by Avery Duff
Jack said, “Write it up like that, and not one more word with Fanelli. Disclose to me in writing exactly what you told him. Put that in an exhibit to your release, and I’ll agree to it. As long as you and your client both sign off.”
“I agree,” Robert said. “Unless either of us is compelled on the underlying facts.”
More shorthand. Were he compelled to testify about Jack’s behavior by any governmental agency, that part of the deal was off for one simple reason: no court would accept a private agreement as an excuse not to testify about a crime. The party compelled could be jailed for contempt until he saw the error of his ways.
“And one more thing,” Jack said. “If either of you repeats this slander, I want five million in liquidated damages. Joint and several liability, and you and your client pay my attorney’s fees to collect from you.”
Robert hadn’t gotten quite this far gaming this conversation but knew what Jack was driving at. Owing liquidated damages meant Robert and Alison agreed in advance that if they violated the nondisclosure agreement, Jack had been damaged to the tune of $5 million. No dollar amount of actual damage to Jack needed to be proved in a trial.
Joint and several liability, attorney’s fees to collect? If he agreed to this, and Alison talked about what Jack did, the entire five million could come out of her pocket, their pocket—or his pocket alone—as Jack saw fit. Not to mention the added expense of paying Jack’s attorney’s fees.
“No,” Robert said. “The amount of damages is excessive.”
“Why? If you two keep quiet, it will never come up. And if you talk about the underlying allegations, it could cost me far more than that.”
Robert gave it some thought. She didn’t allege actual rape. Liquidated damages for disclosing rape would be unenforceable. No court would make a rape victim pay damages for revealing the crime of rape. But this situation was a relatively minor sexual assault. It was contested by Jack, and no police or medical report existed. Off the top of his head, he believed Jack would have an easy time collecting the $5 million in damages. He also knew he would never breathe a word about the case, but what if Alison violated the nondisclose, and Jack decided to sue only him?
Screw it. Let Jack take a judgment against him. He’d file for bankruptcy, not too far away from what he was facing now.
End of the day, both men were taking a risk. But end of the same day, the exchange of money for secrecy trumped those risks.
Even so, Robert said, “Need to talk to my client. I’ll get back to you tomorrow at the latest.”
“Tonight, if you can.”
“All right.”
Both men were calm. Robert started his car. Jack opened his door and got out. Robert drove away, his head pounding from the immense effort of staying cool. Once he made it off Fourth onto Bay Street, he pulled to a painted-red curb, jumped out of his car, and circled it several times. Then he fist-slammed the hood of his car and yelled, “Gotcha!”
“What if I asked if you wanted to be financially secure for the foreseeable future?”
“Trick question, right?”
During her lunch break, Alison and Robert walked out along the Venice Pier.
“Humor me,” he said.
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about that before. But sure, yeah.”
“There’s only one catch,” he said.
“Knew it. So I’m not gonna be a royal?”
He stopped, turned to her. “You can be a royal if you can keep a secret about what happened between you and Pierce. Not the queen, more like a duchess.”
She saw how serious he looked. “My answer, it’s that important?”
So far, he’d told her only that he’d met Jack that morning, not that they’d reached a number. He was comfortable keeping it from her because he had her power of attorney.
“Think about it,” he said. “Did you talk to anyone besides me about what actually happened between you and Jack?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said.
“Anybody back east, anyone in Florida you might have called, anybody in your building, at work, at the hospital? Anyone you e-mailed or texted?”
She agreed to go over her records and her phone history since that night to see if she had forgotten someone.
“Because if you forget someone,” he said, “you won’t be a duchess anymore.”
“How many times have I called you about the case?” she asked. He was still thinking about it when she said, “When I call you tonight, that will be the first time. I don’t like talking about it—I start getting mad at myself and at him, and what good does that do?”
“Got it,” he said.
They reached the end of the pier, way past where the surf broke. Out where the concrete deck turned into a hundred-foot-wide gladiator’s circle.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “When we’re done with this lawsuit, we’ll come out here and jump off the pier.”
“Only if we sneak out after it’s closed,” she added.
Hard for him not to like her. The two of them bumped fists on their future pier jump. Cool girl, he was thinking, retro in leopard flip-flops, madras Bermuda shorts, and a Sidewalk Cafe 100 percent cotton T-shirt.
He was thinking, too, about how private it was way out here. How it might be a good place to meet someone late, hush-hush, on the sly.
CHAPTER 21
No tricks, gimmicks, or legal games—he and Jack each wanted this over and done. That night he was deep into drafting the release when Alison touched base. She was positive she hadn’t told anyone about what had happened to her. Far as he was concerned, that made her a dream client.
Next morning, he worked till about noon, then put on his sweats and jogged over to Gold’s. After working out, he grabbed a smoked-brisket sandwich to go from Gjusta on Sunset Avenue and headed home. But even after working out, he had trouble staying focused on Alison’s agreement. Lack of focus, a rarity for him.
Apparently, from the phone calls he’d been getting, he was still in light rotation with a few women he’d dated. At first, he thought his lack of interest had to do with the pressure of this situation. Or spending $500 on a date, ending up with a hangover and third-degree sheet burns, questioning why he’d bothered in the first place. Back of his mind, though, he knew what it was really about. His client. The woman. Alison Maxwell.
On his way home, thoughts of her were interrupted by a text rolling in from Gia’s number:
Mr. Worth. Bel-Air Hotel. Suite 207.
Gia? Must’ve saved my number, he thought. Maybe she changed her mind about inviting me inside? Didn’t matter. Right now, he didn’t have time for a detour, even for her. Then Gia’s second text showed up. This one stopped him in his tracks:
Don’t embarrass yourself w/your client, Mr. Worth.
Your client? What was she talking about? He’d been intentionally vague about his client when he met her at Santa Anita.
Embarrass yourself? he wondered. About what?
At home, he polished off the brisket and kept thinking about her texts. Wondered if a prior text had been dropped in transmission. It happened sometimes. Too many Westsiders with multiple cell phones hated cell-phone towers. He muted his phone.
Ten minutes passed. He fidgeted at his computer, trying to reengage with Alison’s paperwork. It wasn’t working. He grabbed his cell phone—no new texts—and called Gia’s number. On her voice mail, he asked her to give him a call.
A half hour later, he broke down again, texting her when her next text came in:
Mr. Worth. Risk Never Sleeps by Seymour Watkins. Suite 207
What?
Driving to the Bel-Air five minutes later, he caught a break going north on Twenty-Sixth. A half hour after that, he made a left off Sunset Boulevard onto Stone Canyon Road. Once he’d valeted his car at the hotel and passed drunken newlyweds groping each other by the swan pool, he took an exterior, trellised corridor that ran sidelong through the grounds. Spanish tile underfoot, bougainvillea overhead, ul
traromantic, if that’s why you happened to be here.
Then he reached Suite 207, knocked softly.
Seconds later, Gia opened the door. “My man,” she said. “How you been?”
“Great,” he said, stepping inside the suite. Its sleek, muted tones looked more W now than like its old-Hollywood roots.
She was casual in loose-fitting jeans again and a white oxford-cloth shirt. Looked like a man’s clothes, but Gia didn’t look like a man in them.
“You look great, too, Mr. Worth, but appearances are always deceiving in this town.”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “Drink?” and walked over to the bar.
He sat down on the couch, put his cell phone on the coffee table, and turned on Record. “I’m keeping track of what we talk about, Gia.”
She put her phone on the table, too. Hers was turned off. “Fair enough. I’m not. Not yet.”
“And if you have another device recording this, you don’t have my consent to use it, right?”
“Sure, but it’s no fun teasing you if you record me.”
“Do your best.”
No matter what, he could not discuss Alison’s case. Otherwise, he and Jack would be arguing about disclosure of this third-party conversation, too. “You texted me, said some things I don’t get. What did you mean by embarrass myself?”
“Right,” she said. “With your client. Scotch and water?”
“Without the Scotch. Let’s hear it.”
She brought over their drinks. “Well, there’s quite a bit you don’t know about Jack Pierce,” she said, sitting down across from him.
It dawned on him, she could well be on Jack’s team. What was it Jack told him? Gia Marquez has nothing but good things to say about me and always will. And there it was: Gia bringing him up right off the bat.
“I know enough,” was all he told Gia.
“Did you know we met here Saturday night? Me and Jack?”
Saturday night. That meant after the firm party. He didn’t answer but couldn’t help thinking: The Bel-Air is a five-minute drive down the hill from the Brightwell estate.
She kept going: “Met here for a long, long time. He accused me of conspiring with you. He thinks the two of us are trying to blackmail him.”
“So what? He was wrong. It won’t be the last time.”
“Hard to blame him for thinking that, Mr. Worth. Twenty thousand cash? You knew how much he gave me, to the dollar, so it didn’t matter how many times I denied it.”
“Like I said, won’t be the last time.”
“How long were you following me?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“You must’ve seen my receipt. No way you waited around for days inside my bank, so you saw me where? Saddle Peak?” Nothing from Robert. “Earlier? Later?” she asked. Still nothing from him. “Boy, did he underestimate you or what?”
“He or we?”
“I never did. You’ll see what I mean, I swear.”
He only nodded.
She took a drink and said, “What have you done to Mr. Worth? When’s he gonna come out and play?”
“Your texts. Embarrass yourself, Ms. Marquez? With your client?”
“Oh, that,” she said. “Guess you could say, once Dorothy washes down a couple of bedtime Xanax with vodka, school’s out for Jack. Did you know this suite is where he brings his women? Not 208 or 206. Always 207. He’s predictable once you know him, very predictable once you know where to look. Did you know he likes doing girls two at a time? Right here, whenever he can swing it?”
He had no idea where she was taking this.
She said, “And sometimes it gets a little rough—not hard hard-core—but the boy has an aggressive kink. Whips. Handcuffs, those amyl nitrites you mentioned to him, toys large and small, that kind of thing.”
“Where does he score the amyls?”
“Don’t know the guy or the girl, even. They talk in code on a burner, talking something about the grunion.”
“Top secret. I’ll cuff him up and piss on him if he’s into that,” he offered.
“He’s back!” She reached out for a fist bump.
He bumped her and stood. “Pierce is kinky, I get it, but I’m not embarrassed, and I don’t need help. As far as risk never sleeps? It’s catchy and it’s true, but Seymour Watkins? I never heard of the guy.”
She stood, too. “Well. I’m kind of embarrassed about what comes next, so . . .”
Gia, embarrassed? Hard to imagine.
At the bar, she made another drink, not smiling anymore. She didn’t drink at the track or at firm parties that he could recall. This was her second drink since he’d gotten here, and he’d never seen her nervous about anything.
“We kid around a lot, but I do like you,” she said. “And I respect you. So, anyway . . .”
Stalling, he could tell. She headed into the bedroom. He followed her. Being here couldn’t be about having sex. He didn’t see her being nervous about that. Him, maybe, not her.
In the bedroom, her bikini already lay on the bed: black fabric on top of white bedcovers. So small he might have missed it if he wasn’t paying attention.
She picked it up and said, “All those kinks and whips and cuffs and stuff, it’s funny. Because when you think about it, the girls aren’t prisoners. Jack is.”
“Prisoner? You mean, Dorothy?”
“Worse than that. Lionel. Give me your phone, I don’t want you to miss anything.”
Once he handed it over, she slipped into the bathroom, set his phone on the counter. “Don’t look,” she said, leaving the door open.
He lay down on the bed, stared at the ceiling till he heard her say: “How can I still get zits?” Rolling over, he looked in the bathroom. She was eyeballing her forehead in the mirror, and she was naked.
“C’mon, talk to me,” he said, still looking at her in spite of his good intentions.
She gave him a little smile, like she was telling him, “Nice body, huh?” not making a big deal out of it. Long legs, moca skin from her Latino father, jet-black hair from both parents. Toned but never set foot in a gym, he bet. She stepped into the bikini bottom and pulled it up. Then the top. That took a little longer. After that, he stopped looking at her like she’d asked in the first place.
“How much do you know about the firm?” she asked. “The real firm?”
He knew there was what firms revealed in Martindale-Hubbell, the who’s who of law firms. Then there was what really made a law firm tick, down in its dark basement. There was a time Robert believed he had a handle on both ends, learned at Philip’s feet, until Jack blindsided him. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“Why not tell me about the real firm?” he asked. “Am I still recording this?”
She checked his phone. “Yep,” she said. “So here goes. Once upon a time, a good man named Oliver Dudley married a sweet Texas girl who lived in Bel-Air. Dorothy Brightwell was her name. Oliver worked as a lawyer for her daddy at his big oil company—”
“Worked as house counsel,” he corrected.
“Right, but when all that bad stuff went down and the price of oil and gas tanked, even though it wasn’t his fault, Oliver took it real hard. So hard that one night, in that beautiful house where he lived with his beautiful wife and her father, he stroked out in bed.”
Robert was thinking, Oliver took it hard because he was, as Philip often said, a good man. A big reason why he’d been Philip’s best friend.
She asked, “You drove Philip to Oliver’s funeral, didn’t you?”
He nodded, felt her weight as she sat down at the end of the bed. Day of that funeral back in 2011, he remembered it. He’d been at the firm less than a year and had Lionel’s bite-happy beagle on his mind.
She laid his phone on his belly. He opened another voice file and hit Record. “Yeah. I drove Philip to Forest Lawn. He was really torn up.”
“An old-school gent. I like Mr. Fanelli. Do you? Still?”
Still like Philip Fanelli?
He shrugged. At one time, he loved Philip like a father.
“Let’s see how much you like him after hearing this,” she said, getting back to the funeral. “There we were at the cemetery, a death in the firm family, and we all turned out. You, me, Pierce, Fanelli, Chase, all the others. A command performance, right?”
He nodded.
“Lots of sad people, and boy, Dorothy was torn up and messed up, too. And Jack and I, we were still hot and heavy, but on the sly.”
Jack again, he was thinking. Careful, Robert.
“After the casket was lowered, Dorothy wheeled Lionel to the limo, and Jack helped her inside. Oh, wait. First, he took her hand. Then he hugged her. Then he helped her inside. All the girls from the office noticed, all of us going, Are you kidding? I mean, Oliver’s casket wasn’t all the way to the bottom of the grave, or maybe it was, but you get it, right?”
Another nod. He had to take her word for it. He’d been focused on Philip. Worried he might take a header on that bunched-up artificial turf underfoot.
“And Lionel,” she asked, “remember how bad he looked?”
“I do.” Philip had commented on it in Robert’s car afterward. On death’s doorstep was how Philip had put it.
“So now,” Gia said, “we’re all up at the big house, and everybody’s having drinks and sucking up to Lionel. Jack and I snuck upstairs.”
“Upstairs where?”
“Lionel’s bedroom, I’m pretty sure. There was an oxygen tank.”
He looked at her, cross-legged in that mesh bikini. “Really?”
She hid her face in her hands. “I know, just fooling around, but still. And so, anyway, ten minutes later, downstairs—boom. He asked Dorothy to show him around.”
Balls on that guy, he thought.
“That night, I waited for him here in 207 like we planned—but he never showed. Thing is,” she said, “before I left the estate—and this is what I want you to know—I went into the living room to tell Lionel I was sorry, polite like my parents taught me. He was sitting in his wheelchair, and I thought he was so sad, looking off in the distance. Gazing like old people do sometimes.”