I didn’t expect to see my name kicked about as a possible suspect, but I’m relieved nonetheless.
I’m in my office, trying to seem busy and wondering how in the world I’m supposed to generate a thousand dollars in fees over the next thirty days, when Bruiser barges in. He slides a piece of paper across my desk. I grab it.
“It’s a copy of a police report,” he growls, already heading for the door.
“About me?” I ask, horrified.
“Hell no! It’s an accident report. Car wreck last night at the corner of Airways and Shelby, just a few blocks from here. Maybe a drunk driver involved. Looks like he ran a red light.” He pauses and glares at me.
“Do we represent one of the—”
“Not yet! That’s what you’re for. Go get the case. Check it out. Sign it up. Investigate it. Looks like there might be some good injuries.”
I’m thoroughly confused, and he leaves me that way. The door slams and I can hear him growling his way down the hall.
The accident report is filled with information: names of drivers and passengers, addresses, telephone numbers, injuries, damage to vehicles, eyewitness accounts. There’s a diagram of how the cop thinks it happened, and another one showing how he found the vehicles. Both drivers were injured and taken to the hospital, and the one who ran the red light apparently had been drinking.
Interesting reading, but what do I do now? The wreck happened at ten minutes after ten last night, and Bruiser somehow got his grubby hands on it first thing this morning. I read it again, then stare at it for a long time.
A knock on the door jolts me from my confused state. “Come in,” I say.
It cracks slowly and a slight little man sticks his head through. “Rudy?” he says, his voice high and nervous.
“Yes, come in.”
He slides through the narrow gap and sort of sneaks to the chair across my desk. “I’m Deck Shifflet,” he says, sitting without offering a handshake or a smile. “Bruiser said you had a case you wanted to talk about.” He glances over his shoulder, as if someone may have entered the room behind him and is now listening.
“Nice to meet you,” I say. It’s hard to tell if Deck is forty or fifty. Most of his hair is gone, and the few remaining streaks are heavily oiled and slicked across his wide scalp. The patches around his ears are thin and mostly gray. He wears square, wire-rimmed glasses that are quite thick and dirty. It’s also difficult to tell if his head is extra large or his body is undersized, but the two don’t fit. His forehead is divided into two round halves that meet pretty much in the center, where a deep crease joins them then plummets to his nose.
Poor Deck is one of the most unattractive men I’ve ever seen. His face bears the ravages of teenage acne. His chin is virtually nonexistent. When he talks his nose wrinkles and his upper lip rises to reveal four large upper teeth, all the same size.
The collar of his double-pocketed and stained white shirt is frayed. The knot on his plain red knit tie is as big as my fist.
“Yes,” I say, trying not to look at the two huge eyes studying me from behind those glasses. “It’s an insurance case. Are you one of the associates here?”
The nose and lip crunch together. The teeth shine at me. “Sort of. Not really. You see, I’m not a lawyer, yet. Been to law school and all, but I haven’t passed the bar.”
Ah, a kindred spirit. “Oh, really,” I say. “When did you finish law school?”
“Five years ago. You see, I’m having a little trouble with the bar exam. I’ve sat for it six times.”
This is not something I want to hear. “Wow,” I mumble. I honestly didn’t know a person could take the bar that many times. “Sorry to hear it.”
“When do you take it?” he asks, glancing nervously around the room. He’s sitting on the edge of his chair as if he might need to bolt at any moment. The thumb and index finger of his right hand pull at the skin on the back of his left hand.
“July. Pretty rough, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty rough. I’d say. I haven’t taken it in a year. Don’t know if I’ll ever try again.”
“Where’d you go to law school?” I ask him this because he makes me very nervous. I’m not sure I want to talk about the Black case. How does he figure in? What’s his cut going to be?
“In California,” he says with the most violent facial twitch I’ve ever seen. Eyes open and close. Eyebrows dance. Lips flutter. “Night school. I was married at the time, working fifty hours a week. Didn’t have much time to study. Took five years to finish. Wife left me. Moved out here.” His words trail off as his sentences get shorter, and for a few seconds he leaves me hanging.
“Yeah, well, how long have you worked for Bruiser?”
“Almost three years. He treats me like the rest of the associates. I find the cases, work them up, give him his cut. Everybody’s happy. He usually asks me to review insurance cases when they come in. I worked for Pacific Mutual for eighteen years. Got sick of it. Went to law school.” The words fade again.
I watch and wait. “What happens if you have to go to court?”
He grins sheepishly like he’s such a joker. “Well, I’ve gone a few times myself, actually. Haven’t got caught yet. So many lawyers here, you know, it’s impossible to keep up with us. If we have a trial, I’ll get Bruiser to go. Maybe one of the other associates.”
“Bruiser said there were five lawyers in the firm.”
“Yeah. Me, Bruiser, Nicklass, Toxer and Ridge. I wouldn’t call it a firm, though. It’s every man for himself. You’ll learn. You find your own cases and clients, and you keep a third of the gross.”
I’m taken with his frankness, so I press. “Is it a good deal for the associates?”
“Depends on what you want,” he says, jerking around as if Bruiser might be listening. “There’s a lot of competition out there. Suits me fine because I can make forty thousand a year practicing law without a license. Don’t tell anyone, though.”
I wouldn’t dream of it.
“How do you fit in with me and my insurance case?” I ask.
“Oh that. Bruiser’ll pay me if there’s a settlement. I help him with his files, but I’m the only one he’ll trust. No one else here is allowed to touch his files. He’s fired lawyers before who tried to butt in. Me, I’m harmless. I have to stay here, at least until I pass the bar exam.”
“What are the other lawyers like?”
“Okay. They come and go. He doesn’t hire the top graduates, you know. He gets young guys off the streets. They work for a year or two, develop some clients and contacts, then they open their own shop. Lawyers are always moving.” Tell me about it.
“Can I ask you something?” I say against my better judgment.
“Sure.”
I hand the accident report to him, and he skims it quickly. “Bruiser gave it to you, right?”
“Yeah, just a few minutes ago. What does he expect me to do?”
“Get the case. Find the guy who got run over, sign him up with the law firm of J. Lyman Stone, then put the case together.”
“How do I find him?”
“Well, looks like he’s in the hospital. That’s usually the best place to find them.”
“You go to the hospitals?”
“Sure. I go all the time. You see, Bruiser has some contacts at Main Precinct. Some very good contacts, guys he grew up with. They feed him these accident reports almost every morning. He’ll dole them out around the office, and he expects us to go get the cases. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist.”
“Which hospital?”
His saucerlike eyes roll and he shakes his head in disgust. “What’d they teach you in law school?”
“Not much, but they certainly didn’t teach us how to chase ambulances.”
“Then you’d better learn quick. If not, you’ll starve. Look, you see this home phone number here for the injured driver. You simply call the number, tell whoever answers that you’re with Memphis Fire Department Rescue Division, or something like that, and you need to speak to the injured driver, whatever his name is. He can’t come to the phone because he’s in the hospital, right? Which hospital? You need it for your computer. They’ll tell you. Works every time. Use your imagination. People are gullible.”