Dead Ringer Read online

  “What?”

  “I can’t pay.”

  Bennie smiled. “I was only kidding, Ray. Drinks on me.”

  “No, I mean, I can’t pay you.” Ray squared his narrow shoulders. “What I owe you. Your fee.”

  Bennie blinked. “Sure you can.”

  “No, I can’t. I feel terrible about this, but I can’t pay you. I don’t have the money.”

  “Of course you do.” Bennie set down her briefcase and purse in bewilderment. “You’re a good client. You paid me last quarter and the ones before that. Your business is healthy.”

  “Not really. I borrowed the money to pay you last quarter, and I thought I could pay you this quarter because my two biggest clients were going to pay me. But last month they told me they can’t, since their customers didn’t pay them.” Ray ran a tongue tip over dry lips. “They’re both filing for Chapter Eleven. In fact, I’m about to file myself.”

  “You’re filing for bankruptcy?”

  “Yes.”

  Bennie’s mouth dropped open. “This can’t be!”

  “It is.”

  “But you’re an accountant, for God’s sake! I mean, how could this happen?”

  “I’m a good accountant, a good businessman. But with this recession, it’s like a domino effect.”

  “Ray, I’m counting on this fee!” Bennie had put in almost 250 hours on this case this quarter, with trial preparation and trial. Even if she billed him fifty bucks an hour for her time, she was still cheaper than a plumber. “You owe me almost fifteen thousand dollars. I can’t absorb that kind of loss. I have a payroll to meet.”

  “I can’t pay you, Bennie.”

  “You can pay some, can’t you?”

  “Not a penny. I’m sorry.”

  “How about you pay in installments?” Bennie felt desperate. No wonder he’d been getting more nervous as the trial went on; he was facing bankruptcy. And now, so was she. “Listen, Ray, I can work with you. I’ll work with you. You’re my client.”

  “No. My company is your client, not me. This is a corporate debt, and I can’t make side deals.” Ray shook his head. “When I put it into bankruptcy, you’ll have to get in line.”

  “Am I first, at least?”

  “Frankly, you’re not even the first lawyer. My business lawyers take before you, and my tax guys.”

  “But what about the experts we hired, for the trial? You have to pay them. I promised you’d pay them. I’m not allowed to, even if I had the money.”

  “Sorry.”

  Bennie reeled. She couldn’t process it fast enough. She was still feeling residually happy about the victory. She had won and lost in the same moment. She didn’t know what to say or do. There was no trial wisdom about this. Nobody wise ever let this happen. And Ray looked so stricken, she didn’t have the heart to kill him.

  On autopilot, Bennie picked up her briefcase and bag. “I gotta get back to work,” she said.

  But she was talking more to herself than to him.

  2

  Friday morning, Bennie squirmed in her desk chair and crossed one strong leg over the other. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get comfortable. Her calves itched, her thighs hurt, and her underwear felt vacuum-sealed. She hated pantyhose, and she had more important things than lingerie to think about, like the new client coming in. She needed a new case desperately after yesterday’s debacle with Ray Finalil. But at the moment, the fashion police were at the door. And they had a warrant.

  “Open up!” Anne Murphy called through the door, and in the next second burst into the office. Anne had long red hair, the gorgeous features of a runway model, and a law degree from Stanford. Naturally everybody had hated her instantly when she joined Rosato & Associates, and they were only now starting to forgive her her DNA. Anne clapped her hands together like a drill sergeant with a French manicure. “Stand up! Let’s see ’em!”

  “No, I have to get ready for the meeting,” Bennie said, but she wasn’t sure she could stand anyway. The control-top waistband bisected her ovaries like a do-it-yourself hysterectomy.

  “Lemme see.” Anne strode around the side of Bennie’s desk in heels high enough to cause nosebleeds and a black knit dress that outlined her curves. At twenty-something, she had yet to learn that knit dresses were the enemy. She appraised Bennie’s legs with a delighted eye. “Awesome! They totally finish your look.”

  “What, the sausage-in-natural-casing look?” Bennie struggled to her feet to discourage the formation of blood clots and caught sight of her pained expression in her office window. Otherwise, she had on the same khaki suit as yesterday, with her hair a little neater. “These stockings are too tight, Murphy.”

  “Thank God I had them. The ones you had were way thick.” Anne waved at the wastebasket beside Bennie’s desk, which contained pantyhose molted like snakeskin. “I can’t believe you put that crap on your body. Note to Bennie: Don’t wear anything they sell in the grocery store.”

  “But the tube socks are a deal.”

  “I hope you’re kidding. Those pantyhose you have on, they’re from Nordstrom’s.” Anne handed Bennie a shiny package. “If you insist on wearing pantyhose, which I told you are so over, these are the only ones that don’t suck.”

  “Don’t say ‘suck’ in the office,” Bennie corrected.

  “You say ‘suck.’”

  “Not anymore. I’m on a curse diet.”

  “’Suck’ is not a curse.”

  “Shh.” Bennie was scanning the empty package, which pictured a completely naked woman lounging beneath the price tag. She didn’t know which surprised her more, the full frontal or the price. “Murphy, you buy pantyhose that cost seventeen dollars?”

  “Of course. Wear them. You want the new client to think you’re a loser?”

  “I’m not a loser,” Bennie shot back, unaccountably defensive. She was one of the best trial lawyers in Philadelphia, practically undefeated in both civil and criminal cases. It was beside the point that she was almost broke, had failed at two serious relationships, and bought her pantyhose at Acme. “Damn it, it’s okay to buy pantyhose at Acme.”

  “But look at the ones I gave you. The color is perfect.”

  Bennie looked down and double-checked. Her legs were strong and muscular from years of rowing, and a thick vein snaked down the side of one calf, with a valve like a tiny knot. But she couldn’t see any color in her legs, undoubtedly owing to the lack of circulation to her extremities. “These stockings don’t have a color.”

  “Of course they do. They’re ‘nude.’”

  “Nude isn’t a color, it’s a misdemeanor.”

  “Nude is the new nude.”

  “Oh, please.” Sometimes Bennie doubted whether Anne Murphy had ever seen Stanford Law. “Who buys pantyhose to look like they’re not wearing pantyhose?”

  “Everybody but you.” Anne folded arms skinny as licorice sticks, but Bennie couldn’t stop thinking about the seventeen dollars. She hadn’t paid herself a salary in two months and was rapidly losing her sense of humor. And Ray Finalil wasn’t the only one of her clients in deep financial trouble; the recession had already bankrupted two of her bread-and-butter corporate clients, Caveson, Inc., and Maytel. As a result, Bennie had been up most of last night, going over the books. Her firm couldn’t survive on her personal savings for more than two months. She’d already cut their expenses to the bone, and at the moment she was looking into the guileless green eyes of her newest associate, who would be the first lawyer to be laid off.

  Just then laughter came from the open door, where the other young associates, Mary DiNunzio and Judy Carrier, had materialized. At least Bennie thought it was Judy Carrier, but she had to do a double take. The associate was wearing Judy’s artsy corduroy smock and white T-shirt, and a familiar grin warmed her round, pretty face. But her formerly lemony hair had been hacked off around her ears and the entire moplet had been colored a hot pink. Bennie was horrified.

  “Carrier, you dyed your hair!” she said, ins
tead of the profane alternative she favored. It was hard not to curse at work. Maybe she could just cut down. Did they have a patch or something? “What possessed you? You’re a lawyer!”

  “I’m an artist, too. I’m my own work in progress!” Judy wiggled her hips and bopped her Bubblicious head. “Besides, lawyers can have fun.”

  “No they can’t. It carries federal penalties.”

  Murphy was bounding over to Carrier in delight. “Jude, it’s so cute! Lipstick pink! I love it!”

  Even DiNunzio was squealing. “I love it too, it’s so cool! I wish I had the guts to do it!” She ruffled Carrier’s shorn locks wistfully, though her own dark blond hair was pulled back into a sleek French twist. Mary DiNunzio looked compact and conventional in a navy blue suit, since she thought the term “business casual” was an oxymoron. But in no time, Mary and the other two associates were clucking and cooing in girl overdrive. The only problem with an all-woman firm was the estrogen.

  “Yo! Ladies!” Bennie called out, and the girls turned in a startled little row. She put her hands on her hips. “Carrier, have you lost your mind? Pink hair doesn’t belong in a law office. How are you going to meet the new client?”

  “Like I would with my old hair.” Judy’s blue eyes flashed defiantly, but under her pink bangs she looked like a psycho baby shower. “My friend Ellen had green hair the last time I saw her in court. The jury went her way, and afterward they all asked her about it.” Suddenly the telephone intercom beeped; Marshall, the secretary, signaling that the new client had arrived. Everybody straightened up, Bennie most of all.

  “That’s him!” she said, and hurried for the office door, frowning at Judy on the way. “Carrier, can you put a hat on that? Or a briefcase?”

  “Aw, come on, boss.” Judy sounded hurt, so Bennie let it go.

  “Okay, we’ll live with it. You and Murphy sit in on this meeting. If we get this case, I’ll need you both. Carrier, tell Murphy the drill.”

  Judy turned to Anne. “Take lots of notes, say nothing at all, and don’t go changin’ to try and please me.”

  “Funny,” Bennie said, giving her a playful hip check.

  Judy laughed. “What kind of matter did you say it was? Corporate?”

  “Yes.”

  “No murder or mayhem?”

  “Corporate mayhem. We’re taking a break from crime scenes and blood spatter. And no whining, van Gogh.” Bennie left the associates and charged down the hall toward the reception area. She forgot about the costly pantyhose and the artistic hair. Her chest swelled with a hope familiar to chronic gamblers and the self-employed.

  Ten minutes later, they were all settled at the round conference table in Bennie’s office. The morning sun shone brightly through the large windows on the north side, illuminating white walls dotted with the rowing series by Thomas Eakins. Diplomas from the University of Pennsylvania, awards for trial advocacy, and plaques for civil rights work blanketed another wall. Casebooks, law reviews, and ABA magazines crammed the bookshelves, and fresh coffee brewed on a small Braun machine atop an oak credenza, filling the office with its aroma. Bennie had wanted them to meet here instead of the conference room because it was chummier and she wanted to build owner loyalty.

  “Mr. St. Amien, would you like a cup of coffee?” she offered, going to the credenza. She had no qualms about getting coffee for a client, even as a woman professional. Especially as a woman professional. A professional served her client. Period.

  “Black would be fine, thank you,” he answered with a polite smile. Robert St. Amien was an elegant fifty-five years old, tall and lean, with dark silver hair and blue eyes sharp behind tortoiseshell glasses. He spoke with an accent from the best arrondissement in Paris, and his manner was almost courtly. A charcoal suit draped expensively on his shoulders, and his print tie reflected the dull shine of silk threads.

  “Coffee coming right up.”

  “And please, as I said, call me Robert. All of you.” St. Amien glanced around the table at a seated Judy, then Anne next to her. Bennie noted it as a polite thing to do, even though his gaze lingered a little too lovingly on gorgeous Anne. St. Amien was French; maybe he was a French manicure fan.

  “Robert it is, then,” Bennie said. She grabbed the only plain coffee mug, bypassing ones that read FEMINAZI, HEAD BITCH, and HELP, I’M TURNING INTO MY MOTHER, filled the cup with hot brew, and handed it to him. She went with Styrofoam for herself, pouring as she spoke. “Now, Robert, tell me what brings you here, and how I can help you.”

  “Eh bien, to begin.” St. Amien took a neat sip of coffee, then set it down. “As I believe I mentioned on the telephone, I own a medical-lens manufacturing company, which just built and opened a U.S. facility in Philadelphia last year. We have one hundred fifty employees in King of Prussia, and we make specialized lenses for medical equipment and instrumentation, such as fiber-optic microscopes, among other things.”

  Bennie took a seat at the table. St. Amien had told her much of this on the telephone. Clients loved to talk about their businesses, and they hired lawyers who shared their enthusiasm. Bennie could be very enthusiastic to get a new client. By the end of this meeting, fiber optics would bring her to orgasm.

  “The medical equipment and instrumentation business is undergoing a boom in the Philadelphia area, thanks to the concentration of hospital and research facilities here, and the current changes in health insurance, which increase demand for diagnostic tools.”

  “I see,” Bennie said. Sometimes it was good to say stuff, even dumb stuff.

  “In connection with my new facility, last month I happened to attend a convention of the national trade association of lens manufacturers, though I hadn’t yet joined the association. I stopped by the meeting to learn, to hear. They were holding various seminars and such. I believe they are called ‘breakout sessions.’”

  Bennie sipped her coffee. “I hate breakout sessions. I always want to break out of breakout sessions.”

  St. Amien laughed. “Me, too. Par hasard, I wandered into the wrong session, there were so many in the various ballrooms, and I took a seat at the back of the room, just at the moment when the young man at the lectern said something about competition from foreign lens manufacturers. In fact, he said, quite openly, ‘Americans should not buy foreign lenses this summer, no matter how low they go on price. No foreign lenses! We have to stick together as Americans, now more than ever!’”

  “That’s terrible!” Bennie said. She felt embarrassment at the behavior of her fellow citizens and anger at the injustice to St. Amien. But she couldn’t deny this was good news for Rosato & Associates. The statement was direct evidence of wrongdoing, the proverbial “smoking gun” testimony, and St. Amien’s case was a sure winner. Blood rushed to Bennie’s head, but it could have been the pantyhose, squeezing it upward like a thermometer.

  “The one who was speaking was the vice president of the association. I have his name, it was in the program. I could not believe he would be so bold!”

  “It happens. Trade associations get sloppy because their members don’t always know the antitrust laws, and criminals are arrogant, whether their collars are blue or white.” Bennie leaned forward. “What happened next?”

  “The room applauded, three hundred persons, perhaps, and the week thereafter, I lost a multimillion-dollar contract, my biggest, with Hospcare.” St. Amien frowned, two deep furrows appearing on his high forehead. “The Hospcare contract was the very reason I decided to build a facility here. Two other contracts canceled in the three days after Hospcare, and my last remaining bidder is now showing signs of unease.” He spread his hands palms up. “Well, suddenly I find myself in the position of having no income and no new contracts coming in, in my U.S. operation. As if the rug had been . . .” He faltered.

  “Pulled out from under you?” Bennie supplied.

  “Précisément.”

  She knew the feeling, if not the French. “I see. Your losses must be significant. Can you put a number on the dama
ges? Lost revenue from the contracts?”

  “The Hospcare contract was worth almost three million dollars. The other two contracts total slightly over five million. My entire investment in the U.S. facility is now in grave jeopardy, and the costs for the new facility are well in excess of fifty million.” St. Amien rattled it off as if money were his first language. “My losses are approximately sixty million dollars.”

  The numbers stunned Bennie. She couldn’t add with all that blood rushing to her brain. She couldn’t add even when blood wasn’t rushing to her brain. She used to think she was just bad at math until she convinced herself she had math anxiety, which upgraded basic stupidity to disability level and made her feel better about herself.

  “I am gathering a legal wrong has been perpetrated,” St. Amien said, watching her with an obviously amused smile.

  “Well, yeah. Sure. Absolutely. Right you are.” Focus, girlfriend. “In addition to breach-of-contract claims against the trade association, there is a significant antitrust claim, which would be far easier to prove, given the statement at the conference. I have to get all the facts and investigate, but basically we’re talking dead to rights, Robert.”

  “’Dead to’ . . .” St. Amien’s voice trailed off. He was obviously unfamiliar with the idiom, so Bennie decided against “cold-cocked.”

  “Let me explain, briefly.” The law centered her when caffeine failed. “Under our antitrust laws, anyone may refuse to do business with anyone else, but what they cannot do is agree as a group not to do business with someone. That’s a group boycott and it violates federal law. Damages are tripled under the antitrust law, and your recovery would more than make you whole.”

  “That’s excellent news.” St. Amien permitted himself another smile.

  “Frankly, you have a case that even my dog could win, but I doubt it will ever get to trial. The evidence is so clear and the damages so lethal that the trade association will surely settle, maybe even in six months.”

  “Even better.”