The Color of Law (12 page)

“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?”

TWELVE

T
HE COMPETITION
from other Dallas law firms for the top law graduates each year was fierce. Ford Stevens offered the same starting salary, required the same billable hours, and promised the same personal chemistry between partners and associates. Money and hours were easy sells; personal chemistry, though, took all of the partners’ lawyering skills, pretending to care about these students’ lives when in fact they cared more about their own shoes. But then, lying to law students was just part of the game.

And that game was being played in earnest today at 4000 Beverly Drive. Scott Fenney was hosting Ford Stevens’s annual Fourth of July party for the firm’s summer clerks at his Highland Park home. He was standing on the patio under the awning and shaking his head: forty out-of-shape law students in bathing suits, their pale white bodies frolicking in and around his fabulous pool and professionally landscaped backyard, was not a pretty sight. Thank God they had the good sense not to wear Speedos. If not for Missy and the other cheerleaders in bikinis, the view from the patio would have been downright dismal.

“Got some good news, Scotty.”

He hadn’t noticed Bobby there. “What’s that?”

“Talked to Hannah Steele. She’ll testify. Told me the whole story about Clark, said he was the nicest guy in the world until he got loaded, then he turned into an animal. His idea of foreplay was smacking her across the face.” Bobby took a swig of beer. “Shawanda did the world a favor, blowing his brains out.”

“So she’s it then, our only defense?”

“Yep. But she wants her name kept quiet until the trial. She’s scared shitless of McCall.”

“Don’t we have to put her on our witness list?”

Bobby shrugged. “We’re supposed to. But Buford, he’ll cut us some slack, seeing how he hates the death penalty and Burns won’t give it up. Did you read my brief on that, why the death penalty doesn’t apply to this case under the statute?”

Scott shook his head.

“Have you read any of my briefs or motions?”

“I haven’t had time.”

Bobby grunted and went in search of the barbecue, leaving Scott to his thoughts, which were of Dan Ford:
Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.

“Well, if it isn’t Johnnie Cochran.”

Bernie Cohen had arrived with a beer in his hand.

“What’s your whore’s defense, Scott?” His next words came out in his version of rap rhythm. “If the condom don’t fit, you must acquit?”

Bernie thought he was hilarious. He was a partner in the securities section of Ford Stevens and looked like he was fifty years old even though he was only a year older than Scott. No muscular definition was noticeable anywhere on his body; Bernard Cohen was what in junior high they called a “fat-butted boy.” Bernie pointed his beer at Boo and Pajamae sitting on the edge of the far side of the pool.

“That her daughter?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s living with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Saw your client’s photo in the paper. She’s a good-looking black babe.” Bernie nudged Scott’s arm and grinned. “She paying you in kind?”

“Shut up, Bernie.”

Bernie recoiled, snorted, and walked away, leaving Scott to wonder why at one time he had sort of liked the pudgy prick. And why he wasn’t enjoying the party the way he had last year when he had taken great pride in showing off his residence to the impressionable students: the one-acre estate in the heart of Highland Park; the four-car garage occupied by the Ferrari, Rebecca’s Mercedes-Benz coupe, and the Land Rover they used for family road trips; and the expansive covered patio overlooking the pool and cabana, beyond which was a vast expanse of grass kept lush and green by the underground sprinkler system. Scott had set up a volleyball net out there and some of the students were now playing. He shook his head—not an athlete in the bunch.

This year he just couldn’t get into the spirit of the day. The students were happy, the cheerleaders were friendly, the beer was flowing, and the barbecue was cooking…but Scott’s thoughts were on Shawanda Jones and the little black girl sitting on the far side of the pool and his wife’s threat and Dan Ford’s demand.
Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.
The trial was only seven weeks away, and Scott had a big decision to make, a decision he didn’t want to make, a decision that had darkened his mind. That feeling of impending doom had become his constant companion.

Sitting on the edge of the pool, Pajamae said, “I haven’t been around this many white people since last year when Mama took me to the State Fair. Only time we see white people.”

“You haven’t missed much,” Boo said.

Pajamae waved her hand around. “Who are they?”

“Lawyer wannabes.”

“Whatabes?”

“Students A. Scott’s law firm is trying to hire.”

“Those are some homely white boys. But the girls are real pretty. Are they their women?”

“The cheerleaders?”

“They’re cheerleaders?”

“They used to be. A. Scott pays them to come to the party and act interested in the students, so they’ll hire on. He calls it bait and switch.”

“Bait and what?”

“Bait and switch, like when an ad in the paper says certain Rollerblades are on sale, but when you get to the store they say they’re sold out so you should buy another brand that costs more.”

“Oh, like when a trick tries to get Mama to lower her price after she gets in his car.”

“Someone tricked your mother into his car?”

“No, the trick—that’s the john.”

“The toilet?”

“No, a man who wants to buy Mama.”

“Your mother’s for sale?”

Pajamae nodded. “By the hour.”

“A. Scott sells himself by the hour, too. He calls them billable hours. He charges three hundred fifty dollars an hour.”

“Mama makes almost that much and she didn’t go to school.”

“Awesome. Anyway, these students think if they hire on with A. Scott’s law firm they’ll get dates with beautiful girls like these, but they really won’t.”

“If they pay enough, they will. Mama says it’s just a question of pricing.”

On brutally hot days like today, Bobby would often grab a beer, go out back of his two-bedroom, one-bath lean-to in East Dallas, and sit in a six-inch-deep inflatable pool—his version of a pool party. This pool party was a lot better. For one thing, the pool was bigger. And for another, his eyes weren’t closed and he wasn’t dreaming of a backyard full of beautiful girls in bikinis; his eyes were wide open and the girls were real. He was really happy Scotty had invited him.

Bobby was standing alone at one corner of the pool, a beer in one hand and a long pork rib in the other, dripping barbecue sauce on his bare belly and trying not to appear too obvious as he ogled the girls. He was wearing only swim trunks. His pale body was not lean and tanned and muscular like Scotty’s. Still, compared to the law students, he was feeling like a regular goddamned Adonis when an incredible looking girl in a white bikini sidled up to him, close enough that he could feel the warmth emanating from her skin. Without thinking, Bobby sucked in his gut—a little.

“Noticed you’re not wearing a wedding ring,” she said.

“That’s because I’m not married.”

“What a coincidence,” she said, turning her big eyes up to him. “Neither am I.”

Bobby had already downed several beers, so his courage was operating at its maximum level.

“So what’s a gorgeous single girl like yourself doing at a party like this?”

“Looking for a rich lawyer like you.”

You can’t fault honesty, Bobby thought, as she leaned into him and her breasts pushed together and rose as one until he thought they might pop out of her bikini top. The mere touch of her skin against his raised a distinct feeling in Bobby’s trunks.

“Well, just so you know, I don’t have a home like this, I’m not a rich lawyer, and chances are pretty good I’m never gonna be a rich lawyer. But, hey, we can still slip inside, find a quiet place, and screw ourselves silly.”

She pulled back as if she had suddenly discovered poison ivy all over his body. She gave him a thin smile and said, “I don’t think so.”

And she was gone. Bobby closed his eyes and inhaled her scent one last time. But it was soon gone, too, as was the rise in his swim trunks. He walked over to the only two girls who weren’t looking for a rich lawyer that day. Boo and Pajamae were sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling their feet into the water.

“Hey, Bobby,” Boo said.

“Girls.”

Pajamae said, “Whereas, Mr. Herrin.”

Scotty had introduced Bobby to the girls earlier. Bobby now joined them, dropping his feet into the cool water.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked Boo. “Haven’t seen her since I first got here.”

“Back inside,” Boo said. “She hates these parties.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I love them. I try to guess what these people’s lives are like when they’re not sucking up to A. Scott for a job.”

Bobby laughed. “Scotty said you’re nine going on twenty-nine.” He pointed the pork rib at one of the male students. “Okay, tell me about his life, the skinny one with the black glasses.”

Boo studied the student for a moment and said, “He’s incredibly smart. He went to law school only because his dad is a lawyer, but he wants to do computer stuff. He’ll graduate top of his class, hire on with A. Scott’s firm, and quit after one year. He’s never had a date, he’s terribly shy, and he’s wishing right now he was back home at his computer, where he’s happiest. He’s always going to be alone.”

Bobby stared down at the child in amazement. “That’s pretty good. Okay, Pajamae, your turn. What about her, the blonde over there with the, uh…”

“Store-bought boobs?”

“Uh, yeah, that one. What’s her story?”

“She’s way dumb, but she doesn’t know it. She’ll marry a rich lawyer and live happily ever after.”

Bobby found himself nodding in agreement.

“You girls are good. Okay, Boo, what about this guy?”

Boo moved her eyes about, scanning the pool crowd.

“Which guy?”

Bobby was now pointing the pork rib at himself.

“Me.”

Boo considered him for a moment, then dropped her eyes to the water and shook her head.

“Hey, come on, tell me.”

Boo looked back up; her eyes seemed sad.

“No, Bobby.”

Bobby laughed and said, “What? I’m a big boy, I can handle it,” figuring she was going to say he was a pathetic loser and always would be. Hell, no surprise there. He told himself the same thing every morning in the mirror.

But Boo was quiet. Then, without looking at him, she said: “You secretly loved my mother, but she married A. Scott. You’ve never gotten over it. You’ve always wondered what your life would’ve been like if she had married you instead.”

Bobby hadn’t figured on that. He had to take a deep breath. He pushed himself up but looked down at her.

“How?”

“I saw how you looked at her when you got here. Your eyes went all over the crowd, kind of frantic like, until you saw her. Then you just looked at her for a long time. Like, forever.”

Bobby walked directly to the beer cooler.

From the windows of the master suite on the second floor Rebecca Fenney was looking down on the backyard scene at two of the three men who loved her: Scott, surrounded by law students and cheerleaders and one buxom blonde in a black string bikini giving him the come-on; and Bobby, alone by the beer cooler. Poor Bobby. She had known he loved her back when he and Scott were in law school, but he had kept it to himself, never one to challenge for any of Scott’s possessions. Not that he could have won her; everyone knew Bobby Herrin wasn’t going places, just as everyone knew Scott Fenney was. So Rebecca Garrett had signed on for the Scott Fenney ride. And it had been quite a ride: eleven years ago she had been living in a sorority house, driving a used Toyota, and leading cheers for the SMU Mustangs; today she was living in a mansion, driving a Mercedes, and vying to be chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball. But now she found herself feeling anxious and afraid and wondering:
Is the ride coming to an end?

Rebecca Garrett had grown up in a working-class suburb of Dallas. She hated having less; she wanted more. So for her college education she looked no further than SMU. For poor Dallas kids, SMU was their entrée to a better life. It was a way in to Highland Park.

Rebecca was a smart student, in and out of class. In fact, when she drove her old car up and down the streets of Highland Park and fancied herself the woman of the house at one of the fabulous mansions, she was smart enough to acknowledge a fact of life: she would never have a Highland Park home on her own, by using her brain, by pursuing a career. No woman would.

Her future lay in her looks, as it always had. From the time she was ten, other children’s mothers would stop and say, “My, what a remarkably beautiful child”; and when she was sixteen and her body had become a woman’s, her friends’ fathers would stare; and when she was twenty-one and the most beautiful girl at SMU and she interviewed for jobs, men’s eyes lit up when they saw her beauty—they wanted it and they would pay for it.