The Immigration Service was hiring and nobody else took his calls. Why not, he figured. Spend as few years as practical learning immigration law, then hang out a shingle and get rich quick.
Now it was him, two other lawyers, three stressed-out paralegals, and one very rude secretary who hated her job and couldn't wait till something better opened up. They called themselves partners. They referred to their setup as a firm. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were three struggling, scrambling attorneys dividing up the rent, a clutter of secondhand office furniture, and a few second-rate employees. No casework was shared, no fat profits divvied up at the end of a prosperous year. There were no prosperous years.
Married, with two kids and an attractive wife six months pregnant with the third, MP had cold sweats that it might turn out to be twins. They lived in a tiny, shabby ruin of a house he rented in a modest, run-down South Arlington neighborhood across the river.
Immigration cases, MP learned the hard way, paid squat. Nearly all his clients were poor, desperate people whose language skills were rudimentary, their earning power zilch. Too many were indigents assigned by the court. Hopeless causes seemed to be his specialty. They were booted out with regularity, which did not incline them to pay their legal bills. Immigration law, he had learned the hard way, was a poor man's game. Wealthy clients were scarce. The very few, mostly millionaires fleeing legal or tax troubles in their own lands, were bitterly scrapped over by every immigration attorney in the city; usually the large firms with dozens of lawyers to throw at their defense landed them with ease. MP had long since stopped hoping for a big score. His livelihood depended upon a backbreaking log of cases, and the oft-disappointed prayer that half of his clients might pay their bills.
But Alex and Elena Konevitch were different. An odd case, he thought as he stared at them holding hands across his desk. These were seriously frightened people. Probably had a right to be.
"So then the FBI just left? Walked out the door?" MP asked after listening closely to their story. A yellow legal pad was splayed open in front of him on his desk. Ten pages were filled with scrawls, questions, and other musings.
"With our computer," Alex clarified. "Can we get it back?"
"They entered without a search warrant?"
"Alex asked about it," Elena replied. "They didn't give him an answer."
"Okay, they didn't have one," MP concluded with the sad confidence earned through hard experience. Immigrants had few if any rights in this country. The police knew it and too often abused them in ways that would be unimaginable against a full-fledged citizen. Yes, Alex and Elena had been granted asylum. But what the government giveth, it can, and sometimes doth, taketh away. MP had seen it before. That the Feds would act with such callous abandon was not a good omen.
"You're sure you committed no crimes in Russia?" MP asked. He had repeated this same question a hundred times in preparation for their asylum hearings a year before. It wouldn't hurt to hear the answer again. He studied their faces, hard.
"None," Alex told him. "A traffic violation once. I parked illegally and paid the fine."
Blushing slightly, Elena said, "When I was sixteen, I was with a group who had been drinking and became a public nuisance. I was brought before a judge and released."
"You're sure you didn't steal anything from the bank?" This question, obviously, was directed at Alex.
"Not a penny. Fifty million was stolen, according to the Russian news. But by the people who took away my bank, not me," Alex answered quite resolutely.
MP seemed undecided for a moment. He ran his pen aimlessly across a page, trying to decide what to do next. "Could you step out for a moment while I make a call?"
They left and found seats in the small, cramped lobby. MP worked the phone for almost twenty minutes. It was Saturday, late afternoon. He was calling home numbers and getting the expected responses. The lawyers of INS were either out watching their spouses shop, clubbing divots into the back nine, or observing their kiddies tumble around soccer fields. He finally caught Tommy Kravitz, on a cell phone, apparently.
Kravitz was a lifer who did as little work as possible, an inveterate busybody who amused himself by knowing everybody else's business. The roar of a baseball game, live, loud, and raucous, made it difficult to hear.
"Who's winning?" MP yelled.
"Not the Orioles, damn it. Why do I root for these guys? I'm an idiot."
"You are an idiot, Tommy. Nineteen years in the INS trenches. You should've left ten years ago, gotten a life."
"Yeah? Hey, seriously, how's the money out there? Great, right?"
"Just okay. The kids love their new private schools, Terry considers our mansion in Great Falls to be too ostentatious, and I'm looking around to replace my six-month-old Jag with a Mercedes. The Jag picked up a small scratch on the bumper and it's just too embarrassing to be seen in. What do you think? Mercedes 500, or splurge and go all out for a 600? It gets better mileage, that's what I hear."
Tommy laughed. "You're a lousy liar. Still got that same tiny shoebox in Arlington?"
"Yeah. The air-conditioning compressor went on the fritz last year, but we Joneses are tough. We'll sweat it out until Terry wins the lottery."
"Don't depend on her luck, pal. She got herself knocked up on your fourth date."
"Thanks for pointing that out."
"And that dented-up Chrysler minivan? That clunker still getting by the inspectors?"
"What do they know? We're driving it, anyway. Hey, you ever hear of a guy named Konevitch? Alex Konevitch."
A long moment of silence. Amid a loud roar, Tommy finally answered in a low whisper, "He your client?"
"Who scored?"
"Damn-that was a Yankee bat boy. The Orioles, remember? He your client or not, MP? Curious minds demand to know."
"Yeah, he is."
"Drop him. Just drop him, and run far, buddy."
"What's going on, Tommy? Tell me."
"I don't care if you were my brother. It's hush-hush, times ten. No can do. Mucho trouble's about to land on his head. Your guy's got problems he can't begin to imagine."
"Like that, huh?"
"Insist on cash, and make him pay you up front, MP. He has the dough, believe me. And count it real close-he's a rotten thief."
"Who's handling him?"
"Kim Parrish. That's not good news for you, either, pal."
The name was familiar: a vague memory, though. She had come aboard during his final year, when MP was more concerned with putting the INS in the rearview mirror than acquainting himself with the new associates he intended to leave in the dust. Like all new attorneys, she started out with the soft cases where she wouldn't embarrass the service-immigrants who snuck over a border or allowed their green cards to expire or committed some petty offense. Inside six months-record time-she was bumped up to the big leagues, the narcotraffickers, the big-time tax cheats, high-profile cases reserved for the best and brightest. She was old for a starting attorney, forty-five, maybe fifty. She was also smart and good, very good. Single, no children, intense, and very married to the law.
In a knowing tone, MP asked, "Who's pushing the case?"
"Are you deaf? I can't tell, MP. I swear I can't."
"Tommy, Tommy. That Gonzalez case, remember it? The one where you let the ball drop and the director wanted your-"
"Damn it, MP, I know I owe you. I'm not gonna say. Can't, just can't."
"I understand. I really do."
"Good. Believe me, if there was any way, I'd tell you everything."
After a brief pause. "So what aren't you gonna say?"