CHAPTER ONE
MASON
The stale courtroom air is pregnant with anticipation as the jury shuffles in. They’re a motley crew of housewives, bitter retirees, impatient professionals, and that one nerdy programmer who looks ready to piss himself with glee. It’s as if his fantasies of being transported into an episode of Law and Order finally came true… minus Mariska Hargitay.
I look over at my opponent, a leggy new Deputy District Attorney. Ever since closing arguments wrapped she’s been sending me not so subtle looks that tell me she’s not just wet behind the ears.
“We have reached a verdict, Your Honor,” the nervous, sweaty foreman announces to Judge Thomas, looking up from the typed, fill-in-the-blank verdict form.
Judge Thomas looks bored as the pause stretches awkwardly, the lines of her face sagging in a tired expression. Twenty years deep on the bench. Even felony fraud doesn’t spark interest in those cold eyes.
“Well, Sir, that verdict isn’t going to read itself,” she says, irritation flashing.
“Oh, yes, ma’am, I just didn’t know if you, uh, cue my line or if I wait for you to say…” he trails off as Judge Thomas looks back at him expressionless and annoyed.
“Sorry. Yes, uh, we, the jury, find the defendant, Mr. Bad… uh,” he says, nervously fumbling over my client’s name.
She seizes on his stumble.
“Mr. Bad-Uh? What is this- 7th grade health? Should I declare a mistrial now or do you think you can manage to say ‘cock’ without reducing to a fit of giggles and titters?”
The Harpy taps her long, perfectly manicured nails on the bench and quirks a brow over her severe, horn-rimmed glasses. In her prime, I’m sure this authoritarian deal was more hot than scary. But time and bitterness have tipped those scales.
“No, ma’am. Wait, I mean yes ma’am. Oh boy, um… We, the jury, find the defendant, Mister… Tyler Atterbury Badcock II, on Count 1- ‘Felony Fraud in the First degree,’ not guilty. On Count 2- ‘Felony Fraud in the Third Degree,’ not guilty. And, on Count 3- ‘Elder Abuse by Wrongful Appropriation of Property and Assets,’ not guilty.”
He looks briefly proud of himself.
She sniffs. “Congratulations, Mr. Foreman. I’m sure we can find a cookie for you somewhere,” Thomas says without looking back at him.
The jury is led out by the bailiff and the foreman slinks out, figurative tail between his legs, looking like a naughty puppy.
“Well, it would seem, Mr. Badcock, that your fortune today is not reflective of the fortune that landed you with such a godawful name. Thank your lawyer for that. Well done, Mr. Beckett,” she nods curtly in my direction.
Had I been fresh out of law school, newly minted and green, the Harpy’s recognition would have been a thrill. Now it just feels empty.
“Never thought I’d be congratulating a Beckett in my courtroom again. My regards to your father,” she says.
And there are those infamous talons…
Dad’s got another year to go on the sentence Thomas handed down to him after his bribery and gratuity convictions. So thoughtful of her to bring it up, but hey, that’s Thomas.
I can’t say I blame her anyway, not after the fall out of all the shady dealings it turned out my father was involved in. The scandal was nothing short of devastating to the legal community, taking down politicians, law enforcement… even a few judges.
But here I am, Mason Beckett, dutiful son, doing my part to bring back the firm’s reputation among the New York elite by representing charming scions like my client today.
Tyler is a smug bastard, but a rich one, and amongst the greed-driven partners of Beckett, Lathan & Partners LLP, that’s all that matters, even if the thought leaves me wanting a scalding shower. He’s clapping me on the back and reaching for his phone, ignoring the Judge’s final words.
Long Legs at the table next to us has gone from misplaced confidence and overt flirtation to red-in-the-face pissed off.
“Congratulations, you’ve really contributed to the greater good today, Beckett. Living up to the family name, I hear,” she hisses at me as we’re shuffling out.
“Take it easy, sweetie, and don’t worry, losing will get easier,” I say patronizingly, sending the point home with a well-placed wink.
I may be a Beckett, damn it, but I won that case fairly. I don’t pull the same bullshit my father did to win. Yes, I may hate the job, but I’m fucking good at it.
“Speaking from personal experience?” she asks, garnering a laugh from me.
I smile. “Okay, Legs, you're new to the big kid’s table, so I’ll let your ignorance slide this time. You go back to your shitty little public offices and thank your colleagues, because while they were busy filling that pretty little head of yours full of gossip, they forgot to tell you one important detail about me. I. Do. Not. Lose… ever. I suggest, if you last long enough to face me again, you offer one hell of a plea deal. That is, unless you enjoy getting your ass spanked in the courtroom. Kind of kinky, I know, but I’m always willing to oblige a lady.”
I have zero interest in her, nothing enticing about another type-A ballbuster, but I am enjoying the apoplectic expression on her face.
“Asshole,” she manages to spit out before stomping off.
The truth is, she’s still right. I may be above board in my methods, but I’m still a son of a bitch for defending someone like Tyler, money or not. I hate myself with far more intensity than she could conjure.
“Nice job,” Tyler says, ending his call. “Nick was right. I was worried about being attached to the Beckett name, but you really pulled it off in there.”
How far down did you have to fall before someone with the name Badcock was worried about looking bad by association?
“Actually, despite the retainer,” I tell him, “you owe us quite a lot, in fact. Accounting will be in touch.” I remind him of his outstanding bill and myself of the reason why I continue to sacrifice my integrity.
He’s nodding dismissively. “Sure thing, no problem. Man, when that old bag got on the stand yesterday talking about how I had manipulated blah blah this and fuck off that, I started to get a little worried. But damn, you really nailed her, making her look crazy and—”
“I wasn’t trying to make her look crazy; just proposing the possibility she misinterpreted your conversations…” His phone starts blaring some shitty Limp Bizkit song.
“Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. I gotta take this. What up, playa?!” He’s turning away from me as we ride the elevator down.
For a pastel-blazered Ivy League grad from Connecticut, he’s making a transparent effort to sound like he grew up in Harlem or anywhere without a sailing club—nearly as hard as I’m trying to conceal my disgust with this caricature of over-indulged douchebaggery before me.
“Psh, that ol’ bitch, she tryna call me out for getting her committed and forging her signature. Bitch was out of her mind anyway. What the hell was she gonna do with the money? I told her to keep her hag mouth shut, but s’all good anyway, ’cause I’m a baller. That shit don’t stick to me.”
He’s laughing into his brand-new iPhone and my stomach churns listening to his reenactment of the trial to his douche-bud on the other line.
“Anyway, I’m gettin’ the fuck outta here. Let’s get some shit poppin’ tonight, hit up some hoes, maybe work a li’l special K magic. I got gramma’s money comin’ out my balls now. Motherfucka, I’m untouchable!”
Without another word to me, Tyler’s walking out of the elevator through the front of the building. I watch as he climbs into a neon yellow Lamborghini Spyder parked in a handicapped space. The prick flies through a red light in his piece of overpriced eurotrash, narrowly missing a woman with a stroller.
And that is the kind of person you’re representing? Way to go, my friend.
I need a drink, preferably a nice, robust Scotch.
It’s best way I know to smother unabating guilt and self-loathing… for a while.
*
“Stop beating yourself up and put on your big boy panties. There’s no shame in being good at your job. Besides, if it wasn’t you, there are countless other attorneys who would happily have taken the Badcock case. You’re not the first lawyer to feel a little butt hurt after taking a bad cock for work,” Selena says, winking.
She’s one of the few attorneys who stuck around through the PR damage control and rebuilding of the firm. She’s also a former fuckbuddy and the closest thing I’ve got to a friend. Trial schedules don’t leave a lot of downtime, so we multitask.
We’re having our usual post-trial debriefing at Poussé-Café, the coffeehouse-slash-bar next door to the office.
“It’s not just Badcock… it’s all of this bullshit. At what point did I set a price on my dignity?” I ask, swirling the excellent twenty-five-year-old Macallan in my glass.
“The day you went into criminal defense and civil litigation,” Selena jokes.
I rake my hands through my hair, feeling restless. “Seriously, though. I just… I hate this feeling. I hate knowing I helped fuck over some innocent person.”
“Look, it’s not like you don’t get the random decent client in the mix,” she argues.
“Decent by whose measure? Because I’m pretty sure my own standards are too fucked by this point to recognize one.”
She’s sipping a dry Gibson, amusement and sympathy mixing in her eyes.
“Oh, Mason, always with the conscience.”
I laugh. “Only in the world of criminal defense is that a bad thing.”
“See, when you make sweeping generalizations like that I want so badly to argue and wipe the floor with your ass, as we both know I could and have. Yet…” She throws her hands out. “Witness my restraint and compassion.”
I smirk at her. “Yes, you’re the picture of mercy.”
“It’s more than you’ll get from the other partners if they hear your bitching,” she says, biting the onion off her cocktail and flicking the plastic toothpick at me.
“I know, I know, but don’t you just ever get fed up with this? Does it ever bother you that we’re the reason the bad guys walk free?”
She doesn’t seem to mind. “Oh, fuck that high horse. No, it doesn’t bother me to be able to put my mom in a full-service retirement community after all the years she worked her fingers raw taking care of her kids. It also doesn’t bother me to be free of student loans, to be able to travel, eat avocado toast, and do the shit that makes me happy.
“Maybe I represent some assholes, sure. If I don’t, someone else will and, personally, I’d rather walk away with the paycheck. If I want to feel good about myself, I’ll send a check to UNICEF or St. Jude’s. I know how to leave the case in the courtroom.”
Selena can be ruthless and, when the occasion calls for it, a bitch, but she’s a hard-working bitch who has clawed a long way up the ladder to get what she has. She’s put in far more blood, sweat, and hours than I had to to reach the same status.
Growing up before the scandal, the Beckett name basically guaranteed entry into the top schools and most prestigious organizations in this country. Selena came from a different world and is one of the few I don’t begrudge the right to enjoy her success.
“It’s relative, though,” I continue. “Who am I sacrificing my morals for? My mother sold her soul to the gods of prescription painkillers and my father is an imprisoned megalomaniac. Even as undeserving as they are, the family coffers can more than provide for them.”
“What about your brothers? Oh wait, isn’t one of them in the NFL?”
The mention of my little brothers tugs at my conscience some. I haven’t seen them in god only knows… not that they’re likely to have noticed, what with their burgeoning gaggles of kids and non-soul-crushing careers.
“Yeah, Cayden’s with the Giants. He’s set for life, even without his trust fund. Colton is doing alright in the NHL up in Canada, and Hunter is a disgrace to the Beckett name. By that, I mean he’s actually taken an honorable job of service.”
Even if it means I almost never see them, I’m so fucking proud of them for carving their own paths—unlike my stupid ass.
“None of them need me. In fact, they’re probably better off without me in their lives.”
Selena smiles. “Well, my gloomy comrade, I don’t know what to tell you. Somehow, after ten years of practice you’ve managed to keep part of your soul, poor bastard.”
“Ha, yeah, the charred and blackened part,” I laugh bitterly.
“Maybe the answer is to just get out?”
“Get out and do what?” I ask.
“Hell, I don’t know, but you’ve got your own savings right? Is there anything else you’re qualified to do?”
I look down at the amber liquid sloshing in my glass, momentarily mesmerized by the swirl of it and the ideas circling in my mind. There is one idea I’ve tossed around for a long time, but if I say it out loud it will become a reality.
Fuck it, why not? Isn’t it better than whoring your integrity out? The firm has made it through the worst of it now. Someone else can play Judas.
I drain what’s left of my drink and signal the bartender for a refill.
“Well, I have thought about opening my own automotive repair shop. It’s always been a hobby of mine, classic cars and that sort of thing, something I used to do with my Pop. He was from the old school, a different kind of Beckett.”
Selena smiles wickedly. “Well, you’ve certainly got some skilled hands, but I’m having a hard time picturing you sweating under a car… a woman, yes, but a car? Harder image to conjure.”
“Exactly,” I say, the idea starting to take hold. “No one would expect it. I could find some little backwater town and just disappear… as much as I could ever hope to, anyway.”
Selena is looking a little concerned as she downs the last of her cocktail.
“Moving to the boondocks seems a bit drastic. Maybe you just need a good lay?” she suggests.
I quirk a brow. “Why? You offering?”
“Don’t you and that third arm of yours go tempting me. Liza is into this monogamy shit,” she says, rolling her eyes. “What can I say? Good girls do have a special appeal.”
“Yeah? Well, it wouldn’t be our first three-way, or have you forgotten Boston?”
“I still walk funny from that weekend,” she laughs, “but I’ll have to pass, big boy. Liza’s not into dangling bits, but she loves to eat out. I’ll stick with what’s on menu for now.”
“Another drink, ma’am?” The bartender asks as he refills my own.
“Thanks, but no more for me tonight,” she replies. “Speaking of menus, I need to get home. I promised Liza I’d be there in time for a late dinner.”
“Shit, Selena, turning down Gibsons and three-ways, rushing to meet curfew… She’s got you on the leash, huh?”
“Hey, some of us like leashes,” she smiles suggestively, pulling on her coat to leave. “You should try it sometime.”
I lean back. “No, thanks. Chicks like that, no offense, they expect too much. They always have a list, expectations for you to meet, and if you don’t, they want to want to ‘help’ you meet them. It’s too much trouble and I have enough shit to deal with. As wrecked as I am from this career and my fucked-up family, there is no fixing me.”
“Oh, Mason,” she sighs, “I have faith that someday some pretty little idiot is going to leash you up good and leave you begging for more.”