The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [82]
“Ted, Scott Fenney. What the hell’s going on?”
“Demand notes, Scott. And we just made demand.”
“Why?”
“These loans were made to you as a favor, Scott. To get favors, you’ve got to give favors. That’s how the game’s played.”
“I see. McCall. Fine, I’ll refinance with another bank.”
Ted laughed. “In today’s market? And without Tom Dibrell as your client? I don’t think so.”
“News travels fast.”
“I knew before you did.”
“I’ll sell the damn place, it’s worth a million more than the debt.”
“Fire sale in thirty days? You’ll be lucky to get what you owe.”
“I’ll throw it into bankruptcy. I can hold you off for six months, maybe a year.”
“Also not likely. The bank holds a note on Judge Schneider’s home in Highland Park. He’s the bankruptcy judge. And he understands favors.”
Scott had run out of lawyerly rebuttals, so he fell back on the universal football retort: “Fuck you, Ted.”
He slammed the phone down.
Bobby was sitting up. “What was that about?”
Scott realized his face was damp with sweat. “The bank called my notes, on the cars and the house.”
“How can they call your mortgage?”
“Because it’s not a mortgage like you think. You don’t get a thirty-year five percent Fannie Mae mortgage for two-point-eight million, Bobby. You get a demand note callable on thirty days’ notice.”
“Jesus. Can you refinance?”
“Not likely. I got this note only because Dan used his influence with the bank president, that asshole.”
“Guess who’s influencing the bank president now?”
Scott nodded.
“You could sell the place.”
“Rebecca would die. That house means everything to her.”
“Shit, Scotty, you got three million in fees. You can swing something.”
Scott could barely give voice to the words: “Dibrell just fired me.”
Rebecca said, “If you’re not Tom Dibrell’s lawyer anymore, who am I?”
All the way home, Scott had bucked himself up for this moment; he hoped his performance was more convincing to his wife.
“I don’t need him.”
“No, but you need his three million in fees. Look, Scott, most lawyers’ wives don’t have a clue what their husbands do at the office, but I do. God knows you’ve educated me over the last eleven years. I know how things work in a law firm. And I know that a partner who just lost a three-million-dollar client won’t be a partner for long. And what are we going to do then, Scott? How are we going to pay for this house?”
Scott walked to the windows of the master suite. He could not bear to look at his wife when he said what he had to say.
“Well, that’s the other thing, Rebecca. The house. The bank called the note. I’ve got to pay off two-point-eight million in thirty days or lose it. Unless we sell it first.”
He turned and saw the color drain out of Rebecca’s face and her legs give way; she sat down hard on the bed and stared blankly at the wall in front of her. After a moment, she spoke as if to herself: “Without this house, I’ll never be chairwoman of the Cattle Barons’ Ball.” Her eyes, vacant and lost, turned to Scott. “How will I ever show my face in this town again?”
Scott Fenney felt the sting of his wife’s disappointment. He had let her down, failed her, betrayed her. He had promised her this life, a life in this house, with these things, driving those cars. Now he had broken that promise. For the first time in his life, he felt the pain of failure. And behind the pain, he felt something else, an anger building deep inside him, not the anger of a lawyer at a client who doesn’t pay his bill or a judge who rules against him, but the kind of anger he had previously felt only on a football field, a base anger that had been in man since Adam, an anger that clouded your mind and strengthened your body, that made you say things you shouldn’t say and do things you shouldn’t do, the kind of anger that usually resulted in Scott Fenney being flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. The kind of anger that meant some son of a bitch was fixing to feel some