opposite directions, I wavered in the center lane, careening forward at full speed, thinking of Liz and what I had done and what I had failed to do. I turned the wheel and headed west, toward Liz and the ocean.
I sat in the parking lot outside the Legal Aid office, staring the rest of my life in the face. It was my turn to act instead of react. I took a few deep breaths and opened the door. Then I picked up the box from the seat beside me and carried it under my arm. I paused at the blue donation bin beside the entrance, lifted the lid, and dropped the box inside.
It was my first good deed in a long time. Then I went through the door, ready for another, preparing to take a chance and maybe save myself, for once.
Now, turn the page for a taste of the second Oliver Olson novel:
THE FLAMING MOTEL
Friday
November 1
I
It was a banner headline, front page, above the fold: Pornography Mogul Shot by Police at Costume Party. Apparently a toy gun had been mistaken for the real thing. A hell of an error to make on Halloween. I was reading the story, both amused and appalled, when the call came in.
I glanced up. Through my office doorway I saw Jendrek answer the phone on Ellen’s desk. He made a few grunts into the receiver, nodded, looking over at me. Our eyes met and he grinned. I heard him mention Professor Stanton. I heard him say we’d handled these kinds of cases before and that we appreciated Mr. Stanton thinking of us. I heard him say we’d be happy to meet whoever it was wherever would be most convenient. He bent over the desk, scrambled for a pen and paper, and scribbled something down.
I was sitting with my feet up on the desk, still holding the paper, when I heard him hang up and say, “Grab your coat, Ollie, we’ve got a meeting to get to.”
Jendrek was halfway out the door when he stopped, leaned back inside and said, “And bring the newspaper, we can learn something about this thing on the way up there.”
I threw on a sport coat and locked the office door behind me, fumbling with the key. Ellen wouldn’t even be in for another hour. We usually sat around drinking coffee at this time of morning. Not much to do. Our law practice wasn’t exactly on fire.
Jendrek was holding the elevator at the end of the hallway, grinning out at me. He was twice my age, but his cherubic round face would have made him look a lot younger, were it not for his shoulder-length gray hair. “Come on, man,” he hollered.
“What is it?” I asked as the elevator closed.
He flicked the paper I was holding with his finger and said, “The lead story. Don Vargas, the porn king. That was his son on the phone. We’re going to meet him, and Vargas’s wife too, I imagine.”
I unfolded the paper and stared at the headline again, having already forgotten the name of the dead man. Jendrek pointed at the paper again as the elevator opened onto the parking structure two levels below ground. He spoke as he walked to his car, rushing. Always rushing. “Apparently Max Stanton represents Vargas’s companies. The family called him in the middle of the night when it happened, and he recommended me if they were interested in suing the police department.”
He unlocked his 1974 Jaguar and hit the automatic locks to let me in. I slid into the passenger seat, still processing what he said. Jendrek laughed as he pulled out of the garage and headed east down Santa Monica Boulevard. “Hell, I knew all that adjunct teaching at the law school would have to pay off someday. If that story in the paper is even half right, we might actually have a good case.”
He was positively giddy, which wasn’t like Jendrek at all. He was usually a stone-cold cynic. I found it amusing and called him on it. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? You know journalists never get legal stuff right.”
He gave me a sideways glance. “You’re one to talk about that.”
He had me there, and his statement cut to the bone. A journalist had gotten murdered in connection with the very first case I ever worked on. It was the case that both made me and broke me, and I still felt bad about getting the journalist involved