the backyard, and she’s saying the rosary. It’s just us here and…well, it’s kind of scaring me, too. No one’s gonna come to our house, are they, and bust in the door like on TV?”

“No, baby, no one’s coming to our house.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Let me talk to her.”

Consuela was an emotional girl, given to sudden bouts of tears over fears real or imagined, which she warded off by wearing three crucifixes, saying daily prayers to various saints, and keeping enough candles lit on the windowsill above the kitchen sink to light a convenience store. But the fear that never left her was being sent back to Mexico. Esteban was her boyfriend; they had met at the Catholic church in the Little Mexico section of Dallas. Scott drove her over every Sunday morning and picked her up every Sunday afternoon, their weekly visit. Esteban worked construction in other parts of Dallas and faced the risk of INS raids, but Consuela was protected by the unwritten rule that the INS did not enter the Town of Highland Park, home to the richest and most politically powerful men in Texas-and their illegal Mexican maids. Scott’s illegal Mexican maid was as sweet as she was round, and after three years of tending to the Fenney household, she was like a member of the family, albeit one who reverted to her native tongue when distraught. Consuela’s sobbing voice came over the line.

“Senor Fenney, tengo miedo de inmigracion.”

“Don’t be afraid, Consuela. It’s okay. Esta bien. No one’s gonna take you away. You’ll always live with us.”

Scott had picked up some Spanish skills from his Mexican maid, who sniffled and said, “?Para siempre?”

“Yes. Forever.”

“Senor Fenney, you make the, uh… promesa a Consuela?”

“ Si, Consuela, I promise.”

A sniffle. “O-kay. Adios, senor. ”

His daughter came back on. “She stopped crying.”

“Good.”

“A. Scott, you’re not gonna let them take her away, are you?”

“No, baby, that won’t happen.”

“Okay.”

“Look, honey, I’m kind of busy, so if everything’s under control there, I need to get back to work.”

“We’re good. See you later, alligator.”

“After while, crocodile.”

Scott hung up and made a mental note to call Rudy Gutierrez, an immigration lawyer he had met years ago. He’d been meaning to do that for six months now, or maybe a year, almost two come to think of it, but something had always come up and…the blinking light on the phone caught Scott’s eye and he remembered Frank Turner holding-not that Scott minded making a plaintiffs’ lawyer wait for his contingency fee. The image of his daughter huddled behind closed drapes in their Highland Park home with their Mexican maid faded from his mind and was replaced by the image of a smug-faced Frank Turner, famous plaintiffs’ lawyer, leaning back in his chair in his fancy office convinced he was about to win this game and beat Scott Fenney out of two million dollars to buy off sweet Nadine. Not today, Frank. Scott grabbed the 9-iron, punched Frank’s button, engaged the speakerphone, and picked up right where he had left off.

“ Two million? That’s an expensive piece of ass, Frank. What, she was a virgin?”

“Her sexual history is irrelevant.”

“Yeah, like it was for Kobe.” Scott pointed the 9-iron at the speakerphone. “Chances are, Frank, she’s been screwing since she was fourteen, so you damn well better advise your client that if she wants to go to trial, we’re gonna track down every swinging dick she’s ever met up close and personal, we’re gonna put their owners on the stand to tell the world about Nadine’s many virtues, and by the time we’re through with her sweet little ass, she’ll make those hookers on Harry Hines look like a bunch of goddamn nuns!”

“Oh, yeah? Well, you’d better advise Tom Dibrell that by the time I’m through with him he’ll wish to God he’d stayed faithful to wife number one!”

Scott laughed boisterously, as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her.” He again faced the window and checked his position at the top of his backswing. “Listen to us, Frank, a couple of good ol’ SMU boys going at each other like an Aggie and a Longhorn. Look, bottom line, both our clients got some downside here. So to make this go away for both of them, Tom will pay sweet little ol’ Nadine half a million bucks, and that’s a hell of a lot more money than she was making at Hooters.”

“Tips are pretty good there, Scott. One-point-five.”

“They ain’t that good, Frank. One million.”

“Done.”

He checked his downswing. “I’ll have the release and confidentiality agreement to you first thing in the morning. You get it signed and back to me, I’ll have a check waiting.”

“Cashier’s check, payable jointly to me and Nadine Johnson.”

“Frank, you make damn sure Nadine understands that if she talks about her little roll in the hay with Tom to anyone-even her goddamned psychiatrist! — the agreement requires that she return every penny and that you return your fee. And Tom’s likely to strangle her.”

Frank laughed. “She talks, I’ll strangle the bitch myself she costs me three hundred thirty thousand.”

“What are you taking, a third?”

“Standard contingency fee.”

“Three hundred thirty thousand bucks, not a bad day’s work, Frank.”

“It’s a dirty job, Scott, but someone’s gotta do it.”

Scott shook his head. Plaintiffs’ lawyers. Scott was figuring on making maybe $50 million over his career, but plaintiffs’ lawyers, those bastards make that every year, taking 33 percent, 40 percent, sometimes 50 percent of their clients’ damage awards, almost always settlements like this because a corporation can’t afford to roll the dice with a Texas jury, not when the jurors might pull another Pennzoil v. Texaco and come back with an $11,120,976,110.83 judgment, the largest jury verdict in the history of the world. Which made Texas a plaintiffs’ lawyers’ playground. To date, Franklin Turner, Esq., had amassed over one billion dollars in verdicts and settlements, the bastard.

“Hey, Scott, what do you think about that black halfback we got from Houston? He gonna break your records?”

Frank had been in the Mustang marching band at SMU. Tuba.

“They’ve been trying for fourteen years now, Frank. No one’s come close.”

“One day, Scott, one day.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…Good doing business with you, Frank.”

Scott reached over with the 9-iron and hit the disconnect button on the speakerphone. A successful ten-minute negotiation, for which he felt duty bound to bill his best client $50,000. The way he figured, Tom Dibrell was prepared to pay $2 million to settle with Nadine; his lawyer had skillfully held the settlement to only $1 million; so, even with a $50,000 legal fee, he was actually saving Dibrell $950,000. Studying his reflection in the window, he practiced his full golf swing and held his pose like a pro. Scott Fenney had found that he possessed the necessary skills to excel at three games in life: football, golf, and lawyering.