Stephanie had never heard him sound so impassioned. At last a cause Mel thought was worth fighting for, the good looking flight attendant.
“And I’m not just talking about looking at these hags, Stephanie. At two-hundred pounds, they’re fucking safety hazards. What if there’s an emergency, and one gets stuck in the chute? Or the toilet?” Melvin shook his head.
“So, what did you argue in opposition to Michaels’ motion?”
She looked at the stack of resumes on his desk. Completely unsolicited, several arrived each day. She’d never find another job.
“Judge Franklin asked Stanworth if he’d promised to produce the deponent and—”
“—the judges favor plaintiffs’ lawyers. Michaels always gets his way. If I can’t convince a judge, you sure as hell can’t.” Melvin waved his hand.
“There’s a rumor about him and a Victoria’s Secret Model. Have you heard anything, Stephanie?”
“No.”
“It’s probably just happening on the Internet.” Melvin smirked.
“Next time, I see him with a laptop, I’ll notice if he’s typing with one hand. Au Revoir, Mel.”
Chapter Sixteen
The coffee smelled richly sensual. In France, ordinary smells became sublime. On the quiet clay terrace, looking at fields of lavender, Stephanie sipped coffee from a bright yellow cup. The hotel had flawless gardens.
Forget the deposition. The mountains that inspired Cezanne and Van Gogh stood regal in the distance. Nature, at its most exquisite, looked back at her. She never wanted to leave this terrace. And the best part came when they gave her the bill. Just a swipe of her company card, and it was taken away. Corporate life came easy.
Then she remembered Harlan. He was paying his own bill. He’d put his own money into this case. And he might never get it back.
She knew she shouldn’t care about an opponent. But she did. She left for Adam Banks’ deposition. Harlan wore an impenetrable gaze that revealed nothing.
At his side, he had stacks of yellow legal pads and documents.
Stephanie realized she knew little about the man who commanded all her senses to attention.
“You’ve had your deposition taken numerous times?” He asked as an opening gambit to the distinguished looking gentleman who sat across the table.
“Yes.” He watched Harlan warily. He wasn’t at all fooled by Harlan’s casual jeans, shirt and loafers-without-socks attire. Harlan was a deadly, dangerous opponent.
Taylor Stanworth looked uncharacteristically pleased. The South of France seemed to agree with him. In France, he couldn’t complain about the coffee, the food, or the wine. Or the lack of culture or taste. Conversely, France could complain about him.
Stephanie watched the deponent. An elegant gentleman, in the later years of his life, Adam Banks looked far removed from the carnage multipiece wheels left on the roadway. She couldn’t imagine him harming anyone. But before Kathy was even born, Safety Tire knew that multipiece wheels should be recalled. And they also knew that any recall could cost millions. They stood to lose a pile of money. The ease with which Safety Tire had manipulated The National Highway Traffic Safety Association’s investigation horrified even cynical lawyers. Money from Safety Tire’s European slush funds-garnered from kickbacks paid by their European suppliers-mysteriously landed in the coffers of a Committee to Reelect a President. The investigation closed days later without a recall. How convenient.
“There may have been campaign contributions made by employees of Safety Tire at the time. Motivated solely by an altruistic concern for the welfare of our country.” Adam Banks spread his hands apart.
“Weren’t the employee campaign contributions funded by Safety Tire?” Stephanie sat close enough to Harlan to sense his muscles tensing as he asked the question. His face revealed nothing. Access to Harlan Michaels was unavailable.
“Well, employees are paid by Safety Tire funds.” Adam Banks said smugly.
Smooth witness. Harlan Michaels had met his match. Their eyes met like wary lions. Winner take all.
Stephanie looked at Harlan. His entire practice was built on cases like this. With each case, he didn’t know if he’d ever collect a penny. Yet his passion and zeal were unparalleled by the comfortably fat $500.00 an hour corporate lawyers. Harlan spent hours on a case, giving it his best, living and breathing it, unsure if he’d ever collect a penny on it. His entire practice was built on that uncertainty. Yet he never gave any less of himself. If anything he gave more, because he carried the hopes and dreams of each client on his shoulders. He was the proverbial knight in shining armor. And the armor was heavy.
“Is it your testimony today that these Safety Tire employees made campaign contributions to the Committee to Reelect the President solely from paychecks?”
“Uh. I don’t know. I don’t recall.” Came the unoriginal response.
“Did you recall anything at the time you gave testimony before Congress?”
So unflappable before, he flinched now, and his Riviera tan whitened.
“Money was donated to the campaign. I don’t remember how exactly. You’re a young man. At my age, the memory starts to go with everything else.” He smiled with a charm that had wormed out of worse situations.
It would take more than compliments to charm Harlan Michaels off a case. It would take settlement money. And a lot of it. He continued doggedly, determined to get testimony regarding what was obviously a well-compensated decision to avoid the recall of multipiece wheels.
“From what source of company funds did the money come to cover the contributions to the Committee to Reelect the President?”
“Look, I was never the Chief Financial Officer of Safety Tire.”
“I think we can all read your employment history from the resume I’ll mark as Exhibit One. Did the money come from profits?”
“I guess.”
“Did you report the contributions to your shareholders?” Harlan asked as he put a hand on Stephanie’s arm. His touch felt like a current of electricity flowing through her.
“I’m going to object to this line of questioning.” Taylor Stanworth looked up from his newspaper.
“On what grounds?” Harlan and Stephanie looked at each other as they spoke in unison.
“Relevancy.”
“Relevancy is not a proper objection at deposition. Are you instructing the witness not to answer?”
“Yes.”
“Madame Court Reporter, please mark this section of the transcript. Mr. Banks, your lawyer has just advised you not to answer the question. If you choose to follow your lawyer’s advice, I will go to court and ask the judge to order you to answer the question. And I’ll request sanctions against you and your attorney. In other words, this won’t be the last time you see me. Now that being said, are you going to follow your lawyer’s advice, Sir?”
“Yes.”
“Did any of these Safety Tire employees report their generous campaign contributions to shareholders?”
“I don’t know, Sir.” He fidgeted like a schoolboy caught in a lie.
“You don’t know if they communicated their altruistic concern for the country as manifested by their generous campaign contributions to Safety Tire’s shareholders?”
“No.”
“How long have you had your home in France?”
“We bought it thirty years ago.” He smiled at the memory.
“So you spent a lot of time in Europe while you were working at Safety Tire?” As Harlan asked the question, Stephanie looked at an old calendar detailing the former executive’s travels.
Adam Banks watched her read the chronicling of his business trips one of Safety Tire’s clerks had mistakenly produced in response to a subpoena.
“Sure. I made yearly business trips to our European distributors.”
“Did Safety Tire set up bank accounts in Europe to accommodate transactions more commonly known as kickbacks from European distributors?”
“I don’t think he kn
ows. He was never Safety Tire’s Chief Financial Officer.” Stanworth interjected.
“Don’t testify, Mr. Stanworth. This isn’t about what you think. If I want your deposition, I’ll notice it.”
Stephanie began to rifle through voluminous documents. She thought Harlan would rip the case open with this deposition. Yet it didn’t look like that was going to happen.
“Didn’t the political contributions come from slush funds set up in Switzerland out of kickbacks paid by Safety Tire’s European distributors?” Harlan asked.
“Not that I’d know. I can’t imagine.” Adam Banks shrugged.
“Do you need a break? I just noticed you were grimacing.” Harlan asked the court reporter.
“Yes. I’d like a break.” The court reporter looked embarrassed as soon as she said it. She looked down at the floor as she walked out of the room.
“You’re hard on the court reporter! You didn’t notice that she needed a break?” Taylor teased Stephanie.
“I knew that Harlan would not take his eyes off her,” she said.
“That’s cold. You could get someone in trouble. I just happened to look up at her.” Harlan protested.
They came back from break. The court reporter looked at Harlan with unabashed adoration.
“The income from the slush funds was never reported to the Internal Revenue Service, was it?” Harlan asked.
“Take the Fifth!” Taylor Stanworth jumped up and shouted, spilling his bottled water in the process.
“I take the Fifth.” His client obligingly parroted. Taylor Stanworth ran to the door and yelled for a maid to clean up his mess.
“I don’t know if the campaign contributions were made to influence the National Highway Traffic Safety Association’s planned recall of multipiece wheels. I am being honest. I honestly didn’t know anything about any planned recall,” he said, nervously shifting his eyes away from Harlan.
Stephanie wondered if anyone who made a point of saying “I am honest” ever spoke the truth.
“And you seem like an honest guy,” Taylor Stanworth said as an ingratiating afterthought.
“So you didn’t know about a potential recall’s costs to Safety Tire at the time you assisted with tendering the political contributions?”
“No sir.”
“You didn’t know about the planned levying of a substantial fine against Safety Tire?”
“No.” He looked genuinely befuddled.
“You hadn’t heard anything about accidents involving multipiece wheels? Is that your testimony?” Harlan asked incredulously.
“Well, I knew that the parts corroded over time. And that can cause problems. Everything goes with time, my wife always says. I’m getting so old.”
“Could the corrosion of these multipiece wheel parts be observed by a truck driver?”
“Objection. Calls for speculation. May call for an expert opinion.”
“Ms. St. Claire, I don’t like reading a transcript filled with objections.” Harlan’s voice had a patronizing tone.
“Well, you’ll find things happen that you don’t like in life, Mr. Michaels. I will continue to make objections for the record.” Stephanie fumed. She had to protect her client.
The brown eyes that had danced when they ran down the fire escape at Kathy’s school turned cold. If eyes were the windows of the soul, Harlan Michaels had just closed the blinds.
He watched the defiant set of her chin. More than anything, he wanted to win this case.
“You never warned consumers about the inherent dangers of continued use of these wheels?” Harlan asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t recall.” The uninspired response.
“If there were problems associated with continued use of these multipiece wheels over time, wouldn’t you agree that it was Safety Tire’s duty to warn people of these problems?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wouldn’t you agree that no one besides Safety Tire was in a better position to warn of potential problems arising from the continued use of these multipiece wheels?”
“I haven’t been at the office in a long time.” He tried slipping away from Harlan again, avoiding the question, counting on the distraction.
“What time is it?” Another favorite evading technique. Answer a question with a question. In American English, much to the purist European’s dismay, someone will always answer. In American English.
“Three o’clock.”
Chapter Seventeen
Harlan hadn’t got all the answers he wanted. That much Stephanie knew. Still, even from the other side, she had to admire the way he took on Safety Tire. All Kathy had on her side was one guy. But he had the courage of David.
“Harlan, you’re amazing.” Stephanie blurted in the hall.
“I can be,” he said.
“You must hear that all the time.” She twirled her hair behind one ear.
“I’ve heard that sometimes.” He smiled.
“Do you want to go to dinner? Pick any place you want. Money’s no object.” Taylor looked at Stephanie.
“Sure. Lets go to dinner,” Harlan said.
“This is unbelievable.” Taylor Stanworth paced around a hotel villa. Stephanie looked at his exquisite fruit basket, antique furnishings and unobstructed view of the Luberon range. She wondered what had caused the affront.
“My Wall Street Journal!” He screamed. “They still haven’t brought my Wall Street Journal!”
On the way to dinner, two maids, a security guard and a crowd of German tourists also learned that Taylor Stanworth hadn’t received his Wall Street Journal.
“I bet it still isn’t there,” he said as he perused over the wine list.
“Monsieur?” Their garcon looked puzzled.
“My Wall Street Journal!” He bellowed again.
“You can have mine, Taylor,” Harlan said.
“You have one?” Taylor’s adam apple did its Harlan dance again.
“They dropped one off this morning.” He shrugged.
Stephanie tried not to laugh.
“Thanks, Harlan,” Taylor said furiously.
“It’s nothing. Just settle the case,” Harlan said.
“Why don’t you just read The Wall Street Journal online?” Stephanie asked.
“They’re supposed to deliver one to me here.”
They postured their case positions during the five course meal. Stephanie had a headache. Dinner with Harlan and Taylor just extended the work day. She kept thinking about Kathy. A little girl who would never have dinner with her family again. And the lawyers just sat in the South of France battling over how much money that should be worth. Harlan and Taylor fought over the check. She could have joined the battle. She had the platinum card to do it. But this was the kind of sexism she liked. Taylor won.
“Were you bluffing about a fine?” She asked Harlan out of Taylor’s earshot.
“Are you bluffing about the whole case? Tell me honestly.”
“Honestly? I’m a lawyer and I’m your opponent. I’m a woman and I’m attracted. And you ask for honesty? No way, Harlan.”
Chapter Eighteen
Alone in her room at last, she slid between the sheets. Europe, Harlan Michaels, and a multi-million dollar case were overwhelming for one day. She reached only for the arms of Morpheous.
Of course, she couldn’t sleep. She thought about calling her neighbor Jake and groggily tried to calculate the time difference. But then, like a gloating victor, insomnia looked away for a moment, and she drifted off to sleep.
A clopping noise jolted her wide awake. Someone in the room above her paced. Infuriated, sure that her only window of opportunity for sleep had closed, Stephanie sprang to her feet. She grabbed her case file and threw it at the ceiling. The pacing stopped.
She sprang upright again. The creep had the nerve to pace again. The room shook with creaks. Stephanie threw on a soft white bathrobe. She’d tell the creep off. She shoved the door open.
“Quiet.” She yelled. �
��Je voudrais a dormez!”
“Then quit hitting the ceiling! And honey, your French is pathetic!”
“How dare you attack my French?! And I am not your honey!” Stephanie yelled up at the angry, contorted face of Harlan Michaels, who wore an identical hotel bathrobe.
“Stephanie? What are you doing up? You need your sleep!”
“Oh, thank you for the always sage advice, Harlan. Maybe you could quit race-walking around the room for a few minutes.”
In Provence, there’s a fierce wind called a mistral. It’s known for knocking out power, felling decades old trees, and occasionally, sweeping a Le Car off the ground. Tonight, the mistral caused two hotel room doors to simultaneously slam shut. It also caused two lawyers to simultaneously curse the mistral.
And so they stormed over to the hotel desk clerk, in identical robes, arms swinging, hands clenched in anger. The hotel clerk looked happily soused in one of the region’s wines. A portly, dark haired fellow, he peered uncomprehendingly, but then what French person wouldn’t, at Harlan’s and Stephanie’s barely intelligible college French.
“Le lune de miel!!” He clapped his hands.
“Oh no, Harlan, he thinks that we are honeymooners!”
“Oh Christ. What a nightmare.”
“NO NO NO! NO LE LUNE DE MIEL! ! !” Stephanie screamed at the hapless clerk. “Nos sommes avocats. We are lawyers! We are opponents in a case!”
He looked perplexed at Harlan. “You need to calm your woman down,” he said slowly in heavily accented English. He offered Harlan a bottle of red wine.
“To calm your woman down,” he explained. They stood speechless. Their college French was embarrassing. Skilled at argument, they remained powerless to respond to this misunderstanding. The hotel clerk, in a well-intentioned gesture of romanticism, picked up another bottle of wine from a lobby entry table as he motioned for them to follow him outside.
Stephanie clutched her robe while the mistral pierced through her body, threatening to knock her over. The determined clerk, walking with his chin set against his chest, braved the wind, and continued on past their rooms, keys in hand, oblivious to their screams to turn around.
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