The Status Quo Ante
by Charles C. Parsons
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
Chance’s back was stiff as he closed the door of his office. He had spent a futile afternoon at his desk. It was five o’clock. In the hallway, his eyes fixed on the gold painted letters on the translucent glass door: “Robert J. Chance, Attorney at Law.” Those letters usually energized him; now they made him feel impotent. He lacked both an articulate complaint to file and evidence of the dishonest trade to win.
He set out on foot to meet his friend, Martin Marshall. Martin was his mentor, an older lawyer to whom he looked for advice. He had described earlier by telephone the scam that entrapped Laura. Martin agreed to meet him at the Chancery, a popular watering hole near the courthouse. Chance’s gait quickened; he was confident that Martin would have handled a similar case. This tavern was legendary among lawyers as a place to swap courtroom strategy.
The Chancery was housed in a classic 1890s redbrick urban firehouse. The building’s façade, surmounted by a dark slate mansard roof, was heavily embellished with white corbel trim. The face of the building had three high-arched doorways that previously received fire trucks, sold long ago by the city, but the building’s grand, formal features remained. As he approached, he saw patrons through the glassed-over archways, standing at a dimly lit bar inside.
He entered a din of milling lawyers, who had drifted over from the courthouse. He saw Martin standing at the far side of the bar, holding a sheaf of papers. Now in his seventies, Martin was a tall, dapper man in a perfectly tailored pin-striped suit and a gold tie. His rangy gray hair was parted down the middle. He was slightly stooped from the burdens of his professional years. Just a decade earlier, Martin had been a cocky plaintiff’s lawyer, unafraid to sue anybody. Now, he enjoyed assisting eager young lawyers, like his nearby drinking companions, intent on winning in court.
Chance eased up to the bar beside Martin. The older lawyer poked a bundle of papers toward him. “Chance, your client’s claim is a replevin action, pure and simple.” The papers were sample pleadings for a court filing.
Chance vaguely recalled that replevin was a legal theory, one he’d learned in a tort course taken years before. He bought martinis and handed one to Martin. The old lawyer then reminded him that in a replevin lawsuit where a plaintiff can show a superior equitable interest in an item identified in the filed petition, a judge can issue a writ conferring possession to the plaintiff as the rightful owner.
“Your client Laura must assert in a court petition her right to possession to the BMW because she supplied virtually the entire collateral for the trade. She’s asking a judge to decree her right to it because her paramount ownership was wrongfully seized.”
Martin gulped at his drink before proceeding. “First you’ve got to seize the BMW,” he said. “Put the car on ice while you seek the writ. Otherwise, this guy Willie could wreck the car.”
Chance nodded. “Do you know a repo man who can seize it?”
“Yeah, I know just the guy. It’ll cost you $4,500 to grab and hold the car for a month. You’ll have to front the money because I’m sure your client can’t.”
Chance sucked on his martini; the repo money amounted to nearly six months of office rent. He could draw the cash on his credit card, but his gamble was clear: he’d be betting borrowed funds that he could win a verdict big enough to pay back the debt and collect a fee, too. If he lost, he’d get no fee and he’d be out of pocket on his investment. Martin leaned closer, smiling as he watched the younger lawyer deliberate.
“Come on, Chance. Time to cross the Rubicon.”
Chance’s fingers trembled as the alcohol mixed with his adrenaline. “Okay, I’m in. Let’s seize the car.”
Martin wrote the name and number on a business card for a man named Paul.
“Look, Chance,” Martin said, his voice dropping. “Go draft up your replevin complaint and get it on file with the court. Get a court case number and a hearing date before you turn Paul loose. With a court case, you’ve got the legal basis you might need for impounding the car.”
Chance nodded. “Thanks. I’ll file the replevin complaint tomorrow.”
Sipping on his drink, Martin continued, “Be sure you include a count of fraud against Victor Slade. Specify you’re demanding punitive damages from him.”
Leaning back against the bar, Chance mused, “Wonder why Laura fell for such a con artist?”
Martin swilled his drink. “Willie deserves the label ‘artist.’ ”
“I don’t follow you.”
“A con artist instinctively senses his prey’s hidden needs. Laura never understood that Willie wasn’t there to fulfill her fantasy; he was there to profit from her.” Martin rested his drink on the bar. “Another thing. Once you’ve seized the car, make sure you’re ready to prove Willie’s title is bogus. If he gets a smart lawyer, they’ll push for a quick court hearing arguing to the judge that the DMV seal is conclusive proof of ownership.”
He patted Chance’s shoulder. “I’d be careful about this Laura. Sometimes betrayed women become bitter at their lawyers for not wringing enough flesh out of the boyfriend that cheated them.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Chance corrected. He smiled and set his empty glass on the bar. “Gotta run, Martin. Thanks for your help.”
* * *
Chance sat in his car sipping lukewarm coffee from a Styrofoam cup, gazing at the cars parked on Slade’s lot across the street. The early summer sunrays speared his eyes. He’d spent the night rehashing the law of replevin. Before filing the lawsuit, he wanted to learn Slade’s role in the scam.
He counted seventeen cars lined up on the cracked, pockmarked asphalt. Halfway down the row of cars, he saw a tall, wiry man, about fifty years old, in a faded, ill-fitting sport coat, sweeping debris from around the tires. The man was alone on the property.
Chance got out and walked over to the line of cars and began looking at them.
“Are you interested in a car?” A man with acne scars held the broom. “My name is Victor Slade.”
“I saw a red BMW convertible here a couple of weeks ago, but it’s not here now.”
“Oh yeah, the Beemer,” said Victor, smiling. “I call it the ‘love car.’ I sold it to a guy with a lovesick girlfriend.”
Chance forced a laugh. “Did the Beemer get him the girl?”
“Actually, she bought it,” Slade chuckled. “Then the guy came back and told me she’d decided to make it her engagement present to him.” He shook his head, smirking: “The guy gets the car, she gets a ring.”
“You think she got a fair deal?”
Slade shrugged his shoulders. “I just did as I was told.”
“That was it?”
“I revised the car title like she wanted, then gave him my paperwork file. He headed for the DMV with all the papers.”
Slade escorted Chance around the lot, touting each of his vehicles. Finally, Chance told him he’d come back later for a test drive. Driving back to his office, his eyes no longer stung. He now understood how the scheme had unfolded. Somewhere, Willie had those trade receipts.
* * *
Later that day, Chance filed the replevin lawsuit. He phoned Paul, who accepted payment from Chance’s credit card. Paul instructed him to call as soon as he knew the car’s whereabouts.
It was nearly midnight when Chance drove to the small, gray vinyl-sided house that Laura shared with her father. A dim exterior light fixture illuminated the front porch. Laura emerged through the front door in cutoff jeans and a red tank top. She jogged to his car, opened the door, and slid into the passenger’s seat.
“Where to?” he said appraising her.
She directed him through the lighted streets of the city into a decaying urban neighborhood in Northeast Washington. Forlorn, turn-of-the-century townhouses fronted the streets with cars parked for the night on both sides. She pointed ahead. “Willie’s place is in the next block.”
Chance’s car crept up to a row of low-slung brick homes badly in need of a facelift. Ahead, a faint light glimmered in a basement window. In front of the building, on the street, sat the red BMW convertible.
Chance drove beside the convertible and noted the address. He made a U-turn and called Paul.
“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” he told her after ending the call. “Let’s watch the action.” He parked three car lengths away from the convertible.
As they waited, Laura asked, “After they snatch the car, suppose some judge rules it was theft. Would you be disbarred?”
Her worried tone startled him. “Let me worry about the risks.”
“You’re willing to put your license on the line for me?”
“I’m undoing Willie’s theft of the BMW from you. It’s restoring the status quo ante.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I’m putting you back in the very same position you were in before Willie cheated you.”
She beamed. “I’d love the status quo ante.”
At that moment, the headlights of a blue tow truck flashed from the opposite direction. The driver positioned his truck rear in front of the parked BMW. A lithe man leaped from the truck’s passenger side and quickly pulled a chain from a steel crane on the truck’s bed, attaching it to the car’s front bumper. The hookup was executed expertly; the driver quickly rewound the chain, lifting the BMW’s front wheels, snugly pressing the tires against the rear of the tow truck. The assistant secured it with grapples, then leaped back into the passenger seat. The driver eased away with the elevated convertible firmly in place. The seizure took just two minutes. As the truck eased away, BMW in tow, a light illuminated outside the building.
A tall burly man in flip-flops, shorts, and a gray t-shirt raced up the basement steps. “It’s Willie,” she said. “He must’ve heard them. He’s coming this way.”
Willie ran into the street, yelling. The tow truck accelerated past Chance’s parked car.
Chance whispered as he thrust his chest across the center console. “Duck down!” He felt Laura collapse over him, her soft warm torso compressing him. Her fingertips gently stroked his vertebrae; he quivered beneath her.
Angry, flapping footsteps pounded past them as they lay frozen together in the parked car. Chance heard Willie stop, cursing as the tow truck that sped away.
“That fucking bitch!” he hissed. “I’ll smash her face when I see her! And her old man, too.” His rubber soles slapped the asphalt as he retraced his path past their parked car. The outside door at his building slammed shut.
Laura rose off him. He looked at her. “Is that guy an ex-con like your father said?”
“He spent time in a juvenile reformatory,” she said. “He was locked up for crippling another boy.”
They drove away in silence. When they reached her home, she whispered before getting out. “What do I say when he calls?”
“Tell him to call your lawyer.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. When she was gone, her fragrance lingered in his car.
* * *
The next morning, Paul telephoned that he’d stored the BMW in a local warehouse. Soon after, an enraged male voice roared through the phone. “Are you Laura King’s lawyer?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“I own that car you stole.”
“Mr. Drake, do you have a lawyer?”
“I’m getting ready to go to his office right now.”
“Please have your lawyer call me,”
“Give me my car,” he screamed, “or I’ll fix your fucking face.”
Chance hung up. An hour later, John O’Donnell, an insurance company lawyer, called wanting to know why Chance had sued his client, Victor Slade.
“Mr. Chance, you’re surely aware that our Grievance Committee imposes stiff monetary sanctions on lawyers who file false fraud allegations in court documents.”
Chance briefly outlined Slade’s complicity in the scheme and suggested O’Donnell talk further with his client.
Two hours later, Willie’s criminal lawyer, Luis Mendez, called. He spoke like a street fighter.
“Normally, I confine myself to criminal cases,” he said. “But when Willie showed me that DMV title, I could tell this is a slam dunk. Any judge will order the car returned,” Mendez gloated. “First, I get an immediate injunction ordering the return of the car. Then, I bring a disciplinary action against you.”
Chance telephoned Laura. “Willie’s lawyer is after the BMW pronto. We’ll probably be in court within the next seven days.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “My dad craves action.”
His fingers squeezed the telephone. “Without Slade’s receipt, we lose. Nate won’t be happy if a judge orders the car returned.”
* * *
Copyright © 2023 by Charles C. Parsons
