In the third exciting installment of The Firm Fiction Prize, which sees 12 lawyers turning their hand to fiction writing, David McGuire of MacRoberts delves deeper into the mysterious background of lawyer Billy Noble. Is he in more trouble than we thought? Read on and find out. Next issue Deborah Carmichael of Miller Samuel will take up the story.

Carlton Place - Chapter 3
by David McGuire of MacRoberts

“Lubo, it’s me – Billy Noble.” His voice tense. “Listen-”
“The famous Billy!” Lubo’s interruption crackled through the phone’s tiny speakers, although his voice didn’t sound much different in person. “I saw you! In the newspaper, I saw you. I said to Ella, I said, ‘look – there’s Mr Noble, but I call him Billy because we two, we have known each other-’”
“Lubo-” Noble never had a chance. Once Lubo started, only a coughing fit was likely to stop him.
“-but it says you are in trouble, but then Ella, she shows me this part where it says – hang on, hang on, I put it down here somewhere – ‘Mr Noble’s career is in ruins, but is unlikely to face prosecution’ – that’s good news, is it not? But then-”

The speakers spiked in tinny white noise, punctuated by hacks and gasps that went on and on. Noble looked up at Mario Zamporini, saw the elderly man frowning in displeasure. Noble shrugged. “You wanted him on speakerphone.” He leaned back against his pillows, closed his eyes as adrenaline fought a losing battle with exhaustion and waited for Lubo to stop.
“Not cheap, Billy boy. I am many things – a father, a businessman and a patriot – but I am not cheap.”
Billy Noble opened his eyes. Cold sweat stung fake tears from them, and he blinked rapidly, hoping Zamporini would mistake them for the real thing. He knew this would be risky, but he hadn’t expected guns in the face quite so early in the game – that wasn’t usually Zamporini’s style. If Zamporini thought he was-
“Crying, Billy boy? Ah, I hope your poor father is watching this.” Zamporini made the sign of the cross with the muzzle of his gun and laughed. “No, no, no. A cheap gangster might bring your wife here, make certain threats to her well-being in front of you, but I am not that man. Your wife has flown the nest – la donna è mobile – but I would rather send some friends to sit outside her mother’s house in the middle of the night and wait on a call from me, than drag her here like some petty thug.” He leaned forward. “You’re not going to make me do that, are you Billy boy? You’re not going to make me make a mess?”
Noble shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. I don’t like mess. Where’s my money?”
Noble swallowed hard. One roll of the dice. “Lubo Miksic.”
Zamporini looked blank. “Who?”

“Lubo, you okay?”
The coughing had petered out. Lubo’s voice came back, even scratchier than before. “It is nothing. It is the night air – I need a glass of water, is all.” Muffled shouts and then he came back on. “So what can I do for Mr Front Page?”
“We need to meet,” said Noble. He paused, glancing at a glowering Zamporini. “I need to speak with you. About the Cuidad.”
“How about lunch tomorrow? Always a pleasure, provided a rich lawyer is picking up the bill.”
Zamporini shook his head.
“Sooner than lunch, Lubo. Now. Right now.”
“Well, if you are going to hold a gun to my head…”

Zamporini raised his pistol again, his face turning red. “Who the hell is Lubo Miksic?”
“My insurance policy.” Noble propped himself up in bed and tried to keep his voice, and the situation, under control.
“I picked him up as a client about fifteen years ago. He went into a pub on the south side, quiet afternoon, just the bartender and a couple of customers. The bartender tells him it’s free drinks day, so Lucky Lubo empties half the opticals in the place and passes out. Wakes up in custody. Turns out the ‘bartender’ and the other two had broken into the pub and were busy robbing it when Lubo happened by. He was taking the rap for it, and then I stepped in.” Noble shrugged. “Things like that just seem to happen to him.”
“Losing my patience, Billy boy.”
“Then pay attention.” Careful, Billy, this is a dangerous game and he’s played it longer than you. “The police know everything. You saw the headlines – I’m the lawyer with the Nazi gold, but the police think it was all my father\'s. Selling a few bars every year was a great little earner, Mario, but the gold is gone-”
“This I know-”
“-and the police have it.”
A pause, then quietly, “The hell, you say.”
“They let it slip when they brought me in. Someone talked. They knew the location. They have it all, yours and mine. It’s gone, Mario.”
“Then the world doesn’t need you any more, does it?” The gun was suddenly the biggest thing in the room, held rock steady just inches from the end of Billy Noble’s life. “As I said to your father, who\'ll miss another lawyer?”
“Lubo Mik-” The barrel of the gun cut the last word off, pushing hard into Noble’s cheek.
“That name,” Mario growled, “won\'t save your life.”
“-smuggled out of what is now Croatia when he was a baby, just after the war,” the words tumbled out of Noble. “His mother died enroute, on the Cuidad de Burgos, and he arrived here an orphan. His mother’s name was Spitzer.”
The colour drained from Zamporini’s face.
Noble risked a nod. “Exactly. The Spitzer family fortune. The one you and my father snuck out of Germany.”
“But the last Spitzer died on the Cuidad. We checked. No heirs! No baby!”
“Not on the manifest, no, but would you risk your child and put his Jewish name down? Not on that ship. Not then. His mother certainly didn’t.”
“Does he know?”
Noble smiled for the first time that evening. “Does he know he’s the only man alive who can make that gold legal to own? No. But I have the papers that prove it, and he\'s – well, Lubo\'s not the sharpest tack in the box.”
“Where?”
“My office. Carlton Place.”
Zamporini stared. The old house creaked in the silence as Noble waited, heart hammering. Finally the elderly man nodded. “Call him.”