businessmen changed the image but not the reality of Dallas.
'But you can. You can change that reality today. You can get rid of the liquor and give the people of South Dallas hope. Right here and right now, you have the power to change Dallas.
'Those liquor stores are grandfathered under the zoning ordinance, just as they were in downtown. The only way to get them out of South Dallas is to buy them out-at a cost of one hundred million dollars. The city leaders say they want to redevelop South Dallas, but they just can't afford that price tag. It's the economy, they say. Of course, the city can afford billions for a convention center hotel, for the basketball arena, for the Trinity River project, for everything North Dallas wants, but they can't afford to get rid of liquor stores in South Dallas.
'One million people live in Dallas. One hundred million dollars comes to one hundred dollars per person. That's all. One hundred dollars per person gets rid of every liquor store in South Dallas. One hundred dollars gets rid of the drunks and dealers and addicts and hookers and crack houses and crime. One hundred dollars frees the citizens of South Dallas from their prisons, allows them to remove the burglar bars from their homes and to rebuild their community. One hundred dollars rights this wrong. One hundred dollars, ladies and gentlemen. And you have the power to make it happen.'
Scott spread his arms out to the courtroom like a televangelist at his podium.
'This is where regular people like you have power. This is where people like you can change things. This is where real change in America happens, in courtrooms just like this all across the country, by juries just like you. Juries that stood up to the tobacco companies and the drug companies and Wall Street and even their own government. Juries that had the guts to do the right thing. Juries that changed America and made our lives better. Juries just like you.
'This is your chance to change Dallas.'
They didn't take the chance. An hour later-barely enough time for the jurors to go to the restroom, eat lunch, and take a single vote-the jury returned a nine-to-three verdict in favor of the City of Dallas. Nine whites versus three minorities. North Dallas versus South Dallas. Rich versus poor.
The story of Dallas.
Judge Buford dismissed the jury and motioned Scott back to his chambers then disappeared through a door behind the bench. Scott consoled the lead plaintiff, Mabel Johnson, a black woman who lived in South Dallas just east of the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard. She was a single mother. Her three young daughters walked to school past a half dozen liquor stores every morning and home every afternoon. She fought back tears.
'I'm sorry, Mr. Fenney.'
'No, I'm sorry, Mabel. I'm sorry I couldn't make life better for you and your kids. For all the kids down there.'
'Down there,' as if she lived in Mexico instead of just a mile south of where they now stood. She reached up and touched his cheek.
'You're still my hero, Mr. Fenney.'
'I lost.'
'You tried.'
Mabel embraced him then walked out of the courtroom. Scott sat on the plaintiff's table and stared at his shoes. He no longer represented the trophy clients of Dallas, rich people who bestowed social status on their lawyers; the mere mention of his clients' identities at bar association meetings typically evoked perplexed head shaking or muffled laughter from other lawyers. He no longer worked the margins of ethics and the law, that gray area where a lawyer's money is made; nor did he make much money. He no longer practiced law like he had played football. For one thing, he no longer viewed the law as sport; for another, he lost. A. Scott Fenney was not a man accustomed to defeat, either on the football field or in a courtroom. Two years before, in this very courtroom, he had experienced his greatest victory as a lawyer when the jury had returned a 'not guilty' verdict for Pajamae's mother. But the last two years had brought defeat into his life.
He had tried to make a difference. He had failed.
Another pair of shoes now entered his field of vision-brown wingtips-and Scott knew whose feet were in them before he heard the familiar voice.
'Hell of a closing argument, Scotty. Almost made me want to pay my hundred bucks. Almost.'
He raised his eyes to Dan Ford standing there. Dan was sixty-two, bald, and the senior partner at Ford Stevens, the two-hundred-fifty-lawyer Dallas firm that had previously employed A. Scott Fenney. Dan Ford was the man who had taught Scott everything he knew about practicing law, the man who had been Scott's father-figure for eleven years, the man who had single-handedly destroyed Scott's perfect life. He had come for closing arguments. A ten-lawyer team from Ford Stevens had represented the city. They had won. They would make millions. Which explained why Dan was smiling when he stuck his hand out to Scott. They shook, and Dan's expression turned to one of profound empathy.
'Scotty… you're trying to make the world a better place when you should be making money. You're wasting your talents, son. Come back to the firm. You can have your old office back.'
'I have an office.'
'Yeah, but your old office comes with a Ferrari, a Highland Park mansion, a country club membership, and a million-dollar paycheck.'
A million dollars. Funny, but Scott's first thought wasn't the Ferrari or the mansion and certainly not the country club where his wife had met the assistant golf pro. It was braces for Pajamae.
'Sid's driving my Ferrari and sitting in my office.'
'He won't be if you come back. Scotty, watching you today, it was like watching Secretariat in his prime pulling a tourist buggy. Made me sad, thinking of all the money you could be making. The hooker's case made you famous, you could be working the biggest cases in Texas. Instead, you're working for the little people, doing good instead of doing well. You take this case on a contingency?'
Lawyers his age at big firms like Ford Stevens billed $750 an hour-$12.50 every minute, almost twice the U.S. minimum hourly wage-and they billed in minimum six-minute increments: thirty seconds reading a letter or a one- minute phone call would cost the client a minimum charge of $75. But not Scott's clients. He no longer billed by the hour. He now worked on a contingency fee: one-third of whatever he won, if he won. Big-firm lawyers billed by the hour and won even when their clients lost. Scott Fenney won or lost with his clients. Today, they had both lost.
'A third of nothing is nothing, Scotty. We're going home with millions, you're going home with a hug from your client. That make you happy?'
'Why do you want me back? I lost.'
Dan dismissed that concern with a wave of his hand.
'Jesus Christ couldn't have won this case, not in Dallas. But you should've won. Come back to the firm and be a winner again.'
'For corporations.'
'Who pay.'
'I'm doing okay.'
'That's not what I hear. You're behind on your office rent, can't pay your staff… You deserve better than that.'
He once had better than that. At Ford Stevens, Scott had made $750,000 a year, with benefits. Now he made $100,000-in a good year. And this was not such a year. He had gone through every penny in his savings. He was broke.
'Look, Scotty, you can't take on these lost causes the rest of your life. How are you gonna take care of your girls, pay for their college, weddings…?'
Braces.
'You got life insurance?'
No.
'What if you die? Who's gonna raise those girls?'
He had named Bobby Herrin and Karen Douglas, his married law partners, as the girls' guardians in his will.
'Will they be able to afford two more kids?'
