“Will you come to LA with me?” Evan stood over Norah’s desk, interrupting her as she read through a thick court document.
“What?” She looked up at him, confused. “What for?”
“I’m going to see your favorite female attorney…” he winked maliciously. “I thought you might want to tag along…”
Norah blushed, remembering her steamy experience with Sheila Hale, the attorney that represented their client’s estranged wife in the Mayer divorce case. After being thrown together as a result of one of Evan’s schemes, Norah and Sheila had ended up spending a long, busy night together in Norah’s Phoenix hotel room.
“I have work to do,” Norah looked down at her papers.
“You know, for all of her faults, I do have to say that Sheila is amazing in bed. I guess you’d agree with that.”
“Evan, I’m busy.”
“Sheila’s working on a criminal case, actually,” Evan pulled a chair up to the front of Norah’s desk, sitting down. “She’s working for a friend of mine, and I asked Paul if we could help out on the case. I just thought that you’d like to go, since you haven’t had much experience in criminal court yet.”
Norah looked up from her work, pushing her glasses up on her face.
“Who is she representing?” She asked.
“Tricky Ricky. He’s an old buddy.”
“You’re kidding,” Norah looked incredulous. Tricky Ricky was a hip-hop crooner, who was on his way to superstar status. She’d seen him on TV, flashy and handsome, dancing to up-tempo songs, and belting out sexually charged ballads. She wasn’t a big fan of his music, but because he was on the rise, you couldn’t turn on the tube without either seeing him performing, or hearing some story about him. Tricky Ricky was a magnet for controversy, and he was becoming a household name for his large entourage, his many women, his fancy cars, and his expensive jewelry.
She shook her head, refusing to believe that Evan knew him, let alone maintained a friendship with him. The only thing that she could say that the two men had in common was their habit for womanizing, and even in this, Evan wasn’t a complete cad. She’d heard stories of Tricky Ricky using women in his limo, then putting them out on the side of the highway if he got tired of them before the end of the night. Plus, Ricky was known for setting urban trends, for being ruthless, and for taking “ghetto fabulousness” to new heights. Norah just couldn’t visualize Evan and Tricky Ricky holding a civilized conversation with each other.
“Ricky’s gotten into some trouble, some illegal weapons charge, Sheila was saying. She wants me to fly to LA tomorrow, to meet up with Ricky and plan a strategy…”
“Wait. Illegal possession of a weapon?”
“Yeah, there was some incident in a night club. Ricky’s limo was pulled over after he’d left the club, after having a run in with some guy that accosted him. The police said that they found a cache of artillery in the back of the car. Sheila wants to get started before the press devours him.”
Norah’s interest was peaked. She did want to get more experience in the area of criminal law, and this was the perfect opportunity for her to observe and learn from two up and coming attorneys, Evan and Sheila. And in the back of her mind, she imagined that Sheila would have a little spare time to spend with her. Maybe they could slip away, for at least an evening.
She looked at Evan, who was waiting for her to make her decision. Traveling with Evan would probably prove to be a headache, and she would probably never get a moment alone with Sheila, with Evan breathing down her neck. She frowned, realizing that she’d have to save fun for another trip. This trip would be strictly business.
“All right. I’ll go.”
“Good. I’ll have Sandy make the arrangements.”
---
“You’ll get to meet our client in a while. He’s on his way now.”
Sheila was all business as she sat briefing Norah and Evan over the case in her bright, modernly furnished LA office. Norah tried to focus on what Sheila was saying, but she was struggling to stop reminiscing about their night together in Phoenix. Evan, for once, wasn’t in a flirtatious mood; he seemed to be genuinely concerned about the welfare of his friend.
“Evan, I think you’re pretty familiar with the case so far, but I’ve compiled this dossier on him anyway. I know that you’ll want to look through it, Norah,” Sheila handed her a folder.
Norah flipped through the pages, skimming the contents of various letters, forms, and legal documents. She wrinkled her brows in confusion, noticing the name printed on the tab of the folder.
“Did you give me the wrong file, Sheila?” she asked. “This one is for a Richard St. James Forsythe.”
Evan snickered a little as Sheila paused to explain. “That’s our client.”
“Tricky Ricky? That’s his real name?” Norah couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.”
“But it says here that he went to prep school, graduated with honors, and went on to college, but...”
“Yes. It’s been causing a lot of problems. He doesn’t want anyone to know about his past, but with this charge against him, it’s been difficult to keep all of that stuff concealed.”
“That’s where we know each other from,” Evan explained. “We went to prep school together. His parents still send me birthday cards.”
Norah read through the file more closely, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, wondering what the real story was behind this up and coming celebrity. Tricky Ricky’s image was all about being from the streets. His story, at least the one she’d heard, was about Ricky dropping out of school at a young age. He’d been living hand to mouth on the streets before turning to a life of hustling, then getting a record deal and making it big with his music and his pop culture empire. She couldn’t believe that this roguish, philandering roughneck had actually grown up in the suburbs and had attended a posh prep school.
Before Norah got a chance to finish inspecting the file, she heard noises outside the door. A group of young men, dressed in the trendiest street wear of the day, piled into the office, taking places standing around the room. A tall, toffee colored guy sauntered in, gabbing on a cell phone. Norah immediately recognized him as Tricky Ricky.
“Yeah… yeah, I’ll have to get back with you, Dog. Yeah, I got a meeting with my lawyer… It shouldn’t take me that long… I’ll call you back in a few… No, Stick Shift will be there… Well, I’ll just have Paper Cup call you, then. All right… I’ll holla at you later.”
Norah sat watching as Ricky finally noticed Evan sitting across from her. They gave each other a warm welcome, trading insults as they went through one of those complicated five-minute handshakes.
“Well,” Sheila cleared her throat. “Let’s get down to business. Do we really need your entire entourage in here, Mr. Forsythe?”
“I pared it down, like you told me to. I only brought four of my boys. The rest of the crew is down in the limo.”
“You’ll need to ‘pare it down’ a little more,” Sheila said drolly.
“All right,” Ricky announced. “You heard the lady.”
“We’ll be right outside the door if you need anything,” one of the guys said as they filed out of the office.
“How long is this gonna take? Because I have to be at the airport by one.”
“Why?” Sheila asked.
“I have a video to shoot in Vegas, you know, for my new song, ‘Freak You All Night’.”
Sheila rolled her eyes. “You’ll need to postpone it, Mr. Forsythe. You’ll have to stay in LA, at least until we get a few things settled.”
“I can’t postpone it. It was already pushed back after that night at the club… I have to leave today. Hold on, maybe I can get them to push it back a few hours…”
The three attorneys sat in silence while Ricky gave orders over his cell phone. As he talked, his hazel eyes drifted toward Norah. When she met his gaze, he gave her a naughty wink.
“Okay,” he disconnected the final phone call. “Now I have until four. Then I have to be at the airport no later than five o’clock.”
“That’s better, Mr. Forsythe,” Sheila said, moving around her desk to present some paperwork to Ricky.
They discussed the case, and went over Ricky’s version of events for the night in question, until Sheila was satisfied that she would be able to make an adequate statement at a press conference later that afternoon. They were finished with Ricky by early afternoon, but they still had to meet with his publicist, in order to draft the statement for release to the press.
