The Color of Law (18 page)

He slammed the phone down.

Bobby was sitting up. “What was that about?”

Scott realized his face was damp with sweat. “The bank called my notes, on the cars and the house.”

“How can they call your mortgage?”

“Because it’s not a mortgage like you think. You don’t get a thirty-year five percent Fannie Mae mortgage for two-point-eight million, Bobby. You get a demand note callable on thirty days’ notice.”

“
Jesus
. Can you refinance?”

“Not likely. I got this note only because Dan used his influence with the bank president, that asshole.”

“Guess who’s influencing the bank president now?”

Scott nodded.

“You could sell the place.”

“Rebecca would die. That house means everything to her.”

“Shit, Scotty, you got three million in fees. You can swing something.”

Scott could barely give voice to the words: “Dibrell just fired me.”

Rebecca said, “If you’re not Tom Dibrell’s lawyer anymore, who am I?”

All the way home, Scott had bucked himself up for this moment; he hoped his performance was more convincing to his wife.

“I don’t need him.”

“No, but you need his three million in fees. Look, Scott, most lawyers’ wives don’t have a clue what their husbands do at the office, but I do. God knows you’ve educated me over the last eleven years. I know how things work in a law firm. And I know that a partner who just lost a three-million-dollar client won’t be a partner for long. And what are we going to do then, Scott? How are we going to pay for this house?”

Scott walked to the windows of the master suite. He could not bear to look at his wife when he said what he had to say.

“Well, that’s the other thing, Rebecca. The house. The bank called the note. I’ve got to pay off two-point-eight million in thirty days or lose it. Unless we sell it first.”

He turned and saw the color drain out of Rebecca’s face and her legs give way; she sat down hard on the bed and stared blankly at the wall in front of her. After a moment, she spoke as if to herself: “Without this house, I’ll never be chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball.” Her eyes, vacant and lost, turned to Scott. “How will I ever show my face in this town again?”

Scott Fenney felt the sting of his wife’s disappointment. He had let her down, failed her, betrayed her. He had promised her this life, a life in this house, with these things, driving those cars. Now he had broken that promise. For the first time in his life, he felt the pain of failure. And behind the pain, he felt something else, an anger building deep inside him, not the anger of a lawyer at a client who doesn’t pay his bill or a judge who rules against him, but the kind of anger he had previously felt only on a football field, a base anger that had been in man since Adam, an anger that clouded your mind and strengthened your body, that made you say things you shouldn’t say and do things you shouldn’t do, the kind of anger that usually resulted in Scott Fenney being flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. The kind of anger that meant some son of a bitch was fixing to feel some Scott Fenney payback.

EIGHTEEN

O
VER THE COURSE
of four seasons of Division I-A college football, playing against teams like Texas, Texas A&M, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, teams with players that outweighed the SMU players by forty or fifty pounds per position, Scott Fenney, number 22, had taken a beating. At 185 pounds, he was strong, fast, and tough; but when a 250-pound linebacker tackled him and drove him into the hard turf, he still hurt. He suffered two knee surgeries, a dislocated shoulder, five broken ribs, four broken fingers (the same one twice), two broken noses, one concussion, numerous abrasions and contusions, and a cumulative total of 117 stitches. But he never missed a single game.

Scott Fenney got up every time they knocked him down. And when he did, he always gave them payback, breaking a long run, returning a kickoff, scoring a touchdown. The payback helped make the hurt go away.

Senator Mack McCall had shown Scott the true meaning of hurt. He had hit Scott like no linebacker had ever hit him. Now it was time for payback.

Scott checked his watch and stood. He glanced out at the night lights of downtown. It was almost nine the next evening and Scott was in his office.

“Scotty,” Bobby said from the sofa. “I know this was my idea, but maybe it ain’t such a good idea.”

“You coming or not?”

Bobby stood. “Oh, yeah, I’m coming. Course, I feel like I’m boarding the
Titanic
.”

Mack McCall’s eyes roamed over the naked body of Jean McCall, and he recalled the first time they had had sex, fifteen years ago, not a month after she had graduated law school and joined his Senate staff. She was young, she was lean, she was sexy, and she was not his wife. His wife was not sexy or lean or young; she was old, forty-five, same age as he was back then, but he did not feel as old as she looked. Martha looked like her mother—not a woman he was particularly interested in having sex with.

At age forty-five, Mack McCall still felt young and randy, and he needed a woman who was young and randy, like Jean. They had sex nearly every day, anytime and anywhere—his private bathroom, the backseat of the limousine, the Senate cloakroom. She had an incredible body, a body that made him feel twenty-five again and brimming with testosterone. And she possessed a sex drive that could permanently disable a man half his age.

She was also a TV camera’s dream, beautiful, articulate, charming, and intelligent. When Mack began dreaming of the White House, he had to make a decision: Did he want a first lady who looked like a grandmother or a fashion model? The decision took less than a minute to make. He divorced Martha.

She hired an asshole for a lawyer and threatened to confirm what the tabloids had suggested: that Senator Mack McCall was having an affair with a member of his staff. Not that that was any big news on Capitol Hill, a member of Congress screwing around on his wife. But it was a sensitive issue when the particular member ran on a conservative family values platform and had his eye on the White House. Of course, Mack McCall could cut a business deal when the need arose. For $100 million, Martha kept her mouth shut and went home to Texas.

Jean had been worth every penny.

But the years had taken their toll on Mack McCall. Now, at age sixty, he didn’t feel twenty-five anymore; he didn’t feel forty-five, or even fifty-five; he didn’t feel young and virile and brimming with testosterone. So he did what any self-respecting sixty-year-old man with money and a wife twenty years younger than him would do: he went to the doctor. Every morning now, Senator Mack McCall showered, shaved, and slapped on aftershave and a testosterone patch, and every night he popped a Viagra pill, all in an effort to satisfy his sexual fantasies and Jean’s sexual desires.

That evening she was stretched out naked on their bed. Her body was still incredibly shapely and inviting; her black hair was draped over her shoulders and fell onto her firm breasts; her belly was flat with no stretch marks from pregnancies; her lean legs didn’t look like road maps. She was wearing her Clark Kent glasses and working on her laptop; the TV was on but the sound was muted. He was taking no chances tonight: he had replaced this morning’s testosterone patch with a fresh one an hour ago when he had swallowed the Viagra pill. The patch was secreting that elixir of youth into his bloodstream and the little blue pill was expanding the arteries leading to his penis, physiological actions that resulted in an impressive erection. Feeling pretty damned proud and young and virile (albeit chemically and momentarily enhanced), Mack went over to Jean and stood by the bed until her eyes left the laptop and found him. Her eyebrows rose, and she smiled.

“I take it we’re not going to watch
Dateline
tonight.”

Mack could not know his wife was thinking,
Or at least the first five minutes of
Dateline, as she removed her glasses, set the laptop on the night table, slid down onto the bed, and spread her legs. Mack McCall’s version of foreplay had always consisted of checking the oil futures, so he climbed on top of Jean and entered her without so much as a howdy-do. She felt incredible, her legs pulled up and wrapped around his waist, her fingernails biting into his butt, her large breasts suffocating him with pleasure, as he pushed into her again and again and again with the steady rhythm of an oil well pump and he wondered what oil futures had closed at today when—

“Mack! Mack, stop!”

Jean reached for her glasses and the remote control. She put her glasses on with her left hand and pointed the remote with her right. Mack slipped out of her, panting heavily.

“What?”

Jean pointed at the television. “Look!”

Mack turned to the TV and saw his dead son’s face.

“Tonight, from the federal building in downtown Dallas, an exclusive live interview with Shawanda Jones, the woman accused of murdering Clark McCall, the son of Senator Mack McCall, the leading candidate to be the next president of the United States.”

On the screen, Mack saw the black face of Shawanda Jones, prostitute, drug addict, and murderer. Sitting next to her was A. Scott Fenney, Esq.

“He’s a hunk,” Jean said, which ignited the anger already smoldering within Mack.

On the TV: “With Ms. Jones tonight is her court-appointed lawyer, Scott Fenney. Mr. Fenney, every news show in the country has been trying to get an interview with you or your client ever since she was arrested—why tonight?”

“Because certain information has come to our attention that requires a public appeal. And because certain actions of Senator McCall constitute obstruction of justice.”

“That’s a serious charge, Mr. Fenney. But let’s first go back to the night of Saturday, June fifth. What happened?”

Mack McCall’s blood pressure rose steadily as the black bitch told her story: That Clark had picked her up, offered her a thousand dollars for a night of sex, took her to the McCall mansion in Highland Park, engaged in sex acts with her, and then beat her and called her nigger; that she fought him off, kneed him in the groin, and left, taking the money he owed her and his car keys; that the last time she had seen Clark, he was alive, lying on the floor, in pain and cursing her; that the murder weapon was in fact her gun, but that she had not held the gun to Clark’s head and pulled the trigger and put a bullet through his brain. When she finally stopped talking, the program went to commercial.

During the break, McCall paced the bedroom, naked and angry. And when Mack McCall got angry, someone got hurt. That someone would be A. Scott Fenney. The only question was how McCall would hurt him this time. He had just about decided when the show returned to the air and the reporter turned to Fenney.

“Mr. Fenney, your client is alleging that Clark McCall was a racist and a brutal rapist. But he’s not here to defend himself. How can you expect a jury to believe the word of a drug-addicted prostitute?”

“Because she wasn’t the first woman Clark McCall beat and raped.”

All the anger Mack McCall had experienced in his sixty years of life combined—anger against business competitors, political opponents, his ex-wife—could not compare to the anger that now controlled his being. He wanted desperately to kill Scott Fenney.

“Clark McCall beat and raped another woman a year ago. She filed a criminal complaint against him, but dropped it under pressure and a half-million-dollar payment from Senator McCall. She has agreed to testify at Shawanda’s trial.”

“To corroborate that Clark McCall was a rapist?”

“Yes. And there were other women, six others, who were raped and beaten by Clark McCall. I’m asking those women to come forward and testify so that an innocent victim of Clark McCall will not be sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit.”

Another commercial break had Mack pointing to Jean’s laptop and asking her if she had Dan Ford’s home phone number on it. She did.

When the program resumed, the reporter asked: “Now, Mr. Fenney, let’s turn to your allegation that Senator McCall obstructed justice.”

Fenney said, “Obviously, the trial of the person accused of murdering Clark McCall will be a media circus. The federal court did not believe that the public defender’s office could provide an adequate defense for Shawanda under those circumstances. So the court appointed me to represent her.”

“That must have been a shock.”

“Sure, at first. I’m a partner in a large Dallas law firm and I’m very busy with our paying clients, but I’ve always believed that lawyers have a professional duty to represent people who can’t pay. So when the judge called, I readily accepted the appointment.”

“But as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.”

“So I’ve learned. I expected some adverse publicity, perhaps a few clients who didn’t like what I was doing, but I did not expect Senator McCall to try to destroy me.”

“And what has Senator McCall done?”

“First he called my senior partner and asked him to get me to exclude any evidence at trial about Clark’s past criminal conduct. He said he did not want his son dragged through the mud. But Clark McCall lived in the mud.”

“You refused to drop that evidence?”

“Absolutely. To do so would have been unethical conduct by a lawyer and unfair to Shawanda. She’s entitled to the very best defense I can muster. And that’s exactly what she will get.”

“What did the senator do next?”

“He got the U.S. Attorney in Dallas to offer a plea deal, twenty years for Shawanda if we kept quiet about Clark’s past. Of course, we rejected the offer. My client is innocent.”

“Then what happened?”

“INS agents showed up at my house and arrested my maid, a Mexican national. Consuela—that’s her name—had been with us for three years. She’s part of our family.”

Fenney’s eyes looked wet.

“She didn’t have a green card?”

“No.”

“She was here in America illegally?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew that?”

“Look, we can debate the merits of the immigration laws, but the point is that Senator McCall used his political power in Washington to have my maid in Dallas arrested.”

“To pressure you?”

“Yes.”

“Did he succeed?”

“No. I will never be pressured to act to the detriment of my client. Senator McCall only hurt a poor Mexican girl.”

“Not a smart political move given the percentage of Hispanic voters in America. What happened next?”

“Senator McCall then got me kicked out of my dining club, my athletic club, and my country club.”

The reporter offered a shocked expression.

“The man who wants to be president stooped that low?”

“Yes, he did.”

“So is that all?”

“No, unfortunately, that’s not all. Since I still refused to accede to his demands, Senator McCall used his power to get the bank to call the notes on my cars and my home. I now have ten days to pay off the car notes and thirty days to pay off the house note, or I’ll lose everything.”

“My God, you’re not serious!”

“I’m afraid I am.”

“I hesitate to ask, but is there more?”

“Yes. Since all of that did not succeed, McCall called in some favors with a client of mine, Tom Dibrell, a real-estate developer in Dallas and—”

“What kind of favors?”

“Well, Tom told me that ten, twelve years ago, McCall threatened to hold up legislation desired by the lender holding the mortgage on his downtown office building unless the lender held off foreclosure. And that McCall used his influence to swing several federal construction projects to Tom.”

“And now he asked Mr. Dibrell for a favor in return?”

“Yes.”

“And what was that favor?”

“To fire me as his lawyer.”

“And did he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And how does that hurt you?”

“Tom was my biggest client. He paid my firm three million dollars in fees each year.”

“That’s a lot of money. So when Mr. Dibrell fired you, your professional career was harmed in a very significant way.”

“Yes, it was. But I’m here to tell Senator McCall, on national TV, that despite his efforts to destroy me, I will defend Ms. Jones to the best of my ability. And evidence about his son’s racism and rapes will be introduced at trial. Shawanda Jones will have a competent defense. I’ll make sure of that.”

The phone rang just as the program went to commercial again. Mack picked up the phone and answered. It was Delroy calling from Dallas. “You watching this?” Delroy asked.

“Yeah.”

“You still just want to control him?”

“Now I want to hurt him. Leak it about his wife and the golf pro.”

“Okay, but we can hurt him worse than that…and control him.”

“You mean…” Mack decided not to complete his thought with Jean present. But he didn’t need to with Delroy.

“Yeah, I mean. It worked with a Mexican drug lord. It’ll damn sure work with a lawyer.”

“I don’t know, Delroy, that sort of thing…”

Mack turned back to the TV. The reporter was speaking directly into the camera: “What kind of man would try to destroy a lawyer for doing his professional duty? For defending a black woman accused of murdering a white man? Apparently, Senator Mack McCall is that kind of man.”