The Wrong Lawyer

by Donald W. Desaulniers

  “If we’re going to be friends, Harlan, then I’d appreciate it if you would undo all the little thistles you threw into my life. My vacation to Las Vegas got well and truly screwed up. They wouldn’t let me gamble in the casinos and every kind of cop imaginable kept arresting me. I want to book another trip there soon.”

  “Consider it done. I’ll see to everything right away. Keep your cell phone turned on. I’ll give you another call in a couple of days to confirm that your once boring life has been completely restored.”

  When I hung up the phone, it struck me as incredibly weird that I was now privy to one of the most closely guarded spying secrets in the US government.

  Even more bizarre was the fact that it appeared that I was developing a friendship with the very chap who had caused me so much grief.

  Life was certainly strange.

  CHAPTER 26 (Abhorrent Invasion of Privacy)

  On Friday evening Harlan called again.

  “Your life is completely back to normal now,” he began. “I took you off the blacklist at all the casinos and the no-fly list at those airlines which hadn’t already deleted your name. I noticed that you already managed to get your credit card reinstated and the pervert alert removed from your passport. Tommy, you’re free to travel again.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Harlan. Thanks for that. I think I’ll check prices on Expedia and book another holiday to Las Vegas before Christmas.”

  “Let me know when you’re going and I may fly there myself and keep you company,” Harlan responded. “Right now, I sort of need your assistance with my research.”

  “What can I do? I don’t know a thing about spying on people.”

  “Since my experiments are totally clandestine, I’m unable to verify much of my progress. All I need you to do is give me a challenge.”

  “What kind of challenge?”

  “Point me in the direction of a target, somebody you know well. I’ll prepare a little report on that subject and you can listen to it and confirm that it’s the right person. I’m attempting to refine my retrieval system so that it doesn’t rely on the subjects themselves uttering the key words.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be much help right now. I’ve only got one friend, Jim Corbett, but he’s on a river cruise in Europe.”

  “That will constitute a severe challenge. Do you know which ship he’s on?”

  “I think so. Jim left me a note under my door. Hang on a second and I’ll read it off to you.”

  “It’s not much to go on, Tommy, but leave it with me. I’ll call you back on Sunday evening around seven and you can let me know if I’ve zeroed in on the right target.”

  On Saturday I took my car in for an oil change. The mechanic said it would cost more than $300 to fix the damage in the passenger door so I decided to live with the unwanted souvenir bullet instead.

  Harlan called as arranged on Sunday evening. His voice had that tone of excited naughtiness that you might expect of a mischievous child.

  “I’ve put together an interesting little morsel for your listening pleasure, Tommy. All I need you to do first is verify that it is your friend’s voice.”

  Harlan played a few sentences. It was Jim all right and I confirmed that it was my best friend speaking.

  “Excellent; that means my collating system was capable of finding the subject without the requirement of him using enough of the keywords as a trigger. All I did was feed in your friend’s name and the cabin number he had been assigned, and the computer began collecting and sorting information. I was up most of the night condensing the data into a short presentation. I must warn you though that the content is a bit shocking. Your friend seems to be having as terrible a vacation as you were just put through.”

  Harlan’s presentation accentuated what an abhorrent invasion of privacy was being perpetrated by the spying agencies.

  I listened to various snippets of conversation between Jim and Lynne. Harlan stressed that he had strung together pieces from several different time periods during the cruise and that his retrieval system only had access to what was said in the cabin itself.

  The result was shocking both because of its content and because Harlan and I were snooping into the most intimate facet of Jim’s life. In short, we were invading his bedroom.

  In the first segment, Jim and Lynne were having a mild argument. Harlan explained that this bit took place on Tuesday.

  “I thought you were at least a bit adventurous,” Lynne barked. “How do you know that a brothel is disgusting unless you try it? I wanted to have sex with a professional stud. Surely you would have enjoyed sampling a delicious young temptress.”

  “That’s not adventurous,” Jim answered angrily. “That’s depraved. I’ve never availed myself of the services of a prostitute and I’m certainly not going to start at my age, especially while I’m on a lovely cruise with the woman I’ve fallen in love with.”

  “Well, if you really want to impress this woman, then you’ve got to rid yourself of some of that old-fashioned stuffiness.”

  The next segment apparently took place yesterday morning and I was mortified after I heard it.

  It began with Jim entering the cabin and finding Lynne in bed with another man. Jim ordered the fellow out immediately and then turned his wrath on Lynne.

  “I’m stupefied that you would accompany me on this romantic cruise and then turn around and have sex with one of the crew right in our own cabin. This is the most egregious affront imaginable and I don’t want anything more to do with you. I’m packing my things and moving into another cabin.”

  “Don’t be an old fuddy-duddy Jim. It wasn’t even a fling, just a romp in the sack which didn’t even get fully completed. Come to bed and finish what you interrupted. I’m still horny.”

  “Lynne, we’re clearly from completely different worlds. Words can’t adequately express my horror at what I’ve just witnessed.”

  There were the unmistakable sounds of a suitcase being packed and then Jim said, “Goodbye, Lynne. Please don’t ever contact me again.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Mr. Boring.”

  The clunk of the cabin door being slammed shut was the final sound.

  “And you thought your vacation was the pits,” Harlan snickered.

  “This is completely wrong, Harlan. How can I possibly face Jim when he gets back home? The type of information you’re gathering is intensely personal.”

  “You’re certainly right in this case, but in other circumstances, we can obtain evidence of a terrorist conspiracy and stop it before it takes place. There’s a delicate trade-off between exposing terrorism and privacy.”

  We argued about that for a while but neither of us could convince the other.

  For Harlan it was a game and an extreme challenge.

  In the end we agreed to remain friends but that I wouldn’t be assisting in any further experiments.

  Harlan had recruited the wrong lawyer to be his partner in blasting away the public’s right to privacy in the name of better security.

  CHAPTER 27 (The Elephant in the Room)

  On Tuesday morning my phone rang at eight o’clock and woke me up.

  It was Corbett.

  “I’m back from the cruise,” he began, “and my internal clock is all out of whack. Let’s go out for breakfast.”

  I showered and dressed and a few minutes later he knocked on my door.

  We took my car and Corbett didn’t even mention the mask. We made small talk on the short drive to the restaurant.

  When we arrived at Molly’s Diner, Jim noticed the damage to the passenger door.

  “What did you do to the door?” he inquired.

  “That’s a bullet hole,” I replied casually.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” he retorted caustically. “You’re still completely full of shit.”

  “I’m not the same boring old fart you knew before you sailed off on your cruise. I had a holiday the likes of which a jaded skeptic like y
ou won’t even believe.”

  We sat at an empty table and placed our order for coffee and the Number One breakfast special.

  “Since you claim that your trip was so extraordinary, Kennedy, then I’ll fill you in first on my vacation. It started off very well but after a few days Lynne and I realized that we weren’t suited to each other after all. I won’t be seeing her again.”

  “That’s a shame, Jim. You certainly seemed to hit it off brilliantly. What places did you see?”

  “We flew to Frankfurt, Germany and caught the river boat there. For the first couple of days we headed south to Heidelberg and then retraced our route back to Mainz. From there we cruised into Belgium and eventually up to the Netherlands. There were some side trips as well, one into Amsterdam and another into Brussels. The scenery was tremendous but the trip got ruined when Lynne and I couldn’t see eye to eye on some things. I spent the last night of the cruise in a separate cabin. It was that bad. That’s enough about me. What happened on your trip?”

  “I got kidnapped on the very first day, which was Tuesday and spent two nights under guard in a hotel room in Washington. Finally I was released on Thursday and flew to Vegas where I was arrested and detained in a casino security room for several hours before being allowed to sleep in my room at the Four Queens. On Friday I was flown back to Syracuse but at the border I was suspected of having abducted a young child, so the border agents arrested me. In the confusion at the border station, one of the idiots shot at me but missed and the bullet blasted into the passenger door and caused the damage you saw. So as you can see, my trip was even worse than yours. There was one tiny bright spot however.”

  “What was that?” Corbett asked with a smile on his face.

  “I only lost $2.75 on the slots before I was yanked off the machine and ordered out of the Golden Nugget.”

  “Why?”

  “Their records showed that I had been blacklisted so two burly casino security guys escorted me out of their establishment.”

  “Are you bullshitting me, Kennedy?”

  “No; in fact I’m only revealing the extreme tip of the iceberg to you. It’s so incredibly complicated that I’m not even going to test your credibility by telling you the whole story. Tell you what, let’s pretend that our recent trips never took place. You can keep all your dirty little secrets and I’ll keep mine.”

  “I guess I can live with that,” Corbett answered. “Can I entice you to come upstairs after supper and imbibe with me?”

  “Sure, that sounds like a great plan.”

  For the rest of the meal we were successful in avoiding talk about our trips.

  I felt uncomfortable and sneaky for having listened in on Jim’s personal conversations with Lynne.

  There was this massive elephant sitting beside us that both of us were choosing to ignore.

  Normally we would tell each other every minute detail of our private lives, but at the moment we both thought that we were harboring deep dark secrets.

  It was most uncomfortable for me.

  CHAPTER 28 (Full Disclosure)

  At seven o’clock I wandered up to Jim’s condo to get hammered with my best friend.

  I carried up a six-pack of Old Milwaukee beer.

  Corbett was already into the Courvoisier and I cracked open my first can and sat down opposite him.

  “The last time we did this was three and a half weeks ago when you dragged me to that charity dance,” I began. “An awful lot has happened to each of us since then.”

  “It has. We were both tossed a bit of romance that night only to have our hopes all blasted to Hell. At least our boring routine back then didn’t crush us emotionally. I can honestly say that I wish I hadn’t insisted that we go to that dance.”

  “I don’t feel that bad about it. I liked Linda and I still haven’t abandoned all hope that her situation might improve and she’ll call me sometime.”

  Jim couldn’t mask his discomfort about what I had just said.

  “If Linda does contact you, let me know about it, please. As for me, I think I’ve decided to remain a bachelor for the rest of my days. Boredom is much preferable to turmoil.”

  We were back to talking about the old days and other lawyers.

  As the amount of alcohol consumed rose, I sensed that the elephant had returned.

  I felt guilty with my illicit knowledge of Jim’s problems with Lynne and it was apparent that Jim wanted to talk about it but was feeling humiliated by what had occurred on the boat.

  Finally I got my nerve up.

  “Jim, I’ve decided that full disclosure is the best policy. Give me your cell phone.”

  He had a puzzled look on his face but he handed me his cell.

  I went to his land line and unplugged the phone from the jack. Then I carted both phones into his bedroom and closed the door tightly before returning to the living-room.

  “Now I want you to turn your computer off completely including the power bar.”

  “I trust there’s a legitimate reason for this foolishness,” he snapped as he closed down his computer.

  “There are two parts to this story, Jim. To begin I’ll disclose in gory detail precisely what happened to me on my trip.”

  I then proceeded to tell Jim exactly what had transpired.

  He appeared to be deep in thought after I mentioned that Matthews played back for me a conversation that Jim and I had shared in this very room, but he didn’t interrupt my story.

  When I paused after telling him about my bedroom jaunt with Mandy, he couldn’t restrain himself.

  “Do you really expect me to believe that you were in the sack with a hooker, Kennedy? I know you better than that.”

  “I’ve still got a few surprises left in my bag of tricks, Corbett. Mandy was certainly one delectable young woman. I’m not fabricating one single part of my story. It’s all the gospel truth.”

  Eventually I got around to the chaos at the Canadian border.

  “That wraps up the first part of my saga, Jim. The second instalment actually involves you and I’m going to apologize in advance for what I did.”

  I then explained how I was lonely and contacted Harlan Matthews simply by tossing out some keywords while speaking near my telephone.

  Jim was flabbergasted when I confirmed that Matthews had actually received my indirect message and had phoned me.

  When I got to the part about using Corbett in Matthews’ experiment to determine whether his system could zero in on a target as far away as Europe without the use of keywords, Jim’s mouth gaped open.

  “Are you going to tell me what I think you are?” he asked incredulously.

  “I’m afraid so, Jim. Harlan played back for me the argument you and Lynne had about the brothel in Amsterdam and also the scene in which you caught Lynne in bed with one of the crew and then packed up your things and left to get your own cabin. It was a nightmare realizing how Harlan’s little experiment had burrowed so deeply into your personal space. I do agree with Lynne that you are Mr. Boring. But all joking aside, to paraphrase a line from you, ‘Words can’t express my horror at how wrong it was to so thoroughly invade your sacred privacy’.”

  Jim’s reaction was the complete opposite of what I expected.

  Instead of being livid with anger, he burst out laughing.

  This time it was my mouth gaping open.

  “I’m actually relieved that you know the whole truth, Kennedy. I so badly wanted to discuss that sordid matter with you but was too embarrassed to divulge any details. Lynne is what I guess you would call a ‘swinger’. She has a compulsion to have sex with different partners and that took me completely by surprise. Absolutely nothing that she did or said until that day trip to Amsterdam had indicated that she was anything but a normal and classy lady.”

  “Lynne wasn’t as brilliant as you made her out to be,” I teased. “Everyone in Kingston already knows what a prude you are. All she needed to do was ask around. It would have saved her having to spend more than
a week in your boring fuddy-duddy company.”

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Kennedy. As bizarre as you are, you know how to make a heartbroken guy feel better. If I can laugh at what happened, then I must be on the road to recovery.”

  “I’m glad to be of service. Since I’ve been candid with you, I want you to return the favor. When I mentioned that I hoped Linda would contact me, you seemed quite uncomfortable and asked me to tell you if it happened. Why was that?”

  “Before our disagreements, Lynne told me quite a bit about her sister. I don’t think she’s a good fit for you. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “If you don’t mind, Jim, I’d rather be told. If my fantasy woman isn’t really the woman of my dreams, then it’s best that I know.”

  “It seems that Linda is a bit of a serial adulteress, Tom. Lynne said that they took a lot of trips together while Linda was married. Let’s just say that prim little Linda had a whale of a time with a shitload of men without her clothes on. If you got serious with her, chances are she’d do the same to you. Those two girls must share some sort of slut gene.”

  “That’s highly disappointing but it’s good to know. Linda came across as very respectable. She did admit that her marriage was no bed of roses but I’m shocked to hear that she screwed around on her hubby when she went off on those trips with Lynne. Maybe we aren’t the great judges of character that we thought we were.”

  Corbett responded in typical fashion.

  “As long as we’re competent at judging fine brandy and cheap beer, we’ll get by just splendidly. Women are severely overrated and chronically disloyal. You’d think we would have learned that lesson from our marriages. Booze will always be our friend and will never disappoint us.”

  “Well said, Corbett.”

  The remainder of the evening was quite lighthearted, no doubt because our former bad moods were well lubricated with liquor.

  We joked around about unfaithful women and oppressive governments until we were too drunk to make any sense at which time I staggered back down to my apartment.