Mark Gimenez: The Color of Law

“Nadine.”

Scott shook his head; he didn’t recall a Nadine.

“Brunette, tall, built? Jesus, Scott, she’s got hips like a boy!” He paused, and his eyes glazed over, as if reliving the moment. Then: “She’s threatening to sue, sexual harassment.” Tom held out a letter. “She’s got a fucking lawyer!”

Scott grabbed the paper; his eyes went straight to the letterhead: Franklin Turner, Esq., famous plaintiffs’ lawyer. Scott exhaled heavily. “Shit.” Twenty thousand lawyers in Dallas and she finds Frank Turner.

Scott skimmed the letter. Frank Turner was threatening to file a lawsuit against Dibrell Property Company and Thomas J. Dibrell individually on behalf of his client, Nadine Johnson, unless a financial settlement was reached within ten days.

Tom said, “Is Turner as tough as they say?”

“Yeah, he’s a real hard-ass.”

Scott said it with a grave tone, much as a doctor might say, Yes, you have cancer. It was always best to make the client sweat a little: a worried client will pay more fees with less bitching. So he put a frown on his face and stepped over to the bay window Tom had specially designed for his office just so he could enjoy a panoramic view of Dallas, so he could stand right there and gaze out on the city and breathe it in and think, God, what a depressing sight! Gray and dull, like you’re watching an old black-and-white TV. A concrete-and-steel landscape as far as the eye can see, all the way to the brown haze of pollution that perpetually rings the city above the loop, treeless and barren, the city’s master plan obvious-to pave over every square inch of green in the whole goddamned city. Which might explain Dallas’s ranking as the ugliest major city in America. Other than women, Dallas has no natural beauty whatsoever. No ocean or lake or water of any kind except the Trinity River running west of downtown, used for decades as a natural sewage system and today as a big drainage ditch. No Central Park, no Rocky Mountains, and no Miami Beach. No wonderful weather. Nothing other great cities have. All Dallas has is a white X on Elm Street marking the exact spot where an American president was killed. But then, you don’t live in Dallas for any of that; you live in Dallas to make a lot of money fast.

“Scott?”

Tom’s voice sounded like a child’s pleading. Scott turned to his very worried client.

“Tom, going up against Frank Turner, I’ll be lucky to hold this one to twice what the last one cost.”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t care, Scott. Pay two million if you have to, just take care of it. And keep it quiet, I don’t want to lose Babs over this. I really like her.”

Babs was wife number four.

“I’ll take care of it, Tom, just like I took care of the others.”

Tom looked like he was going to cry.

“I’ll never forget this, Scott. Never.”

Scott headed to the door, saying over his shoulder, “Just don’t forget it when I send you my bill.”

Scott maintained his serious expression past Marlene and back through the cowboy museum-he did give the receptionist a little wink-and into the elevator lobby. But once safely aboard and alone in the elevator, he broke into a broad grin and said to his image in the mirrored wall: “How can one man get himself into so many legal cracks? The guy’s fucking uncanny.”

In the privacy of an elevator or his thoughts, Scott Fenney regarded his rich client as all lawyers regard the rich clients who subsidize their lives: they’re creatures of lesser intelligence who, by the grace of God, have inherited, stolen, swindled, connived, cheated, or simply lucked their way into enormous wealth. So, to restore balance to the natural order, the lawyers are duty bound to relieve their clients of as much of their wealth as possible in legal fees.

A. Scott Fenney, Esq., had always done his duty with respect to Tom Dibrell.

Scott rode the elevator down to the Ford Stevens offices and then walked down the hall to the conference room on the sixty-second floor, past John Walker’s office where John’s secretary was boxing up his personal belongings and the next lawyer in line was already moving in. Scott was stepping smartly and snapping his fingers, wired on the greatest intoxicant known to man: success.

He threw open the double doors and entered the conference room, a considerable space currently occupied by a forty-foot-long cherrywood table, thirty chairs upholstered in deep brown leather, and a dozen male lawyers fighting over other people’s money like lions over raw meat. Today, these ravenous young lawyers were feasting on Dibrell Property Company’s $25 million purchase of fifty acres of land adjacent to the Trinity River on which Dibrell planned to build industrial warehouses. Three Ford Stevens lawyers were in the fray, fighting for Scott’s client at a combined hourly rate of $850. Scott stepped to the head of the long conference table.

“Gentlemen!”

The room fell silent and all eyes, ties, and suspenders turned to him.

“You guys haven’t closed this deal yet? What the hell’s the holdup?”

Sid Greenberg, a fifth-year associate at the firm whom Scott had put in charge of this Dibrell matter, said, “Scott, we’re still fighting over the environmental escrow.”

“That’s not resolved yet? It’s been what, two weeks?”

Sid said, “Scott, I don’t think we can resolve it.”

“Sid, there’s a solution to every legal problem. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is this, Scott: We know-but the government doesn’t-that there’s contamination on the land, lead from years ago when a battery plant operated there. And there’s some leaching into the river whenever it rains-a lot of leaching. So we’ve got to escrow part of the purchase price to cover the cleanup, in case the lead is discovered before Dibrell can pave over it. The problem is how much to escrow.”

“Hell, Sid, hire an environmental consultant. He’ll tell us how much to escrow.”

“We would’ve already done that, Scott, except the court ordered us to turn over all environmental reports to those stupid eco-nuts who filed suit to stop the deal.”

“Trinity River Allies in Litigation?”

“Yeah, TRAIL. They want the land used as some kind of nature park, where kids can go see a river habitat up close. All they’ll see is a bunch of dead fish and raw sewage. Shit, you even stick a toe in that water, you’ll get a disease. Anyway, we told the court that neither party had an environmental report. If we get one, we’ll have to give it to TRAIL and they’ll find out about the lead contamination and use it to stop the deal-the EPA will be all over that land the next day! But without a report, we don’t know how much to escrow. We want fifty percent of the purchase price escrowed; the seller wants five percent.”

Sid threw up his hands.

“We may have to tell Dibrell to call off the deal.”

Scott sighed. Years back he had made the mistake of telling Tom to call off a deal because of some legal nicety. Tom listened patiently to his new lawyer, and then said, “Scott, I’m not paying you to tell me what I can’t do. I’m paying you to tell me how I can do what I want to do. And if you can’t, I’ll find a smarter lawyer who can.”

Scott had learned his lesson well. He was not about to tell Tom Dibrell to call off a $25 million deal that would pay $500,000 in legal fees to Ford Stevens, and damn sure not over lead leaching into that cesspool called the Trinity River.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Ford Stevens will hire the environmental consultant. He’ll deliver his report only to me. Seller’s counsel can come to my office to read the report, but no copies will leave my office. That report will belong to Ford Stevens, not to Dibrell or the seller. That way, the report will be protected by the attorney-client privilege, and I can swear to the court that neither party has an environmental report subject to TRAIL’s subpoena. And no one will ever know about the lead leaching into the river.”