“Thanks.”
We pay for the coffee and walk back to our offices. Butch checks the phones once again, just for the hell of it. Same little round gadgets stuck in there.
The question now is, Who’s listening?
I go to my office, lock the door, kill time while waiting for Butch to leave and in the process conceive a brilliant plot. Deck eventually knocks on my door, taps just loud enough for me to hear.
We discuss my little scheme. Deck leaves and drives downtown to the courthouse. Thirty minutes later, he calls me with an update of several fictitious clients. Just checking in, he says, do I need anything from downtown?
We chat for a few minutes about this and that, then I say, “Guess who wants to settle now?”
“Who?”
“Dot Black.”
“Dot Black?” he asks, incredulous and phony. Deck has few acting skills.
“Yeah, I stopped by this morning to check on her, took her a fruitcake. She said she just doesn’t have the will
power to suffer through the trial, wants to settle right now.”
“How much?”
“Said she’d take a hundred and sixty. She’s been thinking about it, and since their top offer is one-fifty, she figures she’ll win a small victory if they pay more than they want. She thinks she’s a real negotiator. I tried to explain things to her, but you know how hardheaded she is.”
“Don’t do it, Rudy. This case is worth a fortune.”
“I know. Kipler thinks we’ll get a huge punitive award, but, you know, ethically I’m required to approach Drummond and try to settle. It’s what the client wants.”
“Don’t do it. One-sixty is chicken feed.” Deck is reasonably convincing with this, though I catch myself grinning. The calculator is rattling away as he figures his cut from one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. “Do you think they’ll pay one-sixty?” he asks.
“Don’t know. I got the impression one-fifty was max. But I never countered it.” If Great Benefit will pay one-fifty to settle this case, they’ll throw one-sixty at us.
“Let’s talk about it when I get there,” he says.
“Sure.” We hang up, and thirty minutes later Deck is sitting across my desk.
AT FIVE MINUTES before nine the next morning, the phone rings. Deck grabs it in his office, then runs into mine. “It’s Drummond,” he says.
Our little firm splurged and purchased a forty-dollar recorder from Radio Shack. It’s wired to my phone. We’re hoping like hell it doesn’t affect the bugging device. Butch said he thought there’d be no problem.
“Hello,” I say, trying to conceal my nerves and anxiety.
“Rudy, Leo Drummond here,” he says warmly. “How are you?”
Ethically, I should tell him at this point that the recorder is on, and give him the chance to react. For obvious reasons, Deck and I have decided against this. Just wouldn’t work. What’re ethics between partners?
“Fine, Mr. Drummond. And you?”
“Doing well. Listen, we need to get together on a date for Dr. Kord’s deposition. I’ve talked to his secretary. How does December 12 sound? At his office, of course—10 A.M.”
Kord’s deposition will be the last, I think, unless Drummond can think of anyone else remotely interested in the case. Odd, though, that he would bother to call me beforehand and inquire as to what might be convenient.
“That’s fine with me,” I say. Deck hovers above my desk, nothing but tension.
“Good. It shouldn’t take long. I hope not, at five hundred dollars an hour. Obscene, isn’t it?”
Aren’t we buddies now? Just us lawyers against the doctors.
“Truly obscene.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, say, Rudy, you know what my client really wants?”
“What?”
“Well, they
don’t
want to spend a week in Memphis suffering through this trial. These guys are executives, you know, big-money people with big egos and careers to protect. They want to settle, Rudy, and this is what I’ve been told to pass along. This is just settlement talk, no admission of liability, you understand.”
“Yep.” I wink at Deck.
“Your expert says the cost of the bone marrow job would’ve been between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand, and we don’t argue with these figures. Assuming, and this is just for the sake of assumption, that my client was in fact responsible for the transplant. Let’s
say it was covered, just assuming, okay. Then my client should’ve paid out somewhere around a hundred and seventy-five thousand.”
“If you say so.”
“Then we’ll offer that much to settle right now. One hundred and seventy-five thousand! No more depositions. I’ll have a check to you within seven days.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Look, Rudy. A zillion bucks can’t bring that boy back. You need to talk some sense into your client. I think she wants to settle. There comes a time when the lawyer has to act like a lawyer and take charge. This poor old gal has no idea what’s gonna happen at trial.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Call her right now. I’ll wait here another hour before I have to leave. Call her.” Sleazy bastard’s probably got the mike wired to his phone. He’d love for me to call her so he could eavesdrop.
“I’ll get back with you, Mr. Drummond. Good day.”
I hang up the phone, rewind the tape in the recorder and play it aloud.
Deck eases backward into a chair, his mouth wide open, his four shiny teeth glistening. “They bugged our phones,” he says in sheer disbelief when the tape stops. We stare at the recorder, as if it alone can explain this. I’m literally numb and paralyzed by shock for several minutes. Nothing moves. Nothing works. The phone suddenly rings, but neither of us reaches for it. We’re terrified of it, for the moment.
“I guess we should tell Kipler,” I finally say, my words heavy and slow.
“I don’t think so,” Deck says, removing his thick glasses and wiping his eyes.
“Why not?”
“Let’s think about it. We know, or at least we think we
know that Drummond and/or his client have bugged our phones. Drummond certainly knows about the bugs because we’ve just caught him. But there’s no way to prove it for sure, no way to catch him red-handed.”
“He’ll deny it until he’s dead.”
“Right. So what’s Kipler gonna do? Accuse him without solid proof? Chew his ass some more?”
“He’s used to it by now.”
“And it won’t have any effect on the trial. The jury can’t be told that Mr. Drummond and his client played dirty during discovery.”
We stare at the recorder some more, both of us digesting this and trying to feel our way through the fog. In an ethics class just last year we read about a lawyer who got himself severely reprimanded because he secretly taped a phone call with another lawyer. I’m guilty, but my little sin pales in comparison with Drummond’s despicable act. Trouble is, I can be nailed if I produce this tape. Drummond will never be convicted because it’ll never be pinned on him. At what level is he involved? Was it his idea to tap our lines? Or is he simply using stolen information passed along by his client?
Again, we’ll never know. And for some reason it makes no difference. He knows.
“We can use it to our advantage,” I say.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“But we have to be careful, or they’ll get suspicious.”
“Yeah, let’s save it for trial. Let’s wait for the perfect moment when we need to send those clowns on a goose chase.”
Both of us slowly start grinning.
I WAIT TWO DAYS, and call Drummond with the sad news that my client does not want his filthy money. She’s acting a bit strange, I confide in him. One day she’s afraid
of going to trial, the next day she wants her day in court. Right now she wants to fight.
He’s not the least bit suspicious. He retreats into his typical hardball routine, threatening me with the likelihood that the money will be taken off the table forever, that it’ll be a nasty trial to the bitter end. I’m sure this sounds good to the eavesdroppers up in Cleveland. Wonder how long it takes for them to hear these conversations.
The money should be taken. Dot and Buddy would clear well over a hundred thousand, more money than they could ever spend. Their lawyer would get almost sixty thousand, a veritable mint. Money, however, means nothing to the Blacks. They’ve never had it, and they’re not dreaming of getting rich now. Dot simply wants an official record somewhere of what Great Benefit did to her son. She wants a final judgment declaring that she was right, that Donny Ray died because Great Benefit killed him.
As for me, I’m surprised at my ability to ignore the money. It’s tempting, to be sure, but I’m not consumed with it. I’m not starving. I’m young and there will be other cases.
And I’m convinced of this: if Great Benefit is scared enough to bug my phones, then they are indeed hiding dark secrets. Worried though I am, I catch myself dreaming of the trial.
BOOKER AND CHARLENE invite me to Thanksgiving dinner with the Kanes. His grandmother lives in a small house in South Memphis, and evidently she’s been cooking for a week. The weather is cold and wet, so we’re forced to remain inside throughout the afternoon. There are at least fifty people, ranging in age from six months to eighty, the only white face belonging to me. We eat for
hours, the men crowded around the television in the den, watching one game after the other. Booker and I have our pecan pie and coffee on the hood of a car, in the garage, shivering as we catch up on the gossip. He’s curious about my love life, and I assure him it’s nonexistent, for the moment. Business is good, I tell him. He’s working around the clock. Charlene wants another kid, but getting pregnant might be a problem. He’s never at home.
The life of a busy lawyer.
Thirty-nine
W
E KNEW IT WAS IN THE MAIL, BUT I can tell by the heavy footsteps that it’s here. Deck bounds through my door, waving the envelope. “It’s here! It’s here! We’re rich!”
He rips open the envelope, delicately removes the check and places it gently on my desk. We admire it. Twenty-five thousand dollars from State Farm! It’s Christmas.
Since Derrick Dogan is still on crutches, we rush to his house with the paperwork. He signs where’s he’s told to sign. We disburse the money. He gets exactly $16,667, and we get exactly $8,333. Deck wanted to stick him for a few expenses—copying, postage, phone charges, nitpicking stuff most lawyers try to squeeze from the clients at settlement time—but I said no.
We say good-bye to him, wish him well, try and act a bit despondent over this entire sad little episode. It’s difficult.
We’ve decided to take three thousand each, and leave the rest in the firm, for the inevitable lean months ahead. The firm buys us a nice lunch at a fashionable restaurant
in East Memphis. The firm now has a gold credit card, issued by some desperate bank obviously impressed with my status as a lawyer. I danced around the questions on the application dealing with prior bankruptcies. Deck and I shook hands on our agreement that the card will never be used unless we both consent.
I take my three thousand, and buy a car. It’s certainly not new, but it’s one I’ve been dreaming about ever since the Dogan settlement became a certainty. It’s a 1984 Volvo DL, blue in color, four speed with overdrive, in great condition with only a hundred and twenty thousand miles. That’s not much for a Volvo. The car’s first and only owner is a banker who enjoyed servicing the car himself.
I toyed with the idea of buying something new, but I can’t stand the thought of going into debt.
It’s my first lawyer car. The Toyota fetches three hundred dollars, and with this money I purchase a car phone. Rudy Baylor is slowly arriving.
I MADE THE DECISION weeks ago that I would not spend Christmas in this city. The memories from last year are still too painful. I’ll be alone, and it’ll be easier if I simply leave. Deck has mentioned maybe getting together, but it was a blurry suggestion with no details. Told him I’d probably go to my mother’s.
When my mother and Hank are not traveling in their Winnebago, they park the damned thing behind his small house in Toledo. I’ve never seen the house, nor the Winnebago, and I’m not spending Christmas with Hank. Mother called after Thanksgiving with a rather weak invitation to come share the holidays with them. I declined, told her I was much too busy. I’ll send a card.
I don’t dislike my mother. We’ve simply stopped talking. The rift has been gradual, as opposed to a particular nasty incident with harsh words that take years to forget.
According to Deck, the legal system shuts down from December 15 until after the new year. Judges don’t schedule trials and hearings. Lawyers and their firms are busy with office parties and employee lunches. It’s a wonderful time for me to leave town.
I pack the Black case in the trunk of my shiny Utile Volvo, along with a few clothes, and hit the road. I wander aimlessly on slow two-lane roads, in the general directions of north and west, until I hit snow in Kansas and Nebraska. I sleep in inexpensive motels, eat fast food, see whatever sights there are to see. A winter storm has swept across the northern plains. Steep snowdrifts line the roads. The prairies are as white and still as fallen cumulus.
I’m invigorated by the loneliness of the road.
IT’S DECEMBER 23 when I finally arrive in Madison, Wisconsin. I find a small hotel, a cozy diner with hot food, and I walk the streets of downtown just like a regular person scurrying from one store to the next. There are some things about a normal Christmas that I don’t miss.
I sit on a frozen park bench, snow under my feet, and listen to a hearty chorus belt out carols. No one in the world knows where I am right now, not the city, not the state. I love this freedom.
After dinner and a few drinks in the hotel bar, I call Max Leuberg. He has returned to his tenured position of professor of law at the university here, and I’ve called him about once a month for advice. He invited me to visit. I’ve shipped to him copies of most of the relevant documents, along with copies of the pleadings, written discovery and most of the depositions. The FedEx box weighed fourteen pounds and cost almost thirty bucks. Deck approved.
Max sounds genuinely happy that I’m in Madison. Because he’s Jewish, he doesn’t get too involved with Christmas,
and he said on the phone the other day that it’s a wonderful time to work. He gives me directions.