The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [29]
He missed Scotty more than he missed his two ex-wives.
Bobby looked for Scotty and saw him several tables away, leaning over and whispering in the ear of a man whose face Bobby also recognized. Whatever Scotty said had made the man very happy. He stood and shook Scotty’s hand, slapped him on the back, and damn near hugged him. Scotty walked over to Bobby with a big smile on his face and sat down across the table.
“You know Tom Dibrell?” Bobby asked.
“I’m his lawyer. Got him out of a crack yesterday. Literally.” Scotty leaned over and whispered, “Tom’s got a problem keeping his prick out of the payroll.”
“Scotty, he’s the guy who paid SMU players, got the football team the death penalty! You hated assholes like him back then. Now you’re working for him? Why?”
Scotty smiled. “Three million bucks a year in legal fees, Bobby, that’s why.”
The number took Bobby’s breath away: three million bucks. Bobby’s best year ever, he’d grossed $27,500. Only a few minutes together after eleven years apart, and he was already envying Scotty’s life again. Sure, Bobby had loyal clients—one brought him homemade tamales each week, another had named her illegitimate son after him—and his money was no good at either the donut shop or the bar—free donuts and beer were the only perks his particular position offered—but his best client had paid him $500 last year; Scotty’s best client paid him $3 million. In all English-speaking parts of Dallas, money was the only recognized measure of a lawyer’s success; consequently, only among the Spanish-speaking population of East Dallas was Robert Herrin, Esq., not considered a total loser.
His mind was prying open the door to depression again, the point in each day when he would walk next door and down a few Tecates, when Roberto appeared with two glasses of iced tea and placed them on the table and then spread napkins in their laps, which made Bobby flinch—where he ate, someone leans in that close they’re going for your wallet. After Roberto left, Bobby emptied two sweeteners in his tea, drank half the glass, and said, “Kind of surprised to get your call this morning, Scotty. Your secretary’s call, anyway. But you know me, never could pass up a free lunch.”
“So, how you been, Bobby?”
Bobby studied Scotty sitting there in his expensive suit and starched shirt and designer tie and looking like the Prince of Dallas and wondered if his old friend really gave a damn how Bobby Herrin had been. Used to be that when Bobby ran into an old law school classmate who had done better—which is to say, any law school classmate—they would both realize the awkwardness of the encounter and manufacture a quick escape. But there was no escaping here.
So Bobby said, “Scotty, when you get up in the morning, do you think good things are gonna happen to you that day?”
Scotty frowned a moment, then shrugged and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why?”
Scotty shrugged again. “Good things have always happened to me.”
“The best football player, best student, best looking, marries the most beautiful cheerleader, becomes a rich lawyer, and lives happily ever after?”
Scotty flashed that big smile again. “Something like that.”
“Exactly like that.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, see, Scotty, it ain’t like that for everybody. I don’t wake up thinking good things are gonna happen that day. I wake up wondering what’s the next bad thing that’s gonna happen to me.”
Scotty was staring at his water goblet with the same expression Bobby had seen on the faces of those other classmates he’d run into over the years, a look of abject embarrassment. But he was too far in to stop now.
“You graduated first in our class, Scotty. I graduated. Remember that old law school joke? What do they call the doctor who graduated last in his med school class? Doctor. What do they call the lawyer who graduated last