Lethal Lawyers

by Dale E. Manolakas

  “Make sure Yolanda called 911 . . . and . . . and Detective Rutger,” Chet stammered at Marvin nearby.

  “Detective Rutger? What for?” Marvin asked. “It was a massive coronary.”

  “Do it,” Chet ordered.

  “Okay.”

  “Was anyone in there?” Chet turned to Taylor.

  “We tried to revive him.”

  “I was . . .” Sophia wanted to volunteer her rendition of events.

  Chet interrupted. “Get out. Both of you. This isn't a three-ring-circus.”

  They joined Marvin at Yolanda’s desk.

  Chet followed, closing the door with solemnity.

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  Chapter 73

  Between the Shadow and the Substance

  Lies the Question

  By now, every secretary and attorney on the floor had gathered near the office and down the halls. They were passing the word that Dante had suffered a massive coronary and chattering openly about his weight. Something they never would have done before. Taylor and Sophia were still nearby, but Roger, Joe, and Marvin had sequestered themselves in Joe’s office with the door shut.

  Suddenly, Toak came running down the hall, pushing through the crowd.

  Marlene followed.

  Chet grabbed the phone from Yolanda.

  “Yes, we’re sure he’s dead, Detective Rutger. We’re not stupid. Now get someone over here. He’s been murdered.”

  Chet threw the phone back at Yolanda and turned and started to leave.

  “Murdered! What’s that smell?” Toak yelled as he approached with Marlene in tow.

  “It’s him,” Chet reacted. “It’s Dante. He’s dead. He must have been dead for days.”

  “That’s impossible,” Toak stammered. “Here? In his office? I can't . . . That’s just impossible.”

  “What do you mean?” Chet yelled in Toak’s face. “It’s not impossible. Judith’s dead. Frank’s dead. Why can’t Dante be dead? And who’s next?”

  “Quiet, Chet. Look around you.”

  “Go to hell. I don’t care who’s around. You’re not on the Management Committee. No one’s after you!”

  Chet pushed his way past Toak and the onlookers, knocking Marlene to the floor.

  Toak ran up to Marlene, got her up, and made sure she was all right.

  Toak shouted at Chet’s back, “Watch who you’re pushing.”

  Chet turned around and came back, towering over Toak and blasted in his face, “She shouldn’t be here. And by here, I mean at the firm. You get rid of her, or I will. I’m sick of you whoring around on your wife. Your long-term fuck could cost us a fortune when she realizes that’s what she is . . . just a convenient fuck.”

  “Watch it, Chet. You should talk. At least, I wasn’t stupid enough to scrawl ‘Too Old’ on that memo firing that ‘mature’ associate. ‘Too Old’. Remember? That actually did cost us a fortune.”

  In a flash and without warning, Chet landed his fist on Toak’s jaw, and Toak was down.

  “Come on. Get up. Fight, you sorry excuse for a man.”

  Chet was poised with his fist raised, ready to pummel Toak if he stood.

  “Come on, Daddy’s boy.”

  Toak sat there, stunned. It was unclear if he was cowed or just couldn’t get his bearings.

  Carlisle came double time down the hall from the elevators. He shoved through the now scattered onlookers.

  “Chet. Chet! Stop. Get a grip. Stop.”

  Mousey Marlene looked at all the people standing around and started to cry.

  Sophia was riveted on her female nemesis. “Really?” She thought. “The little woman actually believed her arrangement with the philandering half-man wasn’t public?” Sophia enjoyed Marlene’s well-earned pain and humiliation.

  Chet lowered his fist and turned to Carlisle. “And then there were two, my friend.”

  “Do something useful.” Carlisle calmed the situation. “Set up a conference call with the New York office, Chet.”

  “Fine.”

  Chet stormed down the hall and the onlookers parted, giving him a wide birth.

  Toak strained in his elevator shoes to stand. Marlene helped him, as he had her. Toak glared at the onlookers, defying anyone else to say anything. Marlene burst out sobbing. He put his arm around her shoulders. He took her to the elevator.

  Carlisle turned to the gathered group and addressed them in his usual calm voice with his usual Southern charm.

  “I’m sorry everyone. This is an emotional time. You could help by going back to your desks. Please clear the halls.”

  Sophia found his composure and leadership remarkable.

  * * *

  As the halls emptied, Sophia saw James Tang turn and leave with his stack of discovery documents that Dante never had reviewed, and never would now.

  Carlisle went to Dante’s office and slowly opened the door to see what had happened. He stopped and took his silk yellow handkerchief, which matched his tie, from his breast pocket. He held it over his nose and went into the office. When he came out he leaned on the doorjamb.

  “Oh, no. Dante. What a waste,” Carlisle muttered shaking his head. “Poor man.”

  “Who found him?” Carlisle asked a moment later, again in full control. “Who found him? You?”

  Carlisle looked at Yolanda sitting back at her desk.

  “No, I didn’t think he was in yet. Sophia did. She was leaving something on his desk.”

  “You found him, Sophia?”

  Carlisle approached her.

  She looked into Carlisle’s eyes and saw in them the same raw animal fear she had seen before.

  “Yes. I opened the door and saw his head back staring at the ceiling. He didn’t move.”

  “Head back? Staring at the ceiling? But his eyes are shut now. His head is down. Who was in there?”

  “I . . . Well, they tried to revive him, I think, and . . .”

  “Never mind.” Carlisle shooed Sophia away.

  Carlisle quietly walked slowly down the hall. He didn’t even look up at the arriving paramedics racing past him.

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  Chapter 74

  911 and Done

  The paramedics cleared everyone away from the office and went in to search for a pulse.

  Marvin, Roger, and Joe came out of Joe’s office and stood near Dante’s door.

  “He’s dead,” one paramedic said. “At this weight, probably a massive coronary. Airway’s clear. No signs of trauma.”

  “He’s been dead at least a day,” the other paramedic said, turning to Joe, Marvin and Roger at the door. “Do you know what happened here?”

  “I don’t know,” Marvin replied. “We tried to revive him. There was no pulse. Nothing.”

  “Yeah, we tried,” Taylor emphasized. “But he must have died yesterday.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He had his weekend casuals on.”

  “Ah . . . Who found him?” one paramedic asked.

  Roger pointed at Sophia.

  A paramedic pulled Sophia aside and asked what happened. She hated this. She was yet another prime witness. But, just because she found him didn’t mean she knew anything, and she told them that, unequivocally.

  The paramedics were just as glad this was a coroner problem, because they had no idea how to get such a big guy out of there on a gurney.

  With the excitement over, the attorneys went back to billing and the secretaries went to the coffee room to prattle. Taylor joined Sophia.

  “Why didn’t you wait this morning . . . when you came into my office?” Taylor said. “I just had to get off the phone.”

  “You were busy.” Sophia was guarded because she suspected Taylor and his friends knew Dante was dead on Saturday and were either grave robbers, or maybe even more evil than that.

  “Never too busy for you.”

  “I had things to do.” Sophia thought that sharing anything with Taylor at the moment was questionable.

  “I’m sorry you found Dante
. Really sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry? It isn’t your fault he’s dead.” She looked straight at him and wondered if it was.

  Taylor studied her for a long silent moment.

  “You’ve been through enough.” He put his arm around Sophia’s shoulders.

  “Not here.” Sophia stepped away.

  “Sorry.”

  “I liked him.” Sophia held back her tears. “He was a nice man and very lonely. He didn’t deserve to die and rot with take-out chicken.”

  “I know. I liked him, too. Everyone liked him. Even his opponents, whom he mercilessly crushed. He was a great litigator.”

  “I don’t think I can go to another funeral.”

  Sophia cared that Dante was dead. She cared that Taylor and his friends were ransacking Dante’s office on Saturday. She was angry. She wanted information and, although a novice, knew some interrogation techniques to get it.

  “I agree with you he must have died on Sunday, like you said.”

  “Yeah . . . but why do you say that?”

  “Because I heard you and your friends in his office Saturday when I came by. You would have noticed if he were dead, wouldn’t you?”

  She smiled pleasantly at him. Taylor smiled back and then looked over at Joe.

  “We were at the funeral. It must have been Dante’s Baby Seat team," Joe interjected. “Taylor, let’s go. Chet will need help.”

  “Sure. I’ll drop by later, Sophia.”

  Taylor and Joe left. Sophia knew they were involved. Either as opportunists stealing files, which was ghoulish, or far worse. But she liked watching them squirm, for the moment at least.

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  Chapter 75

  Marking Time

  Sophia locked her door when she got to her office. She needed to think. Regroup. She had already lashed out at Taylor and his friends when she shouldn’t have. The detective’s warnings were ensconced in the back of her mind.

  She called Tricia’s office and then cell. She texted, but there was no response.

  Billables ran through Sophia’s mind, or rather their absence. No cases. No billing. No Dante, whom she was convinced would have given her a chance against Toak’s stonewalling. No Carlisle, who was conferencing with Chet and the New York office. No Taylor, whom Sophia knew was strategizing a firm takeover or, conceivably, covering up a murder. No Paul until she knew she could trust him not to leak information, even tangentially. No Tricia returning her calls. Perhaps Tricia was afraid. Dead bodies did seem to turn up around Sophia.

  “You there?” Detective Rutger called from the other side of her door as he knocked.

  Sophia did not answer. She couldn’t deal with him now. The detective and his dead bodies did not interest her. She had her own problem: survival in a den of thieves and possibly a murderer, from whom she had no ready means of escape—no other firm to which she could jump, not yet. She had not been at Thorne & Chase long enough. She was a caged animal for the foreseeable future.

  She continued to ignore the detective’s knocks and sat quietly and still.

  Another, louder knock came.

  The locked door handle resisted the detective’s twists. With each second, Sophia found it harder not to open it and falling into his strong arms. But she didn’t want to be pushed, warned, and grilled. She wanted to be with friends. She wanted the rarefied club she had joined at Thorne & Chase—a Thorne & Chase that she wished had been what she had once thought it was.

  The detective slid his card under the door and left. Sophia waited and picked it up. On the back he had written, “We need to talk. Be careful.” And his personal cell phone number, again.

  Sophia angrily ripped it in half and threw it in the trash. She texted Tricia again. Nothing. Then Sophia called her mother, but hung up. She needed help, not her mother’s compounded fear about another death. She sat alone, shunned, and desperate. She picked up the halved card from the trash, thought of calling, but then put the torn halves in her pocket.

  The phone rang.

  “Tricia, where were you?”

  “I got your texts. But I was down at Dante’s office with Paul and Anne. Anne stayed. We’re back. We heard you discovered his body?”

  Tricia was letting Sophia know she was with Paul by using the word “we.” Sophia didn’t care that Paul was there. She needed friends and perspective. She could be circumspect where needed.

  “I’ll come down. I need to get out of my office.”

  “No. The deli. Use the garage in case the sharks are circling already.”

  “Good idea. I’ll meet you guys there.”

  Sophia left her office door ajar so that anyone and everyone would know she was not there and not available. There was nothing of evidentiary import left anyway. The calendar, once a treasure, was useless. The four men were “filing a lawsuit.” So why wouldn’t they meet on “D-Day”?

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  Chapter 76

  Eau de Tap, Los Angeles Style

  It was before noon at the deli, but it was still busy. Sophia sat at the Three Musketeers’ usual table and told Marla there would be three. Marla did her usual tap dance with the plastic tumblers of eau de tap Los Angeles. The thin slices of lemon did not make them any more appealing.

  “I’d like a coffee. Cream and sugar, please. I need a jolt.”

  “You’ll get it. It’s strong today.”

  While Sophia waited, she sopped up the water Marla had splashed across the table with the thin paper napkins. As she did, her cell rang repeatedly, like a church bell announcing it was Sunday: once, Detective Rutger and then Taylor, over and over again. She turned off her ringer. She’d had enough of “complicated” today and that was what they both were: Detective Rutger was a tiger stalking for prey, but a very magnetic one; and Taylor was warm but cold, forthcoming and then secretive, loyal and then not. She needed to find her equilibrium.

  Marla plopped Sophia’s coffee down. “This’ll get you going.”

  “Thanks.”

  As she sipped the not-so-bad coffee, she observed the deli working like a well-oiled machine. She knew this place made money. Her relatives preached that people will always have to eat and you could make money off of that. But family lore had taught her from a young age that the restaurant business was not an easy game. Her father never tried it, but his father had managed to make a small living from a small restaurant, The Brown Cow. He cooked and served all day. Then he rested in a cot in the back of the kitchen all night, listening for the bell on the door so he could serve anyone for a buck, stop the help from stealing food, and guard the cash drawer, which was in clear view from his cot. Today, the poor man would be termed an absentee father, but back then, he was called a hard-working man supporting his family.

  Sophia’s thoughts came back to the present when she saw Tricia and Paul making their way through the tables. They sat down and everyone ordered the usual from Marla, including Paul’s fries and bread pudding.

  “Add an order of fries and bread pudding on mine, please.” Sophia caught Marla before she left.

  “Anything else?” Marla looked at Tricia.

  “Nope.” Tricia looked wide-eyed at Sophia.

  Sophia shrugged. “Food is my poison of choice today.”

  “After what you’ve been through, you can skip the sandwich and go straight to the comfort food," Paul approved. “We won’t say a thing.”

  “Thanks for the absolution. I will.”

  Marla came back and splashed the Diet Cokes on the table as she served them. Sophia shoved her empty coffee mug aside and drank her Diet Coke. Then she automatically took napkins from the holder and started wiping the table.

  “Nervous?” Tricia said.

  “I guess.” Sophia shoved the wet napkins into her empty coffee mug. “I’m tired of finding dead people.”

  “We’re tired of you finding dead people, too!” Tricia snickered.

  “What happened to Dante?” Paul became serious. “When we got there the coroner had him on a big gurney
thing and they were struggling to get it on the elevator.”

  “They say a massive coronary.”

  Sophia told Paul and Tricia about the morning—but for now, edited out her suspicions, the activities of the band of brothers, and her Saturday visits to Dante’s office. Paul’s presumed leaks were part of her concerns, but mainly she just wanted desperately to get her billables up and belong. She wanted all the rest simply to have been a bad dream. To her, not speculating or talking about it seemed a solid first step.

  The food came and Sophia dug into the fries, smothering each bite of hot, crisp potato with a glop of cool, sweet ketchup.

  “Take some.” Sophia slid the plate over to Tricia.

  Tricia took more than some and then asked, “Everyone says his body sat there a long time?”

  Sophia thought for a moment and then disclosed, “He had to be alive on Saturday because I heard Roger and those guys in his office snooping around when I went there to talk to Dante. There was obviously no body in there with them.”

  “You hope,” Paul chuckled.

  “Paul! How can you even joke like that to Sophia?”

  “It’s all right. That thought did cross my mind,” Sophia volunteered, now that Paul had brought it up himself.

  “Anyway.” Paul swallowed the last of his sandwich. “I’m going to get my personal financial papers out of the office. I don’t like all this snooping and intrigue.”

  “What do you think they were looking for, anyway?” Tricia asked.

  “Who knows? Maybe something for their lawsuit, which I don’t think is going to fly,” Paul responded.

  “What do you mean?” Sophia asked.

  “Doug’s convinced they don’t have any viable causes of action. And I think if they were confident about it, they would have filed it before now.”

  “Pretty soon, it won’t be necessary. Everyone will be dead,” Sophia whispered.

  Tricia observed the obvious. “It does seem like the Management Committee is about to be extinct. There are only two left.”