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Quickly scoping out the name of the bar in question, I move to my browser to search for it, which brings me to a collection of poorly taken photos of the exterior of the building. It’s clearly run down, to say the least. The outside walls are crawling with dead vines, and bars cover every visible window. Based on the surrounding landscape in the photos, I’d be willing to bet that this place is located near or underneath an overpass.
From the looks of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the business itself is suffering, and the bar owner is looking for an easy settlement to either rebuild the bar or shut it down completely without taking any losses. This is probably his last-ditch effort before full-blown insurance fraud or arson.
Hey, maybe I’ll get to handle two cases from the same guy back-to-back.
I dial up the bar, hoping to be sent straight to voicemail to that I can resume my more important tasks. After four rings, I’m ready to hang up before I hear somebody answer.
“Who is this? Is this the cash store? I told you fucks to stop calling, or I’d pull your tiny bitch scrotums up your throat and out of your mouth,” a gravelly voice on the other end barks.
I pause for a moment, trying my best to understand what he just said. Maybe I should just cut my losses and hang up now before things get worse.
“Hello?!” the voice says, growing more and more impatient by the nanosecond.
It looks like I’m going in.
I clear my throat. “Hello, my name is Audrey Pierce, and I’m an attorney. Is this John Leiman? I’ve been given your information by my superior, Katie Germaine. Is now a good time to talk?” I ask, reciting my lines like a champ. That’s one thing I always get right.
There’s a moment of silence, punctuated only by the labored inhalations of a man who borrowed against his future excessively with cigarettes as a youth. Even though he isn’t speaking, his breathing somehow indicates that he is a confused, angry person who hides behind his phone when confronted with anything at all.
“So, here’s the thing, there’s this guy named Kenny Dickens, but everybody just calls him Snout. I’ve been buying booze from him for fifteen years, never had an issue. Suddenly everything I’m getting from him is watered the fuck down, and he’s dodging my calls,” John begins, and I can hear his blood pressure rising from the other end of the call.
Despite my impression that he’s not a reliable witness, I take notes as he speaks. Occasionally, he’ll pause to cough violently, confirming my suspicion that he’s a religious smoker. His tone grows more agitated as he continues, and I can feel myself tensing up.
“So what I’m gonna’ need you to do is sue Snout for everything he’s worth!” he shouts with a sense of righteous indignation. “That man has been stealing money from me for god knows how long, and he never had the balls to take responsibility for it!”
“Sir, I’m just acting as your attorney. You would be the one suing him,” I reply as kindly as possible.
“Don’t talk back to me! What are you, nineteen?” he replies coarsely.
I collect myself and breathe deeply, forcing myself to remain composed as he berates me. “No, sir, I’m twenty-five. But that’s beside the point. I’ll need to collect some documents from you in order to build a case against... what was his name?”
“Snout,” he replies confidently.
“I’m sorry, I need his proper name,” I reply, feeling myself cringing from the inside out.
“Kenny Dickens,” he replies, growing agitated by my questions despite his insistence on suing this man in the first place. “I already told you that.”
I sigh to myself. “Is that Kennedy Dickens? Kenneth Dickens?” I ask, already fantasizing about watching the phone shatter against the pavement after I chuck it off the twenty-third floor. “I need to know his proper name in order to contact him properly in case I have to get additional information from him. If I need to put his name on any legal documents–”
“Kenny-fucking-Dickens! Don’t ask again!” he shouts.
At this point, I’m wondering if I should be worried for my personal safety working with this man. Would he be any better in person, or am I about to walk straight into a homicide case?
“Alright,” I concede, scrawling Kenny’s name into my notes. “I’ll need to stop by your business to collect some documents, as I’d stated before. When is a good time for me to do that?”
“We’re open from six PM to three AM. Any time within that window is fine,” he replies.
After work? I don’t want to put any more hours into this job than I already am.
“Is there any other time? The firm typically closes at five,” I say, knowing fully that this man is one more question away from showing up to our office with a gun.
“I’m in the office doing paperwork at four-thirty tomorrow. Come then,” he snaps, hanging up the phone before I can confirm the date and time.
I ought to wring Katie’s neck for giving me this nightmare of a client.
While I know that I’m in no position to tell her that John makes me feel nothing but contemptuous and nauseated, I genuinely don’t know if taking him on would be in our firm’s best interest. He seems like a liability.
I get up out of my office chair and make my way over to Katie’s office. She’s right where she always is, sitting too straight as she talks on the phone. Her expression shifts from energetic and friendly to stone cold in ten-second intervals. It’s terrifying.
