The Common Lawyer

SIX

Andy Prescott always had a thing for redheads.

He was staring at one now. She had long legs and a sensuous smile. Her lips were red and her skirt was short. Her red hair was a wig, but she was still incredibly sexy. For a mannequin.

"Need a date for the prom, Andy?"

Andy hadn't noticed Reggie standing there. They were at the display window out front of Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds. Reggie chuckled and entered the store. He was a real funny guy for a white dude wearing black eyeliner and dreadlocks.

Andy had arrived back in SoCo on the little Huffy, checked for Max at Guero's only to learn that Oscar had sent him down to Ramon's, and found Floyd T. pushing his grocery cart from dumpster to dumpster searching for treasures in other people's trash. His responsibilities satisfied, he had then begun his quest for the perfect birthday present for his mother.

He had first tried Tesoro's Trading Company and then Maya Star and was walking the bike past Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds when the mannequin had caught his eye. He took one last look at her then continued down the sidewalk to Yard Dog. And there in the front window he spotted the perfect present for Jean Prescott: a white owl hand-carved from a small log. Yard art for her native Texas garden. She'd love it. He checked the price tag: $1,000.

He sighed and shook his head. He couldn't even afford a nice birthday present for his mother. Natalie was right: he needed ambition.

Andy walked down the street to Uncommon Objects. He searched the booths for a secondhand gift he could afford but found nothing special except an armadillo purse for $125-a real armadillo made into a purse. It was cool but creepy. Jean Prescott was a different sort of woman all right, but maybe not that different.

He gave up and went into the tattoo parlor to collect Max and his mail. His email. He couldn't afford a computer or Internet service either, so Ramon let Andy use his computer and maintain an email address on his Yahoo account.

The parlor reeked of antiseptic. Fortunately for his clients-hepatitis C was a constant concern in a tattoo shop-Ramon Cabrera was a clean freak; he wiped the entire place down a dozen times a day. It was as clean as a hospital and had the same look: bottles of alcohol and green germicidal soap, sterile gloves and gauze, the autoclave, a hazardous waste disposal box for used needles, vials of colored ink… well, maybe not the ink.

Andy walked around the front counter and found Max snoozing in the corner so he headed over to Ramon's computer on the back desk-but he stopped dead in his tracks. Lying face down on Ramon's padded table was a blonde girl clothed only in a black T-shirt and thong; her shorts lay on a chair. Her bare bottom was smooth, round, and glowing in the light of the bright fluorescent bulbs overhead. No doubt she was a UT coed getting a tattoo to assert her independence from her parents-at least until she needed more money.

"Tickets on the counter," Ramon said without looking up.

Ramon was sitting next to the girl and leaning over and peering through his little reading glasses only a few inches away from her smooth skin. Jesus. First Britney at traffic court, then Suzie at Whole Foods, and now a bare butt at Ramon's. The pressure of daily life in Austin was almost unbearable.

Andy grabbed the two tickets, each with a $100 bill attached-the day just kept getting better-then stepped over for a closer look, careful not to breach Ramon's sterile field. Ramon wore a white muscle T-shirt and white latex gloves; he was inking in a "Yellow Rose of Texas" tattoo on her left buttock, one of a matched set. The buttock, not the tattoo.

"Not polite to stare, dude," Ramon said.

But he smiled when he said it. Ramon Cabrera was only six years older than Andy, but the hard life he had lived and the tattoos on his body had aged him. Ramon had practiced what he preached: his entire upper body was a mobile mural commemorating Austin and Mexico, Latino culture and the Catholic religion, the Aztec sun god and the Tejano goddess Serena. It was beautiful and weird at the same time.

Ramon Cabrera was an artist with a tattoo needle.

The thing sounded like a dentist's drill, which made Andy's skin crawl. With his left hand Ramon stretched the skin on the girl's bottom tight and with his right hand he moved the needle from spot to spot on the stenciled outline of the yellow rose in rhythm with the Latino music playing in the background. The tattoo machine drove the needle into her skin-actually through the epidermis and into the dermis, the second layer of skin-puncturing her bottom hundreds of times per minute and depositing a drop of insoluble ink upon each insertion.

It hurt like hell.

But the girl had iPod buds stuck in her ears and her eyes closed, oblivious to the pain and the world around her… including Andy admiring her butt. After a long, wonderful moment, he broke eye contact and sat in front of Ramon's computer. He logged onto his email account and checked his messages. He shook his head.

"All I get is spam promising to make my penis longer."

"Don't waste your money," Ramon said. "None of that stuff works."

Andy logged onto the Chronicle 's website and clicked "Classifieds" then "Personals" and then "Lovers Lane." He checked for responses to his ad. There were none. So he looked for new ads from "women seeking men." All were from women over forty hoping to find their Prince Charming (since the first two hadn't worked out) and live happily ever after. He wondered if it ever really worked. His mother said she had fallen in love with his father when she was a grad student at UT and saw him on stage at the Broken Spoke. It was love at first sight. They had married three months later and were still married thirty-five years later. Those kind of relationships weren't found in the personal ads. But Andy still looked.

"Man, you ain't gonna find a woman in those ads," Ramon said. "You gotta find a woman the old-fashioned way-in a bar."

"Like that worked for you."

Ramon had met his wife in a bar two years ago. She left him a year later for another man she had met in a bar. Which reminded Andy: he had promised Tres the phone number of a private investigator.

"Ramon, who's that PI you hired to tail your wife?"

"My ex — wife."

"She was your wife when you hired the PI."

"She was a cheating, no-good, two-peso…"

Andy was never sure what bothered Ramon more, that she was cheating on him with another man or that she was cheating on him with another tattoo artist. She had allowed her lover/artist to finish the mural that Ramon had begun on her body. Once he got started, Ramon could go on about his ex-wife like Andy's mother could about football.

"The PI's name?"

"Lorenzo Escobar, down Congress a few blocks."

Andy logged off, took one final glance at the coed's bottom, and headed to the door.

"Wake up, Max."

But he stopped short when Ramon said, "Oh, dude was here looking for you. In a limo."

Andy turned back.

"A limo? Down here? Looking for me? "

"What'd I say?"

"Who?"

"White dude. In a suit. Checked out my flash"-his standard tattoo designs displayed on a flip rack like art stores used for prints-"asked did I know where you were at. I said, 'I look like a secretary?' "

"These tickets his?"

"Didn't leave a ticket."

"Who was he?"

Ramon wiped blood from the girl's butt then pointed the needle end of the tattoo machine at a newspaper on the counter.

"Him."

Andy picked up the paper. On the front page was a photograph of three middle-aged white men wearing suits and a younger white woman: the mayor of Austin, the governor of Texas, a famous billionaire, and his beautiful blonde wife, all faces well known in Austin.

"The mayor was here?"

Ramon laughed. "What the hell would the mayor want with you?"

"The governor?"

A bigger laugh. "What've you been smoking?"

That left only one, the least likely of all.

"Russell Reeves was here?"

Ramon nodded without looking up from the girl's butt.

"When?"

"Couple hours ago."

"What'd he want?"

"You."

"Why?"

"Didn't say. I didn't ask. I mind my own business."

"Since when?"

Ramon gave him a look over his glasses and a half-smile.

"Okay if I borrow the paper?"

A nod. "Later, bro."

Andy and Max climbed the stairs to his office. Max turned around three times and curled up on his pad in the corner. Andy sat and read the newspaper article. Russell Reeves had just donated $100 million to a scholarship fund so low-income students could attend college. He was being hailed as a visionary philanthropist by the governor and the mayor, the latest in a long line of politicians to honor Russell Reeves.

Russell Reeves was an Austin legend, like Michael Dell. When Reeves was only twenty-two, he invented a computer gizmo that had revolutionized the Internet; he sold it for billions in stock during the high-tech boom years on Wall Street. He then invested in other high-tech companies and made billions more as the NASDAQ climbed to 5000. But he saw the technology boom about to bust, so he sold everything right before the stock market crash of 2000. He walked away from the nineties with over $20 billion in cash. Everything he touched had turned to gold.

Then he gave the gold away.

He gave money to liberal politicians and poor people, environmental causes and alternate energy research, the arts and AIDS; he gave money to build low-income housing and health clinics in East Austin and to buy computers for the public schools and parkland for the people; he gave money to fight global warming and defeat Republicans. Russell Reeves was a devout do-gooder with a heart of gold and a bank account to match. To date, the Russell and Kathryn Reeves Foundation had donated over $2 billion to make Austin a better place.

Reeves was forty now and married to a former Miss UT. Seeing him standing there next to his beauty queen wife in the photo while the governor called him a Texas hero and the mayor said he was Austin's favorite son, and knowing he was worth $15 billion according to the latest Forbes ranking, you'd probably think Russell Reeves was the luckiest man on the face of the Earth… unless you knew about his son.

His seven-year-old son was dying.

Zachary Reeves had a rare, incurable form of cancer. All known medical therapies-chemo, radiation, bone marrow transplant-had failed. So his father had established the Reeves Research Institute on the UT campus, a state-of-the-art cancer research laboratory dedicated to finding a cure for his disease. Russell Reeves had hired renowned scientists from around the world and brought them to Austin. He had spent money and spared no expense. But five years and $5 billion later, there was still no cure. The doctors gave the boy a year.

Consequently, while Russell Reeves was beloved and admired by everyone, he was envied by no one. He was viewed as a tragic figure in Austin. And he was standing in Andy's doorway.

"May I come in?"

Andy dropped the newspaper and stood. Max sensed something was up, so he stood, too.

"Mr. Reeves. Yes, sir. Please come in."

Reeves glanced over at Max. "Does it bite?"

"Only Jo's muffins. Name's Max." Andy stuck his hand out. "I'm Andy Prescott."

Andy had never before shaken the hand of a billionaire. Or even a millionaire, except for Tres.

"Andy, I'm Russell Reeves."

Russell Reeves' net worth made him seem bigger than life, but he was actually no bigger than Andy. His suit was tailored and expensive and draped like silk over his shoulders. He had once worn thick glasses, but Andy had read that he had gotten laser eye surgery. His black hair, once famously thick and curly, was now thinner and shorter and gray on the sides. None of the girls at Whole Foods would call him handsome, but they'd be all over him like politicians on special-interest money. Especially Suzie. Fifteen billion dollars in the bank improved a man's looks.

Russell Reeves was frowning.

"You get mugged?"

"Trail biking. Took a header on the greenbelt yesterday."

Reeves nodded then surveyed the small office.

"No wasted space. I like that."

"You do?"

Reeves smiled. "When I first started out, I lived at work, an old building in the warehouse district. Couldn't afford an apartment, so I showered at the Y." He gestured at the open window. "No air-conditioning, like this place."

Violin music drifted in from next door. The student was advanced. Reeves cocked his head to listen.

"Nice."

"Comes with the rent."

"Mind if I sit down?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, Mr. Reeves."

They sat across the card table from each other. Russell Reeves studied Andy for a long, uncomfortable moment; the last time Andy had felt this uneasy was when he had met with the dean of the law school to learn whether he had been admitted.

"Andy, I need a lawyer."

"You've got hundreds of lawyers."

"This is special."

"You got stopped speeding through a school zone?"

Reeves smiled. "A little more special than a speeding ticket, Andy. I want to fix SoCo."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing a billion dollars can't fix."

"I don't represent developers."

"Ah, a man of principle."

"Uh, no. I've just never been asked."

"Oh. Well, Andy, I want to purchase those eyesores-old abandoned grocery stores, strip centers, slum apartments-and build quality low-income housing so regular people can afford to live in SoCo. Town homes with pools and playscapes for kids."

"We've been trying to get the city to build low-income housing down here for years."

"Governments are bureaucracies, Andy. I have the money and power to cut through the bureaucracy and get things done. The same people said it couldn't be done in East Austin, but we did it. And I want to do it here. Austin should be for all people regardless of wealth and I want you to help me make it that way. Andy, I want you to be my lawyer in SoCo."

"Why me?"

"Like I said, Andy, I've got the money and power to make this happen at city hall. What I don't have is the trust of the people down here. They'll say I'm trying to take over SoCo. Change it. Make it like North Austin."

"People down here don't trust anyone north of the river."

"Which is why I need a lawyer who's trusted south of the river."

"I do traffic tickets."

"You're a lawyer, aren't you?"

Andy glanced up at his diploma hanging on the wall next to the American IronHorse poster.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"And you know everyone down here and everyone knows you?"

Andy shrugged.

"And everyone down here trusts you?"

Another shrug.

"And you office above a tattoo parlor, so I'm betting you've got a tattoo?"

Andy nodded. Russell Reeves held his hands out.

"You're perfect."

"I am?"

"Andy, I send my downtown lawyers into SoCo wearing Armani and acting like assholes, the locals will shut us down before we get started. It'd be a disaster."

He was right.

"Mr. Reeves, how'd you get my name?"

"My secretary, Doris Sullivan. You handled her traffic ticket."

"I called her this morning."

"I overheard. I've been thinking how to handle this, so when she mentioned you, I checked you out and liked what I learned."

"You did?"

"Look, Andy, you didn't graduate at the top of your class, we both know that. And I wouldn't hire you to handle an IPO, but you're the right man for this job. How much do you charge?"

"Well, uh…"

Andy hadn't had an hourly fee client in his entire career.

"… how about for-"

"Four hundred? My downtown lawyers charge twice that." Reeves waved a hand in the air. "But then, you don't have their overhead. All right, four hundred dollars an hour it is."

Four hundred dollars an hour? Andy was going to say forty. His pulse ratcheted up while his mind raced through the financial implications of billing four hundred dollars an hour: one billable hour would cover his office rent for two months, two billable hours his house rent and utilities, and another his entire month's living expenses, three billable hours a date with Suzie… and twenty billable hours-My God, that would buy a Stumpjumper!

"So, Andy, do you want to be my lawyer or not?"

Andy's mind was playing a video of himself hammering the Hill of Life on a Stumpjumper, shredding the trails, carving the corners, bombing the descent…

"Andy?"

Andy blinked hard and returned to the moment. He focused on the billionaire sitting across from him-on the answer to all his dreams.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Reeves. I do want to be your lawyer."

"Excellent. First purchase is the old grocery store site this side of Oltorf."

"They've been asking five million. We've stopped two office buildings from going in there."

"They're taking four, and we're going to build two hundred low-income town homes. The purchase is contingent upon the residents approving the redevelopment plan. That's your job. You get them on board and the deal closed. My downtown lawyers will provide the contracts and handle all the title matters. We've identified a dozen more properties. You'll be a busy lawyer, Andy. I hope you've got a lot of free time."

"I'll juggle my schedule."

"Good."

Russell Reeves stood and held out a business card.

"My numbers. Call me on my cell phone anytime."

Reeves' business card was fancy with embossed lettering. Andy's was not. He had made his cards on Ramon's computer. He handed one to Reeves.

"That's my cell phone."

As if he had another phone.

"Welcome aboard, Andy."

They shook hands again, then Reeves reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Andy.

"This should cover the first week."

Russell Reeves walked to the door then turned back.

"But get a haircut, okay?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Reeves."

He disappeared down the stairs. Andy stepped to the window and saw Russell Reeves emerge on the sidewalk below and walk over to a waiting limousine, which was double-parked. A cop had stopped and was standing next to a big bald white dude in a black suit and sunglasses; the cop was writing a ticket. He looked up when Reeves arrived. The cop's body language suddenly changed; he now appeared to be apologizing. He shut his ticket book. He smiled and shook Reeves' hand. Then he left the scene.

The big dude opened the back door for Reeves, then got into the driver's seat. The limo drove off. Andy sat down, opened the envelope, and removed a cashier's check made payable to "Andrew Paul Prescott." For $10,000.

Ten thousand dollars.

Andy was suddenly overwhelmed with excitement… and a foul smell that could only mean one thing. He glanced down at Max, who was looking sheepish.

"You had a bean burrito at Guero's, didn't you?"

The limo was barely out of sight before Andy had raced downstairs, dropped Max off with Ramon (after conducting only a cursory examination of Ramon's work on the coed's bottom), and jumped on the little Huffy. He hammered the pavement to the bank and deposited the check, his heart beating like a teenager about to cop his first feel. When the teller said, "Funds are available," Andy wanted to throw his arms around her and give her a big kiss. Instead, he said, "Thanks," as if it were a normal occurrence.

Then he rode directly over to REI.

He wished he had had a camera to capture Wayne's expression when he told him what he wanted. Of course, Wayne had called the bank to confirm funds before he accepted Andy's check. "Nothing personal," he had said. Two hours later, Andy Prescott was riding a Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper mountain bike on the Hike-and-Bike Trail around Lady Bird Lake. Max was trotting alongside.

Trail rules required he keep his speed under ten miles per hour, and the trail was crowded with the after-work crowd anyway, so Andy was just getting a feel for the bike-and enjoying envious glances from other bikers. And who could blame them-the carbon-steel full-suspension frame, the hydraulic disk brakes, the Shimano derailleur, the carbon trigger shifters, the race rims and tires. All top of the line. The way the guys stared with such open envy, Andy felt as if he were riding down the trail with Suzie perched on the handlebars in her Spandex short-shorts and tube top.

The ten-mile-long crushed granite trail ran right along the shoreline. Runners and riders crowded the trail every weekday after five and all day on weekends; some were serious, some were social, but most were fit and showing it off. Running or riding around the lake had become a central part of the Austin social scene, another place to see and be seen. To be active and fit. To worship nature. To wear Spandex.

He felt good.

Like a real man. A real lawyer. With a rich client. Not that he hadn't considered the strangeness of the situation: What were the odds that Russell Reeves, a billionaire, would just walk into his office and hire Andy Prescott, a traffic ticket lawyer, for a multimillion-dollar real-estate deal? Astronomical. A lightning strike. And it made him nervous. Like his father always said, "If something is too good to be true, it probably isn't."

On the other hand-and Andy found himself desperately seeking the other hand-Reeves was right about the SoCo locals: they would oppose him every step of the way. They were activists and they would get active, raise hell at city hall, stop him in his tracks. They didn't trust anyone north of the river, so he needed a lawyer south of the river whom they did trust. Someone like Andy Prescott.

He was perfect.

A noise caught his attention. Andy was riding the section of the trail that ran right along Cesar Chavez Street. Directly across the street a group of protestors stood in front of the construction site for the Seaholm project-the biggest single development in the history of downtown Austin being built by a Dallas developer-chanting "City hall sold us out! Vote 'em out!" and holding signs that read THEY WANT TO MAKE AUSTIN LOOK LIKE DALLAS and THE DEVIL IS IN THE DEVELOPER and, more to the point, DEVELOPERS SUCK. As far as native Austinites were concerned, no more despicable creatures roamed the Earth than real-estate developers; heck, the little whack job running North Korea these days ranked higher in local opinion polls than developers. And now Andy Prescott was lawyering for one.

Or was he?

Andy averted his eyes from the protestors and considered his new client's intentions. Russell Reeves didn't want to develop SoCo; he wanted to renovate SoCo. Andy wasn't representing a developer; he was representing a renovator. He wasn't the devil's defender; he was an angel's advocate. A billionaire angel who wanted to renovate rundown properties into uplifting low-income housing, for Christ's sake. Who does that today? Not the city. Not a developer wanting to make a quick buck. Only an angel would do that. Only Russell Reeves. The residents were being pushed out of SoCo by high rents, high home prices, and high taxes. They needed what Reeves was offering. By convincing the residents to go along with his plans, Andy would be helping them. And helping them helped him.

Four hundred dollars an hour!

He had been overjoyed because he had made four hundred dollars in one day-but in one hour? If he billed forty hours a month, that would be sixteen thousand dollars. He didn't make that much money in a year of traffic tickets. Was he supposed to just walk away from that? Was he supposed to return this stupendous Stumpjumper to Wayne and go back to riding a Schwinn? Was he supposed to return the log owl to Yard Dog and show up for his mother's sixty-second birthday without the perfect present? Is that what the residents of SoCo would want?

I don't think so.

His father also said, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."

Fifteen hundred miles to the north, Alvin Adams bit down on a huge hamburger. He was sitting in a booth in a bar in Queens drinking a beer and eating the hamburger and French fries. It had been another long dull day at the shop; and he now had another headache that would require two or three beers to relieve. In other words, it had been just another day in Alvin Adams' exceedingly boring life: eight hours poring over text of articles in the medical journals his company printed, checking for errors, and calling the authors to confirm footnotes and spelling of the exotic diseases they researched. Hell, he could qualify for an M.D. or a Ph. D. or some kind of advanced degree, what with all the research he had read over the last decade.

He hated his job.

But it paid the bills. Or at least it allowed him to stay one step ahead of his bills, paying the minimum monthly payment on his ten maxed-out credit cards. Thirty percent interest, the bastards. There used to be laws against usury, but the credit card companies bought themselves a federal law preempting all state usury laws. What a deal. Just as he again bit into the hamburger, a middle-aged man wearing a suit and wielding a briefcase slid into the seat across from him. He looked like a lawyer. Alvin swallowed and said, "Can I help you?"

"We can help each other, Alvin," the man said.

"How's that?"

The man opened his briefcase and removed an envelope. He pushed it across the table. Alvin put the hamburger down and picked the envelope up. It was thick. He opened it. Inside were $100 bills. Lots of $100 bills. He shut the envelope and set it on the table.

"That's a lot of money."

"Fifty thousand dollars."

"Who are you?"

"Mr. Smith."

Alvin smiled. "Okay, Mr. Smith, what do you want?"

"A name."

"Whose?"

Mr. Smith again reached inside his briefcase and removed a document this time. He placed it on the table so Alvin could read the title: "Patient X: The Savior?" Alvin recognized the document; it was a research article that had run in one of the journals his company printed. When was it-two, three years ago? Alvin recalled the article because the author was "Anonymous" and because the article was a "Crock of shit."

"What?"

Alvin pointed a French fry at the article.

"That."

"What, you're a research scientist?"

"Pretty much. I've read hundreds of those research articles. That one was a crock. No one in the field believes that crap. It's all just a big hoax."

"Do you know who this is?"

"Patient X?"

"Anonymous."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Need to know basis, Alvin, and you don't need to know. All you need to know is that that name is worth fifty thousand dollars. Tax free."

Alvin knew who "Anonymous" was because he had emailed the author several times to correct the copy of that article as well as two follow-up articles.

"You know that's confidential."

"Are you a lawyer, Alvin?"

"No."

"Then what do you have to lose?"

"My job."

"How will anyone know?"

Alvin thought about that. How would anyone know?

"They wouldn't. But…"

The man reached across the table and put his hand on the envelope as if to take it away.

"Tony Falco."

Alvin remembered the name because he had never had an "Anonymous" author before.

The man removed his hand. "And who is Tony Falco?"

"A doctor."

"Where?"

"Here. In New York. Or at least he was back then."

Mr. Smith stood and walked out of the bar. Alvin looked again at the cash in the envelope then put the envelope in his inside coat pocket. He ordered another beer even though his headache was gone.

Two hours and four beers later, Alvin stumbled out the bar. It was now dark. Half a block down the sidewalk, he noticed a tall man leaning against the hood of a black sedan parked along the curb. He stood as Alvin neared. Then he stepped alongside Alvin and clamped a strong arm around his shoulders.

"Alvin, what did you tell the lawyer?"

"What lawyer?"

"The lawyer who gave you the cash."

"What cash?"

The man tapped his finger on Alvin's coat over the inside coat pocket.

"That cash. Look, Alvin, I don't want the cash. I want the information."

"Nothing."

The man pulled his coat back to reveal a gun.

"Come on, Alvin, it's not worth dying for."

He was right.

"Tony Falco."

"And?"

"He's a doctor, here in New York."

"Thanks, Alvin."

The man released his grip on Alvin's shoulder. Alvin breathed a sigh of relief just before the man shoved him into an alley a block down from the bar. Alvin looked back just in time to see the man raise a gun with a long, thick barrel to his head. And Alvin Adams knew he would never suffer another headache.

The voice on the phone said, "Jesus, Harmon, why'd you kill Adams?"

"To silence him."

"Who was he going to talk to? They just bribed him, for Christ's sake. And he gave you the name." A deep sigh. "From now on, Harmon, let the lawyer do the work for you. No more unauthorized killing, you understand? Remember-there's only one person we want dead."