The rain fell in waves, and the small crowd dressed in their Sunday best were packed tightly under the thin canvas awning, their attention turned toward a haggard old priest with a pot belly and jowls to match as he read from the Bible. His words were nearly inaudible amongst the crashing waves of raindrops breaking overhead. Hooks stood in the back, his hat pulled low, his faded charcoal eyes matched in color to the heavy clouds dumping life all around. He eased his way to the front and listened to the old man talk about the blessings of a long life and how they should dry their eyes and rejoice because the man who lay in the casket next to him was going home.
If coming home was a blessing Hooks was unaware. Two days earlier he was standing in the window of a third-floor office in downtown Birmingham, the sun casting a burning orange glow that warmed his face as it lingered on the edge of night. Below him the street was beginning to buzz, men and women shuffling about their faces lit in pastel neon. Geocentric individuals, each one a world unto themselves, a thousand stories revolving in false independence. He watched the plurality of universes ebb and flow, unaware of what watched them from above.
The phone rang and the woman spoke in a kind nurturing tone, apologizing repeatedly, the way people do when all they carry is bad news and nothing can be found to fill the awkward silence. He stood motionless, listening to the woman’s voice, his eyes fixed on the last moments of luminescence as the sun sank behind the pine covered horizon. The pulse of the dial tone shook him and he realized the motherly voice on the other end was no longer there.
Hooks hung up the phone, poured a glass of bourbon, lit a cigarette, and sat behind his desk. The call had left him in shock. “I’m sorry,” the voice on the phone said, “Your father has just passed.” The words hit him with a delicate yet brutal force. He felt his world pull away like a sailor treading water, swimming against the current, chasing the square silhouette of a sail tracing the edge of the world. With each stroke his muscles grew weaker, the ship ever smaller, until it dipped below the horizon, and all that remained was the pull of the dark abyss lurking underneath.
Losing friends was a reality Hooks was deeply familiar with. In life it is inevitable, friends come and go, time shifts relationships with the world, and slow changes where want is often unnoticed. The sudden and abrupt absence was no shock either. In war friends are quickly made and lost just the same, blood is the price that shocks no soldier. But those are friends, you can recall a world before them and so the world in their absence is not unfamiliar, it is a return to what was and life moves on changed in ways soon forgotten. His father's loss was the removal of time, the replacement of the future for the unknown. What had always been, no longer was and was to be, faded before him.
After the weathered old priest finished speaking, he prayed for solace and gratitude. The small group of friends and family paid their final respects, expressing their condolences telling Hooks they were sorry for his loss and of the kind of man his father was, and how they loved him before hurriedly dispersing into the rain-soaked world.
Two weeks after the funeral Hooks found himself in his father's office for the first time in years. The air was thick and humid and laced with the sour scent of old tobacco.
At the center of the room was his father's desk on top of which sat a burgundy casefile held down by a worn copy of the Count of Monte Cristo, a makeshift bookmark protruding from its pages, jagged and yellow, hastily torn from something less important. Other than Dumas’s novel everything was in its place just as his father had left it.
Hooks stood in the doorway and silence fell upon him. Behind the desk sat a tall man with a slightly olive complexion and a thick black mustache that matched the neatly parted hair that rested a top his head. The man smiled and waved and a young boy rushed through the door. He sat on the man's lap and they spun together in the swivel chair and he told the boy he loved him, and the boy asked if he could have the chair and the man told him one day. Father and son continued playing until the boy’s ears perked up and he rushed out of the room. The boy returned, the father greeted him and again he was gone, the scene continued each time the boy grew taller, the man older. The years passed, and in the boy’s eyes, wonder was replaced by ambition, while life signed its tragedies across the old man's face, and touched his head with silver. Smiles turned stern, and open arms to outstretched palms. Then the boy, now a man, walked out of the office one last time and the father sat alone, old and tired, his eyes fixed at the door in wanting. Hooks stepped across the threshold and into the office and the old man faded before him, the empty chair now his.
Hooks made his way around the desk, running his fingers along the creased leather chair, before he could take a seat there was a knock at the door. Hooks answered. The man in the doorway was tall with sad eyes that dropped at the corners, his left ear a mass of scar tissue that looked like old chewing gum.
“Boss wants to see ya,” the man said in a mumbled British accent.
“The boss?” Hooks asked.
“Yeah, the boss.”
“My boss was in Montgomery and this office is closed.” Hooks said. He tried to shut the door but the sad eyed man stopped it with his foot. “This office is closed.”
“Boss wants a word,” the sad eyed man said through his teeth.
“Move your foot, or we're gonna find out if the hospitals open.”
The man drove the palms of both hands into Hooks’ chest, and he stumbled back nearly tripping on his own feet. The man was as strong as he was big and Hooks looked around the room for anything that might even the odds. The man tossed his hat to the side and pushed his sleeves up, “Alright let's find out,” he said, stepping toward Hooks.
“Goddamnit Jimmy, why the hell you trying to start a fight with a damn lawyer?”
“Sorry boss, he was gettin’ cross with me, and I …”
“Cross? Hell, the man’s father just passed, and he don’t know you from a hole in the ground, cut him some slack. He probably don't take too kindly to orge like yourself barkin’ at the door. Go wait in the car.” Jimmy picked up his hat and glared back at Hooks before heading out the door.
“Now, Mr. Hooks, I do apologize for the uncivilized nature of my associate. My name is Hoyt Persons. If you don't mind I’d like to have a word, if you have the time of course.”
Hooks glanced at his watch and straightened his tie, “I got a minute.”
The two men walked back to the office. Hooks took his place behind the desk that was now. Hoyt sat in the burgundy leather chair opposite Hooks, laid his right leg across his knee, and drew a cigar from his breast pocket. He was a man just past middle-aged and overweight, with the extra pounds deposited evenly so that he appeared strong rather than fat. One black and one green, heterochromatic eyes each set deep in his skull, the corners marked by frayed crow's feet. He pulled on the hot end of his cigar, which thumped like a red hot heartbeat, and he blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and leaned back, relaxing the tension from his bones.
“Sorry about Jimmy,” Hoyt said, “He’s trained to bite. You can’t teach a dog like that nothin’ new. Plus his mind ain’t right, spent too much time across the pound getting his head beat in, boxing with no gloves on. You know a man like that ain’t got a lick of sense, but he’s a loyal sonofabitch and for that, I’m inclined to overlook his less cluttered tendencies.”
Hooks looked down at his hand. His fingers were still shaking from the adrenalin and he could hear his heart drumming in his ears. “Maybe you should get a better leash.”
Hoyt chuckled, “A leash, that would be a sight to see.”
“That it would. How can I help you, Mr. Persons?” Hooks asked, doing his best to hide his irritation.
“I just wanted to stop by and give my condolences. Your father was a good man.”
“Thank you.”
“He was a damn good lawyer as well.”
“ I won’t argue with that. Were you a client of his?”
“More or less.” Hoyt sat up straight and holding his cigar over the desk. “You got an ashtray?”
“My father wasn't much of a smoker,” Hooks said, “But there might be something around here.” He fished in the desk for anything that might pass as an ashtray. In the bottom drawer he found a half empty bottle of whiskey and one glass. He set the glass on the table, “I suppose this will work.”
“Let's hope we don’t get thirsty,” Hoyt said with a laugh as he thumbed the ash into the empty cup. “Out of curiosity, is all this gonna be yours”
Hooks looked around the room and then back at Hoyt, “It seems that way.”
“You’re an only child?”
“For the most part. I had a brother. He died when I was ten.”
“And your mother?”
“She left,” Hooks stopped mid-sentence and leaned forward, “Mr. Persons, I appreciate you coming down here to offer your condolences, but is there some reason you’re interested in my family's history?”
“History, JD, it’s just that. I find a man’s history to be a window into his future. It might seem paradoxical, but what will soon be, can be found in the reflection of what once was. And since it appears that you are going to be the inheritor of this practice, I want to know the kind of man with whom I may find myself in business.”
“I’m a lawyer by trade, if you need legal counsel then I can help, there’s not much more else to it.”
“Hell, I know you're a lawyer. It's the man I’m interested in.” Hoyt adjusted himself, his face studying Hooks closely. “Are you a man of morals? The kind of man who’s burdened by conscience? Hoyt paused, letting his words linger. “As I hear it you were in the war?”
“I was.”
“Krauts or Japs?”
“Japs. I was with the 1st Marine Raider Battalion.”
“Now that’s history, that tells me you are a tough sonofabitch, and I like that. What it didn't tell me is if you are burdened by all those yellow souls you took.”
The hostility in Hoyt’s words was not lost on Hooks. A twinge of anger crept up and he wanted to push back but he had heard whispers of Hoyt Persons, the “boss,” and he knew it best to bite his tongue and play nice. “People die in war, there’s no use in crying about it. So no, to answer your question I am not bothered by any souls yellow or otherwise.”
The two men locked eyes in a short silence. Hoyt slapped the arms of his chair with both hands. “Good, because in light of your father’s untimely absence, there are certain affairs that lie just outside of what we might call, legal, that are now in limbo. Due to reasons that are of little importance at the moment this service that your father provided would best be passed on to you.”
“I may take over my father’s practice, but what I decide to continue is under my discretion, and while I may not be, “burdened,” as you so eloquently put it by the issue of morality, I do like to know what I’m getting into before I step in it.”
Hoyt took a drag from his cigar and nodded his head slowly as if taking counsel from an unseen source. He pulled himself out of his chair, walked across the room, and stood in the window, his wide shoulders eclipsing the sun in artificial dusk. “JD, do you know what it is I do?”
Hooks shook his head, with a grin, “It’s kinda hard not to.”
“My reputation is misunderstood. It is an issue of ignorance. When a politician passes a law, that law is enforced, and when that law is violated a judge makes sure that any individual in violation of that law is reprimanded. That my friend is a civilized society, that is order. The only difference between myself and the entire chain of officials of which I have just mentioned is that I do not hide behind irrelevant titles and ceremony. I am the entirety of that chain. I am order.” Hoyt took the makeshift ashtray from the desk, dumped the ash on the floor, wiped it clean with the end of his shirt, poured a glass of whiskey, and downed it. “There are big things on the horizon and I am offering you a seat at the table.”
Hooks watched Hoyt speak with slow exaggerated gestures. There was a rhythmic, hypnotic cadence to his speech, and for a moment he was lost in his words, any preconceived notions of distrust evaporated, and “yes,” was on the tip of his tongue.
“Mr. Persons, I don’t mean to interrupt, but what arrangement did you have with my father?”
Hoyt took a deep breath, “Unfortunately, this is one of those rare occasions where you have to buy the horse before looking him in the mouth. Consider it an exercise in trust.”
“With all due respect, I don’t trust many people and…”
Hoyt stopped his words with a wave of his hand, “This is an opportunity JD, an opportunity to do what your father would not. He was a reluctant participant, but you can be more. For a son is brought into the world in the shadow of his father. To the father that shadow is a blanket, a constant reminder of the safety with which he shields his son from the jealous vengeful world. In time the shadow reveals a mountain, the son must emerge out of the dark and into the warmth of glory and redemption so that he can cast his own shadow.”
“For as long as I can remember my father told me I was going to be a lawyer. To be honest, I don't know that I ever wanted to, maybe that was him speaking through me. I tried my hand at war, and I liked it, I was good at it, but at the end of the day I’m my father’s son, I am a lawyer.” Hooks paused, choosing his words carefully, “If my father found himself in business with you it was a moment of weakness. He was a man and men make mistakes, sometimes it’s the son’s burden to correct those mistakes. With that in mind Mr. Persons I politely decline your offer.”
Hoyt’s face reddened and he chewed his lip, “Spontaneous order does not exist, JD, all order is downstream of power. Some men understand this and they draw close hoping to feed on the scraps from the master’s table, others are indifferent, they wish to avoid attention, and they will do whatever is necessary to stay in the master’s good graces. Then there are those that require convincing they must be brought to heel.”
Hoyt’s words trailed off. The two men sat in pre violent silence watching each other with stone carved glares. Hooks could hear his pulse thumping in his ears. The thinly veiled threats coming from Hoyt set him on edge. Hooks tried to stay quiet, he could feel the danger his words would elicit, but pride urged him to break the silence. “Mr. Persons, I am well aware of the true nature of order, and the violence which undergirds it, that I am no stranger to. If you want to threaten me then do it.”
“Your father tried to keep you out of the war, but your pride wouldn't let him. You came home in one piece, you got lucky, that won’t happened twice.” Hoyt stood up, and twisted his neck to the side with an audible crack, “If a lawyer is all you want to be, fine. You will find yourself in the same position as your father, you work for me or not at all. You have till dark to decide, if I don't hear from you by then, I will assume your pride has once again betrayed you.”
Hoyt stopped short of the door and turned, “Enjoy the rest of your day Mr. Hooks, the sun won't be up much longer.”
***
As organized as his father was, Hooks found it difficult to decipher which clients were on retainer and which had closed their tabs. It was a welcomed challenge that drew his attention from the vague threat that darkness brought, but accounting discrepancies have no effect on celestial bodies and night had come. He was tired and he had reached the point where he stared into the ledger, with red strained eyes, and the numbers, now meaningless stared back, and nothing passed between numerals and man.
Hoyt’s words played in his head, and for a moment he weighed them and he chose to believe that they were empty. Hooks placed the ledger back on the shelf and returned the empty glass and bottle of whiskey to the bottom drawer. He stood in the doorway, holding the light switch, and made sure the office was just as his father had left it.
Outside his nose was touched by the smell of rain. Overhead the long low rumble of thunder signaled the storm's arrival. The first drops of rain fell lonely and far spaced and he hurried toward the side of the office fishing for his key with long strides. Hooks slid the key into the door and before he could open it his head bounced off the car's steel frame. His vision blurred and he stumbled back grasping for something that was not there. The air left his lungs, hardened knuckles driving his ribs into his spine. His knees hit the asphalt and he lifted his arms to stop the next blow but the blackjack found his jaw.
“Times up.” Hooks wiped the rain and blood eyes, but the amber street light draped a silhouette concealing his attacker, but eyesight was unnecessary; the foreign accent was enough to identify the shadow standing over him.
“Boss said you work for him or you don’t work at all.” Jimmy said, shoving a near waterlogged paper into Hook’s hand, “By the way, hospitals open.”
“Hooks watched the shadow walk away, get into his car, and drive until breaklights turned to crimson fireflies dying in the distance. The paper in his hand lay limp, tearing under its weight, blue-black steams carrying the words to the asphalt below. Hooks balled the paper up and tossed it to the side and laid back in the rain. There was no hurry, the hospital would be open all night. He would have plenty of time to recover now that he’d been disbarred.