The Litigators (9 page)

“I have a question,” he said, his eyelids getting heavier.

“I have lots of questions,” she replied.

“I’m sure you do, but I don’t want to talk now. Save it for tomorrow when I’m sober, okay? It’s not fair to hammer me now when I’m drunk.”

“Fair enough. What’s your question?”

“Are your parents, by chance, in our home at this moment?”

“Yes. They’ve been there for some time. They’re very concerned.”

“How nice. Look, I’m not walking into our home if your parents are there, got that? I don’t want them to see me like this. Understand?”

“They love you, David. You scared all of us.”

“Why is everyone so scared? I texted you twice and said I was okay. You knew I was alive. What’s all the panic about?”

“Don’t get me started.”

“So I had a bad day, what’s the big deal?”

“A bad day?”

“Actually, it was a pretty good day, come to think of it.”

“Why don’t we argue tomorrow, David? Isn’t that what you asked?”

“Yes, but I’m not getting out of the car until they leave. Please.”

They were on the Stevenson Expressway, and traffic was heavier. Nothing was said as they inched along. David struggled to stay awake. Helen finally picked up the cell phone and called her parents.

A
bout once a month Rochelle Gibson arrived for work expecting her usual quiet time, only to find the office already opened, the coffee brewed, the dog fed, and Mr. Figg bustling around with excitement over a new scheme to stalk injured people. This irritated her immensely. It not only ruined the few tranquil moments in her otherwise noisy day but also meant more work.

She was barely inside the door when Wally nailed her with a hearty “Well, good morning, Ms. Gibson,” as if he were surprised to see her arrive at work at 7:30 on a Thursday.

“Good morning, Mr. Figg,” she replied with far less enthusiasm. She almost added “And what brings you here so early?” but held her tongue. She would hear about his scheme soon enough.

With coffee, yogurt, and the newspaper, she settled at her desk and tried to ignore him.

“I met David’s wife last night,” Wally said from the table across the room. “Very cute and nice. Said he doesn’t drink much, maybe blows it out from time to time. I think the pressure gets to him occasionally. I know that’s my story. Always the pressure.”

When Wally drank, he needed no excuse. He boozed it up after a hard day, and he had wine with lunch on an easy day. He drank when he was stressed, and he drank on the golf course. Rochelle had seen and heard it all before. She also kept up with the score—sixty-one days without a drink. That was the story of Wally’s life—a count of some
sort always in progress. Days on the wagon. Days until his driving suspension was over. Days until his current divorce was final. And sadly, days until he was released from rehab.

“What time did she get him?” she asked without looking up from the newspaper.

“After eight. He walked out of here, even asked if he could drive. She said no.”

“Was she upset?”

“She was pretty cool. Relieved more than anything else. The big question is whether he’ll remember anything. And if he does, then the question is whether he’ll find us again. Will he really walk away from the big firm and the big bucks? I got my doubts.”

Rochelle had her doubts too, but she was trying to minimize the conversation. Finley & Figg was not the place for a big-firm type with a Harvard degree, and, frankly, she didn’t want another lawyer complicating her life. She had her hands full with these two.

“I could use him, though,” Wally went on, and Rochelle knew the latest scheme was now on the way. “You ever hear of a cholesterol drug called Krayoxx?”

“You’ve already asked me this.”

“It causes heart attacks and strokes, and the truth is just now coming out. The first wave of litigation is unfolding, could be tens of thousands of cases before it’s over. The mass tort lawyers are all over it. I talked to a big firm in Fort Lauderdale yesterday. They’ve already filed a class action and are looking for more cases.”

Rochelle turned a page as if she were hearing nothing.

“Anyway, I’m spending the next few days looking for Krayoxx cases, and I could sure use some help. Are you listening, Ms. Gibson?”

“Sure.”

“How many names are in our client database, both active and retired?”

She took a bite of yogurt and seemed exasperated. “We have about two hundred active files,” she said.

At Finley & Figg, though, a file deemed active was not necessarily one that received attention. More often than not, it was simply a neglected file that no one had bothered to retire. Wally usually had about thirty files he would touch in a week’s time—divorces, wills, estates, injuries, drunk drivers, small contract disputes—and another fifty or so he diligently avoided. Oscar, who was more willing to take on a new client but was also slightly more organized than his junior partner, had about one hundred open files. Throw in a few that were lost, hidden, or unaccounted for, and the number was always around two hundred.

“And retired?” he asked.

A sip of coffee, another grunt. “Last time I checked, the computer showed three thousand files retired since 1991. I don’t know what’s upstairs.”

Upstairs was the final resting place for everything—old law books, outdated computers and word processors, unused office supplies, and dozens of boxes of files Oscar had retired before he added Wally as a partner.

“Three thousand,” Wally said with a satisfied grin, as if such a large number were clear evidence of a long and successful career. “Here’s the plan, Ms. Gibson. I have drafted a letter that I want you to print on our stationery. It goes to every client, current and past, active and retired. Every name in our client database.”

Rochelle thought of all the unhappy clients who had left Finley & Figg. The unpaid fees, the nasty letters, the threats of malpractice lawsuits. She even kept a file labeled “Threats.” Over the years, half a dozen or so disgruntled ex-clients had been angry enough to put their feelings on paper. A couple promised ambushes and beatings. One mentioned a sniper’s rifle.

Why not leave these poor people alone? They had suffered enough having passed through the office the first time.

Wally jumped to his feet and walked over with the letter. She had no choice but to take it and read it.

“Has Oscar seen this?” she asked.

“Not yet. Pretty good, huh?”

“This for real?”

“Oh, it’s so real, Ms. Gibson. This is our biggest moment.”

“Another gold mine?”

“Bigger than a gold mine.”

“And you want to send three thousand letters?”

“Yep, you print ’em, I’ll sign ’em, we’ll stuff ’em, and they go out in today’s mail.”

“That’s over a thousand bucks in postage.”

“Ms. Gibson, the average Krayoxx case will generate something like $200,000 in attorneys’ fees, and that’s on the low side. Could be as high as $400,000 per case. If we can find ten cases, the math gets real easy.”

Rochelle did the math, and her reluctance began to fade. Her mind began to drift. With all the bar journals and newsletters that crossed her desk, she had seen a thousand stories about big verdicts and big settlements. Lawyers making millions in fees.

Surely, they would give her a fine bonus.

“All right,” she said, shoving her newspaper aside.

O
scar and Wally had their second Krayoxx fight not long afterward. When Oscar arrived at 9:00 a.m., he could not help but notice the flurry of activity around the front desk. Rochelle was working the computer. The printer was in high gear. Wally was signing his name to letters. Even AC was awake and watching.

“What’s all this?” Oscar demanded.

“The sounds of capitalism at work,” Wally answered cheerfully.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Protecting the rights of the injured. Serving our clients. Purging the market of dangerous products. Bringing corporate wrongdoers to justice.”

“Chasing ambulances,” Rochelle said.

Oscar looked disgusted and continued to his office, where he slammed the door. Before he could remove his coat and park his umbrella, Wally was at his desk, nibbling on a muffin and waving one of the letters. “You gotta read this, Oscar,” he said. “This is brilliant.”

Oscar read it, the wrinkles in his forehead getting deeper and deeper with each paragraph. When he finished, he said, “Come on, Wally, not again. How many of these are you sending out?”

“Three thousand. Our entire client list.”

“What? Think of the postage. Think of the wasted time. Here we go again. You’ll spend the next month running around chirping about Krayoxx this and Krayoxx that, and you’ll waste a hundred hours looking for worthless cases, and on and on. We’ve been here before, Wally, come on. Do something productive.”

“Like what?”

“Like go hang out in an emergency room somewhere, wait for a real case to come in. I don’t have to tell you how to find good cases.”

“I’m tired of that crap, Oscar. I wanna make some money. Let’s hit it big for a change.”

“My wife’s been taking the drug for two years. Loves it.”

“Did you tell her to stop, that it’s killing people?”

“Of course not.”

As their voices grew louder, Rochelle eased over and quietly closed the door to Oscar’s office. She was returning to her desk when the front door suddenly opened. It was David Zinc, bright and sober with a big smile, sharp suit, cashmere overcoat, and two thick briefcases loaded to the max.

“Well, well, if it ain’t Mr. Harvard,” Rochelle said.

“I’m back.”

“I’m surprised you could find us.”

“It wasn’t easy. Where’s my office?”

“Well, uh, let’s see. I’m not sure we have one. Perhaps we should ask the two bosses about this.” She nodded to Oscar’s door, beyond which voices could be heard.

“So they’re here?” David asked.

“Yes, they usually start the day with a round of bickering.”

“I see.”

“Look, Harvard, are you sure you know what you’re doing? This is another world. You’re taking a plunge here, leaving the fancy life of corporate law for the bush leagues. You might get hurt out here, and you sure won’t make any money.”

“I’ve done the big-firm thing, Ms. Gibson, and I’ll jump off a bridge before I go back. Just give me a little room somewhere to park myself, and I’ll figure it out.”

The door opened, and Wally and Oscar emerged. They froze when they saw David standing in front of Rochelle’s desk. Wally smiled and said, “Well, good morning, David. You look surprisingly healthy.”

“Thank you, and I’d like to apologize for my appearance yesterday.” He nodded at all three as he spoke. “You caught me at the tail end of a rather unusual episode, but it was nonetheless a very important day in my life. I quit the big firm, and here I am, ready to go to work.”

“What type of work do you have in mind?” Oscar asked.

David gave a slight shrug as if he didn’t have a clue. “For the past five years, I’ve labored in the dungeon of bond underwriting, with emphasis on second- and third-tier aftermarket spreads, primarily for foreign multinational corporations that prefer to avoid paying taxes anywhere in the world. If you have no idea what that is, then don’t worry. No one else does either. What it means is that a small team of us idiots labored fifteen hours a day in a room with no windows creating paperwork, and more paperwork. I’ve never seen the inside of a courtroom, or a courthouse for that matter, never met a judge when he was wearing a robe, never offered a hand to help a person who needed a real lawyer. To answer your question, Mr. Finley, I’m here to do anything. Think of me as a rookie fresh out of law school who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. But I’m a quick study.”

Compensation should have been the next issue, but the partners were reluctant to talk money in front of Rochelle. She, of course, would take the position that anyone they hired, lawyer or otherwise, should be paid less than she was.

“There is some space upstairs,” Wally said.

“I’ll take it.”

“It’s a junk room,” Oscar said.

“I’ll take it,” David said, lifting his two briefcases, ready to move in.

“I haven’t been up there in years,” Rochelle said, rolling her eyes, obviously unhappy with the firm’s sudden expansion.

A narrow door next to the kitchen led to a stairway. David followed Wally, with Oscar bringing up the rear. Wally was excited about having someone to help hustle Krayoxx cases. Oscar was thinking only of how much this might cost in salary, withholding taxes, unemployment deductions, and, heaven forbid, health insurance. Finley & Figg offered little in the way of benefits—no 401(k), no IRA, no retirement of any kind, and certainly no health or dental plan. Rochelle had been griping for years because she was forced to buy her own private policy, as did the two partners. What if young David here expected health insurance?

As Oscar climbed the stairs, he felt the burden of a heavier overhead.
More spent at the office meant less to take home. His retirement seemed even more elusive.

The junk room was exactly that, a dark, dusty landfill with spiderwebs and pieces of old furniture and boxes of files. “I like it,” David said when Wally switched on the light.