“Yes, sir,” the humbled young man said as he stood. “I appreciate you takin’ my case. Sorry if I made ya mad.”
“It’s fine,” I replied while I forced myself to smile at my new client. “I’ll see you later. Remember to stay out of trouble.”
“Fo’ sure,” the junior thief bobbed his head.
His cheeks were red from embarrassment, and he quickly ducked out of my cubicle before I could change my mind about representing him. I sighed, though, when I could hear his bravado return as he hit on Rina. The young man had recovered quickly from my rebuke, and I shook my head as I overheard him trying to convince the beautiful middle-aged woman to give a younger man a chance. But the southern paralegal was a force of nature, and she had no interest in any of the men that strolled through our offices. As I could have predicted, she smacked down his request with a sharp retort and a threat to have him bodily removed from the premises.
I started an email to the prosecutor for Rick’s case, and then wondered if I should even bother. But for the moment, Smith was my client and that meant I had to do everything I could for him. So I sent a short email suggesting we discuss my client’s possible sentence and prepared for the bargaining session that would follow. He’d probably counter my ten days of community service with the full year in prison, we’d argue a bit, and then we’d end it over lunch at a burger joint with a handshake and my client doing two-hundred-and-fifty hours of community service.
Once that was done, I looked around the small space that I would soon leave. I’d been there for a few years, but there was nothing personal about it. The walls were completely bare, and though I’d had a calendar early on, I’d stopped buying new ones when I realized it was only depressing me to watch the days go by. And I didn’t trust my wayward clients enough to have any pictures of my mother up. She’d complained when she first stopped by, and I’d had to explain that some of my clients were less than honorable, and that if I had a picture of her, she might become a target if their case didn’t go well.
I realized that if I chose Hancock, Garcia, and Smith, I would be able to have a picture of her and anyone else I wanted. I could have an actual office to call my own and not a cubicle with moveable walls. I might even have a decent office chair and view out of a window instead of blank walls and fluorescent lights.
The job with Fuentes Shipping was a little more uncertain. They seemed like an ordinary import company on the surface, but Alvaro Cruz gave the impression that he could break my legs without much effort. As much as I wanted to take their offer, I still wasn’t convinced that the company was legitimate, or that I wouldn’t end up working for some cartel.
I sighed, and then decided it was time for me to do some research on the mysterious Fuentes Shipping Company before I took the job offer completely off the table. After all, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’d make more than enough money to support myself and my mother, even after she went through her treatments and was healthy again.
The great and powerful Google found their website quickly, so I opened it and found a mundane company webpage with a vague description of what they could import. There was a page that offered services for various shipping containers, and a number to call for a price quote. Most of their imports were on a larger scale, and though their webpage talked about renting space in a cargo container, most of it talked about purchasing the entire metal box or several at once.
When I went back to the Google search results, I found that there were a few news articles that referenced the company. Some of the pieces were about the money the company had donated to the Cuban community through shelters and various charities, but a few mentioned drug busts down at the docks. Of course, the cops and the Feds were always interested in any cargo from South America, but Fuentes Shipping seemed to be noted more than any other company.
There were a few conspiracy articles that said the company was just a front for the Cuban cartel, and one journalist pointed out that the Fuentes name had often been associated with criminals in Cuba. The cops hadn’t been able to pin anything down, so other than the raids, nothing ever seemed to happen. The company and its officers went about their business, but the company always seemed to be under scrutiny from law enforcement.
I sighed and closed the last webpage. There was no way I would work for the cartel since it would be considerably more dangerous than the work I did at the Public Defender’s Office. After all, I wanted to help save my mom’s life, not put her in more danger.
Besides, if my mother ever found out that I worked for a company that was even rumored to have cartel ties, she’d worry about me constantly. No, I couldn’t do it, even if the police hadn’t been able to link them to any actual drugs. I couldn’t align myself with such a violent and criminal company, though they would pay me well enough that I could have a hefty life insurance policy for my mom just in case anything went wrong.
And just from a moral standpoint, I couldn’t work for a drug cartel, tenuous ties or not. How could I, in good faith, be an officer of the court and still represent such people? No,
