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  “Hello,” answered one, and the rest smiled. They assumed I was a client, since no Grun lawyer would greet a secretary.

  An associate scurried self-importantly by, but I didn’t recognize him either. Of fifteen of us associates, only Sam had stayed and made partner. Since then he’d ascended the classes of partners to the tippy-top of the firm, becoming the youngest three-window partner ever, which is the tax-bracket equivalent of a five-star general. If they’d known Sam was gay and not merely eccentric, they would have set him on fire and billed somebody for it.

  I reached Sam’s sunny office and closed the door behind me. “Honey, I’m homo!” I called out.

  “Benniieeee!” Sam looked up, blue eyes bright behind neat rimless glasses. Tall and slim, he had a handsome face, with a straight nose and fine cheekbones, framed by reddish-brown hair that was trimmed every four weeks. “How are you doing?” he said, coming around the desk to give me a warm hug.

  “I need cheering up. How are you?”

  “I’m looney, as usual, and up-cheering is my specialty. Siddown.” He waved me into a leather sling chair and mock-tiptoed back to his desk. “Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. We’we hunting wabbits.”

  I laughed and flopped into the chair.

  “See? It’s working already.”

  “I knew it would. That’s why I came.” My gaze wandered over the framed cartoon cels hanging on the walls amid Sam’s double Yale diplomas. Slumped on a glass-topped table against the far window were stuffed toys of Sylvester the Cat, Foghorn Leghorn, and Porky Pig. Pepe Le Pew had fallen into a pornographic clinch with the Tasmanian Devil. “I see Pepe’s out of control again.”

  “Per usual. That skunk’s a regular JFK.”

  “Don’t say that about my Pepe.”

  “Pepe has no idea what matters in life. Daffy does. He’s a duck with priorities.”

  “Like what?” I asked, though the answer was staring me in the face. A statue of Daffy sat on the desk, roosting atop a mountain of dollar bills and a sign that read BIGGER BETTER FASTER CHEAPER. “Money?”

  “Yes, money, and don’t say it that way. Daffy is happening, Bennie. Daffy is God.”

  “He’s too greedy.”

  “You can never be too greedy, chica. Do you know why I’m the best bankruptcy lawyer in these here parts?”

  “Because you’re morally bankrupt?”

  “Only partly. The reason is, I understand money. Where it went, where it should have been, how to get it back. I have a sixth sense for it. You, on the other hand, maintain the absurd belief that love is more important than money. What kind of lawyer are you?”

  “A dinosaur.”

  “Extinct.”

  “So be it. But Pepe Le Pew is my man.”

  “‘Ah, ze l’amour. Ah, ze toujour. Ah, le grand illusion,’” Sam said. “ ‘Scent-imental Romeo’, 1951. You can be bought, too, you know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Si, my little liberal. You’re a sucker for a loser, any kind of loser. The more lost, bruised, concussed, and cussed-out, the better. Same way with me, when I spot a bankruptcy. We’re the dogcatchers of the profession.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sam pouted, sticking out a lower lip. “I’m not cheering you up anymore, am I?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “What’s up, doc? You still feeling bad about Mark?”

  I sighed in resignation. “It’s annoying, isn’t it? He dumped me a month ago. I should be getting over it.” I felt like kicking something, but most of the office furniture was glass.

  “That’s not so long, Bennie. You were together for, what, six years?”

  “Seven.”

  “You’re going to hurt awhile, expect it. Fucking Eve is so lame. She was here last week with Mark, annoying the shit out of me. So smooth and plastic. She’s Lawyer Barbie.”

  I didn’t want to dwell on it. “Why’d you call me last night, Samuel? I got home too late to call back.”

  He hunched over his desk. “I’m worried. I heard a nasty rumor. There’s an associate defection in progress, did you know that?”

  “At Grun, somebody going for the barbed wire?”

  “No, at R & B.”

  “What? At my firm?”

  “That’s what I heard,” he said, nodding. “A partner of mine in litigation got a call from one of your associates. The kid said he’d be looking for a job soon, and another associate was looking, too.”

  “Who? Who were the associates?”

  “They didn’t say. What’s going on, Bennie? Can you afford to lose two associates?”

  “No, not with the cases I have coming in. Damn.” We had only seven associates, with Mark and me as the only partners. “It can’t be true.”

  “Why not? You know how these things go, especially lately. Half the firms in the city are breaking up. Look at Wolf, and Dilworth. It’s like teen suicides, coming in clusters.”

  “Why would any associate want to leave R & B? Christ, they make almost as much as I do.”

  “They’re ingrates. Socialism doesn’t work, autocracy does. Ask Bill Gates. Ask Daffy Duck.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “We were trying to do it differently. Not like at Grun.”

  “What a bunch of horseshit. You should’ve stayed here. We could be working together, having fun. You could’ve been my resident beard. All you had to say was ‘light chocolate,’ and everything would’ve been different.”

  I flashed on the day. I had gotten The Call from The Great And Powerful Grun. A gaggle of associates flew to my office to prepare me for The Visit, tell me The Question he’d ask, and The Answer I was supposed to give. “Say ‘light chocolate,’” I said, remembering aloud. “‘Light.’”

  “You knew he was going to offer you a Godiva chocolate—”

  “And ask whether I wanted dark or light—”

  “You were supposed to say ‘light.’ His favorite. But no, my Bennie had to say, ‘I don’t eat chocolate, Mr. Grun.’” Sam shook his head so mournfully I burst into laughter.

  “What? I don’t eat chocolate.”

  “You couldn’t eat the fucking piece of chocolate? It would have killed you to eat it? You would have choked?”

  “Exactly,” I said, though I didn’t explain. Sam knew my history anyway. I had swallowed so much crap already it would have lodged in my throat and cut off my air, throttled me with the terrible need to please, to say yes, whatever you need, at whatever cost. I stood up and started for the door. “I’d better get back to the office. I want to see what’s going on. Thanks for the tip.”

  “Wait, I heard you were on the noon news, defending that animal rights group that started a riot.”

  “It wasn’t a riot and they’re a couple, not a group. Two kids, one confused, one not so confused.” I meant Eileen, the latter. I’d have to address that problem, but at least for now she was in jail.

  “Well, this time I’m on the cops’ side. Furstmann Dunn may be close to an AIDS vaccine.”

  “I know—”

  “Tell your clients to come with me when I take groceries to Daniel. He can’t even swallow because of the thrush, I have to buy him baby food. Tell that to your clients.”

  “Client. I got the good guy.”

  “Good guy? Screw him!” Sam reddened in anger. He had a low flashpoint, especially since he’d made partner. Mark always said it had gone to his head, but I’d disagreed. “Let him represent himself! Better yet, let one of his lab rats represent him, then see how well he does. I hope the cops beat some sense into him!”

  “Calm down, you don’t mean that.”

  “I do, too. I’ll beat that kid myself, for Christ’s sake! Me and every fegola I know. We’ll hit him with our purses!”

  “Good-bye, honey.” I leaned over the desk and stole a smooch.

  “I hope they broke his knees! I hope they snapped his dick right off!”

  “Th-th-th-that’s all folks,” I said, and slipped out the door.

  5

  I ope
ned the arched wooden door to R & B’s townhouse and experienced a familiar feeling. I was home. Mark and I bought the house as a brick shell with money from his family and remodeled it into law offices as we paid back the loan. I’d sanded and polished the hardwood floors; Mark had put up the dry-wall. We painted the walls and baseboards a golden yellow, and I decorated the offices comfortably, with soft chairs, pine side tables, and gentle watercolors.

  “Hey, Bennie,” said Marshall, from the half-window above the reception desk. Her dark blond hair was gathered into a French braid and she wore a cotton dress that hung on a frame too fragile to bear any responsibility at all. In fact, Marshall was R & B’s receptionist, administrator, and bookkeeper, and ran the little office behind the reception window like Stalin.

  “Why aren’t you at lunch, lady?” I asked.

  “We’re too busy. You got a zillion calls.” She handed me a yellow stack. R & B, it said at the top of our internal stationery, in a hip font. Mark was in charge of hip, I could only do homey.

  “Then go home early, will you? Leave at four and I’ll get the board covered.” I didn’t want Marshall defecting, too. Besides the fact that she ran the place, I felt comfortable with her in a way I didn’t with the associates, from whom I kept a professional distance.

  “You sure? I might take you up on that. I have to get fitted for a bridesmaid dress.” She rolled her blue eyes.

  “Pink or turquoise?”

  “Turquoise.”

  “Lucky break.”

  “You got that right.”

  The phone rang, and she reached for it as I wandered down the hall with my messages, scouting for associates. The hallway was empty, so I strayed casually into the law library, which doubled as our conference room. Nobody was there either. The round, egalitarian conference table was bare, surrounded by thick federal reporters, their gold foil volume numbers running in shiny rows. Maybe the associates were out to lunch. Or on job interviews.

  I left the library, went back down the hall, and climbed the spiral staircase to peek at the upstairs offices. Each one was the same size, none smaller than Mark’s or mine, and each associate had been given a thousand-dollar office allowance to decorate it. Between our sexy caseload and permissive management, R & B attracted the best and the brightest from the local law schools—Penn, Temple, Widener, and Villanova. Our associates were all Law Review or close to it, and we paid them like the demigods they thought they were. What could they possibly have to complain about? And where the hell were they?

  I walked down the hall, checking office after empty office. They’d put all sorts of crap up on the walls, and I hadn’t uttered a peep. Bob Wingate’s office was a memorial to Jerry Garcia; Eve Eberlein’s was redone in feminine chintz. The only businesslike office belonged to Grady Wells, a Civil War buff. It was furnished simply and the walls were covered with antique battlefield maps in wooden frames. Grady kept a map chest with skinny drawers in the corner, but he wasn’t in his office.

  Nobody was in, anywhere. I considered snooping to see if there were any résumés lying around, but decided against it. I was committed to our individual liberties. Also, I might get caught.

  I headed into my own messy office, kicked my pumps onto the dhurrie rug, and moved some papers so I could curl into the cushy maroon wing chair behind my desk. A client once told me that my sloppiness was the mark of a true outlaw, but he was wrong. I was just a slob, nothing political about it.

  I unlocked a rickety desk drawer and pulled the file of computer printouts that listed the associates’ hours. Whoever was working the hardest could be the most unhappy. I read down the list of associates, ignoring the administrative hours, looking only for billable time. Fletcher, Jacobs, Wingate. Most of the associates were billing two hundred hours a month. Hard time, so everybody should be miserable. Even Eve Eberlein showed a hundred and ninety hours so far. I tried not to think about which activities she considered billable.

  I flipped backwards to the previous months. The times rang true except for Renee Butler, who’d put in a rugged April on trial in family court. Renee had been Eve’s roommate since they graduated from Penn with Wingate, but the two women couldn’t have been more different. Renee was black, slightly overweight, and committed to her practice of domestic abuse cases. She was all substance to Eve’s pure form. Was Renee one of the associates who wanted to leave? Was there a way to find out?

  Of course.

  I tossed the time records aside and crossed the room to the unmatched bookshelves against the wall. Law reviews and treatises were mixed with clippings and reprints, and I forgot where I’d put the legal directory. Damn. I scanned the cluttered shelves.

  Eureka! I yanked the directory off the shelf, found the listing, and called. “Meyers Placement?” I said weakly, when a woman picked up. “Uh … I may be out of a job soon and I need to talk to someone.”

  “Hold please,” she said, then the phone clicked and another woman came on, with a professionally soothing voice. “May I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m calling from R & B, Rosato & Biscardi? I need to find a job, I think.”

  “To whom am I speaking?”

  “I, uh, can’t say. I’d die if my boss found out. She’s a real bitch.”

  A surprised laugh. “Well, you can send us a confidential résumé. Address it to—”

  “Am I the only one from R & B who called you? Or have you gotten a call from Renee Butler?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give out that information.”

  “But I’m not the only one, am I? I won’t send my résumé if I’m the only one.” I was hoping she’d see her exorbitant fee slipping away.

  “No, you’re not the only one.”

  “Is it Jeff Jacobs or Bob Wingate? I bet it’s one of them.”

  “I can’t confirm either of those names.”

  “I know Jenny Rowland’s miserable here. She says it sucks.”

  “I really can’t reveal our clients, dear. I do have three résumés from R & B, but that doesn’t mean we can’t place all of you.”

  Three résumés? Three associates wanted out? That was almost half the crew. My heart sank. I didn’t listen to her sales pitch, just waited until she stopped talking, thanked her, and hung up. Three? What was going on?

  I felt stricken. I’d talk to Mark about it as soon as he got back. A firm our size couldn’t sustain that sort of blow, not now. Mark’s commercial business practice was booming; my First Amendment practice, representing media clients against defamation suits, was finally at the point where it subsidized the police misconduct cases. Mark and I were bringing in a million in billings a year and paying ourselves a hundred thousand each, not to mention feeding thirteen mouths. Doing well and doing good, with a genuine rock ’n’ roll esprit. Until now.

  I looked back at my desk, piled high with messages, correspondence, and briefs. I’d better stay ahead of it if we were heading into crisis mode. Damn. I pushed my worries to the back of my mind and set to work, ignoring the sounds of the associates as they got home. I heard them laughing and joking, then the ringing of phones and the song of modems as they got back to work. Two of them, Bob Wingate and Grady Wells, were arguing a point of federal jurisdiction in the hallway, and I cocked my head to listen. Sharp, sharp lawyers, these. I liked them and was sorry that three were unhappy. Maybe I’d try to talk them out of leaving. Right after I spanked them.

  * * *

  At the end of the day I shook off my work buzz and went downstairs. I could hear from the commotion Mark had returned. The whole firm usually met at the end of the day in the library, and I gathered he was holding forth down there, regaling the associates with war stories from the Wellroth trial. Did you hear the one about the water pitcher?

  But when I reached the library’s open door, I saw it wasn’t our usual in-house confab. Mark was sitting at the conference table with Eve, and next to her was Dr. Haupt from Wellroth and a bluff older man I recognized as Kurt Williamson, the company’s general counsel. I v
eered left to avoid interrupting them, but Mark stood up and motioned to me.

  “Bennie, come on in,” he said expansively, but there was an edge to his voice I didn’t like. His jacket was off, his silk tie loosened. “I have some good news for you.”

  “Good news? About the trial?”

  “No, on another matter. Other matters, in fact. Kurt is sending us two of Wellroth’s largest new matters, including the structuring of its joint venture with Healthco Pharma. A major, major deal.” His eyes were sending nasty signals, which I read as a so-there after this morning’s debacle.

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, though what I meant was, that’s lucrative. “Mark is a terrific lawyer, Kurt, and I know he’ll do a great job with it.”

  “He has so far,” Williamson said, nodding. “His opinion letter gave us a whole new perspective on the joint venture. Did you see it?” He leaned over the table and handed a thick packet of papers to me.

  “Nice work, creative work,” I said, skimming the opinion letter for the second time. No opinion left R & B without my review because of the malpractice exposure; I’d seen it when it was a research memo prepared by Eve and Renee Butler. I flopped the memo closed and handed it back to him. “Very creative.”

  Eve smiled tightly at the praise and so did Dr. Haupt, or at least I think he did. The fissure in the lower half of his face shifted like a fault line.

  “I agree,” Williamson said. “One of the problems with the pharmaceutical business is controlling the product once it’s developed, as you can see from our present dispute over Cetor. Developing a successful product is a complicated process, often involving interlocking patents. Interdependent patents, more than a dozen.”

  “That many?” I said, though he didn’t seem to require any response to continue. Corporate clients love to talk about their business. Listen or somebody else will.

  “Even more. In the joint venture, the rub is which company will control the patents should a successful product be developed. Mark’s idea was that half of the interdependent patents should be held by each party. All the patents would be rendered useless except in combination with the others.”