Chapter Three
Maria
My chariot to hell is a two-prop tin can soaring twenty thousand feet in the air between Billings and Missoula, where I’m crammed into a seat too-small for even an infant, sitting next to a man in a bolo tie and a cowboy hat large enough that it’s glaringly obvious he’s compensating for something.
This man smells like overdone steak and I’ve heard him say ‘Yeehaw’ at least two times. Unironically.
My nails dig furrows into my armrest.
More than once I look to the emergency exit door, with visions of some kind of ‘Point Break’ escape dancing through my head. If two guys named Bodhi and Utah can do it, so can I. But just as many times, I shake my head and remind myself that this is the price I have to pay for advancing my career — though I might doubt things in the moment, in the long term, I have no doubt about where I want to be.
I want the deep feeling of accomplishment that’ll come with seeing my name listed among the other partners in the firm. I want the feeling of pride that comes with knowing that I made it there all on my own. That’s worth any price. All of these challenges will just make it sweeter when I’ve finally made it.
“Would you like to order any drinks before we land?” the flight attendant says. “We have beer, wine, and all the hard liquor choices you see on the in-flight menu.”
“Whiskey. Now. Please,” I answer.
‘Now’ doesn’t come soon enough.
We land in Missoula.
I step off the plane and call up one of the three Ubers working in this city to pick me up while I’m on my way to pick up my luggage. He’s all the way on the other side of town, which means I should have, at most, a minute to wait for him. Unless it’s rush hour — then I’ll probably have to wait a minute and a half.
I wait on the curb and look around, feeling like I should’ve brought my passport with me. Missoula could easily pass for a foreign country. My uber arrives in a Toyota Prius. At least that thing is universal.
“Where to?” he says to me as I hop in the back seat of his sedan.
“The Hilton, please.”
He whistles. “Fancy place. You here for something special?”
I stare out the window. At least the sunsets here are nice — the burning orange orb casting a prismatic blanket over the horizon as it disappears behind some snow-capped mountains. “Yeah.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
He’s quiet a moment. Contemplative.
“You must be in town for that one guy, huh? The one they grabbed in that firefight up near Canada.”
I open my bag, flip through the folder. “Firefight?”
“One officer died. So did one of the girls that the guy was bringing down in the back of his truck —”
Girls?
I scan through the file, half my attention on the papers inside — which simply say vague things like ‘trafficking’ and ‘assault’ and ‘smuggling’ — while the rest of my attention’s on the driver, who is still rambling on about my future client.
“— course, she might’ve been dead before they caught on to him, what with the conditions they say she and the other girls were in — being chained up and all in the back of that truck. Still, shame to see someone go like that. Especially one so young.”
I don’t want to know, even though I need to know. “How young?”
“A friend of a friend works at the coroners office. They couldn’t get an exact age, but she probably wasn’t old enough to drive, yet. Rumor has it, one of the girls they got out alive still had some of her baby teeth.”
It’s hearsay. Rumor. I don’t give credit to them. It’s not part of my job. But it’s still enough to make me sick.
“That’s so sad,” I say, looking out the window.
“There’s a memorial service for her next Sunday. She’s a ‘Jane Doe’, but she still deserves something, you know?”
I mutter something non-committal and think about telling him to turn around and head back to the airport.
“So is that what you’re here for?” he says.
“I can’t tell you. Legal reasons. You understand.”
“Yeah, sure. Well, here we are, ma’am. I hope you have a good time in our little city. If you’re looking for a place to eat, about two blocks down on Main Street is ‘Mean Mike’s Bar & Grill’. My friend Mike runs the place. He’s not actually mean, but he makes the best hoagies in the state.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, hardly listening as I step out and stare up at my hotel.
It doesn’t look too bad. Modern, bright, the lobby is spacious and well-decorated in that kind of generic-yet-vaguely-local way that most hotels are. And, best of all, right off the lobby, there’s a bar. The shelves of liquor bottles behind the polished-wood bar practically sing my name.
Without a word, I bypass the check-in counter and head straight for it. There’s a pit forming in my stomach, a pit that’s getting worse every time I find out more about this case. The only way I’m going to survive this assignment is by getting on a first-name basis with the bartender.
* * * * *
“Ms. Houlihan, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” says a man coming up the steps to the US Attorneys office in Missoula. His voice is even, moderate, but still far too loud for my hangover. He holds out his hand too me. “I’m Ryan Deering, attorney for Mr. Ardoin. Thank you for coming. I’m glad Mark was finally able to send some help out here.”
I shake his hand. His handshake is firm, but unassuming, like he doesn’t have anything to prove. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Deering.”
I feel like a fish out of water standing here and seeing how everyone else is dressed. ‘Chicago Lawyer attire’ is a far different standard than ‘Montana Lawyer attire’. It’s a realization that hit me about fifteen minutes and five awkward looks ago, and it’s good to see a friendly face.
“Call me Ryan. Please. Things are a little less formal out here. Now, our client is supposed to be around in about fifteen minutes. I got a call earlier from the deputy police chief that Mr. Ardoin was being a little uncooperative this morning. Sorry about the delay.”
“Uncooperative?” I say.
“You don’t want to know.”
I frown. Partly from the slight hangover I’m nursing and partly because everything I learn about my future client — stories about him are still making the rounds in the local papers and none of it is good — makes me realize that the splitting headache I woke up with this morning is probably going to be today’s high point.
I take the file folder that Mr. Watkins gave me before I left Chicago and hand it over to Ryan. “I need you to take a look at this, It’s all I have on the case and, the more I hear, the more I feel like I don’t know the half of what we’re dealing with.”
Ryan flips through the folder in about thirty seconds, shaking his head the whole time.
“If this is all Mark gave you, I’d understand if you want to go back home. You can, you know. No one would think lesser of you, and, frankly, I should probably give Mark hell for not giving you the full picture.”
I frown. Hard enough my headache gets work and makes me frown even more. It’s a vicious cycle. But there’s no way I’m giving up this assignment. Whatever the costs are in pain, hangovers, headaches, it’s a small price to pay to get ahead.
I need this.
“Just tell me. I’m not leaving.”
“Our client is a special kind of handful. The stories you’ve heard about him are probably true. He got caught doing the kind of shit that should put him away for good and every stone they turn over in his life just reveals even more shit. He’s scum. And I’m telling you that as a man he’s paying to represent him.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Exactly. But, lucky for him, he’s got even more stories to tell about some of his associates and, he claims, the records to back it up. Dirt on Dixie Mafia groups from Louisiana to Wisconsin, and even a few criminal gangs along the West Coast. He knows how to make himself just valuable enough to try and wiggle free of the hook he’s found himself on.”
My eyes get wider, and not from irritation. A case that’s this sweeping in scope really could be a career-maker.
“Why did you even ask for help? Why share this?”
He shrugs. “I figured it’s the safest bet and best serves the client’s interest. This is a big case. More than a one man job. Plus, Mr. Ardoin’s testimony is going to upset a lot of people that you don’t really want to upset. It could get dicey.”
“Dicey?”
“I mean, in addition to having some help in handling the obscene paperwork and negotiating with the US Attorney — qualities that Mark said you possessed in spades — it’s going to be nice to have some, er, redundancy. Just in case something untowards happens.”
“You’re expecting violence?”
He shrugs. “Did you ever study the John H. Wood Jr. Case back in law school?”
I shut my eyes, trying to recall. Hungover is not the best state for a history lesson.
“The name sounds familiar, but that’s it,” I say. “Sorry.”
“John Wood Jr. was a judge. He was known for giving out the maximum sentence for drug offenses. He was due to hear the trial of a big-time trafficker who, obviously, didn’t want to go away. This trafficker hired a hitman, Charles Harrelson — Woody Harrelson’s estranged dad — to off the judge. And he did.”
“We’re not judges, Ryan. We’re on the defense.”
“And our defendant is about to kick up a hornets nest bigger than some 1970’s drug trafficker,” he says. “It’s best to be prepared.”
“It sounds like you’re suggesting I should take advantage of Montana’s liberal gun laws while I’m here.”
“All I’m saying is there’s a shop across the street. Eddie’s Armory. And another a block from the courthouse. Armando’s Guns. Armando’s prices are the best in town. It’s worth taking a look. It never hurts to be cautious, Ms. Houlihan.”
Approaching cars and slamming doors interrupt my thoughts about whether I can use the company card and write up a Beretta as a work expense.
A trio of black suits and two uniformed officers escort an orange jumpsuited, smug-looking man with messy brown hair, brown eyes — one of which is disturbingly lazy and lolls about like it has a mind of it’s own — and a scruffy beard. He walks like he’s the living embodiment of the word ‘bastard’ and relishes every bit of it.
I feel dirty in my soul just for looking at him.
He stops in front of us and paws me with his good eye.
“If I’d have known I’d wind up with a lawyer as good looking as you, I’d have gotten arrested sooner. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Maria Houlihan. I’m to be assisting in your representation, Mr. Ardoin,” I say. I try and keep my voice clipped, professional, to remind this creepy looking bastard that I’m not interested in any way, shape, or form.
It doesn’t work.
It usually doesn’t.
“Nice to meet you, Maria,” he says, brushing close to me as he climbs past me up the stairs. His cuffed hands brush the small of my back and my stomach twists itself in revulsion.
“Keep moving,” one of the officers says, pulling him along by the shoulder.
David turns at looks at me over his shoulder as he’s pulled up the stairs. “Maybe when I’m a free man I’ll look you up. What do you say about that, sweetheart?”
I soothe myself by imagining what would happen to this guy if Ozzy were here.
“Sorry about that,” Ryan mutters as we turn to head up the stairs ourselves.
“Is he always like that?” I say.
“Compared to his usual, I’d say he’s behaving himself right now. Welcome to the team.”
I share a look with Ryan as we follow David Ardoin and his police escort up the steps of the US Attorneys office. I sigh, and remind myself to keep my eyes on the prize: promotion, respect, and the ability to — some day — pick and choose my cases so I don’t ever have to meet the David Ardoins of the world ever again.
Ryan leans in as we pass through the open doors into the lobby. “Trust me, it’ll all be worth it. A case like this can go a long way towards boosting your career.”
I nod. It’d better.