15

Friday dinner was at The Rooster Bar, a place she had never heard of. According to Todd, he and Mark wanted to treat her to a fine meal. One look at the place, though, and she knew something was up. They were waiting in a corner booth, both dressed in new suits, both unshaven and working on beards, and both wearing odd new eyeglasses. Mark’s were round tortoiseshell. Todd preferred a narrow frameless pair in the European style.

She sat across from them and said, “Okay, what’s going on?”

Todd asked, “Did you go to class this week?”

“I tried. At least I made the effort. Didn’t see you boys around.”

Mark said, “We’ve dropped out, and we highly recommend it.”

Todd said, “It’s exhilarating, Zola. No more law school. No more worries about the bar exam.”

“I’m listening,” she said. “Where’d you get those suits?”

A waiter took their drink orders. Beers for the boys, a soda for her.

“It’s our new look, Zola,” Mark said. “We’re lawyers now and we have to look the part, though in our line we can’t look too sharp. DUI lawyers, as you know, rarely make the cover of GQ.”

“I see. And who would be desperate enough to hire you?”

“We’ve hung out our own shingle,” Todd said. “Hired ourselves. The Legal Clinic of Upshaw, Parker & Lane.” He handed her a new business card with the firm’s name, address, and phone number.

She looked at it, studied it, and said, “You are kidding, right?”

“Dead serious,” Mark said. “And we’re hiring.”

She took a deep breath, slowly showed them both palms, and said, “Okay. I’m not asking any more questions. Tell me what’s going on, or I’m leaving.”

Todd said, “You’re not going anywhere. We’ve moved out of our apartments, dropped out of school, changed our names, and found a way to make a few bucks. We’re going to pass ourselves off as lawyers, hustle the criminal courts for fees, in cash of course, and hope like hell we don’t get caught.”

“We won’t get caught,” Mark said. “There are too many guys just like us doing the same thing.”

“But they’re all licensed,” she said.

“How do you know? No one ever checks. And the clients have no clue. They’re scared to death and overwhelmed anyway, and never think about asking. Just like we didn’t ask Darrell Cromley at the jail.”

“It’s illegal,” she said. “I haven’t learned much at Foggy Bottom but I do know that practicing law without a license is against the law.”

“Only if we get caught,” Mark said.

Todd added, “Sure, there’s a risk, but it’s not that significant. If something goes wrong, we’ll just disappear again.”

Mark said, “And we think we can generate some cash, tax-free, of course.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No, we’re actually pretty smart. We’re hiding in plain sight, Zola. Hiding from our landlord. Hiding from the student loan services. Hiding from everyone who might want to find us. And, we’ll be making decent money.”

“And your debts?”

Mark sipped his beer, wiped his mouth, and leaned in closer. “Here’s what will happen. The law school will one day realize that we’ve checked out, but it will do nothing. Most reputable law schools notify DOE and then haggle over how much of the tuition will be refunded for the semester. You can bet Foggy Bottom wants to refund nothing, so it will sit on the fact that we’re gone and keep all the money. We’ll check in by e-mail with our servicers and give them the impression that we’re in class. Graduation is in May, and, as you know, we’re supposed to agree to a repayment plan that starts six months later. When we don’t pay, they’ll throw us in default.”

Todd added, “Did you know that last year a million students went into default?”

She shrugged. Maybe she did; maybe she didn’t.

Mark continued, “So we have some time, nine or ten months before we’re in default. By then, we’ll be kicking ass with our little legal clinic and hoarding cash.”

She said, “But default means default, a guaranteed lawsuit that you can’t defend.”

Todd said, “Only if they find us. My loan servicer works in a sweatshop in Philadelphia. Mark’s is in New Jersey. Where is yours, I can’t remember?”

“Chevy Chase.”

“Okay, a bit closer, but you’ll still be safe. The point is that they can’t find us because we have different names, different addresses. They’ll turn us over to some two-bit law firm, one no doubt owned by Hinds Rackley, and they’ll file suit. Big deal. They’re suing students like crazy and the lawsuits are worthless.”

“But your credit is ruined.”

“What credit? It’s ruined anyway because we can’t repay the loans. Even if we found honest work, there’s no way in hell we can repay what we owe.”

The waiter appeared and Mark ordered a platter of nachos. When he left, she said, “So much for a fine dinner.”

“Compliments of us. It’s on the firm,” Todd said with a smile.

She was still holding the business card. She looked at it and asked, “Where did these names come from?”

Mark replied, “The phone book. Common, everyday names. I’m Mark Upshaw and have documents to prove it. He’s Todd Lane, just another ham-and-egg lawyer hustling the streets.”

“And who’s Parker?”

“That’s you,” Todd said. “Zola Parker. We’re thinking our little clinic needs some diversity so we’re adding you as the middle partner. All equal, you understand. Three equal partners.”

“Three equal crooks,” she said. “I’m sorry, but this is crazy.”

“It is. And what’s even crazier is the idea of wrapping things up at Foggy Bottom, graduating in May without a job, then grinding away for the bar exam. Face it, Zola, you’re not emotionally prepared for that. Neither are we, so we’ve already made our decision.”

“But we’re almost finished with law school,” she said.

Mark said, “So what? So you finish with a law degree that’s worthless. Just another piece of paper courtesy of Hinds Rackley and his diploma mill. We’ve been had, Zola, sucked into a scam of epic proportions. Gordy was right. You can’t just drift along with the scam and hope for a miracle. At least we’re fighting back.”

“You’re not fighting anything. You’re just screwing the taxpayers.”

Todd said, “The taxpayers are getting screwed by Congress and the Department of Education. And, of course, Rackley, who’s already made his money off our backs.”

“But we chose to borrow the money. No one made us.”

“True, but the money was loaned to us under false pretenses,” Mark said. “When you started law school, did you really believe that you would one day be sitting here with a mountain of debt and no job? Hell no. The picture they painted back then was much rosier. Take the money, get the degree, pass the bar, and go to work in a great profession that would make it easy to repay everything.”

The waiter brought another round of drinks. There was a gap in the conversation as they sipped and stared at the table.

Softly, she said, “It seems awfully risky.”

Mark and Todd nodded in agreement. Mark said, “There are risks, yes, but we don’t consider them to be that significant. The first risk is that we get caught practicing law without a license, but it’s no big deal. A slap on the wrist, a small fine, and move on.”

Todd added, “We’ve studied the cases and unauthorized practice is not that uncommon. It happens, and by the way the cases are fascinating, but no one goes to jail.”

“That’s supposed to be comforting?”

“I suppose. Look, Zola, under our plan if someone gets suspicious and reports us, and let’s say the D.C. Bar Council shows up with a bunch of questions, we simply vanish again.”

“And that’s even more comforting?”

Mark ignored her and said, “The second risk is that we default on our loans and this somehow screws up our already screwed-up lives.”

The nachos arrived and each took a bite. After the second bite, Zola touched her eyes with a paper napkin and they realized she was crying. She said, “Look, guys, I can’t stay in my apartment. Every time I look at Gordy’s door I almost break down. His family moved out his stuff on Tuesday and I keep going over there and sitting in the darkness. I need to get away, to somewhere.”

They nodded, stopped eating, took a sip.

“And there’s something else,” she said. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes again, and told the story of a college student in Texas who was yanked from her dorm room in the middle of the night by ICE agents. She was sent to El Salvador, where she was reunited with her family of undocumented workers who had been removed a month earlier. The problem was the student had been born in the U.S. and had full citizenship. Her appeals and paperwork still languished somewhere deep in the bureaucracy.

Zola told them she had found a dozen cases of U.S. citizens being ensnared in ICE raids and removed, and each arrest had happened after the detention of family members. She was living in fear and it was debilitating.

Mark and Todd listened with sympathy. When she finished, and the tears had stopped, Mark said, “Well, we’ve found a great hiding place, and there’s room for you.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Upstairs. We’re sharing a dump on the fourth floor, no elevator I might add, and there are two rooms just below us. Maynard says we can have it for very reasonable rent.”

“Who’s Maynard?”

“Our boss,” Todd said. “He owns the place.”

“It’s not very nice,” Mark said. “But you would have your privacy, or some of it.”

“I’m not rooming with you guys.”

“No, not at all. We’ll be on the fourth floor and you’ll be on the third.”

“Does it have a kitchen?”

“Not really, but then you don’t need to cook anyway.”

“How about a bathroom?”

“That could be a problem,” Todd said. “The only bathroom is on the fourth floor, but we can make it work. It’s not ideal, Zola, but we’re all scrambling here. We can tough it out for a few months and see how things go.”

“It’s the perfect place to hide,” Mark said. “Think of Anne Frank hiding from the Nazis, only not quite that severe, you know?”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“I guess I could find a better analogy.”

“What about Maynard?” she asked. “How much does he know?”

Todd said, “I’ve worked for Maynard for three years and he’s cool. He’s a bit on the crooked side anyway, big-time bookie and all, and he has no idea what a legal clinic is. He thinks we’re still in school but doesn’t really care. We’re negotiating with him, offering to swap bartending hours for rent. He’ll come around.”

She said, “I really can’t visualize myself hustling DUI cases like that Cromley dude.”

Mark said, “Of course not, Zola. So far, from what we’ve observed, all the hustlers are men, most of them white. You wouldn’t fit in, because, well, you do tend to attract attention.”

“So what’s my specialty?”

“Office girl,” Todd said.

“I don’t like the sound of that. Where’s the office?”

“Your den. It’s the new home of Upshaw, Parker & Lane. UPL. Unauthorized Practice of Law.”

“Clever.”

“We thought so. We see your talents in the field of personal injury law, which, as we know because of our superb legal education, is still the most lucrative area of street law.”

As if rehearsed, Mark took the handoff and said, “We see you working the hospital emergency rooms, trolling for injured plaintiffs. In this city, most of them are black and you can relate to them. They’ll believe you and want to hire you.”

“I know nothing of personal injury law,” she said.

“Of course you do. You’ve seen a thousand ads on television, all those hucksters begging for cases. They’re not the sharpest tools in the shed, so you gotta figure there can’t be much to PI work.”

“Thanks.”

Todd added, “And it only takes a couple of really good car wrecks to make some money, Zola. I met a lawyer in the Old Red Cat who was starving until he slipped on some ice and fell. When he was laid up in the hospital, they rolled in another guy who got banged up in a motorcycle collision. A year later the lawyer settled the motorcycle accident case for almost a million and raked off one-third.”

“Just like that,” she said.

“Yes, and there will always be injured people and they always take ’em to the hospital. That’s where you’ll be waiting.”

“It’ll work, Zola, because we’ll make it work,” Mark said. “Just the three us, all for one, one for all. Equal partners to the very end.”

“And what’s the end, guys? What is your endgame?”

“Survival,” Todd said. “We’ll survive by hiding and pretending to be other people. We’ll hustle the streets because there’s no turning back.”

“And if we get caught?”

Mark and Todd took a sip and thought about an answer. Finally, Mark said, “If we get caught, we simply walk away again. Vanish.”

“A life on the run,” she said.

“We’re running now,” Todd said. “You might not want to admit it, but that’s what we’re doing. We’re living a life that’s not sustainable, so we have no choice but to run.”

Mark cracked his knuckles and said, “Here’s the deal, Zola. We’re in this together, thick as thieves and loyal to the end. We have to agree, right now, up front, that if it becomes necessary, we leave together.”

“And go where?”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

“What about your families?” she asked. “Have you told them?”

They hesitated, and the pause conveyed the answer. Mark said, “No, I have not told my mother, because she has enough problems right now. She thinks I’m in class and looking forward to graduation with a nice job all lined up. I suppose I’ll wait a couple of months, then lie and tell her I’m taking a semester off. I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

“And you?” she asked Todd.

“Same here,” he said. “Right now I don’t have the balls to tell my parents. I’m not sure which version of the truth sounds worse. On the one hand, I’m $200,000 in debt and have no job. On the other hand, I’ve dropped out and decided to make a buck hustling DUIs for cash with a new identity. I’ll wait, like Mark, and think of something later.”

“And if the scheme blows up and you get into trouble?”

“It won’t happen, Zola,” Mark said.

“I’d like to believe you but I’m not convinced you know what you’re talking about.”

“We’re not convinced either,” Todd said. “But we’ve made our decision and there’s no turning back. The question is whether or not you’re with us.”

“You’re asking a lot. You expect me to walk away from three years of law school.”

“Come on, Zola,” Mark said. “What has law school done for you? Nothing, except ruin your life. We’re offering a way out. It may not be the cleanest exit, but right now it’s all we’ve got.”

She crunched on a nacho and looked around the bar. It was packed with young men in their thirties and forties, all drinking and watching basketball and hockey on the big screens. There were a few women, but not many, and almost no students.

She asked, “And both of you guys work here?”

Todd said, “Yep. It’s a lot more fun than sitting in class and studying for the bar exam.”

“And what are the terms of the partnership?”

Mark said, “We’re pooling our expense money for this semester. Ten thousand each. That covers the launch: new computers, new phones, some office equipment, new identities, some nicer clothes.”

“Are you in?” Todd asked.

“Let me think about it, okay? I still think you’re crazy.”

“We won’t argue that.”