Skipper’s story is a little different. After thirty years as an underproductive partner in our real estate department, he spent three million dollars of the money he inherited from his father to win a mean-spirited race for district attorney of San Francisco, even though he hasn’t set foot in a courtroom in over twenty years. My partners are thrilled. They have never complained about his arrogance, sloppy work and condescending attitude. Hell, the same could be said about most of my partners. What they can’t live with is his six-hundred-thousand-dollar draw. He has been living off his father’s reputation for years. That’s why all the power partners are here. They want to give him a big send-off. More important, they want to be sure he doesn’t change his mind.
The temperature is about ninety degrees, and it smells more like a locker room than a law firm. I nod to the mayor, shake hands with two of my former colleagues from the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, and carefully avoid eye contact with Skipper, who is working the room. I overhear him say the DA’s office is his first step toward becoming attorney general and, ultimately, governor.
In your dreams, Skipper.
I’m trying to get to our reception desk to pick up a settlement agreement. Ordinarily, such a document would be delivered by one of our many in-house messengers. Tonight, I’m on my own because the kids who work in our mailroom aren’t allowed to come to the front desk when the VIPs are around. I sample skewered shrimp provided by a tuxedoed waiter and elbow my way to the desk, where four evening-shift receptionists operate telephone consoles with more buttons than a 747. I lean over the polished counter and politely ask Cindi Harris if she has an envelope for me.
“Let me look, Mr. Daley,” she says. She’s a twenty-two year-old part-time art student from Modesto with long black hair, a prim nose and a radiant smile. She has confided to me that she would like to become an artist, a stock-car driver or the wife of a rich attorney. I have it on good authority that a couple of my partners have already taken her out for a test drive.
A few years ago, our executive committee hired a consultant to spruce up our image. It’s hard to believe, but many people seem to perceive our firm as stuffy. For two hundred thousand dollars, our consultant expressed concern that our middle-aged receptionists didn’t look “perky” enough to convey the appropriate image of a law firm of our stature. In addition, he was mortified that we had two receptionists who were members of the male gender.
At a meeting that everyone adamantly denies ever took place, our executive committee concluded that our clients—the white, middle-aged men who run the banks, insurance companies, defense contractors and conglomerates that we represent—would be more comfortable if our receptionists were younger, female, attractive, and, above all, perkier. As a result, our middle-aged female and male receptionists were reassigned to less-visible duties. We hired Cindi because she fit the profile recommended by our consultant. Although she’s incapable of taking a phone message, she looks like a Victoria’s Secret model. S&G isn’t a hotbed of progressive thinking.
Don’t get me wrong. As a divorced forty-five-year-old, I have nothing against attractive young women. I do have a problem when a firm adopts a policy of reassigning older women and men to less-visible positions just because they aren’t attractive enough. For one thing, it’s illegal. For another, it’s wrong. That’s another reason I got fired. Getting a reputation as the “house liberal” at S&G isn’t great for your career.
Cindi’s search turns up empty. “I’m sorry, Mr. Daley,” she says, batting her eyes. She flashes an uncomfortable smile and looks like she’s afraid I may yell at her. While such wariness is generally advisable at S&G, it shows she doesn’t know me very well. Jimmy Carter was in the White House the last time I yelled at anybody. “Let me look again.”
I spy a manila envelope with my name on it sitting in front of her. “I think that may be it.”
Big smile. “Oh, good.”
Success. I take the envelope. “By the way, have you seen my secretary?”
Deer in the headlights. “What’s her name again?”
“Doris.”
“Ah, yes.” Long pause. “Dooooris.” Longer pause. “What does she look like?”
I opt for the path of least resistance. “I’ll find her, Cindi.” I start to walk away, but she stops me.
“Mr. Daley, are you really leaving? I mean, well, you’re one of the nice guys. I mean, for a lawyer. I thought partners never leave.”
Cindi, I’m leaving because I have more in common with the kids who push the mail carts than I do with my partners. I was fired because my piddly book of business isn’t big enough.
I summon my best sincere face, look her right in her puppy eyes and pretend that I’m pouring out my heart. “I’ve been here for five years. I’m getting too old for a big firm. I’ve decided to try it on my own. Besides, I want more time for Grace.”
My ex-wife has custody of our six-year-old daughter, but we get along pretty well, and Grace stays with me every other weekend.
Her eyes get larger. “Somebody said you might go back to the public defender’s office.”
I worked as a San Francisco PD for seven years before I joined S&G. The State Bar Journal once proclaimed I was the best PD in Northern California. Before I went to law school, I was a priest for three years. “Actually, I’m going to share office space with another attorney.” Without an ounce of conviction, I add, “It’ll be fun.” I leave out the fact I’m subleasing from my ex-wife.
“Good luck, Mr. Daley.”
“Thanks, Cindi.” It’s a little scary when you talk to people at work in the same tone you use with your first-grade daughter. It’s even scarier to think that I’ll probably miss Cindi more than I’ll miss any of my partners. Then again, she didn’t fire me.
I know one thing for certain. I’ll sure miss the regular paychecks.
* * *
I push my way toward the conference room in search of Doris when I’m confronted by the six-foot-six-inch frame of Skipper Gates, who flashes the plastic three-million-dollar smile that graces fading campaign posters nailed to power poles across the city. He is inhaling a glass of wine. “Michael,” he slurs, “so good to see you.”
I don’t want to deal with this right now.
At fifty-eight, his tanned face is chiseled granite, with a Roman nose, high forehead and graceful mane of silver hair. His charcoal-gray double-breasted Brioni suit, Egyptian cotton white shirt and striped tie add dignity to his rugged features. He looks like he is ready to assume his rightful place on Mount Rushmore next to George Washington.
As an attorney, he’s careless, lazy and unimaginative. As a human being, he’s greedy, condescending and an unapologetic philanderer. As a politician, however, he’s the real deal. Even when he’s half tanked and there’s a piece of shrimp hanging from his chin, he exudes charisma, wealth and, above all, style. It’s some sort of birthright of those born into privilege. As one of four children of a San Francisco cop, privilege is something I know little about.
He squeezes my hand and pulls me uncomfortably close. “I can’t believe you’re leaving,” he says. His baritone has the affected quality of a man who spent his youth in boarding schools and his adulthood in country clubs. As he shouts into my ear, his breath confirms he could launch his forty-foot sailboat with the chardonnay he’s consumed tonight.
His speech is touching. It’s also complete crap. Instinctively, I begin evasive maneuvers. I pound him a little too hard on his back and dislodge the shrimp from his chin. “Who knows, Skipper? Maybe we’ll get to work on a case together.”
He tilts his head back and laughs too loudly. “You bet.”
I can’t resist a quick tweak. “Skipper, you are going to try cases, right?”
District attorneys in big cities are political, ceremonial and administrative lawyers. They don’t go to court. The assistant DAs try cases. If the ADA wins, the DA takes credit. If the ADA loses, the DA deflects blame. The San Francisco DA has tried only a han
dful of cases since the fifties.
He turns up the voltage. Like many politicians, he can speak and grin simultaneously. He hides behind the cocoon of his favorite sound bite. “Skipper Gates’s administration is going to be different. The DA is a law enforcement officer, not a social worker. Skipper Gates is going to try cases. Skipper Gates is going to put the bad guys away.”
And Mike Daley thinks you sound like a pompous ass.
He sees the mayor and staggers away. I wish you smooth sailing, Skipper. The political waters in the city tend to be choppy, even for well-connected operators like you. Things may be different when your daddy’s name isn’t on the door.
* * *
A moment later, I find my secretary, Doris Fontaine, standing outside our power conference room, or “PCR.” Doris is a dignified fifty six-year-old with serious blue eyes, carefully coiffed gray hair and the quiet confidence of a consummate professional. If she had been born twenty years later, she would have gone to law school and become a partner here.
“Thanks for everything, Doris,” I say. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll never get another one like you, Mikey.”
I hate it when she calls me Mikey. She absentmindedly fingers the reading glasses hanging from a gold chain. She reminds me of Sister Eunice, my kindergarten teacher at St. Peter’s. She looks at the chaos in the PCR through the glass door and shakes her head.
The PCR houses an eighty-foot rosewood table with a marble top, matching credenza and fifty chairs, a closed-circuit TV system connecting our eighteen offices and a museum-quality collection of Currier and Ives lithographs. Six presidents, eight governors and countless local politicians have solicited campaign funds in this very room. Thirty expandable aluminum racks holding hundreds of carefully labeled manila folders containing legal documents cover the table. The room is littered with paper, coffee cups, half-eaten sandwiches, legal pads, laptops and cell phones. It looks like mission control before a space shuttle launch. The grim faces of the fifty people in the PCR are in contrast to the forced smiles at Skipper’s party outside. Nobody is admiring the lithographs.
“How is Bob’s deal going?” I ask.
“Not so well,” Doris says.
Ever the diplomat. She’s worked for Bob Holmes, the head of our corporate department, for about twenty years. In every law firm, there’s one individual with a huge book of business and an even bigger ego whose sole purpose is to make everyone miserable. Bob is our nine-hundred-pound gorilla. His eight-million-dollar book of business lets him do whatever he wants. For the most part, he’s content to sit on our executive committee, torture his associates, and whine. Last year he took home two million three hundred thousand. Not bad for a short kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Wilkes-Barre. Although my partners find it difficult to agree on anything, they’re willing to acknowledge that Bob is a flaming asshole.
Whenever a big deal is coming down at S&G, the PCR is the stage, and Bob plays the lead. At the moment, he’s screaming into a cell phone. He hasn’t slept in three days, and it shows. He’s in his late forties, but with his five-seven frame holding 230 pounds, his puffy red face and jowls make him look at least sixty. Although some of us remember when his hair was gray, it’s now dyed an unnatural shade of orange-brown that he combs over an expanding bald spot. On his best days, he storms through our office with a pained expression suggesting a perpetual case of hemorrhoids. Tonight the grimace is even more pronounced.
I share Doris with Bob and a first-year associate named Donna Andrews, who spends her waking hours preparing memoranda on esoteric legal issues. It may seem odd that a heavy hitter like Bob has to share a secretary. However, by executive committee fiat, every attorney (including immortals) must share a secretary with two others. This means Bob gets ninety-nine percent of Doris’s time, I get one percent and Donna gets nothing. From the firm’s perspective, this allocation is entirely appropriate. Bob runs the firm, I’m on my way out the door and Donna is irrelevant.
I ask Doris if she can take the day off tomorrow.
“Doesn’t look good. I was hoping for some time with Jenny.” She’s a single mom. Never been married. Her daughter is a senior at Stanford.
“I saw her earlier today. Sounded like she had a cold.”
“You know how it is. Spend your whole life worrying about your kids.”
I know. “Any chance you got my bills out?” Ordinarily, I don’t sweat administrative details like bills and timesheets. However, if my bills are late, the firm will withhold my paycheck. It’s our only absolute rule. No bills—no paycheck—no exceptions. Doris has long been convinced that my lackadaisical attitude would do irreparable harm to S&G’s finely tuned money machine.
“I got them into the last mail run,” she says.
Relief. “You’re still the best. Are you sure you won’t come work for me?”
“You can’t afford me, Mikey.”
The door to the PCR opens and a blast of stale air hits me. Joel Friedman, a harried corporate associate, steps outside. His collar is unbuttoned and the bags under his eyes extend halfway down his cheeks. “Doris, are you going to be here for a while?”
“Just for a few more minutes.”
Joel is sort of a Jewish Ward Cleaver. He’s an excellent attorney with a terrific wife and twin six-year-old boys. He’s thirty-eight, a trim five-nine. His father is the rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in the Richmond District. Joel left the yeshiva after two years and went to my alma mater, UC-Berkeley’s Boalt Law School. He graduated second in his class and joined S&G seven years ago. His brown hair is graying, the bald spot he tries to hide is getting larger and his tortoiseshell glasses give him a rabbinical look which, in the circumstances, is entirely appropriate. In Yiddish, he would be described as a mensch, which means an honorable man. He’s also my best friend.
“Is your deal going to close?” I ask.
He’s up for partner this year. If his deal closes, he’s a shoo-in. He modestly describes his job as thanklessly walking behind Bob Holmes and sweeping up the debris. In reality, he does all the work and Bob takes the credit. Frankly, he’s the last line of defense between Bob and our malpractice carrier.
“It’s fucked up,” he says. Like many attorneys, he holds the misguided belief that he’s more convincing if he peppers his speech with four-letter words. Very unbecoming for the rabbi’s son. He nods at our client, Vince Russo, an oily man about Joel’s age who has jammed his Jabba-the-Hutt torso into a chair next to Holmes. “The closing depends on Vince. He’s selling his father’s business, but he’s having second thoughts. He thinks he can get a higher price if he can find another buyer.”
I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Russo. From what I’ve read, he’s run his father’s real estate conglomerate into the ground. “Why doesn’t he pull out?”
“His creditors will force him into bankruptcy. They aren’t going to wait another year or two.”
I gaze at the frenzy in the PCR. “Looks like you could use some help.”
“As usual, I’m not getting much.” He glances at Diana Kennedy, a glamorous twenty-nine-year-old associate with deep blue eyes, stylish blond hair and a figure that reflects a lot of time at the gym. She’s a rising star. “Things might go a little faster if Diana would focus a little more on work.”
Doris looks away. If you believe the firm’s gossip mongers, Bob Holmes and Diana Kennedy have been sleeping together for the last year or so. I don’t know for sure.
Joel shakes his head. “To top everything off, Beth showed up an hour ago and served Bob with divorce papers.”
I can’t help myself and I grin. Beth is Bob’s soon-to-be-fourth ex-wife. It’s twisted, but I silently rejoice at his latest marital failure. I’m sorry I won’t be around to witness the fallout. His last divorce was spectacular.
Instinctively, Doris comes to Bob’s defense. “She could have waited.”
It’s funny. Bob has been treating Doris like dirt for twenty years. They fight like cats and do
gs all day, yet she’s always the first to defend him. I change the subject. “Why doesn’t Bob get Russo to take his chances in bankruptcy?”
Joel’s eyes twinkle. “Because we won’t get paid. Do you know how much Russo owes us?”
“A million bucks?”
“Try fifteen million.”
I’m stunned.
His grin widens. “If you’re going to start your own firm, you should learn a little about this financial stuff. We’re doing this deal for a contingency fee. We get paid only if it closes. It’s in the escrow instructions. We get twelve million at the closing.”
“I thought you said he owes us fifteen.”
“He does.”
“But you said we’re getting only twelve.”
“We are.”
“Who gets the other three?”
“Guess.”
“I don’t know.”
Doris answers for him. “Bob does.”
What the hell? “No way. He can’t siphon off a three-million-dollar personal gratuity. It’s against firm policy. The fees belong to the firm. Some of that money belongs to me.”
Joel chuckles. “It’s been approved by the executive committee. That’s why Bob will pull every string to get this deal to close.”
As he says the word “close,” I see Russo’s face turning bright crimson.
“Stand back,” Joel says. “Mount Russo is about to erupt.”
Russo clumsily squeezes out of his chair and storms toward us. He slams his three-hundred-pound frame against the glass door. When he’s halfway out, he turns around and faces the roomful of apprehensive eyes. “Another forty million? How am I supposed to afford another forty million? Why do I pay you lawyers?”
The Terrorist Next Door Page 26