Cafe Underground Presents
River Of Lawyers
Book 1 -- Chapters 8
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
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Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 8
Once back in the office, Andi bit nervously at her lip, tried to focus on her files and fumed at her wasted morning and ineptitude. Suddenly it seemed a glaring mistake that she hadn't investigated Chang-Turner--she'd seemed so much just a secretary it had been difficult to see her as a player.
Andi didn't even know her home address. She ground her teeth, angry at herself for the lapse. She should have checked her out after that first meeting with Lively and definitely after their telephone conversation about her. What had she been thinking?
She started with the telephone book. No listing--no surprise. Andi tapped the eraser of her pencil on the desk top, battling her reservations--then she broke down and dialed Lively.
"Your boy want more files already?" Lively's smirk dripped through the phone line.
"Haven't heard...thought you might tell me some more about Chang-Turner. Like where she lives, family, personal life..." Andi tried to sound off-hand and conversational.
"Tightening the noose, huh? I'm glad to be of help. She lives in one of the luxury condos in the Change Building. Bought it while I worked at Templeton, Morse and Bryant...she tried to keep it quiet, but the rumor mill was humming."
"I can imagine." Andi knew the building. The coach of the Blazers had a million dollar apartment there--and some of the players. No doubt it had a view priced well beyond the range of a secretary.
"She lives with her husband and his mother--no kids. He's an investment banker. He could afford it if you're thinking what I think you are...does high tech investments..."
The phone hung quiet for a moment. Ibbe was a high tech vulture capitalist too? It seemed a natural match, networking marriage between piranhas so to speak. Andi made a note to ask around.
"Do you know the apartment number or floor?" Andi asked.
"Not a Chance...the place is security mad. Two uniforms in the lobby and walkers upstairs...elevator's with keys and remote control from the security desk."
"Know her husband's name?"
"Stanley Turner...I can't remember his investment house."
"Any dirt...?"
"Squeaky clean, both of them...I checked myself. They both work obsessively, never vacation. A co-worker once saw them at the Brasserie Montmontre eating dinner--once."
"Rumors of anything kinky?"
"...as a leather queen, but she works her fantasies out in the office. Her thrills come from swinging the whip of a petty dictator. I can't imagine her in a bedroom." Lively offered a auditory shudder.
Andi could, but wouldn't want to be there with her. "...you got any idea why Drexler at Brian-Core so security conscious?"
"Some people are that way..." Lively didn't seem too concerned. "Maybe he's a foreign spy or is making nerve gas or raping babies...or maybe he's just having an affair and is afraid his wife will find out. What does it matter?"
"Don't you think he's paranoid and secretive?"
"Doesn't he have the right to be?" Lively countered. "It's the only defense against living in a goldfish bowl."
Andi thought about that for a moment. "Thanks for the help...I'll call when I hear anything."
"Don't mention it..."
She picked up another file, but her thoughts strayed to Ramone Bodega--worldly, calm, competent, productive, intelligent--sexy, if one liked that sort of thing. The Japanese Gardens had been a nice touch. She reached for her calendar to jot a reminder to phone. He undoubtedly had more to offer.
The report pulled together. Betraying clients and double crossing colleagues seemed a recipe for murder, but she had to pass on the misgivings without appearing to bite the hand that fed her.
She rewrote sections on Bryant's suspected blackmail and Lively's suspicion of Chang-Turner. Morse's complicity was central, but lay beyond what she dared report. With Bryant's disappearance, fraud and blackmail, Morse lurked at the center of a web littered by old flies, but no sense telling him that.
Her time was getting booked solid and there were still piles of loose ends un-traced. She had to phone Morse to clear the time Lena would spend on the software developers. Unfair deals amounting to legal theft were business as usual, but stealing people's dreams could push them to desperation. The question was--did Bryant negotiate the contracts and so place himself in the line of fire, or did he work behind the scenes?
Andi stretched and looked at her watch. Almost twelve thirty. Good grief--she'd worked since early morning without a break. Lena still talked quietly on the phone, her back to her, scratching out notes in long hand with a pencil.
Andi looked out the window--it was raining again. A new front swept down from the Bering Straits, driving the cold before it. She looked across at the coffee maker--it still stood empty from yesterday. She hadn't even made coffee when she came in this morning.
She frowned--this devotion to work was undoubtedly neurotic and unhealthy.
Lena finished her phone call and looked over her shoulder. "Boy do I have stuff for you," She sounded triumphant. "I was wondering when you'd come up for air."
Andi looked over at the coffee machine. "No coffee... sorry...why don't we go get a mocha. You can tell me all about it." She stretched a kink out of her lower back. "Cup and Saucer..?"
Lena shrugged. "It's a can of worms..." She was up and struggling into her coat in a single movement.
Andi locked the door and listened.
"Our boy Bryant had his finger in some nasty pies...by the way we need to get another telephone line...bad stuff...with Drexler it was real estate fraud--not that I'm a lawyer or anything, but this supposedly contaminated property has to be unloaded dirt cheap, and an offer is accepted...an environmental clean-up company--another client of Bryant by the way--supposedly did over a hundred-grand worth of cleanup allowing a property to be sold...only it seems no work was done and the company just flat-out disappears...strange enough...then another engineer comes in and claims there was no contamination...so the property's clean, worth a mint, and goes on the market again."
Andi rolled her eyes and held the door of the restaurant open.
"The biggest surprise was the other lawyer involved..." Lena looked up triumphantly.
"Let me guess...it's Sandra Ibbe." Andi struggled to keep a dead-pan expression.
"What...! How'd you know?"
"Elementary my dear Watson...she's the sleazeball real estate lawyer with close ties to Bryant." Andi gave her a little bow.
"Oh..." Lena took a breath and continued. "Anyway the three of them played things whichever way would hustle a buck...no surprise somebody bumped him off...I heard lots of threats of lawsuits in my hours on the phone..."
Andi just nodded and smiled. It was fine putting her mind on hold and letting Lena burble on.
They sat at a table near the front window and ordered almond mochas.
"Seems Bryant was universally disliked and distrusted by everybody--client or adversary. Nobody said anything more positive than "effective."
Maybe that wasn't unusual, Andi thought cynically, Chang-Turner said he was a "hired gun." She sipped the mocha and looked out the window as Lena continued on.
Lena's stuff had to go in this week's report. Morse should know if he didn't already. Real estate fraud with Drexler? Property scams with Ibbe. Maybe something more than Bryant's extortion schemes bridged the gap between them.
They lingered over coffee long enough to decide that it was lunch and they could split an ortega chili and chicken breast sandwich.
Once the food came Andi didn't feel like talking business. Lena didn't volunteer anything personal and Andi didn't ask.
Back in the office Andi phoned Morse and left a voice mail that she was assigning support personnel to background research. Let him ask for an explanation or object if he wanted; their bases were covered. She searched among her papers for Bodega's number and punched it in.
"Ramone Bodega." the voice responded in a pleasant monotone.
Andi felt herself relax and smile. "Hi, it's Andi Wicksham, phoning back after yesterday's talk." She leaned back in her chair and flexed her ankles.
"Ms. Wicksham...of course. Did you make your next appointment? I really should have been more conscious of the time..." The guy was charming.
"Well, actually Mr. Bodega..." her appointment with Lively wasn't any of his affair, even whether she made it to the meeting.
"Ramone...if its convenient, I'm really more comfortable with it." he inserted.
"...Ramone...I was wondering if we could continue our discussion. It seemed to touch on some interesting issues...central to this investigation." She suddenly felt awkward, as if she was manufacturing an excuse to see him. It was silly--Bodega was a principal source all-but set up by Morse...she'd be remiss if she didn't make time to talk.
"Of course..." He paused.
She could sense him reaching for his calendar as she reached across the desk for her own.
"This afternoon is booked except for the next hour, but I couldn't get anywhere and back..."
Andi visualized him turning his calendar's pages. "We could talk over the phone now..." she offered.
"No...I don't think that is a good idea." He calmly, but firmly dismissed the idea. "...let's see, this afternoon's jammed...except for this weekend...we have to wait until Monday afternoon..."
"What time this weekend?" Andi blurted before she thought. Damn, she grimaced in frustration. It would break the promise to keep weekends free from work.
"Well...tomorrow noonish is possible...maybe Sunday afternoon?"
"Tomorrow will be fine." Andi stated assertively. "You want to name a time and place?"
"One o'clock, Mount Tabor...do you know the basketball hoops by the old crater?"
"...my stomping grounds.." Andi admitted smugly. "One o'clock..."
"My turn to bring a snack...do you mind if I bring my dog?"
"Sure, why not?" The call was certainly warmer than the ones they'd had before. They exchanged pleasant "Goodbye's" and hung up.
Andi smiled and jotted the note in her book, then looked up to find Lena grinning.
"What...what are you looking at?" Andi protested defensively.
Lena smirked. "Nothing, nothing at all...you did say you were a lesbian didn't you?"
Andi threw her pencil at her. "This is business. He's a contact set up by Morse...what do you want me to do, ignore half Portland's population?"
"I understand..." Lena said lowering her eyes and turning back around. "Many people have these lapses..."
"Lena...this is business!"
"I understand..." Lena put her hands in the air and turned away.
Andi was trapped--the more she denied, the guiltier she sounded. She shot daggers at the back of Lena's ears, snorted at the injustice of it all and turned back to her report.
It took another hour and a half to polish it, check the spelling and copy it to a disk. Lena volunteered to print it out and prepare it for mailing, then dropped another pile of billings on her desk for her to put her personal scrawl upon.
Andi picked up her pen and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that the rest of the day would be this way. And she hadn't touched the piles she was working on when the Bryant case appeared. She'd have to set Lena loose on them.
Lena got up and went to the file cabinet. "Want to get another phone line?" asked as she pulled out a drawer.
"Fine, I guess we'll need it...what will it..." Andi didn't look up from her notebook.
"I already checked. It's another twenty two dollars a month, plus thirty six to hook up and maybe something to run the wire inside."
"Call Bobby..." Andi said absentmindedly.
"...Bobby...?" Lena's expression had been chosen to convey that she wasn't a mind-reader.
"...landlord, remember...Bobby Soxx..uh, Magnolia. He's under the B's in the phone cards. He'll run the wire in from the outside box."
"You file phone numbers under first names?"
"Hey...it's worked up until now. Cut me some slack...this was a nice quiet dysfunctional nest before you came." Andi stuck out her tongue and smirked. "You know, therapy might help you...what sign are you anyway?"
"Gemini with Virgo rising..." Lena said proudly.
"Figures..." Andi snorted. "...lists...organization..."
"You private sleuths are hard cases, you know that?" retorted Lena as she returned to her table.
"...linear thinking, plodding, peculiar people..." continued Andi.
"...hard, sloppy cases...and it's deliberate not plodding for me please." added Lena with a toss of her head.
"I can live with that." Andi quipped, she finished the first pile of bills and exchanged it for another.
That afternoon they set up a generalized format for listing names and phone number and a log of billable time to replace the rambling narratives Andi had always used for billing in her reports. She'd always rationalized them as "personalized," but they would be a thing of the past--paved like verdant wetland under Lena's bulldozer of progress. "It's for the best," Andi repeated to herself--chipmunk burgers ala progress.
It was decided. Lena would go through the pending files and get routine stuff entered so Andi only had to expand and tie it all together with explanations, advice and excuses. They dug through the old cases, relegating them to piles to be processed. Andi found herself not giving a whit about cases she'd been passionate about the month before--now all she wanted was clear her desk.
"Oh, Andi...pay day was a few days ago..." Lena pointed at the time sheet pinned on the bulletin board.
"Damn..." Andi looked at her watch. "...cash?" she confirmed in a resigned voice.
"Cash...I wanted you to have a pile of checks on your desk."
"Well, OK." Andi grumbled, pulling on her coat and stomping to the door. "The cash machine beckons..."
"Oh and we need more file folders pronto." Lena added.
"Fine..." Andi mumbled grumpily as the door swung closed. She smiled to herself and gave a little skip once through the door--she'd gotten out just in time. Given another moment Lena could have come up with another three or four things to do.
Andi mulled over the way Ramirez grilled her the night before as she walked. She got madder and madder the more she thought about it. Her fingerprints at Bryant's house was a flimsy excuse, especially seeing how she'd been hired by Bryant's business partner to investigate his disappearance and that it was he who arranged to get her in.
There must be a lot of heat coming from the upper brass to get the troops so riled. Ramirez still had a lot of nerve.
She waited as the man before her finished his transaction.
And Morse. What could Morse gain by stirring this whole matter up? Seemed he was risking having his own skeletons uncovered--unless he felt invulnerable.
Andi grinned--that illusion brought many a power broker to his knees. Andi punched in her PIN number and waited.
She'd go over everything one more time. Maybe there was something in the new material from Lively. Maybe there were clues undiscovered in tea leaves--she hoped so, she didn't think she could stomach chicken entrails.
Counting Lena's money into her hand left a good feeling. It was satisfying; a job well done, honest wage for honest work--fulfilling enough to be addictive. Whether she could continue to afford the luxury of an office manager was doubtful, but she'd cross that bridge another day. This week was courtesy of Lionel Morse--why not enjoy it?
Lena tucked away her money and said, "I checked up on that list of software developers from Noris-SDI...every single one of them felt ripped off and scammed." She stood there as if there was more.
"And..?" asked Andi.
"Well, it's up to you...but I'd like to send copies of the list to everyone on it." Lena looked up quizzically, head cocked to a side, waiting for comment.
"Why not...but no return address back to us..." It was justice on some karmic level.
"The folks are pissed. I'm talking `as wet hens'... most remembered both Bryant and Ibbe during negotiations. Bad karma. Bad!" She shook her head and gave an exaggerated shiver of disgust.
Andi favored her with a tired stare.
Lena continued. "The report on All American from Light seems legit. I'm no expert, but anything that dry and straightforward seems an academic work for internal consumption...that is what he billed it as."
"Send it off with the report to Morse..." Andi shrugged.
"Yeah, I already burnt us a copy for the files. Morse's report is on the copier--the pages you got from Lively are attached. And I took the liberty of doing a cover letter...hope that's OK...it's all there with the envelope." Lena stood jutting one hip out, counting the points off on her fingers.
"Are you bionic?" Andi asked, peering at her suspiciously. "How do you do all that stuff so easy?"
"Easy, my mama's dump truck...I'm just efficient and don't waste my time on the things you're doing. It's hard work ...and don't you forget it when it comes to negotiate my benefits package."
"OK..." Andi could think of nothing to retort. Benefits package? She didn't get benefits herself. Andi retrieved the report from the copier and sat back down. It was perfect, even offset a half-inch so the staples wouldn't pinch off the left hand margin. The cover letter was terse and professional and waiting her signature. She signed and set it aside after making a note to phone Morse--considering its content maybe he'd want it delivered.
Lena was still standing. "On those `Bryant' pages you got from Chang-Turner...the final one on Morse is certainly a different style. On the others..." Lena swept up a note from her table. "...there were indeed property transactions corresponding to the properties...the toxic spills mentioned did seem to have happened. The dates seem to follow...all that level of stuff is in order as far as I could check on the phone..." she looked up with a puzzled look.
"And...?" Andi waited.
"And...it's all old hat stuff that's part of the public record...certainly not nasty skeletons that would threaten anyone. Anybody who was into this stuff would know it all already...so why write it out as an expose only to hide it?" Lena threw her notes down on the table in disgust. "Bet your booties it wasn't Bryant."
Why indeed? Andi pulled on her ear lobe and pondered the question. "Any guess on the author?" she asked hopefully.
"Morse or Chang-Turner are on of top my list." Lena replied with dry sarcasm.
"Yeah? Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" retorted Andi. She'd gotten exactly nowhere on that question since getting the papers. She looked at her watch. "Time to call it a day...what you doing tonight?"
"JC and I were supposed to have a serious discussion about our relationship...if he's home to talk...he's playing tomorrow and Saturday and practicing Sunday. I might be giving serious thought to the single life." Lena grabbed her coat off the chair and stood looking hopeless.
Andi wanted to hug her, but didn't trust that it would be all right. "Give me a call if you want to talk...we can get a coffee or beer or something..."
They waited awkwardly, neither of them speaking, looking at each other and looking away and looking at each other again.
"Sure you're all right?" asked Andi gently.
"Sure...as good as I can be right now..." mumbled Lena. "I'll see you tomorrow..." She turned away and left without another word.
Andi sat feeling empty, wishing she'd said or done something different. She looked down her list of unmade phone calls, but didn't care enough to make them.
The things she hadn't gotten to this afternoon would have to wait until morning. She went around doing her clean-up, took out the trash and turned down the heat. Then checked the window and turned off the lights. Lena was a big girl--she'd have to sort it out herself.
Andi had her own problems over the affairs of the heart. Good advice was beyond her. All she could offer was friendship--and that was muddied by desire.
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Copyright © 1997 RL BELL.
Last Updated 5/22/97
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