He’d once done a paper on various tribes in Borneo for his anthropology professor at Ignatius University. He reached up and pulled down his abridged version of Frazer’s Golden Bough from his bookshelf over the desk and went in search of some Borneo authority for the proposition that adultery was a modern, Western crime, a transgression added only recently in human evolutionary time, probably caused by overdeveloped property instincts and the sexual possessiveness of males in developed nations. Incest he knew was almost always taboo, but he could not remember how the tribes of Borneo had felt about simple adultery, for instance with a beautiful brain scientist.
The index led him to the Kayans, a tribe in the interior of Borneo, who seemed unwilling to support his theory. According to Frazer, the Kayans believe that adultery is punished by the spirits, who visit the whole tribe with failure of the crops and other misfortunes. He read the passage, vividly imagining himself and Rachel Palmquist called to task for exposing their village to the wrath of nature gods:
Hence in order to avert these calamities from the innocent members of the tribe, the two culprits, with all their possessions, are put in quarantine on a gravel bank in the middle of the river; then in order thoroughly to disinfect them, pigs and fowls are killed, and with the blood priestesses smear the property of the guilty pair. Finally the two are set on a raft, with sixteen eggs, and allowed to drift down the stream.
CHAPTER 15
Saturday morning. Face time for Stern, Palers. Watson took a stroll and said hi to litigation partners. Then he printed his Darrow quote from a backup file and hung it on his bulletin board. He listened to his voice mail: routine discovery matters; firm luncheons; departmental meetings; then a woman’s voice, hoarse, slurring and drawling in an Ozark twang …
“Mr. Watson? If they give me the right Watson that is James Whitlow’s lawyer? If it’s against the law for me to call you, I guess I’ll get sued or arrested.” She was drunk, or medicated, and he thought he heard someone—a man? Two men?—talking in the background. “But anyways, this is Mary Whitlow, and I need for you to tell my husband, the murderer, that we are both going to be dead if he don’t give back what he took. They don’t believe the story that he’s got Buck spreadin’ around that I hid it somewheres. They know it’s him that took it. Des Peres County jail ain’t going to protect him. They got people in there who can kill him six ways to Sunday and not get caught. Don’t call me, Mr. Watson. I will call you from a pay phone. Tell fuckbrain that they know it’s him who took it, and they will kill him if he don’t give it back.”
Watson replayed the message. Time-stamped at 1:34 A.M., with traffic noise in the background. “I need for you to tell my husband, the murderer, that we are both going to be dead if he don’t give back what he took.… Des Peres County jail ain’t going to protect him. They got people in there who can kill him six ways to Sunday and not get caught.”
He wanted to start making the phone calls necessary to find his client in Minnesota, but Arthur would be coming around, his patience exhausted, looking for him and the rush project for Ben Verucca. So Watson hunkered down over his monitor and wrote and then proofread his memo on appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a tight, well-crafted piece he hoped would palliate Arthur’s Whitlow-induced irritations. The memo included bulleted summaries of Fatima; Lourdes; Guadalupe; the tears of blood from the Little Madonna of Civitavecchia; weeping statues in County Wicklow, Ireland; a wooden Madonna at a convent in Akita, Japan. But the body of the memo dealt with an amped-up, gnarly rendition of the alleged appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 24, 1981, on Apparition Hill. Six local children reported that the Virgin had appeared and revealed images of Heaven and Hell, messages pertaining to world events, and instructions that pilgrims and believers should pray for peace.
In his memo, Watson suggested that if the Virgin were to make another spontaneous appearance in a Subliminal Solutions product, the multimedia presentation could include some 3-D graphics in 65,000 colors of infernal torments and carnal delights, followed by some carnal torments and infernal delights, perhaps dwelling somewhat on selected, worldly, dissolute, sensual enchantments, before portraying the wages of sin in the form of graphic, Inferno-type violence, followed by a proclamation that the civil war of the 1990s in Bosnia had occurred because the world had disregarded Mary’s messages. Could the Virgin be demanding and avenging? A goddess of love and war, like Ishtar? A shapely, sex-charged Valkyrie? A voluptuous houri with an hourglass figure? Maybe she could be a goddess for the new millennium—empowered, assertive, ready to break through celestial glass ceilings in Olympus, Heaven, Valhalla? Could her multimedia persona (if it appeared) achieve self-actualization, autonomy, and equality rights? Could she exercise power—compassionate, maternal, divine, omniscient—exceeding the cliché brutishness of the male gods? High concept publicity and marketing hook here. She could be the antidote to Barbie. Instead of starving themselves to perfection, women everywhere could be bulking up to achieve the Virgin Mary’s new, heroic proportions, roaring with godlike self-esteem and liberated sexual appetites. A Venus of Willendorf after six months on StairMaster and NordicTrack. That’s it! A Norse goddess on NordicTrack 2000! All of which might fold into the industry push to establish a female niche in the largely male multimedia gaming market.
It was quick and slightly dirty, but that’s what the boss had ordered. Now, he thought to himself, after despoiling the religion of his youth, he could get back to work drafting a fusillade of motions to rain down on the head of Mr. Harper, his opponent in U.S. v. Whitlow.
“Courier envelope, sir,” said one of the messengers from Office Services. A sporty youth in a tie and white shirt handed Watson a bulky ripstop envelope from the mail delivery cart.
“Thanks,” said Watson, puzzled because the package felt lumpy—clearly not the usual documents.
No return address. He couldn’t tear it open, so he moved stacks of documents around until he excavated a long-lost pair of scissors from beneath hate crime research strata on his desktop. The first slice released a puff of air from inside the pouch. He smelled it before he saw it: Money. A stack of bills thicker than his fist, five bundles of twenties bound together in a bale with thick brown rubber bands.
He dropped it on his desk and saw someone walk by in the hallway. He dodged around the end of his computer table and soundlessly closed the door to his office, then ran back, planting a clenched fist on his sternum to suppress a string of breathless arrhythmias. He caught his wind and stared at a very fat stack of twenty-dollar bills, which was so far nicely complementing his haphazard office decor.
He shook the floppy envelope, and a note typed on plain white stationery fell out:
PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION
ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE, WORK PRODUCT
TO: Joseph Watson, attorney for James Whitlow.
Retainer, fees, expenses, however you want to do it. We suggest independent medicals, because he has been shipped up to the federal whores in Rochester.
When this runs out, tell our client by phone that Dr. Green’s fees are too high. He’ll know what you mean, and we’ll send more. Cost is not the concern. Results are.
Don’t discuss the case or payment arrangements by phone. Psychon tapes calls.
I’ll be in touch,
Buck’s Lawyer
Tell our client? Part of him resisted even touching the money. Can they dust money for fingerprints or do DNA tests? Another part felt the need to know the amount in question before he could adequately address the moral and legal questions chasing each other’s tails inside his skull. He fanned one of the bundles and started counting, entering a trance as he watched twenties swarming through his fingertips.
Buck’s lawyer was familiar with the IRS reporting requirements: 499 twenty-dollar bills, $9,980.00. Cash. Buck’s lawyer? Was he really a lawyer? Was Buck really a person? A former prisoner?
A soft tap on his door. “Joe?”
Arthur’s
voice!
Watson rubber-banded unbundled stacks of newly counted cash and dropped them and the note in his satchel-type briefcase and toed it under his desk.
“Yeah?” said Joe. “Arthur? Good morning. Come on in. Sorry, I shut …”
Arthur opened the door wide enough to admit his head and smiled.
“I was hoping to transmit the Virgin Mary memo to Ben Verucca, and then come back for a … chat?” he said, a peculiar smile distending the corners of his mouth.
“Sure,” said Watson. “I’m just finishing it.”
Another tenuous smile made Watson tingle. Was Arthur behaving strangely? Or had cash-money paranoia infected his perceptions of others?
“Is it anywhere close?” he urged. “Handwritten edits are OK. I’ll just have Marcia put them in before she sends it. She comes in on Saturdays to help me out.”
Watson grabbed the Virgin Mary memo. “Just a few pencil edits,” he said.
“That’s fine,” said Arthur, stepping all the way into Watson’s office and taking the memo.
When the door swung open, Watson saw a small crowd standing behind Arthur—the head of information systems, Inspector Digit; Drath Bludsole, domestic relations specialist and junior partner in charge of associate evaluations; a security guard? Why were they here? The smile left Arthur’s face.
“What …?” began Watson, feeling blood throb in his head, synched to a sudden rhythmic squirming in his chest. Was the money traced?
“I wish I could be sorry, Joe,” said Arthur solemnly. “You know better.”
“Better?” said Watson, giving the briefcase another shoe shove. “I don’t …”
“Loading third-party software on the firm’s computer local-area networks is a terminating offense,” Arthur said gravely. “You know that. You know the dangers. The viruses, the firewall hazards, the threat to sensitive client information, and the compromised integrity of our systems and networks. It’s part of every associate’s orientation. It’s written bold in the personnel manuals.”
Inspector Digit had a floppy disk in hand. He kept looking at it, instead of looking at Watson’s face.
Watson’s skin burned, a surge of nausea making it even harder to breathe. “This is about software?” he hissed sarcastically. “Software, Arthur? This is my appointed case. This is Judge Stang, right? Software?”
Arthur managed a convincingly flabbergasted sag to his face and looked back over his shoulder at Inspector Digit and Drath Bludsole. Bludsole and Arthur shrugged their shoulders and tossed their heads. Not the first associate with a noggin full of loopy ideas, they seemed to be thinking.
“What could this possibly have to do with your appointed case or Judge Stang?” asked Arthur. “Loading third-party software onto the firm network is a terminating offense. Every employee in the firm knows that.” He turned to Inspector Digit, then back to Watson. “Certainly every lawyer, especially those with computer backgrounds.”
“Horseshit from a bull,” said Watson. “We beta test, and he knows it.” He still hadn’t managed to goad Digit into actual eye contact. “And you know it too.” Watson glared at his boss.
Arthur must have practiced in front of the mirror last night, because he assembled his features into yet another amazed look. “We? You mean, there are other associates who have endangered the firm’s information systems and compromised confidential client files with unapproved software? I find that hard to believe. But if that is so, we’ll scan their PCs after we leave here, and they will be terminated. Today.”
Digit shuffled his feet. Arthur showed Watson his courtroom, game face. “But we need names,” he added grimly, “or else we’re forced to assume that this is another wild accusation of yours, like your notion that you are being terminated for fulfilling your obligations to a client appointed to you by the federal court.”
Arthur, Digit, Drath, everybody in the room knew who the other chiphead lawyers were in the associate ranks. Gweebos. Hackers. Webheads and Westlaw geeks. The normal rules did not apply to associates with a certain level of expertise. Names would do nothing except establish Watson’s willingness to squeal and take comrades with him, down in flames and out onto the street.
“I thought so,” said Arthur. “You know the termination and separation drills,” he said crisply. “The same ones we put in place for our employment law clients. Mr. Shannon, here, will handle security matters,” he added, waving the security guard forward. “He will supervise the removal of your personal property and make certain that firm property remains. For obvious reasons you will not be allowed to access the computer systems before being escorted from the building. I’m sure we’d both prefer that there be no question of sabotage.”
“Sabotage?” Watson choked.
“You may remove paper files pertaining to work you are doing for your own personal clients, but you may not remove files pertaining to firm clients. If there is a question, Officer Shannon will inspect the file, and I will resolve any doubts. Of course, you are free to take research and work product pertaining to your appointed case, which to my knowledge is your only significant personal client.”
“I’m being fired for refusing to plead out my appointed case,” said Watson, addressing no one in particular. “For doing what Judge Stang ordered me to do.”
Arthur gave the group another astonished look. “I anticipated that you would challenge our judgment in this matter.” Arthur turned to Digit and waved him forward. “The information systems people will reboot your machine and run a program that will identify and inventory all of the software in your system, registration numbers, version numbers, and a list of files altered within certain time frames.”
Digit politely waited for Watson to step back. Watson toed his briefcase even further under the desk.
“Joe,” said Drath, “I hope you understand the firm’s position. Believe me, if this were a simple performance issue or a bad fit, we would allow you to make arrangements elsewhere and resign. But we can’t tolerate an ongoing security threat.”
“My bonus?” Watson asked, almost demanded.
“Termination for cause,” said Drath, with a don’t-blame-me shrug. “The compensation committee won’t set associate bonuses until next week. At which time, you will not be a Stern, Pale employee. How could we …?”
“How could you dry-fuck me?” asked Watson. “Is that what you mean?”
Digit popped the floppy disk in drive A and pushed reset. Arthur and Drath took a step out into the hallway and bowed their heads, turning to keep Watson in view.
“Sir,” said the security officer, “you may remove your personal belongings from your desk.”
Watson selected a brown accordion file, full of research in manila folders, clearly labeled “U.S. v. Whitlow” and coded with the case’s nonbillable client numbers.
“I’m going to pack my research on the appointed case first,” he announced, holding the red jacket up for Arthur and the security guard to see. Arthur nodded and continued talking with Drath.
Watson pulled the briefcase out, quickly opened it, and dropped the accordion file into the standing compartment where the wad of money was, covering the stacked bills. He calmly reached up and grabbed more folders and accordion files, displaying them briefly for the guard’s approval and filling the entire compartment of the briefcase. The files stuck up a few inches higher than he liked, but the briefcase was so deep, the files were still below the dividers.
“The boys from office services have dead-file boxes out here for your personal books and belongings,” Arthur said.
The security guard followed Watson over to his file cabinet. Watson retrieved Judge Stang’s two-by-four from the bottom drawer and passed it out to Arthur in the hallway.
“If memory serves, this is yours, Boss.”
Arthur accepted it with a grimace and gently leaned it against the wall in the hall.
The last thing Watson packed was the last thing he had printed from his desktop machine—the Darrow quote.
Myrna picked up the bundle of bills, dropped it on her desktop, tilted her head, and listened to the thud. “All twenties?”
“All twenties,” said Watson, running his fingers nervously through his hair. She seemed blasé, almost unsurprised, about the trip to Judge Stang’s chambers and Joe’s swift, brutal termination. He looked at her phone, wondering when and how he was going to break this to Sandra. Maybe he could write a novel in the first person, Vexing the Memsahib. Unemployment. “The System Is Unstable at This Time. Abort, Retry, Ignore?” Sandra would call in her parents, reboot him from a clean floppy, then have the in-laws debug him and scan him for boot sector viruses. “This Work-A-Daddy Unit is not functioning properly,” they would say. “It’s a rogue Go-Bot with fatal memory allocation errors. We need to lock out bad sectors, reformat, and update the flash BIOS. Reprogram to produce income.”
Sheila and Benjy loomed onto the stage of conscience, pathetic victims in a tragedy directed by and starring cad, bounder, terminated lawyer, faithless spouse, criminal consort, and failed father Joseph Watson. His chest tightened with what, in later life, would probably be diagnosed as pre-angina. Once he withdrew all the money out of the stock funds, his kids would probably have to make do with the local community college. As for what Sandra’s dad called Real Money? Nowhere in sight, except what R. J. Connally would maybe consider a smidgen there in front of him on Myrna’s desk.
She dropped the bundle again. “Sounds like ten grand to me,” she smirked through smoke. “Don’t tell me. Just under ten grand, right?”
“Just under,” said Watson. “Unemployment makes it seem like way over.”
“They got balls as big as boulders,” she said. “If Judge Stang knew that they were riding you out on a rail because of an appointed case, he’d get the whole fucking place disbarred. Maybe I’ll tell him myself. Nope, I’ll tell Ida. She’s the best way to him. No one gets to Judge Stang except through Ida, or one of the clerks.”
Brain Storm Page 24