Chapter 48: Making It Legal

Saturday, October 22, 1983

I dithered longer than I should have before opting for what more-or-less counted as ‘date-wear’ for my meeting. Dressing in a suit was too much, and a t-shirt and jeans was too little. I (hopefully) came off as reasonably put together without trying too hard.

Even this early, I already had more experience with lawyers (professionally, anyway — some friends had been lawyers) in this life than I had in the entirety of my previous life, and I’d barely even started.

I’d been to Kyle Branner’s office yesterday, of course. It was in a nondescript five-story office building a few blocks from the Galleria. The building was relatively upscale and impressive while likely being a major bargain compared to some of the other buildings in the area, to say nothing about offices downtown.

I’d put the paperwork that Dad had signed, along with a copy of the settlement and a collection of notes, into a briefcase that I seldom used. That might well change. Dad was a big fan of briefcases. I’d gotten rid of eight, I believe, when cleaning out the house after he’d passed away.

When I’d been here before, I hadn’t seen Kyle himself, just his secretary. She was a fairly cute woman in her middle twenties. Not as cute as Jas, nor as hot as Angie or Jess, but fairly cute.

She hit a button on her phone as soon as she saw me. A moment later the office door swung open and a man came out. He had sandy hair and a neat beard, seemed fairly good looking to me (though I still wasn’t much of a judge of male attractiveness), and was probably in his mid-thirties.

“Kyle Branner, I presume?” I said, extending my hand.

“Steve Marshall,” he said, shaking. Nice firm handshake that didn’t feel like he was testing mine for weakness — or, at least, not too much. “I have the advantage of seeing your photo in the paper, of course.”

I chuckled. “Of course.”

I followed him back into his office and took a seat in the chair he nodded toward. He sat across from me, with his desk beside him, notepad at the ready. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m a big fan of that sort of seating arrangement where it works. The power dynamic between a lawyer and client should be somewhere between equals and ‘The client is king!’ (as Kyle had put it). Putting a big desk between you frames it the opposite way.

I opened my briefcase, extracted the paperwork, and handed it over.

He quickly checked it. “I talked to your father. Nice man, and you can relax — I’m convinced he was your father and not some older-sounding friend.”

I chuckled. “Dad’s quite the character. No one could fake being him.” I reached into the briefcase again and handed over a dollar.

“Thanks,” he said, then handed over a contract. It promised a one-hour consultation, after which I’d need a retainer, with terms outlined and so forth. Everything was to be kept strictly confidential, subject to the law and ethical restrictions, and so forth and so on.

I signed it, then passed it back.

“And now we’re on the clock,” he said, smiling. “How can I help?”

“First things first. I need to double-check on this. You’re acting solely as my attorney. No one else is currently in the loop, and whatever I say is subject to attorney/client privilege, correct?”

“Exactly so,” he said, nodding. “Your dad just settled the ethical requirements. He’s not otherwise involved, nor is anyone else.”

“Good,” I said. “Secondly — parts of the settlement I received are confidential. You’re acting as my attorney, however. I’m not going to reveal anything confidential unless it becomes important to some new legal matter. I don’t want to be the one to breach confidentiality.”

He nodded again. “I agree — that’s the right thing to do. If the settlement becomes relevant to things I need to know or may reasonably need to know, you can disclose it, since I can’t disclose it myself. It’s better than being blindsided down the road.”

I nodded, too, then handed him over a summary of the case containing what I could disclose. It didn’t include the motivation for the large settlement, but with the facts given, plus the size of the settlement, it was clear that something must have happened.

“Well,” he said, “I’m pretty curious, but I’m sure you can’t tell me what happened.”

I shook my head. “Not unless it becomes an issue down the road, as we said.”

“I agree,” he said.

“Making it clear: I wish Mr. McBride no ill at all. If he behaves himself, I’d much rather have no contact with him ever again.”

“Not an unreasonable approach at all. Just having me on contingency in case that happens is reasonable, and ... this is enough money that you probably do need someone looking at the legal angles, as well as a tax attorney.”

“This is where we get into an entirely different matter, and the reason I was careful about confidentiality.”

He frowned. “I thought that was about the settlement.”

“Not ... exactly,” I said. “I’ve got a bit of other money that will actually need some ... help.”

“What are we talking about? Getting paid under the table?”

I shook my head. “Sports betting.”

He shrugged. “Everyone does that. Well, not everyone, but ... they’re not going to care unless it’s a lot...”

I passed a sheet of paper across the table. He took a look at the bottom line and blinked. Twice.

“Over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Is this some sort of joke?”

“In a way, it’s hilarious. But, no, it’s very real. The bulk of it is being held in a safe deposit box. I can’t actually deposit it anywhere for obvious reasons. Some of it is stored other places, just in case.”

“Good lord! How did you...? Wait ... I see it. You’ve got times, places, games, all of that. Sucks about that one World Series...”

“I was really certain of that one. Fortunately, Houston’s downfall really made a big difference.”

“At eight to one? Huge!” He blinked, then looked back at the paper. “Okay ... so ... it’s my obligation as your lawyer to tell you not to do this anymore. In particular, if you tell me ahead of time that you’re going to do it, I can’t represent you on it and would be ethically obligated to try to get you not to do it.”

“I’m not planning anything, nor will I tell you if I do.”

He smiled. It was a totally different, and possibly more honest, smile than before. We understood each other pretty well.

“It’s also my obligation to tell you that you should turn yourself in.”

“Which I’m obviously not interested in doing.”

He nodded. “They wouldn’t hit you with much, if anything, even with these numbers. They’d want the bookies. Plus, you’re underage...”

“The statute of limitations is two years. As for being underage, I don’t think they’d have any trouble trying me as an adult if they wanted to. I’m happy to try to run out the clock on the criminal charges. They’re very unlikely to find out about them.”

“True enough.”

“However, I’m taking your advice in another sense. That’s why I want a tax accountant. I want to file the proper returns for all of this.”

“That’s...” He started at it for a moment, likely pondering deductions and gambling losses offsetting gains and so forth. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Yes, but once that’s done I can deposit this free of worry. The banks aren’t going to report it to anyone but the IRS, and the IRS will be very happy, since it’s a big pile of money they never expected. To the best of my knowledge, I can plead the fifth...”

“I’ll check that, but I recall something about that. Not my specialty, but it’s easy to verify.”

“And the IRS can’t report me for illegal activity unless subpoenaed.”

“Bingo! That one I’m sure of. They can’t.”

“Yes, it’s a big hit, and yes, I could probably figure out a way to launder it and keep far more of it, but I want to be an upstanding citizen with no major skeletons in my closet. The statute of limitations sorts itself out. The IRS has a much longer time horizon, and before that window is closed I hope to have plenty of assets and cash flow. They’ll be curious as to where the seed capital came from. If I don’t give them an obvious answer, they’ll come looking for one.”

“I’m ... almost afraid to ask,” he said, smiling and shaking his head.

“There’s that friend whose company may need an investment. I’m also looking at buying rental property around colleges and hiring a property management company to rent it. Enrollments at UT and A&M are soaring, but there are still major bargains in both markets. Put out a quality product aimed at what students actually want and there’s a big market there. Richer parents are already buying their UT-bound students condominiums and then selling them at a profit four years later.”

“No one would lend to you, but you’ve got that covered,” he said. “With a substantial down payment and the right properties, they would.”