“Are you at the office?”
“Came in to check the facts, see if my mind was playing tricks from lack of sleep. It wasn’t.” There came the sound of rustling papers. “The first woman refused a court-appointed attorney, she wanted to make sure she had a chance to tell her story in court. She accused the landlord of soliciting sexual favors in exchange for rent.”
“Nothing new there.” Tenants facing eviction were a clan that shared information and tactics. Nothing frightened most landlords like the prospect of public shame.
“Their details match to a surprising degree. Both mothers are black and in their late teens. Both claim they were offered nice apartments for half the going rate. Both say once they were settled in, the landlord propositioned them.”
Marcus recalled the first time he had tried a case in Judge Rachel Sears’ courtroom. The woman had become a mother only six months prior to being elected to the bench and was still fighting the postbirth weight battle. The robes had left her looking both dumpy and frail. Then she had seated herself upon the dais, and the skin of her face had pulled back so taut that her lips had almost disappeared, as though she was consciously shedding every vestige of laxity. From mother and friend to wielder of power.
“I continued the case over to this morning. I also obtained the names and addresses of three other women who this defendant claims had the same thing happen to them.”
A robin took roost just outside his open window, and mocked the dawn’s treachery with song. “You want me to obtain affidavits and confront the landlord in open court.”
“The young lady gave her previous address as your side of Rocky Mount. I arranged for a shelter to take her and the children last night. But she needs someplace semipermanent.” Judge Sears read out the names and addresses. “Marcus, do I have to tell you anything more?”
“This phone call never happened,” Marcus confirmed.
He disconnected, took another breath, and dialed Deacon Wilbur’s number from memory. As he listened to it ring, his mind wandered back to his waking thought, and the fear that Kirsten’s call would be to say she was leaving him for good.
He and Deacon collected the young woman and her babies, spoke with two of the other women, then headed downtown. By the time they arrived on the Wake County courthouse’s third floor, the babies were squirming and cranky.
Her records claimed Yolanda was nineteen. The elder of Yolanda’s two children, a boy, was almost two and looked huge in her arms. The daughter was about six months old and far lighter in skin tone than her brother. Yolanda crossed the foyer with the blank-faced sullenness of one who was well used to living without hope.
Marcus staked out the stairway while Deacon stood sentry before the elevators. Deacon Wilbur was a retired black pastor who revealed his seventy-plus years in the gaunt caverns at his temples. Deacon had never studied much besides the Bible; his formal schooling had ended at nine when his sharecropper daddy had ordered the boy to join him in the fields.
There had been a period in Marcus’ life, separated from the present by a mere knife’s blade of time, when sorrow had been both crippling and constant. As he drove back from a weekend on Figure Eight Island, his car had been struck by a truck and his two children killed. His wife had used their subsequent divorce to brand him with further public shame. When Marcus had finally begun emerging from his own dark pit, Deacon Wilbur had been there to shed light upon what Marcus had almost decided was a hopeless and intolerable climb.
The older child started mewling again. Deacon turned to Yolanda and spoke softly. She snapped from her internal funk long enough to hand him the boy. Deacon held the child with a grandfather’s experience, bouncing him slightly on his hip, and paying the fretful sounds no mind whatsoever.
Hamper Caisse emerged from the stairwell so deep in conversation with his client that he almost collided with Marcus before he saw him. “Marcus, why don’t you go find some other place to park your sorry carcass.”
“I have some affidavits you may want to see.”
“Don’t go waving your papers in my face. You want to see me about something, you come to my office.”
“These affidavits relate to a case you’re trying this morning.” The man seeking to hide behind Hamper was a caramel doughboy and minus a neck. “Would you happen to be Mr. Duane Dean?”
“Don’t say a word to this man.”
Yolanda spotted them and emitted a terrified wail. The babies caught wind of their momma’s distress, and began caterwauling.
“Mr. Dean, I am about to present evidence before Judge Sears that you have made a practice of extorting sexual favors in lieu of rent, then falsely impounding your tenants’ property.”
“Back off, Marcus, while you still got use of your legs.”
“I would imagine that Judge Sears will be issuing a warrant for your arrest.” Marcus offered Duane Dean the affidavits. “Your situation would be vastly improved by seeing to this matter immediately and permitting this woman to return to her apartment.”
Hamper slapped the papers from Marcus’ grasp. “You’re way out of line here, counselor!”
Deacon set down the child and swooped in to confront the landlord. “How can you do this to one of your own kind? You been going around preying on our children, taking them like you would a nice piece of meat.” The pastor was a scrawny bundle of rage and time-blackened iron. “Don’t you be shaking your head at me, I know what I’m seeing. I know!”
“Who is this nutcase?” Hamper moved to block Deacon’s inexorable approach. “Get him away from my client or I’ll have him arrested!”
Deacon shunted Hamper Caisse aside as though the attorney held less substance than a shadow. He pressed Duane Dean tightly against the scarred cinder block wall. “How old are you, sir? Forty-five? Fifty-five? You know how old this child is? What is your problem? You think you’re gonna come into my town, take advantage of my flock? I got some news for you, sir. I’ll tear your house down with my two bare hands!”
“Threats!” Hamper was playing to the theater now, waving his arms enough to make his tie dance like a silk snake. “Y’all hear that? He’s threatening my client with bodily harm!”
“I’ll expose you to the newspapers! I’ll talk to my friends in the police and the sheriff’s office. This might be Carolina, sir, but it’s a new day. Yessir, a new millennium. We got us some friends now, and we’ll turn every one of them against the likes of you. You hear what I’m saying? We’ll hunt you down where you live!”
Duane Dean emitted a rodent’s squeak, clawed his way around Deacon, and fled down the staircase.
“Duane, hold up now, we’re due in court!”
Deacon turned on the lawyer. “I’ve got something to say to you, sir.”
Hamper Caisse had the haggard features of a dedicated chain-smoker and the pale eyes of a luminous ghost. His voice held the rough hoarseness of one who lived for theatrics. Everything about him-vision, direction, dress, motion-was disjointed and awkward. He did not seem to connect with anything fully, not even himself, until he entered a courtroom. Before the bar, Hamper Caisse came into his own. He roared, he laughed, he juggled the jury’s emotions. Then he departed, untouched by all but the thrill of trying another case. He was said to have a wife and children, but he took no social engagements and was always seen alone. His paperwork was abysmal, his memory shoddy, his morals absent. He took everything that came his way, from traffic violations to rape. He would defend anyone. He reassured even the most pathological sadist by the utter absence of questions in his gaze.
Hamper tried for indignation, but it flickered and died in the face of Deacon’s rage. “You just keep your distance!”
“You might think you have the right to do whatever you want with my people.” Deacon’s voice would not have carried far, save for the fact that the third-floor lobby now held its breath. “The book learning and the power you think you got makes anything you feel like doing just fine, don’t it. Tell me I’m not talking the truth.”