Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

His first known identity was as Butch’s son. Then, from the time his football skills became apparent, it was as a football player. And for the last eleven years it had been as Tom Dibrell’s lawyer. He had always had an identity. But who was Scott Fenney now? Just another lawyer without a rich client, no better than Bobby, whose best client was a Latino waiter?

For the first time in his life, he didn’t know who he was.

Scott was still in a state of shock when he returned to his office and found Bobby on the sofa and a certified letter on his desk. The name on the envelope-First Dallas Bank-barely registered in his mind. He used the letter opener to slice the top of the envelope with no more thought than if it were junk mail. He removed the letter, four pages of crisp bond paper, and unfolded and smoothed the pages flat on his desk. And he read. And as he did, a slow realization came over him: he was reading his own obituary.

The bank was calling the notes on the house and the cars. He had ten days to pay off $325,000 on the three automobiles and thirty days to pay off $2.8 million on the house. Failure to make timely payment would result in immediate repossession of the cars and foreclosure of the house. Scott Fenney would lose his mansion and the Ferrari.

His perfect life would be gone.

A sense of defeat tried to take hold in his mind, but Scott Fenney had never been defeated, even when he lost. Because when he lost, he did not accept it. Instead, he got mad. As he did now. His respiration accelerated, his jaws clenched, and anger energized his mind and body. He picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for the private number of Ted Sidwell, the bank president. Ted answered on the first ring.

“Ted, Scott Fenney. What the hell’s going on?”

“Demand notes, Scott. And we just made demand.”

“Why?”

“These loans were made to you as a favor, Scott. To get favors, you’ve got to give favors. That’s how the game’s played.”

“I see. McCall. Fine, I’ll refinance with another bank.”

Ted laughed. “In today’s market? And without Tom Dibrell as your client? I don’t think so.”

“News travels fast.”

“I knew before you did.”

“I’ll sell the damn place, it’s worth a million more than the debt.”

“Fire sale in thirty days? You’ll be lucky to get what you owe.”

“I’ll throw it into bankruptcy. I can hold you off for six months, maybe a year.”

“Also not likely. The bank holds a note on Judge Schneider’s home in Highland Park. He’s the bankruptcy judge. And he understands favors.”

Scott had run out of lawyerly rebuttals, so he fell back on the universal football retort: “Fuck you, Ted.”

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.

OVER THE COURSE of four seasons of Division I-A college football, playing against teams like Texas, Texas A amp;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.