The Monkey Rope

by Stephen Lewis

  THE MONKEY ROPE

  Stephen Lewis

  ... from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist....and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake.

  ... Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.

  Melville, Moby Dick,

  Chapter LXXII,

  “The Monkey-rope”

  Chapter One

  Seymour Lipp surveyed his desk again and then buzzed his secretary on the intercom. While he waited, he tore the top sheet from the legal pad on which he had been jotting notes on the Kaiser case and crumpled the paper into a firm wad. He took aim and spun the paper ball with backspin toward the wastepaper basket. The ball caught the rim of the basket, hung for a second, and then dropped in. He imagined the roar of the crowd as he prepared for another attempt, but from the corner of his eye he spotted his secretary.

  Tall and angular, Dorothy Wilson stopped in the doorway to Seymour’s cubicle. She was all spindly legs and arms, and today, dressed in a green dress, she looked, to Seymour, like a giant, but benevolent, grasshopper. She had removed her horn-rimmed glasses, and she twirled them in one hand while she smoothed a wisp of her severely cut gray hair with the other.

  “Where’s the Kaiser file, Dorothy?” he asked. “I know I left it on top, right here, so I could get to it first thing this morning.” He drummed his fingers on the place where he had last seen the folder.

  She reddened slightly.

  “Mr. Brown was in early and took the file. He said you were too distracted, with your father in the hospital and all, and he was giving it to Birnhauser. I’m sorry.” She put her glasses on again, and stepped closer to Seymour’s desk. “I said you were working on the case, that you were almost finished, but he just gave me that iceman smile of his and walked off with it.”

  Seymour sank back into his chair, his fingers still running over his papers as though he expected the file to materialize.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.” He started to smile, but his anger flashed. “Jesus ... Birnhauser, of all people.”

  “I know,” Dorothy said. “I thought the same thing. It’s just not fair. What are you going to do?”

  Seymour picked up a sheaf of notes on the case, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it to Dorothy.

  “I guess I’ll have to find out how bad it is.” He reached for the telephone, but Dorothy placed her hand on his. It was surprisingly warm.

  “He’s tied up all day. I made an appointment for you for after lunch tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” Seymour said. “There’s nothing like waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  Dorothy moved toward the doorway, and then stopped.

  “Maybe it won’t. I hope not. It’s taken me a long time to train you. I don’t know if I have the patience to deal with another young lawyer, fresh out of school.” As she turned to leave the office, she banked the paper ball off the wall and into the basket.

  * * * *

  It hadn’t taken Seymour long to realize that he would never make partner at Klemmer, Schotelheim, and Brown, but he did not want to be forced out. Klemmer had died the year before Seymour joined the firm, but he still remembered his mentor, Schotelheim, an imposing man, even in his seventies, just a little stoop to his shoulders, his hair and mustache full and snow white, his voice a marvel of resonance. He would come to the office at ten o’clock each day, his newspaper folded under his arm, his overcoat wrinkled, and his shoes needing a shine. The rumor in the office was that he still did his own research, and Seymour could believe that he would. Because Schotelheim had personally interviewed and hired him, they developed a special relationship. Seymour had often come to Schotelheim with a jumble of details on his note pads looking to him like a pile of a child’s pick-up sticks, all intersecting lines pointing in different directions. The old attorney, however, could find the important junctures of fact and law at a glance, and brush aside the rest. Seymour came to depend upon these sessions, but one day Schotelheim walked in with no newspaper and stayed just long enough to announce his retirement.

  That left Brown, the young and aggressive senior partner from Dallas, to run the business. Brown was perhaps as brilliant as Schotelheim, although Seymour would not yet concede that point, but his bright blue eyes were cold. On first meeting Seymour he had measured his worn tweed jacket and wrinkled trousers, now a little shabby and strained by the ten or fifteen pounds he had recently gained, paused at the fresh shirt and the new striped tie his mother had insisted he buy only at the discount store off Atlantic Avenue, and then held Seymour’s attention for a full minute before extending his hand. Seymour had tried to look past him to Schotelheim, but the old lawyer had disappeared into the corridor.

  * * * *

  Seymour sat at his desk studying his handwritten resume when Dorothy dropped the thick folder for the Kaiser case, bulging with the effluvium of a contested inheritance in front of him.

  “I don’t know how this got here,” she said.

  Seymour looked up at her and smiled. He noticed that her blue eyes, usually watery and dull, now sparkled.

  “Thanks,” he said simply. He searched for something to say that would respond to the energy in her face, but she dismissed further comment with a wave of her hand.

  “Just put that other away, at least for now. I’ll type it up for you when,” she paused, “and if, you need it.”

  He slipped the resume into the top drawer, and started sorting through the correspondence and depositions in the folder. His mind, though, kept running back to his father in his hospital bed. Mr. Lipp would not, he knew, leave such a tangled mess as this. His father was no Horace Kaiser, a wealthy importer, who had died two months ago, leaving an ex-wife and grown children from one marriage, and a current, much younger wife to whom he had willed the bulk of his estate. Seymour’s firm had handled the man’s business dealings, and now it represented the first wife, who was contesting the will, which had been offered for probate, claiming that the man had not been competent to write a new will, and that he had been unduly influenced by his wife who had kept him shut away from his friends and family. The old man, the ex-wife had told Seymour, had probably died trying to keep the whore happy, and who was she kidding, she had been sleeping around plenty, the old bastard could hardly get it up. I should know, she had said, believe me, I should know.

  The new will, drawn up only a month before the man died, seemed to mention assets of which the testator wanted to dispose, but which he no longer possessed. The narrow parameters of the case did not concern Seymour as much as they should, he knew. He wondered instead how to determine the rights of the first wife whose flesh had first been wed to the man, and who had, at least on occasion, been one with him, against the claim of the second, who had extracted him from the dead pod of a relationship and comforted him in his failing health. These were questions worthy of the rabbis, who argued Talmud in the faded print hanging on his dinette wall, he thought, and maybe tonight as he sat at his table, one of them would raise his thumb in an exhilarated demonstration of his answer.

  A cough broke into his thoughts, and he looked up to see Dorothy standing before his desk.

  “Mr. Brown would like to see you right away.”

  “Well, Dorothy,” he said, “it’s been nice. Do me a favor though, will you?”

  She nodded.

  “When I’m gone, would you incinerate my nameplate in front of the building, at precisely five o’clock, just as Birnhauser stumbles out the
door?”

  “I’ll do better than that,” she replied. “I’ll buy you a drink at O’Neill’s and we can use it for a swizzle stick.”

  “Swizzle stick. I like that. It sounds right.”

  * * * *

  The corridor was lined with the cubicles of the junior attorneys, and each of them watched through the glass panels of his door as Seymour passed. Their names were displayed on strips slid into holders. Birnhauser, a nephew of Schotelheim, used to have the spot closest to Brown, but he had been eased back down the hall toward the computer room, which occupied a large open area to the side of the partners’ corridor. Seymour paused by Birnhauser’s door and knocked on the glass. Birnhauser looked up and smiled, his florid face still handsome. He had the same good looks he’d had in his Princeton days, but now the boyish charm of the eyes had turned sour and the slip of hair flirting with his brows was gray. Seymour decided he could still like Birnhauser, even if he looked like an overgrown preppie, even forgive the fact that he had, however unwittingly, stolen the Kaiser case from him.

  Brown’s name was painted in large block letters in gold leaf on his solid oak door. The contrast with the associates’ glass and temporary nameplates was sharp. And intentional, Seymour had concluded. Seymour traced the letters on the nameplate, straightened his tie, and knocked on the door.

  Brown’s secretary was about twenty-five, cool, and rigidly professional. She ran her finger down the appointment calendar and found Seymour’s name. Her fingernails were long and carefully manicured, and Seymour noticed that there was no keyboard on her desk. She pushed an intercom button on her phone, and the door to Brown’s private office swung open.

  “Mr. Lipp is here to see you,” she said needlessly.

  Seymour rose and turned to face the imposing figure of the senior partner. Brown shook his hand before leading him by the shoulder to a seat in front of the large desk that dominated his office. As the door began to shut behind them Seymour turned and caught a glimpse of the secretary. She glanced at her watch and entered a check on the calendar. At least, Seymour thought, the pain can’t last too long, only until the person owning the next name appears. He turned his attention to Brown who had walked to a cabinet behind his desk.

  “What’ll you have?” he asked.

  “Scotch, on the rocks. I like to keep things simple.”

  Disapproval flickered beneath Brown’s fixed smile. He was a tall man, once lean but now somewhat beefy, a wide receiver in his college days at SMU, good enough to consider, and then reject, a professional career. He poured a couple of inches of Glenlivet into two glasses, and plopped into each glass two miniature ice cubes from a tray beneath the sink. He handed the drink to Seymour, and they both raised their glasses to their lips.

  “Here’s to simplicity,” Brown said.

  Seymour felt the scotch slide down his throat.

  “Very good. Very smooth.”

  Brown twirled his glass so that the ice clinked.

  “Lipp, I’ll get right to the point. I apologize for not having the opportunity to be frank with you earlier. The other day when your secretary called, I didn’t have time to talk to you.” He paused. “And I do not like to conduct such conversations on the phone.”

  “I can appreciate that,” Seymour said. He took a deep swallow, and flushed. His anxiety yielded before a rush of hostility, but his nerves pulled his lips back from his teeth into a smile.

  “Yes, well we’ll see,” Brown said. “I am concerned because I do not want to lose this Kaiser case, and I don’t think we should. That’s why I turned it over to Birnhauser, because of his experience.”

  Seymour could not resist the impulse.

  “I don’t know that I need the help.”

  Brown’s lips quivered for a moment and then relaxed.

  “Lipp, don’t underestimate Birnhauser. He’s a damned good lawyer. And he knows the kind of people our clients are, what their interests are.”

  Seymour bristled. “Meaning?” he asked.

  “Don’t get cute with me, now,” Brown drawled. “You know exactly what I mean. Whatever else you may be, you’re not stupid.” He picked up a folder from his desk and skimmed over it. “Peace Corp, Public Defender, not our usual credentials, but we had hopes for you, or at least the old man did. And I agreed. I thought it was in the firm’s best interest to hire the best talent, whatever the background, and not only rely on the usual prestige schools that produce people like Birnhauser.

  “But for some time I’ve been thinking that maybe I was wrong, that maybe you could not escape your background.” He picked up a document from his desk, ran his eyes up and down the first page, and then handed it to Seymour.

  “Do you recognize this?” he asked.

  “Of course. It is the draft memorandum on the Kaiser case I prepared.”

  “Exactly. And that is what I want to discuss with you.”

  “Sir?” Seymour waited for the partner to continue.

  “It reads like a novel, complete with plot and character motivation. Interesting, well done. But,” he paused, “absolutely useless.” He tossed the memorandum back onto his desk and wheeled to face Seymour.

  “Tell me,” he demanded, “why did you choose corporate law, when your talents seem to lie elsewhere.”

  The question stung, Seymour realized, because it was precisely the one he had asked himself many times over the past few months. He tried to deflect it.

  “When I stopped growing at 5’10”, I realized I wasn’t going to make the Knicks, so I went to law school and bounced around, as you have indicated. When I came back to New York from California, I came here looking for Mr. Green.”

  Brown permitted himself a sarcastic twitch of the lips and then his face darkened, as he picked up the memorandum again. “There are many ways to make money. But let’s talk about this. Mrs. Kaiser was on the phone a little earlier to ask what was happening, and I told her that I would have to check with you and Birnhauser. I was going to talk to you before she called. Mrs. Kaiser is a very important client, even since her husband’s death.” He flipped to a page in the memorandum. “I really don’t know what your problem is. It seems clear from the depositions that the new will won’t stand up. What about this painting, the one he wants his second wife’s daughter to have because she always admired it? That’s the woman’s testimony, anyway.”

  “Yes, I know,” Seymour said. “The painting had been promised to his own daughter in the old will. But really, is that the issue, when we’re talking of an estate worth upwards of a hundred million? One lousy painting? And it is lousy, second-rate.”

  Brown raised his eyebrows.

  “And are you now an art critic, or appraiser? Really, Lipp, you trouble me. But the point is that the old man, on his death bed, was obviously coerced. Don’t you agree?”

  “I’m not sure it’s as clear as all that. The new will is a little ragged in places, but defensible.”

  Brown leaned his bulk toward Seymour.

  “Are you talking as one who has dealt with ex-wives.”

  “No, sir,” Seymour snapped the words. “That’s history. I’m talking about the will.”

  “I wonder,” Brown said. “You say the will is defensible. Need I remind you that it is your job to attack that will, to shred it, to grab hold of those ragged edges—such as the fact that the recipient of the painting is also an interested witness—and tear the whole thing apart so that our client, acting on behalf of her children, receives her just inheritance.” He paused. “Including the painting. Even if she wants to use it as a doormat for their dirty shoes.”

  Seymour felt his bile rise.

  “Yessir,” he said, “that is our job.”

  “Well, let’s see that we do it. I expect movement on this case by first thing next week. Have another memorandum on my desk, one that shows how we will win, not how we might lose, first thing Monday morning.”

  Seymour nodded, and turned to leave. Brown’s eyes froze him.

  “Was ther
e anything else, Mr. Brown?”

  “Yes, there is.”

  Seymour waited while the partner ran his long fingers through his closely cropped hair, and then walked to the bar to refill his glass. When he again faced Seymour the harshness had disappeared from his face, which was now almost sad.

  “I guess the old man never spoke to you that way,” he said.

  His shift caught Seymour off guard.

  “We had,” he said, “a rather different relationship.”

  “Well, he’s not...” Brown began.

  “No, he’s not,” Seymour finished for him, “and it’s a damned shame.”

  * * * *

  The message, in Dorothy’s precise hand, said only that a Mrs. Constantino had called, and that she would be waiting for him in the lobby after work. “That was my landlady’s name when I was a kid,” he said in answer to her quizzical look. “I am sure, though, that this person could not be her.”

  He crumbled the note into the wastepaper basket and pressed his hands over his eyes, as though in weariness, but more to focus on the images that flashed through his mind: the terror in his father’s eyes as he lay in his hospital bed, the heavyset figure of his mother stooping over the kitchen stove, and the muscular shape and sneering lips of Junior Constantino. He held that one image while he placed next to it another, when it was he lying in a different hospital bed, and Junior’s face screamed silently in remorse.

  * * * *

  Seymour sensed, as the elevator descended, that paths that had separated were now about to join. At first, it was only the name and the puzzle it offered that tightened his stomach. And then it was the anticipation that here again was somebody he had tried so hard to forget, and in the forgetting had remembered even more painfully.

  The doors slid open. He was not surprised to see her sitting, legs crossed, nervously puffing a cigarette.

  She had changed a great deal, but there was still that haunted look in her eyes, the sudden smile on her painted lips, and the familiar whisper of an invitation from between her thighs that drained his mouth dry.