steps.
Don held the card with the lawyer's number. Another lawyer. Another attempt to destroy him. When you kill, Don, kill the right guy. Life in prison for killing a realtor? Come on. One dead lawyer is worth ten dead realtors any day.
He locked the door, got in the truck, and drove. At first he thought of driving to Cindy's. But what would that accomplish? Either she knew about the threat from the previous owner, or she didn't. Either she would be embarrassed about their near-tryst or she wouldn't. No possible meeting would work out happily for either of them.
So he drove. Up to some of the new housing developments around some of the lakes north and west of the city. Houses for doctors and lawyers, executives and car dealers. Big houses, on huge wooded lots, designed to have great views and to give them, too. From the road over there where the common people drive, this house would look like a slavery-era plantation house, and that one like a Federal mansion, and this other one like a Hollywood extravaganza, and that last one like an escapee from the ugliest part of the 1950s. Taste didn't come with money. Nor restraint. Nor even common decency. I used to build their houses, thought Don. I used to try so hard to please them. Excellence that they didn't understand and didn't want to pay for. I built their house as meticulously as I would hope they did surgery, or handled legal cases, or whatever. Was I the only one who cared that much? The only one who wanted to do good work even where it wasn't on display?
He came out onto Lake Brandt Road, and then took the left fork onto Lawndale. He stopped at Sam's and got out and used the payphone to call the lawyer's number. He recognized the name of the firm when the receptionist said it. They didn't have the best reputation in town, but extortion was a new specialty for them.
"He's with a client," said the receptionist.
"Get out of your chair," said Don, "and go tell him that either he talks to me on the phone or he talks to me in person ten minutes from now."
"We do not respond to threats, sir."
"It says a lot about your law firm that you have a policy about that," said Don. "Don't waste my time, I'm calling from a payphone."
It only took a moment for the lawyer to get on the phone. "Most people make appointments," said the lawyer.
"What you and your client are doing is extortion," said Don.
"No it's not," said the lawyer. "It's fair warning."
"But if I give you twenty thousand, the whole problem goes away."
"It saves everybody a lot of unnecessary legal fees and court costs," said the lawyer. "It's called settling out of court."
"Then in exchange I get a quit-claim that specifies the amount I paid you."
"No you don't."
"Then go to court, and I'll testify that only your unwillingness to have a legal document with the amount of money on it stood between us and settlement."
"That's a privileged matter."
"There's no privilege because you're not my lawyer," said Don. "I'll be at your office at eight-thirty in the morning. The check will be made out to your client."
"It will be cash."
"No it won't. Again, I'm happy to testify in court that your client wanted to leave no paper trail."
"Cash or no deal."
"I'll be there at eight-thirty with the cashier's check. You be there with the quit-claim specifying the amount of money and making no assertions about any kind of relationship between me and Ms. Claybourne. Or you can sue your brains out."
"Apparently you don't know what a court action like that will involve, Mr. Lark, or you wouldn't talk so blithely about getting into one."
"I spent a quarter of a million dollars on assholes like you, trying to get my daughter back. And other assholes who were even assholier than thou managed to keep me from getting her back until my ex-wife got them both killed. What exactly do you think I'm afraid of now?"
"You're afraid of Cindy Claybourne losing her job."
"Not really," said Don.
"So chivalry is dead?"
"No, I'm just not afraid of her losing her job. You and your client picked the wrong targets here. Ms. Claybourne and I have both lost about all we have to lose. You don't have it in your power to do more than inconvenience us."
"So why are you agreeing to the twenty thousand?"
"Because if I don't get this whole thing