Rook turned to the restaurant, to see all the faces staring, and said, "Not so much anymore." Roach entered the law offices of Ronnie Strong on a floor below the DMV in Herald Square, and both detectives felt as if they had walked into the waiting room of an orthopedic practice. A woman with both hands fully casted so that only the tips of her fingers were visible was dictating instructions to a teenage boy, probably her son, who was helping her fill out an intake form. A man in a wheelchair with no visible injury also completed paperwork. A strapping construction worker whose chair was flanked by two Gristedes bags of receipts and paperwork gave them a sharp look and said, "He ain't here, fellas."
The receptionist was a very pleasant woman in a conservative suit but with a fish hook in her lip. "Gentlemen, have you been done wrong?"
Ochoa turned so he wouldn't laugh and muttered to Raley, "Hell, it's been a while since I was even done."
Raley maintained his composure and asked to see Mr. Strong. The receptionist said he was out of the office, making a new series of commercials, and that they could come back tomorrow. Raley flashed his tin and got the address of the studio.
It wasn't much of a surprise to Roach that Ronnie Strong, Esq., was not in his law offices that day. The joke in the legal profession was that Ronnie Strong might have passed the bar, but he couldn't pass a TV camera.
The production facility he used was a graffitied brick warehouse abutting a Chinese import distribution center in Brooklyn. Situated halfway between the old Navy Yard and the Williamsburg Bridge, it wasn't exactly Hollywood, but then Ronnie Strong wasn't exactly an attorney.
There was nobody stopping Raley and Ochoa, so they just walked in. The front office was empty and smelling of coffee and cigarette smoke that had fused with the water-stained Tahitian-themed wallpaper. Raley called a "Hello?" but when nobody responded, they followed the short hallway to the blaring sound of the same jingle the squad had recited that morning. "Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong!"
The door to the stage was wide open. Clearly, these were no sticklers for sound aesthetics. When the detectives walked in, they both took a quick step back. The studio was so small, they were afraid they were going to walk into the shot.
On the set, which was a rented motor boat on a trailer, two buxom models in scant bikinis wore props indicating some sort of accident. One had her arm in a sling; the other stood on crutches, although without a cast. That could have been a budget saver, although more likely it was to keep her legs visible.
"Let's go one more time," said a man in a Hawaiian shirt, chewing an unlit cigar.
Raley whispered to Ochoa, "Bet he's the owner. He matches the wallpaper."
Ochoa said, "It's an unfair world, partner."
"How so… this time?"
"Nikki Heat, she goes to a TV studio, it's polished marble and glass in the lobby, green room with hot and cold running canapes, and what do we get?"
"Know what I think, Detective Ochoa? I think we've been wronged."
"And, action!" called the director, and he added for clarity, "Go!"
Both actresses reached down into a bait box and came up with handfuls of cash. There seemed to be no concern that the one in the arm sling had full utility of the limb. She's the one who smiled and said, "Justice is no accident." To which the other held up her loot and shouted, "Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong!"
That was when Ronnie Strong himself, who looked something like an overripe pear in a toupee, popped up from the hatch between them and said, "Did somebody call me?" The girls hugged him, each planting a kiss on a cheek as the jingle played, "Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong! Been done wrong? Call Ronnie Strong!"
"And we're clear," said the director. And then for good measure, "Stop."
Roach didn't have to get the lawyer's attention. Ronnie Strong had spotted them during the commercial, and both detectives would know when it aired that his side-stage eye line when he said, "Did somebody call me?" was directly to them. Such were the small perks of police work.
While the girls left to change into nurse uniforms, Ronnie Strong beckoned them over to the boat. "You want some help down?" asked Ochoa.
"No, we're doing the next one in the boat, too," he said. "It's a nurses script, but hey, I rented it for the day. You guys are cops, right?"
Roach flashed ID, and the lawyer sat down to rest on the gunwale close to Raley. Rales couldn't stop staring at the orange makeup ringing Strong's white collar, so he concentrated on the hairpiece, which had a sweat curl in the front that was starting to expose the tape.
"You boys ever get hurt on the job? Suffer hearing loss from the firing range, maybe? I can help."
"Thanks just the same, but we're here to talk about one of your clients, Mr. Strong," said Ochoa. "Esteban Padilla."
"Padilla? Oh, sure. What do you want to know? Saw him yesterday, he's still pressing charges."
Ochoa tried not to make eye contact with Raley, but peripherally, he caught his partner turning away to mask a chuckle. "Esteban Padilla is dead, Mr. Strong. He was killed several days ago."
"Wrongful death, I hope? Was he operating any machinery?"
"I know you have a lot of clients, Mr. Strong," offered Raley.
"You bet," said the lawyer. "And they all get personal service."
Raley continued, "I'm sure they do. But let us refresh your memory. Esteban Padilla was a limo driver who got fired last spring. He came to you with his complaint."
"Right, right, and we filed a wrongful dismissal." Ronnie Strong tapped a forefinger on his temple. "It's all in here. Eventually."
"Can you tell us what the grounds were for the case?" asked Ochoa.
"Sure, give me a sec. OK, got it. Esteban Padilla. He's this good kid from Spanish Harlem. Making a nice living, an honest living, driving stretch limos for years. And he did it all, the long ones, the town cars, the Hummers… Those stretch Hummers are awesome, aren't they, fellas? Anyway, eight years of loyal service to those rat bastards and they just can him without cause. I asked him if there was some reason, anything. Was he stealing, was he schtupping clients, did he give his boss the finger? Nothing. Eight years and, bam, done.
"I told this kid, 'You've been wronged.' I told him we'd sue them to their socks, clean them out so he'd never have to worry another day in his life."
"What happened to the case?" said Ochoa.
Strong shrugged. "Never got anywhere."
"What?" said Raley. "You decided you didn't have a case?"
"Oh, I had a case. We were ready to rock and roll. Then all of a sudden Padilla comes to me and says drop it, Ronnie. Just drop the whole deal."
Roach made eye contact. Ochoa's nod to his partner told him he could ask it. Raley said, "When he came to you and said to forget the whole thing, did he say why?"
"No."
"Did he seem nervous, agitated, fearful?"
"No. It was weird. He was the most relaxed I'd ever seen him. In fact, I'd even say he seemed happy." Roach's visit to the Rolling Service Limousine Company in Queens was not as entertaining or half as cordial as the one they had just paid to Ronnie Strong. The surroundings, however, were about as refined.
They made their way through the service bays, past rows of black cars getting buffed and polished in the huge warehouse, until they found the manager's office. It was a squalid glass box in a back corner, next to a toilet with a grimy door sign that had an arrow on it that could be twisted from "occupied" to "occupeed."
The manager made them stand and wait while he took a complaint from a client who'd been left stranded at the curb at Lincoln Center during one of the Fashion Week events and wanted restitution. "What can I say to you?" said the manager, looking right at the detectives, taking his time while he talked. "This was weeks ago and you call just now? And I checked with my driver, and he said you were not there when he came. It's your word against his. If I listened to everyone who said this, I would not have money to do my business."