Union Flagg

By jas weaver

(305 Pages)

It's 1973, and after three years of working for the LA District Attorney's Office, 26 year old Rudy Steinway moves back to his hometown, La Jolla, to open up his private practice as a criminal defense attorney. Immediately, he is hired by a wealthy French colonist with a big house on the beach in La Jolla, and plantations in Viet Nam and Laos.

 "I'm Union Flagg." His accent was French. French man in a French house. Probably not a coincidence. Short pause and then he continued, "And I presume you're the lawyer?"

"Rudy Steinway."

Flagg glanced closely at me. He pulled his reading glasses up from his chest where they were held by a gold chain draped around his neck. He focused his eyes behind the glasses and said, "You don't look Jew." I gave no reaction. A statement without any hint of bias, more of an observation.

I hesitated. Another anti-Semite? Didn't really sound like it and a lawyer doesn't choose his initial meeting with a prospective client. He listens to their story, does his best to ferret out the facts, and explains the law as it deals with those facts. An experienced lawyer then makes a judicious determination as to whether or not he can help the person; and if he can, does the lawyer want to take the case.

"No. Protestant. For whatever that matters."

"Steinway sounds Jewish."

"German."

Flagg continued his stare. "You a Nazi?" Not a condemning or welcoming tone, but again, observational. Nevertheless, the extremes in this man's thoughts threw me, but my face remained placid.

"Look, Mr. Flagg. I'm not a Jew and I'm not a Nazi. Maybe you're looking for somebody else and not me." Maybe I should have stood up and walked out then and there. But I didn't. A lawyer deals with prejudice all the time. Conflicts between people. The life blood of a lawyer. Nobody goes to a lawyer when they're hunky-dory about their life. They got a problem and they want you to fix it.

"Rudy Steinway, lawyer," he said.

"Yes sir."

I stared back at the tall white man. Several seconds passed and Flagg finally said, "Don't mind me. I haven't had time to check you out. I'll do that later. Please sit down."

I sat in a soft leather chair that Flagg directed me to. I noticed he had a gold bracelet surrounding his left wrist as he moved around his large desk and sat in a matching leather chair. He saw me sliding my arms along the armrest.

"Rhodes leather. They use Kentucky buckskin for the covering. Special order out of Atlanta several years ago."

"Very nice."

He said, "If you study the embroidery on the rugs, you'll see that the one's under your feet depict hunting scenes. Special order out of Azerbaijan to match the leather." He seemed to want to impress me with his wealth. Whatever. There was a lamp on Flagg's desk which bounced light against his face. He was older in the light. Sweating a little, although the room was cool. I saw small blood vessels visible in his nose and cheeks. Signs of an indulged life. He appeared to have the money for it.

"How old are you son?"

"Twenty-six," was my reply.

"You look younger. You haven't had enough stress in your life to age you." He had no idea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: jas weaver
• Release date: Jan 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798893427103

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was thirteen days before the 4th of July in 1973 when I first saw her. I was standing on a sidewalk beside the road west of the old beach house that I had just rented in La Jolla. Across the road was the separate sidewalk above the ocean where she was walking south with her dog. To the west of her, down a twenty-foot bluff, was the Pacific Ocean and the several score of beach-goers waiting for the sun to dip into the sea. Adjacent to her sidewalk there was a sewage pumping station built into the cliff with its footings secured into the rocks beside the beach sand. She walked languidly, seemingly carefree, wearing one of those white summer dresses that stopped at her elbows and cut above her knees, streaked with red and green and blue colors of a vibrant summer day. White skin, long-black hair loosely tied up behind her head, she moved like an insouciant cat on a promenade walking behind a small white dog. This was my first day and pretty soon night in the neighborhood, and I wondered if she regularly walked her dog along this sidewalk.

As she moved past the pump house I saw several surfers standing there, engaged in conversation with one another. When her dog pranced past the surfers, I heard some comments muffled by the sounds of the sea. When she strolled past, they stopped talking and admired her. As she got closer to me, I could tell she was pretty. Not movie star pretty, but a natural beauty which emanated from her white skin and black hair and the way she carried herself. I put on some Aviator sunglasses so that I could  follow her walk by shifting my eyes without turning my head, which would make my interest too obvious. But maybe she cultivated the attention. Eyes enclosed behind my Ray-Ban Aviators, they moved laterally as she followed her dog along the sidewalk.

A chubby short man adorned in expensive shorts and gold necklaces approached her from the opposite direction and he must've said something which I couldn't hear, for suddenly the dog was barking and yacking and threatening to fight the man. He threw up his arms and slid past the dog and her, escaping north along the sidewalk and past the surfers who ridiculed him with faux fear of throwing their arms into the air and shrieking. I chuckled to myself. I thought I recognized Brick Gibson in the group. A well-known surfer. I knew my dog still housed in LA would have the same reaction to the ostentatious golden-man.

The dog walked point for another ten feet and then she made an indiscernible noise with her lips and the dog stopped. Discipline. I watched her check the traffic on the street as one car drove past and then she made another soft noise, like a short note from a songbird, and the dog and her stepped into the street and proceeded to walk directly toward me. I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought maybe the dog had to take a crap and it was going to do it on the brown grass fronting my newly rented home. I was surprised when dog and lady stepped up the curb and stood right in front of me and she casually said,

You must be Steinway? She wasn’t wearing the de rigueur sunglasses and her turquoise eyes dazzled me. I removed my Aviators out of politeness and for a cleaner perception.

That’s me. I didn’t think I’d ever seen this girl before. I couldn't tell her age. Her skin was the color of fresh cream, flawless with just a brush of make-up. Maybe my age, twenty-six, but she looked younger. Not a typical California beach girl. Looked like some Asian bloodlines, probably a mixture with some white blood. Ancestors could be Vietnamese or running up to China with her high cheekbones and coal colored hair tied back with loose strands behind her ears and down to her shoulders. She used discretion with the California sun and her skin was unblemished. She must walk the dog only at dusk. Figured she must get carded at all the  bars or drinking establishments that she frequented.

My name is Ariel Flagg. Her name meant nothing to me. She held out her hand and I took it. Her fingers were warm and her hand was strong. Athletic with looks. Probably a tennis player from the feel of calluses during our grip. She was a few inches shorter than me, putting her at five ten.

This is Sweetie. The dog’s head reached my shins.

I said, Glad to meet you and your dog. I didn’t lean down to pet the dog. I never liked poodles. She studied my face for a moment.

Now I remember you. From about eleven years ago. I remember seeing you playing golf at the Country Club. She looked away and mumbled under her breath, I was so young then. Weren’t we both, I thought.

Was she a golfer? If so, why would she want to watch my sweeping slice that would land 220 yards off the tee? Not that I couldn't get a good score. I learned how to work the slice, how to set it down in a good position for my next shot. Good short game. Pitching from 75 yards out and making most of the putts under 10 feet. Learned from the professional at the Country Club, Paul Runyan. He got my handicap down to five and I played on the high school golf team during the winter and spring months. Of course the top three golfers on the team were scratch players, so when I played in matches, I was always the fifth or sixth player on a six-man team.

Yeah, our team used to have our home matches up there every Friday. I couldn’t place this girl in my past. She couldn’t have been a teen-ager that far back so I never would have noticed her. But then I wasn’t into girls when I was in high school. I was fifteen when I graduated and too mixed up in the Protestant religion and the sexual confusion of a teenage boy surfing the beaches of La Jolla with the mixture of good waves and scantily clad women whose cleavage dared you to dream.

She came back to the present and said, Is your family a member of the club?

No, I’m the only one that really played golf and my parents did all their socializing at the Church.

Too bad. Disappointment in her voice. Where have you been living?

Los Angeles.

Why’d you come back?

Very direct lady and her summer colors made me vulnerable. I missed La Jolla, and it slipped out, Lonely. I guess, and I quickly followed with, La Jolla is a special town. She nodded, whether to my loneliness or the town, I didn’t know and I wasn’t about to ask.

Sweetie nudged her ankle and she looked down and petted the dog and smiled. The smile was still on her face when she looked back up at me. She was beautiful and I could tell she loved her dog and then the smile left as she said, My family lives just north of here, right on the beach at Whispering Sands Court. French Colonial on the ocean.

You talking about north of the White Sands Rest Home. Cul-de-sac at the south end of Prospect Street with a public path leading down to the beach?

Yes, she replied. I imagine you have surfed those waves? I gathered from her tone that with another person she would've said, ‘surfed our waves.’

Your home overlooks the reef at Horseshoe. I grew up in this town. Me and my friends surfed every break and every reef along these shores. She smiled at me, but this time her smile didn’t have the naturalness of her beauty. It seemed like she had to work for it. Or maybe other people had to work for it. She studied my face for a bit and said, You look better now.

Old age took away my pimples and braces.

That too, she said. But you’re taller, broader at the shoulders. It didn’t sound like a compliment, just an observation. You look a little like one of those movie actors.

I touched my nose. I broke this when I was seventeen, so sometimes people take me for a stunt double. She nodded and got down to her business.

My father has a legal problem that he needs to talk to somebody about. Her demeanor had changed. Her warmth left with her smile. I remembered these Princesses from growing up in La Jolla. It seemed their birthright was to be taken care of their entire lives. Beach houses on both coasts and the Mediterranean. Sun Valley chalet. Private Schools. Club memberships. Trust funds set up and just waiting to entice a malleable male into their web. My sister heard that you were back in town. She suggested you to my father and he agreed to talk with you. Two girls in the family. Were they both beautiful?

Well, I don’t expect your father needs my kinda lawyer. She didn’t respond, so I continued, and I don’t know too much about business law or trusts.

Yes, she said. Undeterred.

Those aren’t my expertise.

She studied me for many seconds. You’re a criminal lawyer. Right?

That’s my specialty.

You’re the one he wants to talk to. He seems to think some business partner is breaking the law. Finality in her voice. Like I didn’t have a choice to decline the invitation. No, it wasn’t an invitation, it was a mandate. Ariel Flagg put out her hand to me. It was cooler now and I noticed the calluses were thicker. More sports in her life to keep her busy. Maybe the evening breeze closed her down. Women get funny like that. She dropped the walking part of the leash down to the dog’s bejeweled neck collar and secured the swivel. The collar looked like pearls. Probably five times the value of my car. Affluence always walked around this town, mostly under wraps. Beverly Hills and Malibu had nothing up on La Jolla.

A new ragtop Mercedes drove past and she waved to it with her free hand and then turned back to me.

Come by at 8:15 tonight. Just after dark.

OK. Thank you.—my parents grew up during the depression and they taught us to be thankful to people—until they done you wrong.

Be punctual. My father has a busy schedule. Ring the bell at the front gate and somebody will let you in. She forced a smile, looked at my new home and said,

You should have your landlord straighten out those shutters hanging loose over the windows. Security measures to keep the beach riff-raff out.

She turned toward the ocean, checked there was no traffic running along the street, and walked over to the sidewalk where she unleashed the poodle. The dog walked point going north, she walked in her colors behind her, and they never looked back. Going home was my guess. She looked good from behind. I watched her stroll past the pump house. So did the surfers. She diminished in the distance. I wondered if she knew my first name, Rudy, or if she even cared.

She was right. My house was built in the thirties and forty years of salt air and battering from winter storms had left it dilapidated. But I didn’t care that the sea air slipped through the broken caulking and blistered wood of the windows and doors; it provided constant ventilation and I liked that. I loved the  idea of sleeping beside the sea and smelling the ocean. I wondered if the dolphins knew I was back in town.

I walked back into the house near the hallway to the bathroom. When I did a walk-through before signing the lease, I had seen what looked like a trapdoor cut into the ceiling to access the attic. I got a chair and stepped on it and pushed against a 2 1/2’ x 2 1/2’ piece of plywood that was painted the same color as the full ceiling. It released upward for about six inches and then I moved it off to the side within the attic above me. I straightened up and stuck my head through the entrance and surveyed the rafters and underside of the roof that covered the attic. I thought this would be a good place to store private things and keep it closed so no one would know of its service.

I pulled the cover back in place, stepped down, put the chair back in the living room, and sat down on the couch to listen to the ocean and speculate as to what Mr. Flagg wanted to talk about.

Chapter 2

I hadn’t lived in San Diego for ten years. The last three I’d lived in Los Angeles while I worked as an assistant district attorney out of the downtown office. The seven years before that were split between Berkeley, Vietnam, and the University of California law school. Of course I came down on occasion to visit my parents and siblings. But now I figured it was a good time to move home and see if I had any friends left in the town. The criminal courtrooms of the City of Angels gave me all the tools I needed to become a top-notch defense attorney. The newly elected Los Angeles DA knew this. He offered me a substantial raise of pay and a bonus to stay with the County. I declined. I knew it was time to relax my dress code and grow out my hair and switch to the other side: represent defendants instead of the People of the State of California. View the mass of humanity that traveled through the criminal justice system from a different perspective. As one of the homicide detectives that I worked with in LA said, It’ll be like a cinematographer lining up his camera shot using new Zeiss lenses instead of Panavision. The actors and scene will be the same, but your new lenses will garner new insights and new understandings of the characters and events. Detective Tommy Wong’s uncle was a famous cinematographer who still lived in the family compound in Chinatown.

Now was the time to enter private practice, be my own boss and make more money. So I came back to La Jolla the middle of June 1973 to get in the clean ocean water and hang out my shingle as a sole practitioner. See what kind of clients I could attract. People always had problems that needed lawyers and I wondered who, if anyone, might seek out my counsel. Give me a chance to test one of the maxims of the criminal defense bar: Make sure you get all your money upfront, because if the defendant is found not guilty, he says he was innocent all along and everybody should've known it, so why should he pay you any more money. Flipside of the coin, You lost the case, you're not a good lawyer at all, you’re just like those Public Pretenders, I ain’t paying you squat! Get outta here!

I figured I could get away from the lawyer stress by living next to the ocean. My house provided an unobstructed 150° view of the sea. During high tide and heavy surf, I knew the ocean would spray across the street over the shingles of the house, cascading sea water down roof, down stucco, past the windows and onto the shrubs and into the brown grass that fronted the property. The salt air and the dog pee retarded the plant growth. Ariel’s dog didn’t feel the need to mark over the other dogs. Discipline.

My parents still lived on the side of the hill in the suburb of La Jolla called Mount Soledad. Same Soledad  name as the State Prison that I sent a score of people to, but I was too old to live with them—no thank you. Of course I had friends from high school my age, who still lived with their parents. Usually in a guest house on their half acre estate, waiting for their trust fund monies to be disbursed when they reached the age of thirty. These no longer kids spent their time traipsing around the world for several weeks throughout the year, and always coming back to La Jolla to travel their triangular path between the Beach Club, the Country Club, and Windansea Beach. They had to know Ariel.

I was sure I could find clients from this beach crowd, but this Flagg matter happened so quickly. I wondered how her sister knew about me? I didn’t remember anybody named Flagg. But it was a small town. Some people still referred to it as a Village, and gossip breezed through it on the ocean winds. So my name was ghosting through the Village as the son returned; or maybe the son rose from the dead.

I knew that some of my prosecutorial victories had made the news in sleepy La Jolla, and that my name had been discussed by the San Diego criminal defense bar. I had several offers to work with established firms, but I was firm in my resistance to their lucrative compensation. Working for the man, whether prosecution or defense, was not on my horizon.

I had accomplished a lot in my twenty-six years. Graduated high school at 15. Degree at Cal Berkeley, running around with the co-eds with flowers in their hair and no panties under their skirts. Law school severed by a tour in Viet Nam beginning the Fall of 1967. Sent home and eventually discharged with shrapnel buried in my back and legs and back at law school.

The sun had about twenty minutes before it dropped into the ocean, so I went back outside to watch the flow of life. Ariel Flagg was out of sight, somewhere past the shack at Windansea Beach. The sun hovered low in the sky. People were leaving the beach. Others were coming down to the shore to watch the sunset. I inhaled the smell of clean ocean water and tasted the salty breeze on my lips. What a difference from the stale Santa Monica Bay air. I’d read about the toxic chemicals regularly dumped in the Bay and had seen Government reports of DDT barrels discarded into the ocean. I was afraid to go into the Bay water, even Malibu. Zuma Beach was fine and I went there with my friends to surf with the dolphins.

The clouds in the sky were breaking up along the horizon and I wondered if there might be a green flash when the sun dropped. From living in LA, I wondered if green flashes still existed. I watched more people gather on the sidewalk to watch the sunset and drink from their glasses and bottles. I looked north toward Windansea and saw a score of people moving underneath the surf shack, celebrating something—probably just living another day in La Jolla. I watched cars and trucks and VW surf vans pass by, then I saw a white police car moving in my direction. It stopped directly across the street from me, blocking my view of the sunset, so I moved a few feet to my right. A police officer, dressed in the tan uniform of San Diego PD, stepped out of the passenger side and was briefly silhouetted in the sunset. As he crossed the street toward me he broke from the silhouette and I saw he was a black man. Halfway across the street he shouted out my name, Steinway! Rudy Steinway ! I know you!

I hadn't seen him in several years, but I knew it was a Colt League ball player that I had helped coach when I was down here the middle of summer 1967.

Bobby Starr!

He made it to the sidewalk and we warmly embraced.

You back in town? he asked.

Rented this place today. I stepped back. Chip’s family rented it to me.

I know that Chip well. I see him sometimes on patrol and he waves at us, said Bobby. Traffic was starting to back up behind their patrol car and Bobby followed my gaze toward his partner.

Kip! My old baseball coach when I was sixteen. As good as those ones in the Padres before I got hurt. Kip waved at me.

I saw you got drafted in the first round. Bobby checked the traffic and started to slowly back pedal like he was gauging a pop fly.

Yea. But I didn’t want to play in that racist town in the Midwest that chose me, so I took a full ride scholarship at State and made All-American my one year. Then the Padres drafted me and I spent two and ½ years in the Bigs until I went into the wall at Wrigley and separated my shoulder. Got some good coin with them, some real good coin, but too much damage to stay with it and now I’m a cop.

He was back to the shotgun door, looking at me over the roof. How’d you choose this job? I shouted.

Criminal Justice major at State! He returned the shout, And all my brothers in the hood that needed a clean cop in on their streets! I’ll drop by and visit.

Before I could respond, Kip lit up the light bar and blared a siren and the police car moved carefully and quickly through the traffic, turning east at the next street. Their car disappeared from view, the sound of the siren rarefied into the noisy atmosphere of the beach, and was gone.

Chapter 3

It was dark. The front gate was hidden behind two parked new British cars. I was always punctual. Service in the Marine Corps didn’t teach me that. Just reinforced it. Early morning calendar in the criminal courts in LA didn’t teach me that. My mother did. Promptly at 6 AM in the early morning of school days my mother would rip the blankets off her three children’s beds. We had a choice of sleeping in the cold morning air, or taking a warm shower before dressing and eating for school. Her children were never late for anything.

An Asian man, about a foot shorter than me with an ageless face, opened the double doors set inside the nine-foot walls beside the street. He had a dog with him. Not Sweetie, but a Rottweiler five times larger than Sweetie. The dog made no noise as it sniffed the lower half of my extremities.

You are Mr. Steinway? The man was Vietnamese.

That’s me.

Follow me please. As I followed the short man, I studied the lights illuminating the exterior of the house as we walked toward an entrance. He had to be no more than 5’ 2" tall. I was probably twelve inches taller and I thought that in the dark, if this man so desired, I would never see him. Vietnamese tunnel diggers. Take out your legs and leave the rest for the jungle. Call the Medic to stop the bleeding and girdle in your organs and needle you with morphine while your buddies stretchered you over to the LZ and the incoming chopper.

On cue he said in Vietnamese, Tôi không nghĩ rằng tôi đã từng nhìn thấy bạn ở nhà trước đây. I understood him, but I’d never seen him before. I didn’t know him from Adam. I played ignorant.

What language is that?

You don’t understand Vietnamese?

No. Sorry. It was too dark to see if he gave any reaction.

We moved past a Mexican gardener trimming some trees next to an outdoor light and he just glanced at us. He worked late. Maybe he lived on the grounds. The Rottweiler stayed outside—probably patrolled the perimeter, not house broken. I wondered who cleaned up his shit.

The house was French colonial style. It bore an eerie resemblance to the General’s house in Saigon. I guessed the French and their servants went everywhere. I doubted he was local, but maybe this Vietnamese man came with the house. Like a fixture attached to the property, like the gardener.

I followed him to an obvious side door. Probably the door for hired help and deliveries. He knocked and a second Asian man opened the door and stared at me for maybe thirty seconds. He was older and taller than the first. The skin on his face was not as smooth and he had streaks of grey in his full black hair. Probably the butler. I began to wonder if he understood English, or if he even knew why I was supposed to be there. He surprised me when he said in perfect English, Follow me. We moved down a poorly lighted hallway past a stairwell cut into the wall on our left. Tightly woven Persian carpets covered the floor. He saw me studying the weave of a man riding a red horse with a spear at the ready and the rider of the black horse before him turned backward in his saddle with a rifle pointed at the first man.

Tabriz, he said. I had just enough time to see a weave of a dark haired woman reclining on a pillow, her breasts uncovered, when he motioned to me to follow. Further down the hallway there was a young white man standing next to a tall lamppost. He was too young to be Ariel’s father, so I guessed him to be a bodyguard. He had a paperback book in his hand and I figured he was alerted so he wanted to check me out. The butler pointed his arm to my right in the direction of a large slightly open mahogany door. He nodded to me, knocked on the door twice, and then pushed it open. Luxuriant Persian carpets everywhere I looked.

The older man was standing before me. He bore a passing semblance to Ariel Flagg. The white side of her. Gold hair—looked like it had been dyed. Tennis tan imbedded in his face and forearms, exposed by a short sleeve Polo shirt. He was as tall as me. His light blue eyes moved suspiciously as he extended his hand.

I’m Union Flagg. His accent was French. French man in a French house. Probably not a coincidence. Short pause and then he continued, And I presume you’re the lawyer?

Rudy Steinway.

Flagg glanced closely at me. He pulled his reading glasses up from his chest where they were held by a gold chain draped around his neck. He focused his eyes behind the glasses and said, You don’t look Jew. I gave no reaction. A statement without any hint of bias, more of an observation.

I hesitated. Another anti-Semite? Didn’t really sound like it and a lawyer doesn’t choose his initial meeting with a prospective client. He listens to their story, does his best to ferret out the facts, and explains the law as it deals with those facts. An experienced lawyer then makes a judicious determination as to whether or not he can help the person; and if he can, does the lawyer want to take the case.

No. Protestant. For whatever that matters.

Steinway sounds Jewish.

German.

Flagg continued his stare. You a Nazi? Not a condemning or welcoming tone, but again, observational. Nevertheless, the extremes in this man’s thoughts threw me, but my face remained placid.

Look, Mr. Flagg. I’m not a Jew and I’m not a Nazi. Maybe you’re looking for somebody else and not me. Maybe I should have stood up and walked out then and there. But I didn’t. A lawyer deals with prejudice all the time. Conflicts between people. The life blood of a lawyer. Nobody goes to a lawyer when they’re hunky-dory about their life. They got a problem and they want you to fix it.

Rudy Steinway, lawyer, he said.

Yes sir.

I stared back at the tall white man. Several seconds passed and Flagg finally said, Don’t mind me. I haven’t had time to check you out. I’ll do that later. Please sit down.

I sat in a soft leather chair that Flagg directed me to. I noticed he had a gold bracelet surrounding his left wrist as he moved around his large desk and sat in a matching leather chair. He saw me sliding my arms along the armrest.

"Rhodes leather. They use Kentucky buckskin for the covering. Special order