The Color of Law (22 page)

“What’s your offer?”

“Three million one hundred thousand.”

“No, I won’t take it personally, Jeffrey, because I won’t take it.”

Jeffrey smirked. “Come on, Scott, your life story’s been in the paper. Everyone knows you’ve got to sell. You can’t expect top dollar.”

Scott reached over to the entry table and picked up a big brown envelope that contained his final bill from the country club for the last month, during which Rebecca had run up over $4,000 in charges. Scott held the envelope up to Jeffrey.

“I’ve already got an offer for three-point-three million.”

Jeffrey’s smirk vanished. “You’re kidding?”

Scott put on his most sincere look and said, “Nope.”

Jeffrey glanced at Penny. She gave him that pouty face mastered by Highland Park girls by middle school, a face that walked a fine line between obnoxiously whiny and incredibly sexy, between making her man want to slap her into next week or rip her clothes off and ravage her. Penny was very good. And Scott knew Jeffrey would find the extra money to make Penny a happy Highland Park wife.

“Three million three hundred ten thousand.”

Scott smiled. “Jeffrey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of if you can’t afford this place.”

Scott had learned years ago, when he was the poor kid on the block, that you could insult a Highland Park boy’s mother, his sister, his girlfriend, his athletic ability, and even the size of his dick without getting a rise, but question his financial standing in the community, and the fight was on. Jeffrey’s face was getting redder by the second, and not just from Scott’s needling; Penny was squeezing his forearm like she was checking his blood pressure.

“Can’t afford? I can afford this place! Three million four!”

Jeffrey should’ve paid closer attention to Scott during those negotiations because the boy obviously hadn’t learned much. First rule of negotiating, don’t bring your ego to the bargaining table. Second rule, don’t bring your wife. Jeffrey had violated both rules; now he would pay dearly. Scott stuck his hand out.

“You just bought yourself a house.”

Jeffrey said, “I want the appliances, the window treatments, and the black man.”

“What?”

“The appliances—”

“You can have the appliances, Jeffrey. What do you mean, you want the black man?”

“Doesn’t he come with the house? He’s your help, right?”

“No, he’s my friend. And he doesn’t go with the house. Slavery ended a few years back, maybe you read about it.”

Jeffrey frowned, but Penny smiled and said, “I’ll have to measure for furniture, maybe Monday morning? Will you be available, Scott? I’d really like to come.”

“I can’t believe none of Clark’s other victims have come forward,” Scott said.

It was after dinner. The girls were upstairs, Scott and Bobby were sitting on the kitchen floor drinking a beer, and the trial was only two weeks away.

“They’re scared,” Bobby said. “They’ve seen what McCall did to you.”

“Our whole case rests on Hannah.”

“And my briefs,” Bobby said. “You read them yet?”

“Yeah. You’re a good writer, Bobby.”

“That’s the only thing about the law I really like doing.”

“Why do you stay in it?”

Bobby shrugged. “Too late to do something else. And debts—I can’t afford to quit. And, dumb as it sounds, I care about my clients, probably because no one else does.”

“You were always taking in stray dogs.”

“I was at that.”

“I remember that brown and white mutt, you called him Shitface. What ever happened to him?”

“Got run over by a delivery truck.”

“Ouch.”

“I liked that dog.” They sat in silence, and then Bobby said, “When this is over, maybe you should get out of Dallas.”

“McCall’s not running me out of town. I’m staying.”

“Good.” Bobby drank his beer, then said, “Let’s subpoena Dan Ford, make him give up the names of the six other girls he paid off for McCall.”

Scott shook his head. “No way he gives them up. And the judge won’t bust through the attorney-client privilege. I’ve hidden enough damaging evidence about my clients behind the privilege to know.”

“Then Hannah’s our only witness, other than Shawanda.”

“Did you tell Carl to check into Delroy Lund?”

“Oh, yeah. Way into Delroy.”

“What about the prosecution witnesses?”

“I got Ray’s list, shows how the trial’s gonna go.”

“And how’s that?”

“It’s a circumstantial case, most cases are. Ray’ll first put on the Dallas cops who found Clark’s car and called it in. Then he’ll put on the Highland Park cops who went over to the McCall mansion and found Clark. Next, the FBI agents who processed the crime scene and took the photos, which he’ll put up on the big screen. Then the Dallas County medical examiner will testify as to cause of death and time of death. And last up will be the crime lab guys who lifted Shawanda’s prints from the gun and the car, test-fired the gun, and matched the ballistics, and a forensics expert to give his opinion as to how the crime was committed. Scotty, by the time Ray’s through, the jury’s gonna believe she did it for sure.”

“And then we’ll put Shawanda on, a heroin-addicted hooker.”

“She has to testify, Scotty. Fifth Amendment sounds great, but juries expect an innocent person to take the oath, look them in the eye, and swear she’s innocent.”

“She looks like hell.”

“You would too, Scotty, if you were injecting Mexican black tar heroin three times a day.”

Four miles due south, Shawanda Jones withdrew the needle from her right arm, leaned back on her cot in her cell, and waited for the heroin to enter her bloodstream, travel to her brain, cross the blood-brain barrier, and bind itself to the opioid receptors on her brain’s nerve cells. When the heroin hit the receptors, it triggered a euphoric rush that swept over her slim body like an orgasm, only better. Then the rush dissolved and she drifted off into a peaceful little dream world.

She thought of her short life. She had turned her first trick at twelve. Unless you counted her uncle, who fingered her when she was six, then gave her fifty cents for a snow cone. She was using cocaine regularly at fourteen, pregnant at fifteen, and hooked on heroin at sixteen. Twelve years a prostitute, eight years a smack addict.

The only time she felt good about herself was times like this. When she was on the stuff, she felt like a little girl again, all happy and light and clean. She wasn’t poor or a white man’s whore. She was young again and didn’t know anything about drugs or hooking on Harry Hines or white men wanting black girls. She was just a happy little girl like Pajamae.

And thinking of her baby made her cry. She cried because she pictured her Pajamae shooting smack into her arm and lying down for money and never being loved for anything else. She wanted her baby to have better than she’d had. She wanted her to have a good life, marry a good man, and live in a good home. She wanted someone to love her Pajamae as much as she did. The only thing Shawanda Jones loved more in life than heroin was her daughter.

TWENTY-ONE

S
COTT
, L
OUIS,
and the girls arrived at the federal building at noon the next day, Saturday. Louis stayed outside in the car because of his outstanding issues with the Feds. Scott carried the big picnic basket inside, which the weekend security guard manning the metal detector checked thoroughly, as he always did. Now that Scott was no longer eating lunch at the Downtown Club, they had gotten into a regular habit of eating lunch with Shawanda at the federal lockup.

“Another picnic, Mr. Fenney?”

“Yep. How ’bout some fried chicken, Jerry?”

Jerry, an overweight white man about fifty, smiled and took a drumstick. They rode the elevator to the fifth floor and were met by the black guard.

“Ron,” Scott said. “Picnic time, buddy.”

Ron led them down the hallway to the same small conference room, but he seemed different today, silent and solemn. He had already moved the table and chairs to one corner. Boo and Pajamae spread the blanket on the cement floor and plopped down in their places. Ron left and returned shortly with Shawanda, who hugged Pajamae first and then Boo. She turned to Scott.

“Mr. Fenney, your woman leave you?”

“Yeah.”

“’Cause of me?”

“No, Shawanda, because of me.”

“We’ve got chicken, Mama, from the Colonel!” Pajamae said. “And potato salad and beans and rolls, the kind you like.”

Ron scratched his head and said, “Mr. Fenney, I, uh—”

“Ron, how many times I gotta tell you? It’s Scott. You can’t eat fried chicken with me and call me Mr. Fenney.”

“Scott, I’ve, uh…I’ve got to search everyone.”

“What?
Why?
”

“We searched Shawanda’s cell and found some, uh”—he glanced down at Pajamae—“some controlled substances.”

“You think I’m bringing it to her?”

Ron shook his head. “No, sir, not you.”

When the meaning of Ron’s statement finally registered with Scott, they both slowly turned to Pajamae. Scott said, “Pajamae, when we stopped by your apartment, did you get something for your mother?”

With Louis riding shotgun, Scott felt no fear returning to the projects. But the Jetta did not attract a crowd. The few residents who did notice them were actually friendly. One young boy asked, “Louis say you run for a hundred ninety-three yards against Texas—that true? A white boy?” When Scott assured him it was true, the boy said, “You the man.” He waved when they drove off.

Pajamae shrugged. “Just Mama’s medicine.”

“And where was it at?”

“In the medicine cabinet in the wall under the sink in the kitchen.”

“Please give it to me.”

She stuck her hand in her pocket and retrieved a plastic Baggie filled with a black substance. Scott handed it to Ron.

“Mexican black tar,” Ron said. He looked at Shawanda. “This stuff is eighty percent pure. It can kill you, girl!”

Shawanda lunged at Ron and snatched for the Baggie.

“Give it here!”

Scott grabbed Shawanda and held her until she gave up and slumped in his arms.

Ron said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fenney. I’ll leave now.” He opened the door, but stopped. “Shawanda, why don’t you let the judge put you in the prison hospital in Fort Worth? They’ll put you on methadone.”

Shawanda said nothing, so Ron left, shaking his head. Scott released Shawanda, and she dropped to the floor. He sat in one of the chairs and looked down at this young black woman.

“Why do you do it?”

Shawanda’s eyes came up. “’Cause it make me feel special.”

“You don’t need that. You are special.”

She laughed. “You sound like Louis. He always saying ‘Shawanda, you God’s special girl.’”

“He’s right.”

“No, he ain’t, Mr. Fenney. Nobody never give a damn ’bout Shawanda, not my daddy, not my mama, not no one.”

“Pajamae does.” He turned to her. “You love your mother, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Fenney, I love her very much.”

“So that’s me, Louis, Pajamae, Boo, Bobby…and Ron. Six people who think you’re special.”

“That sound real nice, Mr. Fenney, but if I get out, I don’t figure me and you gonna see much of each other.”

“Sure we are. Our daughters are best friends. They’re like sisters.”

She turned to Pajamae. “That right? Boo like your sister?”

“Yes, Mama.”

She turned to Boo. “Pajamae like your sister?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And she smiled the sweetest smile Scott had ever seen on her face. “That’s good.” She looked up at Scott. “Mr. Fenney, if I don’t get out of here or if they…well, you know…you promise me something?”

“Sure. What?”

“Take care of my Pajamae.”

Five weeks ago, when Scott had taken a little black girl home to Highland Park, his wife had asked him what he was going to do with her when her mother was convicted: Adopt her? Raise her as his daughter? Send her to Highland Park schools? He did not answer his wife that day because he wasn’t thinking of Pajamae that day; he was thinking only of himself, his fear of returning to the projects. But this day he answered.

“Yes, Shawanda, I promise.”

“It’s perfect!” Boo said.

They had looked at six houses, Scott and the girls, each cheaper than the prior one, until they walked into this tiny fifteen-hundred-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath cottage over by SMU with a backyard that had a rope swing and a pool the size of the master bathtub at 4000 Beverly Drive. It was priced at only $450,000, within Scott’s reduced financial reach, and it was in the Highland Park School District, so Boo wouldn’t have to start over at another elementary school.

“One bedroom for us,” Boo said, “and one for you. You can have the big bedroom.”

Pajamae ran into the backyard, and Scott said to Boo, “Honey, you understand, if her mother gets out of jail, Pajamae’s going back to live with her.”

Boo turned her green eyes up at him. “Well, we’ve been thinking.”

“I bet you have.”

“She doesn’t have a father and now I don’t have a mother, so we thought maybe you and her mother could get married or something.”

“
Married?
But she’s—”

“Only twenty-four, I know. But Pajamae said it’s okay for a man to marry a younger woman. She said they do it all the time in Hollywood.”

“But, Boo—I’m still married to your mother.”

Scott was running at 7.5 miles per hour up a ten-degree incline on a commercial treadmill. But he wasn’t at the athletic club in downtown Dallas; his mind was not clear, his spirits were not high, and his eyes were not firmly attached to the backside of a beautiful young woman running in front of him; there was no girl running on a treadmill behind him checking out his butt; he did not feel young and successful and virile—or special. He was running on the treadmill in the exercise room of his Highland Park house, which would be his for only two more weeks.

Their visit to Shawanda that morning had raised the same questions in his mind: Had he done the right thing? Had he made the right choice? Was saving Shawanda’s life worth sacrificing his perfect life? Was a heroin addict’s life worth his lawyer life? He couldn’t save her life, not with the evidence Ray Burns had against her. She would be convicted and sentenced to death or a long prison term. But he had already made the sacrifice; his life was already ruined. There was no quid pro quo, no something for something, to this bargain. He had given up his perfect life and would get nothing in return. And thinking about that brought the darkness back into his mind. So he did the only thing he knew to do when he was down: he exercised. Hard. Twice a day. Every day. He had begun working out as if he were getting in shape for another football season, running and weight lifting, torturing his body to ease his mind.

But working out made him think about football, and thinking about football made him think about the cheerleaders, and thinking about the cheerleaders made him think about Rebecca. He thought about their life together, the incredible sex, their vacations to Hawaii and San Francisco and London, and, of course, Boo. They had had eleven years together, and now she was gone. Had their marriage been a mistake from the beginning? Had she ever really loved him? Of course, it had never occurred to him that she might not have loved him because everyone—fans, coaches, cheerleaders—had always loved Scott Fenney.

He had so many questions, and no one to ask for answers. His mother would have said, “It’s God’s plan, and God has a reason, even if we don’t understand.” Butch would have said, “She’s a selfish bitch, running off like that.” The truth lay somewhere in between. But one truth he knew: if he hadn’t married Rebecca, there would be no Boo. And without Boo, there would be no life for Scott Fenney.

“What the hell was I supposed to do, kill him?”

“Jesus, Delroy, in the Highland Park Village?”

Delroy Lund was standing in the den of the McCall town house in Georgetown. The senator was standing at the window. He wasn’t happy to hear Delroy’s report about the incident with Fenney at the shopping center.

“I was just trying to send him a message, but Fenney went fuckin’ nuts…Oh, by the way, you bought a rental car.”

The senator dismissed that news with a wave of his hand. Delroy particularly appreciated that aspect of working for a guy worth $800 million: He didn’t blink an eye at an unexpected $35,000 expense. He just wanted results and screw the costs. Delroy Lund got results.

“Now he’s got a big black dude playing bodyguard. But I’ll try again if you want.”

“No, leave it alone. You and the black guy get together, someone will get killed. And that’s all I need, another murder connected to me. So Fenney’s wife left him?”

“Yeah, she ran off with the golf pro.”

The senator smiled for the first time that day. “Good.”

“Look, Senator, Fenney talked big on TV, but he ain’t got nothing to back it up. Those other girls, they’re not testifying. All they got is Hannah Steele.”

“She’s enough, goddamnit!”

The senator turned from the window and paced the room, talking like he was thinking out loud.

“Fifteen months until the election. If the hooker’s convicted, everyone will figure what Fenney said on TV was just the lies of a lawyer. It’ll all be forgotten a few months from now…The public’s got the attention span of a two-year-old. I can still get into the White House, Delroy, if she’s convicted. But if Hannah Steele walks into that courtroom and testifies that Clark beat and raped her…”

The senator started shaking his head.

“But, Senator, if she don’t testify, it’s just the word of a whore.”

The senator stared at Delroy a long moment.

“Delroy, go see if the fish are biting in Galveston.”

Scott Fenney hadn’t cried since his mother died. And the only time before that was when his father died. He didn’t cry when they drove his body into the ground, he didn’t cry when they broke his fingers or his ribs, he didn’t cry when they tore his knee ligaments. You don’t cry on a football field.

But Scott Fenney wasn’t on a football field now; he was in bed and he was crying.

His wife had left him for a golf pro. The final humiliation in a long list of humiliations, every detail of which had been duly reported in the local newspaper. All of Dallas knew about Scott Fenney’s fall from grace. A few weeks ago, he had had the perfect Highland Park family: a trophy wife and a smart daughter and an illegal Mexican maid and a fast Ferrari. Today his family consisted of a white girl with cornrows, a street-smart black girl, a jailed prostitute, a lawyer who advertised in the TV guide, and a six-foot-six, 330-pound black bodyguard who lived in the garage.

“A. Scott, you okay?”

Boo’s voice in the dark. Scott wiped his face on the bedsheet and said, “Yeah.”

She climbed up onto the bed. “It’s okay. I cry, too.”

Scott sat up and pulled his daughter close. He felt her little body sag slightly in his arms. He thought she was falling asleep, but she spoke quietly.

“I’ve always been different. Now I’m really different.”

“How so?”

“I’m the only kid I know without a cell phone
or
a mother. Pajamae says none of the kids she knows have dads, but they all have mothers. Rachel and Cary, they don’t have dads…well, they have dads, but they don’t live with them. They’re divorced. But they see their dads on weekends.” She was quiet again. Then she said, “I don’t think we’re gonna see Mother on weekends.”

Scott held her tightly.

“It’s just us now, baby.”

And they cried together.