UNDER PRESSURE FROM THE FOUR OF us, Smoot relents and says we can return to Cypress Gardens on our own, without going as a group and suffering through another lunch. Booker and I sneak in one day during "America the Beautiful," and sit in the back while Miss Birdie gives 'em all a pep talk about vitamins and proper exercise. She finally sees us, and insists that we walk to the podium for formal introductions.
After the program breaks up, Booker slides into a far corner, where he meets with his clients and dispenses advice he wants no one else to hear. Since I've already met with Dot, and since Miss Birdie and I have spent hours sparring over her will, there's not much left for me to do. Mr. DeWayne Deweese, my third client from our previous visit, is in the hospital, and I've mailed him a thoroughly useless summary of my suggestions to aid him in his own private little war against the Veterans Administration.
Miss Birdie's will is incomplete and unsigned. She's
been very touchy about it in recent days. I'm not sure she wants to change it. She says she hasn't heard from the Reverend Kenneth Chandler, so she might not leave him her fortune. I've tried to encourage this.
We've had a few conversations about her money. She likes to wait until I'm buried up to my ass in mulch and potting soil, my nose dripping with sweat and moist with peat, then, hovering over me, ask some off-the-wall question like "Can Delbert's wife sue my estate if I leave him nothing?" Or, "Why can't I just give the money away right now?"
I'll stop, extract myself from beneath the flowers, wipe my face and try to think of an intelligent answer. Usually, by this time she's changed the subject and wants to know why the azaleas over there are not growing.
I've broached the subject a few times over coffee on the patio, but she gets nervous and agitated. She has a healthy suspicion of lawyers.
I've been able to verify a few facts. She was in fact married a second time, to a Mr. Anthony Murdine. Their marriage lasted almost five years until he died in Atlanta four years ago. Apparently, Mr. Murdine left a sizable estate when he passed on, and apparently it was surrounded by a great deal of controversy because the court in De Kalb County, Georgia, ordered the file sealed. That's as far as I've gotten. I plan to talk to some of the lawyers involved in his estate.
Miss Birdie wants to talk, to conference. It makes her feel important in front of her people. We sit at a table near the piano, away from the others. We huddle, our heads just inches apart. You'd think we hadn't seen each other in a month.
"I need to know what to do with your will, Miss Birdie," I say. "And before I can properly draft it, I need to know a little about the money."
She darts her eyes around as if everyone is listening. In fact, most of these poor souls couldn't hear us if we were screaming at each other. She dips low, hand over mouth. "None of it's in real estate, okay. Money markets, mutual funds, municipal bonds."
I'm surprised to hear her rattle off these types of investments with obvious familiarity. The money must actually be there.
"Who handles it?" I ask. The question is unnecessary. It makes no difference to the will or to her estate who manages her money. My curiosity is eating at me.
"A firm in Atlanta."
"A law firm?" I ask, scared.
"Oh no. I wouldn't trust lawyers with it. A trust company. The money is all in trust. I get the income until I die, then I give it away. That's the way the judge set things up."
"How much income?" I ask, completely out of control.
"Now, that's really not any of your business, is it, Rudy?"
No, it's not. I've been slapped on the hand, but in the finest legal tradition, I try and cover my ass. "Well, it could be important, you know. For tax purposes."
"I didn't ask you to do my taxes, did I? I have an accountant for that. I simply asked you to do redo my will, and, my, it sure seems over your head."
Bosco walks to the other end of the table, and grins at us. Most of his teeth are missing. She politely asks him to go play Parcheesi for a few minutes. She is remarkably kind and gentle with these people.
"I'll prepare your will any way you want it, Miss Birdie," I say sternly. "But you'll have to make up your mind."
She sits straight, exhales with great drama and clenches her dentures together. "Lemme think about it."
"Fine. But just remember. There are many things in your current will that you don't like. If something happens to you, then-"
"I know, I know," she interrupts, hands going everywhere. "Don't lecture me. I've done twenty wills in the past twenty years. I know all about them."
Bosco's crying over by the kitchen, and she races off to comfort him. Booker mercifully finishes his consultations. His last client is the old man he spent so much time with during our original visit. It's obvious this fella isn't too happy with Booker's summary of his mess, and I hear Booker say at one point as he's trying to get away, "Look, it's free. What do you expect?"
We pay our respects to Miss Birdie, and make a quick exit. Legal Problems of the Elderly is now history. In a few days our classes will end.
After three years of hating law school, we are suddenly about to be liberated. I heard a lawyer say once that it takes a few years for the pain and misery of law school to fade, and, as with most things in life, you're left with the good memories. He seemed to be downright melancholy as he reminisced about the glory days of his legal education.
I cannot fathom the moment in my life when I'll look back on the past three years and declare that it was enjoyable after all. I might one day be able to piece together some bright little memories of times spent with friends, of hanging out with Booker, of tending bar at Yogi's, of other things and events which escape me now. And I'm sure Booker and I will laugh about these dear old folks here at Cypress Gardens and the trust they placed in us.
It might be funny one day.
I suggest we get a beer at Yogi's. I'll treat. It's two o'clock and it's raining, the perfect time to huddle around a table and blow an afternoon. It may be our last chance.
Booker really wants to, but he is expected at the office in an hour. Marvin Shankle has him working on a brief that's due in court on Monday. He'll spend the entire weekend buried in the library.
Shankle works seven days a week. His firm pioneered much of the civil rights litigation in Memphis, and now he's reaping vast rewards. There are twenty-two lawyers, all black, half female, all trying to keep the brutal work schedule required by Marvin Shankle. The secretaries work in shifts so there's always at least three available twenty-four hours a day. Booker idolizes Shankle, and I know that within a matter of weeks he too will be working on Sundays.
I FEEL LIKE A BANK ROBBER riding around the suburbs, casing the branches and deciding which will be the easiest to hit. I find the firm I'm looking for in a modern glass and stone building with four floors. It's in East Memphis, along a busy corridor that runs west to downtown and the river. This is where the white flight landed.
The firm has four lawyers, all in their mid-thirties, all alumni of Memphis State. I've heard that they were friends in law school, went to work for big firms around the city, grew dissatisfied with the pressure, then reassembled themselves here in a quieter practice. I saw their ad in the yellow pages, a full-page spread, rumored to cost four thousand a month. They do everything, from divorce to real estate to zoning, but of course the boldest print in the ad announces their expertise in PERSONAL INJURY.
Regardless of what a lawyer does, more often than not he or she will profess great know-how in the field of personal injury. Because for the vast majority of lawyers who don't have clients they can bill by the hour forever, the only hope of serious money is representing people who've been hurt or killed. It's easy money, for the most part.
Take a guy who's injured in a car wreck where the other driver is at fault and has insurance. He's got a week in the hospital, a broken leg, lost salary. If the lawyer can get to him before the insurance adjuster, then his claim can be settled for fifty thousand dollars. The lawyer spends some time shuffling paper, but probably is not forced to file suit. He invests thirty hours max, and takes a fee of around fifteen thousand. That's five hundred dollars an hour.
Great work if you can get it. That's why almost every lawyer in the Memphis yellow pages cries out for victims of injuries. No trial experience is necessary-ninety-nine percent of the cases are settled. The trick is getting the cases signed up.
I don't care how they advertise. My only concern is whether or not I can talk them into employment. I sit in my car for a few moments as the rain beats against the windshield. I'd rather be bullwhipped than enter the office, smile warmly at the receptionist, chatter away like a door-to-door salesman and unveil my latest ploy to get past her and see one of her bosses.
I cannot believe I'm doing this.