The Common Lawyer

'Because she hasn't gone to all this trouble only to be tracked down with her SSAN.'

'Hollis, isn't there anything you can do?'

'By the book, Andy.'

'Damnit, Hollis, we gotta find this woman!'

'Why? Why does your client want to find this woman?'

'I told you, that's confidential.'

'Look, Andy, I'm getting a bad feeling about this assignment-I smell a rat.'

'The woman?'

'Your client.'

'He's not a rat, Hollis.'

'Then why's he spending so much money to find these women?'

Andy and the ex-FBI agent stared at each other as if to see who would blink first. How much should he tell Hollis? How much information would allow Hollis to identify his client as Russell Reeves? He needed Hollis McCloskey to find Frankie Doyle. And he needed to find Frankie Doyle to keep his rich client happy. And he needed his rich client happy to stay in the life-the money, the loft and lounges, Suzie and Bobbi.

'These women, they're my client's old girlfriends. He wants to find them and help them because he didn't treat them right. He wants to make amends.'

'How?'

'Money.'

'How much?'

'A million.'

'Each?'

Andy nodded.

'That sound reasonable to you?'

'Hollis, rich people are eccentric.'

'No, Andy, rich people are connivers, cheats, crooks, conmen, and criminals-at least all the rich people I met when I was with the FBI were.'

'Now you work for rich people.'

Hollis shrugged. 'I'm not with the FBI anymore.'

'My client's not that kind of rich guy. He's just…'

'What? Troubled, delusional, psychotic, sick?' Hollis sat back. 'Andy, this doesn't pass the smell test. I don't know what your client is up to, but I don't like it. I'm off the case.'

'You won't try to find her?'

'Not unless you tell me what this is really all about.'

Andy didn't think he should mention the sick kids. That might make the G-man suspicious; and he might connect the dots: sick kids… rich man in Austin with a sick kid… Russell Reeves.

'Hollis, it really is all about a rich guy finding his old girlfriends and giving them money. He wants to clear up his old debts, so he can have peace.'

Hollis shook his head. 'I don't buy it.'

'Why not?'

'Rich people don't give their money away for nothing. They always want something in return.'

'Hollis, I've personally handed cashier's checks to the first six women, for a million dollars each. He's never asked for anything in return. Will you at least look for the others?'

Hollis handed him a file. 'This is the dossier on the eighth woman.'

'So that's it?'

'I'm done.'

'Why?'

'Because I think I'm being used, Andy… and I think you are, too.'

Andy walked out of Hollis McCloskey's office and called Tres to ask a small favor: pull Michael and Frankie Doyle's income tax return from three years back then track her later returns. Get her social security number. Find her address. Tres laughed.

'Andy, did you get hit by a car and suffer a head injury?'

'No.'

'Well, you're asking me to commit a felony. Jail time, buddy. They can track our computer usage, every keystroke. I type in her name, Big Brother will know it… and want to know why I did it. Sorry, Andy, but no way.'

'Tres-'

'Andy, you're drinking the Kool-Aid.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, you've had a taste of it, and you like it. The money. Reverend Russell gave you salvation, lifted you out of your old broke life and gave you a new and improved life, and now you'll do anything to keep it-even drink his Kool-Aid-so you don't have to go back to your old life. I told you, Andy.'

Tres was wrong. Andy Prescott wasn't doing it for the money. He could walk away from Russell Reeves and his money-and the new life his money had given Andy-any time he wanted to. He wasn't doing it for the loft and the lounges and Suzie and Bobbi; he was doing it for Frankie Doyle… and for her sick kid. Okay, she might not have been sick three years ago, but she probably was now. And to find her and help her, he needed a more creative private investigator than some lame-ass by-the-book I-don't-wander-off-the-reservation ex-FBI agent.

So he rode the Stumpjumper straight from Hollis McCloskey's office in downtown Austin to Lorenzo Escobar's office in SoCo. PRIVATE INVESTIGATION and BAIL BONDS were painted in black letters on the plate-glass front window. Andy walked in and found a Spartan space and a handsome Latino man sitting at a big wood table and tapping on a laptop. Andy recognized Ramon's distinctive work on his forearms. He looked to be about forty and had jet black hair combed straight back, a neatly trimmed black goatee, and black reading glasses riding low on his nose. He was wearing a black T-shirt tight around his lean torso and muscular arms, black leather wrist bands, black jeans, black cowboy boots, and a black gun in a black holster clipped to his black belt. He was a good typist.

Without looking up at Andy, the man said, 'It's legal.'

'What?'

'The gun.'

The National Rifle Association's Austin chapter-also known as the Texas legislature-had recently passed numerous 'shoot first and ask questions later' laws giving Texans the right to (a) kill any person unlawfully entering their homes, (b) carry a weapon in their cars to protect themselves against carjackers, and (c) carry a concealed weapon provided they take a firearms safety course. Twenty-four million people now lived in Texas; half were packing heat. The other half should be-to protect themselves against the first half.

'Lorenzo?'

Still tapping on the laptop: 'What can I do for you?'

'Ramon gave me your name. I'm Andy Prescott.'

'The traffic ticket lawyer.'

Some claim to fame.

'You sent me the rich boy.'

'Yeah, I gave Tres your number.'

Still typing away. 'Gorgeous little gal, that one. I enjoyed tailing her… tail. You know she don't wear underwear?' He whistled. 'That boy's got a lifetime of worrying whether she's cheating on him. Course, if it weren't for gals like her, I'd be out of business. Cheating wives, they account for seventy-five percent of my annual gross revenues. Easy money, or at least it used to be. Now with the new gun laws, job's gotten a little more dangerous- some wives can shoot. You know what I mean?'

Andy assumed that was a rhetorical question, so he didn't answer.

'So, Andy, wife cheating on you?'

'No wife.'

'Girlfriend?'