LETHAL
LAWYERS
A LEGAL THRILLER
Books by Dale E. Manolakas
http://www.dalemanolakas.com
ROGUE DIVORCE LAWYER A LEGAL THRILLER
ROGUE ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER A LEGAL THRILLER
Sophia Christopoulos Series
LETHAL LAWYERS A LEGAL THRILLER
THE GUN TRIAL A LEGAL THRILLER
Veronica Kennicott Series
PLAYS FOR KEEPS A COZY MYSTERY
DEATH SETS SAIL A COZY MYSTERY
LETHAL LAWYERS
A LEGAL THRILLER
___________________
DALE E. MANOLAKAS
LETHAL LAWYERS
A LEGAL THRILLER
This legal thriller is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All characters appearing in this legal thriller are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
LETHAL LAWYERS
A LEGAL THRILLER
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Dale E. Manolakas.
ALL RIGHTS FOR THIS LEGAL THRILLER ARE RESERVED. THIS LEGAL THRILLER WAS PUBLISHED AND IS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. NO PART OF THIS LEGAL THRILLER MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS FROM THE LEGAL THRILLER EMBODIED IN CRITICAL ARTICLES AND REVIEWS. FOR INFORMATION EMAIL DALE E. MANOLAKAS AT DALEMANOLAKAS@YAHOO.COM
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Control Number: Pending
eISBN 978-1-62805-003-5 (e-publication)
ISBN 978-1-62805-004-2 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62805-005-9 (Audio)
Dedication
Dedicated to the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcón
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
_________
Judge Alarcón is an extraordinary person and the finest of jurists. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, not far from the Federal Courthouse where he professionally resides. He fought in the European theatre during World War II in the 94th Infantry Division of General George S. Patton’s Third Army, receiving a Bronze Star and Purple Heart along with numerous other commendations and honors.
He is a mentor to all and has created a far-reaching legal family of former law clerks and externs in which we all share our friendship and aspire to promote professional excellence. My daughters and I were privileged to serve in his chambers as clerks and/or externs, and we have been close family friends ever since.
Judge Alarcón is a devoted father and a loving husband. He contributes greatly to the legal world, promoting and teaching not just the law, but ethics, dedication, civility, and excellence.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank my family for their support, encouragement, suggestions, and editing of this legal thriller: my husband Roy L. Shults, a retired and highly respected attorney; our accomplished daughters Heather, Anne, and Kathleen all of whom also became attorneys and for whose input I am most grateful; Bob who lent technical and formatting assistance; and James for his invaluable input.
I also want to express my gratitude to my wonderful parents from the “Greatest Generation”: my supportive and encouraging mother Betty Jane Heise Manolakas who was the first published author in our family; and my brilliant father George S. Manolakas, M.D. who was a World War II veteran serving in the 94th Infantry Division in General George S. Patton’s Third and Seventh Armies, a University of Michigan football halfback with Tom Harmon, and a dedicated surgeon from the old school who always put his patients first.
And thank you to the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral for all the services and wonderful times it afforded to me and my family—in particular for Sunday school where my mother volunteered as a teacher, for Greek Camp where my father volunteered as a doctor, its Greek school, and its Mother’s Day luncheons, festivals, and debutante balls.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Epilogue
About the Author
“The law is a jealous mistress
and requires a long and constant courtship.
It is not to be won by trifling favors,
but by lavish homage.” (1829)
-The Honorable Joseph Story
United States Supreme Court Justice 1779-1845
Prologue
Number One With A Gun
The barrel end of a cold gun dug into Frank Cummings’ graying temple, which was glazed with sweat.
“Don’t. Don’t.”
Frank’s voice echoed through the underground garage.
“Shut up.” Jim Henning spit through his clenched teeth into Frank’s face.
“I can fix it,” Frank bargained.
The two men’s eyes locked as they stood beside Frank’s black BMW. Suddenly, Jim thrust the gun forward, slamming Frank’s head down onto the hood, still warm from his pre-dawn morning commute.
“Like hell you can.”
Jim grabbed Frank’s suit collar, threw him hard onto the cement, and aimed the gun at Frank’s forehead.
Frank gasped in pain.
“Wait.”
Frank, a senior litigation partner at Thorne & Chase, looked down the barrel of the gun and then up to Jim’s red, contorted face. He searched for the right words, just as he did to win over jurors and manage his law firm. He was a master of manipulation and needed all of his skills right now. He also needed to get that gun from this ex-junior partner, a man who was younger and had the strength of righteous outrage on his side. After all, Frank had destroyed him.
“The Management Committee will listen to me.” Frank calculated his odds of grabbing the gun.
“They already did.”
Jim lifted his t-shirt to expose a blood crusted bandage and black-bruised flank.
“What? I didn’t know! I . . .”
“Don’t play dumb. You sent them.”
Jim crushed his tennis shoe into Frank’s chest. “You’re a dead man. You and your friends on the Management Committee.”
“Wait. I can get you back into the firm. Wait. Please.”
Frank’s lie came rolling easily off his tongue. After all, he was a lawyer. But the word “please” caught in his craw despite the circumstances. Pleading was foreign to Frank’s every fiber.
“You liar.” Jim leaned over and aimed the gun at Frank’s heart. “I gave up everything for the great Thorne & Chase and what did I get? Nothing. You ruined my life . . . my marriage . . . my reputation. You stole my clients and kicked me out with nothing.”
“You can’t do this.” Frank changed his strategy with shark-like speed for a Hail Mary pass. “I could . . . but you can’t.”
Jim hesitated.
Frank had injected just a split-second of doubt. He saw it in Jim’s eyes.
Instantaneously, Frank twisted sideways, grabbing Jim’s leg and pitching him to the ground.
Frank hurled himself over Jim as he grabbed Jim’s hands holding the gun. Locked together face-to-face, the men rolled side to side. When they collided with the tire, the gun went off and a shot resounded through the garage. The bullet plowed into the BMW’s quarter panel with a bloodless ping.
The men rebounded off the tire. On top, Frank pressed Jim, full-body, into the cement. Frank sneered into Jim’s face.
“Not so old after all, huh?”
Frank, the most powerful person on Thorne & Chase’s Management Committee, was in control again. He savored the moment.
Suddenly, Jim twisted, throwing Frank onto the ground.
“Fuck you, old man.”
Dethroned from his momentary triumph, Frank kept his grip around Jim’s hands and the gun. As Jim whipsawed around on top of Frank, the gun became sandwiched deep into the bellies of the two writhing men.
The gun sounded again. This time muffled. And deadly.
Frank froze as he felt a warm liquid soak into his custom made shirt. Then, he felt Jim’s body go limp. As Jim’s head fell onto Frank’s shoulder, Frank heard Jim’s last breath gurgle past his ear.
“Christ.” Frank pushed Jim’s body off.
The gun lay between the two men covered in Jim’s blood. Frank scrambled to his feet and backed away watching the pool of blood grow.
Then from the corner of his eye Frank saw a white cart with a uniformed security guard speed down the ramp towards him.
“Help! Over here.” Frank waved at the security guard.
Confidently cloaked in self-defense, Frank gathered his thoughts. He worried only about spinning the incident so as to quell any bad publicity for Thorne & Chase. A gifted tactician and strategist, Frank started formulating sound bites that would fend off the news media. The phrase “deranged ex-junior partner” came to mind, embellished by “planned mass killing.” After all, Frank surmised victoriously, who other than a mentally unbalanced person would try to take on Frank Cummings and a Los Angeles powerhouse like Thorne & Chase?
Frank took out his cell phone, found a signal ten feet away, and called his partner Chet Apel, the Management Committee’s spin doctor and public face of Thorne & Chase.
“What the hell did you do to Jim Henning last night? He just tried to kill me.”
⌘
Chapter 1
The Rainmaker
Two years later, Sophia Christopoulos sat across from Frank Cummings in his large corner office at Thorne & Chase. The law firm covered eight sprawling floors of the historic Pacific Coastal Building in downtown Los Angeles. He studied her legal resume, evaluating her for a first year litigation associate position. Frank was the man who could make her life one of power and wealth or exclude her from that rarefied club called Thorne & Chase.
Frank looked up from Sophia’s resume and observed her over his neatly organized stacks of files on his massive desk. He said nothing.
Sophia made the considered decision not to fill the silence. She wanted the first year associate position more than anything, but was intimidated by the unchecked affluence around her. Sophia knew she could hold her own against any legal mind, but was a neophyte when it came to the highbrow culture of this powerful, international law firm with offices around the world.
She suddenly forgot her carefully prepared questions about the firm and momentarily worried that her blue-collar upbringing left her with no common ground for social discourse. She did not speak.
Frank glanced back down.
“Top ten percent of your class, a moot court finalist, highest grade in five classes, law review. Stellar credentials.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I see you were a high school history teacher before law school, Ms. Christopoulos.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
Frank smiled for the first time during the interview.
“Yes.”
Sophia smiled back.
Sophia was surprised by both his smile and the question. She couldn’t see what her enjoyment of teaching had to do with her prowess in law school. She hesitated to disclose that immigrants from male-dominated societies, like her Greek parents, often made teachers of their daughters. It was an acceptable profession prior to marriage, after which raising and taking care of a family became the woman’s career.
Sophia didn’t know what Frank Cummings wanted to hear. And that was the bottom line in these interviews: tell them what they want to hear.
“I remember my history teachers,” Frank recollected before Sophia could decide what to say. “They were nice people.”
Frank had tipped his hand. The word “nice” reverberated in Sophia’s mind. She discerned that “nice” would not cut it as a litigator in this kind of firm—“shark” would—“vicious” would—“bitch” even would—but not “nice.” Sophia knew immediately she had to sever her past teacher-self from her metamorphosed legal-self, the self that clawed its way to the top of her law school’s razor-sharp heap.
“Well, I . . .”
Sophia hesitated, searching for the words to distance herself from the powerless, nurturing teaching world she had inhabited before law school.
Before she could reply, Frank jumped in.
“Christopoulos. First generation Greek?”
“Yes. I am.”
Frank pasted a transparently artificial smile on his face.
“Did your mother teach you how to make those wonderful Greek pastries?”
“Yes, she did.” Sophia understood exactly where Frank was going with this line of questioning. “But . . .”
“Your father? Home at five every night to eat her homage?”
Law school had prepared Sophia for legal warfare, but she was caught off guard by Frank’s guerrilla attack on her personal life. She buried her defensiveness. She dug for a neutral response, knowing the wall of windows behind Frank not only had sweeping views of the Los Angeles skyline, but also spotlighted her every reaction.
“Y-yes,” Sophia stammered.
She knew Frank
had buried her effortlessly with this cross-examination.
There was silence.
Sophia felt small in her chair. Not because of her thin body, which was an unwelcome result of having too little to eat in law school, but because Frank was cruelly judging her entire life. He was dissecting her, cutting her apart with her limbs pinned down and her heart still beating.
Despite all Sophia’s law school triumphs, this middle-aged rainmaker was rejecting her, pigeonholing her as a good daughter of immigrant parents. “Είμαι ένα καλό κορίτσι ελληνικά,” a good Greek girl with a blue-collar background, who happened to be book-learned and housebroken.
Frank stood and cut the interview short.
This good Greek girl from blue-collar U.S.A. was “housebroken” enough to know that his standing was code for “get out.”
Sophia rose from her chair.
Without stealth or ceremony, Frank wrote “NO” in capitals on Sophia’s resume and dropped it into his out-box.
This tall, lean man, a powerhouse in the legal world, with unmatched authority at Thorne & Chase, had just dismissively and casually destroyed everything Sophia had been working toward for the last three years.
“Good luck.” Frank reached out to shake Sophia’s hand, which automatically met his.
“Thank you.”
As they shook hands, Sophia thought desperately of a way to rehabilitate herself after this unfair and failed interview.
Sophia had aced her half-day of interviews last week with Thorne & Chase’s junior partners and associates. Today she had a full day of interviews with more junior partners and associates, but also a lunch, a dinner, and five critical managing partner interviews. But she also knew she had no one in her corner to overcome a ding from this one powerful managing partner.
As Sophia took her hand away, her drugstore watch fell onto Frank’s desk. She froze. Sophia was mortified. The pin that held the faux leather band to the watch face had broken.