Reckless Disregard

by Robert Rotstein

  Brighton examines his booty—not just any necklace but the very cross and chain that Felicity wore in Level One before the kidnapping—a replica of the necklace the real Paula Felicity McGrath wore that horrible night. The necklace flashes light that cycles through all the visible colors of the rainbow, and the ant tunnel morphs into scintillating sky. In a cutscene, Brighton flies on billowy clouds back to Felicity’s prison cell, where the necklace floats through the air and wraps itself around Felicity’s neck. She turns to face the monitor, her hair now flowing down her shoulders in crimson waves.

  “Ah, my rescuer,” she says. “You’re so smart and courageous.” She purses her scarlet lips and puts a finger to her temple, as if deep in thought. Brighton smiles because even though she’s in prison, she has makeup on.

  “Here’s what you must do,” she says. “You must find The One who knows about me. The someone who remembers who I really was.” The light shimmers from her tears like sunlight off a pond. “I know you’re out there. Please come forward. If not for me, for the purity of your soul.” She fingers the cross around her neck and then turns her back to the monitor. A new level doesn’t launch, but the game continues.

  Brighton knows a lot about the lawsuit, of course—Bugsy and the Queen talk about it all the time even though the Queen says she doesn’t want to, and Brighton reads the online news reports when the Queen isn’t looking. So he understands that Poniard has put out an all-points bulletin on a witness, any witness, who can help his case. But why doesn’t Felicity say the same thing at the start of this level instead of waiting until the player has battled killer ants to win the necklace? Brighton thinks he understands—you take things more seriously if you have to fight for them.

  Before I can take a sip of my espresso, Brenda puts a document on my table.

  “Can this judge really do this?” she says. “Seriously?”

  The document reads Order Setting Trial, scheduling the trial for March 18, 2014, eight weeks from now. It’s too soon. I’ll have to present evidence and call witnesses that I don’t have.

  “What happens if Grass overrules Judge Triggs’s order and forces Poniard to show in person?” Brenda asks. “Which he won’t, right?”

  “She could fine him. Or she could hold him in contempt of court. Or order his website shut down. But knowing her, she’d impose the civil death penalty.”

  Brenda reacts to my lawyer’s jargon with a weary eye roll.

  “The civil death penalty means she’ll enter judgment against Poniard as a sanction for violating a court order,” I say. “And then Bishop can pursue Poniard for tens of millions in damages.”

  She doesn’t say it, but I know what she’s thinking—I should never have waived Poniard’s right to a jury trial in that first hearing before Judge Triggs. Now, we’re at the mercy of a judge who can’t stand me.

  Over the next weeks, my opponents and I engage in procedural skirmishes and discovery battles. Using The Barrista storeroom as my conference room, I take several unproductive depositions of record keepers; retired news reporters; and police department functionaries, including retired Captain Ted Gorecki, the cop who replaced Detective Bud Kreiss on the McGrath investigation. He insists that there were no suspects in Felicity’s disappearance, that she was engaging in risky behavior, maybe even working as a prostitute, and that she probably picked up the wrong johns. He says that Kreiss was demoted not as part of a cover-up but because his affair with Dalila Hernandez, the news reporter, created a blatant conflict of interest. He speculates that even if Bud Kreiss told Hernandez about a person of interest, Kreiss lied to impress her, to make her feel as if she had a scoop on the legitimate newspapers. Throughout Gorecki’s deposition, Frantz sits back in his chair and gloats, not bothering to object even to objectionable questions. He clearly enjoys collecting twelve hundred dollars an hour watching Gorecki walk all over me. Let him gloat all he wants. When I have the chance to sit across the table from Bishop, watch him swear to tell the truth, and ask him questions that he doesn’t want to answer, none of my adversaries will gloat.

  On Valentine’s Day, I get my chance to interrogate Bishop. It’s raining. It wasn’t supposed to rain until tomorrow morning, and now LA drivers who’ve forgotten how to navigate in a storm or who probably never knew jam up Wrightwood Drive, my favorite shortcut over the Hollywood Hills to the Valley. It’s one of those rare days where you set the windshield wipers to high for a reason other than spreading washer fluid, where the hairpin curves threaten to send you skidding off a cliff and down into the canyon, where you hope to hit flat land before the whole hillside comes down and buries you in an avalanche of mud.

  It’s also a Friday. Ordinarily, I don’t like Friday depositions because most of the deponents mentally start their weekend at the lunch break. Today, though, this could work to my advantage if Bishop focuses not on my questions but on his Gulfstream IV flight to his private ski mountain near Park City.

  The Parapet Media complex in the east San Fernando Valley wasn’t always an enemy camp. As a kid, I made four movies on this lot, long before Bishop acquired it. I arrive at the main gate with fifteen minutes to spare. The guard asks for my driver’s license and directs me to pull over to the side so other cars can pass. It takes so long for him to let me inside that I’m quite sure Bishop’s people ordered him to make me wait. I park the car, and with a flimsy retractable umbrella in one hand and my briefcase in the other, half-run from the parking lot into the Dark Fortress—that’s what they’ve called the office building ever since Bishop acquired the studio. The umbrella does nothing to keep my woolen suit dry; if anything it makes the drops coalesce and pour down on my slacks. I take the elevator to the top floor, where the doors open to a lavish reception area. Half of the raised fifty-foot ceiling consists of irregular glass triangles that form a skylight—self-cleaning, according to an article I read—that illuminates the entire floor, even on a dark, rainy day like this. The architect furnished the reception area in molded fiberglass chairs, a glass-and-chrome coffee table, and burgundy leather sofas. The walls and weight-bearing pillars are matching Italian marble. A tree-sized ficus shoots up out of the middle of a vast oak reception desk, far enough behind the receptionist to keep her safe from falling leaves. Every other plant in the room is a variety of fern. I read somewhere that Bishop’s wife loves ferns.

  I announce myself to the receptionist, who frowns, presses some buttons on her phone pad, and whispers into her headphones, all the while looking past me. She knows why I’m here. Five minutes later, a lithe young woman greets me with a flight attendant’s smile, revealing straight, bleaching-gel teeth. She satisfies the major qualifications for a top executive’s assistant, even in this era of anti-gender bias and anti-harassment law—she’s pretty and perky and has intelligent eyes. She’ll be a secretary—more accurately, an executive assistant—only until she sells her first script or earns a promotion to creative executive or gives it all up in frustration and enrolls in business school.

  “May I get you water or coffee?” she asks, the words articulated without breaking the smile.

  I decline. With my churning stomach, I couldn’t consume anything safely. And for a fleeting moment, I actually wonder whether Bishop would tamper with my drink.

  She leads me to a large conference room, conceived with a single overriding purpose—to inspire fear and awe. There’s a panoramic view of the Santa Monica Mountains to the south and the San Gabriel Mountains to the east. Designed in the Russian classical style, it still feels contemporary. Lavish Corinthian pilasters inlaid with polished chrome articulate the walls. A ceiling mural depicts 1920s Hollywood or, more accurately, Culver City, where most pictures were actually shot in that era.

  Janine the court reporter sits at the head of the table. She has her hair pinned in a bun, and she’s wearing a stylish gray business suit, as if she’s in trial. At Poniard’s deposition—at almost every deposition that I can remember her taking—she dressed casually. I never thought she’d break
character, behave like someone other than the unbiased functionary charged with recording the truth. When I say good morning she mumbles “good morning” back but doesn’t meet my eyes. The videographer is on my side of the table, pretending to test his camera equipment, though he must have set it up a half hour ago.

  Bishop sits across the table, wearing a suit and tie. Unlike most witnesses, he hasn’t taken off his coat. Lou Frantz, who’s sitting to Bishop’s left, has already taken his coat off, exposing a red and gray paisley power tie and red suspenders. Frantz turns sideways and whispers something to Bishop, who nods. The two men share many physical features and yet seem nothing alike. They’re both tall and slim with silvery hair and deep California tans. But Frantz’s hair is thinner, whiter, and isn’t quite in place, and his cheap Thirty-Six-Hour Clothiers suit is three sizes too big, making his body seem as if it’s drooping toward the floor, an image that either fortuitously or intentionally matches the hangdog expression on his thin face. In contrast, Bishop’s hair is slicked back symmetrically, and his tailored charcoal-gray suit, Italian high-collar dress shirt, and yellow silk tie are perfect. His jaw is a firm U-shape, and except for some character creases in his forehead, his face is wrinkle free. It’s hard to believe he’s seventy-one years old. He really could have been an actor. As always in public, he’s wearing his signature horn-rimmed glasses that improbably make him seem not bookish or benign but more intimidating. While Frantz hunches forward a bit, Bishop holds his shoulders level, but not self-consciously so, unlike those men who thrust their chests out and pull their shoulders back because they’ve read somewhere that good posture bespeaks confidence. While Frantz’s demeanor advertises weight of the world, Bishop seems to float above the crowd, as though earth’s gravity exerts less force on him than it does on the rest of us.

  The photographic lights reflect off his thick glasses, so I can’t see his eyes. I hope that isn’t a problem when he faces me during the deposition—I want to see his eyes. Bishop doesn’t acknowledge me but instead keeps talking to Janine, who’s apparently describing how her stenography equipment works. Although Bishop has sat through countless depositions and undoubtedly couldn’t care less about the mechanics of court reporting, he listens to Janine’s explanation as if enthralled. Every powerful person I’ve met, no matter how odious or evil in real life, has a large reservoir of charm. It’s easy for William the Conqueror. He’s so feared that all he has to do is behave cordially and feign interest, and even a seasoned veteran like Janine will hold forth about the intricacies of her job and giggle like a tween whenever he smiles or nods his head.

  Frantz looks at me with the same gloat that he had during the Gorecki deposition. Lovely sits on Frantz’s left, dressed in a gray pinstripe suit and cotton turtleneck sweater. Her expression is as hard as the granite table in front of her. We nod slightly at each other, as if we’re two mourners greeting each other at a funeral.

  “You’re late, Stern,” Frantz says.

  “By five minutes, courtesy of the slothful guard at the gate,” I say. “Which by Lou Frantz Standard Time is forty minutes early. Would you like me to come back at ten forty-five?”

  “Maybe you should use the time to find a Laundromat and dry your clothes,” he replies.

  “Not necessary,” I say. “I’m sure that over the next few hours you’ll provide all the hot air I need.”

  Lovely clears her throat and puts her hand over her mouth to mask a smile, but Frantz notices anyway and looks at her with annoyance.

  “Ready when you are,” Bishop says. Despite his benign and polite words, his imperious tone leaves no doubt that he’s commanded me to get started. I slowly unpack the documents from my litigation bag and meticulously take my time pouring myself a cup of inevitably bad conference room coffee, all to show that I don’t take orders from him.

  “Let’s get started,” I say.

  Bishop raises his right hand. Even the way he holds it, as if about to bestow some sort of imperial benediction, conveys power. The videographer asks the attorneys to identify themselves, Janine administers the oath, and the witness states his full name—William Maxfield Bishop.

  He uses his palm to brush the air above his impeccable silver coif just in case a strand of hair had the temerity to break ranks. I stare at his tanned face and in that moment change my first question. My opponents probably told Bishop that I’d start with his educational background or jump into his relationship with Felicity McGrath. But I ask, “Mr. Bishop, did you have stage makeup applied immediately before this deposition started? Is that why you had them hold me up at the gate? So your studio makeup people could finish applying the greasepaint?”

  Lovely doesn’t react, but out of the corner of my eye I notice Janine hesitate in her transcription for the briefest of moments. It’s enough to verify that I’m right.

  “Objection,” Frantz says. “Argumentative, not to mention offensive. And particularly ironic given that your client appeared at his deposition as King Richard the Third of England. A criminal, by the way, just like Poniard.”

  “My point is that our clients both have their own ways of hiding who they truly are. Mine does it with animation and yours does it with the award-winning makeup department of a major studio. Now, answer the question, Mr. Bishop. You have to answer unless Mr. Frantz instructs you otherwise, and he hasn’t done that.”

  “I do instruct him not to answer,” Frantz says. “Right of privacy.”

  “Not even close on the law,” I say.

  “If you don’t like it, take it up with Judge Grass,” he says. Which he knows I won’t do. But I’ve made my point. I’m not going to cower in front of the all-powerful William Bishop.

  “You told the court reporter that your full name is William Maxfield Bishop,” I say. “Have you been known by any other names?”

  “William Bishop. Some old friends and my wife call me Billy.”

  “How about William the Conqueror?” I know very well that Bishop detests the nickname. That’s exactly why I asked the question.

  You’d think he’d frown, but the muscles in his cheeks soften, and he grins. He’d look like a benign grandfather but for his eyes. It’s the stark contrast between those eyes and the rest of the face that makes him look so terrifying at the moment. This must be how he looks just before he detonates his temper.

  “That is not a name that I’ve ever called myself,” he says flatly. “It’s an invention of people like your client who’re in the business of telling lies about me.”

  “You’re called William the Conqueror because you have a reputation of being a ruthless businessman who’ll do anything to get what you want, correct?”

  “My adversaries use that name because they’re crass, offensive, and envious,” he says. “But let me add that your premise is incorrect. I’ve always conducted my business in an open and aboveboard way.”

  “Really, sir? What about illegal hacking of Congressman Lake Knolls’s e-mail account? Do you consider that open and aboveboard?” Lake Knolls is an Academy Award–winning actor and ambitious politician who ran into some trouble a few years ago. One of Bishop’s tabloid newspapers illegally intercepted his personal e-mails.

  Frantz makes a harrumphing series of objections and instructs Bishop not to answer.

  Returning to a more conventional approach to depositions, I lead Bishop through his educational and occupational background—he’s an alumnus of an East Coast prep school in 1960, a time when the children of even the wealthiest Los Angeles families attended public school. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the NYU Film School and a master’s degree in business from the University of Chicago. After that, he worked a series of low-level jobs in a talent agency and on film productions and eventually began producing his own movies. He had a string of top-grossing hits and took over as the head of a studio, which he transformed into the international conglomerate Parapet Media Corporation.

  “I’m going to list some names,” I say. “And I’d like you to te
ll me if you know them, and if so, how.” I don’t expect truthful answers, but I want to gauge his reaction—trial lawyer’s poker. “Bradley Kelly?”

  “Founder of the Church of the Sanctified Assembly,” he says. “If that’s the Kelly you mean.”

  “Also an actor?”

  “Debatable. Pretty face.”

  Interesting. A true Assembly devotee wouldn’t speak that way about Kelly—unless Bishop is part of the group’s elite Covert Vanguard, with orders to infiltrate the highest levels of business and government and work to increase the Assembly’s power and influence.

  “Did you ever work with Kelly?”

  “He was in some movies I produced. I never had anything to do with him.”

  “Parky Gerald.”

  “Cute kid, OK for a child actor, hellish stage mother. He had some bit parts in some of my movies before he got big. Turned twelve and wasn’t cute anymore.”

  Lovely chews on her lip to stifle a laugh. I suppose I asked for it.

  “Nathan Ettinger?” I ask.

  He frowns. “Always looking for production deals from every studio in town. Much better college professor than a producer.”

  “Ever work with him?”

  “No. He was a producer on the Parapet lot for a short time before I acquired Parapet. Never got a movie made.”