The Street Lawyer

The Street Lawyer Page 23

Number five on the list of evictees was Kelvin Lam, a name vaguely familiar to Mordecai. He once estimated the number of homeless in the District to be around ten thousand. There were at least that many files scattered throughout the 14th Street Legal Clinic. Every name rang a bell with Mordecai.

He worked the circuits, the kitchens and shelters and service providers, the preachers and cops and other street lawyers. After dark we drove downtown to a church wedged between high-priced office buildings and ritzy hotels. In a large basement two levels below, the Five Loaves dinner program was in full swing. The room was lined with folding tables, all surrounded by hungry folks eating and talking. It was not a soup kitchen; the plates were filled with corn, potatoes, a slice of something that was either turkey or chicken, fruit salad, bread. I had not eaten dinner, and the aroma made me hungry.

"I haven't been here in years," Mordecai said as we stood by the entrance looking down at the dining area. "They feed three hundred a day. Isn't it wonderful?"

"Where does the food come from?"

"D.C. Central Kitchen, an outfit in the basement of the CCNV. They've developed this amazing system of collecting excess food from local restaurants, not leftovers, but uncooked food that will simply go bad if not used immediately. They have a fleet of refrigerated trucks, and they run all over the city collecting food which they take to the kitchen and prepare, frozen dinners. Over two thousand a day."

"It looks tasty."

"It's really quite good."

A young lady, named Liza found us. She was new at Five Loaves. Mordecai had known her predecessor, whom they talked about briefly as I watched the people eat.

I noticed something I should have seen before. There were different levels of homelessness, distinct rungs on the socioeconomic ladder. At one table, six men ate and talked happily about a basketball game they had seen on television. They were reasonably well dressed. One wore gloves while he ate, and except for that, the group could've been sitting in any workingclass bar in the city without being immediately branded as homeless. Behind them, a hulking figure with thick sunglasses ate alone, handling the chicken with his fingers. He had robber boots similar to the ones Mister wore at the time of his death. His coat was dirty and frayed. He was oblivious to his surroundings. His life was noticeably harder than the lives of the men laughing at the next table. They had access to warm water and soap; he couldn't have cared less. They slept in shelters. He slept in parks with the pigeons. But they were all homeless.

Liza did not know Kelvin Lam, but she would ask around. We watched her as she moved through the crowd, speaking to the people, pointing to the wastebaskets in one corner, fussing over an elderly lady. She sat between two men, neither of whom looked at her as they talked. She went to another table, then another.

Most surprisingly, a lawyer appeared, a young associate from a large firm, a pro bono volunteer with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. He recognized Mordecai from a fund-raiser the year before. We did law talk for a few minutes, then he disappeared into a back room to begin three hours of intake.

"The Washington Legal Clinic has a hundred and fifty volunteers," Mordecai said. "Is that enough?" I asked.

"It's never enough. I think we should revive our pro bono volunteer program. Maybe you'd like to take charge and supervise it. Abraham likes the idea."

It was nice to know that Mordecai and Abraham, and no doubt Sofia too, had been discussing a program for me to run.

"It will expand our base, make us more visible in the legal community, and help with raising money."

"Sure," I said, without conviction.

Liza was back. "Kelvin Lam is in the rear," she said, nodding. "Second table from the back. Wearing the Redskins cap."

"Did you talk to him?" Mordecai asked.

"Yes. He's sober, pretty sharp, said he's been staying at CCNV, works part-time on a garbage truck."

"Is there a small room we can use?"

"Sure."

"Tell Lam a homeless lawyer needs to talk to him."

Lam didn't say hello or offer to shake hands. Mordecai sat at a table. I stood in a corner. Lam took the only available chair, and gave me a look that made my skin crawl.

"Nothing's wrong," Mordecai said in his best soothing tone. "We need to ask you a few questions, that's all."

Not a peep out of Lam. He was dressed like a resident of a shelter--jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers, wool jacket--as opposed to the pungent multilayered garb of one sleeping under a bridge.

"Do you know a woman named Lontae Burton?" Mordecai asked. He would do the talking for us lawyers.

Lam shook his head no.

"DeVon Hardy?"

Another no.

"Last month, were you living in an abandoned warehouse?"

"Yep."

"At the corner of New York and Florida?"

"Uh-huh."

"Were you paying rent?"

"Yep."

"A hundred dollars a month?"

"Yep."

"To Tillman Gantry?"

Lam froze, and closed his eyes to ponder the question. "Who?" he asked.

"Who owned the warehouse?"

"I paid rent to some dude named Johnny."

"Who did Johnny work for?"

"Don't know. Don't care. Didn't ask."

"How long did you live there?"

"'Bout four months."

"Why did you leave?"

"Got evicted."

"Who evicted you?"

"I don't know. The cops showed up one day with some other dudes. They yanked us and threw us on the sidewalk. Couple of days later, they bulldozed the warehouse."

"Did you explain to the cops that you were paying rent to live there?"

"A lot of people were saying that. This one woman with little kids tried to fight with the police, but didn't do no good. Me, I don't fight with cops. It was a bad scene, man."

"Were you given any paperwork before the eviction?"

"No,"

"Any notice to get out?"

"No. Nothing. They just showed up."

"Nothing in writing?"

"Nothing. Cops said we were just squatters; had to get out right then."

"So you moved in last fall, sometime around October."

"Something like that."

"How did you find the place?"

"I don't know. Somebody said they were renting little apartments in the warehouse. Cheap rent, you know. So I went over to check it out. They were putting up some boards and walls and things. There was a roof up there, a toilet not far away, running water. It wasn't a bad deal."

"So you moved in?"

"Right."

"Did you sign a lease?"

"No. Dude told me that the apartment was illegal, so nothing was in writing. Told me to say I was squatting in case anybody asked."

"And he wanted cash?"

"Only cash."

"Did you pay every month?"

"Tried to. He came around on the fifteenth to collect."

"Were you behind on your rent when you were evicted?"

"A little."

"How much?"

"Maybe one month."

"Was that the reason you were evicted?"

"I don't know. They didn't give no reason. They just evicted everybody, all at once."

"Did you know the other people in the warehouse?"

"I knew a couple. But we kept to ourselves. Each aparmtent had a good door, one that would lock."

"This mother you mentioned, the one who fought with the police, did you know her?"

"No. I'd maybe seen her once or twice. She lived on the other end."

"The other end?"

"Right. There was no plumbing in the middle of the warehouse, so they built the apartments on each end."

"Could you see her apartment from yours?"

"No. It was a big warehouse."

"How big was your apartment?"

"Two rooms, I don't know how big."

"Electricity?"

"Yeah, they ran some wires in. We could plug in radios and things like that. We had lights. There was running water, but you had to use a community toilet."

"What about heating?"

"Not much. It got cold, but not nearly as cold as sleeping on the street."

"So you were happy with the place?"

"It was okay. I mean, for a hundred bucks a month it wasn't bad."

"You said you knew two other people. What are their names?"

"Herman Harris and Shine somebody."

"where are they now?"

"I haven't seen them."

"Where are you staying?"

"CCNV."

Mordecai pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Lam. "How long will you be there?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Can you keep in touch with me?"

"why?"

"You might need a lawyer. Just call me if you change shelters or find a place of your own."

Lam took the card without a word. We thanked Liza and returned to the office.

As with any lawsuit, there were a number of ways to proceed with our action against the defendants. There were three of them--RiverOaks, Drake & Sweeney, and TAG, and we did not expect to add more.

The first method was the ambush. The other was the serve and volley.

With the ambush, we would prepare the skeletal framework of our allegations, run to the courthouse, file the suit, leak it to the press, and hope we could prove what we thought we knew. The advantage was surprise, and embarrassment for the defendants, and, hopefully, public opinion. The downside was the legal equivalent of jumping off a cliff with the strong, but unconfirmed, belief that there was a net down there somewhere.

The serve and volley would begin with a letter to the defendants, in which we made the same allegations, but rather than sue we would invite them to discuss the matter. The letters would go back and forth with each side generally able to predict what the other might do. If liability could be proved, then a quiet settlement would probably occur. Litigation could be avoided.

The ambush appealed to Mordecai and myself for two reasons. The firm had shown no interest in leaving me alone; the two searches were clear proof that Arthur on the top floor and Rafter and his band of hard-asses in litigation were coming after me. My arrest would make a nice news story, one they would undoubtedly leak to humiliate me and build pressure. We had to be ready with our own assault.

The second reason went to the heart of our case. Hector and the other witnesses could not be compelled to testify until we filed suit and forced them to give their depositions. During the discovery period that followed the initial filing, we would have the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions of the defendants, and they would be required to answer under oath. We would also be allowed to depose anybody we wanted. If we found Hector Palma, we could grill him under oath. If we tracked down the other evictees, we could force them to tell what happened.

We had to find out what everyone knew, and there was no way to do this without using court-sanctioned discovery.

In theory, our case was really quite simple: The warehouse squatters had been paying rent, in cash with no records, to Tillman Gantry or someone working on his behalf. Gantry had an opportunity to sell the property to RiverOaks, but it had to be done quickly. Gantry lied to RiverOaks and its lawyers about the squatters. Drake & Sweeney, exercising diligence, had sent Hector Palma to inspect the property prior to closing. Hector was mugged on the first visit, took a guard with him on the second, and upon inspecting the premises learned that the residents were, in fact, not squatters, but tenants. He reported this in a memo to Braden Chance, who made the ill-fated decision to disregard it and proceed with the closing. The tenants were summarily evicted as squatters, without due process.

A formal eviction would have taken at least thirty more days, time none of the participants wanted to waste. Thirty days and the worst of winter would be gone; the threat of snowstorms or sub-zero nights would be diminished, along with the need to sleep in a car with the heater running.

They were just street people, with no records, no rent receipts, and no trail to be followed.

It was not a complicated case, in theory. But the hurdles were enormous. Locking in testimony of homeless people could be treacherous, especially if Mr. Gantry decided to assert himself. He ruled the streets, an arena I was not eager to fight in. Mordecai had a vast network built on favors and whispers, but he was no match for Gantry's artillery. We spent an hour discussing various ways to avoid naming TAG, Inc., as a defendant. For obvious reasons, the lawsuit would be far messier and more dangerous with Gantry as a party. We could sue without him, and leave it to his co-defendants--RiverOaks and Drake & Sweeney--to haul him in as a third party.

But Gantry was a contributing cause in our theory of liability, and to ignore him as a defendant would be to ask for trouble as the case progressed.

Hector Palma had to be found. and once we found him, we somehow had to convince him to either produce the hidden memo, or to tell us what was in it. Finding him would be the easy part; getting him to talk might be impossible. He quite likely wouldn't want to, since he needed to keep his job. He'd been quick to tell me he had a wife and four kids.

There were other problems with the lawsuit, the first of which was purely procedural. We, as lawyers, did not have the authority to file suit on behalf of the heirs of Lontae Burton and her four children. We had to be employed by her family, such as it was. With her mother and two brothers in prison, and her father's identity yet to be revealed, Mordecai was of the opinion we should petition the Family Court for the appointment of a trustee to handle the affairs of Lontae's estate. In doing so, we could bypass her family, at least initially. In the event we recovered damages, the family would be a nightmare. It was safe to assume that the four children had two or more different fathers, and each one of those tomcats would have to be notified if money changed hands.

"We'll worry about that later," Mordecai said. "We have to win first." We were in the front, at the desk next to Sofia's where the aging computer worked most of the time. I was typing, Mordecai pacing and dictating.

We plotted until midnight, drafting and redrafting the lawsuit, arguing theories, discussing procedure, dreaming of ways to haul RiverOaks and my old firm into court for a noisy trial. Mordecai saw it as a watershed, a pivotal moment to reverse the decline in public sympathy for the homeless. I saw it simply as a way to correct a wrong.