John Grisham - 1998 The Street Lawyer by John Grisham

Author:John Grisham [Grisham, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780307576088
Google: u9_BYvkvQWgC
Amazon: B003B02O50
Barnesnoble: B003B02O50
Goodreads: 7877531
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1998-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Twenty

TUESDAY WAS an intake day at the Community for Creative Non-Violence, or CCNV, by far the largest shelter in the District. Once again Mordecai handled the driving. His plan was to accompany me for the first week, then turn me loose on the city.

My threats and warnings to Barry Nuzzo had fallen on deaf ears. Drake & Sweeney would play hardball, and I wasn’t surprised. The predawn raid of my former apartment was a rude warning of what was to come. I had to tell Mordecai the truth about what I’d done.

As soon as we were in the car and moving, I said, “My wife and I have separated. I’ve moved out.”

The poor guy was not prepared for such dour news at eight in the morning. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at me and almost hitting a jaywalker.

“Don’t be. Early this morning, the cops raided the apartment where I used to live, looking for me, and, specifically, a file I took when I left the firm.”

“What kind of file?”

“The DeVon Hardy and Lontae Burton file.”

“I’m listening.”

“As we now know, DeVon Hardy took hostages and got himself killed because Drake & Sweeney evicted him from his home. Evicted with him were sixteen others, and some children. Lontae and her little family were in the group.”

He mulled this over, then said, “This is a very small city.”

“The abandoned warehouse happened to be on land RiverOaks planned to use for a postal facility. It’s a twenty-million-dollar project.”

“I know the building. It’s always been used by squatters.”

“Except they weren’t squatters, at least I don’t think so.”

“Are you guessing? Or do you know for sure?”

“For now, I’m guessing. The file has been tampered with; papers taken, papers added. A paralegal named Hector Palma handled the dirty work, the site visits, and the actual eviction, and he’s become my deep throat. He sent an anonymous note informing me that the evictions were wrongful. He provided me with a set of keys to get the file. As of yesterday, he no longer works at the office here in the District.”

“Where is he?”

“I’d love to know.”

“He gave you keys?”

“He didn’t hand them to me. He left them on my desk, with instructions.”

“And you used them?”

“Yes.”

“To steal a file?”

“I didn’t plan to steal it. I was on my way to the clinic to copy it when some fool ran a red light and sent me to the hospital.”

“That’s the file we retrieved from your car?”

“That’s it. I was going to copy it, take it back to its little spot at Drake & Sweeney, and no one would have ever known.”

“I question the wisdom of that.” He wanted to call me a dumb-ass, but our relationship was still new.

“What’s missing from it?” he asked.

I summarized the history of RiverOaks and its race to build the mail facility. “The pressure was on to grab the land fast. Palma went to the warehouse the first time, and got mugged. Memo to the file. He went again, the second time with a guard, and that memo is missing.

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