Chuck Leondice must’ve made a shitload of money during his four decades as an attorney and law school professor. On the phone he referred to this timber-and-stucco Godzilla as a house. In rural Iowa we call something this big a mansion if it’s for human habitation, a barn if it’s not. A towering mesh net protects the back of the house from the adjacent golf course and hackers who slice. Parking alongside a Cadillac Escalade with vanity license plates, I notice a mixture of animal tracks that wind into the landscaping — raccoons, dogs or coyotes, grandchildren. Below the massive dragon tree in the front yard is an old metal sign that says LEONDICE & LEONDICE. Striding the front porch it’s obvious the house is too big for one man and his occasional visitors. Through the picture windows I can see a Stepford ghost town of uninhabited rooms, the furniture just perfect, everything too clean.

I stab the doorbell. Repeatedly. “Mr. Leondice?” I call in my loudest voice. “It’s Nick Roberts. You in there, Mr. Leondice?”

Eventually the door opens. A swarthy and aging man confronts me. He looks like a mob boss paroled after doing 25-to-life. His dark mane is greased back and going silver on the sides. Dark bags set off his restless eyes. Beneath his roman nose is a barely-visible mouth, the lips pinched and bloodless. His girth is concealed by an untucked dress shirt and oversized wool slacks with a knife-edge crease.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Leondice.” I stick out my hand and flash my patented megawatt smile. “I’m Nick Roberts, the guy with the divorce questions. Hercules was supposed to call and — ”

“Yeah. He did. I’m expecting you.” His handshake is like clasping a dead fish. “Come on in. You got a business card?”

I dig through my backpack while following him into the house. “Here you go.”

Leondice reads aloud, his voice deep and scratchy. “Nick Roberts, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Latin American Studies, UCLA.” He frowns at the card. “Ph.D. candidate? How close are you to finishing?”

“Not close enough. This is my dissertation research year. I’m studying small maquiladoras in Tijuana, but tomorrow I leave for interior Mexico. That’s why I wanted to meet right away. Thanks for your flexibility on on short notice. I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Hercules. But it would’ve been easier to do this over the phone.”

“I was crossing the border anyway, so it wasn’t out of my way.”

A lie — the second part, not the first. I needed a place to store the 41 cardboard fruit boxes that constitute our half of the Korea Textile archive, since my amigo Juan Angel Santelana didn’t want them back. Tijuana storage facilities are about as secure as leaving your shit on a street corner with a TAKE ME sign. So I’m paying $20 a month for a storage space in Imperial Beach, just across the rusty border fence that juts into the Pacific. This exclusive address in Sorrento Valley is 40 minutes north of the storage space, 55 minutes north of the border, and god knows how long from making it through the border crossing and Tijuana traffic to home. Definitely out of my way.

The house’s spotless interior has to be seen to be believed. I could eat off any surface in sight. Growing up we had bulk milk tanks on the farm that weren’t this sanitary. Leondice must pay a fortune to his maid service. We arrive in a front living room converted into an office. The wooden floor has been polished until it glows with watery reflections. Between shelves of law books is a brick fireplace, pristine and unlit. A mahogany pedestal desk faces two wing-back chairs. In the back corner is a leather settee.

I’m expecting Leondice to sit down behind the desk, but he doesn’t. He takes one of the wing-back chairs, orienting it to face mine. Bones creak as he settles himself. “I’m doing this as a favor to Hercules, so let’s keep it snappy.”

I thud my backpack onto the floor and begin to sit down — then stop, my ass hovering above the chairseat. “Is that Hercules? And…you?”

The attorney turns to the framed picture on the wall. In profile his black hair has a silver jetstream. He smiles faintly. “Yeah. That’s us. Back when I was Hercules’ defense attorney.”

The young Hercules is instantly recognizable, an unnaturally tall Mexican-American whose fury is even more noticeable than his good looks. He’s caught in a flash of movement, lunging toward the camera, one hand blurring into the foreground. Next to him is the young Leondice before his physique ran to fat. He glowers in his cheap suit like a mafia goon. More into intimidating the boys than impressing the girls. The picture has the too-vibrant colors of cheap Kodachrome stock. Vietnam era, if I had to guess.

“I was wondering how you guys met. Hercules didn’t tell me a whole lot. Just that you got him out of plenty of scrapes.”

That’s worth a dry laugh. “You know why I like that picture so much? Because it never appeared in the Los Angeles Times. I paid off the cameraman for the film. Otherwise Hercules would’ve become even more famous.”

“That was taken back in 1968, huh?” The long hot year of chicano militancy and street riots and school boycotts. The year that made Hercules’ reputation as a Brown Panther. The year he’s been living off ever since.

Leondice is lost in memories. “I can’t believe I was ever that young — and stupid! The mistakes I made in court…”

“How’d you wind up as his attorney?”

“I was fresh out of law school and working at a big firm in LA. We did pro bono representation for the indigent, and Hercules met the definition back then — he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. Nobody else at the firm wanted to represent an asshole like him, so it fell to me.” Another dry laugh. “The press stalked us everywhere. Hercules and I couldn’t turn around without a flashbulb going off. It launched my career, as he never fails to remind me.”

Another person living off Hercules’ year 1968. Even back then the old reptile was smart enough to bank favors. “When did you strike out on your own?” I ask, segueing to the keepsake LEONDICE & LEONDICE sign out front.

“Not until my uncle moved out here from Baltimore. He talked me into it. He had a better mind for business, I had a better mind for law. We made a helluva team…” Then Leondice snaps back to the present. “Enough reminiscing. Let’s get this over with. The usual disclaimers — I’m going to give you legal information, not legal advice. You must consult an attorney if you want professional assurance that my information, and your interpretation of it, is appropriate to your particular situation. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“What are your questions?”

“Uh, hang on…” I dig in my backpack for a notebook and pen. “So I’ve got this friend, right? She immigrated from Iran when she was a little girl and now she’s a naturalized citizen. She’s been married to an Iranian national for the past five years. But now they’re separated and she wants to get a divorce. She’s the non-confrontational type — no kids are involved, so she just wants to get a quickie divorce and make it all go away. You know, one of those $250 things off the internet. I’m concerned that she might be missing out on alimony or a financial settlement or whatever.”

He raises an eyebrow — at Nooshin or my implicit involvement with her, I can’t tell. “The marriage license was issued by a county within the state of California?”

“Yeah. Los Angeles County.”

“How old is she, and how old is he?”

“She’s 24. He’s a decade older or something like that. Late 30s, early 40s.”

“Did they know each other prior to the marriage?”

“She told me it was an arranged marriage between their families. She saw a picture of him beforehand, but that’s about it.”

“Did he have a green card prior to the marriage?”

“No. But he’s got one now. Thanks to marrying her.”

“Any allegations of physical or emotional abuse during the marriage?”

“Hell yeah there was physical abuse. That shitbag broke her nose and tried to kidnap her back to Kansas City!” I take a deep calming breath and relate the night Nooshin showed up on my doorstep in Tijuana, caked with dried snot and blood, a too-tight wedding band rammed onto her finger, clutching my business card with the Colonia Aviacion address scribbled on the back.

“Was the incident reported to the authorities?”

“No,” I sigh angrily. “She just wanted to pretend it away. Like I said, she’s the non-confrontational type.”

Leondice is nodding without emotion, a rote gesture. He’s heard far worse during his career. “Is there any marital property? A house, furniture? Cars? Investments?”

“Maybe some furniture. But they moved around a lot, so they only rented. And the cars came from an uncle. I don’t know about any investments.”

“What about his employment? Do you know what he does?”

“He works for his family. They own a bunch of retail businesses in the Midwest. Dollar stores and Subway franchises, mostly. I don’t really know what he does. I think he’s some kind of accountant.”

“If true, that’s a double whammy. Family businesses can be a pain in the ass when it comes to establishing actual compensation, and any accountant knows how to hide money from a spouse who isn’t an accountant.” He pauses to rub at the bags under his eyes. “Let’s talk about your friend now. Does she have a degree past high school? Has she taken any college or vocational classes?”

“No and no.”

“What about individual income? Did she work outside the home?”

“She wanted to, but he wouldn’t let her. And she had no other sources of income, far as I know.”

“So she was a housewife.”

“Yeah. Basically.”

Leondice fixes me with a mafia stare. “She lives with you now?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” My knee is pistoning, sending vibrations through the polished floor. “It shouldn’t matter who she’s living with.”

“It matters for spousal support. If either party is cohabiting with a person of the opposite sex, their claim to spousal support is diminished.” He lets that realization sink in — I’m more responsible for Nooshin than her husband now. “Are you ready for the rule of thumb?”

“The rule of thumb? Uh, sure.” I remember my forgotten notepad and pen.

“The marriage was less than 10 years, so your friend has a claim to spousal support for half the marriage’s duration. A five year marriage means two and a half years of support, in her case. Support is typically 40% of his net monthly income. That’s taxable income to her, tax-deductible income to him.”

I look up from my notepad. “But what if the family business was underpaying him? I think they were underpaying him in salary, but compensating him in other ways. Like those cars his uncle provided.”

“She’ll need a forensic accountant to determine that. It won’t be easy to establish his actual compensation or determine whether he was hiding money from her. Anyway, let’s take a theoretical example. If he made $3,000 a month — ”

“Then she’d be eligible for…” My pen is motionless on the paper. I’m doing the math in my head. “Fucking A. $36,000.”

Leondice laughs his dry laugh. “Remember, that’s not a real number. But it gives you a sense of the trade-offs when one party surrenders all rights to obtain an expedited divorce. Of course, it’s expensive to retain a divorce attorney who knows family businesses — and if need be, a forensic accountant. I’ve seen clients spend more on the divorce than they won in the settlement.”

A grandfather clock chimes somewhere in the bowels of the house. The noise sounds mournful and trapped, echoing for a way out. Leondice looks away, giving me a respite from his glare. He’s been sizing me up like I’m in the witness box. Now I can go back to scrutinizing him. I immediately notice his loafers are deformed by corns.

“Was there a mahr?”

I’m astonished he knows the word. “Uh, yeah. There was a mahr. In fact it’s causing a lot of grief right now. His family wants it back, but her family already spent it and can’t afford to repay it.” I peer at the mobster lookalike suspiciously. “How the hell do you know about mahrs?”

“You can’t practice law in Los Angeles without becoming familiar with Iranian traditions.” He shifts in the wing-back chair, his bones creaking loud enough for me to hear. The change in posture signals a change from attorney to law school professor. “The mahr is the Iranian form of bride price. The husband buys the bride to compensate her family for the loss of her labor. In America the mahr has evolved into an exchange of gifts — like giving your fiance a diamond ring, instead of paying her family for her.”

“But Noo– my friend, she was still bought and sold.” Just saying it my muscles tense with anger. I want to punch something. Preferably Saman’s face.

“The mahr was paid to her family, not her? Were they saving it or investing it for her?”

“She didn’t even know about it until after the separation. Her family spent it on a townhome down payment for her sister and an aunt’s medical bills.”

Leondice is leaning forward slightly, back in defense attorney mode. He taps his chin with his finger. It’s intended to be an innocuous gesture, distracting witnesses from the gathering menace in his beady eyes. “Do you know how much the mahr was?”

“Nah. But I’ve seen the townhome. I figure it took $20K or $30K to cover the down payment. Add in god knows how much for the medical bills — $30K? $50K? — and you get a mahr that wasn’t chump change.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way — ” He quickly glances down at the business card I gave him. ” — Nick. But your friend’s situation doesn’t make sense. I suspect there’s more than she’s telling you or knows herself.”

“Why?”

“Marriages between Americans and Iranians happen all the time — with modest mahrs, or no mahrs at all. Why would his family pay a premium for marriage to a U.S. citizen? Even a young and attractive Muslim virgin, assuming that’s who we’re talking about here.”

I find myself staring back at Leondice, our gazes locked and sparking. “What the hell is going on? Something illegal?”

“That’s speculation. Pure speculation.”

“So? We’re just talking here.”

“Anything I say will also be speculation, not to be repeated or attributed. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Well then.” He heaves his bulk out of the wing-back chair and pauses, already exhausted from the effort. “Paying an exorbitant mahr could be a unique form of money laundering. Maybe his family can’t move money into the U.S. via the banking system. For example, they might be affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization.”

“His family is from the border with Afghanistan. Maybe they’re hooked up with the Taliban,” I say eagerly. Too eagerly. I catch myself hating people I’ve never met.

“The Revolutionary Guards, the Taliban, the opium trade. All speculation.” Leondice shrugs, then glances down the other hallway leading into the room. Both of us can see an open door leading into a tiled bathroom. “Regardless, it’s possible to theorize a kickback of some kind from her family. Maybe they spent part but not all of the mahr, and returned the balance to his family. Or maybe they invested it on his family’s behalf — that townhome may not actually belong to her sister.”

“Maybe they spent the rest of the mahr on real estate speculation. Part of the subprime mortgage scandal, right? That money could’ve paid for the paperwork on no-money-down homes. Or, or…” My mind is warping through scenarios, across continents. “Her family still has relatives in Iran. Maybe they were trading favors. Like, his family was doing a favor over here, so her family would do a favor over there.”

“I have to use the bathroom.” The aging attorney shuffles into motion, but not fast enough. His gangster face goes weak and bitter. He probably wet his Depends. “So much for keeping this speedy. At this rate Hercules is going to owe me one. Let yourself out, okay?”

And I will, as soon as I finish rehearsing the conversation I’ll have with Nooshin. I haven’t pressed her on any of this shit yet. She has matching sets of baggage from her marriage and family, and she’s still getting used to Mexico — and me, and our relationship. Last thing she needs is a rewind to the bad old days with Saman. And I wouldn’t even go there, but Chuck Leondice threw up all over the mahr. Nooshin was bought and sold. Now the question is why.