by Alan Hruska
It’s not a job Vito enjoys. He thinks of himself as a paramilitary organization man and would always prefer a pitched battle. Now—even though they’d taken the trouble of dragging Aaron to the rail—given the direction of the wind, the deck needs some swabbing. It’s a job Vito dislikes even more.
SIX
Sunday morning. Darcy opens the door to Alec’s apartment, which would depress anyone, especially when it rains. The apartment had been advertised as a “street-level with yard” in a “charming brownstone” between Madison and 5th. The address was accurate, and the building itself charming for those living above ground. For Alec, living in the basement, there was little charm, but the price was right, and he knew he’d be there only to sleep. The “yard,” though, turned out to be a small slab of concrete. Darcy refers to it as a “guano factory,” in view of its attraction to pigeons. What disturbs her most is the incessant cooing.
She storms into Alec’s tiny bedroom, making as much noise as she can. “How can you sleep with that pigeon racket?” she says.
Startled awake, he blinks at her.
After breakfast, which they have at Soup Burg, the rain stops, and they go for a walk in Central Park, taking the path up to the track around the reservoir embankment. Few joggers. It’s seven-thirty on a wet Sunday morning. Darcy plainly has something on her mind.
“What do you feel,” she says, “when we make love?” She stops and reconsiders. “Or maybe that’s loading the question. When we have sex?”
“Making love with you is wonderful,” he says carefully.
She resumes walking. “That’s it? Makes you feel wonderful?”
“It’s not a weak feeling.”
They walk in silence.
There’s a lane leading down to the bridle path, and she takes it. In front of them stands an ancient tree, a London Plane, whose roots sprout out of the ground like ganglia. Darcy puts her ear to the trunk.
“What do you hear?” Alec asks, thinking she’s clowning.
“Listen!” she says, beckoning.
He puts his ear to the bark too, humoring her, then comes away. “What?”
“The forest goddesses.”
“You hear goddesses conversing in trees?”
“Of course,” she says.
“What do they tell you?”
“To get the hell out of this relationship.”
He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Those goddesses…”
“Yeah?”
“Never know what they’ll say.”
“They have a point, though, don’t you think?”
“It’s questionable.”
“Should be clear.”
Alec knows the banter has stopped.
“I’m sorry, Darcy.”
“Me too.”
“Hard to understand.”
“Not to me,” she says. “I’m not what you’re looking for.”
“You know what I’m looking for?”
“Wild guess.”
“So let’s hear.”
She purses her lips. “Someone softer, I think. Not as all-together. Maybe someone you can mend.”
“How could you know that?”
“Dunno, Alec. Just radiates out of you. Maybe ’cause you need mending yourself?”
SEVEN
In his office, Alec deals with letters requiring answers that day, messages requiring return calls that morning. Macalister was scheduled to fly in the night before, and they’ve arranged to meet in court at nine a.m. Good timing. The witness, J.J. Tierney, still hasn’t given the testimony that his lawyer, Hal Richardson, promised.
Alec stuffs his lit bag with papers he thinks he’ll need in court; then, halfway to the elevator, on an impulse, he goes back for some additional documents. Adding them to the bag, he’s about to take off again when the telephone rings.
“Brno,” he answers.
“Good thing I caught you.”
“Mac?” says Alec. “You’re in court already? I’m just on my way.”
“I’m still in Miami, kiddo. Hearing here’s been put over to this afternoon.”
Well, well! What an interesting development!
“You know Tierney hasn’t come through yet,” Alec says.
“Don’t worry,” says Mac.
“I think there’s a risk he might not.”
“There’s always a risk, kiddo.”
“So what should we do?” Alec says. “Get an adjournment?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Me?” says Alec. “Adjournment? Hell no. I’ll handle it.”
Macalister’s laugh rasps into the receiver. “Wouldn’t sweat this, dear boy. We’ve got a deal with Richardson and Tierney. Double confirmed. Tierney’s to tell the damn truth. Piece of cake for you.”
“Walk in the park.”
“So, you okay with this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Break a leg, kid.”
Alec is left holding the receiver, wondering whether he’ll be left holding the bag.
On the street, he passes up cabs, choosing to walk. Fast-paced, almost a jog. Gets the blood running. Works down the nerves. The nerves are the problem.
Jesus Christ! I may have to cross-examine a witness!
Walking north, there’s the Federal Courthouse on Foley Square, the remnants of FDR’s gold-leafed pentahedron roof flashing its phony image of prosperity. Behind it looms Alec’s destination: the dark-domed State Supreme Courthouse, its outer walls the color of dried blood.
Carrie Madigan stands indecisively at the top of the stairs of the State Courthouse. To go down for some coffee before her ten-thirty hearing? To go inside and wait in the courtroom? To wander to Chinatown, knock on some doors? She looks in her handbag. A lipstick, makeup, some cash. Not what she now needs, but enough money to buy it. So she’ll go down the stairs. At least think about Chinatown.
She begins her descent.
She would not strike everyone as being beautiful. Her face, a small oval, is too pale, her bones delicate and sharp. Her mussed dark auburn hair is in need of a brushing. She gives the impression of being taller than she is, since she’s leggy, her shoulders narrow, sharply bladed. But to Alec, ascending the stairs, there is, as they pass, in one brief unguarded exchange, an insistent shock of recognition.
Alec turns as he reaches the top of the stairs and looks down for her. Carrie, having arrived at the pavement, is negotiating her way through the crowd. Just as he turns back to enter the building, she stops to look up. Sees him go through the doors. Doesn’t consider re-climbing the stairs, but does rethink the Chinatown plan. She heads for the coffee cart on the corner where she knows, from experience, jelly doughnuts are sold.
EIGHT
Ben Braddock rasps into his squawk box. “Mac?”
“Yeah, Ben?”
Braddock leans back, his legs resting on the top of his desk, his hands clasped behind his neck. “What the fuck you doing, Mac?”
“How’s that, Ben?”
“Your secretary. She’s saying you’re still in Miami.”
“That’s right.”
“So J.J. Tierney? You gonna let him cross-examine himself?”
“Got it covered,” Macalister says.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Alec’s handling it.”
“Alec?”
“Brno.”
“Brno? Whatta you know! What’s he, second-year?”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You mean that you’re outta your fucking mind?”
“In the first place, Alec’s ready to do this.”
“That right?” Ben says. “A second-year associate?”
“Have you seen his record?”
“Why would I have seen his record?”
“You ought to take more interest in who we’re hiring here, Ben.”
“And I’m going to learn that by reading law school records?”
“Well, this one’s unusual.”
“What?�
�� Braddock says. “He didn’t go to Yale or Harvard?”
“He was at Yale.”
“Then don’t tell me—he wasn’t first in his class.”
“Actually he wasn’t,” says Macalister, “but he did pretty well. What’s unusual is, after the first two weeks, he stopped going to class. Drove the faculty crazy. Some of them refused to read his exam papers, just graded them D, or he probably would have been first.”
“What was his point?” Braddock asks, getting mildly interested.
“Time. He was editor-in-chief of the Law Journal, running two businesses to pay his way, and teaching a tax class.”
“A law student? Teaching? At the law school?”
“Even more unusual, right. The tax professor—after working with Alec on an article for the Law Journal—was so impressed he partnered with him to teach the advanced course in corporate reorganizations. Then he just let Alec do it on his own. In fact, Alec holds a record at that school that will never be broken. He taught more classes than he attended.”
“It ain’t trial work,” Braddock snaps.
“I know. But Alec is the smartest associate we’ve had in at least ten years, maybe longer. And the fact is I worked out a deal with Richardson. Tierney will confess to having authorized the tapping of the Biogram phones. So there shouldn’t be any reason to cross-examine at all.”
“That’s all you need from Tierney, that admission?”
“The last piece, yeah. The state attorney general is claiming that Tierney’s company could have used its patent to stop our client, Biogram, from entering the market but let us in because we agreed to fix prices. The reality is Tierney let us in because we caught him red-handed tapping our wires. Not only would that have put Tierney in prison, it gave us a patent misuse defense to his suit for patent infringement.”
“You say Tierney will admit this?”
“Sure. It’s their defense as well as ours. To the price-fixing claim. And Richardson has made him understand there’s no risk he’ll be prosecuted now for illegal wire tapping. It’s too old, and we’re not complaining.”
“And you trust this kid? If things blow up?”
“If we’re ever going to think about making him a partner, Ben, we’d better find out what we have.”
NINE
Four men in dark suits and fedoras arrive in a limousine at the locked gate of the Bayonne oil storage facility. They’re all smoking, so the car windows are open a bit. A slender, fiftyish man of medium height and sallow complexion gets out of the car to try to improve his view of the grounds. Dropping his cigarette and grinding it out on the pavement, he gets back in and instructs the driver to blow the horn. Finally a car from inside arrives, and Whitman Poole, hatless, steps out to open the gate.
After the limo rolls into the compound, Poole signals the driver to stop and open the window further. “You’re a little early,” he says to the four men, “but we’re ready for you.”
Poole, his men, and the four visitors assemble near the office tower. No one is smoking now. Poole introduces himself and points to the nearest tank. “We thought we’d start here.”
The slender man speaks. “Hank Sturrage, Senior V.P., Chemical Bank. I’m in charge of the operation. We’ll start at the edge of the field and work our way toward the center.”
“We’re already set up here,” says Poole.
Sturrage gives him a look of impatience.
“Surely,” says Poole, “you don’t have to check every single tank. It would take all day. More. You’d be here through tomorrow.”
“Look, mister. I have no idea yet whether the other tanks are empty or full. But the only tank we don’t have to check is the one you’ve set up on. I’ve got a fair notion that one’s bulging with diesel.”
“Are you accusing me?” asks Poole with outraged incredulity.
“I just want to get started. So if you could tell your men to bring the rods, we’ll all climb up that tank over there, near the gate.”
TEN
In a shabby courtroom packed with reporters, Pharmex’s chief executive, J.J. Tierney, is being examined by his lawyer, Hal Richardson. The examination has taken up most of the morning. It’s now twenty-seven past twelve, and they’ve reached what appears to be the end of the subject on which they’ve spent the last half hour. Richardson hesitates and looks upward with a pensive expression. He then puts to the court the question foremost on everyone’s mind.
“Would this be a good time to break for lunch, your Honor?”
Judge Robert Locklear, heavily jowled and large-bellied, stares down at Richardson and the army of lawyers arrayed behind counsel tables. The jurist quickly picks out the least experienced lawyer in the room, to his surprise occupying a first chair.
“Where’s Macalister?” barks the judge.
Alec rises, for the first time ever, to speak in a courtroom. “Called away, your Honor. Unexpectedly. An emergency.”
“And you—how do you pronounce your name?”
“Burr-know, your Honor.”
“You plan to cross-examine Mr. Tierney when we get back from lunch, after Mr. Richardson finishes up?”
Alec’s right leg begins to twitch. The counsel table starts shimmying before Alec realizes it’s his knee that’s partnering the dance. A young lawyer named Jed, an associate from another firm, makes a heroic catch of the water pitcher as it flies from the table.
“I’m considering it, your Honor.”
“Ever cross-examine a witness before, Mr.… Bruno?”
“No, your Honor.”
“Jed, give him back that water pitcher, will ya? He’s gonna need it. Dry mouth!”
All laugh. The judge has cracked a joke.
“All rise!” chants the bailiff as his Honor descends, ponderously, from the bench.
The lawyers pack up their lit bags. Alec is halfway down the hall when Richardson, racing to catch up to him, calls out. Alec slows, and the two walk in tandem toward the elevators in the building’s rotunda.
“I just told the clerk,” says Richardson, slightly winded. “I’ve decided I have no further questions for Tierney, and the state’s done with him. So what do you say? Can I let him go back to his office?”
“Whoa!” Alec says, pulling up short. “You told us he’d admit to the wire-tapping.”
“He’s changed his mind, Alec. Sorry.” Practiced smile.
“Tierney doesn’t give that testimony, then what the hell’s our defense?”
“It’s not that serious,” Richardson purrs.
“Not serious?” says Alec, fighting panic, trying to be patient. “Whatta you mean, what am I missing?”
“The state’s case is not that strong.”
“You gotta be kidding. You guys let us into the market either because we caught you tapping our phones—which happens to be the goddamn truth—or because we agreed to fix prices—which is the state’s theory. Which this jury is all too ready to buy. In which case people in both companies will be going to prison. Because this judge can’t wait to be in the headlines. So—Hal—to me, it looks pretty damn serious.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, kid. Tierney’s not going to cop to it.”
“Why? You think they’re going to prosecute Tierney for authorizing a wiretap? Seven years after it happened? When we’re not complaining about it?”
“Not likely.” Another smile. “I’ve told him.”
“But he thinks they can’t touch him personally on the price fix, just nail the company and his subordinates.”
Richardson shrugs.
“So he’s willing to sell them out,” Alec says. “Who are you representing, Hal? Tierney or the company? Seems to be a conflict here.”
“You know I can’t talk about this.”
“We had a deal, Hal.”
The smile with another shrug, this one more apologetic.
“Okay,” says Alec. “I get it. Macalister’s gone. You don’t think I have the balls to cross-examine Tierney myself. Well, let m
e tell you—I have no fucking choice!”
In another corridor of the courthouse, Alec is on a pay phone with Macalister’s secretary.
“Jane, can you reach Mac? I need him immediately.”
“He’s in Miami, Alec.”
“I know he’s in Miami, but his hearing wasn’t scheduled to start until later.”
“He’s not… reachable.”
“Jane. Enough with the code. Where is he?”
“He said to say… he’s in court.”
“Ah.”
“So you see.”
“Not reachable.”
“What I’ve been telling you, Alec.”
“All right,” says Alec. “Switch me to Braddock.”
“He is in court. But Madge can reach him.”
“Okay,” Alec says. “Switch me to Madge. I’ll hang on.” He reaches into his pocket for another couple of dimes.
ELEVEN
Ben Braddock strides into Foley Square Park, leaving his entourage in front of the Federal Courthouse packing lit bags into the trunk of a limo. Spotting Alec walking across Centre Street, Braddock beckons him toward a bench in the middle of the park.
“Yes?” says Braddock. Neither man sits.
“Tierney’s welshed on the deal,” Alec says. “Won’t admit the wiretapping. And Richardson’s just letting him walk—screw his client, and screw us.”
Braddock looks impatient. Like he never believed in Mac’s deal. Like this is exactly what he expected of Tierney. And so far as Richardson is concerned, it’s hardly news that a lawyer is willing to sell out the company he represents for the CEO, the person who actually retained him. “Who’s in the courtroom?” Ben asks.
For Alec, the question seems off the point. “Whatta you mean? The eighteen lawyers for the other defendants?”
“No, no,” says Braddock, his impatience mounting.
“The twenty, thirty reporters?”
Braddock settles down on the bench, his long legs stretched out. In his dark suit and tie, he looks like a preoccupied pall-bearer. “You know what you lack?”