Screenscam

by Michael Bowen

  Not in custody, Rep thought. That’s nice. Leaving the hospital. That’s nice too. I should really be feeling wonderful. Why does that nagging little ball of angst keep muscling its way through my brain?

  Oh, that’s right. Because saving Aaron Eastman’s life and then extracting himself and Buchanan from the clutches of the surfer-punk and the biker-thug hadn’t exactly solved all of Rep’s problems. There was still the little matter of a United States Attorney in Michigan who was very upset with him. And the fact that Charlotte Buchanan might never have been in danger in the first place if Rep hadn’t messed up her case from roughly the second day he’d had it, which meant that Rep was now going to have to tell Steve Finneman a lot of things that he should have told him a long time ago. All of which would be bad enough in itself, but was even worse because Finneman would wonder whether one of the firm’s biggest clients would be in danger of a hostile takeover at this moment if Rep had spoken up when he should have. Plus something hardly worth mentioning after all of those issues, but certainly not trivial from Rep’s standpoint: Arundel had by now undoubtedly dug up all sorts of details about Rep’s naughty little habit and his use of his firm computer to pursue it.

  “Hi, honey,” Melissa said shyly. “Are you awake?”

  “Just now.” He glanced over and warmed at the sight of her, even though her bravely pained expression told him that his battered face must still look hideous, bandages or not. “How long have you been waiting?”

  “Not that long. They want to release you in about an hour, so I brought you some real breakfast.”

  She tendered a white paper bag and a jumbo take-out cup of rich coffee. The bag turned out to hold a cherry Danish dripping with white frosting, and a still warm scrambled-eggs-and-bacon sandwich between two pieces of toast.

  “Bless you,” he said fervently. “I knew I was the smartest guy in my class, and I proved it by marrying you.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Not bad considering. I can probably run into the office today as soon as I get a shower and slip into a suit.”

  “No,” Melissa said firmly. “Absolutely not. You’re going to spend at least one more day in bed. I already told that to Steve Finneman.”

  “Steve called?” Rep demanded, antennae quivering.

  “Yesterday afternoon. He was sort of hemming and hawing about how he hated to ask but could you possibly come in by three o’clock or so this afternoon.”

  A chilly little rush of anticipation raced through Rep’s gut. He smiled with a touch of irony at Melissa. It looked like he’d have all the time in the world for bed rest before long. He took a stab at achieving a philosophical view of things: It might prove interesting to be released from the hospital and fired from his job on the same day.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Please dig my phone up so I can call Steve and let him know I’ll be able to make it.”

  “You are so stubborn,” Melissa said, her exasperation feigned only in part.

  “Guilty as charged,” Rep said, as the painkillers started to wear off.

  ***

  Rep had expected to ride home in Melissa’s Taurus. The vehicle waiting for them in the bright sunlight outside Hoffman-Glenn Memorial Hospital, however, was a wedding gown white stretch limousine. Aaron Eastman and Charlotte Buchanan, who had ended up splitting the rental charge, were waiting with it. They wanted to share the limo ride so they could tell Rep how grateful they were to him, and Rep didn’t see how he could decently refuse. It occurred to him, in fact, to ask Eastman whether Point West Productions might be in the market for an in-house copyright lawyer, but then he remembered that he was still technically representing Buchanan in her claim against that company. Buchanan lasted almost a mile before she turned the conversation to herself.

  “You were absolutely the only bright spot in this whole nightmare for me,” she said to Rep. “It turned out I was conned and used the whole way. Even on And Done to Others’ Harm. The only reason Julia Deltrediche took it in the first place was that Mixler promised her a movie deal with Tempus-Caveator for a book by one of her other authors.”

  “You don’t say,” Rep said. “I hate when people do things like that.”

  “They were thinking that far ahead?” Melissa asked politely.

  “They didn’t have to,” Eastman said. “Mixler was trying to set me up for a plagiarism claim on his own, just because he hates my guts. Then when he heard rumors about the exposé I was thinking about and saw how his plot might fit in with Tempus-Caveator’s situation, he took it to them and they bit.”

  “It was just like one more insurance policy for them, in case they ran into trouble over paying off politicians by burying Red Guard!,” Buchanan said bitterly. “People dad’s working with at Rep’s firm say they may have had a dozen little contingency set-ups like that, ready to use if it turned out they needed them. From day-one they treated me like a pawn.”

  “‘Unsavoury similes,…trouble me no more with vanity,’ to quote Falstaff,” Eastman muttered

  “Henry the Fifth, right?” Rep asked. Melissa shook her head.

  “The Fourth. Glorious mystery. Not his greatest play, but a glorious mystery.”

  “Oh, I know I sound self-absorbed and egocentric and everything,” Buchanan said, sounding as if she were choking back tears with truly Spartan courage. “I mean, I know nobody actually beat me up or anything. But just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you can’t be hurt. It just means you can’t get any sympathy for it. Having doors slammed in your face hurts even if you fly first class when you go back home. Being used hurts even if you drown your sorrows with Pinch instead of bar scotch. Being lied to hurts. I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me. No one ever has. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

  She faced the other three people in the passenger compartment through several seconds of rather loud and astonished silence. It was Eastman who spoke next.

  “You really believe that—that stuff you just said, don’t you?” Although the words screamed sarcasm, his tone seemed genuinely intrigued.

  “You bet I believe it,” she said fiercely. “I have lived it—and I know I’ll never be through living it.”

  “This is colossal,” Eastman said suddenly, his voice rising with excitement. “I live and work in what is probably the twenty-five richest square miles on earth outside Saudi Arabia, and there’s a liter of self-loathing there for every ounce of Starbucks coffee. You are the first person I’ve heard in my life express that kind of passion in defense of rich people. ‘Do we wealthy not have eyes? If you prick us, do we not bleed?’ That was real. That was genuine. You put that kind of passion on paper and by God I could make a movie out of it.”

  Buchanan’s face lit up radiantly with hope.

  “You mean you might do a film of And Done to Others’ Harm after all?”

  “No, dear, I do not mean I might do a film version of that story. In the first place, it’s crap between covers. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. In the second place, your theory is that I’ve already made a movie out of it.”

  “Well, yes,” Buchanan admitted. “Technically that’s true.”

  “But I’ve had a RRIP/CHIP property at the back of credenza for three years” Eastman said, pronouncing the acronym as a two-syllable word and rolling the RR, “that I could get financing for in fifteen minutes if I could lay my hands on a script that didn’t make me want to puke by page three.”

  Buchanan looked quizzically at Rep.

  “‘RRIP’ stands for ‘randy rich people,’” he explained. “‘CHIP’ means ‘chick in peril.’”

  “Right, of course,” Eastman said impatiently. “Like if Harold Robbins collaborated with Danielle Steel on an Evita-ripoff without the songs and all the political stuff.”

  “And you think I could do the screenplay?”

  “No, of course you couldn’t do the screenplay. A screenplay isn’t just good writing. It’s a techn
ical piece of work, a product of craft. You have to know something about making movies to produce one. What you could write is the novelization.”

  “But isn’t the novelization based on the script, which is what you say you don’t have?”

  “Sure, but thinking outside the box is my specialty. That’s why they call me Aaron Eastman. You write the novelization, then I hire some hack for Guild minimum to produce a script based on the novelization, instead of the other way around. This is a Go with a capital G. Have your shyster here draw up the papers. Fifty thousand, half-and-half, one percent of the net plus a most-favored-nations clause. I know it’s peanuts, but the mfn means no writer on the project gets a better deal than you. Only don’t have anybody smoke. We can’t do product placement deals since the tobacco settlement, and I’m not going to give actors lung cancer for free. I can’t believe I thought of this! This is the greatest idea I’ve had in two days! God, it is so wonderful being me.”

  Buchanan almost hugged Rep. She checked herself at the last moment, deterred both by the sling on his shoulder and a little warning flicker in Melissa’s eyes. She settled instead for a verbal embrace.

  “You are the greatest lawyer on earth,” she gushed.

  “Thanks,” Rep said. “I may be calling you soon for a recommendation.”

  ***

  “I’m really sorry to ask you to come in like this on your first day out of the hospital, Rep,” Finneman said in his office at 2:30 sharp that afternoon. “But this Tavistock takeover attempt has raised the stakes on everything in the office.”

  “I understand,” Rep said. He glanced sideways at Arundel, who occupied the other guest chair in Finneman’s office. Rep supposed he was there to make sure Finneman didn’t get too generous on the severance package.

  “Tempus-Caveator is feeling some real heat now that Selding and Mixler are being seriously interrogated,” Finneman continued. “They must have covered their tracks, but they don’t want us sniffing up their trail along with the feds. They want to drop the takeover bid, and their lawyers are coming in at three to negotiate exit terms.”

  “Isn’t that good for us?” Rep asked.

  “Indeed,” Finneman said.

  “Problem is, though, we’re not sure we can afford such good fortune,” Arundel said. “They’ll want us to buy back their block of stock at a healthy premium over the market price, and we’re a little bit strapped for that kind of cash at the moment.”

  “Can’t we say no?” Rep asked.

  “Then they’ll still hold the stock and be a continuing takeover threat,” Finneman explained. “Or else they’ll drop the stock on the market all at once, depress the price catastrophically, and drive our loyal shareholders to open revolt.”

  “That’s extortion,” Rep said indignantly.

  “Yes,” Arundel said. “Or M and A, as we sometimes call it.”

  “Anyway,” Finneman said, “it’s going to be a tough negotiation. We’d like you to sit in on it.”

  Arundel couldn’t resist a minute head shake, and Rep for once had to agree with him. He realized that the questions he’d just asked had suggested a truly stunning naivete. Arundel’s secretary probably had more business sitting in on the upcoming negotiation than Rep did.

  “I’m at your disposal, naturally,” he said. “But I’m not sure I really have anything to contribute.”

  “Well,” Finneman said after an uncharacteristically nervous throat clearing, “Mr. Buchanan thinks you have a great deal to contribute. And as we say in the law business, the client is always right, except when he questions the bill.”

  On that incontestable note they rose to head for the conference room where they’d do battle with the powerful lawyers representing one of the most powerful corporations in the world. During the stroll, Arundel hung back a bit, and tugged at Rep’s sleeve to beckon him back as well. Rep took the hint.

  “Just a suggestion,” Arundel whispered, “but after you show the flag for Buchanan’s benefit you might want to take advantage of the first break to beg off and go home because of your injuries.”

  “And not worry my pretty little head about the negotiations?” Rep asked.

  “Something like that. You see, I didn’t want to bring this up, but I’ve felt it was my duty as an upper-tier partner with the firm to look into some rather disturbing rumors revolving around your misuse of the firm’s internet connection for improper personal purposes.”

  “Did that liven things up for you a bit?” Rep asked.

  “This is serious,” Arundel hissed, reaching inside his coat and extracting three sheets of paper, folded lengthwise. “We’re talking about a very important element of firm policy. I’ve seen a tape. And this is a list of the pornographic web sites you’ve visited from your office computer.”

  “You can keep that, if it excites you,” Rep said.

  “I haven’t mentioned this to Steve yet,” Arundel said. “I hope I won’t have to. I hope you’ll bow out at the first decent opportunity.”

  Rep experienced a moment of utter astonishment, as he recalled times his belly had flipped at one of Arundel’s sneers or raised eyebrows. Arundel apparently didn’t know—apparently had no clue whatever—that he simply wasn’t in the same league as the average biker-thug. On top of that, Arundel’s threat implicated a principle that Rep regarded as sacrosanct: You should never pass up a chance to quote a famous riposte.

  “Publish and be damned,” he said, in a tone that the Duke of Wellington himself would have approved.

  After ninety-eight minutes in the firm’s largest conference room, Rep still didn’t think he had much to contribute to the negotiations, which as far as he could see had gotten roughly nowhere. Tempus-Caveator had sent seven lawyers from Amble, Speak & Nesty, its New York firm. Three of these lawyers were partners, who sat at the conference table. Four of them were associates, who sat behind the partners. Every now and then, one of the partners would refer to some piece of information and reach his right hand over his shoulder without turning his head, whereupon one of the associates would instantly put a document verifying the information in the partner’s hand.

  None of them acted like emissaries of the side that had, after all, lost and was suing for peace. On the contrary, all seven of the lawyers made it clear that they viewed the matter of extracting fourteen million dollars over market price from a company for its own stock as a trivial detail scarcely worthy of their time and effort, and that they were impatient to get it over with so they could return to civilization.

  Rep, on the other hand, had spent the entire negotiation sitting sphinx-like next to Finneman. Stitched, bandaged, bruised, and arm-slung, with his mouth pulled into a snarling rictus by pain and broken teeth, he looked like he belonged not at a corporate law firm conference table but in a public defender’s office—and on the wrong side of the desk.

  He wished at the moment that he could pop a prescription painkiller. He didn’t, though, because he was determined to avoid anything that could possibly impair the slim prospects of a deal. He dared to nourish a tiny, flickering hope that if Tavistock could somehow manage a settlement that left it with two quarters to rub together, Arundel might be so giddy that he’d forget about telling Finneman that Rep was what Finneman would undoubtedly regard as a pervert. If that happened, he might have a job for six more months.

  The partner directly across the table from Rep was saying something about cutting to the chase when Rep heard a commotion outside the conference room door. Punctuating the commotion was a female voice saying desperately, “You can’t go in there!” Suddenly, much too late, he remembered the final warning he’d gotten from the Assistant United States Attorney in Michigan. Just when Rep had begun to think that he might be able to salvage a shred or two of his dignity after all, that particular chicken was coming home to roost, bringing with it the risk of turning Tavistock’s negotiating position into a shambles.

  Rep jumped up to try to preempt the entrance,
but he wasn’t nearly fast enough. As everyone else—including Tyler Buchanan and Tavistock’s other representatives—looked up in surprise, the doors burst open and two burly men strode in. They were wearing blazers, but you could tell they didn’t really mean it. Lucite-encased gold shields hung prominently over the breast pockets of the blazers. They walked straight to Rep, and the one in front thrust a piece of paper into Rep’s hand. The paper had CRIMINAL DIVISION stamped on it in prominent, 24-point boldface.

  “This Friday,” he said. “Nine on the dot. Grand jury room, federal courthouse, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Don’t bother asking for an adjournment. And if you think you might be late, bring your toothbrush.”

  They turned around and walked out, serenely ignoring the hubbub their entrance had created. Pocketing his subpoena, Rep turned to Finneman stammering the beginnings of what he hoped would come out eventually as a coherent apology. The faces of Buchanan and the Tavistock minions with him were eloquent with consternation. Across the table, Tempus-Caveator and its partner-lawyers were hurriedly conferring, presumably about how much they were going to jack up the premium they’d been demanding. Finneman’s voice immediately drowned out everything else in the room as it rolled in an unruffled rumble across the table.