off) and find fives and tens and every now and then a twenty on the floor with a note clipped to each so he could credit the correct client.
It was not the life he had dreamed of in law school.
The phone rang. If experience was any indication, Bobby Herrin would soon be driving over to the county jail to bail out one of his regulars. He reached for the phone.
SEVEN
Bobby Herrin felt like a lawyer in an out-of-town courtroom.
He was standing in the lobby of the Downtown Club, located on the top floor of Dibrell Tower and hands- down the swankiest eating place in downtown, and watching the richest men in Dallas arrive for lunch, trailed by their lawyers like a rapper’s entourage. These were lawyers who owned the biggest law firms in town, who billed three, four, maybe five hundred dollars an hour-Bobby made $500 on a good week — and who wore wool suits, starched shirts, silk ties, and shoes shined by the black shoe guy downstairs. Everything Bobby was wearing had been purchased years ago off the sale racks and was made of polyester, except his shoes, which hadn’t been shined in months. He rubbed his right shoe against the back of his left trouser leg and repeated the attempt to bring something resembling a shine with the other shoe.
“Bobby!”
He turned and was greeted by the brightest smile on the most handsome face imaginable, the face of the friend he had once cheered and admired and envied and followed like a rock star’s groupie-and loved like a brother. Scotty Fenney. Bobby hadn’t seen Scotty in eleven years, and now he had to resist the urge to embrace his former best friend. They shook hands.
“Glad you could make it,” Scotty said. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you, buddy?”
Bobby shook his head. But, in fact, he had. He’d arrived fifteen minutes ago, parked in the underground garage, and rode the express elevator right to the top. Which reminded him. He pulled his parking ticket from his shirt pocket.
“They validate?”
If not, the ten-dollar parking fee would damn near bankrupt Bobby that day. But Scotty didn’t answer; he was looking Bobby up and down as if trying to come up with a compliment for his wardrobe. He finally gave up and slapped Bobby on the shoulder.
“C’mon, let’s eat.”
Scotty led the way to the maitre d’s station, down a short corridor. One wall was a gallery of framed portraits of the club’s founders and board of directors, past and present, a regular Who’s Who of Dallas.
“Ah, Mr. Fenney, a pleasure to see you today,” a middle-aged Hispanic man said with a practiced smile, as if seeing Scotty was the highlight of his day. He was trim, his hair was parted neatly and slicked over, and his face was smooth and brown, clean-shaven with a pencil mustache. The scent of aftershave hovered over him. He was dressed in a dark suit, dark tie, and white shirt. He could be the local Latino undertaker. He tucked two menus bound in leather under his arm. “Two for lunch, sir?”
“Yes, Roberto.”
Bobby followed Roberto and Scotty through the entryway and into a dining room illuminated by fancy chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling windows and filled with dark wood paneling, dark wood columns, and dark wood tables covered with white tablecloths. Young brown men in white waistcoats and black bow ties served old white men. Roberto snapped his fingers at his underlings and gestured at glasses that needed to be filled and plates removed. The alluring aroma of grilled steaks, fresh fried shrimp, and charbroiled fish and the symphony of silver utensils against crystal and china joined together to remind Bobby of what might have been had his life taken a different turn here or there. He usually had lunch at the barbecue joint down the block where you ate at picnic tables on paper plates with plastic utensils.
While Bobby felt like Ralph Nader at a chamber of commerce meeting, Scotty strode through the dining room like the star halfback onto a football field, greeting and shaking hands with everyone he passed-that familiar Scotty Fenney entrance Bobby had witnessed so many times in the old days and from the same vantage point: behind Scotty Fenney. Bobby recognized the faces of the men Scotty was greeting from the business section of the newspaper. These men owned Dallas-the land, the buildings, the businesses, and everything else worth owning in the city. Scotty’s attention was suddenly drawn across the room. He said to Bobby, “I’ll be right there,” and went over to a table of four men.
Bobby followed Roberto to a table by the window through which Bobby could gaze out upon the city where he had lived his entire life. Born poor in East Dallas, he had moved with his parents to a rental duplex near SMU the summer before ninth grade. They wanted a better life for their son, but they couldn’t afford private school on his father’s truck driver’s pay. Instead their son would be educated in the Highland Park public school system just like the sons of the richest men in Dallas.
Bobby had met Scotty Fenney that first year, two renters seeking similarly situated companions-renters occupied a social status in Highland Park only a step above the Mexican household help. Bobby became Scotty’s faithful follower, like Robin to Batman; and as Scotty’s status rose with each football game, Bobby was pulled along in his friend’s considerable wake, welcomed anywhere in Highland Park, as long as he was with Scotty Fenney.
After high school, Bobby had followed Scotty to SMU. Scotty got a football scholarship; Bobby got student loans. Four years later, he followed Scotty to law school. But a law degree had not led to a better life for him. The money is in the big law firms, and the big firms take only the best of the best, the top ten percent-the Scotty Fenneys, not the Bobby Herrins. All through law school, they had talked about practicing law together, but the big firms came calling and Scotty answered; and suddenly, like a Texas summer storm that dumps two inches of rain and then abruptly disappears, Scotty was gone. For the first time since he was fourteen, Bobby did not have Scotty Fenney to follow.
For eleven years now, Bobby had wandered through life like Moses in the Sinai Desert, trying to find his way without Scotty. He had caught glimpses of his old friend in the society section-Mr. and Mrs. A. Scott Fenney at such-and-such society ball-and sometimes in the business section-another courtroom victory or major deal engineered by A. Scott Fenney, Esq. Each time he read something about his old friend the memories would return and he would feel so completely alone again.
Still, through no real intent, Bobby had fashioned a life of sorts. Not much of a life-his exact thought that morning as he arrived at the office and stepped over a drunk on the doorstep, the start of another day of bailing out dopers at the jail, fighting evictions in J.P. court, eating Korean donuts, and drinking Mexican beer and playing pool in the bar next door. But then the phone rang and the caller identified herself as Scott Fenney’s secretary. When she invited him to lunch with Scotty at the Downtown Club, Bobby thought he’d have to call 911 and have them hook him up to a defibrillator. He accepted, hung up the phone, took one look at his clothes, and immediately regretted his decision. He paced the office for an hour, deciding a dozen times to call back and cancel and a dozen times not to. When he finally pulled the old Impala into the parking garage under Dibrell Tower and the attendant looked it over and chuckled, he knew he was in over his head.
Bobby Herrin didn’t belong at the Downtown Club.
He realized his finger was tapping the table like he was sending an urgent Morse code message. He craved a cigarette, but the Dallas city council had banned smoking in all public places. He desperately wanted to get up and walk out, to go back to East Dallas where he belonged. Goddamnit, why had he accepted this lunch invitation? Only because Scotty’s secretary’s call had caught him by surprise, he told himself, but he knew the truth: he wanted to see Scotty again.
He missed Scotty more than he missed his two ex-wives.
Bobby looked for Scotty and saw him several tables away, leaning over and whispering in the ear of a man whose face Bobby also recognized. Whatever Scotty said had made the man very happy. He stood and shook Scotty’s hand, slapped him on the back, and damn near hugged him. Scotty walked over to Bobby with a big smile on his face and sat down across the table.
“You know Tom Dibrell?” Bobby asked.
“I’m his lawyer. Got him out of a crack yesterday. Literally.” Scotty leaned over and whispered, “Tom’s got a
