James Grippando - Found money

“Knock, knock,” said Liz as she appeared in the doorway.

Jackson was sitting up in bed and conscious. He looked battered but better than expected. The right side of his face was swollen with purple and black bruises. A bandage covered eleven stitches above his right eyebrow. Painkillers and a glucose solution fed intravenously into his needle-pricked forearm. His dinner rested on a tray over his lap. It had hardly been touched. At his side was a yellow legal pad and a case file his secretary had brought from the office.

“Phil?” she said softly.

He waved her in and tried to smile, but the movement of any facial muscles seemed to cause him pain.

“You poor man.”

“Nothing a good dose of work can’t cure.”

“Don’t you ever stop?”

“Don’t complain. It’s your case I’m working on.”

She nearly shivered with gratitude. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that. I was so afraid you would drop my case.”

“Why would I do that?”

She shrugged impishly. “I spoke to your paralegal this afternoon about the phone conversation I had with Sarah Langford. Didn’t she tell you?”

“She told me everything. Honestly, I figured it was Brent long before you even called.”

“And you’re still sticking with me?”

He laid his legal pad aside and took her hand lightly, looking her straight in the eye. “Let me tell you something. I have deposed everybody from Teamsters to gangsters — and ripped them to shreds. I have had my tires slashed, my house vandalized, my life threatened. If I were easily intimidated I’d be sitting in an office at some big law firm doing bond work. I’m more committed to your case than ever. Nobody threatens Phil Jackson. Least of all a punk like Brent Langford.”

She squeezed his hand, then pulled away shyly.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “You can’t help yourself. All women find men with purple faces absolutely irresistible.”

“It is a very nice shade of purple.”

He smiled, then turned more serious. “You know, I’m not the only one who has to gear up for a fight. You need to brace yourself as well.”

She nodded tentatively. “I’ll do what I have to do.”

“Good. Because this is going to get nasty. And I don’t just mean Brent’s deposition. The whole Duffy family is going to feel the pressure. In fact, the FBI should be taking a pretty close look at them already.”

“The FBI?”

“One of my most satisfied former clients is now a special agent in the Denver field office. I called her this morning from the hospital and asked her to poke around a little. Brent’s attack is a federal offense — obstruction of justice. The FBI has much bigger fish to fry, but with a little friendly encouragement and factual embellishment, I think I piqued her interest. Ryan’s phony invoices at his clinic. Frank’s talk of all the money he was going to leave you. Brent’s statement that it was ‘family business.’ It probably won’t amount to anything, but it doesn’t hurt to have your husband squirming under the microscope of a possible federal racketeering investigation.”

She blinked nervously. “That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think?”

“Do you want to win or don’t you?”

“Yeah, I want to win. But-”

“No buts. Now do me a favor. Take this,” he said as he handed her a slip of paper. It had two phone numbers written on it.

“What’s this?”

“My secretary got a call today from the law office of Norman Klusmire. He’s your husband’s new divorce attorney. The top number is his beeper number. On your way home tonight, stop at a pay phone and dial his beeper. Be sure to use a pay phone so there’s absolutely no way of tracing the call back to you. Just enter the other number and hang up.”

“Whose number is it?”

“It’s the home phone number for the judge in your case. He’s a crusty old fart who goes ballistic whenever lawyers call him at home. He won’t even give Klusmire a chance to explain he was answering a bogus page. This is the kind of stupid little thing that’ll have Judge Novak riding his ass all the way to trial. It should teach a hotshot criminal lawyer like Klusmire to think twice before taking on another divorce case.”

“That’s too clever,” she said as she tucked the piece of paper into her purse.

“I can’t take full credit. I sort of stole the idea from one of my clients. Whenever she suspected her husband was off with his mistress, she used to beep him with their rabbi’s home phone number.”

“Do you always steal from your clients?”

“Sometimes.”

“What are you going to steal from me?” she asked coyly.

He raised an eyebrow till it hurt. “We’ll see.”

Amy had taken her daughter to Denver only a dozen times or so in her young life, and each time it seemed their destination was LoDo — short for lower downtown. It had two of Taylor’s favorite attractions: the world-renowned roller coaster at Elitch Garden Amusement Park and the Colorado Rockies professional baseball team at Coors Field. Of special moment that Wednesday night was “hat night” at the ballpark. The first ten thousand fans through the gate would receive a free baseball cap. Taylor was certain that fans would be coming from places as far away as Pluto for such a tempting giveaway. Mommy had to take her. On the heels of the break-in at their apartment, some time away from Boulder would do them both good.

Built of red brick and green steel, Coors Field was one of the league’s new breed of “baseball-only” stadiums that had the aura of an old ballpark. A natural grass playing field and intimate seating arrangement gave ball games the feeling they used to have, before domed stadiums and artificial turf became so popular. Even the nostalgia buffs, however, appreciated the modern touches, such as big-screen scoreboards, plenty of concession areas, and enough rest rooms to ensure that a second-inning trip with Taylor to the potty didn’t mean a return sometime after the seventh-inning stretch.

It was a cool summer evening, perfect for a ball game. They sat in the cheaper seats in right field. Taylor brought her baseball mitt to catch any long home runs. The free cap was several sizes too big and kept falling over her eyes, completely blocking her vision. Every twenty seconds it was “What’s happening now, Mommy?” Amy had to play radio announcer for the entire first inning until Taylor finally tired of the silliness and agreed to lose the hat.

By the sixth inning, Taylor’s eyes were getting heavy. She was starting to slump in her seat. Amy, too, had drifted away from the game. She was thinking of the conversation she’d had with Marilyn Gaslow. She could actually see Marilyn’s office from the stadium. The lights burned late on the forty-second floor. She wondered if Marilyn was still there. She wondered if Marilyn had spoken to anyone about their conversation.

She quickly shook away her doubts. Talking to Marilyn was like talking to Gram. Without the guilt.

Still, it was bothersome that Marilyn didn’t quite seem to believe her. Amy wasn’t sure which part of the story had been so difficult for Marilyn to swallow. Maybe she didn’t believe a word about the two hundred thousand dollars in the first place. Maybe she didn’t believe Amy had no connection to the dying old man who had sent it. Worse yet, she wondered if Marilyn had conveyed her own hidden sentiments when she’d warned that others might call her a whore.

Good thing she hadn’t mentioned that his son Ryan was a heartthrob. It would only have fueled Marilyn’s suspicions.

“Me tired,” said Taylor. She was half in her own seat, half in Amy’s lap.

Amy stroked her daughter’s forehead, then took her in her arms. “It’s time to go anyway.”