Serge grabbed his own pail. “Wait till later.”
Miami Women’s Legal Aid Clinic
Brook glanced at the blank check. She thought about everything that had led to this moment, and the moments soon to come with the irate landlord standing on the other side of her desk.
He’d hung up on her during that first phone call. So a week later she’d dialed again.
“What now!” This time hockey play-offs in the background.
“Mr. Gosling, this is Brook Campanella. By the return-mail receipt I just got, I can see you received my certified letter. Do you understand it?”
“Yeah, you have mental problems. What’s this thirty-five hundred dollars?”
“The price now includes mental anguish and my legal fees,” said Brook.
“Over a measly eight-hundred-dollar deposit?”
“This is still bargain basement in the legal world,” said Brook. “The elevator’s only going north from here.”
A semi-intoxicated voice in the background. “Tell her to stick it up her twat.”
“Mr. Gosling,” said Brook. “You can drop off a check here, or I can come to you. But it has to be this evening. Otherwise tomorrow morning I’ll be forced to go to the courthouse—”
“And you’ll what, sweetie? Damn! I can always spot one!”
“One?” asked Brook.
“Men issues. You seriously need to get laid!”
Click.
Another week went by. This time it was Brook’s phone that rang. She checked the caller ID before answering. “I see I’ve gotten your attention.”
“Fifteen thousand dollars!”
“My client’s anguish—and my legal costs—grow by the hour,” said Brook.
“You filed a lawsuit? You’re suing me!”
“Don’t forget the fine print,” said Brook. “I intend to locate other former tenants of yours with the help of my client’s granddaughter. Then during discovery, I’m going to subpoena your accounting records for the last seven years, and if we find a pattern of bad-faith refusal-to-remit deposits, we’re talking about a class action with treble damages. But there’s a downside for me, too. I’ll have the hassle of finding a real estate agent to liquidate your apartment buildings, which the court will seize.”
“Motherf— . . . Do you have any idea the type of person you’re dealing with?”
“Yes, but you don’t,” said Brook. “Now let me paint by the numbers for you. If a certified check isn’t on my desk by precisely noon tomorrow, everything moves forward and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Feel free to call any lawyer in town. I’m confident they’ll all tell you not to be late.” She set the receiver in its cradle.
Click.
So now we’re back up to speed . . .
Mr. Gosling continued fuming in front of Brook’s desk, then cleared his throat for a big, hocking spit on the floor. “Happy now?”
“Not yet.” She stood up and handed him a stapled set of pages.
Gosling looked in his hands. “What’s this?”
“You just saved me the cost of process delivery.”
“A what?”
“Consider yourself officially served,” said Brook. “You voluntarily took possession of those documents.”
“I’ll deny I got them.”
“I have a witness.”
Jacklyn Lopez smiled and waved from a chair in the corner.
Gosling glanced down again. “You’re still going to sue me? You’re subpoenaing my bank statements?”
Brook tapped her wristwatch. “You came in at twelve oh four. I said twelve sharp.”
“Four minutes! You can’t be sane! That’s—that’s—that’s . . . just not fair!”
Brook looked over her shoulder at Jacklyn. “He said I needed to get laid.”
Jacklyn shrugged. “Always works for me.”
Gosling threw out his arms in panic. “Wait, wait, wait! . . . You got a bird in the hand! That’s a fifteen-thousand-dollar check. Don’t you want the money?”
“Absolutely,” said the attorney. “I intend to deposit it this afternoon.”
“Well then, okay.” Gosling began to uncoil. “Case over. And very funny bluffing with me like that.”
“I wasn’t bluffing.” Brook stuck the check in her purse. “The case has only begun.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said the landlord, re-inflating with smugness. “I know a little about the law, too. By cashing that check, you’re releasing me from all liability.” He turned to leave. “I hope you choke on it. Go fuck yourself!”
“Mrs. Dominguez,” said Brook.
Gosling turned back around. “What?”
“Cashing the check ends claims from Mrs. Dominguez,” said Brook. “Not other new clients I’ll be calling after lunch to start the class action.”
“You’re still actually going through with this?”
Brook looked at her watch. “It’s now twelve ten.”
He marched forward. “Then give me my check back.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll stop payment!”
“It’s certified.” Brook snapped her purse shut. “And after your financials arrive at my office, you’ll be needing two lawyers.”
“Why?”
“Civil and criminal,” said Brook. “This kind of fraud conviction brings ten years in Raiford . . . Jacklyn, isn’t that right?”
“Unless they stack sentences per count.”
Brook slapped herself in the forehead. “How did I miss that? He could be facing centuries.”
Gosling stood in the cone of a disorienting emotional tornado. All color fled his face, then immediately flooded back with volcanic rage until he was almost purple. His eyes turned into something from a devil-possession movie.
“I’ll kill you!”
He dove over the desk with outstretched hands clutching for Brook’s neck.
She hadn’t seen that coming. He was so fast his fingertips brushed her throat, and she crashed backward. But there was something even faster than his lunge.
Jacklyn.
In one fluid, blinding motion, she got a forearm around his neck, twisted one of his wrists behind his back in a restraint hold, and pinned him to the floor.
“You’re hurting me! Get off!”
“As soon as the police arrive.”
He struggled, and she twisted his wrist harder.
“Ahhhhhh!”
The police took statements from the women before leading the future ex-landlord away in cuffs.
Brook straightened a photo of a firefighter on the wall. Then she looked at her colleague—only slightly larger in stature than herself—and shook her head in amazement. “I still don’t know how you do that.”
It wasn’t much of a mystery. Besides being a self-defense instructor, Jacklyn was a former NCAA wrestling All-American. She hadn’t been sitting in Brook’s office simply to witness the serving of papers.
Jacklyn smiled. “Want to celebrate by getting a pedicure?” She looked toward the floor. “The nail place is just downstairs.”
“So is the beauty salon,” said Brook. “It could be seen as taking sides.”
“And?”
“It’s starting to get ugly.”
Chapter 4
That Evening
It was not a usual sight in rural North Florida: a vintage silver Corvette pulling up to a bare-wood cracker house on the edge of Sopchoppy near the forest. It had a sagging porch roof atop four-by-fours. Two bearded men in overalls sat out front in rocking chairs they’d fashioned from cut pine.
“See you fellas made it.”
“Wouldn’t miss a meal like you described for the world,” said Serge.
“Moonshine!” said Coleman.