Personal injuries kc-5, Page 7

  "Walter, I got a case here."

  "You've always got a case. At least so far as you're concerned."

  "This is a good one. Strict liability. My guy's got brain damage. Trader down at the Futures Exchange. This is a million-dollar case. If I get past this bullshit motion to dismiss. The insurer's got to step to the plate then. It's only a matter of time."

  "Yeah, brain damage. That must account for why he hired you. You gonna rent that chair or were you about to leave?" Robbie's clothing shifted, chafing the microphone, and Feaver's voice dived. Listening, Evon could feel the drama sharpen. This was the moment. He was going to set Walter up. He must have leaned over the desk.

  "Watch out for this one, Wally. Make sure he sees it the right way."

  "I just work here."

  "Right," Robbie whispered. "Right. That's why it's always Christmas."

  "You are a gardener, Feaver. Full of manure. Beat it." "Make me happy, Walter."

  "I thought that's what she's for."

  Evon was across the hall as Robbie swung open the door, and the last two lines were audible, even without the earpiece. Other people might have been embarrassed, but Walter, catching sight of her, administered an insultingly direct look across his wayward nose, before turning to confront the many papers on his desk. THE RECORDING WAS A SUCCESS. Klecker played it back for Sennett and me and several of the other undercover agents as soon as Robbie had returned. Feaver had been flawless-no sign of nerves as he'd made a subtle effort to nudge Walter into incriminating himself. Stan dispensed congratulations, but he was visibly grumpy about the ambiguousness of Wunsch's responses.

  "Why does he say he just works there? Or that the judge is the Virgin Mary?"

  Feaver was impatient, played out from the effort and late for a settlement meeting with an insurance adjuster. I also took it that he wanted a more wholehearted pat on the back.

  "Stan," said Robbie, "it's how he talks. He's not gonna bend down to the mike and say, `I'm a great big crook.' I was stepping on his toes as it was. But he'll take the money. Believe me."

  Before Feaver departed, I took a second alone with him to reassure him about how well he'd done. Returning to the conference room, we were greeted by a round of raucous laughter. For some reason, it had come at Evon's expense. She'd pulled back against the oak cabinetry with a narrow expression, and when she caught sight of Feaver she told him at once it was time to go.

  He asked what had happened as soon as they were snug in the Mercedes.

  "Nothing," she answered.

  He asked several more times.

  "It was Alf," she said finally, "if you have to know. He was doing an impression of the look on my face when they replayed that line."

  Behind his sunglasses in the strong winter light, Feaver seemed to take a moment to recall what she was talking about. The golf ball. The garden hose. As she could have predicted, he was unabashed.

  "Hey, Walter believed it." He smiled. "Must be you got a strong-looking jaw."

  "Strong stomach is more like it. Men are sick creatures. Why do you have to brag?"

  "Hey, Walter hasn't heard half of what he could have from me." He started a story about a juror in that courtroom with whom he had dallied throughout the last week of a trial, but interrupted himself. "Hell," he said, "forget the juror. Walter clerked for a judge I've messed around with."

  "A judge!"

  "A woman, okay? It's a long story."

  "It must be." A female cop in an optic vest hurried them through the intersection in the mounting afternoon traffic.

  "Look, it's my play, okay? It gives me an edge with guys like Walter, that I'm his fantasy life. Some people, I don't know, they love to think there's something they're missing. But it's a play. Truth? I mean, this'll blow your mind but I stopped skunking around on Rainey when she got sick. I can't really explain it. I barely took a breath after we were married. But now?" He shrugged in his dark cashmere overcoat. "It seems kind of crummy. Disloyal. I'll be single soon enough anyway." His eyes were indetectable behind the shades, which was just as well. His occasional casualness with the rawest truths confounded her. But she was still unwilling to allow him to sidetrack her with shock tactics.

  "You enjoyed degrading me. And don't say it was just a play.”

  "Oh great. Right. `Degrading.' `Dehumanizing.' Let's hear em all. Gloria Steinem's greatest hits. Why do women always think a guy's urges come at their expense? How do you figure he feels being dragged through life by his steed?"

  "I'll send a sympathy card."

  "Hey," he said, "you won't ever meet a man who likes women better than me. They're the best thing on the planet. And I don't just mean horizontal. Women hold the world together."

  She peeked over to be certain he wasn't smirking. Even then, she remained unconvinced. On the pavement, a fellow was pulling his wheeling suitcase behind him. He wore a bright fleece pullover, nylon moon boots, and, despite the January weather, a pair of shorts. A skier, Evon thought, headed off for vacation. For a moment, even as she went on shaking her head about Feaver, she felt a pang for the speed and the space and the snow that would always be part of home.

  "Look," Feaver said, "it's the cover. Like it or not. That's our cover. Right?"

  "That's the cover," she said resignedly.

  "So stop fighting it, will you? You keep telling me how I'm gonna blow this deal, then you jump about ten feet every time I give you so much as a warm smile. Relax, will you? I'm not gonna take you wrong. I've got the picture. Believe me."

  "And what picture is that?"

  He pouted a little bit as he fiddled with the temperature controls amidst the walnut console.

  "Can I give you some advice? I mean, I acted. You know that, right? Is that in my vita or resume or dossier, whatever you guys worked up on me?"

  "You told me. The bar show."

  "Please," he said. "That's retirement activity. No, high school, college, that was my dream. I wanted to be on the stage. I used to wait tables at the Kerry Room. I swept up at The Open Door. I had it bad I used to get in a sweat just standing next to somebody I'd seen perform, even if they'd only walked onstage playing the butler. I wanted them to touch me and give me a little of that stuff. Obviously, that's why I love the jury trials. You know. Cause I'm such a frustrated ham." In his gloves, he tightened his grip on the wooden steering wheel, seemingly staggered by the depth of this forsaken passion. After a moment, he recalled his point.

  "Now, you can tell everybody in the office your name's Evon Miller from Idaho without even a quiver, but you get sick to your stomach at the thought of maybe touching my hand. It's like you're saying, I can do a part, I can tell all these white lies, but not that, that's who I am. And that's amateur hour, frankly. `An actor's work is on himself.' That's what Stanislavsky said. You can't judge or try to keep some little piece of yourself sacred. It's like taking LSD. Don't trip if you're gonna fret about whether you're coming back."

  She wouldn't know about that, she replied, but smiled toward her window where a small fogged patch was withdrawing in the hot breath from the air vents. He was smooth. It sounded like a farmer's daughter joke, the way he was putting it. We have to do this to keep warm.

  "Okay," he said, "so here's an actual example. Once in summer stock I worked with Shaheen Conroe. On The Point? On TV?" Evon had never seen the show. The actress's name meant something only because it appeared frequently on the lists of prominent and acknowledged lesbians magazines liked to compile these days.

  `What a talent she is. We were doing Oklahoma! She's Ado Annie, the girl who can't say No, and I'm Ali Hakim, the fella she's cheatin with."

  "Typecasting?"

  He frowned, but otherwise ignored her. "Okay, here's the play. Shaheen never made any secret about her proclivities. She had a wild thing going with one of the makeup girls. Open and notorious. But we had this onstage kiss, and for that moment she couldn't wait to get after me. Every bit of her. I mean, afterwards, I was afraid to turn around and face the audien
ce. Because for thirty seconds, she'd stopped hanging on to herself. And that's what makes her great. The letting go. That's talent."

  "Wait," she said. She'd actually reached out to grab the armrest. "Wait. Let's see if I'm getting this. You're so hot that even another dyke couldn't keep her hands off you?"

  The car jerked briefly when he went for the brake. "What! Not at all."

  "The hell."

  "You think I was calling you a lesbian?"

  "Weren't you? Not that I give a hoot."

  "Hey," he said, "that's your thing, that's not my thing." "I mean, it's gotta be, doesn't it? Why else would I be making faces at such a wonderful opportunity?" "Criminy," he answered. They had arrived at the adjuster's office. He gave her a burning look and seemed on the verge of an outburst. But instead he popped the door locks and alighted. For once he did not have much more to say.

  CHAPTER 8

  Who is Peter Petros and why don't I know anything about this case?

  The Post-it from Dinnerstein was stuck to the complaint which Eyon had left sitting in her carrel. Mort apparently saw it when he'd happened by looking for something else. They'd all known this moment was coming. Nevertheless, the note left her heart rattling around like a bell clapper as she rushed off to find Feaver.

  McManis had never tired of reminding her that Dinnerstein was the most dangerous person in this case. No one was more likely to sniff out Petros, and if he did, there'd be no sure way to keep him from going straight to his Uncle Brendan. But it was hard to regard Mort, with his mild stammer and his persistent tone of apology, as a menace. As a child, Dinnerstein had contracted polio, which had left him with a distinct hitch, now worsening in middle age as tertiary effects of the disease asserted themselves. Mort was tall, actually, and well built, but he made a boyish impression. Some years ago, when they first began earning what Robbie referred to as `real money,' he had tried to take Mort in hand, introducing him to the salespeople at Feaver's downtown haberdashery. The suits didn't seem to fit Mort. The pants drifted below his waist, so that he had difficulty keeping his shirttails in his trousers, and he snagged the rich Italian fabrics on the corners of his desk.

  They had been friends for nearly forty years now, first brought together when Feaver's father had deserted the family and his mom, Estelle, had asked Sheilah Dinnerstein next door to look out for Robbie while she was working. The men had not tired of each other yet. Robbie generally reserved his lunchtimes for Mort, and every morning, after Feaver and Evon arrived, he and Mort spent a few minutes in what was called "the business meeting." Anything but business seemed to be discussed. As Evon passed by, most of what she overheard was talk about their families. Bobbie had an intense interest in the two Dinnerstein boys. Mort, on the other hand, was the only person whose inquiries about either Lorraine or Robbie's mother were answered with more than a philosophical gesture.

  In their practice, Feaver claimed they'd never endured a disagreement. Mort shook like a leaf in the courtroom. Instead, he did all the things that Robbie despised-office management, the brief-writing, the interrogatories, routine deps, and, especially, the endless comforting demanded by their clients, who usually felt intensely victimized.

  Mort's renowned patience was being put to the test when Evon arrived with Robbie at his door. Mort, who had won the comer office on a coin flip, had furnished it in colonial style. The credenzas and desk space were crowded with photos of his family-his wife and the two boys were all dark-and an array of sports mementos: signed basketballs, lithographs of athletic stars, a framed ticket from the Trappers' lone playoff appearance, nearly twenty years ago now. At the moment, Mort was dealing on his speakerphone with a woman who was eager to engage the firm to sue her landlord.

  "My boyfriend was drunk. Hal? He came in. He said a few things. I said some things. He threw me out the window. I broke my arm. My knee is messed up something terrible." The woman was nasal, harsh, excitable. She stopped there. Mort scratched a hand through the thinning springy pile atop his head. There were prospective clients who contacted them out of the blue every day, most with nothing close to a case. A number came to reception, but more called in response to Feaver amp; Dinnerstein's large ad in the Yellow Pages. Robbie avoided these inquiries, directing them to Evon. In just three weeks, she'd spoken to two different people who hoped to sue some branch of the government for failing to protect them from unwanted encounters with extraterrestrials. But Mort rarely screened callers. He had a moment for everyone. In the rare instances when the complaint had some potential, he'd refer the call to younger lawyers starting out, or even, in the most isolated cases, take the matter for the firm. As the saying went, though, Mort's good deeds seldom went unpunished.

  "You said you wanted to sue your landlord," he reminded the woman.

  "Hey, are you a lawyer?"

  Dinnerstein stared at the speaker.

  "Well," he said, "there's a certificate with my name on the wall."

  "No, really. Are you a lawyer? Can I sue somebody in jail?"

  "You can. It wouldn't be worth much.

  "Right. So are you listening? I can't sue my boyfriend, I gotta sue my landlord."

  "Because your boyfriend threw you out the window?"

  "Because there weren't any screens on the window." "Ah," said Mort. He reflected. "Would you mind terribly if I ask your weight?"

  "That's none of your business."

  "I understand," said Mort, "and I hope you'll forgive me, but if a plaintiff weighed more than Tinker Bell, I don't think a jury anywhere in America would believe a window screen would have offered her any protection."

  The woman dawdled a bit, considering her problem.

  "Yeah, but when I fell, I fell in a puddle. I heard that. My girlfriend made a lot of money cause her landlord left water standing around."

  "Well, yes, if you slip on it. Not if you land in it." "Are you really a lawyer?"

  As politely as possible, Mort ended the call.

  "You should have asked if she drowned in that puddle," said Robbie. "You have plenty of evidence of oxygen deprivation to the brain."

  Mort shrugged off the mild assault on his good nature. What could he do? Teasing was standard between the two men, and even Mort couldn't resist chortling when Robbie reminded him of the remark about Tinker Bell. Although he was exceedingly soft-spoken, Mort had a high-pitched howling laugh and it often ricocheted through the office. Robbie and he had a thousand in-jokes Evon could never quite comprehend.

  "I've been meaning to talk to you about this case," Bobbie said eventually. He held out the Peter Petros complaint. From the start, Robbie had known that the contrived cases couldn't remain hidden from Dinnerstein. The partners usually agreed on the matters in which they'd invest the firm's time, and besides that, sooner or later Mort was bound to pick up a file he didn't recognize, since one of his chief functions was correcting the potential mishaps invited by Robbie's cavalier ways. McManis appeared more concerned about what might happen then than Sennett, who felt Robbie would be able to handle Mort. Nevertheless, several hours had gone into planning for this moment.

  The original idea had been to parade a cast of undercover agents through the office, pretending to be new clients. But Stan in time hit on something far simpler. If and when Morty came upon the cases, there was a perfect person to blame: me. George Mason, downstairs, had become a new source of referrals. As former President of the Bar Association, Mason was a stickler about actually working on the files, an ethical requirement in order to receive a referral fee. As a result, the client interviews had taken place in my office, and Mason had even scratched out a rough draft of the complaint. That was why Mort had not been party to the usual preparations.

  I was the only one who didn't regard this notion as inspired. Unlike some criminal defense lawyers who see themselves as soldiers in an endless war against the state, I had no reluctance about encouraging my clients to cooperate with the prosecution when it would help them. But that was their obligation, not mine. I ha
d something of a heritage to protect. Although my mother had knowingly married into the bankrupt branch of an aristocratic Virginia family, she managed to plant the flag for the social distinction she prized by naming me after my most famous ancestor. George Mason is believed to be the author of the line "All men are created equal," which Jefferson subsequently borrowed, as well as of the Bill of Rights, which he conceived of with his friend Patrick Henry. The legacy of George Mason-the real one, as I think of him-has been quite a bit to drag around with me, but I'd always felt that in protecting the rights of the accused, I was maintaining allegiance to my distinguished relation and his vision. For his sake, not to mention my law practice, which depended on being known as a tireless foe of the prosecution, I didn't want my name imprinted on an elaborate governmental deception like Petros.

  Sennett pressed, however: I needed an excuse for my frequent visits with Robbie and McManis, which someone in the building was bound to notice eventually. And this way, the fertilizer could be spread by Feaver, not me. Robbie could send letters to my office, mention our relationship here and there. I would merely adhere to my duty to maintain his confidences. Stan argued adeptly and I eventually sank to my ankles in the familiar bog of compromise where defense lawyers dwell.

  Robbie now delivered the cover story about good old George Mason, as Mort blinked several times behind the watery refraction of his wire-framed glasses. Misshapen by daily abuse, the specs rode at a noticeable angle across his thick nose. Evon, naturally, was astonished by the elan with which Robbie lied, especially to the friend to whom he claimed total devotion, and also by the fact that Dinnerstein, despite the years, still couldn't see through him. Robbie explained away a few of Mort's lingering technical questions about the case, then squired Evon from the office where Mort appeared quite satisfied.

  Evon called me at once to tell me that the plan had been sprung so that I'd be prepared if I bumped into Dinnerstein in the building. But the news left me down. From the start, I'd felt a subtle undertow emanating from Sennett, and I sensed that allowing my name to be used as a prop in the Petros stage play was only the beginning. Eventually, he'd ask me to lie actively, or to talk Robbie into some dubious stratagem, requests that would not be premised on my client's best interests but on the grand importance of Petros to the legal community, and on my friendship with Stan. He'd want me to help him do his job, at the expense of doing mine. And what was unsettling was this: given the peculiar geometry of my relationship with Stan, and my funny fugue state at the moment, even I was not completely certain how I was going to respond.