Page 9 of Two Kinds of Stranger

Sometimes that’s down to cheating.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

Sometimes it comes down to where you play the game.

Like I said, I prefer parking lots.

Before I was a trial lawyer, I had a moderately successful run as a con artist hustling insurance companies, criminals and casinos. Grifting is not so different from filing lawsuits, persuading juries, or winning more clients. The big difference in the con game – the hours are better.

Still, the experience I had in my former profession sure helped when it came to the justice game. Like now.

The closest lot to the courthouse is just across Adams Street. This is where the defendants and their families park, corrections officers, bail bondsmen, probation officers, court staff, witnesses, those called to jury service and even the judges.

Just as it’s important to know your judges, knowing where to park can save a lot of time and billable hours.

Only I didn’t use the Adams Street lot. I parked further away, in the Pierrepoint mall, just across the street from Brooklyn Park. It’s further away from the courthouse and it’s more expensive. Seems a bad choice, but it was perfect for me.

There were two reasons to park in the Pierrepoint mall.

The first is the view.

The second is that prosecutors park here. They don’t want to run into the family of a defendant they’ve just successfully convicted in a dark parking lot. So they avoid the lot closest to the courthouse in favor of a quieter place, further away.

I pulled into the Pierrepoint car lot via the underground ramp, but there were no spaces on the first three levels. I needed an elevated view anyway.

I parked on the fourth floor, killed the engine, and retrieved my case files from the trunk of the Mustang. The upper levels were open to the elements, no windows. Open sides to let in air, or let out the smells that accumulate in parking lots. I had made sure to park on the west side of the lot, with a view of Livingstone Street beneath me. I leaned over the concrete barrier and checked my watch.

Anytime now.

There was a federal building down the street, but most of the real estate in this part of Livingstone was occupied by small businesses.

Only three kinds.

Bail bonds.

Orthopedic medical practices.

Personal-injury lawyers. Alotof personal-injury lawyers.

And not all of them the best kind. Someone once joked that if an ambulance drove down Livingstone with its sirens on, before it got to the end of the street there would be fifty lawyers in suits chasing after it.

A brown SUV pulled up on the street outside the law offices of January Jeffers, Esq. Attorney at Law. Jan was one of those guys who would chase the paramedics. Not that there was anything wrong with that, and not that there would be any danger of him catching them. Jan Jeffers looked eighty years old when I passed the bar exam. Now, he looked like he was being held up with coffee, a thousand volts of electricity, and very thin strings.

A small man in an offensively bright orange button-down shirt and black pants got out of the SUV and made his way to the gap between the parked cars outside Jan’s office. Before he could make the four feet between the SUV and the parked cars, his head turned sharply.

A food courier on a bicycle, wearing a green helmet, was almost on top of him. The guy in the orange shirt must’ve heard the screech of brakes from the bike. But the cyclist was going too fast, or the box on his back must’ve weighed too much because he wasn’t slowing down fast enough. He put his feet on the blacktop and they skidded as the brakes on his bike whined. The man in the orange shirt jumped out of the way of the bike, leaping in between the parked cars, and the bike just missed him. He then quickly scrambled back up onto his feet to hurl abuse at the courier, who had managed to come to a stop just a few feet away.

They were too far away to hear what they were saying, but judging by the hand gestures and the hollering, I’d say there was a fair and frank exchange of views. The cyclist pedaled away and the man in the orange shirt was still cursing and waving his arms, and even taking a small run at the cyclist as he left the scene.

The guy in the orange shirt went into Jan’s office. I took a few moments to turn and check the parking lot. No BMW M series in midnight blue. Not yet.

I turned back to the street in time to see Jan leading his client in his orange shirt back out the front door. They didn’t go far. Next door was an orthopedic medical practice. I thought the wordsmedicalandpracticewere doing a lot of heavy lifting on that sign. It might have been more efficient for Jan to just install an internal door in his law office, so clients could walk straight into the orthopod’s office without venturing onto the street. They were a team, Jan and the doc. Jan brought in the clients,the doc wrote up whatever kind of medical report Jan needed after a thorough examination of the client’s wallet.

They were in there for maybe five minutes and hadn’t come out yet.

I heard the sound of a BMW engine. Turned.

M series. Blue. But not the midnight blue Beamer I was looking for.